How far Alienware has gone backwards

GTX 1080 pricing is a joke thats not funny for us consumers. I am just gonna accept I overpaided and I am paying the early adopter fee for pascal.

Honestly, the card isnt even that good imo.

6950x is priced like a 1s xeon.

 

I could be wrong but doesn't the Area 51 R2 also come with the flex-bridge too for SLI setups? At least it seems so from recent orders. If anyone knows otherwise, please share.

Also, I really doubt lobbying is going to do much regarding the price they charge for the 1070 FE. I doubt that they would offer it at $450 anytime soon since that's the cost for the FE. Worth a try though.

 

I cant really comment on the 1080/1070 pricing. Because here in Europe due to shortage the 1070 costs already 515~550 euro while it should be starting from 379. Nvidia is realyl ****ting over its customers with this generation. The 970/980 at launch where 350 and 525 the 980TI was 700. Now the 1080 is already near the 700 range. If the TI version will be released it will be probably launched at TItan price levels.

 

Agreed. Pricing and stock has been so off for these cards. I hope things stabilize soon. If not, upgrades to these cards may command really high prices like you mentioned. :-/

 

You mean end of July?

 

You know why, right? Because there are so many silly people willing throw away their money, or mommy and daddy's money, or even borrow money (never mind it probably won't be paid off before the item is obsolete) for something that may not be any better, or only only marginally better, than what they have because all of the the advertisement hype says that it is something they really need to have to play games and be happy, and they also need to have it to be cool with their Facebook homies. These people are their customers and they know how to play them.

 

Cripple maxwell next and make people buy pascal :3

GTX 580 full fermi= 500
GTX 580 full dual fermi = 700

GTX 1080 small pascal = 550-700
GTX big pascal = 1000?

 

I just came to know that my friend's AW17 R3 It doesn't have GPU switching capabilities like the old machines, 100% retarded, ahem tilted & crippled with Optimus, HELLienware.

 

Optimus = Zero G-Sync... Nor G-sync functionality if you want to use your external screen!! Need a G / A + external graphics card and a external monitor if you want G-Sync!!

 

So glad I got off the sinking Alienship when I did. Their captain abandoned ship once the AW18 launched anyway.

Can't believe the contempt they have for their customers with their new products, desktops included. Eww.

 

Hah! I 'member that. Lemme tell the story again, puh-leez? A reprint of my Aug 25 2015 entry in the Aw18 Maxwell thread

"Jeepers Kreepers, are the Aliens about to announce dere's no freaking bears in the pool??? I'll admit, when I 1st heard the name, I thought MSI GT80 came w/an actual Titan-m *shrug*. Pondering over 980m-alien-18-dualies, lastnight in me head I christened her: the KMS Titanic No pun or sarcasm intended. I even wished her maiden voyage godspeed. Here we are a hundred years later & the launch of yet another seemingly unsinkable Titanic; will she (or won't she) hit an iceberg on her 1st time out ... what if rudders are too small, & is it possible Mr Ismay's onboard there whispering in ears, might we presume? ... steering the girl in the 'right' direction? What will become of the fabled MotherShip; will she sink or swim in the pool?".

Cap'n supposed to go down with the ship.
Not pull a Mr Ismay & hog a seat in the lifeboat
________________________​

I read all 23pages of an ancient 2012 NBR thread called Is Alienware Overpriced? That was the thread where Calladon got the ban hammer for scuffling with the old (but younger)sneaky Fox. It was enlightening to see & hear so many varied opinions, but that was back when they & their fanship were way up on top. It's more difficult these days for me to push those well-rounded arguments of yesterday into today's sqware what-cha-ma-call-its.

To this day, Area-51 has no Broadwell Cpu support, old customer been done left out in the cold. New customers can buy their way into the life boat however. Jack be nimble Jack be qwick or Jack wind up a frozen fishstick

 

Sadly, you are right. I see many people are "upgrading" from cards that I believe are just as good as the new ones but they still must have the latest and greatest. My concern was more placed for those who are now building their rigs and are awaiting stock to complete their builds.

