RIP - Alienware 18

Win8 boots fast. And it got some nice shortcuts.

Thats about it

 

Does Windows 8 have the same problems with CPU/GPU throttling like 8.1?
I have had massive problems with 8.1 not being able to play games, some of which are only 6-12 months old.
Win 8 plays them fine, but not 8.1.

I did notice a slight drop in benchmark/testing scores when I first started using Win 8, maybe about 10-15%

Boot time on Win 8 is fantastic, but is that the only gain.

Is Win 7 a better platform for gaming???

 

LMAO@Mr Fox - Microshaft!!!! Your crackin' me up

 

Yeah... Windows 7 is basically better at everything except Fire Strike benchmarks. Fast booting is better than slow booting, but in the grand scheme of things it is irrelevant. What truly matters happens after the desktop has loaded.

 

Well with 10 we will have dx12 so i see most people going that direction.

 

They have no choice !!

 

My understanding is that windows 8 doesnt actually give a faster boot up at all,just brings the desktop up quicker but not fully functional in terms of background processes etc.

 

I had Windows 7 and Windows 8 on the same drive and same laptop because I was using Win7 first then upgraded to Win8 for 20$. Don't know how, but Windows 8 boots about 50% faster after complete shutdown (no suspend, no hibernation, no hybrid hibernation).
I don't look into details, it just boots up faster. Windows 8 is very ugly of course so first thing I did after booting was to install uxStyle and custom theme plus windows 7 like progressbars. Honestly I don't miss Windows 7 because I have here everything I need including working Visual Studios, Unity, phpDesigner, apache, mysql etc etc.

 

What would be a great 18 inch laptop for gaming be now?? Or do I have to resort to getting a 17 inch laptop for gaming.

 

Only option is Msi gt80 (18 ") now. But this laptop is garbage in my opinion. Choose the largest and most powerful 17" from Clevo / Evercom. You will not regret..

 

That would be a pain I am loving my 18r2, so I was wanting another 18.


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I like how the tag line is: "Conquer without compromise"

When they are moving to fixed CPUs, non SLI, and smaller screens....

 

Makes for good irony.

 

How about a laptop from Xidax
http://www.xidax.com/products/laptops/XM-11
This is what I went with, since I cannot get an Alienware like I would have wanted.
System Configuration
Case Xidax XM-11 Chassis
Processor Intel Core i7-4930MX Processor
Memory 16GB - Signature Series 1600MHz DDR3
Optical Drive 6X Blu-ray Reader/8X DVD-R/2.4X +DL Super-Multi Drive
Keyboard Color Programmable Illuminated Keyboard
Wireless Card Intel Dual Band 2.4 & 5.4GHz Wireless AC 7260
Warranty 3-Year Laptop Parts & Labor Warranty + Free Shipping + Priority Service
Screen 17.3" Full HD LED-Backlit Display
Battery Smart Li-ION Battery Pack
Graphics Card 2x NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980M 8GB GDDR5 Graphics SLI
HDD/SSD Western Digital Black 750GB
m.2 SSD 240GB mSATA Solid State
CPU Paste Premium CPU Thermal Paste - Lower Temps 5-10° C
OS Windows 8.1 64-bit

 

Oh the hyperbole.

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I still can't believe Dell so meekly handed over the number 1 position in gaming laptops to their competitors.

Trying to figure out weather it was a decision based on the prospect of bigger worldwide sales for a cheaper product (not that it's that much cheaper) or if parts availability really did have something to do with it.

I find it hard to believe a global company as large as Dell could not force Intel to continue producing socketed CPU's given their purchase volume.

Same with the shortage of 18 inch panels.

I'm sure there would be some company (prob in China) that would product panels to exact standards if they were given a guarantee of purchase volume.....

 

Likely a decision that was made by monkey's in a boardroom who could barely lift.

The whole "Can't get LCD screens for 18 inch laptops" is pretty much a lie if that is what Dell is telling the public. I have experience dealing with Chinese OEMs, one company that I have dealt with is Shenzhen Mildtrans Industrial co., Ltd., that company still makes 18.4 inch laptop displays. With such an offering readily available, I personally believe that it's a matter of Dell's commitment to the supplier rather than Dell's reliance on the board exec who probably knows jack squat about the business that he's in.

