New Alienwares 2016

Don't forget that the other OEMs laptop models with the same processor or even the weaker 6700Hq + bad paste, score higher in Cinebench R15. Virtually the big majority of their models provide higher CBR15 score than the new AW15R3

 

Wait until some more people test and compare.
Perhaps the 15 is a little too thin lol.
I hoping they left the plastic cap on the cpu again.

 

No it doesnt. Again a 5 year old 2500k at 5ghz is being surpassed by my 6700hq laptop. Especially in the minimum framerate department.

 

Uhh, yeah they do. The throttling only occurs once you overclock.

 

It's intel and all those manufacturers fault (not just alienware) :

They OVERVOLT the skylake CPU so much, clearly they could add a -90mV offset and reach rock solid stability, at least more stable than their stock setting.

I will be waiting for a bios/ec fix, I think someone stated that AW engineers saw the problem and were tweaking fan speed or something like that for a next bios, not sure.

My friend who bought a Clevo with 6700K has also throttling issues, with an undervolt (-100 or -110mV) it was running so great.

they apply too much voltage on those skylake CPUs...and it needs to stop now.

 

They have been applying far too much core voltage since at least the time of the M17xR3 and M18xR1 day. It should have stopped a long time ago. OC Levels 1, 2 and 3 settings have never been any good. So, this is not something they started with Skylake.

Applying too much for stock is Intel's fault for giving the OEMs specs with excessive voltage. Undervolting would not be necessary if they used the right settings for stock clocks.

 

Absolutely agree regarding intel, but Dell can 'circumvent' those specs no and slightly decrease the voltage if internal tests show that this has way more benefits than risks, no ?

 

Sure, they could, but they will not. Plus, they really do not perform proper in-house testing to determine if those are optimal. They should, but they do not. They take what Intel gives them and the chips fall where they may. I know this for fact but cannot disclose how I know due to NDA. They same can probably be said of other OEMs, but I cannot speak to what they do because it would be only speculation on my part. If they are all using the same screwed up settings as Dell because that is what Intel tells them, then speculation would likely be accurate. I think all of them follow marching orders from Intel and Micro$loth because they either do not care or lack the technical expertise or will to do otherwise. Or, maybe some kind of partner agreement requires they follow orders explicitly.

This is why having an aftermarket unlocked BIOS is so valuable. We need to have the ability to fix all of their screw-ups... and there are far too many of them.

We should always question authority because "the authorities" are not as competent as they would like us to believe they are.

 

The Skylake generation chips, can by itself determine the more correct voltage vs. power draw/increased multi. But Motherboard manufacturers override completely all this with uncritical eyes. They have the meaning it's Better with higher/increased stock voltage and throttling than failure with blue-screen in the end because of lack of voltage. Less costly technical support is preferred over fixing crashes due this. In-house testing and support cost them money, better with more dollars to the shareholders.

 

Quick question, does anyone know if there is any sort of dust protection on the fan intake? I just had to clean my clevo and the difference on noise is staggering. Granted I hadn't cleaned them in a year or so.

 

MSI GT73VR is doing very well with temps ... no throttling on either CPU or GPU, straight from the factory ... but it's a behemoth compared to the more svelte AW17 ...

This is why I'm chomping at the bit to see some well informed and thorough temp data on the AW 17 ... I prefer the 1440p screen option and overall build quality of the AW17 and would prefer buying it over the GT73VR but if the AW's are throttle beasts across the board then no way ... also like the AW keyboard quite a bit for the key travel factor ...

 

Just installed the BF1/Civ VI drivers that Nvidia posted last night and had no issues at all.

 

I'll have solid data for everyone by next week...or sooner....

::iunlock::

 

Can you link me the website for the new drivers?

 

That was one of the main reasons I got rid of my GT72, the keyboard is pretty poor to the point that is useless for any kind of productivity aside from gaming. And it suffered from severe ghosting on the right side (IJKL) so as a lefthanded user some keycombo's just didn't register. With some tweaks it was usable but again MSI lies a lot, 'anti-ghosting technology' my ass..... .

Now my 15 r2 is far from perfect either; mediocre speakers, a very slow but otherwise ok LG ips panel (really compared to a good IPS panel it is horrifically slow that games feel like 50 fps). Even though it already is a lot better the one with a Samsung and well it's a full BGA machine but then again the MSI was just as dead in terms of upgradability (thanks MSI for again lies and lies). But as an all round machine for productivity and some gaming it is pretty good but far from let's say the enthusiast powerhouse that Alienware claims it to be. But then again I bought it second hand and it was pretty cheap so I don't really care.

It's just a shame that in terms of build quality the MSI and most Clevo's are miles behind compared to Dell and Alienware. Though I had the change to test the Acer predator a while ago, and while I don't like it's looks and again full BGA layout it was a suprised to see how well build it is and in my opinion sits a comfortable second place with the AW on top.

And ow Asus.. i'm not even going to mention that..... talking about some piss poor support and the problem is that their machines break a lot so you need good support which they don't do.

