New Alienwares 2016

Oh dang I've been doing it wrong this whole time. I usually plug in the AC power cord, rub my feet on carpet for 10 minutes and use a heat gun to loosen the screws. Yikes..

 

What is your source ? Somoene can confirm ? Have you any review about the shp1450 uhd panel, i only found noteboocheck review of full hd samsung 15r2 panel.

 

http://laptopmedia.com/news/we-wont...ti-powered-notebooks-until-january-next-year/

Interesting rumors, maybe no 1050 (TI) for the AW 13 after all ?!

 

a guy who received his aw 15r3 uhd posted on reddit about the 4k screen

https://www.reddit.com/r/Alienware/comments/58d3m8/new_alienware_15_4k_screen_big_disappointment/

 

I also saw his post on a Chinese forum. It seems true.

 

Can you tell me what's wrong with the screen?

 

You mean besides being a 15 inch 4K?

 

yayks...lots of light bleed on the 4K UHD 15" panel.

WTF ? I mean i thought lightbleed occured, in major cases, when the bezel was applying too much pressure on the panel itself, why only the 4K panel has lightbleed ?

It's not a pressure problem, at least not from the bezel if that was the case the lightbleed should have been on the border of the screen, here the lightbleed occurs on the middle of the screen.

maybe the IGZO panel is less sturdy, slimmer, resulting in it being more sensitive to the pressure.

I only have light lightbleed thankfully on the FHD (on one corner, NOT the center of the screen)

 

^_^ That's why I got the 1080p gsync version. My motto is that if AA is barely(!) noticeable you do not need to go further up on resolution.

 

It seems they reused the non-touchscreen UHD panel from the 15 R2.

 

Is that a problem? Did people have issues with that panel?

 

its color gamut is inferior to the xps 15 panels but more to the point, the real problem lies in the horrible lightbleed.

getting mine next week so will update y'all as soon as i get it.

 

The UHD on the R3 is a great screen. I did a lot of editing on it and it was a pleasure to work on.

Light bleed was actually very minimal on two of my R3's, one of which is still in the household. The screen itself was bright with very good contrast. Light bleed of some kind is inevitable, but out of all the AW's that I've owned so far, the two R3's UHD screens had the least amount of light bleed.

 

aren't you talking about the the 17R3 UHD screens tho?

those were of noticeably better quality than the 15R2 UHD screens (i believe they were 400 nits too) and the current 15R3 UHD screens are the 15R2 UHD screens

 

Review for the 15 r3

The 6820Hk runs ridiculously hot

 

Wow, 94°C in Cinebench at 4.0GHz and thermal shutdown while gaming at only 3.6GHz is ridiculous. If that's typical it will require teardown and Liquid Ultra to try to get that under control. I think it is pretty much a given that stock thermal paste is typically garbage across all brands.

 

Even so, old alienwares never used to get that hot, bar Haswell chips, even on factory paste. That's utterly ridiculous. They've cheapened the brand so much.

 

I agree with you 100%. They used to do a much better job than they do now. But, let's be honest... it seems like almost all laptops run too hot now with garbage from the factory. I'm not excusing this because it is inexcusable, only observing that it seems to be status quo. Based on what we are seeing everywhere now, it looks like almost anyone that buys a high performance notebook in 2016 is going to have to take responsibility for tearing it apart and doing it over the right way unless they buy from a boutique like HIDevolution and pay them extra to do it right the first time. Seems kind of like " nothing ain't never gonna be right" on a normal production laptop with stock paste and pads.

The GPU ran cool enough, but that's irrelevant with a unified heat sink. You'll have to redo both because of how it is constructed.

That guy did a pretty decent review. Looks like the 1070 did a nice job on the gaming. Shame the CPU runs so hot even with fan turbo mode set in the BIOS. Alienware has always been kind of nuts about giving way too much core voltage for the the factory overclock profiles, so maybe that has something to do with it.

 

Has anybody gotten the 120hz screen yet? Any info on it?

 

I agree. It's to the point where we can't count on the OEM anymore to be able to run something straight out of box with decent temps. Although there are people like us who don't mind and actually want to tear it apart to do the work ourselves, the majority do not want to haggle with it. This is why there are categories*, but what is unfortunate is that AW/Dell is suppose to be the Apple of gaming laptops, yet they still fail by providing toothpaste for thermal paste.

* Categories as in, for those who don't desire repasting etc.. a gaming laptop like AW is going to be the best you're going to get, if you're lucky enough to get a unit with good contact between the die and heat sink. Maybe even MSI, but then again, there are issues there too...

