The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
Given that the 80GB mSATA SSD is large enough for an OS install, that's what I orginally did. OS, office, a few small games on the 80GB, everything else on the HDD.
That was before I put in 2x Crucial MX100 SSDs. But still, I'm not sure that using the mSATA drive as a caching drive will give better performance than putting the OS + a few select programs on it would.
I'm currently toying around with an ASUS G751JT, and I must say that even without G-SYNC, the 17" LG IPS panel is beautiful. I prefer it over the 120Hz Samsung in my R1.
Good comparison. But I think I could never give up the 120Hz panel. I'll switch for a ips kind of panel, in 120Hz or 144Hz when comes available to the market. Don't really care about G-Sync.. Only the technical resources to push games to more of 120fps. Right now 60hz gives me headaches.. :S
The new G-SYNC IPS panels are typically 75Hz at stock, and can be OC'd rather easily to 100Hz. I'd think 75-100Hz + G-SYNC should more than adequately compensate for a 120Hz.
Not to mention that actually getting 120+FPS in modern games at high/ultra settings is hard, even for the GTX 980M.
I'm also particularly sensitive to/annoyed by poor viewing angles. The games I play tend to have darker colour palettes, and the bad TN viewing angles (even on the nice 120Hz panel) means I either can't make out intricate darker images at the top of the screen, or the bottom of the screen is partially washed-out and lighter-coloured than intended.
Yeah, no new BIOS for any LGA machines but the Alienware 18. It's just how it is since Alienware is prioritizing on the 18's Maxwell launch.
At least the vBIOS should work. The Clevo and Dell GPUs have the exact same VRAM.
I doubt Windows 7 will work for Maxwell GPUs since Alienware doesn't list Windows 7 Pro as an OS option. I could be wrong, but I'll ask.
Not sure about legacy boot, though. Will ask.
Actually, I think it was deliberate, a publicity stunt. These things get reviewed a dozen times before being submitted, and no one goes and changes that much, while being that accurately possible.
The original UFO photo like this was a button, that was thrown , by a camera man who was filing out of a helicopter in the air. The angle and light made the button look like a disk with light coming from both ends. Myth solved.
According to Engadget Dell/Alienware they used Pax Prime to announce the return of the Alienware 18 and that the other laptop models such as USB-C, thunderbolt etc and the X-51 is getting the graphics amplifier treatment.
So maybe the website let the cat out the bag a little early hence the lack of correct information?
Likely not, dude. They're focussed on the Alienware 18. Although I'm sure there will be community folk who will mess around with the new vBIOS to see if it can somehow help with the older models.
Well, yeah we know the bios is crippled...but, still, we shouldn't have to use modified drivers now. There should be a system update(bios) and a specific vbios for the 900M series, and of course, DELL should provide drivers !
so it's looking more and more that the 18 isn't really back, just a limited time release. Is that really the case? If it is I take back the credit I gave Dell just a few days ago for listening to what we want. Basically thus means that those of us who can't afford to buy it now because we bought a broken machine from them 8 months ago are still SOL. Just can't win with these guys anymore. I give up.
Or maybe they'll start it off as a limited run, to see what the demand is like. If they sell enough, maybe they'll just keep it.
You can't honestly expect a for-profit company to sell products that aren't profitable (and given the warranty/support attached to each AW machine, I'm assuming they need to sell a certain quantity for it to be worth the investment).
That shouldn't be true. Last Wednesday was the official announce date for the 18. Probably just re-announcing to get some buzz.
However, guys, let's not deter the thread to becoming something else. This thread is mainly about the Alienware 18. If you want to talk about another of Alienware's products, please discuss it elsewhere. Last thing a thread needs is to go off-topic.
Yes...so long as they make a profit off of it, enough to justify the capital investment.
Remember, companies will allocate their capital as efficiently as possible. Even if the AW18 is profitable, Dell might decide that it would get a greater return on invested capital by shifting that money towards some other product.
