When are the new Alienwares with Maxwell coming?

A few benchmark leaks show HQ processors in one of the Alienware's with the 970M and 980M. So, we know they exist... We just don't know when they will be available.

Why!



P.S. If you haven't seen this lady before, checkout the spoiler below:

Spoiler

 

Intel may be offering monetary incentives to do so or warning companies that the sockets are being phased out.

 

They're just giving Haswell HQ away for free. Throw it all away, boys!

 

It's true most people don't change CPU when they get a machine, of course intel can squeeze a little more at purchasing to go for that 48xx or extreme chip over the ones below.

This is what happens when there is only one game in town.

 

Not a good analogy, but this whole exercise reminds me a bit of sports car production over time.

It goes in waves, with a potential building up for a market for a performance niche, which then rapidly gets filled for a period of time with multiple offerings, then it dries up until the next go round. During those down periods the "sports cars" offered are only shadows of the legendary ones produced for a short time, riding on the name. Anemic Mustangs were a joke for a number of years for example, being Mustangs in form and little else. I am beginning to think this will hold true on the laptop front as well. The market for 3,000+ USD laptops is limited at best, but the market around 1K-2K is fairly strong. The AW 13 with the lack of a real CPU is the anemic Mustang now of the line up. The M11x made sense for what it was at the time, but this just doesn't in today's market - at least not at the price/performance hit between the AW 13 and the 17/18.

 

If all the new alienware coming with soldered processor's that would make the older versions with upgradable cpu go up in value. Right

 

It would probably keep resale value up, yeah, but not much more.

 

Oh well. I figure Sandy/Ivy bridge have another 4 years of usefulness before its time to truly retire them. Hopefully the market/engineering trend changes back to what it used to be by then, because I'm not giving a penny of my money to support soldered components in high end/performance computers. I REALLY wanted to buy a 18 for the dual GPU cool factor (and I regret not getting a M18x in the first place...), and I would be sorely disappointed if I cannot purchase one for grad school.

 

If the 18 gets discontinued, Dell had better still hold up their end of the bargain and supply warranty service to 18s that have them. I will be sincerely offended and upset if I extend my warranty now and Dell says, 'Oh, yeah, uh, no more 18s, uh, we don't support anymore, yeah, thanks for your money though.'

I don't understand how it's so easy to simply scan these forums and see that nobody wants soldered-on crap and nobody wants the 18 line discontinued. Dell shouldn't have to 'deliberate and sort out their stock' or whatever they're doing, they should be on this immediately and whoever's calling the shots should go out of his/her way to get this sorted. It is clear as day.

These people in charge should pull out and empty their own pockets and forget about extra profits, and spend what free time they have delivering quality support to Alienware customers, because by hell, we empty our own pockets for Alienware systems.

Companies should put their customers before profits and this is how it always should be; for enthusiasts even more so, because we are the ones who buy the biggest and most expensive hardware. This is not what I am seeing with Alienware/Dell.

If they lose profits because their designers, engineers, or executives messed up, it is their fault, and we should not have to tolerate slow release or a complete ignorance of customer input for the prices we pay for these machines.

 

Frank Azor is the GM of Alienware now. So, let's blame him.

 

Maybe one of the Alienware staff that is active on this forum can provide us an e-mail address we can use to voice our concerns for the platform in general. I think if there is enough feedback someone on the inside can provide a meaningful reply.

I do hope they start including the 970m and 980m on their 17 and 18 soon, it's such a great upgrade especially when it's wrapped in an Alienware chassis. The benchmarks and the performance are phenomenal for a mobile card that also offers low power consumption and lower temperatures. I no doubt understand why many of the people on these forums (myself included) are so anxious to have this card.

 

From a business perspective though we make up a small but vocal minority. Their sights are definitely elsewhere and you can see that if they discontinue the line. There just isn't enough of us to keep that particular segment alive. I feel like it never hurts to voice your concerns though and hopefully someone will hear them.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

 

I guess we can only buy the R2's when the Broadwell comes out in Q1 2015 & get lucky with MQ processors with a monster notebook that will be a true successor to the M18x R2 which would be on top of the list for many people here. Till then we may expect those 900M series GPU upgrades.

