*OFFICIAL* Alienware 18 Owner's Lounge Thread

Pay for 100Mbps downloads, and some time I'm getting 4-13Mbps. 13mbps when no body is using the interne around hood.

 

I purchased mine before the mystery coupons were available, but I'm not sure what my percentage off was to begin with. Could have been 5, given my recent string of bad luck lol.

I haggled my price down in early July, with the 4930mx, 780m sli, and 4 years + 4 years accidental, to about ~4750 w/ NBD shipping after taxes. About 700 in savings but ofc nowhere near 30% some lucky folks got. That's a great great deal, and if I had it I'd probably reorder one right now with the same specs you did.

Had my first 18 notebook, which arrived in early-mid July, lasted until now without any problems it still would have been a good deal for me imo. This was the time period where I would have enjoyed it most, before school starts back up in the fall. At this point specifically, that kind of investment doesn't make much sense given my time constraints, so I bought something that will still make me happy when I need it but saves me a substantial chunk of change for next summer or the summer after that when another 18 comes out (or whatever brand) and catches my eye again.

My hope for the upcoming generations before Volta are not necessarily that parts run much faster, but hopefully run much cooler and quieter. Not sure how feasible that is but I guess we'll see.

 

well they have now pulled the optional 780M upgrade text from the description of the highest end model, that doesn't seem like a good sign for it coming back soon?

 

Wound up being a driver issue. Wiped the old driver and reinstalled from the resource disc and it's working perfectly now.

Mine's about right then. My temps are fantastic during gaming though. Half an hour of Crysis 3 and my temps never go above the low 70s. Considering a repaste just to get a bit of extra headroom, but I don't think it's worth it with temps like that.

 

Nah, 780M is most likely just sold out pending receipt of additional stock. Hardly anyone wants anything less than 780M (understandably). This same thing happened repeatedly with 680M for the M18xR2. It also happened a few times with the Extreme CPU. It will be back when they have more 780M GPUs available to sell. Anyone that wants the best will just need to be patient and wait for it. Personally, I would not recommend getting anxious and settling for a lesser GPU. There is a massive decrease in performance downgrading to the next best GPU.

 

Oh, I'm also surprised by how quiet this thing is. Can't even tell if the fans are on during normal use, and can barely hear the fans over sound effects during gaming. Much better than the 17 when under load.

Agreed. You're already spending a ton of money, might as well make it the best laptop on the market.

 

oh I definitely will wait for the dual 780Ms to come back in stock just fear this means my chances of getting the laptop before the end of August have diminished considerably

how long did it usually take for the 680M to show back up on the previous models?

I had an order for a student model with 16GB of RAM, Intel i7 4700MQ, Dual NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M, 750GB 7200RPM SATA 3Gb/s + 64GB mSATA SSD Caching, 2 year warranty including accidental damage, and much to my dismay Slot-Loading 8x SuperMulti Drive (DVDR/RW) for $3,114.00 but emailed to cancel it because I'd rather get one with a better processor and blu-ray drive for slightly more

 

I ordered an AW-18 yesterday with dual 780's, and its already in production status, I must have lucked out till they get a new shipment in. I am staying with the Dell GPU drivers when it arrives.

 

Hey guys, I was thinking of ordering the lowest drive configuration, then buying a 512GB PM841 mSATA and two 840 Pro SSDs to replace the shipped configuration. But my question is, is it possible to set all those drives together in RAID 0? Does it get set in the BIOS? Do all the drives just have to be the same size? Or does that even matter?

 

On another note, not only is the 780 SLI option no longer available, they also removed the SSD upgrade options (not that I was going to order them from Dell anyway though).

Also, you can't select the 512GB mSATA boot with 750GB HDD option with Windows 8, but in the lower configuration model, you can select the 256 GB mSATA with Windows 8.

What's up with that?

 

Even if you could, I really don't think you want to Raid 0 SSD and the default drives...I can see massive drive delays and who knows what other problems with that config.

 

Yesterday I ordered an AW-18 with Win8 Pro today with the basic HDD 750 GB. I also bought a Samsung Evo 1TB, from a 3rd party supplier that includes Magician software to transfer all the main HDD stuff over to the new SSD, without having to do a clean Win8 install. The Evo SSD uses RAPID to double the read speed to RAID 0 like speeds, but you can't RAID 0 them to quadruple the read speeds because they need to piggyback on the MB-Ram to extend the speed. I prefer the Evo as opposed to using two SSD's (Raid-0) for the boot drive, because of slower boot times as Raid loads and TRIM defrag compatibly which can bottleneck the system speed if not set up properly. I also skipped the 512GB mSATA Boot drive due to limited read speeds in favor of the (64GB Caching drive+750GB HDD) option. The plan is to keep the 64GB mSata to speed up 750GB HDD to be used for Acronis clone image backups off the Evo.

