*OFFICIAL* Alienware 18 Owner's Lounge Thread

I am using my laptop for work and I decided it was worth for a month, use an iPad for personal entertainment, a console for gaming and an old desktop at my work, for work! I hate myself for being without a proper machine for over a month. However I can justify it as the 780M upgrade is worth it.

770Ms won't disappoint They are a bit better than my single 780M, which definitely have enough juice in it for 1080P gaming over the foreseeable future.

 

Just got my 18" yesterday, and last night, shutting it down for the first time, Windows updated (I'm on Win 7 Home edition).

When I turned on the lappy when I woke up, it wouldn't boot up to Windows at all. So I figured, hmmm, let's reinstall the OS.

When I get to Windows Setup, I don't see the hard drives there. Nada, no hard drive to install.

I'm stuck. Does anybody have a step by step procedure here that I can use?

I have a Samsung SSD PM83, 60 GB as Cache Disk

WDC WD7500BPK-7, 698.6 GB as NON Raid Disk.

I would appreciate the help. Thank you.

 

Aouch!! Check if the SSD is properly installed?

Otherwise remove it and tr to access the recovery partition in your WDC.

 

I can give an answer to why I picked GTX 770M:

- It is only 10% slower than GTX 680M but unlike 680M which is a 100W GPU, its a 75W GPU. Meaning really cool temperatures compared.
- GTX 780M is a power hog. If you are planning on breaking records or doing some heavy overclocking, that 330W PSU iwill be too small. Way too small. A 180W PSU isnt enough for a single 780M, with 330W you have 165W available per 780M in the Alienware 18. do the math. With 770M you have a HUGE potential to do amazing overclock, because you have the same 330W PSU, but much more power to spare.
- GTX 780M runs hot. Period. With overclocking, we are talking 90C. Personally im not comfortable with those temps.
- The next obvious GPU for me over GTX 680M is GTX 880M. Like GTX 680M, it will offer almost 2x the performance of the previous generation but run MUCH cooler. Plus it doesnt draw much power so you can do amazing things with it when you overclock since you doesnt hit a PSU limitation fast.

And since GTX 680M isnt offered on the newest line of Alienware's, I bought GTX 770M to play with. It can max out pretty much all games (except a tiny few) until then, and when GTX 880M arrives, I can sell my GTX 770M's, lose $100 per GPU on the sale, and then upgrade to Maxwell goodness.

My 5 cents

 

A very valid point too Cloudfire. I feel very similar to you on this matter.

 

I agree with you about the OCing. As I have little interested to that, I felt more comfortable with the 780M.

Personally I didn't find my 780M hot at all. Never passed the 84c and that was only three times (approximately for 3 minutes) while playing for more than an hour.

In any case I think it is relatively safe to say "you can't go wrong" either way ;-)

 

How much did you guys pay for your Alienware 18?

What features did you go with?

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy Note II

 

i think we are all underestimating the 765m and 770m sli setups here. My dual 765m's unlocked and overclocked kill a single 780m stock in benchmarks. Im up there with stock 7970/8970m crossfire benches!! Im scoring 11k gpu in 3dmark11. The 770m's unlocked would completely annihilate a 780m and could easily match sli 780m stock scores. Trust me, you will be very happy with 770m sli, especially once you get a unlocked vbios like i did for my small but viscous 765m's.

edit: even with my crazy clocks and high voltage i never see temps go past 79C, same will apply to the 770m.

 

2 things that I don't like about the 780's.
1) all these ridiculously high temps being reported
2) the PSU limiting their potential

But by the same token, we shouldn't underestimate how good they really are. Some recently benched a GPU score of 20,000! In 3D mark 11 on a 330 PSU!!!

 

Yea, thats exactly what I thought about too while I was fiddling around with the specifications the day I bought my Alienware 18.
There are some pretty hefty OC potential on these 765M/770M GPUs, that in worst case scenario where Im not able to max out a game i can just overclock them. I have more than enough power from my 330W PSU, and the cooling system on the Alienware 18 is just superb, plus the GPUs doesnt run hot anyway.

1200Mhz you managed to run the cores at is just insane dude. lol

Well yes the 780M is indeed powerful, but for the people buying them to be some kind of future proof system, is fooling themselves a little bit.
First of all, its still Kepler. You can beat 680M max OC but not by much. Since its still Kepler, you are bound by the same power and thermal limitations as the 680M have. You really need a new architecture to boost up the performance by a good amount.

