RIP - Alienware 18

Something on the lines of a blade or aorus x3/x5 ...something that thin, because flying week in and week out with the monster gets hard...it breaks my heart to do so and I am almost have second thoughts but i really dont have much of an option and cant do two laptops

 

The Gigabyte or MSI Ghost seems nice IMO.

 

They just posted this on Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/Alienware/...71644901972/10152682169501973/?type=1&theater

Talking about the old good days... I can't understand how they don't see that they are going to lose exactly about what they are talking just there.

 

Gosh, if you're going to go BGA, then by all means just get the new Alienware 17 with 980M and the eGPU and ask for forgiveness later. None of the gaming <del>Ultrabooks</del> jokebooks are any good. Compromise is compromise, and if you find yourself having to go down that poop-crusted path there is no reason to reject Alienware's version of compromise. Garbage is garbage, but at least you will have a good warranty and an eGPU to tinker with to help distract you from how lame the low-TDP CPU is going to be with any jokebook. From everything I can see the Razer and Aorus are the least desirable of all the jokebooks. With an Alienware jokebook, at least you will have a constant reminder and fond memories of how things were before the holocaust.

 

H O L Y <****>. I'm on an R2, and...

Win 8 is a deal breaker for me too!

And my parents.

Any my brother.

Any my gf.

And so on...

Well bang goes that upgrade then. I'm assuming all is well wtih 980M & AW18 then?

SO, ladies & gents, a few questions... on this sad news day;

1. I was waiting for 5th Gen xtreme Intel CPU to upgrade [sink thousands of $$$'s into] to a new AW18, but I now see this is not going to happen. So, given the choice, would you change up your R2 for an Aw18, or switch back to an R2 from an 18? I might just buy an AW18, if that is the last in the series, so to speak. I'm running R2 now.

2. Does the AW18 have a less glossy screen than the R2, which is a US corporate plot to get me to commit suicide as far as I'm concerned? Less glossy, at all?

3. Does AW not see they are leaving the market W I D E open for the competitors? I've had a few Clevos to date, and the build quality / ergonomics did not match with Alienware, is that still the case?

4. What alternatives, for a global traveller like me, are there? Read that as I NEED Dell's wonderful global NBD warranty, I know of no other company that can provide that.

5. Are you expecting much from 14nm? I read the U series just launched was only about 3% increase in IPC.... I see no reason to expect it to be higher on the non-U parts - clock for clock...graphics doesn't interest me on a cpu, but I know it will be better...

All informative answers shall be rewarded in heaven, or even possibly by a rep up!

 

On reading this comment, I took a quick search on the machine in question, and personally, I'd advise against it, if your machine ever leaves your desk.

To date, I've had a number of Clevos, two of which had Desktop CPUs in them. They were all well-specced for their day, but they were HUGE.

Moreover - they ran hot too. Hotter than a Puertorican picnic! I recall early days of Pacific Poker, and the laptop making those two beeps, and shutting down in the middle of a cash game, to save itself. (ambient temp there was 35C though) But the earlier model did the same in the UK too.

The build quality was well, um, how can I say this, try the keyboard, and you will begin to see what I mean.

The M18xR2 / AW18 (as far as I can tell) were the best compromise of size / weight / performance.

And a small 17" screen on a best like that Clevo will look ridiculous.

Fell free to ignore any part of the above, but now that I think about it, I've had FOUR Clevo's to date.

 

Let me take this moment to add my condolences, RIP Alienware 18, you will be missed.

 

Does everyone in this thread not pay attention to history?

AW goes in cycles. They switch up the screen sizes to seperate them from the previous generation every so often.

Pretty sure there will be a new 18 in a few years after this gen has run it's course.


Maybe with Optimus SLi that lets you use only one GPU or all 3 together.

And an SLi eGPU.

Perhaps even the ability to hook up two SLi eGPUs for quad SLi.

Could happen.

 

The thing is if I leave Alienware it is going to past a lot of time before I come back. Because I am not buying 5K$ systems every 2 years... Not even 4-5. I want a system upgradable as R2 is but I guess no more of that so I will upgrade my SLI680 to 980M. If the throttle never gets fixed I will sell the system and will buy new laptop as high-end as R2 was once.