And Lets forget the Skylake revision as it will be a total annhilation of the high-performance notebooks with that BGA filth.

 

BGA filth starts with Broadwell. No M chips, "high performance" soldered H chips only. :barf:

 

I too eagerly await the arrival of Skylake, it sounds like it will be a monster. Intel has purposely delayed its release to milk their Haswell/broadwell lines as long as possible. Seems we get something really nice every 4 years.

banias > dothan (dragged out two years) > yonah/merom [major jump 2007] > penryn> nehalem/westmere (two years) > sandy bridge [major jump 2011] > ivy bridge > haswell/broadwell (two years) > skylake [major jump 2015]

 

-Edited-

I hope that BGA and LGA H chips will co-exist like the Haswell's HQ and MQ chips which is highly unlikely as Wiki states BGA will be featured in 47W TDP class processors....& We are perfectly screwed.

And With the Skylake release parallel to broadwell whole thing is messed up really bad....

 

AMD, where art thou? :cry:

Come on Dr. Su work some magic!

 

The alienware 13 configurations on my country (Belgian, .be domain) are a total haywire.

Prices of upgraded base models are cheaper then the other offers that are made with already included upgrades.
And here is the big thing. 256GB SSD costs an extra 86.90€ and 512GB SSD costs an extra 653,40€ !!!! They are MAD

 

They're busy. Running a dairy can be a tough job.

 

Whenever the new product release happens most companies tend to upgrade the existing one while these guys are making a nutjob downgrades. That AW 13 is an utter failure & So is the AW 18 when pitted against that M18x R2 Beast !

I hope that Porras's report from our threads would atleast help us getting a last AW refresh which should be a true successor of the high-performance line, I'm afraid this could only happen if the Broadwell H ships both MQ and HQ crap as all companies incl. the MSI & Giagabyte also are shoved deep into this sh*t hole of BGA filth...!

 

I cant help but to feel a little anxious about potential future issues with the AW18 if they say "allright we were gonna sack the AW18 but with all the outrage we will give it another 6 months in the market before pulling the plug"

What happens 1 year down the line if your display says byebye and they no longer make it? Install a mediocre TN display?
What about if you accidentally damage the palmrest and they no longer make it? "No sorry sir, we no longer make them. You didnt have accident warranty and since this is not covered by the manufacture warranty, you just gonna have to live with those stains/scratches on the palmrest."

They got to be fully committed to sell AW18 or manufacture crucial parts for it for a good deal longer if they plan on continue with it.

 

Dell will have inventories for years, but to an extent that is the downside of buying products sold in fewer quantities, there will also be fewer parts in storage for them as well. I will say this, it pays to have warranty coverage with laptops. People who don't get them to me are asking for trouble as laptops are high risk - they get jostled about, are subject to heat loads, etc and its a good bet with regular use even well made products will have some issue within 3 years.

 

Atleast the Alienware 17 and 18 are still listed on the website but the Alienware 14 has vanished and it has been replaced by the pathetic 13.

Alienware Gaming Laptops

 

It's possible that they are holding their inventories of the AW 14 to serve the holders of the current model. Either the 13 totally replaces the niche of the 14, or the 14 is being reworked to accomodate the eGPU and possibly a thinner design, or a 15 is in the works. As Dre and I were saying, it's a rather large hole in the price/performance steps to go from a AW 13 to an AW 17, I think something is going to fill that gap.

 

Nevertheless, the Dell company decided to let out products of AW13,15,17 and to refuse AW14 and 18 in favor of the Graphic Amplifier.

 

Any word on when a possible 15 would be released?

 

There won't be a 15. If there were, we would have heard about it by now. We heard about the AW 13 months before it was released.

They're hiding the AW 14 on the site until NVIDIA releases a 965M, which will probably happen when Broadwell finally comes out.

