Alienware 18 vs. Alienware M18x

Well different people have their own opinions and I just go with the facts. And no, I have never owned an Alienware but looking at the reviews, the 18 seems to be better than the m18x because of the processors. The 18 already comes with an Overclocked 4th Gen Core i7 4900MQ which is better than Overclocking the processor yourself with the m18x. That's enough said as the looks completely are up the you, since with either device people will ultimately be impressed. Hope my opinion helped.

 

Well, so far the 18 can't keep up with M18xR2 in many ways. A factory overclock regardless of which model you get is basically worthless. It's not enough of an overclock to get excited about. Doing it yourself is super easy, more effective and less expensive.

The Haswell 4930MX hasn't been able to match the abilities of the 3920XM or 3940XM (yet). It runs too hot and drops clock speeds under load due to incorrect power settings. That is exacerbated by the fact that the fans do not kick in soon enough and do not run fast enough to keep the Haswell cool. That might change with an improved BIOS, but right now the M18xR2 with an XM and 680M SLI is soundly beating the 18 with 4930MX and 780M SLI in terms of performance. An M18xR2 with an XM and upgraded to 780M SLI is making that tail-whooping even more severe. Time will tell... the 18 is an awesome machine, but it's not able to live up to its full potential at this moment in time. That can change overnight with a good BIOS, but I believe there will never be a gigantic gap in performance using the currently available hardware for both platforms.

 

This makes me happy to have bought the m18x r2. it really is a powerful work of art.

 

@Mr-Fox:
You should be a little more specific. GTX 780M GPU score on the Alienware 18, beat GTX 680M GPU score on the R2 by about 15%.
Total score however, is only slightly higher on the Alienware 18 with 4930MX and GTX 780M compared to R2 with 3920XM and GTX 680M. But that is because the CPU, the 4930XM is dragging the total score down, due to something I dont know the details about.

But like you said "yet", that will change in the future, with new BIOS or whatever. The hardware on the Alienware 18 is undoubtly more powerful than the hardware on the R2.

 

I am just going to quote this and make my own opinion. I haven't read the first page or the bickering that seems to have pervaded the thread. I have posted pictures of both of the Alienware 18 and my old m18x R1. The new looks are SUBJECTIVE. Most reviews have stated they like the new streamlined look outside of the horrible bezel. I tend to agree as would most who actually own and look at these machines.

The new one has a MUCH IMPROVED keyboard. I personally like the understated lighting on the keypad. I love the new trackpad lighting that illuminates as opposed to just the outline of the old one...and outline that showed up when the mouse was NOT plugged in. The new screen has better viewing angles. I am sure when people test the color gamut and whatnot, they will also conclude the screen is an improvement. So what do I personally do on this computer?

I play games and type. That involves looking at the screen and using the keyboard. OK so that is a win on the new design by my personal standards. The lighting around the chassis is just plain classy and while not as aggressive as the old design, still looks good. The lid is hands down better on the new 18; not the bezel but the outside lid. The lid has two illuminated lighting systems that point diagonally to the Alienhead; nice touch.

As far as performance. People can cry all they want about the 780s but the reality is that they are brand spanking new. They ARE faster than the 770s and the 680ms. If you are going to spend money on the system, let's not try to talk about "bang for your buck" because that's kinda silly when talking about a niche market machine. Yes, throwing 780s in the old design is decent ROI but that doesn't mean it's pointless to upgrade. Just because the 770s can OC and are cooler does not make them faster than the 780s. People justifying getting those over the 780s just have to accept the fact that they didn't get the best for whatever their reasons may be. Cool. I couldn't swing the XM chip but then I don't benchmark to the Fox or Johnkiss level. OK. I am not going to start talking about why the 4900mq is sufficient or "better" overall ROI for "gaming" because that's again pointless when spending thousands of dollars. It just means I couldn't afford the best stuff. Period.

I decided to keep my R1 for regular tasks, music, movies and nostalgia. It doesn't mean I am stupid financially but rather maybe appreciative of the progression in design and development.

Look, AW is FAR from perfect and if we really want to complain about something it is the lack of quality dedicated CS that is country specific and specially trained to handle matters of a niche product. I don't want to buy a 130K viper and go to a dealership that deals with Dodge Darts. I want to go to a place that has a specially trained Viper mechanic. The fact we get directed to India with people that have to read from prompts to determine "yes" or "no" to questions is ridiculous. That is the biggest cost cutting problem I see. Any complaining about some Bezel or lack of a drive is not realizing the true cost cutting measures. Dell does NOT make their money on AW. They make money on their other lines of consumer notebooks and outsourcing their tech to highly unqualified people to deal with these systems. I call and spend hours troubleshooting for warranty purposes but really it is stuff I could do myself much faster and I am NOT in IT or programming. I'm just a true gamer and know my way around a computer to a moderate degree...and I have a decent noodle that allows me to learn fast. The CS is the real problem with AW right now. There is almost NO human element or subjectivity in AW decision making when going through problems.