 

Regarding the bridge in the photos, I see that they have included the designer bridges. However, my suspicion has been confirmed. See the below post from the thread Aurora R5 SLI bridge question



Posted by DELL-Chris M
on 20 Jun 2016 23:45

As of tonight, the only bridges available for both systems are flexible.
5N9GT = Nvidia flexible Dual-SLI bridge
Y87T6 = AMD flexible Dual-CFX bridge




Liaison for Desktops, Alienware, Monitors
Social Media Support
#IWork4Dell
Dell Support Videos
Drivers and Downloads

At least since earlier this year, I do not think that Alienware has been including these designer bridges with their dual SLI configs. It really sucks that they are doing this since they used to include the better bridges on the earlier shipped systems. I wonder if this is a stock issue or purely a financial decision. I must say that I am not sure what they do for the triple SLI configs. Maybe they include the better bridges for those.

 

If they can increase profits by a half dollar per system sold by using a less expensive part, that is precisely what one should expect will happen.

 

I mean sure I get it but...you are charging a premium for something that supposed to be...premium. Not only that, but they have been selling them with the better bridge for a long time now. To my knowledge, the price that they have been selling this computer has remained fairly steady since its release(?) so to cheapen out now after prices have dropped for the items they package together does seem absurd.

I am new to AW but I'm already getting a bad taste in my mouth by their practices.

 

Because a lot of users including myself DO prefer optimus. If you use your laptop as a laptop you just need it. I can use my laptop for around 7 away from a wallsocket when I just use my laptop for browsing, streaming and photoshop. There is simply no laptop that can do that without optimus. Yeah I dont have gsync but laptop gsync options are gimped anyway. The range of supported framerates is quit elow compared to the desktop modules. The same drawbacks as Freesync which is basically the same thing. Only the Nvidia gsync hardware module used in desktops is really good.

Oldschool switching is not supported anymore by the drivers of Nvidia so you have to make a hard decision. You cant have both.

 

Enjoy it, but it's not oldschool and the optimus is gimped believe it or not.

 

Optimus is one big misunderstanding. Not only it adds latency because no one wants to embed additional chip on MoBo. It just sucks in so many games. Just write in google "Game uses my iGPU instead of external GPU Optimus". You will get thousands of results.

I love the way I can switch to another GPU in M18xR1. U set display to IGFX, get a reboot and voila! Display is tied directly to the iGPU. Set PEG and display is then tied directly to GTX 880M, set Optimus then u have Optimus, you are free.

 

I have no problems with Optimus so far, at least with the games and application that I have currently. Battery life is great, 7 hours usage on a thick gaming laptop, imagine that. You still can force games/application to use either the iGPU or dGPU from the settings instead of letting Optimus to decide. That being said I'm also aware of the latency issue, this is inevitable since the dGPU does all the rendering but it still needs to go through the iGPU onto the display, but as long my games run at acceptable frame rates then I don't see it as an issue personally.

 

ITs oldschool as in Nvidia doesnt officialy support it anymore. I loved the switches that Vaio used so you could even switch without rebooting. But Nvidia stopped supported that as well.

I never noticed latency to be honest. Even in competitive FPS matches. Is there any data for that? Would love to read that.

 

Mista Fitty Cent Dell
photo courtesy billionairegambler.com

Spoiler: P.I.M.P.

Fazor Dogg

Spoiler: Bird's the Word

in the hood they say: there no b'ness like ho b'ness
_________________________
in other news

Area-FittyCent custom give away
________________​

I've never heard of an A-51 SLI config that didn't ship without the designer bridge. And I give credit where credit's due. They learned their hard fast lesson with A-51 R1 & Aurora with too little space inbetween cards, so for Fitty Cent R2 they gave it a larger offset to create a more open space between cards to breathe, & we see with Aurora R5 they said if it ain't broke don't fix it, & its m-ATX board gets more room also. I assume the same offset exists & one assumes their custom Area-Fitty Cent bridge should fit & come with Maxwell & the HB Bridge with Pascal.