What I find funny is Dell's move to BGA equipment altogether, replacing an entire board with soldered on CPU (and GPU) is a lot more costly and time consuming than just dropping one into a socket, even at a high volume, not to mention the sheer volume of motherboards ending up in a landfill while Dell goes on to Twitter saying "we are doing good for the environment by reducing and/or eliminating materials for disposal".

I think the Alienware brand is going down the toilet, the line between a run of the mill Dell and a specialized Alienware is becoming blurred to the point where I will probably refrain from buying another AW and probably go to a more customer focused brand like Falcon NW or Digital Storm.

Dell or AW, if you're reading this, I'm not sorry this seems scathing, the truth of the matter often is.

 

Apparently reducing the CPU's height by 3mm and not paying $.05 for a socket is worth more to Dell and everyone else than the increased supply chain and repair costs and difficulties. At least that way they can troll their consumers into having to buy completely new systems or outrageously priced motherboards if they want to upgrade.

If Apple can get 15.4" and 13.3" 16:10 displays made just for them, I don't see why Dell can't get 18.4" displays made for themselves. It has nothing to do with supplier loyalty for two reasons. The first is what supplier would tell Dell they can no longer have the screens they have been buying for years? The second is that Dell has no supplier loyalty. I don't know about screens, but they source the same components from different manufacturers for as much as they possibly can. They used to tout this as one of their corporate strategies, but I don't know if they do it any longer. I used to sell lots of refurbished and open box Dell laptops that I bought at discount from their online store, and aside from the motherboard, cpu, and gpu, you didn't know where any part was going to come from. Maybe they had only one supplier for the screws though, as with those I never could tell.

 

The contradictory reports and conflicting information make me wonder whats really going on.
Frank Azor (Alienware GM) was available for questions on the 29th Jan this year on the Alienware Arena Forum, unfortunately because of the time difference I did not get to quiz him, but our illustrious Mr Fox got to ask a few question (for all the good it did, Frank A only answer 20% of them)

Here are the questions Mr Fox put to Frank A and his rather weak response:





Valid excuses at face value.

Dig a little deeper and things start to fall apart..........

 

I hope you don't mind me quoting you Mr Fox.......

 

Haha, I highly doubt Mr. Fox is going to object, he's been a big supporter of the Alienware 18 and pretty much the one person whose posts have helped me decide on getting the Alienware 18 while it was still available. As far as I'm concerned Dell/Alienware have a lot to gain if they listen to him.

 

Well I myself just received my alienware 18 after 1 1/2 months after purchase and I do love it.
i7 2.8 up to 4.0 ghz
dual radeon r9 290x
1 tb ssd 5400 rpm
16gb ram
My problem now lies with the fact that have until the 4 of march to return it because they took so long, and delayed me four times. but after looking at the new 17's with the 980m not sure if I should trade down and save about 700$ for that 17 or keep mine with the dual radeons. I would really prefer the one with the more future upside.

 

Well you had better stick with your 18 then.

Try doing any "upgrades" on the new 17, 15 or 13 and your in for a nasty surprise, you can't, everything is soldered to the motherboard.

The newby's only have 2 DIMM slots, limited hard drive capacity, non upgradeable CPU and GPU.

You wont save anything, you'll have to spend the $700 you saved on a AGA (Toaster) to get anywhere near the power you have with dual GPU's

 

Really appreciate your feedback, I was unaware that the new ones hardware couldn't be modified but that does make a big difference( im
guessing they did that to sell more amplifiers). But my only concern would be are future games going to support crossfire of sli. as I play mostly
strategy games COH 2 and total war not sure if you have any info on that but figured I would ask

 

Of course if the next generation GPUs work in the 17 then it will outperform the current line up again (though from a CPU standpoint it already can).

 

Apologies to all if this product had been discussed already but was thinking about the amplifier solution to upgrading performance on the 18 and thought about other options for this. Has something like this been looked at or discussed yet?

http://www.banggood.com/EXP-GDC-Laptop-External-PCI-E-Graphics-Card-p-934367.html

It's cheap so if it does not work well then you'd only be out approx $50.00.

 

Looks like an untidy version of Alienware's toaster.
I would contact the seller before purchase though, there's a couple of thing in the advert the raised a concern.
1. They state that they don't sell a Dell adapter anymore. (I wonder if Dell bought them all and turned them into alienware toasters, lol)
2. There is only connections for a 220W PSU, I don't know enough about desktop GPU, but an O/C Titan might struggle to get enough power.

If it work on alienware and 220W is enough then it's definitely worth a shot.

