Big mistake... time for throwing in the towel.

Gigabyte is making a new Aorus X7 17inch ultra thin lappy, with dual GTX 765M.

Aorus X7 Slim SLI Gaming Notebook - YouTube

AORUS Gaming Laptop X7

It definitely looks good, although not as powerful as the 18. But hey, at least Gigabyte provides customizable fan control. If this goes on sale, it will beat the MSI GX70 and the Razer Blade Pro. Double the gaming performance, even, since those have only 1 GTX 765M and the X7 has 2.

Now if only Alienware gets serious and provide us with proper fan control. Like many have said before, it's something rather easy to do. MSI gaming series have turbo fan key Fn+1, it's a rather crude way, but it's effective. And now Gigabyte is providing customizable control. Dell engineers are getting lazy.

And see how Gigabyte and MSI are starting to link the GPU and CPU heatsinks together with heatpipes? That's the efficient way and effective of bringing heat away. Perhaps Dell's engineers should learn from them.

 

AW without Dell would be instant death for the brand in today's market.

 

Trouble is there's really no place to bail to if you want a very high quality, extreme performance laptop. Bailing on the brand in some ways is kind of like jumping out of a plane with no parachute. There is no place to go, literally, unless you are willing to make massive compromises in other areas. The P570WM is a beast and I want one really bad, but just look at it... it has meh written all over it. It's all about the CPU and power supply, otherwise perish the thought. For the average or serious gamer the Alienware 18 is a phenomenal machine. The 18 only sucks for those that want performance in bucket-loads and are not willing to compromise just so Alienware can play pattycake with Micro$oft over Secure Boot/Secure Flash. Looking at the big picture, they are still the only game in town for the best of everything, including service and support, and the 18 takes a back seat to nothing in laptop world except an M18x or P570WM. It just sucks to see the best they can offer in third place for the extreme performance crown. That's just about unforgivable right there, but we can't throw the baby out with the bath water.

 

That's really the problem...No competition...sadly. Like Intel has no competition now and that'll only hurt consumers and choice. I think nVidia has "won" too. At least on mobile since I don't follow the desktop market at all.

(and I don't mean the tablet market).

 

Well put Mr.Fox, sure one can leave the brand, but then what? nothing else out, that even comes remotely close. Its not just the performance only, otherwise P570WM will win hands down, its about the whole package, Warranty and Support is just as important.

I for one, is preparing to sell my m17xR4, m18xr1 and get a maxed out M18xr2 and extend the warranty till dell will let me. AW18, i am frankly not sure, as I have said it before, it does everything I need it do, just lacking in terms of extreme performance, might keep it, might sell it.

But till dell/aw get the act together and release something, that can de-thrown M18xr2, I will NOT buy anything from dell/aw.

 

This is true. Whenever there is a decisive win it means there are a lot of decisive losers. A heated race that ends in a photo-finish is the best kind. The odd thing this year is how much NVIDIA is competing in a race with itself in the mobile market. In an effort to have a GPU for everyone they kind of went crazy. I mean c'mon, really, LOL... GT 710M, 720M, 730M, 735M, 740M, 745M, 750M, 755M and GTX 760M, 765M, 770M, 780M. And, AMD with their new... um... right. Factor in what we are seeing with Haswell's mediocrity compared to what it replaced, and this has been the goofiest year for tech I can remember. The only outstanding high-performance enthusiast product that emerged from of all of this silicon poop was 780M. Not that some of the other mundane products didn't have a few selling points, but none of the other products delivered a level of performance that was explicitly better than the technology it replaced. In fact, most of them went the other direction. When you stop and think about it, that is kind of sad.

 

It is not rocket science.....

 

Thanks for that link Mr. Fox. It gave me a much better understanding of what the issues are with secure boot.

 

People will get round it and it just becomes more of a hassle for legitimate users. Typical modern security ethos really.

 

Yup, we need someone trustworthy with the skills to write us a good old fashion malware-free BIOS root kit to break that Secure Flash trash permanently.