So what will you do 1-2 years down the line when more demading games arrive? Overclock the 780M? No, that cant be done since you already hit the max overclock earlier.
When GTX 880M arrives, it will be more than good enough for the games available then plus some time ahead, but you also have a ton of OC potential to last you 2-3 years down the line.

 

Yes the 765m sli has been the most fun config I ever played with. I have a spare 780m and just might sell it and wait for the 800m series. Every game has run amazing so far and have no need for more power.

 

I personally believe that whatever config you go with, it will be a win-win scenario in terms of performance.

For the 780M temps, as I currently got one, I would say I never encounter high enough to consider the card running hot. I can understand the PSU limitatation, but other than maybe running a custom vBios, I don' t plan any extreme overclocking.

If I had any AW system, I would wait before upgrading until Maxwell arrives. Unfortunately I don't, I will be without a laptop and the performance gain between the two configs, for me was justifying the extra costs. I will upgrade most likely on 2015, on 2nd-gen Maxwell -expect if I get a good deal for selling my AW in summer 14.

There isn't a "future" proof thing in technologies. All companies laid their plans and features sets for at least the next 5-10 years. We already know after Maxwell it will Volta for gens 1000/1100 and so on. Just I believe sometimes that extra money there or here, may make your computer last an extra year or at least give it a better resale value later on.

 

Im not saying that 780M is a bad purchase. Just like the R1 with 580M, it is also a very popular setup. Its a beast for sure. It will undoubtly satisfy you until 2015 if you are aiming for 980M. But dont expect it to max out all games since its already a few games it cant max out, and you dont have much headroom on it to play around.

Im just saying that if GTX 770M SLI can play almost all current games in 1080p with settings vramped up to max too, with FPS that is enough to ensure a smooth play, and your plan is to upgrade to 880M next year, I personally dont see the point in spending $400 extra on 780M.

Im gonna have some fun trying to break some 770M records when I get mine. The thermal and the power are all on my side

 

The 780M in sli can max out any game out there. I use to play metro last light max out with minimum of 16 to 35 fps, on my returned M18!

 

You could have done a PS mod though? That's an option for 780m owners.

As far as Maxwell offering 2X performance, don't we need to see the cards first? Then don't we have to assume they will be on the same MXM revision? Plus I thought there are going to potentially be two launches with Maxwell: one at 28nm and one at 22nm.

I'm just personally not one for big "what ifs." Obviously it's best to get the best you can afford and then game on. I just would have thought about getting an older m18x R2 with 680m SLI which has OC room and arguably a better design. People mainly lose the Haswell option but that has been very underwhelming thus far.

As someone else said; it's hard to go wrong with any gaming option but that's my .00003.

 

I agree with you about Maxwell's performance. We must get the cards first. I don't know about power and heat, as the key to the new architecture is the ARM processor in the card's board. Moreover another key point is the shared memory between system and video memory. This shared memory will theoretically limit the bottleneck of having to copy files from system RAM to vRAM, in order the GPU can access them -similar to what AMD's Jaguar APUs do with their HSA. However such architecture changes for performance increases means: drivers should be released and optimised (adds some months) and hopefully devs will optimised their games for them. Ubisoft said they will, but that is one publisher... The good thing, this will bring the gap between PCs and the new consoles even closer making porting easier -in extension: Devs will optimise games for the new architecture.

My 0.00001 cents: Maxwell will come out first in desktops around April-May and later on mobiles, a few games will run great on it, other may require a month or two to get patches or new drivers released. Current-gen games won't see much of improvement (not that is needed with the 770/780M SLIs), but next-gen will.

At the current moment 780M SLI offer a Titan-like performance in a mobile factor which is just wow! A few years ago, saying that a laptop can have as much power as the top desktop card out there sounded more like a joke or crazy talk. We can argue all we want whenever that X or Y configuration is better/needed, but at the end of the day all configs are great for gaming within 13/14.

My personal rule in computing over the last 10 years: Go for the best you can afford, you get what you pay for and don't get the X thing cause it is cheaper, but you believe you can squeeze better performance on your own from the Y one. OCing, especially in a laptop for me is consider "bonus" performance.

