Alienware vs. community-built Laptop

Hey all,

INTRO/BACKGROUND

I am in the market for a new laptop. I have owned 12 or so alienwares over the years, from before dell bought them out.

//begin rant
I had last year's 18 with the 4940mx and dual 980s.... what a trainwreck. The audio was terrible, the reliability wasn't there, I didn't like the screen, the keyboard was lame, and it's hdmi handshaking was especially terrible.
//end rant

It seems to me that Dellienware has the following going for them:
1. Warranty - I always get accidental damage coverage.
2. Works at acceptable levels out of the box, unlike almost any other laptop on the market.

Recently, it seems that both have gone down hill, and the capacity these laptops have to be pushed to their limits seems incredibly limited of late.

As a futuremark overclocking global HoF member, I appreciate lots of headroom in my computers. As an engineer, I NEED power, and with my ADD and OCD, if my computer lags or hangs it drives me nuts and breaks my focus.

Right now I am using an m18x r2 with a titan Z egpu I modded up, and it works pretty good for me, but I need more portability and power. For the sake of this article, let's just say I only want one computer (which has to be a laptop), and it has to be insanely powerful.

THE DILEMMA
To achieve these results (portability and power) within the alienware lineup, I have to look to the aw18, which is a horrifically broken design, imo. Outside of alienware, there are some really ugly laptops like the Sager with devil's canyon, but they lack oomph on the graphical side, as well the flair and beauty of the alienware.

I absolutely will not consider an alienware with a soldered cpu, and it is also out of the question (imo) to get a clevo/sager that is ugly and doesn't truly meet my needs.

I have to imagine I am not the only one here who wants the relative performance that laptops offered to enthusiasts 5 years ago compared to desktops.

And yet, there have been no real steps forward in laptops. The GT80 for example.... was about to buy, but oh wait. It's soldered. Never mind.

SHOULD I KEEP MY M18x r2 AND UPGRADE THE CPU AND GPU, or IS THERE A BETTER OPTION????

I can't figure this one out, honestly.

Been working on a design for kicks and giggles. Let me know what you think.


Concept:
Laptop that features only what it can do well....

1. Desktop processor - unlocked z170, z97, or x99 etc.
2. Desktop GPU - standard PCIE slot
3. Epic overclocking

I have done my research, and I have a cad model, and I am working with Altium to put together a pcb that can go into production.

As far as other design thoughts go, here are some that are not too firmly set, but ought to be considered:

1. Matching external speakers (my current field of work); no internal speakers; they will sound bad, so don't try
2. Aluminum chassis for cooling and sexiness
3. Passive phase-change cooling - critical stage cooling can be much more efficient than copper tubing
4. External modular power supply with port expansions for the computer


WHAT IF THERE WAS A COMPUTER WITH THESE FEATURES????
Would you buy?
Would you jump at the opportunity to preorder a laptop like this?

What if you purchased all the parts seperately and assembled it yourself?

What if it came with matching branded audiophile grade iems, a t-shirt, a mouse pad, hoodie, etc??

What if you could expect to be able to use the next generation of desktop GPUs?
What if you could just buy a new motherboard to upgrade you current laptop to the next architecture?

Would this interest any of you? How many people want the absolute BEST???

 

RESERVED

 

reserved

 

The upcoming Clevo P870DM will be the king unless MSI and Delta make love and pop out a 420W PSU for the MSI Skylake w/ GTX 980 SLI GT80.

 

Zero989, the GT80 980m/970m SLI will still out perform the single "desktop" mobile 980 in the P870DM



There are a few other comparison benchmarks here:

Nvidia announces GeForce GTX 980 for notebooks
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Nvidia-announces-GeForce-GTX-980-for-notebooks.150756.0.html

I do hope the GT80 gets a single large power adapter instead of being forced to use the dual 330w method, that's pretty bulky to carry around.

 

I'm aware of that. The x79 clevo is quite rare so the P870 with 980M SLI will either trail or surpass the GT80 because of the power requirements.

 

Neither meets my needs or desires though.

Power
True Portability (no GA)
Looks great

Others... see above.

Two gpus and a socketed cpu, unlocked multipliers, and total user q

 

1) The idea of a community built laptop is a pretty cool idea, I am not sure how development would work though. I have had thoughts about assembling desktop components to make some kind of Frankenstein monster laptop/all-in-one, but never really got past the the dreaming stage because its a pretty big job (time and money). My idea was basically to hang a motherboard of the back of a monitor and mount the GPU's almost flat against the mobo with pcie raisers, build a shroud around it all and a tray that folded over the screen that held mouse headphones and keyboard...think I'd rather just build a normal desktop instead.

