Advice on the new Alienware 17 R4 laptop configuration!

[jeevankulkarni]

Hello People,

I'm planning to buy the new Alienware 17 R4 gaming laptop and have settled on the second most expensive one on offer (mainly because of the customization options and the processor). The starting price is $2,399.99. I want some advice in customizing this. My budget is around $3000.

PROCESSOR:
7th Generation Intel® Core™ i7-7820HK (Quad-Core, 8MB Cache, Overclocking up to 4.4GHz ) - No other options for customization. This is also the best and the latest one offered by Alienware as far as I know.

VIDEO CARD:
NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1080 with 8GB GDDR5X - don't want to change this.

DISPLAY:
Alienware 17.3” QHD (2560x1440) 120Hz TN AG 400-nits w/ NVIDIA G-SYNC and Tobii Eye-tracking

VS

17.3 inch UHD (3840 x 2160) IPS Anti-Glare 300-nits Display  with Tobii IR Eye-tracking

- Please advise!

MEMORY:
32GB DDR4 at 2400MHz (2x16GB)

VS

16GB DDR4 at 2667MHz (2x8GB)

- Please advise!

HARD DRIVE:
128GB M.2 SATA 6Gb/s SSD (Boot) + 1TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s (Storage)

VS

256GB PCIe SSD (Boot) + 1TB 7200RPM  SATA 6Gb/s (Storage)

- Please advise! I'd mainly like to understand the differences between M.2 SATA and PCIe SSD in terms of speed and reliability. The capacity is immaterial as long as it's for boot drive. I use a very limited number of heavy applications.


WIRELESS:
Killer 1435 802.11ac 2x2 WiFi and Bluetooth 4.1

VS

Killer 1535 802.11ac 2x2 WiFi and Bluetooth 4.1

- Please advise! Is this some cheap marketing strategy? Is it really worth $25 or does it really make a huge difference

I'm not an avid gamer. But will be using this laptop quite heavily. Hence the requirement of heavy specs and yeah, looks matter; so does size!

I'd appreciate it if you could provide some technical backing to your advice and any additional tips for additional hardware configuration. Thanks in advance!

 

[ashwincrx]

Hello People,

I'm planning to buy the new Alienware 17 R4 gaming laptop and have settled on the second most expensive one on offer (mainly because of the customization options and the processor). The starting price is $2,399.99. I want some advice in customizing this. My budget is around $3000.

PROCESSOR:
7th Generation Intel® Core™ i7-7820HK (Quad-Core, 8MB Cache, Overclocking up to 4.4GHz ) - No other options for customization. This is also the best and the latest one offered by Alienware as far as I know.

VIDEO CARD:
NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1080 with 8GB GDDR5X - don't want to change this.

DISPLAY:
Alienware 17.3” QHD (2560x1440) 120Hz TN AG 400-nits w/ NVIDIA G-SYNC and Tobii Eye-tracking

VS

17.3 inch UHD (3840 x 2160) IPS Anti-Glare 300-nits Display  with Tobii IR Eye-tracking

- Please advise!

MEMORY:
32GB DDR4 at 2400MHz (2x16GB)

VS

16GB DDR4 at 2667MHz (2x8GB)

- Please advise!

HARD DRIVE:
128GB M.2 SATA 6Gb/s SSD (Boot) + 1TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s (Storage)

VS

256GB PCIe SSD (Boot) + 1TB 7200RPM  SATA 6Gb/s (Storage)

- Please advise! I'd mainly like to understand the differences between M.2 SATA and PCIe SSD in terms of speed and reliability. The capacity is immaterial as long as it's for boot drive. I use a very limited number of heavy applications.


WIRELESS:
Killer 1435 802.11ac 2x2 WiFi and Bluetooth 4.1

VS

Killer 1535 802.11ac 2x2 WiFi and Bluetooth 4.1

- Please advise! Is this some cheap marketing strategy? Is it really worth $25 or does it really make a huge difference

I'm not an avid gamer. But will be using this laptop quite heavily. Hence the requirement of heavy specs and yeah, looks matter; so does size!

I'd appreciate it if you could provide some technical backing to your advice and any additional tips for additional hardware configuration. Thanks in advance!

Hi

I've just ordered the Alienware 17 r4 myself. So everything below has been researched by me specifically for this laptop.

Processor and graphics is as great as it gets.

Display:
This solely depends on what you use the laptop for. If youre a hardcore gamer, and do nothing else, get the qhd TN panel with g sync. You'll only be looking at the screen head-on, and the higher refresh rate with g sync enabled will give you amazing frame rates. Perfect for the gamer.

Now, I'm not actually going to be using this laptop for gaming. I'm an Architect. I'm buying it for insane rendering speeds, and good cooling, so it'll last long. I will often be presenting using this laptop, that will include me looking at it from a sideways angle, so will the client I'm presenting my project to. In that case, the TN panel is useless. Completely useless. The uhd ips panel is amazing here, wide viewing angles, amazing colours, while the TN panel is great only when looking at it directly from the front. Of course, the uhd ips has only 60 MHz refresh rate, and no g-sync, but I don't need any of those for my use scenario. For pure gaming, the qhd TN panel with gsync is superior. For any other use, the uhd ips panel beats it. Easily.

