When are the new Alienwares with Maxwell coming?

Alienware will be at PAX AU.
Most likely not, but who knows.

 

I was very disappointed at this event... the AW13 is not even out yet and it's old, and they said absolute no word on "the direction their future systems are going"
I hope we hear something about an AW14/15 and 17/18 with the 900M series dead soon(like PAX AU soon) otherwise I'll start my search for a company that actually cares to deliver the latest technology to their customers...

 

Yes I agree with this. My guess is late November. Been debating between all 3 laptop sizes.

 

That would be really odd, as 980M, especially 980M SLI, will greatly diminish the value of having all but the most expensive desktop GPUs in a Caldera eGPU box. Even GTX 780M is more powerful than the "adequate" (i.e. inexpensive) video cards that are popular with the dime-store desktop gaming crowd. Your gains from an eGPU would be minimized having a GTX 980M in the chassis and a GTX 980 in the box. With GTX 980M SLI you might be even see a bit of a performance downgrade using the Caldera with less than an a high-end enthusiast card inside of the eGPU box.

The value of this eGPU technology is going to be most meaningful for those that wish to cut corners on cost, compromise on performance with a weaker GPU and choose an Ultrabook form factor instead of having the best components available inside of the laptop chassis. The laptop gamers that always sit down in front of an external monitor, keyboard and mouse are not going to miss out on as much graphics performance using the eGPU as the Ultrabook gamers that can only game using their BGA GPUs that are prone to running hot in a slim chassis.

The only truly disappointing component in the 13 is the i5 ULV CPU with respect to gaming power. They repeatedly referred to Core i series CPUs in the NYC presentation, so hopefully that will mean at least a somewhat robust CPU option can be anticipated as a configuration option at some point. Hopefully, the avoidance of specifically stating "Core i5" was not merely a ploy to avoid booing and hissing from the crowd.

 

Even Core i7s come in dual core ULV flavors so simply stating Core i5 or i7 doesn't mean anything.

 

I realize that and already posted about the crappy i7 options that Intel is peddling in another post a day or so back. I was only offering an observation that they were not specific about it. I do hope it wasn't just conveniently omitted to avoid turning people off at an event that was meant to be exciting. I'd not be interested in a 13 with any i7 CPU in it because (a) it is BGA, and (b) it's an Ultrabook. But, I would be really happy for those that want one to have a better 4C/8T CPU option. Based on what little room there is for heat sinks, it would be sort of silly to assume anything other than a ULV CPU would be able to comply with Dell's strict and overly conservative design standards on thermals and noise. Except by accident, roaring lap-melters are probably not something we can expect to see them release even if it means lowering the bar on performance to some extent.

 

On the Australian site there's no option for anything except the i5, 4210u cpu. Hopefully we'll at least have the high end i7 ulv(4578U) as an option otherwise the i5 will already be a very big bottleneck.

AW is supposed to release the laptop tomorrow right? Hopefully they'll have options for it.

 

Let's hope so. It should also be noted the place-holder for the Area-51 mentions nothing about GTX 980M. Hopefully, the options will be a little more robust for both machines regarding these components than what we can see right at the moment.

 

Yeah I noticed that as well. The 980 should be an option. Their website looks like it hasn't been updated at all yet so I'm assuming everything should come soon.

 

If they at least gave the AW13 a socketed chip, even a bottom of the barrel i3-4000M, it would've still been magnitudes better than being stuck with soldered BGA junk, because as long as there's BIOS support for it, you could always drop in a more powerful chip later down the road. I understand thermals would be a concern, but I'm sure the those seeking extreme performance in a 13" form factor is more than adept at hard modding their rig for better cooling.

Not to mention with a socket you could potentially drop in a 4940MX and make full use of the eGPU dock, thermals be damned. With a ULV it'll bottleneck a desktop GPU so hard it won't be funny.

 

I agree. I'm not certain that a high percentage of Ultrabook shoppers would necessarily recognize bottlenecking if they saw it. It may depend on what types of games they are used to playing and how weak the machine is that it is replacing. Even with the weak ULV CPU and humble 860M it will be an upgrade for some of them. But some will definitely notice. I suspect a fair number of those looking to go downsize from a larger, more powerful system will be unhappy with the outcome with many Ultrabooks. I've seen some posts reflecting disappointment from a few folks that had regrets. I currently have and have had a few machines with ULV and dual core processors and the slow OS response and application load times compared to an average Intel quad/HT CPU can be really frustrating to deal with. Even simple stuff like MS Office and Adobe applications sometimes feel like they can take an eternity to load.

