When are the new Alienwares with Maxwell coming?

Tomorrow will be the longest of Mondays.

 

Agreed! Put it online to order already!


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Intel has officially lost it.

Well no matter, if Intel keeps dragging their feet like this AMD will catch up with them eventually (ok fine wishful thinking), and the day Intel makes desktop chips BGA only is the day I go AMD and never look back.

 

Wouldn't that just be bad business practice on Intel?

 

Its happened before... Remember the AMD renaissance back in the mid 2000's that happened because intel got complacent and thought it could get away with yearly 5-10%performance increases forever?

 

You mean abusive monopolistic behavior? Oh man, Intel wouldn't know aaaaanything about that sort of thing.... lol

 

Yep the good ol' P4 vs Athlon days where Intel was blindly chasing that 4GHz with their broken NetBust while AMD was spanking them hard in the rear. Really ironic how the tables have turned and it is now AMD who is chasing the GHz.

It's very different now though, Intel gave illegal rebates alongside threats and forced OEMs to use only their chips, and that has caused AMD to lose god knows how much revenue over the years. Intel effectively crippled AMD's R&D infrastructure and made sure they'd always play second fiddle. I'd very much like for AMD to shove a steel-toed boot up Intel's butthole, but I know it's just not a realistic expectation at this point, not at the high-end segment anyway.

Although I do wonder whether Intel has considered that if they keep dragging their feet, enthusiasts will simply stop upgrading. I know the mainstream segment makes up a far larger share of Intel's revenue, but with today's CPUs there's even less reason for Joe Average to upgrade his computer if all he's doing is browsing and playing the occasional non-demanding game. Maybe that's why Intel wants to shove BGA down our throats, because nothing quite like planned obsolescence to force people to buy new and "upgrade" constantly.

 

Man, I would really love to see that happen again, but AMD is so far down on the CPU performance food chain that it would take a tremendous amount of ingenuity and effort on their part to simply match the full-fledged quad/hex/octa-core HT Intel i7 processors. They haven't shown us much talent and ingenuity on anything lately... CPU or GPU, but especially not in the CPU realm. That may have something to do with a shortage of financial resources as well as talent and ingenuity.

Could it happen? Yes, it sure could. However, as much as I would like to see it, I'm not going to hold my breath on it. They seem to be in a complacent comfort zone of consistently holding second place in a two-horse race for enthusiast CPU and GPU products. They have their following of loyal underdogs in the CPU realm producing a steady cash flow trickle, Intel owns the zombie masses and hardcore enthusiast groups, both of which rake in big bucks, and the two are like oil and water. Whichever brand you decide to go with, in one way or another you are choosing to go with the lesser of two evils. Since there are only two evils to choose from we see stagnation on one hand (AMD) and stupidity on the other (Intel and their BGA filth).

AMD fares a little better with enthusiasts in the desktop GPU realm than they do in CPU land, but even there they consistently miss the mark in some ways. Even though some of it is hokey gimmicks, NVIDIA is constantly putting something out that is new and different. Like the stuff or not, GFE, ShadowPlay, Shield devices and streaming, so on and so forth... all new stuff that demonstrates an effort to do something better. With AMD we hear some rumblings about... Mantle and... what? A rebranded, rebranded, rebrand of 7970M? Their best effort from Q2 2012 with a new label for marketing purposes that shares the same hardware ID as the last rebrand so that it does not even get recognized by the new 2014 marketing label with AMD's latest drivers. You would think that they would have at least been smart enough to tweak their drivers to trick 8970M owners into thinking they got a free upgrade to R9 M290X. Instead, R9 M290X owners get a label in Device Manager that looks like a downgrade to an older GPU. Nice!

Now they are distracted with consoles, in a monopoly which requires no competition, no short-term ingenuity and no technological advances from where they are now, at least for a little while... just another comfortable spot for them to do exactly the same thing tomorrow that they did yesterday. They'll get to rest on their laurels doing that until Sony and Micro$haft decide it's time for something fresh in the console world. Then what?

 

Talent and ingenuity seems to go hand-in-hand with financial resources sadly. If you're among the best, would you rather go with the clear winner or the cash-strapped underdog? Who do you think will be able to throw more money at them to persuade them to join their team?

It's a viscous cycle unfortunately.