2) But if I understand what you are saying, you are suggesting a laptop motherboard standard similar to ATX, mini ITX etc only for a laptop (LTX?), this would include the locations and inclusion of all your slots and expansion (ie Cpu socket, sata, ram slot, PCIe slot locations all your I/O such as usb etc). This means you could have a laptop chassis to which you bolt any motherboard that meets the standard, that would be cool!

3) To my reservations. My standard for a laptop is the M18x R2 step to far back from that in any area and I would think twice. Raw computing performance is going to be better with proposed desktop components but it is everything thing else around it; the complete package/solution that makes it a nice machine. For example lets say you get two 980ti's and a 6 core desktop cpu all overclocked (+850W) but then the palm rest heats up to 45-50C or more... what about things like a keyboard, sound card, webcam, battery, mouse pad, speakers etc these are all integrated into the laptop and its motherboard and its part of what make a laptop convenient. I pretty much always use a mouse, external dac/headphones/external speakers and power from the wall (95% of the time) but the system would lose value if I was required to always have that gear with me.
Just looking at the size of high end desktop gpus and cpu cooler and I can see the system getting very thick... maybe to thick to use the keyboard comfortably...? There are a lot of aspects to be thought of, possibly needing prototypes to flesh issues out. who will invest in prototypes? How many people would be interested in uncompromising performance but a compromised laptop, current 18 inch laptops already cut it fine for a lot of people.

4) What do you mean by passive phase change cooling/critical stage cooling. I thought the copper heat pipes already worked on a phase change principal, may be not as effective as the phase change in a say a refrigerator but much simpler.
Desktop cpu/chipset would be good, what about quad channel ram? or/and M.2 slot(s)?
Anodized aluminum chassis is a would be high on the list, it looks and feel so good!

5) To answer your questions... I would be interested in buying/pre-ordering but I would not jump at the chance mainly because I'm a student with very limited funds (just getting two 980m was a big stretch!) and I have some reservations which I'll touch on later.
Purchasing and assembling separate components would be ideal, it means there is a working standard, options and true upgradability like a desktop. New motherboards for the latest architecture and latest desktop GPU support would be the main reasons for this type of offering. Upgrading my current laptops motherboard would be sweet but possibly also a fantasy...?
Branded accessories for the computer speakers etc would be nice, although not essential and obviously has to be good gear not just a brand. Stuff like t-shirts etc I have no interest in, I'd rather focus on having a some what under-stated bad-ass pc and flaunt performance not bling/branding... but that's just me

6) I don't mean to be negative but rather realistic, I think it is just a huge job to produce something that meets and exceeds the quality and functionality of the M18x R2. I'm not sure if my background (mechanical engineering, and electronics limited to basic hardware) is making the job seem bigger then what it would be to people specializing in electronics... either way it'll be no small feat. I also don't know the extent of your research and what is really possible so take my comments with a grain of salt.


7) Your M18x R2 sounds very interesting, would like to see what you have done with the egpu.
You asked if you should upgrade the M18x R2. What cpu are you running? if you don't have a 3920/3940xm and a triple pipe heatsink that would be worth looking into. As far as the GPU goes, your pretty close to the top of the hill as far as a single card goes, a Titan x/980ti might be better in some situations but maybe not all, you probably know all this anyway. Otherwise if you don't like the look of Clevos and all of the soldered options are a no go then it looks like your stuck with the R2.

8) The only issue I have with soldered cpu's is the fact you are tying two expensive components together, if one fails you got to bin both. As far as upgradability goes what different does it make other then forking out at the start for an unlocked cpu? your not going to be able to upgrade much more then that any way... maybe I'm not a full bottle on what BGA cpus entale?

Thats my 2c anyway. Hopefully that gives you some kind of feedback. Sorry for the wall of text.

 

I guess it depends on what you ultimately want to do. I can tell you now, that such a beast would get very low battery life, as you are talking 200+ watts just for the GPU and CPU alone (not taking into account "extreme" CPUs or GPUs that could push that number up to over 400watts). Plus, the concept of external speakers (while agreed they would sound much better) breaks portability. At that point, wouldn't you be better off with a desktop?

 

My m18x only gets 3 hours on power saver... gaming lasts for 45 min tops.