The bottom line is that this Alienware 18 is the new model and it offers Haswell and 780m SLI. It's the newest and best stuff out there. In time, the benches will prove that until the next leap forward takes place. And you know what, after the delays in getting the Maxwell GPU's (based on 28nm tech) gets into consumer hands, there will be the refresh of the 22nm around the corner. After that we have Volta. If you are a bencher and elite level gamer who demands the best, it is NOT about waiting. It's about having the best and adapting and upgrading when you can. I'd NEVER be happy with 770m SLI but understand other's are happy. Great. Not me. If I put maxwell GPUs into my Alienware 18 down the road instead of selling or just buying a new rig then I am making a compromise based on my means.

I am assuming most of us don't live in Egypt so there is not point in living in Da Nile. The Alienware 18 is the best offering from a technical standpoint. If you want to deal with that, then currently you have to buy it. If you CHOOSE to buy it, then you have to deal with Inspiron level of customer support. That's just the reality.

Don't think for a second the m18x was some sort of radical subversive machine. It wasn't. There was no special benching of YOUR own system like they used to do years ago. The special touches are gone. Deal with it.....or don't. The beautiful thing is.....it's your choice.

I haven't had a great experience this go around but I still posted pictures, am still an active member, and I will call the crap when I see it. Anyone complaining about the new system from a technical standpoint just doesn't understand the basics of a "refresh" and the fact it takes awhile to unleash more power. These cards WILL be faster than the 680s without all the PSU modding in time. If not, well I'm glad I have two 330watt PSUs.

Adapt...or Don't. Your choice. Live with it and be happy you have the opportunity to buy something that most people would pay for a freaking car. So many kids on here talk about needing a "laptop for gaming and college." Please. Da Nile. Egypt. Get out of it. People in college need hoodies, sweats, Natty Ice and some women at a house party. Smile that you have these First World Problems.



Fin.

 

Well said, Bro. +rep.

 

Agreed 100% daveh. But I still dont think dandan will listen to you. He locked his mind few months ago.

Of course the GTX 770M will never beat the GTX 780M. There is a limit on how much strain (clocks) you can put on the cores. Better to have more cores (1536 vs 960) and put on less clocks but still come out faster.

I would just like to point out that I have never said that GTX 780M is a bad chip, or a bad choice if its me you are referring to. It is the fastest mobile chip in the world. For me 770M is the most logical choice, because it can play just about any game out there, and I will be replacing them next year anyway.

 

Cloud, I love my media buttons. I love my express card slot. I love my msata and THREE hard drives. I love the look of my machine. I love the 6 hours of battery life when on the road, traveling, school or work. I love my alien head power button and my name plate at the bottom. I even like keyboard. If i crave more performance I can upgrade to 780m sli and have just as powerful of a machine because obvious haswell isnt much better if at all, but without the corner cuts. I will not tolerate this corner cutting crap, i refuse to buy into it, its just not right at these prices. Also, to get 780s in your configs you need to buy all the extra crap you dont need at super inflated prices. Not happy at all this gen with alienware.

 

To anyone who wants an 18" Alienware RIGHT NOW, it's kinda hard to recommend the current refresh unless you're a patient soul that can deal with the growing pains of bleeding edge tech. The current AW 18 is unfortunately saddled with issues limiting its full potential (though there are good workarounds) so maybe we should wait for a couple more BIOS revisions on the new system and then stick them side by side for a showdown. I think most people expect the Haswell systems will eventually surpass the Ivy Bridge, I mean if they don't, then Intel really screwed the pooch (assuming we do finally get a proper BIOS like the M18x)!

 

Thanks Cloud, no I am referring to no one in particular with what I wrote. I'm sure you are very aware of what you bought and why you bought it

 

this thread should have been named "FFNRR" (Friday fight Night Resurrection Rant).

a lot of what people have not mentioned, is, AW gets us emotionally attached to their machines, this comes from being shiny and slick and having bright lights and AMAZINGDICULOUS advertising...

mainly advertising.... and dell budgets thrown at its design team...

anyways, being strongly opinionated and concerned about these machines, they all have made us addicts who are fondly attached to having a AW... no one can deny AW / DELL this . . .

no ones goes nuts year after year about refrshes of a new MSI or VAIO .. (though, maybe they do so for iphones, and MacBook pro's to smaller degree)

so, that one thing is consistant. Alienware makes you believe in the alien. And that Alien coupled with your imagination has no limit, and delivers year after year, keeping you crack attached like an addict...

other companies fail to do this. hands down, AW has the win... right there...

 

What a load of nonsense, lol. The reason is way more simple than that - it's the power+ cooling+ features+Build Quality multiplied by the best warranty. The lights and looks can bite my shiny metal ***! A vendor who can match all those specs minus the looks, will get my attention. Clevo is always close and yet so far away

 

I dont need media buttons. I can use my mouse or hotkeys just fine.

I have never used a express card slot in my 10 years of using notebooks.

mSATA is still on the Alienware 18. 3 HDD slots is just too much in my opinion, since I can use 2 Samsung 1TB EVO SSDs in the Alienware 18 for 2TB which I will never ever need anyway, just to give you an example to that argument you are using. And if I feel more insane, I can throw in a 512GB mSATA SSD for a total of 2.5TB of capacity.

