When are the new Alienwares with Maxwell coming?

i have the 4940mx in my alienware right now also

 

proof please..

 

Haha I doubt he was wearing a wire homie

 

So... we have now two anonymous sources making comments...

1) There will be a line up of 13, 15 and 17

2) 18 out and SLI in question

I seriously doubt Dellienware will drop an SLI setup, at least not permanently, especially with the likes of MSI doing it, it gives AW a non-competitive image. I would not be surprised however, to see a new 15 and the 17 revert to the SLI platform in favor of an image of mobility. I know people don't like to hear this, but... it seems consistent with the move towards cooler and lighter if the AW 13 and G/A design is a bellwether signal of their direction. Dellienware really needs to come out on their plans, all this speculation and concern is getting old

 

The GA is probably a moot point if you have a laptop with SLI'd top end cards - what' the point?.....from that perspective, the GA is really only aimed at the 13 and 17 market. If Dell dropped the 18, they'd be making a HUGE mistake. Perhaps a return to dual gpu for a 17 inch model is possible, but at this point that would mean a complete redesign of the current 17 and I don't think Dell are about to do that any time soon.

My gut feeling is that the only thing we will see in the sort term is newer GPU's for the 17 and 18 respectively.

 

From AlienwareUK facebook page

Now that Dell is private and have few shareholders to satisfy, this is the result:

I am still very confused by this answer. Does he talk about now or in the future or both?

 

That answer is so dubious if you ask me. It seems as if he's insinuating that the AW18 is about to be discontinued BUT at this very moment it's still available.

Things are not looking good at all

 

I don't think they will change in the short term, I agree, but I could see it being the final round for those with upgrades... if they dropped the 14 after one version... who knows what the future holds?

 

C'mon guys......there is no way on earth ANY Dell employee - wether commenting on FB or whatever - is going to give ANYONE a direct answer to speculative questions about ANY plans that have not been approved for public release, wether that be product discontinuation, new GPU's or new models.

As for the response concerning the 18, well.......that's just a blanket reply that says "look, we're not telling you a thing until we want to......". Dell are not gonna say something is discontinued because every man and his dog will stop buying what is available NOW in anticipation of a new model - that affects sales, and in turn, profits. Dell are in the business of making money here......

You gotta remember that there will be some very serious NDA's in place here.

 

Yeah thats what I get from it too.
"We are gonna change our lineup to try our luck with the GPU box and AW17 instead of AW18"

They are too rich for their own good imo. Going in the totally wrong direction, but being true to their name, Alienware. Good at Alienate their fans yes.
Can`t wait to see this GPU box blow up in their face

 

You guys are still debating whether or not the AW 18 will be discontinued?

They discontinued the 15" notebook years ago because it jeopardized the 17" sales and was not profitable! Not only that, the AW 14 may not even be discontinued. Sure, it's not on the website, but that doesn't mean they tossed it out. Nowhere did Alienware say the Alienware 13 was replacing anything. There are too many unknowns at this point to be debating yet another drop of one of the most popular form factors they offer.

MSI is joining the 18" market because it's huge. If Alienware drops out, they would basically be giving MSI a present worth tens of millions of dollars. I suppose if Frank Azor's goal is to bankrupt Alienware, then sure, tossing out two of the most profitable form factors makes perfect sense. But I'm betting he's not that stupid.

Sales representatives aren't exactly the best source for future product information. I doubt they know these things.

 

" I emphasise that Alienware is always striving to try new things with our technology and push the boundries - so it would be fair to assume changes to our lineups in the future."

This tells us nothing. It's inevitable the lineups will change in the future. He's just making sure no one can ever call him a liar either way. Typical P|R response, nothing new here but I think they should embrace a little goodwill and address their fans when they ask what models will be discontinued.
There is no harm in that, unless they are in fact discontinuing that line and they fear this knowledge will drive away fans before they get a chance to unveil new hardware.

There's more that 1 way to deduce his carefully crafted statement. Have at it I smell a little hesitation and lack of affirmative direction too

 

Yeah but the MSI sli laptop is one of the most ugly laptops I have ever seen.... This is my opinion of course... Sad because I just joined back tot he AW ranks two years ago. But I guess Sager will be getting my money now, if I get another beastly laptop of this nature. My poor 18 is not getting any love being sold. Had a ridiculous offer of $1300. Ill let it sit in my closet for the rest of my natural life before selling it that cheap even when it isn't worth $200 dollars in a few more years.

 

Considering MSI is taking the same gambit it will be interesting to see if both decide it's a bad idea in the long run, or the market might be ready for a change. I just don't believe this means the end of SLI rigs though, I think that's way to premature but I could see it being the end of of the 18 for a time, or I could see them doing some kind of chained-SLI desktop G/A option for the 18 as well... it all depends on sales volumes in the final analysis.

I agree with this completely, letting some fear and speculation run for a short time actually can be a good thing because it gets people talking and buzz... but too long and it works against you; Dellienware is getting close to the line if this board is any indicator.

