*Official* Alienware Launch Discussion Thread

In that case, buy the best you can afford. There's nothing wrong with staying within your means. That's the smart thing to do rather than overextend yourself.

You will most likely be happy with what you have ordered. If you've never owned a system like a maxed out 18, then it is impossible to have any clue what you are missing, and far less likely that you would be unhappy with something less. Going backwards in performance would be much more difficult.

 

All right, you guys got me to buy an Alienware 17 with 780m. Originally I wanted a smaller system like the Aw 14 or Razer Blade but I'm worried that the 765m won't be powerful enough for future games ( especially for the 1080p resolution). The only thing Im still worried about is the size of the Aw 17. I'm still using a M15x and am fine with the size and weight. How much of a difference will the Aw17 be compared to the M15x?

 

Not that much, dude. If you have health problems or you are extraordinarily weak, then it might be a problem. I have been traveling all over the country with huge laptops for years (XPS M1730, M17x R2, M18x) and it's not a big deal. The 17 is not that much larger than the M15x and the 18 is not a great deal larger than the 17. You're going to really like the extra power with the larger laptop and the larger screen is going to make you wonder how you ever tolerated something smaller. The only downside is you will end up being very dissatisfied with smaller laptops (i.e. one you may be required to use for work).

 

The best I could probably do is 770's in a 18 or a 780 in a 17. Just really comes down to which I feel might be a better purchase. I'm just really torn between the two for whatever reason.

 

Basing the advice on past experience with current models, (not the new systems,) my recommendation is if you can swing 770M SLI in an 18 versus one 780M in a 17, go for the bigger machine. You'll have a better upgrade path for the future, better cooling and just an all around better machine. There is nothing at all wrong with the smaller one, but you will always have more limitations that you will not have with the larger machine. You can always run one GPU in the larger machine, but two will never be an option in the smaller one. Also be warned that if you go with the 120Hz display in a 17, you will have no switchable graphics option and your battery life will be poor in comparison. If you stay plugged into the grid all the time, that may not matter too much. If you travel and actually need to run on battery it won't be a good fit. You will not have that flexibility at your disposal. The 18 should get equal or better battery life on IGFX as the 17 with Optimus. I get about 5:15 from my M18x R2. (The new systems have smaller batteries, so I am offering that information for perspective only. YMMV with the smaller batteries they are using now.)

 

Agree with Fox. If you have the space, you can (and probably will) upgrade later.

 

Glad you stepped it up! I went the M17x route when I purchased my first Alienware. It was a great machine, and my first taste of a real performance laptop. The guys over at the M18x forum made it really hard to resist going for more, though. Now I can't go back,everything else is inferior.

As far as size, I don't find the size a hindrance at all, really. I bring my M18x with me whenever I'm away from home for an extended period. I don't mind using it on my lap, either. In fact, I just did so for several hours without a problem.

When you get a taste of the performance that system has to offer, you won't regret it.

 

I have seen some comments on repasting as soon as machines arrive. Is this necessary? I have never done it before and wouldn't know where to start so would prefer not to!

 

Not required. You might want to monitor gpu/cpu temps initially to see how things are going....if they are too hot, you might want to repaste. Dell's stock Thermal Interface Material (TIM) is pretty good stuff that is long lasting. I'd only repaste if temps were out of hand.

 

No... at least not with Alienware laptops in my view. The best advice is not to fix something that is not broken. You can apply that to a lot of things, including repasting. The Dell phase-change thermal interface material is excellent. It cools well and it is more durable than paste. If you have trouble with overheating, then address it if you need to. Otherwise, leave it alone. This could happen due to improper installation of the heat sinks, but not because of inherently bad thermal interface materials.

You can apply the same logic to drivers. If you have a performance issue, try a different driver to see if it improves. If everything runs great and you have no performance issues, just leave it alone and enjoy a machine that runs like a Swiss watch.

--Edit--
Looks like Steve and I gave the same advice at the same time on the paste job. Great minds think alike.

 

Thanks. I surely do know that, but above €2,6K is seriously out of my budget.