I dont need 6 hours of battery life. I can do just fine with 2.5 hours which is 30 minutes less than the GT70 I used to own. I will mostly use this 18 inch beast with a power outlet nearby anyway, and that 2.5 hours will be enough usage time when I travel from place to place.

The Alien head is still there, but on top of the lid.

The name plate Im happy is gone since it contributed to the whole cheesyness Alienware was known for. I will be protecting my property anyway, and if someone steals my notebook, its a gooner with extremely little chance of getting back anyway.

The keyboard on the new Alienware looks a ton more professional and stylish than the neon screamish "this is a toy for 5 year olds" the previous models was known for. The new keyboard have been praised in review after review, where they say its better than the old one. Not just the design, but the feel and in use. Users who own both models, R2 and Alienware say the same.

I like the new IPS display. It have better contrast, it have better viewing angles. It have much better colour vividity.

I like that they have used magnesium alloy, ie plastic and magnesium together, since that is much more rigid and can withstand external force than Aluminum which the R2 was made of. Professional notebooks like Lenovo and Dell workstations also use mafnesium alloy, for resistance and future proof.

I really, REALLY like the new design of the notebooks. It screams quality, and it feature hardware like never seen before. I can proudly take this notebook with me to a cafe or a bar, or to my friends house, without being afraid that people will point out it looks like a toy for a little kid. The ridiculous LED grill, the back leaned curve, the cheap looking keyboard with lights everywhere..thats replaced by a notebook with streamlined sophisticated and small LED strips along the sides as well on top of the lid. They are descrete, yet shows a style which I really like. The grey aluminum lid and the 60% metal alloy proves that its sturdy like a tank. The keyboard looks really professional, have great feel to it according to the reviews, and still lights up in the dark, but doesnt scream "im here", but is subtile yet works like it should.

You say they cut corners, I say they didnt since I dont need the features you like. I say they added some nice features, like IPS and magnesium alloy.

Now i respect that you have different opinions but everytime that is brought up here, you come and defend your R2. That is fine, but like me, you should also show mutual respect, instead of bashing the new look and features. If you dont like the new route Dell have taken, fine, stick around with your R2, game, enjoy it. Cross your fingers that maybe Dell in a few years have reversed the design back to the old one. If that doesnt happen, there are many other brands you can choose notebook from.

But I can tell you, based on the few people that complain, and the growing number each day of posts in the owners lounge, and new users of the new Alienware's, Dell didnt do any big mistakes when they made the new models. Rather, it seems like a big success.

 

I was being specific. I don't really speak to stock performance because I don't use a stock machine, nor do I really care about what either machine is capable of in their stock configurations.

So far nobody with an Alienware 18 with 4930MX and 780M SLI has beaten my overall set of M18xR2 benchmark results. So far, I can't catch up with my own M18xR2 with the 18 I am using in most things. I think I saw one Heaven 4.0 that was just barely better (by kh90123) and my own FFXIV benchmark with the 18 was better than the M18xR2 by a good margin. In both cases those results are thanks to 780M SLI exclusively... not because it is an 18 versus M18xR2. If they were more CPU dependent, the M18xR2 would have beaten the 18.

Don't get me wrong, I think that day will come fairly soon with a good BIOS and fans that ramp up quickly, but it hasn't happened yet. Unless we end up with a good unlocked BIOS and fans that react quickly, it may never happen due to the CPU being crippled. And, I don't know for sure that the overall increase will be by 15% when it does. It's too hard to predict. We will need to wait and see what number that works out to be. It could be more or less.

Now, to be more specific, if I had 780M SLI in my M18xR2, the answer could end up being entirely different. There are a few (Johnksss and Pat.D are the two that come to mind) with an M18xR2 with 780M SLI and they are beating my 680M benchmarks by a decent margin. That's the way it should be with 780M SLI versus 680M SLI, so it comes as no surprise. However, it remains to be proven whether or not the 18 with a 4930MX is capable of keeping pace with an M18xR2 with 3920XM/3940XM and 780M SLI. I am a little bit skeptical, but I will be excited if I (or someone else) can prove the 18 is the superior benching beast. I plan on trying really hard. That definitely should happen, but it might not.

I second the motion.

I agree with this comment. The Alienware 18 is a huge success. It's a very nice machine. Awesome, in fact. Once the BIOS and fans are sorted it will be outstanding.

I think it's time to stop going back and forth about which is better because it's an exercise in futility. They're both great machines. The 18 is missing features that I and many others value in the M18xR2 and pretending they don't matter is kind of silly. They only don't matter to those that don't care. To those that do care, they do matter. If I were placed in the position of having to choose one or the other, it would not be an easy choice to make. In part, not easy, because I haven't decided whether or not I like really Haswell processors. The Intel HD 4600 is definitely better, but that falls into the "I don't care" category for me personally. In fact, I tested it to confirm it was better than Ivy Bridge IGFX and haven't used it even once since then. I don't have any use for IGFX other than rare times I needs to stretch the battery run time a bit longer.

