Alienware Area-51m review in progress; ask your questions here

[Redaktion]

Can a laptop equipped with the Core i9-9900K CPU and GeForce RTX 2080 GPU match or exceed the performance of a desktop PC with the same core specifications? If you have any other pressing concerns before investing in the pricey purchase, just let us know below.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Alienware-Area-51m-review-in-progress-ask-your-questions-here.414744.0.html

[johnnyPine]

There was a number of 51m that were reported to have issues, including having a component start smoking and the laptop dying. Your review model hasn't run into any issues like this, has it?

[Khurram Waziri]

Please mention if your sample 51m has "standard" Dell thermal paste or have they provided a "custom" sample that none of us customers can buy directly from Dell.
If would be helpful if you can tell paste is liquid metal or non-conductive one.

[MrClip]

Can you test with undervolting the CPU to reduce temperatures or allow higher turbo boost? Also can you utilize the integrated graphics for things like Quick Synch or Adobe programs?

[JonMick]

How is 4k performance of the laptop when connecting to an external monitor?

[Provash Paul]

Iam getting the 9900k with 2080 next week. I was a bit curious about the non overclocked thermals. Since the power is good enough already so i will keep everything on stock unless i reallly need to overclock, so can you check if the tharmals are ok for regular gaming and a bit of 3d work.

[Vilmir]

I would like to know the average fan noise when gaming for ~30min with fan profiles guaranteeing acceptable temps.
How undervolting the CPU can help reduce the gaming noise?
Is any CPU oc possible without reaching insane fan noise?
How does the system perform in gaming compared to a similar desktop?

[Boz]

I have the Area-51m with 9700k and 2080.  Had it about two weeks.

looking forward to your review, as my temperature (and thus fan noise) has been quite substantial.  Have since dropped -100mv undervolt on the CPU and this has brought down temperatures and need for fans at full throttle down.  Haven't done a repaste yet, may look into doing that. 

Would like to see the 4k performance as well in the review.  I mainly have mine connected to a 4k screen so would like to see how you setup yours and your results.

Lastly would like to see some analysis done on the dual PSU's.  What performance you get when using 1x PSU vs 2x PSU and also performance when on battery only.

[1400700226]

Compare the heat pips of 9700k and 9900k thanks

[JonMick]

I have the Area-51m with 9700k and 2080.  Had it about two weeks.

looking forward to your review, as my temperature (and thus fan noise) has been quite substantial.  Have since dropped -100mv undervolt on the CPU and this has brought down temperatures and need for fans at full throttle down.  Haven't done a repaste yet, may look into doing that. 

Would like to see the 4k performance as well in the review.  I mainly have mine connected to a 4k screen so would like to see how you setup yours and your results.

Lastly would like to see some analysis done on the dual PSU's.  What performance you get when using 1x PSU vs 2x PSU and also performance when on battery only.

What are you playing in your 4k screen? I'm a massive total war fan so would like to see how they fair on it

[Boz]

I have the Area-51m with 9700k and 2080.  Had it about two weeks.

looking forward to your review, as my temperature (and thus fan noise) has been quite substantial.  Have since dropped -100mv undervolt on the CPU and this has brought down temperatures and need for fans at full throttle down.  Haven't done a repaste yet, may look into doing that. 

Would like to see the 4k performance as well in the review.  I mainly have mine connected to a 4k screen so would like to see how you setup yours and your results.

Lastly would like to see some analysis done on the dual PSU's.  What performance you get when using 1x PSU vs 2x PSU and also performance when on battery only.

What are you playing in your 4k screen? I'm a massive total war fan so would like to see how they fair on it

In the last week the Division 2, which looks gorgeous and runs smoothly on maximum settings.  Tried a few other games, but not actually 'benchmarked' anything hence why I am interested in seeing the results at 4k as well

[Adam Reynolds]

Can you make any comment on the durability of the plastic casing? I've seen scratches to the glossy plastic and some people think the lunar white could become very discoloured over time.

[CG_guru]

Please check scores that related to content creation -

1920 x 1080 SPECviewperf 13 for Autodesk 3ds Max and Autodesk Maya viewport performance.

Blender 2.80 (Beta) 1920 x 1080 Viewport (Lookdev Mode) & Rendering Performance.

Adobe Premiere Pro CC 2019 AVC (H.264) & HEVC (H.265) GPU encode times

[anon]

Given that I have nearly completed my own transition to type-C-compatible-only devices, I would be interested to read how this laptop fares when plugged into a 100W USB type-C charger.

Does it charge? Does its performance degrade when operating on battery, and/or when charging over type-C? I have seen Dell lower an XPS' performance significantly, just to prevent the battery from discharging when plugged in, even worse than when on battery but unplugged.

I also would like to know how well DisplayPort over type-C works. Thanks!

[Zhaojie]

Some Key Points really curious about:
1. Testing on the fan control system(including fan speed control strategy, fan noise feeling)
2. Testing on the CPU & GPU overclocking ability(testing on video editing, decoding, etc pure CPU performances)
3. Testing on the experience on the EGPU(external RTX2080ti with 9900k at 5.2g) that will fix the thermal throttling problem