A repaste is mandatory in my books. Not an option.

 

Jump to 8:18 ...He runs Unigine Heaven. It's hard to make out the letters on the screen, but it looks to show "custom". I wonder what resolution he ran it at? There's no way that's maxed out at 1080p lol...

 

high temp because he used the alienaware oc profile

 

That's normal. Unigine screwed up the default presets. You have to choose custom settings for 1080p. If you use the default settings for the so-called "Extreme" preset the resolution is a wimpy 1600*900 and window mode, and the option to change them is grayed out. Even my paid-for "Advanced Edition" is screwed up like that.

Any time you see what looks on the surface like an impressive Heaven benchmark score, if you see "Extreme" instead of Custom, now you'll know the reason the score is high than expected is because it's not really "Extreme" settings. For competitive purposes, you need to use default presets to avoid skewed apples to oranges comparisons.

Check again. They were crazy asinine high even at 3.6GHz.

 

oc profile = too much overvolt = thermal throttling

seems 3.6ghz is the point where the cpu can keep going and maintain below 92-93c

 

A gigantic throttle mess or Dellienware have Crippled bios with lots of power restrictions. 632 cb in Cinebench R15 with stock 6820Hk is a huge shame!! Far below what other brands laptops with same processor can provide. See example from Notebook Check. I am shocked
The Cinebench R15 score is lower than what the old man 4710Mq will give. And On par with 3 year old i7-4700Hq
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Intel-Core-i7-4700HQ-Notebook-Processor.93264.0.html
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Intel-Core-i7-4710MQ-Notebook-Processor.115117.0.html
Reviews of 6820Hq
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Intel-Core-i7-6820HK-Notebook-Processor.149418.0.html


From Alienware 15R3 with 6820Hk aka 632 cb in Cinebench R15

 

That's my point, exactly. That is still way too hot to be good with stock clocks. Hitting in the realm of 90°C stock is unacceptable. It's a reflection of incompetent workmanship, inferior materials, or both, and it seems to be almost universal now... free from the factory in China... no extra charge for the thermal throttling.

 

gonna need a repaste on that


"A repaste is mandatory. Not an option. Friends don't let friends stay stock." @iunlock

 

+-1.300v and low overclock should not be a problem if the cooling function as intended in short benchmark like Cinebench. Mr. Azor said even that the cooling in AW machines are designed for 15% higher rathed TDP. I'm still shocked My old AW17 with 4930Mx pushed far over 115w in XTU bench!!

 

Absolutely. That's exactly what we where saying on the previous page. And, it seems that all 2016 notebooks are having similar issues, some worse than others. Some of us actually don't care and even look forward to doing it ourselves the right way. I am buying something for the hardware goodness and don't expect it to be done my way (the right way). But, folks like us are the exception. Many, if not most, consumers and point-and-click gamerboys find the idea of doing a teardown and repaste a truly daunting and devastating prospect. It scares the bejeebers out of them. Some OEMs lead them to believe opening the chassis will void their warranty, which also scares the crap out of them. And, others have a special gift for breaking everything they touch.

 

5 year old 2920XM will smash that Alienware's CPU...c'mon man. If they're going to go BGA, the absolute least they can do is make sure they get the thermals under control. Hell, I'd even offer a "special tuning service" for an extra fee to undervolt + overclock each system individually. Just something to set it aside from other manufacturers.

Oh, and the infamous light bleed makes a return in the Alienware 15 *groan*

 

Of course. That just goes without saying. Seeing ~90° temps at stock clocks is flat-out unacceptable. That applies to everything, BGA or not. All I am says is this nonsense seems to be status quo for the industry now. Slop 'em together, box 'em up... ship 'em out, and let the customer figure it out.

 

There are local shops that will repaste for a fairly low price.

 

Yes sir. And, that's very good for those that can't or won't do it and lack the self-confidence to learn. I just feel bad for the people that spend a lot of money on something, can't use it, then have to turn around and pay someone else $50 to $100 to fix their brand new laptop. It would suck to be them, LOL.

One would think the OEMs would care more than they do and try harder than they seem to.

 

Every company has their faults, but to point one out specifically on Dell is that if they've spent all this money on the cooling solution, how stupid is it that they would skimp out with using toothpaste on something they've spent Millions developing? - Counter Intuitive. That's just a plain fact. Not opinion.

It just does not make sense. Cheap labor + No workmanship + Toothpaste = Disaster and money down the drain ...