 

I'm pretty sure that all Alienware systems since Dell's acquisition have used magnesium alloy. This year's systems seem to implement it much better than their predecessors though. If the hinges and aluminum-magnesium LCD back are as solid as Alienware suggests, I might prefer the new design. The loss of ports and apparent decrease in battery life still grate.

 

Another quick point is to not get overly cynical about the Fermi->Kepler->Maxwell hype. As many have stated, there will likely be two roll-outs. Even with the card that "doubles" from the 680 to 8xx series like the 580 to 680, it is important to note that while benchmarks may double, games often won't. I upgraded from Fermi (580) to Kepler (780). Look at benches from Crysis 2 and Metro2033. We aren't talking ancient games or games that don't stress GPUs. Each game runs about 30-40% faster than the 580 compared to the 680. So where Crysis 2 gets around 60FPS, it now gets 90ish FPS. Metro went from 30ish FPS to 45ish. Just because very powerful cards come out, does NOT render a system obsolete. We are at a point of diminishing returns and are gaming on systems that really don't challenge 1900x1080p very well. HOPEFULLY, when Maxwell arrives, the resolution on these notebooks increase, however with the increase will mitigate some of the performance improvement.

This just furthers the point that waiting is...well pointless. Upgrade when you need to and enjoy. My 580s could not play Crysis3 at settings I wanted so I upgraded for that and upcoming BF4. I may upgrade to Maxwell depending on what comes out and what I am playing a year or so from now. 780m SLI configurations even at stock are practically overkill for 1080p gaming (which I am completely fine with). So I imagine it will be awhile before settings have to be turned down for this resolution that is quickly becoming the new 1280x768. Food for thought...

 

I`m confident that 4930XM systems will beat 2920XM in time. Haswell is brand new, 2920XM several years old. Give it some time, and new BIOS from Dell will remove throttling that cause the CPU and the overall score to go down. I saw a thread in the official Dell forum that they were working on a fix right now.
Unless the powergating on the Haswell is broken, the 4930XM should beat 2920XM if the cooling on the Alienware 18 is comparable to the R2. If you get the clocks up the max OC you manged on the 2920XM, the 4930XM will beat 2920XM because of better IPC. Combine that with 15% better GPU score, and it will beat your score for sure.

This is for benchmarks. For gaming, the Alienware 18 is already faster than M18x R2. You don`t need the extra CPU power the XM chips behold to game, to not bottleneck the GPU. In fact, stock clocks on the CPU is more than enough for the GPUs. Which makes Alienware 18 a more tempting system than R2 (if you like the design that is).

Yes for the few of you who liked the features that was lost in the new models, I can understand the frustration. 12 cell battery would be nice, I can agree with that. But for the rest, I`m positive that only a small percentage of the user base can`t go without these features. I bet $100 that Dell thought this well through before approving cutting these off. Weighing the features back and forth, before making a decision.

I`m sure if enough people truly miss these lost features, it will reach Dell HQ to the responsible people, and they might add them again on the next models in 2014. Word of the mouth, or rather the internet, along with surveys, will even it out. Alienware reps are active in this forum too, so they will see how people react. For me, who have been reading the forum extensively the last 6 months, I haven`t registered enough complains about these features to think they will be that much missed.

 

4930MX without silly power limits will beat the 2920XM.

Also the 4930MX will have PCI-E 3.0 which will help an SLI/Xfire setup.

 

How did we get on the subject of 2920XM?

The 4930MX's direct competition at this time is Ivy Bridge 3920XM/3940XM and I am not running 2920XM in my M18xR2 any more. However, the 2920XM still totally crushes any non-Extreme mobile CPU without any serious effort... definitely far from being a slouch. I would take that old CPU over any Haswell non-Extreme mobile CPU... no contest. Not bad for a CPU that is 4 steps behind the 4930MX in the CPU timeline.

The biggest question that we will have to wait and see the answer to is whether or not the additional power demands of 4930MX coupled with the additional power demands of 780M SLI--once both are unshackled and free to run wild and free--can be pushed hard enough without running into a brick wall with power limitations. The 330W AC adapter will undoubtedly represent a far greater impediment than it already does. So far, the 18 is not taking a liking to my dual AC adapter mod like the M18xR2 has. I'm not sure what the deal is with that yet. My testing last night did not yield good results like it has with the M18xR2. It almost feels like something is being regulated in terms of input power on the 18, but I cannot identify what is taking place yet. It may just be more finicky.

I was finally able to beat my 3920XM/680M SLI 3DMark11 score with the 18 last night. It took about 5 hours of trial and error, the collective intelligence of Brother johnksss and myself, and my portable AC unit running cranked as cold as it could run, but I finally beat it by a meager 282 points on account of the 780M SLI. The CPU score didn't quite cut it, as that was a very healthy 1036 points in favor of the 3920XM. It's a small victory, but it was totally awesome to finally beat the M18xR2 with the newer machine. Now I am more tempted by a 780M SLI upgrade for the M18xR2 than ever because that combo is cranking out 16500~ in 3DMark11 connected with an Ivy XM.

