Broken Alienware 18 - is Dell's replacement ok?

Hi everyone.

Water damage to my Alienware 18 (SLI gtx 880m, I7 4870, 16gb ram). They are looking to offer me the 17R5. I requested to have the specs before I sign off, I just wanted to hear from you guys if it is worth it. Will update with the actual specs

 

My experience with Dell replacement parts warranty has been 40/60. Where they have screwed up 60% of the time. They have however, always delivered and I have a fully functional 18. I would get it fixed if you are not happy with the offered 17R5.


-imest

 

Or try asking for a Area-51M

 

Thanks. Still waiting on the specs, from the responses, will be at least a 1070. Will depend on the RAM and screen quality at this point I guess. Would love the Area-51M

 

Bare minimum RAM is 16GB and screen is 1080p 60hz iirc, definitely worth it from a value perspective

 

Ok, here are the specs, what do you think?

Alienware 17 R5
Video Card
NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1070 OC with 8GB GDDR5
Processor
8th Generation Intel® Core™ i7-8750H (6-Core, 9MB Cache, up to 4.1GHz w/ Turbo Boost)
LCD
17.3" FHD 1920x1080 60Hz Anti-Glare 300-nits IPS Black Chassis
Memory
16GB, 2x8GB, DDR4, 2666MHz
Hard Drive
256GB M.2 PCIe SSD + 1TB 7200RPM SATA HDD

 

From Alienware 18 (the flagship) to this? Nope. Ask for Area 51-M

 

They refused but did agree to upgrade the screen to a QHD........

 

@Mr. Fox may have some good advices. Or @Cass-Olé can put some words. Aw17R5 isn’t acceptable. Not a flagship.

 

Ok thanks! That would be great!!!! Thanks for the advice

 

No, that is not acceptable. Either demand a refund or, if you have some reason you want to stay with the Alienware brand, nothing less than a new Alienware Area 51M with 9900K and 2080. Flagship for flagship. If I were in your shoes, I would press for a refund since they have no way of actually replacing what you had.

 

What did you decide on?

 

So he has accidental warranty for a few years on a laptop that is decidedly aged (Alienware 18,SLI gtx 880m, I7 4870, 16gb ram) and he gets a brand new laptop that is far superior spec wise? Even if he accepted the 17r5 that is a huge performance bump.

I'm just confused about the rationale as I have an Area-51M on the way with a long term warranty. If it dies in a few years and they no longer make the model I have, I should expect the premium top of the line model of that time? Can you explain?

What would stop me on a 5 year warranty from murdering the laptop at year 4.5, when the model is likely discontinued, to get a brand new machine?

I see "Flagship for flagship", but I'm not sure that is really a valid argument. Would love to hear some thoughts or experiences with this from others.

 

People having a conscience and a proper sense of decency and integrity is what would prevent them from murdering their laptop for the purpose of defrauding the company they purchased it from. It's too bad when they get away with it. They should go to jail for it. I know that whole concept is foreign to many with the modern mentality, but there are still a few honest people left in the world. Those that would do that will answer for it one day. Karma is a bee-awtch. What goes around comes around, and they will get what they deserve for their dishonesty... sooner or later.

I think the part you are missing goes way beyond performance. The Alienware 18 absolutely slaughters the newer 17-inch BGA piece of crap by all other measurements. Lots of people that would or did buy the Alienware 18 would never entertain the silly notion of wasting their time or money on one of those utterly pathetic junkbooks. And, it is pretty sad that Dell would even have the cajones to suggest it. They're either retarded or dishonest for going there. Their position should have been, we no longer make a product equivalent to that, so we are going to give you your money back. That, or refund the difference in price between what was paid for the original product and what they are offering as a replacement. They shouldn't sell a warranty that lasts long enough to allow that unless they're willing to step up to the plate and do the right thing. Offering a disposable turdbook child's toy as a replacement for a real computer is not the right thing to do. Alienware 17 R5 with 1080 only has about a 10% edge on graphics performance over 880M SLI and it ignores all the other engineering deficiencies carried by the newer BGA abortion.