 

i did the repaste with cllu and there must be something horribly wrong with the heatsink... when i overclock just a bit to 3.8GHz, core0 reaches 92°C while running unigine heaven. I double check my repaste tomorrow but i dont think that i made any mistake.

The GPU stays pretty cool in mid to high 60s

AW15R3
6820HK @ 3.8GHz no voltage adjustment

 

Is that 3.8GHz on all 4 cores? Because I wouldn't consider that 'just a bit' given stock is only 3.2GHz.

 

That's not accurate about any Clevo models I have owned. To say they are miles behind is an exaggeration. The only thing that was measurably better about my past Alienware systems was their heavy anodized aluminum outer panels and edge-to-edge Gorilla Glass display panels, (both of which are history now) but I would say they are close to equal otherwise. You cannot include Dell in the same breath because although their business class are well built, some of their consumer notebooks are very poor build quality. I cannot speak to the cheap Clevo models or MSI because I've never owned those before.

 

Can you tell me what is the load voltage for your 6820Hk with stock clock, OC profile 1-2-3? Look in Hwinfo when running fully load. Test with Cinebench and Wprime 1024M(Run as adm and select 8 threads for Wprime).

Edit @CarbonTwelve 3.8 GHz on 4 cores is a wimpy low overclock even for an 6820Hk

 

yeah you should see the Inspiron 5000 I had last year, it was made out of flimsy plastic that feels it's just gonna fall off if you touch it

 

Maybe it's a bit exaggerated indeed, but the choice of materials is so much better on the Dell / Alienware models, just the little things like a magnesium frame, the coatings, the keyboard, touchpad buttons, sturdy lids and so on. Although the Echo models lack the magnesium frame yet I was surprised how sturdy they are. And jup the cheap Dell models are pretty poor as well, but I'm more specifically referring to the Precision, XPS, and higher Latitude models like the 74** series.

However the Clevo's that I tested and tried were always pretty well build in terms of gaps etc but it was just the plastic feel that let them down so much. MSI however has made some piss poor machines in the past like the GT70 that was so extremely cheaply made (the touchpad under the palmrest for example is just sticked on with some double sided tape). The MSI GT72 was a huge improvement but still when disassembling it (had to replace the keyboard) it was clear that is was just an improved GT70 chassis (the same basic layout in which the keyboard and mainboard are mounted on the top/palmrest).

But then again compared to a P870DM the MSI is just a cheap toy imho (even the GT72 has the dreaded battery draining hybrid power thingy), but it wasn't a bad machine, I actually liked it just for playing games.

 

Ow and on a sidenote; the Echo models are pretty much a joke as well. The 15 R1/R2 and 17 R2/R3 are identical aside from the 17 having a subwoofer, bigger screen and keypad. The Mainboard is the exact same part on both machines. Hell you could even fit the subwoofer of the 17 in the 15 (though you need to swap the audio board since the 15 lacks the subwoofer connector, although the soldering pad is visible). They could easily have fitted a bigger heatsink/fan on the 17 r2/r3 which they were to lazy to do!!!:



But then again I see my 15 more of a spiritual successor to the 14 that I've owned rather than any of my 17 models. The 17 inch R2/3 just doesn't make sense since they didn´t offer any real extra's.

I can't speak for the newer 15 R3 and 17 R4 since I've owned any of them yet and don't think I will unless I can get one dirty cheap just to test it out.

 

The coating on the palmrest on my AW17 is piss poor. Have you seen all the complaining about this? The coating peel off very fast. The only thing I don't like with my AW17.

 

I had the same with my 17 R1 models as well but other than that they build pretty good, the coating on my M17x models however was still fine even after years of use and it looks like they changed it again with echo models which seems less prone to peeling. But with every new model they seem to change the coating (or rather to say, the manufacturer of the parts) , for example on the M17x R3 it was a lot more sticky than on the R4 models.

 

Mine is also perfect. But you can see all over the web..., all the complaining about this ****. Also finger prints marks is very visible with this coating. I think this is still a problem on newer AW models. Soft for your hands, but I would rather have something else.

 

Agreed but the GT72 was the king of fingerprints, damn that thing was just a magnet and the worst part was that on the top lid they were very hard to remove.

The palmrest alway looked dirty as well with the weird coating on it.

 

I use my own overclocking profile because alienware does increase the voltage even on a slight oc.... :/
3.8GHz on all cores

I couldnt sleep leaving my new baby without working properly so i opened the machine again and voila... a screw wasnt tightned pretty well.. seems like i made a mistake
Did run Unigine again and everything is fine now! GPU low to mid 60s and CPU high 60s to low 70s on core0. Tomorrow i will try cinebench etc.

 

Well, my new 15 arrived today. My initial experience was pretty positive until I actually started gaming. I tried to play Deus Ex: Mankind Divided (birthday gift from my wife) and never got passed the intro due to overheating. It either bluescreens or shuts down. I know Deus ex is a pretty buggy port so I'm going to test a few other games and run a few benchmarks but this is pretty rocky start.

 

Driver issue?

 

Hey Djangi, can u check device manager /hwinfo and tell the model name of your 4k display and the ssd?