Aurora Maxwell, where they charge full price plus a premium on 980 & Ti, I never expected to see a 50¢ flex-bridge in there. We'll know when the cows come home & owners take delivery, or the press gets their review units what type bridges go in. 'Don't Burn your bridges' is good advice, of course. But PMPN 8 EZ y'all. I'm a Alien Watch for card prices: they can't charge the same for SLI in Aurora with a flex-bridge as they do A-51 with the designer bridge, & get away with it, I won't let them. I'll be the mouth that roared. In the meantime, it's odd not to see them try & promote dual 1080s in their new baby, & until they do, no word if HB Bridge is standard issue as it should be. I'm saying it should be, it should ship, yes, that's normal for 1080s to get HB bridge. It should be normal for Maxwells to get designer bridge also. We'll see

 

Summertime Alienwatching
Swap City Swap Flap

- How far Aliens have gone forwards -​

I got some pre-debut teezer pics from my friend in Sydney (yes, he lives on the waterfront across from the Opera House). I'll post now in case some of you miss it in the Owner's Lounge when I post pics of it all buttoned up, all guns blazing. I collaborated on this build, shipped the parts, cut a door with window, did some custom hand-made cables like in the top photo you'll see a sleeved Cpu Pump extension cable, also did a special daughterboard cable for ax1200i power supply, sleeved some case harness cables (the owner did most of the others). MSI X99 Godlike Carbon (yes the $600 mthrbrd) with Xeon & custom treatments, Aurora R4 01YGW 38mm Asetek Alien-kooler, TitanX hybrid.

I've dubbed this alien the Back in Black Angus


- Thunder from Down Under -


pics just in from a friend in Norway
dual-360 rad pipe-dreamed Asus Rampage IV Ivy-E


this just in on AlienClub Coliseum
1080 SLI Hybrid I7-6850K Asus Sabertooth X99 Performance Build

agh. kooler logo's krooked
it's got that factory look, as we know
whew! s'pensive build ... Area-FittyCent my a$$

Spoiler: 42503 FireStrike Bench

 

http://bfy.tw/6OWb

 

Damn you AW and your optimus product!

 

Summertime Alien Watching
_________________
- How far Alienware has gone backwards -


Aurora R5: model IPSKL-SC

Busted. Pegatron. Dellienware.​

IPSKL ≈ Intel Pegatron Skylake. The HP Camry-U nano-board is used to help demonstrate their model naming convention & ID who makes the R5 board

​

note my 1st photo up top: that's a 4pin in the position of typical CPU-power, & above me here is a close-up of an 8pin black header ... occupied by a 6pin (?). Since the 8p header is directly above the 1080 (& since the 4p up top would be an odd place to augment pci-e lanes) my 1st reaction is to ID the top 4p as CPU power, lower 8p as PCI-e lane / GPU-augmented power header. White tag says MB on it (can't read the mthrbrd text), so can't ID it as 8p CPU or GPU header; whichever it is, it's purposely being powered by a 6pin. Qwestion: not if, but when Pegatron mthrbrd gets jerked out of there by its ear, where is the 8p CPU connector going to come from to power new gaming mthrbrd. Why is there no 4+4 8p CPU up top & no 8p connector mid-board, no 8pin connectors in sight at all. Vanished.

Spoiler: Area-51 CPU GPU cable

Aurora will share the 850w with Area-51. Spoiler shows my A-51 CPU + GPU cable, which wears a 16-wire 16 psu-pin dual-8pin. Aurora: 10-wire 10 psu-pin + cheaper 4p & 6p. In short?

the Aurora cable costs less to make
(less wires, less psu pins, less plastic)
​

Saved Fitty Cents ... & now they can swap-block you from having true 8pin power with a new mthrbrd (they won't block me, but they'll probably block you) --> 4p 6p are there to confound & confuse John Q Public & cheaper 4p 6p 10wire 10pin helps add fitty cents to each desktop sold. 4p / 6p are a triple threat: overclock-block, restrict unfettered supply of juice to 6700k

> show me one 850watt psu out on the market without an 8pin <

- trimmed all the fat off of their budget -​

Like the Rain Strategy: collecting every drop of rain in your bucket til it fills up. Rain. Tears. It all spends the same & it all looks the same in the bucket. Mr Dell's the Rain Man now too. Cripes.

I'm not seeing an over-clocking powerhouse up there
I'm looking at a gimped, power-robbed loser​

Gentlemen. Who would like to discuss the word Pegatron
_______________​

I know they used to, but not anymore. ASUS To Completely End Manufacturing of its Motherboards, Notebooks by Pegatron

Old Rinneh. Talk all day long about how it look, but how do it perform? Is it a gamer? Heh. He doesn't wanna go there, that conversations a step backwards. Dang, he smarter than he look.