Yeah, I think it's pretty obvious AW is better, but my wallet doesn't allow me to spend that much on a laptop. Thanks though.

 

Well, if you have a budget of 2600euro's, that's around £2200gbp - going off the example I gave you before, and assuming you don't have any additional import charges, you could quite happily buy from the UK, freight forward it to yourself and probably be within budget. Like I said though, I'd check with your customs/import authorities to double check what costs are incurred importing a laptop from the UK.

You could even PM jiggymf, as a fellow Countryman, I'm sure he wouldn't mind sharing his purchase experience with you and how he did things from the Netherlands.

 

Yeah, but the build* I gave you costs almost the same as in the Netherlands (like only €20 difference). Only if the AW 17 would have an SSD at the price of €2,6K I would buy it.

*- 4700MQ
- 780M
- Win 8
- 16GB RAM
- 2 Year Warranty + 2 Year Accidental Damage Warranty
- 750GB 7200rpm HDD

 

Thanks both!

 

Guys.. How big the gap still is between a laptop and a desktop??

 

Very open question. You would need to provide a price point etc. Or what parts you are looking to compare.

 

A desktop with Quad-SLI 780s, 32GB RAM, and a 3960x/4930k or an Alienware 18 with 780m SLI and a 4930mx. Difficult choice.

Anyone who only cares about cost-performance should buy a desktop: lower price than almost any laptop with the same performance, minimal compromise in quality, good warranties on parts. Clevo and MSI aren't Alienware's real competitors, I think, because they compromise too much; the desktop you could build with the same money is.

 

Sorry.. Just to make clearer..

I'm talking about same or similar processors and gpu's..by that i mean..

Gtx 780m against a GTX 780 in a desktop...
Although model names are the same it does not mean that they have same specs and so on..

That's what i'm aiming with the comparison

Edit: i thing that the essence of the question is... Does it seems that the gap between cost/performance ratio is reducing when compared a notebook to a desktop with similar specs??

 

Desktop bro, it ALWAYS wins unless you like to do mobile gaming and if you build it yourself you'll save a TON of money. Desktop GPU's always beat a similar mobile GPU. Running essentially 4 Titan-lites is quite tasty.

I did notice something unusual regarding Alienware, Is it just me or is the Alienware Aurora now the ugly step child and are they going to eliminate it? The Aurora is still running Sandy Bridge while the Laptops and X51 are on Haswell.

 

That was meant to be a joke question. It's why I added the 32gb RAM.

 

It's still early, coffee hasn't kicked in yet. :hi2:

 

Ahhh. I see. I thought that maybe you weren't able to order it from Dell Netherlands or something.....I get your dilemma now. Having said that, I would still run with the 17 and grab a SSD in a month or so when you have more cash to do so. Getting the machine right at the outset is the priority...having an SSD in the machine at point of purchase is not a priority that I would place much importance on. You can grab a single 256gb SSD for around €140.....in my humble opinion, it's not worth getting the 'major purchase' of the laptop itself wrong at the outset, just because of a SSD that realistically is not that expensive to buy yourself a bit later on. THEN you have a nice big additional drive (750gb) for additional storage. You'll find that with the MSI's x2 128gb SSD's that you will chew up that space pretty darn quick.....and THEN what will you do? - go out and buy a bigger drive that you would not have to do with the 17!!!!.

Swings and roundabouts, mate.....my money would most certainly be on the 17 for these reasons.

 

damn, finding US sales rep is harder that i thought it would be.... still no luck lol

anyway, for future reference should I use cooling pad? or is it already good enough without it?

 

A cooling pad is not essential as even the very best ones will only shave maybe 3-5c off your temps and probably won't make much difference under full load. I, and many others, use a NotePal U3 - it's good because you can position the 3 fans anywhere on the underside of the cooler, directly under the system fans of the laptop. It also provides a more ergonomic typing experience as the laptop is propped up at a nice angle and very slim at the front so as not to elevate your wrists too much.

 

I just kept hitting up different reps through chat while at work.