 

Fingers crossed for Alienware 18 guys

 

Yes, toes and eyes too. Anything that we can cross... cross 'em all. They just can't let the beast (and brand) go by the wayside to make room for a menagerie of gaming Ultrabooks. I hope their people have been listening and watching the angst over the rumors that it would be discontinued. There would too many people that would just walk away and never buy another Alienware product ever again, and they wouldn't have nice things to say about the brand any more. With the Area-51 for the desktop people, only an 18" dual-GPU monster with fully unlocked CPU is truly worthy to hold the top spot in the mobile line.

Yes, it all makes perfect sense. It's difficult to be disruptive in a good way when you've got such limited resources. That's the primary reason I think it will never happen. After a while the reputation for producing mediocre products probably start to drive away talent as well. What they need is people that don't need money that primarily want to become famous for taking a floundering company through a 180° about-face and transform it into a thriving enterprise with outstanding high-performance products that everyone wants to own. I'm not sure there is anything in the talent pool like that.

 

Perhaps then we are looking to the wrong faction to compete with Intel then?

Here's a thought. Nvidia in recent years has been going real hard in the paint developing some of the most powerful mobile processors of each generation. They are also of course on top of the GPU market. They have tons of money, and some of the best engineers in the industry working under them.

Now think about this. In recent years Intel has been steadily stepping up its integrated GPU game. Its fairly obvious the end goal for intel is perfecting the "all in one" chip concept. If they pull that off say in the next decade or two, Nvidia is going to find its low end and middle of the road performance market lunch stolen from them. Intel has also been skulking around in the mobile GPU market, but that place is so crowded its unlikely they are ever going to accrue any significant market share.

Perhaps Nvidia in the next few years will take the initiative and take the fight directly to Intel in the non mobile CPU arena. Perhaps even forming a mutually beneficial partnership with AMD to jump start it.

That's a corporate war I would love to see.

 

Alienware 13 page is up now: Alienware 13 Gaming Laptop | Dell

The way in which Alienware 14 has been used repeatedly on that page to show the superiority of Alienware 13 suggests that the 14 lineup will be killed

 

Probably.. The 14 was always junk... Especially after the W230S came out with a i7+860M in a 13"...

 

WTH, on that alienware 13 page they are referring to an external Desktop GPU to plug in on your Laptop? Really This is becoming a thing now?

EDIT: Please tell me that, that is something I've missed and it's not the new "Code Name: Caldera" project and that they won't skip a new lineup of laptops T_T

 

They can't skip a new line of laptops to use the Caldera eGPU because there is no place to connect it to the laptop on the existing models. A new product is required to use it. Now nobody needs to speculate about the reason for the unusual port on the back of the 13 that has been noticed in photos. The obvious assumption would be the reason for that port is the Caldera eGPU.

Unfortunately, everything I can see on the Alienware 13 page linked above refers to an i5 CPU. I don't find any reference to an i7 4C/8T CPU being one of the configuration options... at least not so far.

 

Yeah indeed weird only i5. Even the m11x back int he day offered i7. But we'll have to see I guess.

The alienware 13 might have been a possible candidate for me if it weren't for the CPU though. Those low voltage CPU's are useless for my CPU intensive tasks during developing, encoding and stuff.
I hope I will see a good new alienware 14 or 15. But then Again if there was an alienware 15 they would have said there is a new announcement too alongside the Caldera which they didn't.

Pff, I have a feeling I won't be able to get what I want from alienware.

 

Such a shame that the new 13 only has an 860m and not a 900 series gpu. Even more of a shame that it's using BGA ULV cpu's. Okay, I get the idea behind the 'graphics amplifier' but isn't the whole point of a small portable gaming laptop supposed to mean that gaming 'on the go' should have been the priority and NOT coming home, 'chaining' your not-so-ultrabook-gaming-laptop into a big chunk of additional hardware to get better performance?? - pffffft......

I think Dell may have overlooked the fact that many of it's 'Alienware' client base will have more powerful computers already at home for that 'chained' purpose - eg. desktops or possibly an 18. I also am betting that the cost of the additional 'chunk' of hardware ain't gonna be cheap for those who are keen on the idea......

 

I see the support is now return-to-base, I hope this is just the 13, . The 'International warranty' goes away?

"Alienware comes standard with a 1-year return for repair with non-accidental damage, or fail-on-arrival policy. All fail-on-arrival comes with Dell’s standard Limited Hardware Warranty." Fail-on-arrival' policy? Hmm, the plot thickens....