Solution: Repaste. If one doesn't know how, then learn. It's not that hard. The R4 will be way easier to repaste than the R4.

 

In all seriousness, if one doesn't know how to do an oil change or refuses to learn how, then don't buy a gaming laptop.

What would your wife or girlfriend think of a male not knowing how to do a freakin' oil change?

Let's be real lol....Even women know how to do an oil change. That's why I like and respect the ones that do.

Be a man folks....it's not that hard.

Edit: It gets old with seeing people whining over simple things. Really gets tiring..

 

Mr. Azor aka @Alienware-Frank should seen this review and come up with a comment. Some should let him see it. Post this tragic content, in his social media like Facebook or similar

 

IMO the intention is good and it's there for developing a better cooling solution, but where it falls off the cliff is not following through with using quality thermal paste.

This seems to be the common story among the OEM's.

 

Yeah, I agree with all that. People that can't or won't are out of their element and need to re-evaluate their buying decisions.

It is probably safe to assume they don't wake up every morning with a goal of being a failure. The best intentions and world-class engineering can never make up for damaged reputation that can follow poor QC.

 

It is what it is yea? I hope the people reading this don't take it the wrong way, rather what is being mentioned here is all constructive. If one can't take constructive criticism, then there are more problems with that individual than dealing with thermal heat and complaining about it because of the lack of will power and/or laziness to learn how. ie...Be a Man.

I just may do a video showing how easy it is to repaste the new R4 and perhaps time myself with a disassembly, which I predict will be within minutes. This is to just prove that anyone willing can do it.

 

Let's say that 80% of future owners do not re-paste(don't dare or can't do it). This means that 80% of future owners *don't can have* what Mr. Azor promised their customers(see video @1 min). *Aka Zero throttling and low hardware temperature in their new Aw machines.*

 

For those who are too lazy to watch haha....basically he states:

"You can Expect Zero Throttling and Zero Performance Compromises out of these brand new notebooks. They are absolutely amazing." @ 1:22

However...forgot to complete the statement...

"...They are absolutely amazing in having the worst quality of toothpaste in the industry and you can count on horrible thermal temps from out of the box. You can expect zero throttling and zero performance compromises, because the system will shut down before it gets too hot, so if it's off, you won't have to worry about anything."

CPU Temps of the 6820HK on the new AW. (Stock fan profile + Stock Toothpaste and OC'ed)


For the record, every company has their own set of issues and falls short of over promising and under delivering. Every gaming laptop I've owned HAD to be repasted.

I do think that a lot of effort went into the new cooling design so I'm looking forward to repasting it to obtain some great temp numbers....

Next week I'll have the data and will report back.

 

Yes, *Expect* is more correct But what we see in this reviews... The Cinebench score is much lower vs. from the same i7 in other OEM's machines. Either a ruined bios with wrong power settings or full thermal throttling. Or most likely.., Both!! Almost like the slogan to Alienware... Full throttle gaming

See even cheapo Acer-Aspire with 6700Hq have higher Cinebench R15 score http://www.notebookcheck.net/Acer-Aspire-V15-Nitro-BE-VN7-592G-79DV-Notebook-Review.161265.0.html

 

oh dear, one problem after another..

i've built many desktops before but never opened up a laptop so this is unfamiliar territory. care to recommend suitable toolkits up for the task?

 

I believe a simple repaste will tame the temps as I'm pretty optimistic about that.

The new AW's will be a piece of cake to repaste. If you can build a desktop there's nothing to worry about. It's like driving a truck...then driving a car...same thing. You'll be okay.

Just simple tools....Phillips screw driver (smaller head) should be about it. Keep posted in the forums for the tear down as I'll post one up by next week.

 

and a bit of this

 

I am getting mine today. I think i will do a Review about Stock temps and temps with clu repasted. Expect it in about 6-8h, depending on when ups arrives...
I think it is pretty strange that the temps of all Cores are so Different. Just core1 is reaching 96 degrees.
Maybe his heatsink isnt mounted properly

 

The uneven temps are a clear indication of crappy thermal paste and the die not making even contact with the heat sink. Most often time then not, with bare die's it's due to the thermal paste being uneven.

I've replicate this experiment multiple times and 100% of the time it was the unevenness of the thermal paste over the die that caused certain cores to go wacko.

 

FYI, If you see the review, toothpaste works great as thermal paste. lol

 

I've seen those and it's hilarious. Nutella, Peanut Butter, Mayo, Mustard, Ketchup...etc...

 

Don't forget the oem paste, aka factory worker semen!