*Official* Alienware Launch Discussion Thread

It should do a fine job with any of those games. I haven't tested with SLI disabled to see how one 680M handles TressFX, but 780M SLI should do just as well if not better. If you see half the average framerate with a single 780M installed in a 17 (50-60 FPS average) it will still be an excellent gaming experience. Your excitement is justified. I expect you will be very pleased. As a point of reference for 680M SLI performance (from my M18x R2)...

 

Not a chance. You're gonna need like 4 Titans for that. The tress fx hair effects look bad anyways imo.

 

Just a like minded soul, I checked back and not even the same country.

Quote:'Let's just say, if you get a 5400-rpm hard drive I will hunt you down... Kill you... and replace your hard drive.' no names...

 

Wait huh? 700FPS? There's no way that's correct?

 

Yeah, it was a nice try (individual hairs) but the physics is poor so it just kills the performance for very little

 

My desktop rig (single 680 OC'd by 300MHz, 3770k OC'd to 4.9GHz) runs everything maxed with TressFX on at 60fps average. Drops down to ~30-40fps during some cut scenes though.

 

I know, I was exaggerating. My point was that tress fx usually gives a pretty big performance hit.

EDIT: and what the heck? A few of my posts said they needed mod approval.

 

Ignore the minimum and maximum. Those are accurate numbers, but meaningless because they represent a momentary reading. I include them because everyone else does. The average is all that really matters. It's a solid 100+ FPS gameplay. 780M should be able to hold 50-60 FPS and 780M SLI at least 100 FPS average. It may depend on drivers initially, since 680M is mature, but those are realistic targets.

 

So, is not possible to get the 780m on the 17 selecting the base model? And we can't order a 18 with only a single GPU?

 

Your avitar says it all! No more custom building your machine, just pre-selected bundles with *some* variations allowed...

 

True dat, though I forgot to say my frame rate is limited to 60 by the game for some reason, and I'm probably averaging higher. It's nowhere near as bad of a hit as The Witcher 2's ubersampling though. Easily drops frame rates by half in most areas, and up to 70-80% in dense areas or during cut scenes.

 

Not sure which posts at the moment, but it's not you. It's the automated spambot software capturing your posts and holding them for closer inspection. Maybe some key words triggered it. This even happens to mods. Sometimes we have to approve our own posts, LOL.

 

It happens to me, too - with increasing regularity. Maybe 3 or 4 times a day. Typically it seems when a post contains a link.

 

Ordered mine today can't wait price £2500. Thank you guys - this forum has been very informative.

Intel Core i7-4900MQ (8MB Cache, up to 4.0GHz w/ Turbo Boost)
17.3 inch (439.42 mm) 120Hz WLED FHD (1920 x 1080) TrueLife w/3D Bundle
Alienware 17 Anodized Aluminum - 3D
16GB Dual Channel DDR3L at 1600MHz
256GB mSATA SSD Boot + 750GB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s
Slot-Loading Dual Layer Blu-ray Reader (BD-ROM, DVDRW, CD-RW)
240W AC Adapter
8-cell Lithium Ion (86 wHr) Battery
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M with 4GB GDDR5
Broadcom 4352 802.11 ac 2x2 and Bluetooth 4.0
5G WiFi Broadcom 4352 802.11n/ac and Bluetooth 4.0 driver
Windows 8 Pro 64bit, English
3 Years NBD with Premium Phone Support
LCD Back Cover (3D) Alienware 17

 

Congratulations and enjoy!

Sorry if this is a stupid question: I ordered my system two days ago and it still says in pre-production? Is anyone with an Alienware 18 in production?

 

Yeah. If they did do another 11", I'd replace my R1.

 

Did alienware actually say why they dropped the m11x from their lineup?

 

They haven't said but have a feeling the macbook air may have had something to do with it. Sure the 11" AW has a place, but if someone wants that kinda small screen real estate and portability, the macbook air running windows via bootcamp or somethign made a lot more sense. Even at 14" its tough to consider it a real gaming laptop, but at 11" you're basically looking at a high power netbook. It's fine and cool and all, I'm just guessing why it may have been dropped.

 

I am looking forward to trying out Metro and Crysis 3. Crysis 3 is quite demanding. I was averaging in the 40FPS on my desktop (2560 x 1600 resolution on GTX 690). I had to turn down AA a bit.

 

Just to clarify everyone. I just spoke with a dell rep that a rep on this website referred me to. The "haggling" is very minimal. As of now, VERY VERY LOW, if any deals, are to be had. I remember always getting much better deals from the get go.

