Let's DELL

[Gribber]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AAA_(video_game_industry)

This la. dont anyhow leh.

Sorry.
10Chars

 

[mosmos]

Video Teaser for Week 3: Alienware

To go or not to go?

We'll be revealing Part 2 of this video on Friday, 13 November. Watch this space!

Dell Alienware is a portable high performance gaming laptop without sacrifice the dimension .

However, the weight of Alienware 15 R2 is 3.2KG is much more heavier than Dell Inspiron 15 7000, not as easy as just slot into backpack.

But again Dell Alienware does not have Intel Realsense Camera or 4K UHD touchscreen, a disappointment when other Dell laptops having better specs at cheaper pricing.


Link: http://www.dell.com/sg/p/alienware-15-r2/pd?ref=PD_OC

 

[mosmos]

Yes I agree with you.
However, the Dell Inspirion 15 7000 is a little too much to be constantly carrying around. A Dell laptop with a 14" screen or smaller would be better.

seems like Dell Inspirion series laptops are not light weight, even their Dell Alienware was above 3KG~

 

[mosmos]

Actually the spec in Gaiason's post is referring to Dell 15 7000 (7559) model, while 2-in-1 tablet model having slightly different specification like their CPU and GPU.

I have listed down their difference for your comparison.

Inspiron 15 7000 Series 2-in-1 spec :
- 6th Generation Intel® Core™ i7-6500U Processor (4M Cache, up to 3.10 GHz)
- Intel® HD Graphics 5500
- 15.6 inch LED Backlit Touch Display with Truelife and FHD Resolution (1920 x 1080)
- 1TB 5400 RPM SATA3 Hard Drive
- 6-Cell Battery (Integrated)

Inspiron 15 7000 (7559) spec:
- 6th Generation Intel® Core™ i7-6700HQ Processor (6M Cache, up to 3.50 GHz)
- NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 960M 4GB GDDR5
- LCD 15.6" Ultra High Definition LGD, Touchscreen
- 1TB 5400 rpm SATA Hybrid Hard Drive with 8GB Cache
- 6-Cell Battery (Integrated)

Yes only gaming requires such a powerful GPU in the Inspirion 15 7000.
Can consider those laptops with Integrated Intel® HD Graphics 5500 if using for other purposes.

Dell Inspiron 15 7000 with 1TB 5400 rpm HDD was such a letdown. such powerful specs should have either 7200 rpm HDD or SSD instead.

I guess with 5400 rpm HDD, the daily or gaming performances will go down.

 

[wadsad]

seems like Dell Inspirion series laptops are not light weight, even their Dell Alienware was above 3KG~

think the inspiron is at 2.6kg. for guys still ok. but females, i dont think they will want this.

for me to carry this size of laptop, i must have a backpack. laptop sling bag i cannot tahan. cause need to keep run around. on backpack, not an issue.

 

[Gribber]

The dell alienware in the video is which model ah?

Seems like Dell Alienware M17x R3 to me because it looks alittle big but it also can be Dell Alienware M15x R3 or even Dell Alienware M18 R3 but definitely not the 13 inch variant..

 

[MoneyFace =p]

Thanks to the newer PCI Express 3.0 revision that doubles the bandwidth over 2.0 in recent year and the advent of ever smaller connectivity option such as M.2 and mPCIe, high bandwidth interface can now finally be squeezed into tiny cable connector that mainly allows for such external graphics box to materialise. Competing graphics boxes in the past have to rely on the bandwidth-choking ExpressCard interface (if anyone remembers) that can only offer a single PCIe 2.0 X1 lane, which penalises graphics performance down heavily, rendering such external graphics solution useless at that point of time. Now fast forward to 2015, the PCIe proprietary Alienware Graphics Amplifier cable offer bandwidth from a PCIe 3.0 x4 or about 4 GT/s, which is comfortably adequate even for the latest top-end AMD Fury X graphics card as shown below:

https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/R9_Fury_X_PCI-Express_Scaling/18.html

Just 4% performance penalty! Still reasonable enough for such bandwidth limitation.

 

[MoneyFace =p]

Meaning? Very heavy?

17" is a humongous size and will not be any light....

 

[mosmos]

My bad, just realised the battery for Dell Inspiron 15 7000 2-in-1 series should be 3-Cell battery (integrated) instead of 6-cell.

Dell Inspiron 15 7000 with 4K UHD touch screen and 3 cell battery?

Is the 3 cell battery able to give an 8 hrs full gaming experience ?

 

[mosmos]

If only Dell Inspiron 15 7000 comes with Intel® RealSense™ 3D Camera and Windows 10 Hello features, it will also be a good selling point.

Windows 10 Hello can be use as a selling point meh??

Intel Realsense Camera for Dell Inspiron 15 7000 & Dell Alienware can be a selling point to enhance gaming experience but sadly, none of them include this awesome camera~

 

[MoneyFace =p]

Also do take note there's also another 4 USB 3.0 full speed ports included in the docking station, which will also take up another PCIe 3.0 X1 bandwidth that will potentially penalise the graphics performance further, down to 10% penalty as inferred from the PCIe x4 1.1 performance on Fury X above.

