Desperate for advice on which Alienware is best for me

A bit of background:
I'm a postdoc researcher working on OCT biomedical imaging in the UK and my primary hobby is gaming. I've got a decent PC, but these days I don't like shutting myself away in the spare room so I'm looking for a good laptop for gaming on the couch with my girlfriend in the living room. I've owned an Alienware in the past (m15X pre-Dell) and it was a disaster - the construction quality was so poor that after a month I bought a Macbook Pro and loved it.

My late 2008 MBP isn't really cutting it for work (and certainly not gaming) anymore so I'm looking to upgrade. After weeks of research it seems I keep arriving back at Alienware as we seem to get a slim range of brand choices in the UK. I'd like a little advice on the models though, as I keep going around in circles. Here are some of my main priorities:

1) Solid construction, excellent body quality - no creaking, squeaking, flexing
2) Great cooling - the laptop may often be used actually on my lap, I don't want my manly bits cooked!
2b) Also I don't like when heat bleeds through the keyboard
3) Good sound quality - the speakers on the m15x where hysterically bad, my 2007 Blackberry had better quality audio at louder volumes
4) Must be at least capable of playing most currently available games at max settings with a solid FPS (over 40) - not concerned about maxing shooters, as I have a PS4 for that kind of thing
4b) I plan to play some intensive games like WoW, DayZ and Star Citizen

Anything on top of these would be perks, e.g. upgradeability, portability, high-end performance. I didn't really want to spend a huge amount, so I was looking at around £1500 - this price is flexible if a good enough argument could be made.

I'm pretty sure I at least want:
> Intel i7
> 8 GB RAM (perhaps 16 for work)
> 1 TB HDD + (80+ GB) SSD - Can be a hybrid
> 1080p screen
> Video card with at least 2GB RAM

Any help you guys can offer would be much appreciated! I keep starting off with the Alienware 14 base model and slowly adding bits on till I get to 18, then looping back round!

 

I'd look at an Alienware 17 with the R9 m290x gpu.

 

I'd like to add that I'm only really looking for the newer models, the 14, 17 or 18.

 

I'm with destinationsky. Look at the 17 with the m290x video card. Mine was just delivered and I can't wait to get off work and go home to play with it. Mine came with a 256 Gig SSD boot and a 1 Terabyte drive for data storage as well.

 

Don't go with the AMD card if you have the budget for the 780M. It overclocks excellently as well as the AMD card is just a rebrand of a 7970M.

 

I'm with hackintosh on this one OP. I personally feel that you could get by with a GTX 765m even as you said that you will be playing WoW and Dayz. Word of advice though. If you must play on your lap, you have to invest in a cooling pad as it will give the notebook an even surface to rest on. Putting it on your bare lap is a recipe for disaster

 

The Alienware 17 would probably suit you best. If you want more raw power, go for the AW 18.

Stay away from AMD. The M290x is an unreliable, overclocked 7970M with no driver support. Get the 770M, that's all you'll need to play those games. You may even be able to get by with the 765M. It depends whether or not you need to max everything out, or just play on Auto.

 

My recommendation around your budget would be the base model 17 with the GTX 780M - if you call up you should be able to haggle the web price of 1698 down by around 10% - maybe more depending on the rep you get. If you can afford it might also be worth looking into the full hd screen.

 

I love the fact that you can Bargain to Alienware, I feel like such a cheapskate when I'm doing that but it's oh so satisfying

 

I have to agree with simonmpoulton the 780 is a beast of a card still and OC nice.

 

I think the 17 is best for me. I'm not really one for AMD products so I'd be sticking with nVidia cards. The options on the Alienware site seem limited - perhaps by their stock levels? The 780m is a full £400 more than the 765m - that is a substantial amount of money. Also the base unit doesn't come with the 1080p screen, you need to add £100 for that. This brings the price up to almost £1800, just £200 off the 18 with only 500GB GDD and 8 GB RAM. Tough choices ahead....

 

Look at this thread and try to save a few quid...

http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware/456885-aw-dell-ordering-advice-how-save.html

 

don't get why there is a NEED for rebranding, it just makes upgrades look pointless.

 

If you run them stock they are not much to get excited about. But sometimes rebrands that are heavily criticized, when placed in the right hands, turn out to be a lot more amazing than expected. Stay tuned because I think 880M is going to turn out be more of a beast than most of the "experts" can imagine right now. It probably won't be that great based on testing and reviews from places like Anandtech and Notebookcheck. I expect they'll see it for what it stock and it won't be impressive. Once Johnksss and svl7 are done with the firmware mods that it takes to unleash the power, it might be a different story... one that the "professionals" won't have the privilege of experiencing.