If afterall want "better" performance by OCing, you can always disable the SLI get a single 780M (which needs less power than the 770M SLI) and OC that like crazy.

Personally I believe people who are opting for the 770M config are because they can't afford/don't want to wait for the 780M SLI to come back in reasonable stock (assuming they can afford the price of the 780M).

 

I am delighted to hear all these good news about the OC capabilities with the 770's XD.
I am by no means an expert that is why I when I just read that the 780's just is the best period, I got fixated on getting them. I never took into consideration about overclocking it or anything like that.
Thanks guys a lot for making me feel truly happy about my purchase

 

Stock 780M SLI score is 14k, and overclocked can easily pass 20k. A single overclocked 780M can come close to 11k. The 765M is slightly over half the performance of a 780M similarly overclocked.

That's definitely not playable, IMO. If it just dips below 30 at any point, that's unplayable, much less almost half that. Granted, just turn down SSAA to 2x, and your frame rates skyrocket without much loss in aesthetics. Can't test it anymore though since every time I download LL, it glitches up and caps frame rates to 8 or 9fps regardless of settings...

 

No problem. I just felt it was nescessary to chime in when I saw that people were depressed that they bought dual 770M. That was not justified.

We are talking about 1920 cores in total here. That have a huge overclocking headroom with much cooler temps than GTX 780M.

Ok let me be more specific.
The 20nm mobile Maxwell GPU will be 80-90% faster than GTX 780M.

New MXM revision? There is no need for a new one. Power requirements go down when die shrink happens. Also there is a limit on how much heat you can pack in a notebook.

Dont you agree?

 

I agree with what you write. I'm surprised at all the bad comments regarding the 780m. Maybe the jump isn't as great as from the 580 to the 680m, but the comments makes it sound so so bad <laugh>. With the shortage, I don't know if it's just the price or people don't want to wait. But sure a lot of folks almost saying to just go 770 even if the 780 is available.

As for the price, I forget what the bump was from the 765ms. Maybe $1000, $500? With a good discount, maybe it's not "so" bad. Course, if they don't get us our machines before next gen, then even I'd cancel and just wait for the 880 myself.

 

yes thats true, 770m sli overclocked can reach and even break 14k, i said the 770m sli OC can reach stock 780m sli scores. I already know what a 780m can do i have one in my m17x r4 collecting dust

 

Question: how do one disable SLI on these systems? I have never owned a SLI system before, but do you have to open it up and remove the SLI cable or something?

 

Turn SLI on and off in the drivers...

 

Just open Nvidia Control Panel. Go to 3d settings. You can enable and disable SLI from there. A manual reboot is required each time (unless you modify the drivers to include a "SLI-on-the-fly" tweak).

 

Well that was a heck more convenient than having to open her up everytime lol

 

Oops. Missed that you switched over to talking about the 770M. Yea, I'm sure the 770M in SLI can break 14k, but probably won't go much higher. For me, the 18-20k GPU scores were pretty much the entire reason I bought SLI'd 780Ms and an Alienware though. For a true desktop replacement, the 780M was my only option, and the only thing that could come close to my dual 680 scores. The same goes for the 4930MX vs my 3770k. The 765M and 770M certainly aren't bad GPUs, and the 765M performing better than a 580M from just two years ago is incredibly impressive. If you can't afford the 780Ms, they're worthy enough replacements and suitable for most. However, if you can afford the 780Ms but just don't want to wait a month, I'd definitely rethink your thought process. They'll more than hold you over until at least the 980M (or whatever they wind up calling second gen Maxwell). The only thing they've given me trouble with is high SSAA, which you pretty much need SLI 780s or Titans for at the moment.

 

I will say a little bit of both. As the AW18 with the 770M is a powerful system, people may not want to spend the extra money or can't afford it.