 

After reading this post for weeks (maybe months )....i've decided to order now the AW17 with GTX 860m....can't wait more for new video cards, sorry

 

I agree - but you never know till things are made official. Perhaps they have simply not released details on it yet :thumbsup:

No one knew about the AW 13 until Dell started releasing information; same could prove true with a possible 15 down the line. It is correct to say there will not an AW 15 in the near term (next quarter or two) due to no information, but incorrect to assume details on one might not be forthcoming.

 

November not far. We will see soon!

 

The M15x is also the ONLY laptop size they discontinued, in the entire history of Alienware. They will not make an AW 15 this year. If they did, they would have to SLI the AW 17 and then toss out the AW 18, which would be VERY stupid considering MSI just launched their first 18" notebook. "Let's just hand over those sales to MSI, they need it more than we do..."

The AW 14 is still on the website in the list of products, it's just buried beneath the AW 13 and Area-51 because those are NEW and they want people to buy them. If the AW 15 was going to come out, they would have already announced it with old hardware (like the AW 13) to begin making sales.

 

They discontinued the 11" as well don't forget.

Again, no one said this year, don't read things in that are not there. It's very possible the first details of a new 15 could arrive anytime, or never; honestly, no one really knows at this stage.

The AW 14 is technically on the site but not to purchase outside of the depot which incidentally is also showing sold out now. It's not in the main list, and it shows sold out in the deals section as well. Can you tell me where it is still to purchase on the site outside of those sections?

 

I've decided to wait a little longer until black Friday or cyber Monday, but that is my final cutoff. If they release anything within 30 days I'll either return it or ask for a retroactive discount.

 

The M11x wasn't discontinued. It outlived its revisions. Every product has 3-4 revisions before they are either replaced or redesigned, just like how the AW 17 is an R1, not an R5. The M15x was discontinued mid-life at R2 because it was not profitable due to the existence of the M17x. It is very unlikely they would repeat that...

 

Okay - now we are into strict semantics . They didn't continue making the 11" range when everyone expected they would considering it was a decent seller. In other words, it was "discontinued" as a line at the end of Rev 3 - it really has nothing to do with revisions per se in this context and everything to do with a conscious decision to stop.

 

Dell wanted to show Alienware 13, and you saw it earlier. Earlier nobody heard about the Graphic Amplifier. Dell didn't want to show the Graphic Amplifier and didn't show till October 27!

 

That's what I was trying to point out - the differences between the two. Yes, both were discontinued, but for completely different reasons.

It doesn't make sense for them to do all of this:

• 2013: redesign the entire lineup: M14x -> AW 14, M17x -> AW 17, M18x -> AW 18 (R1's).
• 2014: introduce AW 13, discontinue most profitable form factor (AW 14), introduce previously discontinued 15", discontinue flagship 18", redesign 17" for SLI.

That would be a huge change in a little over a year. It makes more sense to just introduce the AW 13, and wait for Broadwell to release R2's of the rest of the lineup and just throw HQ/Maxwell in the current lineup until then. We've already seen benchmark leaks of Alienware systems with HQ processor in SLI (most likely the AW 18) with the 970M and 980M. They exist, we just don't know when they will be announced / released.

I'm not saying it won't happen, it just seems so unlikely that they would do that after only one release of the current lineup.

 

http://www.alienware.com/landings/laptops.aspx

The fact that Alienware 14 has disappeared from the website worries me , it was a much better product than the 13 and the only reason to discontinue it is to push 13 down our throats, Alienware 14 with 970m will be an excellent machine for many.

 

I think the 13, 17 and 18 will remain a temporary lineup until Broadwell is officially announced.

There are already leaked 3DMark benchmarks of Alienware systems with the 4960HQ, 980M, etc. Probably temporary until Broadwell.

 

The Alienware 14 is still on the UK website.....for now....

 

Dell will advance Graphics Amplifier.
All ruler will have the PCI-Express x16 socket.
Instead of AW18 there is Graphics Amplifier now.