Given Dells past record for leaving previous model owners stranded this might work better than the alienware version on a 18 or old 17, Dell will probably write something into the firmware or BIOS of the new toaster to stop any old models using it.

You know the old catch-cry. "We did not validate the ???? for that model"

 

Yeah I remember that quote. Just getting to work but I thought there was a video of a guy using one on an older laptop and he brought up the low wattage issue and possible ways to fix that. I do need to read up on it some more. Thanks for the reply!

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I ordered one... amazon has it for a few bucks more... with shipping it was less and faster... I Will tell you how it works when I get it in a couple days... I got the card version.

 

The problem is the low available bandwidth even on 2.0 4x connections and the fact that alienware systems are SATA based M.2 anyway.

 

Sound advice, I bought an AW18 with dual 880m, my graphics drivers are still at the factory original 332.70 (a precaution I have maintained since I saw the Nvidia GeForce forum threads on how the updates were messing with the video cards) and I'm doing just fine with mine, albeit we had the hiccup with the Support Assist upgrade mess, but back to nice, smooth, sailing with mine.

 

I guess I picked a good time last September to get my AW 18 with dual 880m, and 32GB of RAM. I got the second best processor available at the time and I'm kinda kicking myself for not going all out on it ...

 

The great thing is that you can upgrade it whenever you want

 

Which is the good thing of having socketed processors.. Damm Intel eco wankers..

 

Glad I bought my AW 18 when I could. But what happens if I need the system replaced under warranty?

 

Well after sticking wit this one and downloading Atilla Total War went to customize the graphics and much to my surprise I was informed that u had dual Radeon HD8970m instead of the dual radeon m290x that I had paid for. Im not sure if this is a common thing but to me paying over $3,000 for a computer and I cant even get the right damn GPU'S when the identity tag on the bottom say Dual Radeon m290x is unacceptable.

 

You mad 8970M and M290X are the exact same GPU called by different names? Not sure if serious...

 

Intel Eco wankers - How can the new rubbish tech ever be considered enviromentally friendly when the whole dam motherboard has to be replaced for any issues with GPU, CPU ect....

Dell still have Alienware 18's available for sale, not sure if they are going to continue sales or if it's just left over stock, but they will always keep replacement parts for warranty services, so you have no issue. Replacement units are usually only given in the first 1-3 months so its a bit irrelevant.

If you have installed drivers from the AMD website at any time then your GPU's will show in device manager and CCC as 8970's - Don't stress, it's just a number/designation, the cards are exactly the same, if they weren't only the Dell AMD drivers would work.
If it really annoys you do a full un-installation of all AMD software, run driversweeper to pickup any leftovers, reboot and install the OLD dell drivers.
It's a pick between updated drivers showing your GPU as 8970, or old drivers showing your GPU as R9 M290x.
Personally I would take the updates any day, especially with AMD tech

 

Until and unless there's been some radical shift in Dell's warranty policy, I can't say that is entirely accurate. I have seen far too many accounts of units being replaced years down the road, two experiences of my own, to discount the importance of this factor. In fact, it is one of my current concerns given the fact that I have three Alienware units that are under warranty. The whole part and system replacement matter does become an issue for them (Dell), especially when they start to run short on reliable parts for repair jobs, a point where they have to consider appropriate and suitable system replacement options. Although I wouldn't be surprised if this has indeed changed with actual revision of policy.

 

It's not wrong. Radeon R9 M290X IS Radeon 8970M and IS Radeon 7970M with more memory. It's a rebranded card. same as GTX 880M IS GTX 780M with more memory. Sorry if you feel cheated because you should feel cheated. Radeon R9 M290X is GPU from 2012 year with just more memory. No other differencies. Enjoy AMD rebrand.

 

Mostly true. Performance among those AMD rebrands is about the same as well as the fact that they are essentially the same product. Hopefully, the newer revisions (8970M and R9 M290X) will be more reliable than 7970M has been. Behavior can be very different with rebrands. A small change at an engineering level can greatly affect performance and reliability for better or for worse. We haven't seen a rash of dead 8970M or R9 M290X thus far, and I hope that holds true over time.

As an example of rebranding that can produce unexpected results, an 880M is much like a rebranded 780M with twice the memory. However, their behaviors are far from the same. The 780M has none of the thermal issues that 880M suffers from. It handles overclocking with grace, whereas the 880M does not. I have not seen any examples of overclocked 880M GPUs that even remotely come close to what 780M is capable of delivering. With both running a stock vBIOS and no overclocking, the 880M generally provides a slightly better performance with the advantage of more vRAM. With a modded vBIOS and when pushed with overclocking, the 780M essentially obliterates the 880M in overclocked benchmarks.