My wishes are:

5960X or better
SLI980M or better - Would not be awesome 3-WAY SLI? Just dreaming I know... :S
16GB
Dual PSU
Good cooling system - Liquid cooling? We saw it's exist some time ago and they bought the whole thing up.
Cool desing if possible.

As I said just dreaming but... how awesome would it be.

 

The issue is the cpu situation is out of Dell's hands if Intel decides not to play ball.

 

I found this juicy bit of info on the Alienware Forums - AGA (Alienware Graphics Amplifier) driver confusion - Alienware Forum - Alienware Club - Dell Community

From what I can gather there is a issue with the Graphics adapter, not sure if the problem relates to all rendering or just 3D but here is a small exert from the above page

 

I really hope this falls on it's face and is an ongoing problem they cannot fix, just a little more motivation to bring back MXM's and MQ's

 

Build quality is good, I suppose. I never owned an Alienware myself though, and have only spent like 30 min total behind an M18 R1. Bassicly, I'm perfectly satisfied, but that's just me. I think the build quality is solid and the machine feels (very) sturdy. The newer models seem to be having an aluminium chassis, so who knows what the future holds. I don't know what your experience will be like after owning an Alienware for so long though.

Cooling is great, however to be honest it's noisy when under (full) load. Even when idling the machine isn't completely silent. Downclocking the CPU definitely helps with that though. Other than that I'm perfectly satisfied with my machine. If I were to buy a new laptop again it would probably be a Clevo/Sager from XNB once more, if Alienware still hasn't made a propper succesor to the M18xR2.

I don't know about customer service, because other than the loss of a screw I haven't had any problems so far and thus I haven't dealt with them yet.

 

this really depresses me. I was getting ready to buy a new 18" dual gpu monster with broadwell and gtx 980m. The time for an upgrade is quickly approaching and it looks like I will have to go with a generic company.

What are the best prospects for the highest quality best built dual gpu 18 inchers out there?

 

HeY Guys

I have not been in the forum in awhile but had to come back to see everyones thoughts on this. A very sad time indeed. I just purchased my AW 18 in September and was not happy with it at first. After the vbios mod from SV7 and JohnKiss it runs pretty well now. I am very disappointed DELL/AW have gone this route and discontinued this laptop. This was my dream laptop that i could not wait to get and was happy when i was finally able to purchase one. The choices that Dell have on their site now are ridiculous for an enthusiast like me and everyone on this forum. I am appalled at Dell for making this shortsighted decision to fall in line with the main stream. I am angry/disappointed/pissed/depressed and i will never purchase a laptop with one GPU for myself. I purchased total care for the next four years so if anything happens to my laptop they will have to fix it or give me a refund because i am not taking back these new AW 17 with this BGA. So I am definitely keepin my eye on the MSI GT80 because i can see it in my future as my next laptop.

 

HeY Guys

I have not been in the forum in awhile but had to come back to see everyones thoughts on this. A very sad time indeed. I just purchased my AW 18 in September and was not happy with it at first. After the vbios mod from SV7 and JohnKiss it runs pretty well now. I am very disappointed DELL/AW have gone this route and discontinued this laptop. This was my dream laptop that i could not wait to get and was happy when i was finally able to purchase one. The choices that Dell have on their site now are ridiculous for an enthusiast like me and everyone on this forum. I am appalled at Dell for making this shortsighted decision to fall in line with the main stream. I am angry/disappointed/pissed/depressed and i will never purchase a laptop with one GPU for myself. I purchased total care for the next four years so if anything happens to my laptop they will have to fix it or give me a refund because i am not taking back these new AW 17 with this BGA. So I am definitely keepin my eye on the MSI GT80 because i can see it in my future as my next laptop.