So after 7 long months of having Dellienware try to repair my old M18, I've finally been approved for a replacement system and sent specs on what they're offering. Been out of the loop for a few years on mobile tech though.
I've currently got a 4900MQ and 780m SLI - the offered system has a 4710MQ & 970m SLI. I could be completely wrong, but it looks like I'm going to have better GPU performance and worse CPU performance, so is the CPU something I should consider pushing back on? Thanks in advance for any and all help or advice, and if the thread is the wrong place feel free to PM me.
"I've currently got a 4900MQ and
780m SLI - the offered system has a 4710MQ &
970m SLI"
Possible I or you have misunderstood. But a replacement of the most powerful graphics card (gtx780m was the most powerful Kepler before gtx880m came) should be replaced by an equivalent. Then this graphics card is gtx980m which is the most powerful in Maxwell series.
It doesn't work like that, otherwise my old desktop with 680s would get replaced with TITAN Xs. A replacement MEETS or EXCEEDS when comparing performance. Value, or whether it's the best of the best is completely irrelevant.
By Dell policy, of which we have now many years of examples, they have to match or exceed previous specification.
In which case, there needs to be a better CPU, but the 970M SLi more than delivers since it is faster, and exceeds the vRAM level of the 780M SLi. I see no reason why
@Praetorian77 could not ask for the CPU specification to be rectified to match that of his previous system specification. This shouldn't even be a point of argument, to be honest.
Thanks for the input all - that matches with what I was thinking. The GPUs are a net upgrade regardless of if they're 970's or 980's but I wasn't sure if the newer model CPU was somehow "better" in a not-obvious way despite on paper being lower specc'd.
As an additional note, I don't actually game much with the system, but rather use it primarily as a work machine for temp/previs VFX work on-set. So the CPU is actually a big deal and I'll definitely push back on it and see what happens.
What would a replacement been on my system? Have AW17R1 with i7-4930mx and 32gb ram. What would Dell offered me??? A Aw17R2 with a weaker processor and much less ram. Aw17R2 comes with a much worse processor and less RAM than my system. Aw17R2 have no more than maximum 16gb ram which is unacceptable when
I specifically ordered my AW17 with 32gb...
Regardless. He was offered something that is not equal or better. A i7-4710mq is a significant degradation of i7-4900mq. Nearly no Oc on that weak processor. This is in any case not acceptable.
Wow, for 7 months of repairs, they should really err on the side of compensation when it comes to any gray areas in components (of which the processor is not). I had the same configuration and after about a month of them trying to hunt down some 780m's to replace mine with, they apologized for all the inconvenience and said they'd just send 880m's as an upgrade to compensate and so my system could be repaired. In all honesty, I don't think they ever had 780m's (they would just continually update the backorder date every day) and so this was more of their only option to repair my system than an upgrade/compensation. Not to mention, I haven't found a use of 8GB of VRAM and performance is nearly identical to my 780m's.
However, they seem to have damaged my motherboard/disc drive in the process of installing the 780m's and after a chain of repairs which included several defective motherboards and a tech who had never seen an Alienware laptop and proceeded to light the daughter board on fire, they escalated the case for a replacement. I'm wondering if since they offered and sent me 8GB cards, they will reverse on that and send me 970m's. If I hadn't gone through so much hell, I would accept the 970m's since they should outperform the 880m's in nearly all cases. However, given that they no longer offer a Blu-ray drive, so I am losing that, and all the fuss they made about making up for their mistakes by offering me more VRAM, it'd be funny if they turned a 180 on that decision. Finally, I also use my machine primarily for 3D modeling/animation and some video editing and I am a bit concerned over the 970m's narrower (192 vs 256 bit) memory bus for those types of work loads. I don't want to try to get anything out of them I'm not entitled too, but I don't want to sacrifice productivity performance for gaming performance.
