Dead GPU, considering an Alienware laptop any users out there with comments/recommendations?

Strangepork

Strangepork
The ASUS G series (980m) laptop I’ve been happily playing Elite with for the past 6 years had a fit.
I’m 99% sure the GPU soldered on the board is kaput.

I loved that rugged, solid, reliable old friend.
We went from Elite to Triple Elite and beyond together.
An awesome machine.

I recently found she could play two copies of the game at once (at 90% cpu!) and just, just let me play in VR with a huff and puff with an old DK2
I figured all in the laptop was 60p a day to own over those 6 years.
Amazing value.

Anyways.,..

So I’ve gone out, all guns blazing for the best I couldn’t afford - a mid spec’ed Area51m r2.

——————————>
10th Gen Intel® Core™ i7 10700K (8-Core, 16MB Cache, 3.8GHz to 5.1GHz w/Turbo Boost Max 3.0)
NVIDIA® GeForce® RTX 2070 SUPER™ 8GB GDDR6
16GB Dual Channel DDR4 XMP at 3200MHz; up to 32GB
1TB (2x 512GB PCIe M.2 SSD) RAID 0 [Boot] + 512GB PCIe M.2 SSD [Storage]
Dark Side of the Moon with High Endurance Clear Coat
——————————>

It’s a once in a lifetime purchase though I’m in IT and will use it for 3d rendering and film edits, so less guilt.


Any one advise against this company?
Do you own a dell Alienware PC or laptop?

Any comments before I go mad would be most appreciated.

Thank you.
 
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robbyp

robbyp
I have to ask, why a laptop? You'll get better value from a standard PC. But I'm guessing you need the portability.
 

Flibble

F
I had an alienware laptop and within a week the motherboard died, got that replaced under warranty and not long after that the graphics card went the same way.

My impression was that the laptop simply didn't have the cooling required for the bits inside. This was based on the fact that even when it was sat on an elevated tray to allow airflow underneath the keys would get to the point where they were not just warm but hot to touch. Whole experience jaded me to laptops and gaming so I'd suggest you look at a desktop instead unless mobility is a must have factor.
 

Strangepork

Strangepork
Flibble said:
I had an alienware laptop and within a week the motherboard died, got that replaced under warranty and not long after that the graphics card went the same way.

My impression was that the laptop simply didn't have the cooling required for the bits inside. This was based on the fact that even when it was sat on an elevated tray to allow airflow underneath the keys would get to the point where they were not just warm but hot to touch. Whole experience jaded me to laptops and gaming so I'd suggest you look at a desktop instead unless mobility is a must have factor.
Click to expand...

What was the model and make if you don’t mind me asking?
 

Strangepork

Strangepork
robbyp said:
I have to ask, why a laptop? You'll get better value from a standard PC. But I'm guessing you need the portability.
Click to expand...
I made to switch to laptop only about 8 years ago, trying to afford decent enough ones so as not to have to look after two separate machines.
 

Banger_uk

Banger_uk
i brought an dell alienware a few years back,and found that they are very tightly squeezed in the smallest case they could find.couldn't tell you about how they work now.and it was overpriced?
 

Koben

Koben
I had an Alienware in the past... solid machine. I'd just reconsider the GPU and get an Asus Strix RTX 3080 with a 4K display.

Going 2160p on the monitor was a game changer for me in Elite and I'm upgrading my videocard to better match its requirements and in preparation for Odyssey.

Have fun, mate! This is one of the few times in life we can get ourselves a nice gift! Enjoy!
 

Flibble

F
Honestly can't recall the model as this was 8 or so years ago. Alienware did gain a bit of a rep as being simply rebranded dells with bigger price tag and certainly my experience of the hardware dying so quickly in a new machine didn't say much for their quality compared to price.
 

Borko

Borko
Been running with Dell for 20 years and nary a problem. One pc and two laptops in, haven’t had to tap their service guys yet.

In fact, my first Alienware pc is currently on their bench being built; I’m supposed to get my mitts on it in mid-December. Pretty durn close to yours spec-wise, Pork. Can’t wait!
 

Crimson Kaim

Crimson Kaim
Strangepork said:
I made to switch to laptop only about 8 years ago, trying to afford decent enough ones so as not to have to look after two separate machines.
Click to expand...

To be honest, I am having both, a powerful gaming tower and a powerful gaming laptop. Both can run multiple copies of Elite at the same time and my tower flawlessly runs Elite under Linux too, which comes at an overhead. VR is also not an issue and I can get 60 fps in most situation, excluding packed installations and/or stations.

Now, if I had to decide between the two I'd defo pick a tower. Unless you're a trucker and are rarely at home, the laptop will just come at major disadvantages, some of them being:

  • More expensive for the same performence
  • Worse heat management
  • Smaller Screen
  • Less customizeable
  • Harder to replace faulty hardware (like your GPU)

In the past times I had multiple hardware replacements in my tower(s) and only built a completely new tower from scratch after 8 years of service or so as my mainboard was just too old to support the latest hardware. However, during these 8 years I replaced the GPU, PSU, added extra RAM sticks, etc. which is absolute pain in a laptop and most laptops weren't even built to be opened up and customized.

Hence I strongly suggest to get a tower unless you are really really certain that you will absolutely need a mobile gaming platform.

In case you are deciding for a tower over a laptop, I also suggest to never buy a pre-built one as they are more expensive for the same performence (you are paying the building process and eventually a completely trivial OS installation for 50 bucks or even more).
Take a look at the latest AMD hardware as they are (imo) a better choice as nVidia GPUs rn.
Last but not least, building your own tower makes sure you don't have pre-installed bloatware on your system ;)
 

Garix

G
I had one for a couple of years.

Awesome value. Could turn all the heating off in the front room while using it. It ran seriously hot.

Then the GPU died and decided I'd rather go back to a desktop. Did enjoy it though. Just would never have another.

Also are Dell still the owners? Had major issues with them a company over the years.
 

Strangepork

Strangepork
Koben said:
I had an Alienware in the past... solid machine. I'd just reconsider the GPU and get an Asus Strix RTX 3080 with a 4K display.

Going 2160p on the monitor was a game changer for me in Elite and I'm upgrading my videocard to better match its requirements and in preparation for Odyssey.

Have fun, mate! This is one of the few times in life we can get ourselves a nice gift! Enjoy!
Click to expand...

That card looks pretty amazing. I can’t afford such a mighty beast at the moment.

The Area52 has a dedicated port on the back for an eGPU in an external case. I guess I could upgrade in a year or two with that and a 4K screen, would be a plan.

I do think Elite would benefit from 4K, especially with it being pretty processor light and with the issues i see with anti-aliasing at 1080p.

Thanks man
 

willisit

willisit
I've had two Alienware Rx 17s. My current one is a couple of years old now with a Nvidia 1080 onboard and it's great. The prior one was too, but it was just much older. I tend to wait for the big price drops they get to make them a little less painful on the wallet. :)
 

Strangepork

Strangepork
Borko said:
Been running with Dell for 20 years and nary a problem. One pc and two laptops in, haven’t had to tap their service guys yet.

In fact, my first Alienware pc is currently on their bench being built; I’m supposed to get my mitts on it in mid-December. Pretty durn close to yours spec-wise, Pork. Can’t wait!
Click to expand...


Seems like a decent choice, with the fully upgradable CPU and GPU, I was going to quite happily run that ASUS for another 4 years until the soldered GPU stuffed those plans.

cheers bork
 
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