I wonder if we could take up a collection and pay the dude in the video to whip something up for us in his free time?

 

Maybe he can start a kickstarter...If you think about it, this affects ALL Intel customers so maybe he could apply some of this for other manufacturers as well...

ah well...

 

If you listen to the whole video, he actually worked with dell to crack the secureflash, and it still took him 3 months with full time work on it.

Not an easy task and why would someone with such skills donate so much time, unless they have a AW18 and want to do it for themselves.

 

Most of that time was because it was a legacy BIOS and harder to debug, UEFI took less than 15 minutes. Still from what Mr. Fox says it sounds like your protected range registers are set and if locked that means a reboot, IOW messing with SMI is not going to help. Not saying it's impossible just that you might need to look elsewhere.

 

Well in my case I abandoned DTRs and went to a desktop + light weight laptop + phablet combination which I've been very pleased with. There are those (though a dwindling number) that want high performance DTR but the problem is when an overpriced DTR like AW 18 is neutered for no good reason it makes such a purchase much less compelling. If someone pays $5k for such an expensive piece of hardware, it should be completely unlocked because the margins are obviously high enough for Dell to absorb the losses from a few adventurous overclockers.

Another problem is the lack of innovation (and risk) coming from DTR makers which includes Clevo. It is the same old rehashed concept every year, even if it does come with a shiny new case. The AW 18 didn't bring anything innovative or new to the table, it was a very boring evolution of DTR technology. On the other hand, Razer is showing it is capable of innovating with their recent Project Christine modular desktop design--that is something I would have expected Alienware to create long ago and Razer beat them to the punch. Another thing Alienware could do is release a gaming tablet using NVIDIA Tegra K1 with ported Xbox 360 and PC titles..question is will they? I very much doubt it because Dell as a company hardly ever innovates. Dell and Alienware have become boring unexciting brands.

Also I place a lot of blame on Microsoft for the stagnation in the PC laptop and desktop markets. They hedged their bets on Xbox and pretty much abandoned the PC and then tried forcing Modern UI on desktop users--just a huge blunder. It seems they are finally waking up and realizing their mistake by trying to unify Windows Phone/RT/8.1/Xbox One as a single ecosystem but it may be too little too late given Google's advances in the market and people's negative attitudes towards Microsoft and as an extension the traditional Windows PC.

 

Yeah, I know some people like that stuff. Doesn't interest me. I want one machine. I want it to massive, extremely powerful, and portable. So, DTR is the only thing I want. I agree with the being neutered for no good reason comment. You know something is wrong with the world when new tech products are inferior to what they replace. It's a disturbing trend. Haswell and the Modern UI are both examples of pointless neutering. And, so here we are today with people entertaining the notion of garbage like Tegra K1 and gaming tablets, LOL. It's like gradually adding small quantities of feces to brownies so nobody notices. You can slowly increase the amount in time because the nasty smell and taste becomes acceptable instead of being flatly rejected at the initial point of presentation. I may have to begrudgingly go back to building my own desktop fixtures again because the portable options are disgusting. But, I have an unsettling feeling that extreme performance desktops will be the next victim of mediocrity and that idea might not last very long. As the excretion of Haswell from the bowels of Intel appears to be a deliberate act, it should get interesting for the extreme performance desk jockeys pretty soon, too. Allowing stupid people to have the power to make decisions that affect others has always been extremely dangerous. I'm OK with some people having a different personal preference. The part I am not OK with is having their preferences rammed down everyone else's throat and the absence of good alternatives. There is no reason both can't exist, but they may feel the need to eliminate options in order to force the adoption of the new mediocre junk they want to peddle.

 

Just can say, WOW! I smell the truth... (are "they" learning from the politicians and their so called "parties"?)

 

There's a lot to be said for light portable consumption devices like tablets. The idea of carrying a 15 lb DTR + 4 lb power supply doesn't exactly carry mass appeal. I would gladly purchase a Windows Phone phablet with a Tegra K1 capable of playing Xbox 360 titles with Xbox Live support, especially if it has native gamepad accessory support. Lately I find myself playing games on my Lumia 1520 (e.g. Asphalt 8) quite a bit and they're enjoyable. I still have my desktop for serious gaming but when I want to fire up a quick distraction while sitting down somewhere, this does the job admirably.