 

My god when are you gonna stop with the Broadwell posts?
ULV Broadwell will probably be here early next year. High end i5 and i7 you find in Alienware gaming notebooks (except AW13) won't be here until April-June next year.
NOBODY in the industry are therefore waiting for Broadwell which is why Asus, MSI and Gigabyte and Clevo all introduced NEW notebooks just for GTX 980M/970M. Because they can't wait til April-June next year and lose out a ton of money.

Recent analysis of Intel show that the yields for Broadwell is still lower than what Haswell was when they began producing Haswell. Despite they having manufactured Broadwell so many many months now. 14nm is proving to be really difficult to produce.

They can go to hell if they think gamers will think its ok to trade portability and easiness with notebooks with AW17 + another freaking box you need to carry around.

If that is the case, I hope they go bankrupt because they have completely lost touch with gamers

 

I think the GA is not the future, it will transform a super portable laptop like AW13 into a desktop replacement. It's a contradition. If i need portability i'll buy AW13, if i don't mind about portability, i'll go for AW17-18.

When the 860m into AW13 is not enough i'll put a GA with Nvidia Titan? Yes sure, but i'll cannot move my AW13 from desktop

 

And that is my point as well - it may be unlikely, but that is far different from saying it won't happen.

They didn't just quit making the M11x because they said " well, we hit R3, let's do something else", they just stopped at that cycle and decided not to continue - defacto discontinuing the line without a major refresh. Appears to me they could easily stop on the R1 of the AW 14 if a decision was made to adjust the lines.

Huge changes are always possible, though not likely, but not out of the question. Frankly, if they are indeed retooling the lineup to use the "Graphics Accelerator" nonsense, it would be the perfect time to both thin out the chassis' designs and drop the 14 and go to a 15 to fill the gap and differentiate it more.

I see nothing wrong with entertaining the idea of a possible AW 15, as long as everyone is clear that it is speculation, but I do have issues with flat out saying "it can't happen".

 

I'll never stop talking about Broadwell until Skylake hits. Intel announced Broadwell for January 2015, and Skylake for Q4 2015. It's happening sooner than you expect.

 

It's not that it can't happen. It just won't happen. Why would they trade their flagship AW 18 for a 15" laptop? If they do that, they're going against everything they've ever stood for: high-performance gaming laptops. I'd be shocked if Frank Azor was dumb enough to allow that.

 

No Intel announced Broadwell for early 2014. That didn't happen so they moved it to the summer. That didn't happen so they said they were gonna start shipping Broadwell before Christmas. That did happen, but it was only the ultra low voltage 3W Broadwell for touchpads. The next step is 15W ULV processors early next year, followed by mainstream gaming Broadwell CPUs around mid 2015.

I've read analysis and news so many times regarding this, and its exactly what will happen. Skylake will come out in 2015 but just like Broadwell it will be taken step by step and it will be quite a while until we have notebooks with it

My 5 cents

 

When Broadwell finally arrives is it going to more powerful than the current Haswell E line up?

 

It doesn't really matter when Broadwell comes out.

I'm making a point that every lineup has been refreshed with a new CPU release. So, until Broadwell is released, there won't be any R2's.

Broadwell is just a more efficient version of Haswell. So, by the time Broadwell-E comes out, I'm sure they will only be clocked higher and consume less energy.

 

You realize you are taking about a group that just released a product that makes no real sense in the market, trading performance for a gimmick, right? I think they just made the statement about where they are currently in their thought process. They are trying to bamboozle the market at least on the AW 13 with a design that is sub par, then pretend they are making advances by offering an external GPU that is almost certainly going to be bottlenecked with a decent card.

As for the last statement, they would sell a lot more AW 15s than AW 18s any day of the week, it makes perfect sense to go back to a dual GPU 17 (alongside a 15 offering), or alternatively they are picturing people opting to get the performance with the sill Graphics Accelerator add-on.

I do hope however that if either the 14 is gone from the line up and/or an AW 15 does emerge from all this you are willing to admit you were wrong