Compare Result: Alienware 18 4930MX | 780M SLI versus Alienware M18xR2 3920XM | 680M SLI



At the time of this post, the 18 result is the world record for 4930MX | 780M SLI and the M18xR2 is the world record for 680M SLI with a mobile XM CPU.

(Clevorr beat my M18xR2 score by 325 points with his 3930K 6-core desktop CPU pushing 680M SLI, which also edged out the 18 by 43 points. In both cases the win is attributable to the desktop CPU, as my M18xR2 graphics score is 212 points higher than Clevorr's graphics score.)

 

theres many other laptop makers that offers better cooling, more features, and desktop build quality components, since, that's what they stick in them, and 4-5 years of better warranty.. however, of the 30+ companies I know like this, when I mentioned them in the past to people, no one knew who they were and said because they've never heard of them, they'd never buy form them.

Advertising matters. Its the reason why your using WINDOWS. The buzz gives us the feeling from its look and feel that we're special and such and become more appreciative of the product we buy. Im not saying AW doesn't have a powerful machine, but I'm saying its look and feeling and prestige are what keep people coming back for more. Its not the specs. We all think ourselves experts with all this tech knowledge, yet, we can easily contradict ourselves in our knowledge of whats best ...

how many of us are justifying using a aw 18 instead of a desktop... when we will never use the laptop outside our home, it will stay in one spot, at our desk the whole time ?

 

wait, the dual PSU doesn't work as intended with the new AW 18's ?? could you be more specific...

 

I cannot give a comprehensive explanation because I am still somewhat ignorant about what my observations mean. First, it's not necessarily specific to the 18. My observations as of Friday night are primarily limited to 3DMark11. 3DMark11, especially test 1, has always been a challenge in terms of power draw. An "untechnical" description would be that the dual PSU mod can sometimes get out of sync, for lack of a better term, if one of the AC adapters suddenly hands off the workload to the other one rather than it remaining balanced. That can happen with the M18xR2 and typically the one handling the bulk of the unbalance load will trip the breaker. That did not happen Friday night while benching the 18, but there still might have been a load balancing issue taking place without tripping one of the breakers.

The 18 seems to be a little more finicky than my M18xR2 is, but it might just be a coincidence that it seems to be. Or, it might be due to the 4930MX and 780M SLI both requiring more power and the effect is exaggerated because of that. I can't be more specific because I will need to test more than I have had time to. What I can clarify is that this was not tripping the dual PSU setup like what happens with a single AC adapter that gets overloaded. So, in that respect the dual AC adapter mod is working well for the 18, but I wasn't achieving the desire results like I have with the M18xR2. Both AC adapters stayed turned on the entire time I was benching, but the 18 was shutting off under load using the dual PSU. If I used the single AC adapter and used ThrottleStop to manipulate core speeds where appropriate for good benching results, then I could avoid it shutting off or tripping the AC adapter breaker. The point behind building myself the dual PSU was to eliminate the need for using ThrottleStop clock profiles and potentially getting slightly higher benchmark scores by running the CPU full blast from start to finish.

It may be only a coincidence that I had not encountered that before with the M18xR2. There could also be some sort of new input power or current load protection circuitry on the 18 that the M18xR2 does not have. I will learn more when I have some spare time to do some extreme benching with the M18xR2 again. If it doesn't happen with the M18xR2 and still does with the 18, then I will know more than I do now and will share the experience. I can force similar behavior on the 18 with the single AC adapter. If I try pushing the CPU too hard it will make a click sound sound and turn off without tripping the breaker on the single AC adapter. For all I know it could even be something with Haswell overload fault protection. If that is the case and the shutting off is due to some type of current/load protect rather than power depletion, then a dual PSU mod possibly isn't going to be useful for the 18. More to follow when I understand more.

 

Can you explain?

 

Not sure what you're trying to get at here...This post seems more to annoy people really. Justify? I don't know why anyone needs to explain buying anything for their own use to anyone else on the Internet. Buy a Dodge Viper? Why do you need that? What a waste of money!! It only seats two people!! <smirk> (Spoken as someone who used to also own a totally non-practical 2-seater).

A Birkin bag? It's a fricking bag. Just buy a Target one, it holds the same amount. <laugh>

People buy whatever they want and I do agree with you that people like to buy things which make them feel special, but that's pretty much buying anything (from cars, clothes, computers, gf, dates/women), etc...

Your own thoughts are no clearer than anyone else justifying buying a product.

I think many of us would love to know other laptop companies offering SLI, warranty on-site, possible upgrade to the latest tech if major failures so please share as I'd like to know these companies since it's nice to have competition.

As for the justify aw 18 vs a desktop? That's way out there. Laptops already outsell desktops and plenty of people here carry the M18x daily to work, play, school etc.... Not sure if you have kids, but for people with kids, laptops are moved around a lot more to keep an eye on them. I have taken a laptop to plenty of places (special classes for kid, vacation, travel, pretty much anytime I travel, I take a laptop)...