We will get our machines in late Sept-Early Oct imo! I know that Clevo OEMs in the UK also got a shortage of 780Ms! At least MySN who got back to my email, they said that they are expecting a large shipment from nVidia within the first week of Sept. I guess Dell will get a larger shipment then ;-) Already the EDD in the UK webpage, last time I checked, was 26/9! I will say Maxwell for desktops will be out in April-May time (as AMD will refresh its' GPU line at some point end of the year or really early 14) and nVidia plays it really aggressively against next-gen consoles. So that will be at least 8-9 months after we get our machines, assuming Maxwell for notebooks will hit the market on-par with the desktop cards.
For Maxwell I would wait before getting it, they will change the manufacturing process from 28mm to 22mm at some point (maybe in 9xx series?) and you get factors like the ARM processor to worry about -extra heat and power consumption. Afterall think of it this way:
-Unreal Engine 3 games are already tested in the 780M SLI setup and run great!
-Unreal Engine 4 was benchmark with the desktop 780, where a single 780 could get around 90 FPS in the PLA benchmark. Games actually passing the benchmark specs, won't appear until end of 14/15.
-Ubisoft's main engine for rest of 13 and most likely 2014 is AC III's AnvilNext. Obviously they enhanced the engine for Watchdogs and AC4, but still doubt will not get playable FPS.
-Elder Scroll Online uses a custom engine, built on HeroEngine (The Old Republic). MMOs' tend to be more CPU than GPU demanding.
-Battlefield 4 another "serious" hardware demanding game used a machine with 2x AMD 7770 in Crossfire as their "ultra" demo machine in Gamescon.

I just mention a few games I am more interested to and the industry most widely used engines. As you can see, in terms of "raw" hardware requirements, until 15 there won't be much changes -unless I missing something or a new X-Y games released.

The only things I worry with the new machine: not to arrive scratched, with the PLS screen having brightness bleeding or due to its' size scratch it or something while traveling! I really don't worry about performance issues ;-)

 

Athonline I agree with your ideologies, mainly a reference posted earlier, "buy the best you can afford at the time of purchase." People thinking the 580 to 680 is going to happen every time will surely be disappointed. All I know is that I buy a system to play the games I want to play at the highest possible settings because I am a videophile and tech geek through and through. I could never spend 2500ish (a ton of money) to almost max every game at the time of purchase as I wanted to be preemptive on getting another setup a year later. I'd rather just base all of my purchasing on my needs at the time of purchase. IF I can't max out games in a year (doubtful being as how conservative MS and Sony have been with their specs this generation coming up), I will evaluate what I want to do with the means that I have.

There have already been numerous people who have shown that they could replicate the settings used by console games with very old hardware dispelling the myth that PC gamers need bleeding edge hardware to run ports and the over-generalization of how much optimization console games have. With the new consoles being much weaker at launch coupled with how developer friendly they will be, it is likely that a 780m SLI setup will run most games quite fine for the foreseeable future. However, being that I am an enthusiast, I will upgrade when I need to play games I want to play at the settings I want to play them at! I couldn't imagine spending a lot of money up front to not even max the games I want to play because "there's something better around the corner."

The only caveat is that of budget. Notebook PC gaming at the enthusiast level is expensive; there's no other way to cut around that fact. This type of AW gaming is expensive. So there is absolutely nothing wrong with being more creative with your buying decisions in order to enjoy a very powerful system. Plus we all know ANY type of PC gaming is better than console gaming

 

Trying to speak as a software developer myself: Consoles, like most embedded systems, allow software optimisation at a much better degree than PCs. In PCs you get software running better with nVidia or AMD hardware based on the card's drivers and whatever deal the games studio did. Ubisoft said recently they will optimise their games for nVidia GPUs, while Dice (Battlefield) for AMD. You get this variety of hardware, manufactures, etc as PC is an open platform. I personally believe you can't compare consoles and PCs in terms of performance, especially this generation. I can recall back when Supreme Commander was released, AMD cards were not properly displaying energy shields! It took AMD a month or so to fix it... Now if console games in REALITY are more optimised than PC counterparts? No, I doubt it. They can be -you can see that from a few first-party developers- but in general, due to porting code from one console to another and from/to PC, is a pain in the (especially for PS3! OpenCL is the worst framework I ever looked at). Now for the gen that just passed (or is about to), we must not forget that most console games were at 720P (during the early days) or 1080P @ 30FPS. If we consider 1080P @ 30 FPS ideal, then yeah, a similar PC with a 360, will be able to play games at an "ideal" performance. I can't say about Cell due to the parallel programming getting involve...