Also note, the uhd ips panel has Nvidia Optimus enabled, that means much better battery life if you're on the go and doing work on it. While gaming ,battery life on both should be the same .


Ram.

16 gigs is more than sufficient, even for my heavy architectural rendering and modeling. The only question is 2400 mhz or 2667 MHz. Go for 2667, only of you intend to be overclocking the processor too. Shouldn't make a big difference in real life usage. Maybe slightly higher frame rates in heavy games.


Now. The hard disk.

M.2 sata is way too slow. The whole of your windows will run slow. Get the pcle 256 GB with 1 TB 7200 rpm. Much faster. If you can, push it up to 500 GB or 1tb pcle, with 1tb 7200 rpm.
This will make a huge difference.

If money is a problem, then change processor to 7700hq and ram to 16 gigs at 2400 MHz. This should save some money. Put that money on the highest capacity pcle ssd possible. This will make a huge improvement on the experience on your entire system.

 

[weavenation]

do not get the pcie ssd. it uses 4pcie lanes and will cut your gpu down to 8 lanes down from 16. this theoretically shouldnt make a difference but i got the 7700hq and the 1070 and the fps drop is almost 30 percent. from 125fps average on heaven benchmark down to 94fps. just get the cheapest option for storage and buy a 1 or 2TB ssd in the 2.5 in form factor and swap it out. the 1080 will require more throughput than the 1070 and will make an even bigger difference. youll thank me later.

 

[rgd1101]

pcie ssd use chipset lanes not the gpu lanes from the CPU.

although on real world performance, not much different between sata vs pcie usless you are doing heavy table I/O

 

[sicily428]

you could have a clevo p775dm3-g with prema bios+ i7-7700k desktop (Delidded+Coollaboratory Liquid Ultra and overclockable)+ MXM (Upgradable) Gtx1080 8gb+17.3" 3K QHD (2560x1440) AUO 120Hz - 5ms g-sync+16gb DDR4 2400Mhz ram+samsung 960evo 250gb Pcie+1tb Hdd 7200rpm+ win10 for $2,985.00
http/www.hidevolution.com/evoc-clevo-p775dm3-g-custom-built-gaming-desktop-replacement-laptop.html


here more infos
http/www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/id-3455709/clevo-custom-laptops-world-clevo-resellers.html


this MSI Gt73VR could be another good option

MSI GT73VR 7RF TITAN PRO-425 Gaming Laptop - Full HD (1920x1080) 120Hz 5ms 94%NTSC TN Matte LCD w/ G-Sync w/ nVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 w/ 8GB GDDR5 X - Overclockable and Unlocked 7th generation Core™ "Kaby Lake" i7-7820HK 2.9-3.9GHz Quad core processor, 16GB DDR4/2400MHz upgradeable to 64GB DDR4/2666MHz - 256GB M.2 SATA SSD + 1TB 7,200 RPM SATA III Hard Drive standard or up to 2x M.2 2TB PCIe 3.0 x4 NVMe or 1TB SATA III SSDs w/ RAID 0 or 1 support + 1x M.2 1TB SATA III SSD + up to 1x 2.5" 2TB HDD or 4TB SATA III SSD - Windows 10
http/www.hidevolution.com/msi-gt73vr-7rf-titan-pro-425.html

 

[jeevankulkarni]

Thank you all for your valuable feedback. After much research and personal preferences, I've gone for the below configuration:

7th Generation Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-7820HK (Quad-Core, 8MB Cache, Overclocking up to 4.4GHz)

NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1080 with 8GB GDDR5X

17.3 inch UHD (3840 x 2160) IPS Anti-Glare 300-nits Display with Tobii IR Eye-tracking

32GB DDR4 at 2400MHz (2x16GB)

256GB PCIe SSD (Boot) + 1TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s (Storage)

Killer 1535 802.11ac 2x2 WiFi and Bluetooth 4.1

The final price was $3013.50. This includes the Alienware Vindicator backpack V2.0!

 

[unlimitedmangos]

Thank you all for your valuable feedback. After much research and personal preferences, I've gone for the below configuration:

7th Generation Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-7820HK (Quad-Core, 8MB Cache, Overclocking up to 4.4GHz)

NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1080 with 8GB GDDR5X

17.3 inch UHD (3840 x 2160) IPS Anti-Glare 300-nits Display with Tobii IR Eye-tracking

32GB DDR4 at 2400MHz (2x16GB)

256GB PCIe SSD (Boot) + 1TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s (Storage)

Killer 1535 802.11ac 2x2 WiFi and Bluetooth 4.1

The final price was $3013.50. This includes the Alienware Vindicator backpack V2.0!

You didn't even listen, why would you get 4K over 2k, ur graphics card isn't good enough for it, and also gsync will make the game look way better by getting rid of tearing and create perfect motion. Now you'll be with low fps and no gsync.