 

The Magician software doesn't not migrate windows8 properly. Youll want to fresh install anyway to make sure trim si working. cloning from a mechanical drive to ssd is not recommended.

 

Thx Pathfinder, I will make an image and not a clone to the 750 drive and if my Magician fails to work, which I am not counting on, I will clean install. I will probably migrate to 8.1-beta to see if that will be more stable through the process. I need to read up more on Trim.

 

I liked my 14 so much I decided to get a 18 as well.

My specs are:
4800 CPU
780gtx sli
16gb ram
2 x 750gb radid0 w/ SSD cache
Windows 7
AC wireless
2 year warranty

Should be here Wednesday! yay

 

Where did you buy the 840 Evo 1TB SSD from?

 

I was actually going to RAID 0 the two SSDs and the mSATA, not the default drives (which would be HDD). I only ask this because it seems that's what Alienware was doing in their original top end configuration with 4 SSDs in RAID 0, which was really 3 SSDs and 1 mSATA if I understand the bay configurations available.

But I certainly don't want drive delays, so I will take that factor out of consideration when deciding what drives to get. Thanks.

 

Just had a look on the UK Dell site and 780M's come up as an upgradeable option, with a preliminary ship date of early September mind you

 

I needed to buy a NEC display port cable from B&H Photo to connect to a ultra-hi def 27" monitor, so i got the Evo SSD at the same time.

For PillowMetal; do you actually sleep with a Metal-Pillow? I might buy an AW14 like "Pathfinderscod" just to get a better night's sleep. The original AW-18 Quad Play: [768GB RAID0 (3x256GB SSD) "the 3rd SSD in the ODD bay" + 256GB mSATA SSD Storage] was an innovative answer to compete with MSI-17" laptop that has Super RAID 2 (128GB SSD(mSATA) x 3; RAID 0) + 1TB HDD, but that was bottlenecked by having only one GPU. Then, the Samsung EVO 1TB SSD was invented, due out in 2 weeks, raising the bar even higher with Rapid software. I am still waiting for my AW-18 ordered June 18, cancelled Aug 8th, reordered Aug 9th, due Aug 23rd, before I can test out the new hardware to see how it well it works together.

 

hopefully it'll be back on the US site soon then


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

Man...after reading about all these screen issues, I think I will just get the Precision M6700 this round and wait for the R2. My M6600 has be flawless. Gaming on the AMD 8900 pro is dream.

 

LOL, it's actually a skydiving term for emergency procedures; pillow is the cutaway handle, metal is the reserve handle.

 

Sucks, now I want 780's... But I don't want to wait forever to get my laptop.

 

I'd do it. I returned my notebook to jump from the 4900MQ to the 4930MX and Dell had turnaround time of about a week - that's a week including returning the old unit, being credited, placing a new order and receiving that new unit.

The 780's are nice, but even they struggle with Crysis 3 maxed out, averaging 25 to 30 fps with lots of dips below that. SLI also has serious issues with the game whenever there's grass present, resulting in graphical issues. Not sure if this is due to the game being optimized for AMD cards, but I've seen lots of complaints elsewhere regarding the issue.

 

I can't tell if your talking me into, or our of buying 780's haha

 

Really? I've got settings maxed and I've averaging 40-45 with stock clocks with occasional drops below 30 in the first level when outside in the rain, though I dunno if you're using the most recent Nvidia drivers. I'm running 326.49 since I did a clean install on mine the day I got it. Should run just fine with SLI'd 780Ms, especially when overclocked. I easily average over 60fps with dips to 45 or so with my OC'd SLI 680s on my desktop rig. Metro LL is the only game that's given me trouble just because SSAA is such a resource hog. Have it at 2x on both my 18 and desktop rig, and my 18 averages around 55fps with dips below 40, while my 680 rig averages around 80fps and dips below 60. I suspect the gap won't be terrible far whenever I get around to flashing my vBIOS and OC'ing the 780Ms to something a little nicer.

 

I can't believe you guys haven't already flashed your 780m vbios already. Crysis 3 should run no problems.

 

With stock settings I get mid 40's on Crysis 3 with everything maxed.

Hey TBoneSan, Where is that VBIOS flash? Thanks!

 

Have a look over at Tech|Inferno for that one. You'll find a great group of talented individuals.



Sent from my Galaxy Note II

 

It's from the T|I forums buddy

 

Flashed my vBIOS tonight finally. OCs are more stable for sure. Have it at +160 core with no memory OC yet, and performance is much better. Need to fix my 3DMark installation to get my scores though. Once it finishes, I get an error about a hex character being invalid and it exits.

 

I was running the stock Dell drivers. Upgraded to the beta 326.41 and I'm now averaging 45 fps, and my graphical issues in grass areas went away. Played through two full missions with no drops in the 20's, so this is a pretty big improvement.

I was running int othe issue with the drivers saying no supported GPU detected, so I stuck with the stock drivers. But the latest drivers don't have the issue and installed without any problems.