This generation consoles are using new exciting architectures, like the HSA, which eliminate some of the biggest bottlenecks we get in graphics related software -such as having to copy a texture or the GPU waiting for the CPU as it doesn't have CPU-level permissions within the system. AMD with their new APUs and their AMD APU+GPU Crossfire thing they are now pushing, are trying to get as much of the new console architecture into PCs. nVidia saw that, thus Maxwell has a dedicated ARM processor + shared memory pool. Both PC manufactures and console manufactures are taking steps to close the gap, which leaves us gamers the biggest winners. PC, XBOne and PS4 they all support DirectX 11.1 (XBOne and PC 11.2 as well, PS4 can do OpenGL 4.2), making porting easier and thus optimisation even better. It will be much easier for devs to return to their roots (PCs), program-run-optimise games there first and then for the consoles... Now the new architecture means devs will have to learn how to use it, throw away basic textbooks how to actually draw things in a screen and start "nearly" from 0 (ok not from 0, but will take them time). Until then, they will be using XBOne and PS4 as just another X86 PC, with the X hardware and prey their OSes are smart enough to do proper hardware allocation.

Watchdog for example already released a PC vs PS4 comparison, the PC wins hands-down if you have the hardware for it. Else you can tune down your settings and get PS4-like graphics, with similar to a PS4 hardware.

I agree that PC Gaming > Console gaming. Unfortunately, especially in a notebook format, it is expensive. However after all the rebates, the AW 18 I ordered (4800MQ, 780M SLI config) costed me around 400 more than a mini-ITX desktop would (without speakers and a cheap monitor) with a Titan gfx card. I would say for 400 more, getting a little bit less performance in a more combat factor is amazing! Sure more expensive that the XBOne I pre-ordered (couldn't resist on Ryse ), but it is a much more rewarding experience + games are cheaper/online free. In the long run the cost of a medium-cost desktop/laptop isn't much more than of a console.

Always go for the best you can afford -you get what you pay for, don't you? ;-)

 

Oooh, so you have the AW 17, and you're ordering/have ordered the AW 18? That's a lot of money there :thumbsup:

 

Hi Folks,

I've had my 18 770 SLI setup now for over a month and I can say I am very impressed with the system overall. Build quality is great and the system performs as expected. Just upgraded to the 326.80 driver and scored P8641 on 3dmark11. I'm looking to do maybe a small overclock and was wondering what software I should use? I haven't done this since the days of my 8800 GTX SLI setup but I thought there was an add on in the NVidia Control Panel? I vaguely remember changing the numbers there and checking for artifacting in 3dmark... not sure if that is still the way. I'll post my scores if I can get some solid advice. Thanks.

BTW my rig runs very quietly when I'm not gaming and air flow seems great when I do game so I figure a little overclock won't destroy anything.

 

Three quick things:
1. How awesome is the new trackpad. Tell me you haven't just touched it to illuminate the lighting....numerous times!
2. A more difficult one. I am on windows 8; specs in sig. I cannot get CS:GO to play without stuttering and have tried numerous drivers and specific HKEY manipulations recommended to include new Dword files to match my IP address. Still lagging (somehow I was able to fix it with my returned system but can't replicate the same results). Any suggestions?
3. Crysis 1 has input lag when playing through single player, again it didn't do this on my returned system. I am not sure which driver's I had on my returned system. So far I have ran 326.41 and 326.80. Should I revert back further? I LOVE the crysis series; especially Crysis 1 and Warhead so I really want to get these games working. CS:GO is also my number 1 FPS and play that a ton and haven't been able to. I need help!

 

The touchpad light stays on all the time on this 18. I don't like it turning off. In case you had not already noticed, there is a setting in the BIOS to change it to "on" instead of "auto" and then it won't turn off. It drives me totally nuts to have it turning off with inactivity. It looks great. If there is such a thing as an excellent touchpad, this is definitely the best and nicest one I have ever used, bar none. I seldom use anything but an external mouse, but I still like the light being on all of the time.

Have you set up a dual boot with Windows 7 yet? Only need to shrink your partition to make room for it and break out your M18xR1 Windows 7 DVD. When I replaced Windows 8 with Windows 7 using the M18x DVD it was preactivated by the SLIC certificate in the 18 BIOS. I did not need to enter a product key or anything.

Have you tried the stock Dell driver with those games already? The stock Dell driver is actually works pretty decent for me. The stock Dell driver version numbering is deceiving as OEM drivers are using a different numerical sequence than reference drivers. They are actually in the same branch as either 319 or 320 reference drivers (can't remember which one right now).