 

Not that I think this motherboard looks great. DId you knwo that Pegatron=Asus?

 

doesn't mean that they're always good you know, OEM will tailor anything to your price range, from dirt cheap office mobos to premium gaming boards

 

I google it and all those articles show are old and or incorrect. 1 is complaining about latency but it is in regard of oculus and a certain display mode. All other links are from around 2011 on the first few pages. Thus old. I sitll ahvent found any reliable source. For me personally as a FPS fanatic I couldnt notice any lag apart from the occasional connection lag.

Very true. That is why I am curious whats under that heatsink, what types VRM's the amount of phases etc. Still it doesnt look like a very high end board. Doesnt seem to have a good sound circuit for example.

 

I don't think you can expect much from the motherboard given how much Dell rakes in profit.

Lest someone buy one here, disassemble the motherboard, and return it to dell under 30d

 

I also dont like that the case chassis apart from the panels looks that great. Non coated metal. Some matte black or gunmetal grey would have looked so much more better.

 

It looks very no-frills and might be cheap/low quality. That said, looks can be deceiving as well. It doesn't necessary need to be amazing to look at if it does a great job and is a durable, high quality component. The part that is kind of odd to me is the absence of basic attention to aesthetics. Even medium grade gamer-boy mobos on the market give at least a little bit of attention to bling in today's world. The crooked alienhead logo mention by @Cass-Olé is one example. The lack of attention to aesthetics makes it look low quality and aesthetics are what they historically focused upon, in some case even more than attention to quality, especially lately. It's kind of weird to me. Things are really out of whack and looking sadder every day... seems an awful lot like a lack of pride in what they are selling... like McDonald's or Taco Bell grade.

 

"Uncompromising performance"
"Engineered for overclocking"
Low phase count for cpu and memory
The board probably tops out at 4.4 for the cpu and ram tops out at 2400?

 

McDonald's and Taco Bell did not deserve that.

 

Dell removed the ability to use faster / better ram in their newest AW notebook models. This is like going backwards!!! If someone believes in, a new potential AW 18 comes with unlocked bios/Ec + No power cap aka max use of more than 330W ?... Should think all over again... Especially if they want maximum performance like an new Clevo with @Prema firmware. + Secure boot and you are screwed!! Why should Dell make the <new> Aw 18 different than what they do now with Echo models? @Mr. Fox @TBoneSan @Cass-Olé @Phoenix
http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...1-2-14-no-dimm-profiles.793095/#post-10282954

 

That's probably intentional so the current AWBook won't stay relevant when the next generation comes out.

 

Yeah well I'm not expecting anything. Even if they do bring a monster to market we know how they operate now. They'll screw you into a planned obsolescence by locking down the BIOS and cock block meaningful upgrades .. Fool me once.
As Meaker mentioned the other day - Sager / Clevo were the origins of AW. They've been in the game along time and aren't likely to change the way they do thing anytime soon . Alienware made quality enthusiast grade machines, then bait and switched to cheap junk once they had an established rep for being cutting edge. By it hasn't taken long for that to change.

So props to Clevo for keeping their flagship products hardcore and not selling out. Here's to a long a prosperous future of unadulterated performance and silicon swapping fun. Long live the Alienkillers.

 

Dell XPS 8900 Special Edition 6700k

Frank Azor is also head of the XPS label​

Isn't he? If so, then Frank does not blush at giving top Skylake a whimpy 4pin CPU power connector: this is because the non-80Plus 460watt psu only has a 4pin cpu cable.

Aurora will come with exact same (non-80) 460w standard.

Therefore, it follows that the motherboard in Aurora also has to have a 4pin cpu connector standard also, to accommodate the whimpy 460 with its 4pin, ok? It's at least plausible to me. If 6700k, then buyer must upgrade to the 850watt psu (so it retains a 4pin, & intentionally not wearing a future-proofing 4+4), & the 850 we're told can handle dual-300w cards, which to me explains the additional 8pin header above the gpu in my prior pic, as an augmented pci-express lane for 12v power on cards of that caliber. If 600w of cards then mthrbrd needs a boost, a little help, some accessory power.