The existence of anything in Dell's lineup is not set in stone - rumors like these have been right as often as they are wrong, nothing wrong with speculation as long as people are clear that's what it is; it is after all one reason these boards exist

 

This whole situation is somewhat depressing. I botched the repaste job on my dual 4780s in July (should of left the SOBs alone after 5 years) and I've been living with a practically bricked R2 since. Figured it would be a perfect time for a refresh and I've been waiting patiently for the 980's but I didn't think they would take this long!

I have nothing but praise for Alienware based on my experience and I would hate to go with another brand but it's getting hard without a gaming rig!

 

I think it's safe to say that HQ processors will be in the new models, whatever they may be. It sucks.

 

HQ is BGA right? Disadvantages of BGA/HQ in general?

May have to consider ASUS G751.

 

Soldered onto the motherboard - meaning you cannot upgrade them. On top of that, if they fail, it's a whole new expensive board to fix.....

 

Exactly...

Then to add onto that pile of crap: technicians rarely ever replace an entire motherboard without causing some other issue(s). So, it may just lead to more tech visits, and perhaps a system replacement, ultimately costing Alienware more money. The whole "soldered" component thing may be cheaper, production-wise. But support-wise, it's a nightmare.

Is this Alienware I'm talking about? Wow, seems so odd...

 

BGA has it's place in ultra-thin notebooks - they do NOT belong in ANY Alienware machine. End of story. It's truly bizarre to think that Dell would even contemplate a BGA solution to ANY Alienware machine as the whole ethos about Alienware is supposedly about power, performance AND the ability to upgrade your hardware.

If they 'cheap out' to save a few $$$ at production level, god only knows what other corners will get cut in the search to lower overheads. I can imagine some schmuck in the "design team" saying things like "lets ged rid of those stoopid lights on the keyboard, we don't need 'em and can cut $30 off the build costs....." or "I know, lets ditch SLI because then we only have to put in one GPU....."

 

Intel's the one pushing the BGA crap... let's not forget that...

 

Yeah his response was just like the last "Oh yeah AW18 isn't discon....wait what?!"

We now have 2 Chinese sources saying AW18 is discontinued, 1 of them saying AW17 will feature SLI and I'm not sure if he was referring to a tandem with the GPU accelerator or if they are putting in 2 GPUs in the actual notebook or not. Both would absolutely explain why AW18 is going away (not that I support it).
We also have another guy from this forum saying yesterday he talked with someone who said AW18 is killed.
We have benchmarks of two Alienware machines. One is AW13, the other one is an unknown machine but with 1x980M. AW18 have not been leaked.
Then we have this Alienware employee giving vague answers and almost sounding like they might kill it in the future.

You tell me how good or bad the odds are :/

I agree. But at the same time, do they really have any choice if the God Allmighty Intel is only making BGA processors for mobile now? It may not be about buying the cheapest processors, it may be because the socket inventory is too small for Alienware (and MSI and Asus) to use time and money on engineering two lines of notebooks. One with motherboard for socketed CPUs while they still are available and another motherboard for soldered CPUs when this inventory is empty.

I don't know. It could be greed to like you say where the BGA are cheaper and the potential extra sales of a brand new notebook if the CPU brakes down or if the customer wants to upgrade.

 

At this point, I'll just be happy with my AW M18x R2 and AW 18 if they Dell would not show any initiative to sell 980M to us.

Hmm.. maybe I should sell my AW M18x R2 for a cheap price and use that money to make a SLI Steambox instead....

 

It is worth to wait, may be new Aw 17 will come with bigger Amplifier box can support dual 980 desktop cards lalalala

 

really your excited about this? im not.. why you ask? well every other Egpu solution out there does not support any thing higher than 1x speeds lol.. so you 2 980s at 1x speeds.. yeaaaaaaa ok...

now further more this is a stupid idea because now your tied to this damn dock to game.. and who wants that.. not any one i know...

Now ive also seen people saying only the uninformed buy top end systems... and tbh i dont even know what to say to that... i mean wow really thats what your going to run with??

 

-When plugged into the 13, the bandwidth is x4, not x1. This is due to CPU limitation. On a 17 with a full voltage CPU, it should be at x8 or x16.
-No one said only the uninformed buy the top end. What was said was that the majority of those who buy the top end are usually uninformed.

 

So what your saying is that my laptop gpus will still be more powerful than there solution..

 

Depends on the GPUs, though I never implied which is stronger. I mean, the lowest you should plan on inserting into the GA is a GTX 660. Anything less powerful will be pointless. A GTX 860m Maxwell is comparable to a GTX 750 ti, so anything with that much power shouldn't be in the GA. You shouldn't insert a desktop GPU where it'll be less powerful than the mobile GPU. If you install something like a GTX 680, no doubt the desktop GPU wins. I'm only talking in regards to the 13; the answer is more clear when a full-voltage CPU is in the equation. It'll be less clear when dual mobile GPUs come into play as we don't know if Alienware's next dual GPU will have dual GA support.