 

Just as I feared, no new lineup. Who knows perhaps it's yet another marketing strategy of them trying to sell that piece of crap of an e-GPU as much as possible. Which is if you ask me a VERY dumb idea. It's almost the size of a mini-itx desktop case, and god know how much is going to cost. Especially if you want a GTX 980 in it or something (Though don't know what is being offered in it).

Waiting for 1 year now to get an alienware 14 update was going to buy the very first update, but they messed it up bad for me. Dat luck I have.

 

It's $299 for the Caldera eGPU box with PSU... bring your own GPU.

It doesn't seem all that large in the videos to me. I don't see how they could make it a lot smaller than it is and still have room for a 2-slot full length desktop GPU and PSU without restricting air flow. I realize not everyone has the same taste. I am not overly interested in an eGPU, so I am not defending it as being something great or desirable, simply stating what I saw on Twitch this evening.

 

Nvidia has just shown off their best mobile GPU's yet, proving that the actual gap between Desktop and Laptop actually get's a lot smaller, and you can even surpass most of the desktop performances with an SLI configuration which is something that still fit's inside a laptop.

But NOOO, what does alienware do? "There are new GPU's? Who needs those new gpu's? Let's use old ones, Cheaper for us to get, more profit for us. Ow you want performance? Here a brick of a Deksktop GPU holder, your TINY cpu will probably a bottleneck but do you really care?!"

I know now what they meant "forget everything you know". They want us to forget that there are amazing new 900M GPU's available.

 

Bye bye Alienware...and welcome Clevo! I wait another 2 Werks now. If it isnt possible to buy Alienware with 900m gpus at this Moment i will buy another machine.

 

pull the trigger buddy. Alienware really wants you to carry that big black box, which remembers me a big toaster. They wanna call it gpu amplifier though, I myself prefer toaster.

 

Long live the m18x r2. I guess upgrade to 980ms it is, hopefully they work

 

This user is trying to put GTX980M clevo in his M18 ... and it don't post.
Going to test clevo 980m in alienware m17x R4, m18x R2, AW17 - Page 3

 

I didnt have the energy to watch the live stream yesterday and thought that I would wake up to Dell selling these new AW17 and AW18 today with 970M and 980M so that I can order them maybe even today.

But nooo.
Freaking tiny 13" that is of no interest to me at all, a discrete GPU box that will perform worse than 980M SLI we will have in AW18 not to mention ot completely take away the portability you have since you need to carry a new box.

Im so sick of waiting for a clarification on the AW18 and I cant take a choice on which notebook I should buy until I have seen AW17 and AW18. 2-3 weeks have passed since Nvidia launched these Maxwell GPUs and Alienware is still selling crappy M290X and GTX 880M GPUs.

Screw you Alienware

 

Seems pretty clear that they might be working on the eGPU setup for the other lines, with the possible exception of the AW 14 if it survives. Really amazed at how AW didn't think this through. I had confidence the ULV was just a base setup, with at least one option to a full quad, but apparently not. I'm (half-serious) almost of the opinion Dell is trying to poison the name as they seek to divest themselves from the consumer market. Design a poor product, watch it fail then use that as an excuse to ditch the name.

The other downside to this eGPU business is where is the push then to refresh the laptops as new mobile GPUs become available? I can see them pushing the eGPU in lieu of timely upgrades now.

To not have mentioned ANY changes to the 14/17/18 lines was ridiculous for their 2014 launch.

 

The launch event sucked big time, they need to either update Alienware 14 to 970m or launch a 15 with 970m/980m.

 

I knew that AW 13 was gonna end like this with mediocre specs due to it's small footprint for a quality gaming setup but that i5 is utter crap with an old gen maxwell while the newer 900M series cards are available is very disappointing & that eGPU is not a necessity here, as you'll have to spend $999 for this config an a $300 base for eGPU plus shelling out extra $$$ for a desktop GPU only for this setup, I guess it's good if you have a desktop setup where you can shift the GPU. Not considering all the bandwidth related issues with this eGPU hich has lesser speed than a conventional setup.

They must have upgraded the AW 14 instead with some good quality MQ processors and MXM GPU's which would've been really awesome.

The Alienware guys strictly follow Intel's lineup for the R2 refresh was quite expected too. But no 900M series upgrade on website for the AW17 & 18's that's hell of a shame on such a good rep company delaying the GPU refresh too much.....Msi, Asus, Gigabyte all are offering new GPU's.

 

Maybe they are preparing a 4K 17" or 18" screen for us drools.... nothing good ever happens like that for normal , if it was apple , panel manufacturers would jump through hoops for it ... They got a 5K screen (o.0) why do you need a 5K screen on a machine that can barely use it

 

It's live on their site in the US if you haven't checked. I went there to look for the 970m in the A17 but no luck.