Alienware 18
Overclocked Intel i7-4940MX (3.0 - 4.3 GHz) - Dual 8GB GDDR5 NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 880M - SLI® Enabled, IC Diamond applied on CPU + GPU, RAM: Kingston HyperX 32GB DDR3L 1866 MHz (4 x 8GB)
HARD DRIVE: 2TB SSD RAID 0 - 2 x Samsung 840 EVO 1TB SSD, OPTICAL DRIVE: Dual Layer Blu-ray Reader/Writer(BDRE, DVD+-RW, CD-RW)
DISPLAY: 18.4" WLED FHD (1920 X 1080) TrueLife Display, WIRELESS: Killer

 

GT80 sucks tho uses soldered CPU's. Broadwell chips are coming soon and i have no good 18" laptop to buy is there really no other 18 inch laptops on the horizon for broadwell?

 

Hi DreDre. Welcome back. Don't be deceived by all the hype. The MSI GT80 Titan has a crappy BGA CPU as well. Your 4940MX will tear its head off and crap down its throat. The 4720HQ and 4980HQ CPUs are a crippled joke. The latter is about $300 more because of having a slightly better, although equally worthless, Iris Pro (LOL) integrated graphics.

 

only 18"er with full maxwell GPU support out there is the GT80. You can however grab a P570WM 17"er from Clevo or a P37xSM-A 17"er from Clevo. No need to go "generic". The P570WM are X79 chipset desktop CPUs + SLI, and the P37xSM-A are mobile CPU + SLI.

 

Well I guess the gpu is the biggest bottleneck in gaming almost always so if i'm forced to choose between upgrading to an alienware 18 that i put sli 980m's into or getting a 17" broadwell with a single gpu I'm better off with the 18 and just manually upgrading the gpu's. I'm sure its' haswell cpu won't be a significant drawback until after the life of the laptop. Hopefully dell will come back to their senses.

 

Thanks for the info Mr. Fox. Clevo Barebones are the only other options we have for SLI supported laptops. I refuse to go back to one GPU laptops. I have a Sager NP9380 that I also use for gaming and I do light overclocking on that laptop as well. I will keep an eye on the Clevo and MSI choices in case one of my laptops fails or i get the urge to go ahead and get one of them with dual 980m support.

 

problem with that is i feel dual gpu's rly want to be in an 18 inch system for more room to breathe. Don't like desktop cpu's as occasionally i do have to use it without ac power for non gaming related activities and for the other one i just dont rly trust a 17 inch system to do sli well.

 

Those Clevo 17" are physically just as big if not bigger (in the case of the P570WM) than the Alienware 18".

 

I think this actually points to an issue that goes beyond Dell/Alienware. I have a 3 year old MSI 17 inch laptop that came with a GTX 580m and an i7 2670QM, so I can definitely say that MSI hasn't always been about BGA garbage. All of the new laptops coming out seem to have BGA processors, the only rigs you can get right now that don't have BGA processors are Clevo units that are using the previous generation i7's. We'll have to wait until the next gen notebook line hits to be sure, but I have a bad feeling that Intel have decided to offer BGA units only for laptops now. I really, REALLY hope I'm wrong on this one, but it doesn't look good right now from where I'm sitting.

Also, MSI has stated that they will offer the GT80 Titian with the 4940XM within the next few months, and I'll bet that it's a soldered version which will REALLY make my stomach sour. I sure hope I'm wrong, but I think Intel has dictated the move to the OEM's. If that's the case, it may just be that my M18X R2 is the last performance notebook that I'll buy. Troubling times right now, brothers.

 

Yes, Intel has already made their evil plans known and the future is extremely bleak for laptops. It's just a shame Alienware jumped on the BGA bandwagon ahead of schedule. The socketed Haswell mobile CPUs are still available and they could have done a GPU refresh for the Ranger 17 and Viking 18. Instead, they discontinued them. They were way too eager to start building castrated machines, and the fact that they did it on the GPU also, gimped the vRAM to half the expected capacity and no SLI option really doesn't speak well of them as being a serious player in the high performance laptop realm. And, I'm sorry, an eGPU desk anchor doesn't magically transform a lame laptop into a good one.

If they do release a BGA-crippled version of the 4940MX that will still suck. The silicone lottery hasn't had many winners with Haswell. If you draw a short straw, sifting through them on eBay until you find a winner and selling the gimped ones that don't overclock well won't be an option. I would also expect that MSI won't go along with flipping motherboard out under warranty based on the CPU not turning out to be a good overclocker. The other question will be how far MSI goes with BIOS CPU overclocking options. If they make that CPU available and cripple it, then there won't be much reason to buy one.