So i feel that it is prudent for gamers to avoid using those USB 3.0 ports on the dock, especially for bandwidth-hungry devices such as external disk drives. I think that those external disk drives should be better connected to the USB 3.0 ports directly from the notebook that originates from separate bandwidth allocation from the motherboard chipset, leaving lower bandwidth peripherals like gaming keyboard, mouse, headphone to the dock, as to maximise available bandwidth for the external graphics card and fps performance for gamers.

 

[jarred1223]

seems like Dell Inspirion series laptops are not light weight, even their Dell Alienware was above 3KG~

You can't compare Inspiron series with Alienware series leh. Like comparing a sedan car with a sports car.

Alienware laptop has a better gpu, so it needs better cooling hence the added weight.

 

[wadsad]

wah the battery on the dell alienware quite beast leh. 8 cell 92 Whr.

 

[Ohayo!]

Alienware Graphics Amplifier is not only just a simple external PCIe graphics card box but also functions as a docking station with another 4 full speed USB 3.0 ports that is greatly suited to let me run my desktop gaming keyboard and mouse and also some external disk drives. Dell Alienware team has taken and adapt the idea from 2-in-1 convertible tablet/laptops into this external dock very well as it finally resolves the long standing issue to enable powerful, yet power hungry PC components with minimum tradeoffs on mobility devices.

By shifting the biggest problem out of the laptop chassis, gaming laptop engineers no longer need to rack their brains hard to squeeze in higher end graphics chip into the limited puny laptop chassis real estate and also do not need huge heatsink and many fans to cool them down adequately, which usually have to resort into increasing laptop size and weight, that is going against the portability of the laptop. They can now simply affix the laptop with a mid range tier graphics and cooling solution reasonably small to keep laptop size in check and maintain the balance, while getting the optional powerful performance when you need it. This is just like how convertible tablets solves battery life issue with extra battery pack on the separate keyboard dock.

I suppose it acts like a mini PC tower. Luckily the Alienware Graphics Amplifier is still quite small in size as seen in the video. Just connect to enjoy greater and more powerful graphic performance when you need it (at home).

The Alienware 15 notebook + Alienware Graphics Amplifier is the perfect solution for gamers who want mobility and portability on the go, while powerful gaming performance at home.

 

[jtec14]

I don't lower specs laptop can work with Intel realsense camera. Dell Inspiron 15 7000 specs with 4K UHD touchscreen can support but they are not going to include Intel realsense camera, not sure why.
Maybe there is a work around to get the Intel realsense camera to work with lower specs cpu~

I am guessing that they plan to include Intel realsense 3D camera in another new laptop model which is in the pipeline, since for AIO - Dell Inspiron 24 7000 and for tablet - Dell Venue 8 7000, for completeness, there should be a laptop with realsense technology. Dell Inspiron 15 7000 with 4k UHD already quite expensive, so don't want to up the price further with realsense.

 

[jtec14]

Last time google and found someone can use Intel Realsense camera with AMD cpu, not only restricted to Dell Inspiron 15 7000 or Dell Inspiron 24 7000 only

If you go intel website, you will find that realsense technology is not limited to Dell only. That why I said myself too slow to realise this campaign is actually more for dell products.

 

[jtec14]

This is last time i screenshot the Dell Inspiron 15 7000
Its the same price, but you can opt for the FHD screen instead of the 4k UHD touchscreen. I dont know if this is an error and they have fixed it though.
Previously if you select the 2 other options and try to buy they will show some compatibility error. So now it simply just shows the 4k UHD touchscreen Black.
Those who want to get the red colour better check with them first before proceeding with your order.
http://www.dell.com/sg/p/inspiron-15-7559-laptop/pd?oc=w510819sgw10

if you search Inspiron 15 7000 via the search function in their website, the product descriptions in the search results still mentioned about optional 4k Ultra HD display, but once you clicked into it, no more.

 

[jtec14]

Bear in mind that though this external Alienware Graphics Amplifier is a plug-and-play solution but it doesn't work exactly like Nvidia Optimus/AMD Dynamic Switchable Graphics such that you can toggle between internal discrete and external graphics both ways while laptop is operating.

If you got to leave the place with your Alienware notebook, you need to shut down the entire laptop first and then to plug out the amplifier cable (or vice versa also possible) and then turn it on to switch it back to internal discrete graphics. Laptop will automatic goes into shutdown once you plug out the amplifier cable while the laptop is still turned on. In this mode, sleep function will also be disabled, leaving only shutdown option available.

This can potentially cause data loss issue to many as people may accidentally forgot to save their work on the notebook right before plugging out the amplifier cable, thinking that it is a 2-way plug-and-play dock as it seem to be one since you can plug in to operate while laptop is already on.

Wah, that sounded really troublesome, especially for a laptop that is supposed to be portable and mobile.

 

[Gribber]

Intel Realsense Camera for Dell Inspiron 15 7000 & Dell Alienware can be a selling point to enhance gaming experience but sadly, none of them include this awesome camera~

Maybe in my opinion the intel realsense 3d camera technology is still pretty immature enough to be implemented mainstream into either the Dell Inspiron 15 7000 or the Dell Alienware laptop series

 

[Gribber]

wah the battery on the dell alienware quite beast leh. 8 cell 92 Whr.

Wah, but for the size i dont think it can last long either even with a batt this size