 

Part of me wants to say this is the calm before the storm - that AW will put out a revised thinner (hopefully not gimped) 14, but I noticed already that the deals section has no AW 14 available now. It would be a shame to not have a 14 or 15, and only a 13,17/18. I am sure that with those designs (outside of the 18) part of the quiet is a retool to add in the eGPU capability, and perhaps a move to a thinner design chassis as well.

 

I don't know what they're doing now. I did not expect this. All I can say is that I'm disappointed with how things turned out.

Hopefully things will turn around next year.

 

You and me brother, I had really expected at least one CPU upgrade option. Hell, even the M11x-series had more than one : /

I just don't want a 17" laptop, but an anemic 13.... I still say there is a real chance this is a short term version to capitalize on holiday sales (we have basically been told this).... then a full refresh of all lines (and maybe a 14 or 15 coming in) will occur with the Broadwell refresh and have the eGPU support.

I had really wanted one of these for Christmas, but it looks like I will get a rain check from Santa

 

Well.... what's even worse is we are unable to upgrade the 980M to the AW 18 by third party sellers yet.

 

Well..the 13 is dam good looking machine. I'll give them that. But man did they miss an opportunity not offering a decent CPU.
Plus that dock is only PCIe x4 .. so there's that too.

All we know is the 980m Clevo cards doesn't work in a Alienware. Likely because it needs a vbios flash.

 

What I don't understand is the fact that they advertised i3, i5, and i7 for the Alienware 13 but don't offer these options? Must we wait for Broadwell?

DETAILS ALIENWARE, DETAILS! The event sucked in that regard. All they did was tell us what we already know.

 

Shame the reps here don't give us something to chew on...

Thats Intel Core i5-4210U sucks balls. How's it going to power an external GPU for Pete's sake. It's less than half the grunt of a 3610qm.

 

Alienware 14 is indeed not available anymore, when typing the url. It gives you the "This product is currently unavailable. Please find our recommendation for a comparable system below."Bull. goddamit

 

Calm down; it's just a computer. If one brand doesn't have what you want, look elsewhere.

 

Nothing to calm down.

 

I'm looking for a gaming laptop with a 980M and a 17" 120Hz screen - where else should I look? I've heard Eurocom isn't the most reliable, and I don't know of any other manufacturer offering that (except for a future AW 17).

 

You don't undersatnd. I really do like the alienware systems. When I'm paying so much money I want everything to be as good as possible. I don't want unwanted hardware or something.

- 1st of all I want a 14 or 15 inch laptop that has a quality build, Appreciate addition of aluminum in the frame.
- 2nd, in terms of performance I need an i7 4810mq/hq and as gpu a 970M or 980M.
- 3rd, I need support for 5.1 surround audio. Through 3x 3,5mm jacks or an spd/f optical port.
- 4th, Would appreciate a good looking chassis that provides cooling so that the machine NEVER throttles. A gaming laptop need style
- 5th, The keyboard has to be a very good typing experience and is backlit, which is where most laptops fail.
- 6th, Finally a great looking 1080p IPS display that has quite the contrast ratio with very good color reproduction and deep blacks.

So I cannot find a laptop with these specs. Now the alienware 14 succeeded in all of these except for the 2nd. So it's a HUGE disappointment for me to loose such an opportunity, especially after waiting 1 year for an update

 

And that's enough to make this comment you made?

No, it isn't. We can't have everything we want, so let's make compromises to get at least close enough.

Well, yes there is, outside the event of course. But you're just upset because of your sky-high expectations not met. I know many of us are, but some of the reception here is a bit extreme.

HIDEvolution has you covered... to a point. They have a GTX 980m; all you'll need is the 3D screen.

 

Who is this guy, lol? I'm not upset.

Sky-high expectations? No... They promised i3, i5, and i7 processors in every review on the internet. That's not a sky-high expectation.

 

From the way you worded your posts, you seemed like it. Sorry for the accusation.

 

A little bird tweeted earlier that Alienware will have 3 models to offer this year:
AW 13
AW 15
AW 17

Alienware 14 and 18 is killed off for whatever reason. We have seen their plan with AW 13 and that is to rely on another box with a desktop GPU inside. Make up a fancy name for it, and sell it to people who are not aware that a freaking 17W ULV processor will bottleneck the living hell out of a GTX 980 inside the box. FYI: 47W 4710HQ bottleneck the GTX 980M. Alienware however market the AW13 laptop as you could pair it up with a GPU with 33% more cores than 980M despite having a much weaker CPU. A recipe for a disaster.