To be clear, the system IS worth it most likely. It looks fantastic and has the newest latest and greatest. However, I am going to have to take a serious introspective look and see if going through with a 4k system (the specs that were minimal for me to upgrade)is worth it. It's a lot of money and it's not like my system is a sunken ship. Decisions decisions...

 

a sale is a sale, there is no profit on no order, my place i work for we tend to knock off a good discount on our list price and our list price tends to be 35-40% margin.

 

Rest assured, there will still be some negotiating to be had. Business is business! Why lose it to the competition.

 

If you're concerned about the price, and you already have a decent system. I would wait a few months, they will be more desperate soon... I don't see the new systems being as big of a hit as they thought they would be. Not many like the design, there is no customization really, and the site is confusing... I mean, if your system is good anyways, I can almost taste those black friday prices right around the corner... Yummy.

 

Personally, and this opinion will probably be disagreed with, is to spec the machine out to a reasonable price. Reason being, laptops are SO FAST now, you can get away with something with a few upgrades that will be AWESOME vs going for the tip top of the line.

Basically I'm looking at the AW 18 for about $2600. To me, thats a reasonable number for a power laptop. but obviously I have to give up some stuff to keep the price there.

 

Finally got mine after going through 4 sales agent. Managed to get CAD$5040. Including 5% Provincial tax.

I managed to chop off CAD$734 from the original price, which is CAD$5,774.15 including tax.

Alienware 18

Windows® 7 Ultimate 64-bit, English
Overclocked 4th Generation Intel® Core™ i7-4930MX (8MB Cache, up to 4.3GHz w/ Turbo Boost)
Microsoft® Office Trial
16GB Dual Channel DDR3L at 1600MHz
Dual NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 780M with 4GB GDDR5 - NVIDIA SLI® Enabled
750GB SATA 3Gb/s (7,200 RPM) + 64GB mSATA SSD Caching
Essentials
3 Year Alienware Enhanced Support
3 Year Accidental Damage Service

 

Shaggymac screen protectors. It's a felt mat you put on the keyboard before you close it. I bought one for my Sammy gamer because it's notorious for the keys damaging the display surface abs it's kept it looking mint.

 

Rubber stick on bumpers are cheaper and easier. Just stick them on the corners of the screen and you never have to worry about it again.

 

Any word on why the long build time and why the ETA jumped from 7/3/13 to 7/18/13 and beyond? Are the parts not even available yet?

 

Trust me , your not the only one who thinks that way. I am basically looking at a base m18 model with a 4800mq processor. I want a blu-ray drive too, but since they don't really have customization on parts yet I guess I'll pass/wait. I can upgrade other things like ram+ssd's during Black friday specials.

 

Not so, I've been playing Tomb Raider with maxed settings, Tress Fx on, sitting at a vsynced 60 fps

 

Question about the HDMI in on the Alienware 17 (I have zero experience with AW).

How does it work, exactly? Say I plug in a PS3 game console, do I need to be in Windows first and is it done through some program?

Are there video options like adjusting brightness, contrast, color, sharpness, etc? I assume backlight brightness is done with the regular fn+key combo that Windows uses?

Does the 120hz screen affect compatibility with 60hz devices like the PS3? Will PS3 games that support 3D work?

 

Well, that doesn't mean that you wouldn't need 4x Titans to run it - just that AMD has infinitely better computer performance! Or that 4x Titan = 2x 7970m, which I really wish was the case in more situations....

Man, if I end up getting a 780m I think the only thing I'll miss from my 6970m is the compute performance.

 

Over my last couple of calls I have noticed that they are much more willing to negotiate bigger cuts on the loaded 18's. the most I could get off on the 17 was about 7%, but on an 18 I almost had them at a 20% off, which I would have pulled the trigger on.

Keep trying guys, I think the play is asking for one of those loaded preconfigured 18's at 15-20% off. You should get that.

 

You just ask for it to be 20% off? how does that work.Im in limbo right now because i've had an r2 on back order for 3 months now, and im not sure if the 18 is really worth cancelling my order and starting all over again and spending an extra 500 dollars. *sigh*

 

Do you mind sharing the configuration you had when you almost had them at 20% off?
Because I can pay a bit more and upgrade some key features for a nice 20% off.

 

Hi, I can only say how mine works, and then it's from other users as I never got to try it - sold the PS3.

It appearers to work the same as a TV, when an input is detected the display switches over to external input. No programs are needed and windows is left running with no display. it has been changed with the 17 as the earlier models had two HDMI ports and now it's a combo so it may work differently.

The question about the 120hz display is s good point, if the iGPU can't drive it then how can a PS3 @ 60hz? We need one of the AW guru's here to check it out, or you could ask over in the R3/R4 owners lounge for experiences of people that have used the earlier version.