SLI is a formidable feature as well. And, 980 M SLI is an upgrade path for the Alienware 18 that potentially exceeds the performance potential of the 1080 turdbook downgrade exchange. To be clear, 980 M SLI beats the highest recorded graphics score for an Alienware laptop with a single 1080 by roughly 25% --> LINK <-- That was also available as an option (from Dell) for the Alienware 18. I suspect the reason why NVIDIA isn't supporting SLI as much as they used to is they lose money when dual graphics outperform anywhere from 2 to 3 generations of machines with a single GPU. And, 980 SLI in a notebook still has potential to match or outperform a single 2080 notebook graphics performance. They hope nobody notices that... but, those who know, know. Check the graphics scores on this comparison of laptop GPUs. It took 3 generations for 2080 to catch up to 980 SLI in notebook land. https://www.3dmark.com/compare/fs/8291254/fs/17595622/fs/16922662/fs/18011292/fs/18124311#

 

But thats just a synthetic benchmark, not a real world bench. Even a 120W TDP MQ 1080 will still wipe the floor with a 980M, given that SLI is a joke
I do agree with the flagship for a flagship, but you're going a little crazy ranting over "muh BGA turdbook"
The 17 R5 is still a formidable machine, despite its many flaws
It, however, isn't worth what that 18 R1 was worth back in its heyday, and as such OP should pester Dell for the 51M

 

Its a better machine overall, but its not a flagship machine like the AW18 was.

 

Fire Strike is widely recognized around the globe as a real world test of a GPUs ability to perform. Or, in the case of SLI or CrossFried, two or more GPUs ability to perform when working together. "Real world" is full of poorly optimized game garbage, coded by half-assed game developers, but that is not the fault of the hardware. I tend to believe that people who dismiss all "synthetic" benchmarks as having no merit are just making excuses for poor performance.

In the real world, some games run like crap on everything. Some run better on older GPUs, some newer GPUs, some like DX better, some OpenGL, some Vulkan. And, some run better on AMD, some run better on NVIDIA. But, a structured test that subjects the GPU(s) to a uniform workload and is agnostic the the brand and model of the hardware is the most reliable measuring stick of what the hardware is capable of doing using a specific API when sloppy software development is taken out of the picture.

 

+ people who know their due dilligence, often play games that benefits from SLI (They know the pro/cons of SLi).

 

FS and TS have consistently lower scores on WHQL drivers( Maxwell 2 GPU 980m). At the same time if I use vulkan developer driver the performance is back to normal. Dunno which to believe?

 

I wasn't dismissing firestrike as bad, but its not real-world of what you can expect from SLI/CFX performance, or even single GPU performance, as even you admitted. Also, SLI/Crossfire support has been largely dead for a while now. No use denying it

 

the only way i'd accept the 17 r5 was if i *really* needed a good paperweight(y'know, hold down 2 big stacks when someones got a fan pointed at em") and i felt like ordering 2 years in advance.

 

As we all know computers become obsolete every 6 month. With new technologies and development , you cannot compare the old with the new. New does not mean it's better either, but they have their own benefits. You get DDR4 RAM , better screen , better GPU , better design and build. Just because it's BGA, it does not mean it's not a flagship. If you don't like the replacement, just be honest with them and explain why you want the latest model ... you could say that it needs to have a replaceable CPU and GPUs. it's simple, cut to to the point. You can also say, it's does not have 18" screen and does not have replaceable components and you want a full refund.

 

Well, something that is sticking to me, is that they aren't price matching his AW 18, It would have cost north of $5K iirc. I would personally push for the 51M now that that fact has been revealed to me.
https://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-Alienware-18-Notebook.102566.0.html

 

I doubt very seriously Dell would replace his notebook with the Area-51M. In their eyes they would lose money on this transaction.

 

Then they shouldnt offer warranties.

 

You can’t compare old tech vs new tech. Something comparable is what warranty offers if they can’t fix it.

 

Just be direct with Dell and do not accept anything less than what will make you happy.

 

Totally agreed. If I wasn’t satisfied , I would ask for their lowest configuration of the Area M15 ...

Just so that it can be upgradable...