I don't know who runs the Alienware branch, but if they indeed kill the AW18, the only notebook out there that is good enough for SLI, use soldered HQ CPUs for AW15 and AW17 and then this poorly engineered AW13,

I will again have to question whether this Alienware company have lost their minds and is indeed run by monkeys

 

18 killed off and MSI jumps in for the market with GTX980M SLI. Check it out.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/msi/763082-omg-msi-coming-gtx-980m-sli-notebook.html

 

And it looks like an abomination. Wth a mechanical keyboard and dragon logo above it?

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

 

I made that thread but haven't checked it out for a while. Thanks

My god it is ugly. Looks like a crash between the old commodore desktop computers and a modern laptop.
YUCK

 

Its like a Frankenstein of notebooks. Hey, if it works, people will sure buy em.

 

That is my preferred size/lineup, but it all comes down to execution. They already blew it with the 13. I wanted/expected something alone the lines of Razer Blade competitor, but we got something a lot worse. I can't believe they stuffed a low voltage processor in a "performance" laptop. 15 should be single gpu, 17 should be dual gpu, with MXM slots and removable/upgradeable RAM and CPU. If Alienware would like to remain in business, they better not screw up the rest of the line. Soldered components is a death sentence for Alienware, surely they know this.


I swear I'm about to start my own laptop company, i'm sick and tired of not being able to get a fantastic all around computer. The last "great" computer was the M18x R2, which is working on its way to 3 years old now. Is it too much to ask for an aluminum chassis, MXM slotted mobo, great speakers, modular components, and a RGBLED screen, and a wide variety of ports in one laptop (apparently, the eSATA/USB combo port has been dropped from many computers)? I guess it really is.

 

Is that new information? Do you know when the 980M AW17 is supposed to be announced?

Thanks for the link, but I'd like my laptop to be shipping equipped with a 120 Hz screen. I'm terrible at handling hardware and I would not want to risk warranty issues.

 

You most likely won't void warranty upgrading, but I see what you mean.

Wait, then what about that person that said the 18 will have a 4k screen? Or that the 13 will have an i7-3578U? I don't handle leaks well, so I'm just curious.

 

We can't have everything we want. But loyal fans sitting idly by not making their voices heard doesn't do anyone any favors in the long run either.

I'd agree that those were reasonable expectations. It's not like anyone was expecting an Extreme i7.

If that's true I have a sickly feeling that the AW17 will have a BGA CPU. Likely with MXM GPU's. Still totally unacceptable. I wouldn't want to change out my whole motherboard if I had a failed CPU. I wouldn't want to be forced to buy an XM out the gates for +$1000 either.
My oh my!

 

Just to make this clear, the expectations I was talking about were the GTX 970m, a quad-core processor in the 13, and keeping the 14. Nothing else from that. Everything else like a refresh or something could and should have been expected.

 

Nobody knows when Alienware will start selling the new Maxwell GPUs that came out like 3 weeks ago...
My guess, whenever the lazy corporative lazy rich owners find it fitting, ie, when their huge warehouse have depleted the stock of notebooks with 800M outdated and hot GPUs. Yes I think they much rather want to get rich on outdated hardware than being true gaming brand like MSI,Clevo and pretty much any other brand and getting out the Maxwell cards as fast as they can to cater for their fan base.
And FYI, nobody knows if Alienware 17 will even have 120Hz displays. Asus and Clevo have discontinued their 120Hz displays, rumor has it that the display makers no longer manufacture them, and since Alienware buy their displays from the same manufacturers as the rest, the odds are greatly against that AW17 will get 120Hz. Most likely it will get IPS like MSI and Asus, but they may even have standard TN display as stock while IPS is upgrade that cost money.

Nobody have leaked information about AW18 getting 4k display. Its just wishful thinking. Rumour has it that Alienware will no longer sell AW18. %#£:%+!

Well Asus, MSI, Aorus, Gigabyte, they all use HQ processors now in their gaming notebooks. I think that they can buy these CPUs for much cheaper than MQ processors from Intel, plus they get more sales down the line since a customer will need to buy a completely new notebook if they want faster CPUs. So you better be careful of picking the correct soldered CPU when you buy one now. I'd hate to be in a position to buy a brand new notebook with 980M only to find out the CPU bottleneck it. Then you are royally screwed!
All in courtesy of rich and greedy companies.

I think Clevo still offer MQ (non soldered CPUs) on some of their notebooks, so let's cross everything we go that Alienware will too.