The future has gone ultra mobile, NVIDIA has stated they will no longer be designing their GPUs top down but rather bottom up. What this means is that starting with Maxwell, all their designs will start as smartphone/tablet designs and then be scaled up for use in laptops and desktops. The goal is obviously efficiency and while that may lead to a slow down in brute force power, I think in the long term it will be a good thing. Current designs are far too power hungry and hot and things can't continue the way they have been going the last several years.

Lastly, the enthusiast market is becoming unsustainable financially, the desktop market took another 10% hit in 2013 and is continuing to shrink. That is why NVIDIA is signaling their intent to move to mobile and use desktop/laptop gaming as an afterthought for their designs. AMD has already moved on with their APUs and are probably kicking themselves for selling valuable IP to Qualcomm. The powerhouse PCs that we were used to are all but dead.

 

I know a lot of what you are saying is true, and that is why it is extremely discouraging. There is less for extreme performance enthusiasts to look forward to than ever before. I especially don't like the prospect of being left without any good options. A tablet that runs console games is not something I find attractive. I view that bottom up approach as being shackled by limitations of the lowest common denominator. That approach does not work for me in any area of life, but it seems to be encroaching on us from all sides. For those that are passionate about brute force, efficiency and power consumption are impediments that should never be considered as part of the equation. I view what they call efficiency as a fancy wrapper to mask the existence of a lackluster product and facilitate its adoption. So, I don't want them to tell me about that. I don't care... I want to know what they are going to do to make it bigger, stronger, faster and better than what I bought last time. If the answer is nothing, then I'll hang onto my money because my old stuff kicks the teeth out of their efficient junk.

I suppose the next step will be to make it illegal to own high performance computers. We will be labeled as "bigots" because we have a different view and refuse to drink the Kool-Aid. Plus, it will be "not fair" that our old tech is superior... too dangerous to the fragile egos of the tablet gamers to allow it to continue.

 

...and that smell truth too...

So maybe the size / power consumption of the GPU will shrink to a space in a Lumia... and the bulk power will exceed two 780 (not M) in SLI? (ask NVidia)?
Then the 1T SSD will have the size of a 1 cent coin...? (maybe a square coin, ok?)
the 4K display will curve or shrink to be folded as a pocket handkerchief by pressing a button...? (ask Samsung)
And the whole Aliencomputer will have stolen (hacked?) the Quantum tech/architecture from the NSA... and shrink it into... a phablet...? (attachable to a full size QWERTY keyboard of course!)

Yeah! we are already awake and ready with the deep pockets!

 

Whatever happened to the good old fashioned quest for supreme domination?



Perhaps compromise has poisoned the water to such an extent that we are beyond recovery... reprobate and unable to discern the depth and magnitude of the mediocrity that surrounds us.

 

And mediocrity is growing exponentially like an amoeba and its progeny...

Where is the culturally traditional American spirit and it's indefatigable search of a "state-of-the-art"...? ( somewhere... over the rainbow... )

 

I'm afraid the good old days are behind us.

 

Maybe so... but, at least it will be fun humiliating the Kool-Aid drinkers until the good stuff is all gone. When all we have left is garbage everything will be measured in degrees of failure as opposed to tiers of awesomeness.

I think the simplest explanation is...



And, remember...

 

If it wasn't so sadly true (and going on and on) it even could be comic... as a clown killing itself in a empty circus

 

You have to move with the times, there are always options.

 

A Russian Roulette perhaps?

 

Think big - If unique minds join forces together, these could start off with amazing products and solutions unique to what they focus on as ONLY ENTHUSIASTS related products, no mediocore products with ever worse build design and lack of features, just the most reliable and highest performance state-of-the-art-technology that can be pulled out on the table at the time.

(...Think about it...)