 

Hey man, forget about the MSI. I will never buy that thing. But the problem is, I want to have my games and Windows (+browsers, paint, Razer Synapse etc.) on both seperate drives. This means that I will still have to buy the SSD seperately, bringing the price to a whole whopping ~€2800 (SSD costs €300).

EDIT

Nevermind, seems like they sell Samsung 840's (250GB) for prices as low as €139. Maybe, afterall, I will still get the AW. However, is it easy to install an SSD (manualy) in an AW 17? Anyone has expierence with this?

EDIT 2

What should I go for? Samsung 840 SSD 120GB (€85) or 250GB (€148)? I will use the SSD to install Win 8 and other crap like browsers, Paint, Skype, Razer Synapse and other stuff like that on it. I will use the HDD for Steam.

 

Its seriously like 8 screws to install a SSD in a laptop.

 

Dunno where you are looking at for SSD's but you can grab a 240gb M500 for £130 or around €150 : Crucial 240GB M500 SATA 6Gbps 2.5 | Ebuyer.com or you could look at alternative SSD's that would probably be way better than the ones installed in the MSI.

If you went with the 17, add the M500 you are only €150 over budget BUT you have an additional 750gb HDD for your 'separate drive requirements' as the AW will ship with the 750gb as base HDD.

To me, that's a no-brainer.

 

Hi,

I've posted this elsewhere in the forum but have had no response, maybe you guys can help me :hi2:

Does anybody know what the RAID0 options are for the Alienware 17, I know there is a possibility of MSATA plus two SSD HDD in this model, can all three be put in RAID0 configuration and if so would there be any benefit in performance?

 

Thanks Kev.

I am looking at tweakers.net

Here are results:

120GB:

Samsung 840 series 120GB - Prijzen - Tweakers

250GB:

Samsung 840 series 250GB - Prijzen - Tweakers

But still,

 

Sorry i couldn't provide more information but all you do on the old m17x is remove the bottom panel and the HDDs are right there and they are 4 screws to pop out.

 

Whilst you can technically raid them all together, unless you have an mSata that is the same size as the other SSD's within that raid array, it will be a pointless exercise as that raid will only be x3 the size of the smallest drive within that array. Eg. If you had a 64gb mSata and two 256gb SSD's, you wont get an array totalling 576gb, it defaults to the lowest capacity so you would end up with 192gb effectively.

Also, Dell does not seem to provide the factory option of going with three SSD's anyway - if you wanted three SSD's in Raid, you would have to configure with a 256gb mSata and then add your own SSD's afterwards as Dell don't offer "Tri-Play SSD's" on the 17 like the offer "Quad-Play SSD's on the 18.

There you have it then - a 256gb SSD for €150. Plus you'd have the 750gb that the 17 ships with. See what I mean about the aftermarket SSD's and utilising the original HDD of the Alien???

As Kev said, it's a piece of cake to swap/add drives with these machines. A few screws to remove the bottom access panel and then a few screws to add/remove from the HDD caddy. Easy as pie.

 

I've had a couple Samsung 840's and loved them. But sadly i change machines so often i don't have them anymore. My friend has a 500GB one and its amazing.

 

I'd go for the largest that your budget will allow for, bearing in mind cost/gb ratio generally give you more gb per Euro as you go up in capacity, so end up being more economical in the long run for capacity. The 840's are solid (excuse the pun ) drives and are up there with the best retail drives around at the moment.

Another extremely fast drive, and very well reviewed by Anand, is the SanDisk Extreme II 240gb. : Newegg.com - SanDisk Extreme II SDSSDXP-240G-G25 2.5" 240GB SATA III Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) which equates to around €150, too. He reviewed it and said that it was his 'new favourite SSD' so that's a good commendation to me! : AnandTech | SanDisk Extreme II Review (480GB, 240GB, 120GB)

 

You might dislike me more for this Stevie lol

So now it is $1265 USD for the machine. I get a 5% GC from Dell advantage, Free NBD shipping and a $70 Coupon.

 

Are you guys ordering your systems with Windows 7 or 8?