I'm still finding 320.49 WHQL and 314.22 WHQL are the best drivers overall for both 680M SLI and 780M SLI gaming and benching. You may have to use an INF mod to get them installed, but I think you already know that's not a big deal.

 

Brother Fox I think I will dual boot Win 7 this weekend. I'll have to PM you on some particulars as I have never had a dual boot system. I'm sure it's a straightforward process. I will try some earlier drivers and see if that fixes the issue; namely the 314.22 as that has been recommended a few times from my reading. Good call on the "on" for the track pad! It's relatively captivating and a highlight of the keyboard lighting.

 

So something weird happened today....
I received a 18 today at my home which my orders I usually send it to my work. Anyways my order was the 4800 with 770sli the machine has 2 780s. The system doest run for longer than 10 minutes at a time and I credit that to being left out in the rain all day infront of my garage door. My order had a estimate date of sept 26... and when I check my order it tells me that it was shipped today and I should receive it tomorrow at work. I am utterly confused because A this is the model I order. B it was sent to my home . C my model wasn't slated to be sent till late September. I called Dell and they are as confused as I am. Anyways I am sending it back tomorrow and if my model does come to my job tomorrow I will be very happy.

I am going to need some assistance with the 770 overclocking since its been a while since I've done one

 

Well at least now we know where woodzstacks laptop went.

 

I am actually returning the AW17 in a week (scheduled and everything)... plus got some discount on the AW18, which made it a no-brainer..

1. Agree! ^^ I though having a large block of lighting was going to annoy me, but I ended up loving it! Just a quick advice: Don't let them "repair" your palm-rest! I am on the third palm-rest, as the ones they got for repairs, are actually defective from factory.
2/3: Dunno about them...

Ask Dell for a replacement, with the same specs (780M over 770M)! I read on the forums in numerous posts, that people receive their Dell system before Dell's webpage was updated or before the EDD, so you may actually got "your" system, just with wrong specs due to an error in the factory in Chine or by UPS.

Good luck however!

 

does anyone notice when the 18 is idle the second gpu fan( on the right side of the laptop) seems to very slightly spin up maybe an extra 50 rpms and then go back down every 2 or 3 seconds nonstop? I caught this because i heard the fans coil whine going up and down. You need to be in a quiet room and idle with normal fan spinning. It doesn't do it when gaming with high rpms, just at low rpms when idle. Seems like a system bios issue, please experiment and let me know.

 

I got a similar issue with my AW17. Randomly it spins up by definitely more than 50 RPMS and then goes back down. This happens usually when I am either idling at Windows or just reading/browsing at the net.

 

thanks for the input, glad to see its not just my system. If others can confirm this problem, we need to address it to AW so they fix it in the next bios release. Or hopefully we get an unlocked bios from svl7 soon.

Does it spin up and down every 2 or 3 seconds for you consistently?

 

It suddenly starts spinning up for a 2-3 seconds and then starts spinning down a bit, before going full silent. It happens on multiple occasions. I try to monitor GPU temps when this was happening, the temps were <50c (calcium).

 

I just read someone say they installed the 326.80 beta drivers for their 770m SLI. How did they manage that? It's been a long time since I've been on windows for any significant amount of time so I'm having some trouble finding how to get this driver to work with my 770M SLI. In fact the nvidia download page for 326.80 doesn't say anything about supporting 770M SLI.

Please forgive my ignorance. Google gave me a load of benchmarks and systems to sell me when I tried looking it up...

 

I believe its through a clean windows install. Correct me if im wrong though.

I sent the laptop back this morning and for the 770 model I ordered it is out for delivery today so It has been updated its on its way.

I sent my 17 back on monday and they still haven't received it back im a bit nervous about that too because it was a pick up by ups from my work so I dont have the tracking number for that 17

Anyway I'm very excited to receive a hopefully working laptop today!

 

Does the AW18 run hot?

Any issues with throttling?

 

A bit off topic but Hey Darkdomino how is your edge treating you?

Have you tried overclocking it?