But I return to the 4pin cpu connector, & the corporate bullet-point which says 'Uncompromising Performance', or the Alientube Aurora Tech Talk vid whose caption explains: 'Alienware Aurora has returned with a make over & an incredible set of power. Find out more about the return of this gaming beast'. Oh how sad. Oh how dismal a place it must be to work at when u have to lie to your customers like that, or 'stretch the truth to its breaking point', or make a sentimental call-back to the prior Aurora with Sandy-E / Ivy-E which was a little gaming beast, & try to mold the one into the other, as if calling this new one 'Aurora' means you can call it a beast in the same sentence, like they go hand-in-hand.

Granted, Aurora can't come to market with an XPS motherboard, nor will it, but I do think it's come to market with the same XPS philosophy, of sticking a 6700k into the socket of an underachiever mainstream board, then hype the **** out of it like it's a beast without peer & an over-clockers wet dream. Yet here I uncover a reduced wire count - from what would typically be 16 down to 10 - where wires are what help supply the power in the 1st place.

On top of all the other things u said, I myself don't hate Alienware, it's more like watching a friend slip into a bad drug habit, & the worse off they get the more your heart breaks for it. Their drug habit to me comes in the form of maximizing the skimp while jacking up the price in order to widen the profit margin.

Like this: they want $850 estimated for 64Gb of 2133 bare naked 'budget' memory. They'd also like to offer Kingston HyperX 2400, 16Gb max on their sales menu.

The problem is, on Kingston.com, I can buy 64Gb of 2400 HyperX for just $275. Because I can, that implies their budget kit is only worth 250 tops. Priced at 850, that makes it a ...

$600 overcharge

Maximizing skimp, to me includes the motherboard of choice. I assume Pegatron offered the lowest bid, so they jumped ship from MSI into a brand with no gaming identity, no brand recognition, into a brand that is equally at home supplying HP. Maybe the same folks that make that XPS mthrbrd, might as well be the same. I agree Fox, the mobo has to last 3-5years, be durable so they don't go under for warranty claims. The whole thing is just, face palm. Look at that Dell logo in the pic. In the past, they put an Alienhead symbol there. The fact that it's gone now, on their 20th Anniversary year?, it's symbolic indeed.

Hard drive won't matter to me here: I option out 6700k, liquid-kooler, 850w 64Gb mem & dual-1080s = $3650. I'd get so-called Alienware 'excitement' on the outside, Intel / Nvidia excitement on the inside, & Dell mediocrity about ever place else I care to look. Aurora ALX?

Or Aurora XPS. Where if you speak good english then you know exactly what the P & the S should stand for. The nail in the coffin towards 'how far backwards' is if the UEFI gets a graphic interface or not. I feel sorry for whomever shells out 3650, financed. Mr Dell needs to pay the 67billion off some how I guess. Getting your employees & marketing hype in full swing to put lipstick on a pig, yeah, well, I'm at a loss for words.

4pin CPU power ... ... My favorite comment on utube so far is this: Go home Alienware. You're drunk.

 

With the use of Secure boot as Dell prefer +push forward now... I did not dare to buy a new possible AW18!! What if similar happens on AW18 and even worse? A bios that can not be fixed, even if you re flash to a previous version... No thanks!

 

Skylake AWs have secure flash enabled?

 

bridge won't allow psu to shut nor side panel back on
​

the new HB SLI Bridge has been installed & is shown by TechRadar.com to obstruct the power supply from closing. Alienware Facebook has linked to TechRadar's soft review & is using the photo of the HB bridge to stir up publicity: they failed to publish the glaring photo of their psu that won't shut, suitably & in no uncertain terms warning the public

ya think
​

asked which bridge ships inside R5 - old or new - they refused to comment or make the question available for easy public viewing (posts above are 'trapped' in a filter); derogatory comments are released from the filter for full public display within moments

Spoiler: Backwards

The genuine question of gravest interest to the public - what is the buyer buying: the bridge photo'd on prominent display or some other performance-robbing bridge - is both discriminated against, kept from view & worst of all: left unanswered. Disgusting.