I know when I was single/no kids, I just played and used my computer in 1 room. Maybe that's your situation and you're thinking everyone is the same? That's similar to thinking that everyone is the same as you when it's really not so...

 

Really?? Where?? What are the names of these 30+ companies? I'd like to know because I haven't found such a product. And how do you get a "better warranty" than next business day on-site? Being treated like a criminal and being accused of having created a problem for having something go wrong with your machine and having to ship it somewhere and wait for a week (or two, or six) to get it fixed and returned any time something goes wrong doesn't seem better to me. Neither does being told you voided your warranty because something was changed from stock configuration or the chassis was opened. Dell/Alienware is the industry leader on warranty service. They don't exhaust every option to shaft their customers like many of their competitors do.

From what I can tell, Alienware has no strong competition, especially in the M18x/18 space. There is no high performance laptop with a better cooling system than the M18xR1/R2/18. The fans on the 18 not kicking in is a software issue, not a hardware concern. It should be an easy software fix for Alienware, whereas defective design and corner-cutting at the design level on competing products has no true remedy. A fix would require re-engineering and correction to design defects on the part of competitors. The closest competitor is a Clevo with SLI and they are grossly inferior products in terms of build. So, yeah, the quality is much more than a perception. Mine follows me to wherever I am... room-to-room or cross country. I intentionally don't have a high-performance desktop because having a machine parked on a desk offers zero value to me. I would love to spend a ton of money on another killer desktop beast, but the prospect of having something that stays in one spot 24/7 is a real turn-off. I have a hunch that is why a lot of us own an Alienware 18" beast.

 

While I completely agree with what you wrote I + repped you for one thing. You had a Dodge Viper. Now I should have NEG repped you since you spoke of it in past tense; meaning it's gone. tsk tsk I have a 2000 ACR and I hope to take that to my casket.

 

As for Alienware 17, there are some OEMs that is able to beat or atleast match Alienware quality. MSI and Asus make pretty good notebooks, GT and G-series. Both those and Alienware have their own pros and cons.

Alienware 18 however, I think only desktops can compete against that one. But its not really a competitor either since its protable vs non portable. The only OEM that offer SLI like Alienware 18 is the Clevo. But Alienware is a few steps above that system, not just build quality in general, but cooling and display as well.

Clevo is all about making gaming machines for the least amount of money. For the guys that complain on the Alienware facebook page about not being able to afford the new Alienware models, Clevo is the one for them. Ideally you wish low price and good quality mix, but they rarely do.

 

I have used the GT70 and ASUS G750. The GT70 had some flex on the keyboard, and the screen warped when I pressed on the bezel. The plastic lumps on the sides of the GT70's base and lid made it look like a mishmash of materials. The G750 had a disappointing amount of flex on the lid, palm rest, and keyboard. Neither matched my impression of the m17x r4, and the 17 is better than the r4 in most metrics.

The ASUS G750 has good cooling, but I think that an impractical-to-replace CPU and GPU and two inches of ventilation on the back are high prices to pay.

Note: Perhaps more important than their exteriors: the ASUS and MSI have plastic bases. Magnesium alloy is much stronger and more inflexible than any plastic used for laptops, and the new AWs don't seem to be poorly designed.

 

This is a pointless discussion, since I already said all systems had its own pros and cons.

Plastic doesnt nescessarily mean bad quality. Yes, Alienware have most likely more sturdy build thanks to magnesium alloy but both GT70 and G750 have more aluminum than Alienware 17, including on the palmrest which makes it resistance to wearing off from using it or fingerprints compared to the soft rubber Alienware use, so its not a clean cut.
I had no keyboard flex on my GT70
The display on the Alienware 17 is good, but so is the GT70.
The keyboard on the GT70 is semi mechanical
The cooling system on the Alienware 17 is less noisy than GT70 when gaming. Not when not gaming.
Dual fan doesnt mean its superior. That one fan on the GT70 can move more air than both the GPU and CPU fan combined on the Alienware 17.
Asus G750 runs the most quiet of the 3 OEMs. It also seem to cool pretty good.
The audio on the Alienware 17 is ok, G750 better, GT70 clearly the best.
Customization on the G750 is horrible. Not only can you not upgrade due to to Asus locking the hardware with BiOS blockage but also because they use weird MXM shapes. Just repasting is just horrible on the G750, having to remove 100s of parts. All of this is easy on both GT70 and Alienware 17.
Alienware 17 is in my eyes have the best design by far.

Etc
Etc
Etc

 

It IS really nice to see the Dell reps (on their facebook page is it?) have in their signature that opening up your machine and upgrading parts "won't" void your warranty. That fight alone could be a real pain.

I'm really hoping Samsung decides to get in this space and throw a ton of money in this area. They are big enough and have enough cash to just make it happen. Apple could, cash wise, but I don't see anything "big" ever coming out of Apple.

I think the poster actually has an M18 on order so maybe it was just a post about something else since it's sorta confusing from a recent buyer/waiter of a machine...

 

Samsung might promise a GTX 880m and leave us with an 870m.

Lenovo and HP might be better competitors. If they were to take cues from their enterprise laptops and designed something with a sturdy chassis, good warranty, and high performance, they could compete with Alienware. Now Lenovo replaces the metal and reinforced plastic of Thinkpads with cheaper plastic to make Ideapads, which is not great, and HP is not trying to compete at all.

Lack of competition (or lack of R&D) is causing AW to move sideways or backwards instead of forward.

 

I agree it is not likely that Apple is going to do anything amazing in this regard. From what I can see as a casual observer, it looks like Apple is moving toward integrated graphics, soldered processors and integrated memory. These signs that they might be starting a trend to "cheap out" on their systems are disturbing. I am by no means an Apple fan (quite the contrary) but it makes me really sad to think they might be willing to divert the company on a pathway down the slippery slope of compromising quality for the sake of selling crap to cheapskates in volume. I would hate to see any company known for quality start making their products more financially palatable to cheapskates. It will end poorly for those willing to pay for excellence. Cheapness has a way of creeping into all the cracks and crevices in a business once it is given a foothold. I have never been critical of Apple's component and build quality. That might backfire on them really bad. I never liked Steve Jobs' way of doing things, but I do give him mega kudos for being intolerant of mediocrity. We need more of that degree of intolerance in every type of business.

It would be very cool to see Samsung get involved in the extreme performance laptop segment. They definitely have the cash to back it. The tough part for any company trying to manage this kind of thing is having the wrong people in place to pull it off. They need crazy performance enthusiasts, hardware extremists and overclocking nuts given a free reign, calling all the shots and dictating everything that happens with the hardware. If they select leaders on the basis of an educational pedigree and a perceived business acumen, they're going to be far more likely to fail at it. Don't send an educated idiot to do a man's job.

I think Lenovo and HP both suck something fierce. I am fairly comfortable in saying that I would never purchase another product from either of these companies. I can say that I literally hate their way of doing business and their products based on past personal experience. I have a Lenovo ThinkPad that I use daily at work and it's a piece of trash in my opinion. I saw Lenovo acquired a small company (Medion, I think - don't remember and don't care) that makes enthusiast PC's. I am expecting them to ruin the product exactly as they did IBM products, and exactly the same way that HP destroyed VoodooPC.

 

Meh, Samsung had a notebook with GTX 675M. They promised 7970M but it was never realized. Neither did we see any with GTX 680M so they backed out on the newest GPU architectures.

Was it because the one with 675M didnt sell as much as they liked, that the market is filled with competition: Clevo, Asus, Alienware, MSI?

I dont know, but one can wonder since hardcore gamers are a really small niche, and it doesnt have the greatest financial opportunities. I would welcome Samsung, especially because they are quite agressive with including their high res screens, but then again, that wouldnt stop fromf lets say, MSI from purchasing these Samsung screens and using it on their own notebooks

 

Yes, that was an example of the wrong people making decisions and causing (guaranteeing) the effort to fail. It would be unreasonable to expect any company to be successful at catering to a niche market when the people making decisions are absolutely clueless about what matters to that customer base. Hiring another company to take surveys and find out is also foolish. The best way to succeed is to have the big boss be one of those customers and build machines the way he wants them built for himself. No compromises. If you can't afford to pay the price, you don't enjoy the privilege of becoming a customer.

 

Agreed Fox.

We need a person like Elon Musk, notebook world answer to Tesla. A guy who isnt afraid to spend a lot of money, to move the current implementations forward.

I would like to see a secured water cooled notebook we saw showcased on the Alienware notebook a year back by a company. it was really impressive. Or one of those piezoelectric fans made by GE, to replace the current loud fans.

 

Elon Musk is a good example. Other examples are Jack Roush, Keith Black, Steve Saleen, Carroll Shelby, Enzo Ferrari and Ferruccio Lamborghini... whenever an enthusiast is calling all the shots on development of an extreme product, things are as they should be.

 

Yeah, there's probably not enough pull to make it happen at a lot of these places. Considering Elon Musk practically went bankrupt starting Tesla, it's unlikely someone would be willing to dump billions of their own money to build the next gen gaming laptop. Lastly, I was thinking that competing with the single GPUs is actually a mistake since there's too many options in that market. If all we had was AW, Clevo and a new brand from a rich company/guy, if executed well and supported, people would rightfully jump ship easily.

Ideally, some company with lots of money should have a clean slate and go with super high rez screen options, water cooling, dual GPUs only, even better screen options to attack the photo/graphics market (that's probably how SGI started I'd guess)...All expensive customers who are already paying 3k+ for machines each. Add in this with like 4 wireless multi screen display to output for presenters, etc...lots of nice things can be added.