Sorry not more help

Edit: PS3 3d is very unlikely to work. It will output side-by-side 3D requiring the connected device to be able to decode. The NV version uses direct interlaced output (60hz to each eye)

 

Does anyone know if the windows 8 builds have alienware customisation like windows 7 does? (Login etc)

 

you can easily mod up the lock screen to whatever picture you want, but the start menu has to be a solid color till windows 8.1 is released.

 

Ah I see that is good - so when 8.1 is released there should be little difference?

 

Important question I haven`t found the answer to:

Have the cooling improved from the older Alienware series (2012)? Is there more heatsinks and copper inside? And what about the noise? Have that improved? Is the fans bigger compared to older 2012 series?

 

Gonna throw another 'spanner' in the mix here.

You 'could' grab a pair of 680m's for maybe ~$1000, and be around 15% behind 780m Sli for a lot less. You could also upgrade to a 2960xm, or even get an R2 board and go Ivy Extreme and still have plenty of change from $4k. (an R2 with 3940xm and 680m Sli is one HECK of a beast, and I imagine will give a 4900mx/780m Sli machine a good run for it's money...).

Just a thought.....of course, if upgrade costs start to creep up, it may not be sensible to start upgrading an older platform when a new one is available for not too much more. Like you said...'Decisions, decisions......'

I don't think we've seen a video yet that depicts noise emmissions when cranked up, so I couldn't say about noise pollution. As for the heat sinks, there looks to have been a bit of a redesign. The old R1/R2 gpu heatsinks had 3 smaller pipes, the new machine seems to have gone for two thicker pipes, going from the CAD mock up of the system internals.

The cpu retains a 3 pipe design, can't comment on thickness of the pipes. Also, I don't know if the fans themselves have been changed from those used in the R1/R2.

I'd like to think that cooling has been improved, rather than noisier, though....but that's not a given until someone gets their sweaty little paws on one....

 

Stevie do you know if all model get kitted out with the same heat sinks? Im guessing the answer is they don't

 

If you mean 'are the 14, 17 and 18 heatsinks the same?' - pretty sure that they won't be, due to having to fit into different chassis'/form factors. The heatsinks with each model may very well be the same, regardless of gpu, though - at least until we see an AMD offering, which likely will require a different heat sink again.

 

More so meant with the different CPU model with in a range. ie m18 had Single pipe - Triple pipe etc based on the CPU..

 

Hey stevie how well will 765m perform on the alienware 14, from early info its look a nice card to run bf3 at ultra settings with decent fps.

 

I was just comparing a quote that I had prepared (out of curiosity, mainly) for a loaded 18. The website indicates next to the radial that its a 512gb 7mm drive plus a 750gb HDD for storage. Seems to be a slight error, as the quote clearly states:

512GB mSATA SSD Boot + 750GB 7200RPM SATA 3Gb/s

After looking again at the website, the 7mm discription is clearly wrong, as when you select that radial, the image changes, too - it then clearly shows "512gb mSata" and not a 7mm drive. I know this is a minor point, but worth pointing out. I think the only current manufacturer of a 512gb mSata is Samsung, with their PM841 reviewed here: Samsung PM841 512GB mSATA SSD Review - Performance and Capacity in a Client SSD | The SSD Review Note that is only made for OEM's, so likely is Dell's choice of mSata...well, their ONLY choice at the 512gb capacity anyway.

Just thought I'd mention it.

My bad. No idea, fella. I'd have hoped that Dell just took the approach of "one for all" instead of a double pipe for QM's and triple for MX's - of course, from a cost perspective, there will be less copper in a dual pipe cpu heat sink, and that's pretty much the bulk of their sales. If cost cutting is factored in, I'd say we'd see a repetition of the same pattern with the R2.

 

Yeah, the specs are a little rough to say the least. I noticed that on the US site it says the 750gb drive is sata 3gb/s and one of the UK options ( as a stand alone 750 not the cached one) has it as a 6gb/s drive?

The Dell Online Store: Build Your SystemCheck out the HD options

 

For Alienware 18 $3,349 base configuration, the builder shows a compatibility issue for the 4900MQ and 512 GB mSATA combination but not between 4930MX and 512 GB mSATA?

 

There are certainly a fair few 'glitches' around, not just limited to one Country's configuration tools....on the UK quote I had, the 750gb is listed as Sata II 3gbp/s - why? - if all ports are Sata III 6gbp/s, I don't see the point in even offering a Sata II drive. Period.

 

This is a great link for a better look at the new machines