______________________​

Eqwally disgusting, the review itself: "With the higher-spec PSU, I plugged in a second Nvidia GTX 1080 for my enjoyment … err, I mean, testing. The system ran like a dream with the extra card, but I couldn't close the system up due to Nvidia's stylish SLI bridges being too tall and clipping against the power supply assembly. So, you'll either have to run the system with the door open or look into a different SLI bridge with less flair".

Stylish? Less flair? From another post I wrote tonight: I love how Mr Lee glosses over this incredibly important fact: he gets us to focus on a stylish bridge, advises us to use one with less flair which means less performance but can not bring himself to say it in order to raise public awareness & stir up public scrutiny over the gaming prowess or lack-there-of in R5, for some peculiar reason. If he's unaware the HB Bridge increases performance - & that to not use one decreases performance - his skill as reviewer is in doubt. It is also relevant to note, Alienware shipped him a review sample with only one card: I would be obliged to call that a guilty conscience on their part, lest the sample shipped with its door open. R5 is now in need of a serious revision, given 1080Ti & Titan Next will follow.

His soft review also says of the swing-out power supply: "It's a literally head-turning design that helps reduce the height of the PC while using up the empty space over the processor and CPU cooler, which is otherwise unoccupied on almost all other desktops. You might think that this would have a negative effect on cooling, but it actually works pretty well. A fan pulls in cool air through the front while the GPU(s) breathes through fins cut into the side panel, and heat radiates through the top".

1st, that space which is 'otherwise unoccupied' is a beneficial area of a volume of air to exist. Next, the power supply only draws air into itself & releases it out of itself, adding nothing to case cooling short of a reduction in psu chassis temperature as it hogs what would otherwise be a beneficial volume of air to exist.

However, what is gained is lost, given the top card - ostensibly GTX 1080, 1080Ti & Titan Next - will help heat the psu chassis to some nth degree, therefore the psu fan will attempt to cool itself & whatever heat it sinks into (absorbs / radiates into) itself from the top card, huh? At least he had the where-with-all to list "Partially obstructed cooling" as a Con

Is it so much to observe for the buying public that in order to have the side panel on, their GTX SLI setup is robbed of power? Perhaps the reviewer gets to keep the review sample in trade for going lightly on the swing-out power supply which won't shut, & calling the loss of the high-performance bridge an aesthetic loss. Disgusting.

Please comment on their Facebook page, asking what bridge ships in the R5 & why they failed to publish the photo showing the psu that will not shut

If you'd like to comment on TechRadar's Editor's Review why they call the loss of the HB bridge 'stylish' vs. a clear performance-robbing loss, nor deduct points for not incorporating the HB bridge nor accounting for it into the psu design itself, have at it

 

@Cass-Olé - Wow, so they scrapped the Dorito-shaped Area 51 case and now offer a Oyster cracker shaped Aurora chassis? The swing-out PSU is a ridiculous waste of engineering energy and looks like a gimmick that adds no value. I'm looking at the photos and scratching my head in bewilderment as the overall chassis design strikes me as being totally absurd. I think it sucks based on the photos I'm looking at. Bulky and inefficient use of the available space, and looks like virtually no wiggle room to make changes... maybe that's what they mean by virtual reality. "The reality is that it is virtually ridiculous" LOL. Seems like they are burning a ton lot of calories in an effort to create an impression on ingenuity instead of keeping it simple and doing all of the right things. Wonder if it is the same design team that is responsible for their pathetic Oompa Loompa laptop line-up and the proprietary x4 limited Willie Wonka eGPU contraption?

 

Fox, I'm up late, goofing off with my Holiday weekend (I forgot to capture the full text of the good public qwestion & pasted it in there). They didn't scrap the Dorito: worse, they kept it without revising not a single thing about it. Asus MSI etc broke out brand new X99 boards (Asus X99 Deluxe II for instance), giving them newer Z170 treatments + state-of-the-art 2016 specs to coincide with SOTA Broadwell-E. The thought of the Dorito being sold in 2017 with a 2014-era mthrbrd is, dis-heartening news for consumer. Old Doritos in a new bag. MSI could have revised it easily, as part of their own new line-up. Onto the Oyster!
I've devoted some personal time to critiquing this thing:
R5 Aurora Community Discussion Buyer | Upgrade Guide