 

okay thank you for clearing that up makes a lot more sense. just freaked out a bit when I looked it up on gpu boss and got two different benchmarks. I would really wanna keep this 18 if I can find GPU's to replace it the ones I have right now in the future but I cant even find any m290x cards that are years old. I just feel I could get more bang for my buck if I go with the 17 with 980m and 4710hq with 125gb ssd 1tb. Sorry for my ignorance in advance.

 

How much longevity will I get out of my Alienware 18 at this point? I have the dual 880M's, how many successive updates of GPU's will I be able to upgrade to?

 

Nobody can answer that with anything but a wild guess. It depends on whether or not what happened with Maxwell to create problems will continue with the next generation of mobile GPUs. If it's a fluke engineering mistake, the successor to 980M may be perfectly compatible with older Alienware systems. That compatibility issue really took us by surprise, since it has not been a problem before. Historically, Alienware laptops have enjoyed many generations of GPU upgrades. Hopefully, that legacy won't die from this point forward. If it was an intentional and malicious act, then the party is probably over and your Alienware 18 (along with its predecessors) may already be at the termination point of a dead-end street. Since we cannot get any straight answers about anything any more, just a bunch of lies and excuses, we will have to wait and see what transpires.

 

So the Alienware 18 from last year isn't compatible with the 980m's?

 

@jedfactor - I guess that depends on what you call compatible. It doesn't work correctly and it is definitely not very graceful. If you set the BIOS to pure UEFI and run Windows 8 you can limp it along and get by, but it performs poorly compared to other systems with 980M, suffers from throttling issues and you cannot flash the vBIOS unless you put the GPUs into another machine. Resetting the BIOS to defaults requires pulling the GPUs and manually changing everything back to pure UEFI or the machine will fail to POST with 8 beeps. So, while 980M can be used in the 18, it is such a horrible pain in the butt to deal with it's simply not worth the amount of hassle it requires. You will absolutely have to use HWiNFO64 for manual fan controls because 980M does something weird with the BIOS/EC to disable the secondary GPU fan. It won't run and your secondary GPU will cook itself using the EC's native fan tables. Also, considering that 780M SLI outperforms a single 980M, comparing it to any single GPU systems with 980M the Alienware 18 with 780M SLI is still a better and more potent system. The same list of issues applies to 970M. @Cloudfire ended up selling his Alienware 18 with 970M SLI because it was such a cantankerous pain in the hind end that he couldn't put up with it any more.

 

oh dear, I have the 880M's in mine, do you know how much more powerful the 980M's are? It's a shame as I think the graphics amplifier would be a cool bonus if you could still upgrade the new laptops, seeing as you can't it is more of a bad consolation prize. I guess I couldn't use the graphics amplifier with my laptop in any case.

I barely take my laptop off my desk, but it is cool when I can pop round to my friends and show them all the latest games in max settings. The graphics amplifier would be useful for me as I wouldn't have to get a desktop as well as my laptop. Don't understand what Alienware is thinking. hopefully they will realize their mistake and bring the 18 back.

 

Actually, 780M SLI outperforms 880M SLI in almost everything, and it overclocks much better and runs cooler. The GTX 980M is a decent jump over both, but the complications trying to use 980M in an Alienware are not worth it. That's why I bought the Clevo (Eurocom Panther) in my signature. I bought 980M SLI as an upgrade for my M18xR2 and ended up buying the Panther so I could have a reliable platform for those sweet GPUs.

Now, just today, I see Malibal is also selling this awesome monster laptop. I still love all four of my Alienware beasts and plan to keep them indefinitely, but if I could only keep one system out of the five beasts in my menagerie, it would be the Panther. Malibal calls it the "Nine X570SE" and I think that is a really cool sounding name, too. http://www.malibal.com/notebooks/nine-x570se/builds/ (thanks for the link, @Ashtrix)

 

Not able to get a decent framerate on Far Cry 4 with ultra settings and soft shadows and god rays enabled. Seems like it would need the 980'ms to have everything maxed out.

 

Just came across this thread https://forums.geforce.com/default/...here-new-drivers-look-for-a-nvidia-response-/

So there are major issues with the 880M? should I contact Dell and return my laptop in this case?