 

any good one that can be contacted without using phone system? can't really bargaining using phone since I'm not us citizen

 

@Kev - Hahahahaha! - man, I'm green with envy - that's a cracker of a deal. I think for my next major purchase, I'm just gonna have a holiday to the States and pick one up while I'm there.....might as well have a holiday thrown in for free instead of giving that extra cash to Dell UK!

 

Don't worry. It's enough information.

Seems like you are right. Now, I got 4 possibilities here:

Samsung 840 120GB : €85

Sandisk Extreme (not 2nd gen though) : €90

Samsung 840 250GB: €148

Sandisk Extreme (not 2nd gen though): €173

I will go with Samsung. However, I am still not sure between the 120- and 250GB.

 

Yeah, they basically just gave me a free mouse and im going to buy a backpack, the side pouch one for my aw 14.

Alienware Vindicator Messenger Bag Details | Dell
and
Dell Alienware TactX Mouse : Game Consoles & Video Games | Dell

The larger the size of the 840, the faster it is.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147188

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147189

You come to Pittsburgh its cheap here and there are some nice places to go to. I think we are the 2nd lowest cost of living city in the US?

 

I've ordered the AW 17 with the 256GB MSATA Boot and 750GB secondary hdd and was thinking of adding two more 256GB SSD's and RAID0 them with the MSATA, do you know what the manufacturer of the MSATA is? Can you mismatch SSD models as long as the capacities are the same? Will it better the performance of the single MSATA?

 

1. Dell uses Samsung or Lite on. Its a toss up for what you will get.
2. You can mismatch models, but the capacities have to stay the same.
3. Yes.

 

Cheers Kevinmcg, Am I right in thinking that RAID0 is just a setting in BIOS and I would need to re-install Windows with the correct drivers for RAID support? If drivers are required does DELL provision them?

 

You should be fine with size and weight. The new AW 17 is actually a little lighter and has less depth than the M15x. It is just wider by 1.3 inches.

 

Yep. /10char

 

As for make of mSata, I believe that Samsung are the only manufacturer of the 512gb capacity mSata that Dell offer in the Alienware 18. It's a PM841. I'm sure I saw somewhere that the 256gb mSata's are PM841's too.....can't recall where I saw that now...maybe on someone's order or quote....quote I think....

Anyway's, as Kev said, it won't matter about the brand, just match the capacities and your'e golden.

If it is LiteOn, you can see what the performance should be like here: mSATA SSD . If it is a Samsung PM841, performance should be as mentioned here: http://www.samsung.com/global/business/semiconductor/product/flash-ssd/overview - that is until Dell get their hands on it and Delllize it with a Dell firmware, which might affect performance. They certainly 'gimped' the PM830's with their firmware in terms of 4k read/write performance - the Dell version is quite a lot slower than it's retail brother......way to go Dell....if it ain't broke, don't fix it, eh?

Note the differences between the LiteOn and the Sammy mSata's - IOPS - the Samsung KILLS the LiteOn, so I just hope that Dell have done away with LiteOn in favour of Samsung for good...........I really detest the fact that when buying such a component, it's a 'toss up' of what you will get. That really blows in my book.

 

Allright, but still I am not sure if it's worth the extra €63. I will give myself some time to think. Thanks.

 

Get the larger capacity if you wish to also store your music along with the other stuff you mentioned earlier. If not the smaller 120GB will do for windows and basic programs. Then you can get the cheapest, and buy a mSATA 64GB SSD (about $35 in the US) to boost your 750GB HDD with steam and games on it.

 

Hi all, i've been reading through the forum for a little while now but this is my first post and also my first Alienware order! Now im like a kid waiting for christmas. The spec I ordered is;

AW17
4700MQ
16GB
GTX 770M
750gb HDD
1920 x 1080 Anti-Glare Display
Vindicator Backpack

Im pleased with the spec i ordered however i've seen no one on here mentioning that they ordered the aw17 with the 770m. Im on a strict budget and I'm already way over it but I'm concerned that I'm going to regret not getting the 780m after reading everyones posts. It would be good to hear other peoples opinions

Has anyone else on here ordered the 770?

 

I hope I get the Samsung then, by the way it's coming up to a week since I ordered but its still in pre-production is this normal?