All I ask is someone click the link & sqwint at it once, the length & breadth of which allows me to call Mr Lee's Review soft, as in flaccid; I see glaring contradictions in his review as the result; he never defined what 'partially obstructed cooling' is, for instance, but I needs no explanation. Darn clam-shell power supply that swivels out with the selfish fan, it's bugged me since day one, knowing the press would eat it up, like in Lee's section:

Clever Girl​

"Alienware has re-engineered its entire internal layout, having found a way to fold components into each other to save space without sacrificing accessibility or easy upgradability ... It's a literally head-turning design ..."

like the Exorcist

Spoiler: Do you know what she did?!

psu swivels out ... psu swivels back ... le plume de ma tante!

Folded in there alright: packed tighter than a week's worth of clothes & sundries in a weekend suitcase. They got cute & Nvidia broke out an all new HB bridge, undermining the design on-the-spot, temporarily, permanently, who knows, not I, & no wonder there were no 1080 SLI at E3 for its World Debut. Bridges! And why didn't Lee deduct points for loss of HB bridge or do more than just say awwww shucks?! Pfffffff. Oh, here we go, rubber-stamp it. GamerBoy.com has this to say:

2016 Aurora earns ‘Editor’s Choice’ award from TechRadar

- too late. now it's a masterpiece of engineering -
_______________

Service Manual PDF just published today

Our 1st look at Corporate 460w Polluter + dinky 80mm fan

- 'the Black Box' -
radiator vs no radiator depends on your budget​

Important: proportionally, I've gauged this series of photos as thus: 3" | 75cm length from tip of black box to tip of fan ... fan does NOT bolt to radiator, gets a 'bracket

• 25mm fan = 1" >< black box = 2" | 50mm
• if they're using a 1" 25mm wide radiator?
• 1" real gap would exist between 1" 25mm fan & 1" 25mm radiator
• hmmmmm ... there'd best be a 38mm | 49mm kooler in there

3inches | 75mm from top of box to tip of (1inch) fan
try to visualize a possible 1" 25mm gap between fan & radiator

Now Note: TechRadar's Partially Obstructed Kooling​

Above / below: the best looks at the power supply mucking up the fan's breathing space. Is there 3/8 inch between fan & psu top chassis. Note artist's rendering of kooler-tubes recessed into pump-body, (live review sample pics show different kooler-type) but informs that the tubes are designed here to point straight up so power supply doesn't smash 'em; one wonders how a typical kooler will fair inside of there: unharmed tubes & will power supply shut

​

notice non-liqwid-kooled whimpy fan-sink over i3 i5 or i7 6700, terribly thin so psu will shut: superior copper or inferior aluminum ... guess. These initial budget-minded buyers of course may want future liqwid-kooling, so again, where Alienware excels is 'proprietary' hardware which might include kooler. I myself have to purchase one of these someday for my collection, used & cheap: gut the insides, drop in an Asus gaming board, Seasonic power supply perhaps & do things my way up in that joint, but do not want to be boxed into their over-priced proprietary alien-kooler unless it's me last resort.

​

Let me say this about the 'money-making' swivel-out power supply which to us Fox & to them is just like an Oyster's Pearl ...

Spoiler: $$$

Typical SLI bridge is $40, either from Nvidia or EVGA. For the Dorito? 3way custom is $140. So let's pretend Nvidia | EVGA HB bridges won't let the psu shut, so the Aliens have asked to have a special bridge made: under those conditions, having a truly unique bridge? Now they can ask whatever they want for the $40 part ... ask $100? Probably. Clam-shell psu just became a money-maker, whose proprietary bridge & with only one place to get it? Original Designer gets a bonus for helping scare up extra-dough where none would otherwise exist. Believe it.

What else bugs me? Pegatron motherboard: I dug around & found a close relative in the green goblins found in the HP Envy Phoenix 6700k & perhaps new HP Omen (due August 6700k). HP performance now in the $4000 Pet Oyster ... errrr Alien ...

Your thoughts on HP performance now in an Alienware, Fox? I already uncovered how that thing only has 4pin CPU powa, my investigation uncovered how it's is all due to the 4pin in the Corporate non-80Plus 460watt PSU, the same polluter found in AGA: only has a 4pin CPU cable on it, so motherboard gets 4pin HP powa for 6700k to sip through like a straw ...