That's the niche product we all would like and obviously, charge a premium. I'm sure some people won't mind paying. Enough people are buying Tesla's already at 100k per pop...honestly, when I looked to buy this AW machine, it's expensive compared to the $500 PCs you see advertised at Best Buy, but I didn't really think it was that bad considering my kids daycare is 1k+ a month already, median car purchased is like 30k now, don't even get started on what a home costs, cable is like 1k a year, same as cell phone...etc... For a certain segment of people, they just won't spend on something else and put it all in a laptop which is where they want to spend their "I want something nice" or feel good dollars. My first PC was well over 3k as well for a crap 386 I think it was?

Too bad there isn't a environmental tax credit for gaming machine development.

 

Nonsense #2. Are you talking about Clevo/Sager resellers? Then the case is closed. If not, please do enlighten me and post some links

 

yay argumentative thread resurrection ! *sarcasm*

 

Sarcasm or not, but the truth is I used to run one of these 30 companies you mentioned. We did a research on making our own power notebooks as opposed to reselling Clevo barebones (like eurocom, sager and other "manufacturers" lol do). In the end the idea was dismissed as financially impossible. A proper R&D would run you millions with no guarantee of even breaking tie in the end. Even with the proper funds no one in their right mind would ever risk like that. Attempts like that can only be done by big vendors willing to absorb the damage in order to ensure the exclusive niche is secured. I doubt Dell is making any serious money on AW machines even though they sell many times more laptops than all Clevo resellers together. Especially if you consider the warranty. Dell offers NBD on site by default and also an option of dispatching parts and letting you do it (the absolute best option for true enthusiasts) while Clevo lets their distributors handle things and those can only do depot repairs and in most cases will have you pay for the shipping (at least one way), unless you pay extra up front.

 

Just out of curiosity and not wanting to start a new thread for this ...how are the 770m sli`s on the m18 as compared to the sli 680m on the m18x

 

I think 680m sli will certainly out-perform 770m sli...especially as the 680m is a more mature card that already has tweaked vBios files out there to unleash the beast inside. Even at stock, I think the older generation will outperform the 770m's....comparisons of the two cards in single format shows the 680m to be superior - unless the 770m scales amazingly better in sli than 680m, I think the 680m's will win out on that one.

In Review: Nvidia GeForce GTX 780M, GTX 770M & GTX 765M - NotebookCheck.net Reviews - 680m figures included with lower performing cpu show it outstripping the 770m in pretty much everything.

 

There is like 7-8% in favour of the GTX 680Ms. Temperatures should be a big advatage to the 770Ms.

Im not sure how they compared OC vs OC.

 

True - their ain't that much in it, and with the 770m's being a 75w card temps will be cooler I'd imagine. Overclocked??? - well, we've all seen Mr. Fox 'shoot it out' with his 680m sli enabled M18x R1.5 and the new 18 with dual 780m's - the 680m's run the 780m's pretty damned hard. If they can do that to Nvidia's flagship mobile gpu, which is running a modded vBios already, I think they'd maybe shred a pair of 770m's........until the vBios/BIOS for the new hardware matures - rather much like 680m in it's infancy had to do - it might be different then as like you say, there is currently not much in it between the two.

Up until that point, I'd reckon a pair of 680m's would win out by a large margin over a pair of 770m's...of course, OC for OC. Stock for stock, probably not a massive amount of difference.......

Just my thoughts on it - either 680m or 770m sli will be a fantastic gaming rig.

 

I think the 680m is vastly better stock and oc...

 

The thing is that 770M still only have 960 cores while 680M have 1344 cores. Like Stevie says, GTX 680M is a true overclock champ with really good vbios mods.

The question is: how high can you clock the 960 cores before meeting the temperature limit?
680M will meet that limit before 770M because naturally, more cores, higher temps. If the 770M cores can withstand pretty high clocks, it can match GTX 680m overclocked.

HaloGod2012 own the Alienware 18 with GTX 765M SLI. He runs his 765M on 1200MHz and gets around 70C. There is no chance in hell you can run the GTX 680M at those clocks because it will cause the silicon to melt.

If you guys get my point.

 

i dunno about that.. im at a 200 core 600 memory OC and my temps are around 75..

 

Great so you are at 920MHz. Let me know when you reach 1200MHz

 

I think the 770s are great value propositions and will definitely overclock well. However outside of benchmarks, some games are going to show the 192 vs 256bit bus and lack of shaders with lower FPS. Clocks are just one part of the equation when getting maximum from your demanding games. However this is all moot as any of these solutions in SLI will play anything for the next few years at pretty high overall settings. 780m SLI is overkill for 1080p. My computer laughs at me when playing Crysis 3, Last Light or any of my more graphically intensive games. BF3 at 100ish average FPS will basically ensure maximum settings at native resolution which I am very excited for as I plan to play that very heavily.

 

About bandwidth,

GTX 680M have low voltage GDDR. Meaning it can reach around 1200Mz max on the memory. GTX 770M and GTX 780M have normal voltage GDDR, meaning the memory is rated to atleast 1500MHz. Which makes the memory bandwidth on the 770m essentially the same, if not better than on GTX 680M.
So that makes up for the 192bit vs 256bit memory bus.

GTX 780m holds its own against 770M of course. But like you say, overkill for the current games.