 

There is no such thing as a "soldered 4940XM." The 4980HQ is like a soldered 4800MQ with Iris Pro graphics.

 

Not right now that we know of, but MSI has stated that the GT80 will be offered with the 4940MX in the coming months, and I'm curious to see if those units move to BGA as well.

 

Not at this point, but it seems Intel's stupidity is boundless. Nothing would surprise me.

To be kind, let's just say the 4980HQ is unimpressive and leave it at that. It's gimped with locked TDP and won't hold clock speeds under load. Having 4.1GHz at idle and light use, which plummets to 3.2GHz under 100% load is worthless.

 

Then it won't be called 4940MX, because that name alone implies a socketed CPU, which Intel has stopped making on mobile.

 

I think Intel is trying to take advantage of the fact that MOST games right now are not even close to being CPU-bound, especially where i7's are concerned. They're using this opportunity to sneak in an all BGA lineup in laptops, and the sad thing is, it's going to work. Reason being, aside from a small group of enthusiasts like us, the rest of the consumer idiots out there won't ever know the difference. It's a numbers game, brothers. It does them no good to release upgradeable CPU's when they can save a few bucks on cheaper parts and suck the rest of the world into having to buy new units altogether when they feel the need for more power. They sell more CPU's and OEM's are all too happy to play along since it means more sales for them too. Losing a small group of enthusiasts has been deemed acceptable given the possible returns from the rest.

 

Yup, we are collateral damage and disposable. Fortunately, so are they. Just because they build trash doesn't mean we have to buy it. Screw 'em. I'll just keep my old stuff, enjoy embarrassing noobs that bought the new stuff by skinning them alive in benchmarks, and laugh all the way to my bank while they are defrauding the uninformed public and laughing all the way to their banks.

 

On a side note, although AMD's current lineup of GPU's and CPU's are garbage, the need for them to be competitive seems necessary even more now more than ever before. I have to wonder if Intel would be getting away with this crap right now if AMD were actually nipping at their heels. The idea of AMD catching up to Intel and Nvidia seems pretty far fetched, but I'm actually silently cheering for Big-Red right now, it might benefit us all in the long run.

 

Amen to that. I hope AMD puts the smack-down on Intel and NVIDIA. Both of them need to be jack-slapped for releasing so much garbage. You know Intel pulls out all the stops when it comes to maintaining their dominant lead. They are getting away with murder because AMD has been asleep at the wheel for about 8 years in CPU world and several years since they had a mobile GPU that is worth a darn. I always root for the underdog, but I don't place any bets when I see a long losing streak. I have no brand loyalty where components are concerned. I will enjoy kicking Intel and NVIDIA to the curb without batting an eye if AMD actually gives me a valid reason to. If all they accomplish is getting Intel and NVIDIA to try harder to maintain their superiority, even that's a win for everyone also. Even the AMD fanboys deserve better than the dried up boot scrapings AMD has been serving them for several years now.

 

Fox, it's funny that you should say that AMD has been asleep at the wheel for about 8 years now, since that's how long it's been since they bought ATI. The problem with AMD is that I think they tried to over-diversify and grow too quickly. Once they bought ATI, I think it was just far too much for a company their size to handle properly. I think they were on too much of a high being a small company that was making a juggernaut like Intel nervous. They should have gone for a working partnership with ATI and kept their heads down and on their CPU game. I think both lines would have been much better off in the long run, but what can you do? As usual, hindsight is 20/20.

 

Yep, AMD has made a bunch of blunders over the years that has cost them big time. Imagine how much money they would have if they hadn't taken their BitBoys IP and sold it to Qualcomm, who is making a massive killing with Snapdragon and Adreno (an anagram of Radeon), which is in seemingly every Android device on the market.

 

From what i have been reading Intel is changing to this tactic to make consumers buy more PC's. This is definitely a bad turn for us we will not be able to upgrade anything. It will force you to buy a new laptop if you want the latest and fastest processors.