 

1. Te monitor just shows as Generic PnP monitor, no additional details
2. The ssd name also isn't very descriptive: NVMe THNSN5256GPUK NV

 

More like a cooling issue since the cpu is reaching 95 degrees while gaming. Might get solved with a bios update, or when I start tinkering with the voltages.

 

Ugh, I absolutely hate that stupid rubber coating. Immediately after getting my AW 17 R1 I got a skin just for the keyboard area. I have never had a rubberized coating hold up on any of my mice. Why do they use that crap. I always liked the textured hard surface of my m11x

 

Cool,
The SSD is from toshiba with 1100 mbps read speed.
Check the screen info in hwinfo:
https://www.hwinfo.com/download.php

 

Download benchmark tests from http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/phoenix-software-updates.794490/
Always updated links

 

The display is a Sharp SHP1450.
The image quality is a disappointing, colors are a bit flat and there is a little light bleed on the bottom and the right side.
Although the mat finished is a welcome touch, it doesn't close to the 4k screen in my previous Alienware 15 (R1).

I the image is also a little less crisps which might be due to scaling. I am one of the few people in the world that actually prefers Windows 8.1 and it seems that windows 10 doesn't handle scaling that well.

 

I really hope the gsync 1080 monitor is *at least* as good as my 2 year old clevo.

 

Have u tried setting the Overclock Level from OC Level 1 to disabled?
This might let u play Deus EX

 

I haven't tried overclocking yet (and probably never will with these temps), I'm running on stock speeds.



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

I strongly suggest repasting

 

Thats not what i meant,
By default the alienware with 6820hk is shipped with the cpu overclocked to OC Level 1 (there are 3 levels) in the BIOS ,
to decrease the voltage and temp you should set Core over clocking level to "disabled".
That will decrease the temp to 6820HQ level.

Also set fan performance mode to enabled.

 

Can you tell me what's load voltage for your 6820Hk with stock clock, )oc profile 1-2-3)?

 

It seems the 15 R1 still has the subwoofer connector which they removed from the board on the R2 (it's next to the board to board connector):



Now I know it's getting a bit offtopic, but I still think it's funny how little the 15 and 17 differ due to just lazyness. Now the subwoofer itself is to thick to fit in the 15 but maybe I would investigate to see if a different subwoofer would fit in the 2.5 inch bay which I don't use anyway. It's a but of useless mod but hey it would be kinda of fun. Ah well maybe I'll just make a different topic of this and see what can be done, it would improve the sound quality though.

 

The AW 15 is also very similar to the XPS 15. Dellienware has streamlined production to lower manufacturing costs. It's efficient but isn't good for a niche brand, in my opinion. Especially since they are marked up quite a lot.

 

Can't wait, man ...

 

Normaly its 1.2v - 1.25v and 1.3v

Is there a guide for undervolting? I never had to do this, but i wanna try how cool i can get it. I've tried -100mv and it is stable under load but as soon it goes into idle again i get a bsod

 

Monitor Load voltage and max temp with Hwinfo in the background. Put high performance in Win power plan and run http://www.guru3d.com/files-details/cinebench-15-download.html
http://www.guru3d.com/files-details/hwinfo64-download.html

Spoiler: Hwinfo setup

 

edited

And yeah the rubber coating is awful, I rarely use the keyboard and trackpad so It's not having these oil marks but eventually I scratched it accidentally with a microfiber cloth by applying morepressure when cleaning, Not visible to normal eye but under light / angle it shows up, Not much of a deal since we can get this from here, I didn't prefer to have a skin because the heat that the machine puts I don't want to block that by any means possible, No chances taken in the cooling pov for me..


Look at the design downgrade they pulled off, They converted the chassis to a thin setup and a BGA mobo pushed the heatsinks to back making them unified not unlike the old behemoth Heatsinks or good quality induvidual ones and the status led's damn there are no status leds on the new Pascal lineup. I still remember my M15x's touch panel and the M17xR3/4 M18x R1-R2 had which was super cool and adds that Alienware vibe to the machines...The first I saw that was on the HP machines It was fantastic feature that I missed since then.

cr Apple is copying that putting some OLED fashion into it with the next mac refresh, Now see the other corporations copy that stuff and people say "Innovation" meh.

Edit2 : Sorry deleted that post asking drake about the chassis of the AW15 thought it was metal after all...

 

It's plastic (well it's a composite type of plastic rather to say) with a heat reflective coating giving it the copper like colors. Though i've seen the same coating on machines from Acer, Clevo, Asus and so on.

Alienware says that it is a carbon fiber type of composite, but it's a very weird one though it would make sence considering this:
https://www.engadget.com/2015/09/28/dell-recycled-carbon-fiber-alienware-latitude/

It doesn't feel like a carbon fiber polymer but aside from that I have to give AW kudos for it since it is light, strong and feels not that much different than a coated magnesium alloy.

 

OMG They have skimped on the Metal chassis that Alienwares were stood for with Echo, And now people are saying the Pascal machines weigh more because of more metal, LOL they brought back the Metal now...