 

Agreed. My gut tells me Intel is only offering BGA to OEMs, and anyone that doesn't play ball (pun intended) will get left out. Clevo/Sager is still offering MQ chips likely due to their inventory.

 

x8 would be good, think I've seen reviews that analysed the importance of PCIe bandwidth, and the conclusion was that it doesn't matter much in terms of fps. x8 vs x16 showed hardly any performance loss (maybe 1 fps at the max from memory).

EDIT: Yep, I was right, the bandwidth doesn't really matter much, here's the link to the review:
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/graphics-performance-myths-debunked,review-33070-3.html

 

The crappy CPU's on offer for the AW 13 right now will limit it to x4 which would be bottleneck city . The GA is at least capable of x16 which is good.. but on a bigger laptop the whole concept becomes more redundant in my opinion.
Robbo you're right. X8 would be fine.

 

Pretty much confirmed now

 

there is no point to askin them, they wont confirm anythin until official announcement. so called Alienware team working behind massive Amplifier.

 

Yes but they now go out and straight out saying out they havent used them on AW18. This wasnt the typical "We cannot comment on bla bla bla".
We can`t find benchmarks of AW18 either but AW13 and AW17 is there with 980M. (new motherboard on the AW17 because they now use soldered CPUs)

If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck...

 

Check this out, uploaded today

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-4940MX,Alienware 068R5X

I bet we got to find this guy. 3dmark shows he got Dell vbios.

 

I agree. It's quite strange to see HIDevolution offering the AW18 with 980m SLI and Dell saying that they haven't even bothered to try and 'validate' that particular GPU setup on the same machine....even though it is a machine that THEY manufacture. Weird or what.......

 

Dell takes forever to confirm/test anything. Look at their 'recommended' video driver, lol.

If EuroCom and HIDEvolution both have Alienware's with Maxwell, then it works. It just requires some tweaks.

 

Atleast Alienware is being honest on what to expect.
HID are walking on a thin line here imo. If I paid and bought a AW18 with 980M SLI for a hefty price premium, with their website saying they got the machine in stock, and HID either holds the AW18 back because they cant get the AW18 to work with 980M or I get a broken machine sent to me, Id create hell for them around in various forums.
But the fact we have seen zero benchmarks from HID or any user who bought a machine from them, means that they are most likely holding back the machines and giving the usual excuses to their customers.

Nope, Eurocom said they havent gotten the AW18 with 980M to work and it will take time to fix it. They have released a video where they show AW17 using 980M but it is only with Optimus enabled and it doesnt work in any other scenario (Optimus disabled, FN+F5 doesnt work). The people who have tried 980M on M17x say it is unstable and sometime crash even if they use the Optimus Enabled.

 

Isn't their website saying alienware 18 980m sli in stock ready to ship. False advertizement. Isn't that like against the law or something. How can they have that up there for so long and still it's all rubbish. I would be embarrassed if that was my website. Lol
That's hid evolution sorry different website but still rubish

 

So pretty much most the 980m cards are all the same except they have a different vbios depending on vender right. So if I was to buy one from Clevo ,msi or whoever . When we get a hold of dell's vbios one just needs to flash the card with dell's vbios and your good to go right. Or are the cards actually different in some way

 

Here's another Alienware 17 benchmark: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-4940MX,Alienware 068R5X

 

I think he is only one who managed to get Dell vbios, as all Benchmark with Dell vbios belong to him.

 

I'm assuming that's a stock run. It's impressive. That is what you score when you have an unlocked vBIOS and heavy overclock with the 780M.

Someone needs to figure this out soon. I'd love to see some overclocking.

 

Would a Dell vbios guarantee to work on all AW machines regardless if its SLI or AW17?

 

SLI seems to be the main culprit. I'm betting the drivers don't even support it, yet.

It's obvious with the right tweaks, the AW 17 supports it. And maybe the AW18 will in a single GPU configuration.

 

Drivers support it. Clevo machines are running 980M SLI without problems. Aorus running 970M SLI too.
I just remember someone mentioned GTX 780M couldnt be used before Dell released 780M vbios earlier. Maybe its this time this year too

 

That's most likely the case.

There were problems with the 880M and 120Hz/3D as well, when it came out to replace the 780M. Alienware fixed that later.

 

Okay, made up my mind, The alienware 14 being discontinued now, I decided to build a mini-ITX desktop instead. I realized even though I need portability, I don't need to game on-the-go anymore since school has ended now.
That way, I can choose a display and keyboard exactly to my liking too. I have to say, the alienware M14x r1 I have had for almost 4 years now, has been my best laptop experience. But unfortunately alienware has ended this journey for me.

 

That's a good idea, considering. Good luck with the build. :thumbsup:

 

he is on the alienware 17..