 

Yes, to both questions. A few folks have commented on it. I am surprised that more have not mentioned it. My assumption is that many are not very tech savvy and have not discovered it yet. If you are not attempting to overclock it will not be as noticeable, and if you do not have a 4930MX it will be even less noticeable. Those that have noticed are more into overclocking/benching. Ordinary gamers are the majority and my assumption is that majority is not intimately familiar with the system well enough to recognize what is occurring. Most games play perfectly fine with a CPU running between 2.8-3.2GHz and they don't get hot running that slow. If it games well, I am sure that most are completely oblivious to the fact that their CPU is running slower than its advertised stock turbo boost speed.

I wish those that have noticed this would begin posting about this (each person create a new thread) in the Alienware Club at Dell Community Forum so the importance of an expedited fix will be universally recognized as a serious matter on their end.

There are two issues in play, and both are easily remedied with a firmware update. I am expecting an updated BIOS/EC to be released for the 18 very soon as they just released updates for the AW14 and AW17. As best I can explain based on my observations, here is what is occurring:

• BIOS: CPU Power Settings - none of the Haswell processors can sustain stock turbo clock speeds under load because the Core Current Limit is set at 32.000A. It needs to be at least 112.000A, preferrably 120.000A by default. This setting is locked and cannot be adjusted with XTU. Processor Current Limit is 55.000A by default and needs to be at least 95.000A. The MSR Lock in the BIOS also needs to be set to disabled. Both of these settings are tucked away in a hidden menu within the BIOS. All of the processors power throttle under load and sometime drop below non-turbo clock speeds. This is exacerbated somewhat with the 4930MX because it requires more power than a MQ processor and it seems to power throttle even more. To an extent this can be compensated for by jacking up the Processor Current Limit using XTU. While this reduces load throttling, it increases the core temperature and introduces thermal throttling in addition to power throttling.
  
  Edit: BIOS A03 fixed the problem with Core Current Limit. It is now 112.000A by default and it is adjustable with XTU. However, Processor Current Limit is still incorrectly set to 55.000A by default and needs to be raised to at least 95.000A by default.

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• EC: Fan Control Table - the fans are the same part used in the M18xR1/R2 with a maximum speed of 4100 RPM. Presumably to make them quieter machines, the fan speed has been capped off about 500 RPM less than they are capable of. Additionally, and more problematic, there is a serious latency in fan reaction. Fan speeds do not ramp up like they should and nothing seems to happen until the CPU reaches 96°C. By that point it is too late to control the temps and thermal throttling and/or thermal shutdown occurs. If you repeatedly run wPrime 32M burst tests so the temps are rapidly rising and dropping, eventually the fans will start reacting, but it is still too late to keep the temps reasonable. HWiNFO64 can be used to control the CPU fan, but doing so disables the GPU fans and the video cards will overheat doing nothing more taxing than web browsing or watching YouTube videos.

Since a firmware update should fix these two problems, in my view there is no cause for alarm. Maybe a little bit of frustration, in the worst case scenario, about having to wait for a fix would be justified. The cooling system in the 18 is excellent and every bit as capable as the M18xR1/R2, so these firmware fixes should be all it takes to whip things into shape. Haswell seems to run hotter than Sandy Bridge or Ivy Bridge, so that part is just something we will need to learn to live with. Ivy Bridge runs hotter than Sandy Bridge, too and I attribute this to Ivy and Haswell both being 22nm die with less surface area available for heat dissipation.

 

Hello

First test Alien 18
Config detail
4800MQ
16Go ram
SLI 780M

Update Vbios 780M SVL7

PB 3dmark 11

SLI OK

Result 3Dmark 11
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-4800MQ,Alienware Alienware 18

 

I have not seen anyone mention the sound quality on the 18.
Now I have already purchased it, however, its still in "production". If someone can educate me on how good/bad the sound is please do tell.
My main points are...
1. The quality of the sound card.
2. Is the sound card replaceable ( probably not.)
3. Is the sound card able to give power to headphones in the $300+ range.
Thanks so much

 

Mr Fox, you just summed up like 2 months worth of user frustration into a nice tidy post, well done sir, well done. I wish we could post that on the front page of Dell and Alienware's website. I'm gonna do just what you said and post on the AW Club forum.

 

Hi Cloudfire:
Just a word of caution for disabling SLI.
I could not get the installed Cyberlink DVD player to play Bluerays but played regulars ok. And after over 2 hours with tech service we found that the SLI was accidently disabled. enabled it and all worked fine.