Need to gather a group of right people and target market where its needed. I suppose, to keep such group-company breathing you'd be nearly forced to build and sell cheap but reliable stuff on daily basis too, as such demand is biggest on the market, just to keep the personnel employed full time and have enough profits to build unique and only the best stuff as a core priority, but biggest target should remain the top-of-the-art extreme-performance, intelligently-beautiful and practically-useful design and product stability and durability.

Everything is possible, and if anybody of you reading this thinks otherwise, you shouldn't comment on this post

 

I agree, but our consumerist zeitgeist, the proliferation of mediocre and disposable products, and the growing influence of Gekkoistic "Greed is Good" corporate cults are immense considerations. That's why nearly all hardware vendors source low-end components from China, among other tactics.

 

I still want a liquid cooled Alienware 18.

I remember this a year or two back. Boy it was ground breaking. But it was shot down. Nobody have stepped up to the plate and used this prototype yet
A do-it-yourself-kit would also be pretty sweet. Of course it would break the guarantee, but I would have done it anyway.
Asetek Demonstrates Liquid Cooling For Laptop And All-In-One PCs - Asetek, Inc.

 

That actualy makes me realy sad. It (still) has so much potential.

 

Liquid cooling would only be worse for your peak cooling potential AND it can leak.

No one has told me where they intend to put the 120 - 240 mm radiator that makes water cooling worth it yet.

 

Of course it's possible but the question is "is it practical?".

 

well if you cant understand the meaning of what I wrote, you would not be the part of people trying to achieve the goal Im talking about.

No grand efforts goes unnoticed and unappreciated.

Talk about Alienware from a big picture, "was it practical for these people (founders) to begin with?" - Look at it now

 

1. Apparently it's very popular on desktops
2. You got a point here

 

I'm not an expert on desktop PCs so I can't really comment much, but I have a question - if thermal pastes work so well on our temps in notebooks, shouldn't they have the same effect on desktops? Why should you need liquid cooling when you can just customise the case yourself to allow great airflow and chip in a good thermal paste?

 

Liquid cooling allows for even more extreme overclocking while keeping temps below the 70's most of the time (under load). It makes for a very quiet and cool machine too.

 

The thing is there is demand for powerful systems. The new cylindrical mac pro can be specced to cost $20k so it can render in a heartbeat. I am no Mac fan boy but it shows consumers will pay top dollar for top tech.
Let Dell see this and make the DTR or desktops the gamer or high end user needs.
Economy exists on two ends. Yes it's cheaper as it uses less power but it's also cheaper since it does the job 10 times as fast allowing more work to be done by the specialist being paid by the hour.
The market is there Dell.

Sent from my GT-N7105 using Tapatalk

 

I just posted about the Mac Pro too since it looks sorta out there and I liked how they have that center cooling chamber. Maybe someone can stick the radiator for the liquid cooling on the lid (behind the screen) so for most users, it's just out there behind the machine.

 

I tend to agree 100% but I don't think we have anyone to blame but ourselves when it comes to the frequency of tech releases. People are so eager to just run out and buy the newest greatest thing every time they release a new shiny toy that companies have no reason to hold off and make larger improvements before releasing to the public. If they had to convince people to upgrade because it was actually that much better but in many cases they don't. While the laptop market may not be quite as bad as the desktop market in this regard there are still plenty of people that will blow $1000 on a new GPU when it comes out and upgrade their laptop , and while to each their own this only fuels Nvidia and or intel's schedule of releasing new tech every year like clockwork.

The absolute worst company that I can think of for this is Apple, with there at least yearly refreshes bringing little change and the iOS updates that lock out features on older devices forcing you to upgrade if you want the full functionality of a product you paid for.


In terms of the Alienware having pretty much the only 18 inch high end Laptop I honestly think it was somewhat luck on their part. They cornered a large enough corner of the market that everyone else just bailed. You are really selling to a small percentage of a very elite group with an 18 inch power house like the 18 and most companies probably didn't sell enough of them to keep them going.

 

Because power goes up exponentially with voltage and frequency.

 

You nailed it my friend.