The idea of a saddled Skylake must make your head do a 360 like mine did. I called it Drylake. I notice the reviewer never told us if it had a graphical UEFI interface ... I assume HP's don't.

On Arena, the local FanBoy started up a discussion 2weeks ago on Debut, passing out the KoolAid, campfire songs for the forum in: Khan is right, Aurora is most sexy

I think you'd be proud of me Fox: 12days ago I chimed in there, crashed the *** party & the thread has sat fallow ever since ... sucked the very life right out of it, a dead silence. Outcomes like this tend to spur me on. Of greatest fun I've had this past 2weeks in picking apart this latest money-grabbing contraption, is my:

Hazing New Aurora Lite Buyer's Challenge​

re-posted here from 'Big Sexy' fallow thread above, where I stuck my landing ...

How to tell when Mr Dell is trying to scrape up 67billion dollars to pay for the largest tech buy-out in history. It doesn't take much & it willn't take long to option-out a Flagship R5 build on the Sales Menu. Nibble from those few options such as dual-1080s, 6700k liqwid-kooled, 64Gb naked 2133 memory, Blu-Ray & a drive upgrade & swallow his $4000 bill & 1year hardware warranty. I know that I or anybody can buy dual-1080s & 6700k elsewhere for $1700, right? Right.

This is the Challenge:
​

in your mind, place your hands inside there ...
remove the 1080s, remove 6700k
place those items on the table there in front of you
now ask yourself just one qwestion: does $2300 still sit there

Spoiler: Does It

 

If it is true that he who runs Alienware also does XPS it would help explain the joke of Dell support being used for Alienware users. If you aren't going to provide the tech support expected from your "premium" label Alienware, then go back in time and unshackle Alienware from your company or at least remove alienware as a brand and push your XPS as your high end/premium gaming laptop so users know who really is backing that expensive gaming computer, Dell, Alienware or Dell hiding in the Alien Log laughing that they sold someone a pricey XPS with an Alien head to make it seem better and worth the added cost.

 

Oh dear. What an uninspired external design. Its got about as much charm as an Alienware.. Oh wait haha.

"Yeah so the door doesn't shut...But gather around folks... The PSU has hinges. Bet you've never seen that before".

 

Wimpy, wimpy, wimpy. *shakes head* Oh well.

 

LOL, is this for real ?

 

yes but in their defense, they do not need the blinging fancy SLI cable, they can use the flexible ones we used to use back in the day.

 

Awesome they've got rid of the only thing I liked about the desktops the case styling couldn't even mod that one to not be hideous. Bet they only supply the exact no of cables with their modular psu & you have to by the extras off dell if you want them down the line

 

That PSU and the Chassis is a huge downgrade, It looks absurd and pointless and the retarded Mobo, adding that piss poor designing of the air ventilation space with the low cost cheap components sacrificing everything (1/3 through Casse-ole's post and they just gimped everything possible and advertise the opposite), nothing is there which is useful in that closed dumb boxed abomination, Now this is like truly Dell marketing with that AW logo and spewing this crap onto those kids who still believe "Oh look that's an Alienware" !

It's really dead now. What a sadness, I never expected a brand that could fall apart and degenerated worthless filth with this much of false advertising and absolute trash grade product, Dell is quitting the android tablet business to, thank goodness I can't see that overpriced junkware with gimmicks, they were selling that bullcrap venue for more cash than the same SoC powered ZF2 way cheaper, thanks to ARM Intel got spanked hard and stopped those Atoms with huge naming schema, causing massive confusion and underpowered performance.

Dell is now hellbent on gimping everything they made, the old Precision was quite good and now BGA filth everywhere, this BGA contagion needs to be stopped, but the people are happy with the BGA feces and they love these type of shiny new toys crippled mess, I hope the people who knew things will help them not to buy that gimpware the only antidote to this madness, I'm trying my best to educate others who want to buy computers ofc some are braindead.

 

I really hate that. have my partners a desktop I've built myself looks really nice clean, can barely hear it at full load people aren't interested in it i get "ooh is that an alienware laptop"