On the sound note... your post encouraged me to rethink my stance on laptop speakers. I really do hate everything I have ever heard, the m18x r2 least, however. Still fleshing out the specifics in leapV... but I'll post my modeled response when I am done. Thanks for the reality check.

Since my original post, I have made a good deal of progress, primarily in the motherboard department. As a well connected engineer, I have secured a modified oem motherboard design (and a prototype) that is considered the ultimate in low-profile overclocking. It was originally made by the oem for what looks to be an all-in-one or a high-performance HTPC. With minimal modifications, it will form the backbone of a mobile laptop potentially even thinner than the m18x.

This solves the significant issue of BIOS writing.... when it comes from an OEM as a virtually identical version of a current market desktop motherboard, there will be at least an acceptable level of support.

 

Also, I forgot to add, I bought a bunch of lowprofile cherry ML switches for keyboard experimentation. Might still be too thick. We'll see.

Oh, and battery life. What If you could get 10 hours on the go in balanced mode? That means no gaming, but hey, 10 hours.

I can do that. Questions invited.

 

Hey Bob,
I'm quite interested in the idea you have proposed, you may want to go with a GTX1080 or a GTX 1070, as they draw the same or less power than the Titan X and probably have a higher performance, there should be plenty of reviews where you can check this out. I also would like to ask whether it would be possible for you to release the LGA 2011-v3 footprints, schematic diagrams for the socket for Altium on Github or SourceForge online perhaps as an open source foot print library (That would be a great help for the community to get hands on with projects, or use it as a reference for making schematic symbols and footprints for other pieces of cad software), I want to design my own laptop for performance and work purposes, however I have not been able to get the footprints anywhere and it is a massive job to build them.

As for battery life it would not be odd to boast an 8-10h battery life given that the GPU/'s are powered down, you would need a sizeable battery though, not sure what size, depends on how massive you want your laptop to be. Also ram modules could be a problem, I know that you could most probably use DDR4 sodimm sockets or perhaps actually dime sockets that are not vertically mounted, I have only found 20 degree angled DDR4 dimm sockets by Molex for server applications.

I would love to hear back from you on your thoughts of what I have mentioned.

 

SLI is definitely the worse option nowadays. Many new gmes dont support it or dont support it properly. In that case you are stuck with the performance of a single 980M which isnt that spectacular anymore.

 

dupe, please delete

 

If believing those things makes you happy, please do continue believing them. Your beliefs won't stop me from enjoying gaming on SLI.

We can both be happy

You responded to a post I made in September 2015, and since that time I enjoyed gaming on my GT80 SLI 980m, and found no problems with any of my games. None.

If I had believed as you believe I would have missed out on the best gaming laptop I have ever owned.

I think I will give an SLI 1080 laptop a try when they come out, and I am pretty sure all my games will work as well or better on that laptop as they did on my GT80 980m SLI laptop.

But, you go on believing all those negative things about SLI, and being happy about all that

 

I have 2x 970GTX in my desktop. It didnt work well. There are a ton of modern games than dont run well with SLI. All DX12 games, Doom doesnt support it well, The Division didnt do well with SLI, Rise of the tomb raider has some issues with it.

Thank to engines that have to run on consoles as well and for optimization have various hacks in place to run as efficient as possible by linking for example graphics with the physics for example.

 

I already responded, but here's another person that made SLI work well for them:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...00m-series-gpus.763032/page-388#post-10275233

 

I had a system with 2 x 970's (ASUS STRIX) , i even had both of them OC'd by +220/+1000 @ +25mv, both ran like a charm and chomped happily at any game i threw at them. Other than the latest Batman, that game had the ****tiest optimizations possible.
Heck i was running witcher 3 on Ultra @ 1440p. FPS never went under 70's.

 

Those are quite old games already. Its quite the general consensus that sli is troublesome with new games. Especially at launch. Doom, division, rise of the tomb raider are good examples.

 

I haven't tried Doom and Division on SLI but ROTTR worked great as well.

 

It did after patches not at launch and not in DX12 mode.

 

That has been my findings. Many times I will have already completed a game before there is any SLI support. Set this bit for this game, set another but for another game.

I actually love SLI for benchmarking which is where it shines, however some people think that just because something benchmarks 50% higher means it will run games 50% better which is simply not true! For gaming I get tired of having to fiddle with it all the time or constantly check if it is even working. Or drivers messing with SLI support. Disabling it on one game, then enabling it on another etc. Heck I just want to play my games.

Give me the most powerful GPU and I'll be happy, two would be a bonus just for when benchmarking but they don't make SLI 980 (200W) anyway to the point is moot.