Where is the liquid cooling system that Dell purchased from Asetek and will probably never actualize?

http://asetek.com/press-room/news/2...id-cooling-for-laptop-and-all-in-one-pcs.aspx

Where is the 2560x1440 20" retina display?

Where is the Tri-SLI set up and the 600+ W PSU? The AW 18 looks like it has room for a 3rd GPU and there is really NO reason for not offering more than a 330W PSU.

Where is the 20" screen? I mean, the bezel on the AW 18 looks as though it could easily accommodate a 20" 2560x1440 ESPECIALLY given the $5k asking price.

Where is the titanium construction? Again, $5k all the metal on this thing should be titanium.

Youre right, Dell did nothing innovative and exciting with the AW 18. Four years have gone by and there really is nothing functionally different from the AW 18 and the M17x R2.

And now, with draconian cyber-nanny measures such as UEFI secure-boot, the existing customer base is likely NOT going to continue to replace their existing units with the AW 18 and its successors UNLESS Dell/Alienware gets radical and does SOME of the aforementioned, particularly the Asetek liquid cooling system and the 2560x1440 and a more powerful PSU or they can kiss the DTR market goodbye. I would not even think about an AW 18 without a 2560x1440 20" screen, which looks like it would fit in that bezel, liquid-cooling and more than a 330 W PSU, 500-600 W being a minimum. None of this becomes reality? I continue to keep my R2 alive, possibly replacing the GPU's if/when they go with 880M or newer and move on to an actual desktop for less than $2k.

 

has nobody ever tried or thought to meet these people from ASETEK group in person? Their all contact details with addresses are clearly pointed out in their website, based across 3 countries - USA, DENMARK, CHINA: http://asetek.com/company/support/contact-us.aspx

Ssomeone local in these countries could step up and just have a meeting with these people from the ASETEK group, talk about it and if possibility is just a matter of time or testing and more research etc - push for the solution to be produced! I bet people will buy even beta product to test on their own machines just to help them out to finalize the project, and of course with final product in mind, that when the project is completed beta-testers should receive the final revision cooling system in return.

 

Imagine overclocking on water.
or the pure silence while gaming.
or the possibility to pack in hardware that other brands can`t use because they are on air.

To be honest, I will be very dissappointed if Dell atleast doesnt include 3K or 4K display on the upcoming Alienware 18. We will have Maxwell high end cards, they can play waay higher res than 1080p.

 

But will it also maintain a playable framerate? A 780Ti alone struggles at 4K, let alone our much weaker mobile cards...

 

A 780Ti probably does not have as much vRAM as it needs for 4K gaming. I'm not basing it on anything but a hunch, but I suspect the Titan will do much better at 4K only because of the amount of vRAM it has at its disposal.

 

A GTX 780 Ti does not struggle at 4K. GTX 780M SLI is almost GTX Titan. GTX 880MX SLI (Maxwell) will probably surpass GTX 780 Ti.
Palit GTX 780 Ti JetStream OC Review (1600p, Ultra HD 4K) | KitGuru

Yes it isnt locked at 60FPS, but 35-60FPS aint bad either. Say we get 40-70FPS with 880MX SLI. That would be pretty sweet if you ask me

 

It kinda does. Most framerates are way below 60.

 

Alien vs Predator:
53 FPS

Sleeping Dogs:
45FPS

Rome 2:
51FPS

Dirt Showdown:
48FPS

Tomb Raider:
46FPS

Metro Last Light:
56FPS

Grid2:
54FPS

Splinter Cell:
55FPS

Battlefield 4:
44FPS


Is that really bad? I noticed it is from an OC GTX 780Ti so GTX 880MX SLI might be pretty close to this.

 

I emailed regarding the liquid cooling, and this was their reply:

Unfortunately, they don't seem to be planning on releasing it as a DIY kit, or for beta testing.

 

And here is what I got from someone who works at Dell after having a discussion with them about future plans. No names mentioned.

Its kinda sad knowing that they have a working product in their possession, ready to produce, and to put in our machines. Well R2`s that is.