 

Thanks guys for the link! Will be flashing the VBIOS for sure.

 

Get it done fella. Those 780m's aren't much to write home about otherwise.

 

For anyone wanting an easy shortcut to the 780M VBIOS unlock: Unlocked NVIDIA GTX 780M VBIOS - Tech|Inferno

 

Now they have 780's. But only for 5200 dollars. Uh I'm good

 

Well if FedEx plays nice my 18 will be here in its new home.

 

Well the 780's are back with the Quad Play Raid 0 (3x256GB SSD)+mSata for storage for a total of 1TB of storage. I originally ordered a Quad-Play on June 18th, order cancelled to to lack or available parts. Now the price hovering around $5900 with additional 3 Yr Support/Acc-damage. The wait will be extended to 9-25-13. I just reordered a base unit with 4930CPU-dual 780 (before that option was deleted) so will test out that rig with EVO Rapid 1TB. The other option I am considering is to run (3x128GB Sam Pro's) in Raid 0. Has anyone tried to set up (3xSSD in Raid 0)? Do boot times go way up or down and is Trim utilized? It would be interesting to hear if you have some info.

 

juat benchmarked my 765m sli setup overclocked a little

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 765M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-4700MQ,Alienware 01W2J2

not too bad

 

That's decent. Congrats on the new beast. The overall score is similar to my previous high score running GTX 580M SLI with 2920XM. It's interesting where the CPU performance offsets the GPU performance when you look at the breakout by test. While the overall result looks similar, the breakout by test is not as similar.

3DMark11 Result Comparision - 4700MQ+765M SLI vs 2920XM+580M SLI

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Updated the start of this thread with some new videos...

 

nice mr. fox. I have a lot more headroom for overclocking but need to unlock the afterburner limit of +135. Also need a modified vbios. Couple more months untill i get my second 780m and then that will be a whole new beast lol

 

If you look at that breakout by test, the 765M SLI is beating the 580M SLI by a little bit in the graphics tests. The Physics and Combined test results with the Extreme CPU pushes the older system ahead slightly. So, the overall results don't give a clear understanding from just looking at the number. Your 765M SLI setup should game like a real champ. The XM is running 1.4GHz faster and that accounts for the overall score similarity.

This is a good example of why an XM CPU is such a good investment. The 2920XM is 4 generations older now and still kicks the hind end off of the current non-XM. Being "obsolete" is not that relevant when it still runs like a banshee.

This post will also be a good point of reference in response to a sales pitch (i.e. hoodwink, snow job) that a brand new non-XM CPU is somehow the equivalent to an older Sandy/Ivy XM CPU. Uh, no. Not now, not ever.

 

Yes 3dmark11 is very cpu bound. Maybe we should compare some fire strike and fire strike extreme scores, thats if you still have the 580m sli setup, which i doubt looking at ur sig. The 765m sli setup so far is a gaming beast, its rocking crysis 3 maxed with 2x AA with good frames. I am very happy alienware made these gpu's the base option.

Also, does anyone know how to break the +135 afterburner limit in windows 7? I used to know how but forgot.

 

Probably need a different vBIOS to go past the +135 offset, but you may also need to overvolt to go much beyond the +135 offset with stability. I know that is the case for me with 780M SLI in the Alienware 18.

Actually, 3DMark11 is not CPU bound at all in tests 1 through 4. With a single 330W AC adapter it needs to be run at 2.8 to 3.0GHz in tests 1 through 4 to avoid the system from shutting down with overclocked/overvolted 680M SLI and 780M SLI. The CPU does not get called upon until you reach the Physics and Combined Tests at the end. I haven't had 580M for a long time, but you can compare the Fire Strike and Fire Strike Extreme scores to 680M SLI using the link in my signature. The XM CPU is going to make a significant difference in Fire Strike as well, because it has a Physics and Combined Test.

 

maybe i was thinking about vantage, being the cpu bound test. Anyways thanks for the info. I have my memory now clocked at +800 on the gpu (5600) and its still going.

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 765M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-4700MQ,Alienware 01W2J2

 

Yes, Vantage is definitely more CPU-benefited due to its age (DX10 era).

 

still going at +900 memory. Wow these vram chips are insane

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 765M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-4700MQ,Alienware 01W2J2

9404 gpu score

 

this is the highest i can go
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 765M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-4700MQ,Alienware 01W2J2

is there a modified vbios yet for the dell 765m?

 

If you don't find one available for download, dump yours and send it to svl7 to work his magic. Maybe nobody has sent him one to mod yet.

 

Ok, so FedEx delivered... I knew this think was going to be big, but wow. I laughed histericly for about 10 minutes just by the size of this thing.

After I calmed down, plugged it in and opened it up it was like the clouds parted, the light of heavan came pouring down. The screen is absolutely stunning. Very bright, sharp and beautiful.

Creating restore disc and USB, updating and installing origin. Will report back later.