 

Yeah, well. Homey don't play dat. They can drop dead for all I care, but I'm not buying any soldered mobile garbage falsely marketed as "high performance" junk. If I wanted to own that sort of trash I would just buy a game console and join the mindless masses that have zero concept of what high performance actually means. Why spend big bucks on some morphodite disposable turd laptop when I can get the same thing in a console or Alpha for $600 or less? I will just go back to desktops and buy a cheap Chromebook from Walmart for web browsing in my recliner. If they do it to desktops, then I won't buy or build anything... filthy crooks.

 

If everyone had bought the cheapest PC manufacturers had managed to create, and used The computer 5-6 years ? What had Intel, Nvidia, Amd and PC manufacturers earned then? What's the point of upgrading a PC or laptop when you see almost no performance increase ..

 

Why do they think we will swallow this garbage after what was on offer 3 weeks ago, this just appeared on the Alienware AU website - Don't you love those prices

 

6G's for a hamstrung racehorse

 

Man, those prices are absolutely insane. The $6,000 is more (in USD) than a maxed out 18 or M18xR2 ever sold for (in USD) and offers about half the performance. Looks like the equivalent here is $2,649.99 in USD. Is the US to AUS exchange rate really that far apart?

 

how do i share a photo?
In new zealand the pricing is even worse, we only have 3 models for the alienware 17 available, the cheapest one is 2,999 the middle spec (still with 970m) is 3,499 and the top specced with 980m and 4980hq is 7,199

Rough days for the new zealand enthusiasts are coming (or are already here).

http://www.dell.com/nz/p/alienware-17-r2/pd

 

If you want to upload one from your computer, click the picture icon on the tool bar, then choose the basic uploader link in the lower right, browse and select the file, then click the link to upload it. The "advanced" uploader is broken, at least with Chrome and IE on my system. If you want to use a hyperlink to a photo on a web host, click the "From URL" tab and paste the web address in the space provided.

 

Nowhere near that close. At worst, a $2600 machine should cost $2900 AUS. There's also a huge import tax they deal with on pretty much anything, so that bumps prices too. Then there's the fact that EVERYWHERE outside of the USA pays more for technology (except maybe China. Heard you can find a 4930MX for $130 USD there). But that right there? That's just highway robbery. That's worse than Kangaroo Jack stealing that red jacket and running across the outback. That's like stealing somebody's socks without taking off their shoes and then selling it back to them at 3x the price. Like... no.

 

Yup brother Fox! We are always getting ripped off big time in terms of goods and comparative prices to oversea markets. It was pretty much like 5k if you wanted the best Alienware for most years. For example the base model Alienware 13 in the US is $999 - down under it is $1599 In some other extreme cases almost double the price of the US pricing. It sure doesn't help atm that our $dollar is also hitting some low points. Thats why it really isn't feasible for most down under to purchase a brand spanking new Alien every year! So having the option to upgrade certain components like CPU or GPU especially are a welcome feature.

 

As you can see us new zealanders have it tough with either handicapped configurations or wth-mode pricing

 

I got you all beat though.

Spoiler

 

The price we pay for electronic items in AU is absolute BULL.

95% of electronic goods are made in China now, not only are we half the distance from China compared to USA and Europe, we also have free trade agreements with them (And USA and Japan).

So why do consumers in AU pay double?

If you ask the manufacturers they will say it's because we are remote and it costs more to get the goods to AU, it's called the "Australia Tax", which makes no sense if based on distance as we are much closer than US and EU.

These so called free trade agreements seem to be very one way, the free trade agreement between USA and AU has just completely wiped out our car industry, as from next year we will have to import ALL cars as the last three manufacturers are leaving.

I only mention the above as an example, there's backdoors around the inflated prices, the backdoors used to be rare, but they are becoming a lot more common now

Anyway - enough of my rant

 

For my Ozzy brothers, why not just buy one from a US reseller, then transfer the warranty to Oz...?
Thats what I did here in Japan, and I'll do it again when I'm finally back in Oz.
Australian price gouging sucks.

 

Yep. Some Time I Think That My M18 Is No Worth the 53 Hundred Dollars I pay For it. But when I think about the $500.00 I got In a gifts card, I just feel... oh well!