Hmm. There is the possibility of making an argument for 256-bit cards. I suggest that you make it, clearly outlining your rationale for the use of memory bandwidth, and then see what happens.
On the other count, in my experience, once they usually do replace a previous system component with a higher specification unit (vRAM upgraded 880M), then going forward one can press to have that matched. You can combine your bandwidth concerns with vRAM requirements as well, because I happened to come across your posts on the Steam forum for Arkham Knight. As you may have read plenty of entries by Kaldaien, given optimisation issues with this particular console generation, we could seriously benefit from the additional vRAM down the road.
Yeah, between Warner Brothers and Dell, these past months have been a one-two punch of customer service nightmares. My plan to spend my few weeks between an internship and going back to school finishing Arkham Knight quite literally went up in flames. Honestly, I'm not really concerned over going down to 6GB of VRAM (besides the feeling that Dell pulled a 180 on me). Consoles only have 8GB unified memory, some of which has to be allocated for the system. However, the smaller memory bus is a huge concern as that has been shown to be a bottleneck in games like AK and AC: Unity. My only nice bump in performance from the 880m's was AC:U and it'd suck to take a step backwards with Dell. At least my machine is up and running sans disc drive, so I am not really forced to quickly accept the first offer in order to have a functional machine for school. I can basically talk to as many managers as they'll let me if I need to.
Anyone know average time until you hear from the escalation team? After two days, I heard from technical support that my request had been accepted and they would contact me.....but they have no time window.
Yeah, I just proposed the argument anyway. I'd trade 8GB for 8GB. Things can get worse and I say this on the assumption that memory management on software in a like-for-like scenario between console and PC might yield more problems on the PC front. Not to mention, there might be a few PC ports where added memory might just turn out to be purely advantageous. I know that having the 880M certainly helped me avoid *many* of the odd stuttering pitfalls that folks with much faster cards were facing with Arkham Knight, but that's enough about the odd poor port.
This can vary, but I'd give them about 5 working days since last notice before proceeding with a gentle reminder of your pending case.
Thanks! I was surprised the 880m's didn't do more for Arkham Knight. I can see almost no difference over the 780m's in either raw framerate, stutter frequency (I didn't have much of this to start with) or most surprisingly, texture pop-in.
Now let's see how far replacement units get thrown back in the queue, considering Dell is quoting new units to ship in 19-23 business days....
Yeah, I read your post. It was interesting and at the same time, telling, since the AK is also highly inconsistent and temperamental. My friend's 4GB 680M was a complete mess with that game, and generally, that card performs rock solid. I do think that there's more to the issue with that game than just poor memory management, but that's rather beside the point at this stage.
I think it'll be a time frame that requires patience given the nature of the matter. Good luck.
That was kind of the point with my last post. It's a digression, but it speaks to a precaution that I think is worth taking. I'd rather err on the side of being safe than sorry and always have more than enough vRAM for most gaming functionality that even at its least is a decent bit higher than the console standard.
My M18X R2, for example, even with a single 2GB 680M at stock, very effectively outdoes the console standard on most games. However, it didn't take long for stuff like Wolfenstein -- with its eccentric IdTech5 mega texturing -- to happen and the cards struggled with texture load in a manner that the consoles didn't even at higher texture settings. In every regard, my graphics hardware bested the consoles, but the vRAM just didn't make the cut effectively. I was again reminded of the same issue with Shadow of Mordor and now quite a few other titles, although generally, the 680M still does a great job in every other regard.
In this case, I just take a page from
@Mr. Fox's play book. I wish to do more with more. ; )
Yeah, I don't consider it even a game at this point. It's just an interesting case study. However, with any open world with a lot of texture/resource streaming, bus width will make a difference, broken game or not. And with a lot of productivity applications, bus width can very easily be a limiting factor.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.
Sorry 40 pages to read)
![[Nikos]](images/avatars/[Nikos])