 

Urrgghhhh.......no in-home repair???? - that's a turn off right there if that's true. NBD in home is one of Dell's strong selling points, IMHO, and doing away with it and possibly being without your busted 'puter is a massive error on Dell's behalf.

 

Considering the turnout of the recent revision, this could be their way of trying to make up.

 

I think we're panicking a bit early - this page is obviously not complete. Lets let them launch it officially before we start panicking

 

Yeah, I did tone it down from my original flame hoping like you it's not a complete turnaround on the dell warranty - the single best selling point for IMO.

I had a feeling this might happen, when I renewed my warranty for the second time a few months ago I checked on-line and saw they have expired the NBD (which as I understand it is part of the on-site).

Oh well if they can't tempt me with a decent 17 or 18 then I've been sitting on my cash for far too long - looks like a 55" curved 4K might be where it's spent....

 

4 more hours until the live stream begins
(8pm EST)
Twitch

 

If Alienware 18 is announced today, I may order it within days. I badly need a new computer for LOTF and Borderlands Pre Sequel and The Evil Within

 

Even if it uses fixed onboard HQ CPU?

 

But i like the 14 inch screen size and an updated Alienware 14 with 970M would have been an excellent choice for many.

 

If its one of those high clocked ones (better than 4710HQ), most likely yes. As long as the GPU is MXM Im a happy dog.

But ideally I want MQ processors absolutely.

 

I'm interested to see what the 4980HQ can do, assuming you can get the power settings up a fair amount it's not going to be multiplier limited in most cases.

 

I have to admit, I am curious to see how those HQ's do as well. But I'm still not a fan of soldered CPU's, and probably never will be, at least not in larger gaming notebooks like the Alienware 17/18. Smaller notebooks, I can see why they'd use HQ processors, considering the form factor and cooling capability. Although, in larger notebooks, we should always have the ability to upgrade to maintain a higher level of performance.

 

Just to cheer you up.

Found on Twitch chat.

 

Good catch man, that would be the last nail in the coffin for me and Alienware...

 

Holy cringeworthy waiting line interviews, Batman.

 

I was just going to say something similar... BOOOORING!

 

So, no word of the R2's tonight. I'm starting to think that they are waiting for Broadwell for the revisions.

 

That show sucked.

 

Screw AW. I hope they choke and suffer. No freaking new 17 or 18. So I am stuck with this crap for the long run :/

 

What the hell? No info on the AW 17 (& AW 18)?!

 

Well, I'm super disappointed. Looks like the 17 and 18 refreshes will happen later. At least we can infer that they'll have the same gpu adapter port. Maybe the mobo revision for that is why its taking so long? I dunno...I'm just disappointed. I really wanted something THIS year, right when the new gpu's came out. I don't want to wait until we're midway through a gpu cycle. :/

 

Guys can a regular m17x have an R1 motherboard? I need a card that supports dx11 and this garbage ( gtx 280m ) does not.

 

The 17 and 18 didnt need an actual revision tbh, but no 980m info? That's a GIANT bummer on their part.

 

Bollocks to the mx13.

 

The event was a joke. No news about 14, 17 or 18 ? What, are they still shipping the 14 with that old gtx 765m? No 900m ever?

13" ULV + 860M?? And who would carry that huge gpu amplifier, lol. 299 only for the amp, which will probably be bottlenecked ?

Alienware wants you to buy a laptop that can be a desktop, instead of a desktop, and a pc that can be a console, instead of a console. I don't see any innovations.

 

I don't understand why they don't just upgrade the gpus in the existing 17 and 18 for now so they can get sales until the r2 s come out. What are they thinking or doing.

 

I'm hugely disappointed... I've kept waiting to finally get an AW 17 with a 120 Hz screen and a 980M, and it's still not possible. Do you guys think it's possible there's another announcement for the new GPUs in the AW 17/18 coming soon? Like early November?

 

To be honest I fear they'll wait with 980m updates until they update the chassis and motherboard for the Alienware Amplifier.

 

I feel you, man. I'm after the exact same thing. We gotta hope.

 

Don't hold your breath, last we heard Broadwell still didn't list MQ as being part the lineup, with only "high performance" H parts available, meaning they'll all be soldered BGA junk.

 

There is still PAX Australia on Oct 31 - Nov 2, right? Could the AW 17/18 with the new GPUs be announced then? What about the "Dell World" event on Nov. 4-6?

 

This I must say was disappointing. :confused2: