NotebookCHECK - Notebook Forum

finally laptop producers started adapting the concept of 'enough power' instead of 'maximum power'.

Quotefinally laptop producers started adapting the concept of 'enough power' instead of 'maximum power'.

Not when it is a noisy machine.

Totally insufficient cooling so very loud under GPU load. Mechanical keyboard unavailable and German mechanical keyboard had already not existed. No 4080/4090. Next.

In general I am not a fan of Alienware aesthetics but this one is looking quite nice. It is also nice to see more 16" options without numpad (and with centred touchpad!). Fan noise is irrelevant because thermals are excellent so just adjust fan curves and make it quieter for a bit higher chassis temps, no big deal for those situations where you have to push it at prolonged 100% (work)load. Sweet package overall.

Quote from: RobertJasiek on March 09, 2024, 09:00:14...so very loud... Mechanical keyboard unavailable...

Mechanical keyboards on Alienwares are way louder (https://youtu.be/BruI_wB2PSE?t=150) than fan noise though. It's as loud as normal Cherry red switches.

thanks to marketing history made a full circle, first everyone was happy about replacing noisy long travel mechanics with silent slick membranes and hinges, now nostalgia took over and they are selling people 1986s keyboards for $300+ plus the obligatory wristpad of course, because 1986 keyboards are thick and kill your wrist
now just need to wait for another round of membranes popularity

Quote from: Neenyah on March 09, 2024, 10:32:12Mechanical keyboards on Alienwares are way louder (http://youtu.be/BruI_wB2PSE?t=150) than fan noise though. It's as loud as normal Cherry red switches.

Hehe, I understand your objection. However, I have never been annoyed by the noise (or loudness) of mechanical keyboards. Noise of key pressing differs very much from noise of fans: occasional versus permanent, pleasant versus stressing, confirming versus unwanted.

Besides, I do not type at public places so cannot annoy others by typing.

Fair Robert, but just saying that fans (fan curves) can be adjusted to be quieter while their mechanical keyboards are nowhere near the true typing experience of a proper mechanical KB yet they have the same loudness level as Cherry MX Red - so, very loud 😬 This option here in this laptop is better, IMHO, and you can always use a good external mechanical KB for better experience and quieter acoustics.

Quote from: Neenyah on March 09, 2024, 12:15:59Fair Robert

nah, roberto is just hating dell the same way he hates apple everywhere. guy failed to prove his 'dell rip-off' conspiracy theory so he immediately requires some other stuff he would never buy like mechanical keyboards and 4090. at least it's not esata, but who knows what would he say if it had mechanical keyboard + 4090 laptop.

Quote from: Neenyah on March 09, 2024, 12:15:59you can always use a good external mechanical KB for better experience and quieter acoustics.

If I need an external keyboard anyway, I prefer a desktop. Mine has low fan noise and a very good mechanical keyboard, of course. For convincing me to buy a notebook instead, manufacturers needed and will need to integrate a similarly good mechanical keyboard so that I can profit from the simple mobility advantage of the notebook formfactor. In 2023 to early 2024, the notebook manufacturers have failed to offer me a convincing combination of low noise, good mechanical keyboard and other wanted aspects (such as rip-off-free price, reasonable quality of hardware and firmware, longevity, easy maintainance and at least 4080 laptop).

ok so roberto's demands are:
* huge mechanical keyboard like his desktop one in laptop
* low noise 4080 in laptop
* has to be free or very cheap, otherwise it's a ripoff

totally legit, not a low-effort troll requirements

Quote from: RobertJasiek on March 10, 2024, 11:25:01very good mechanical keyboard

what model is your keyboard exactly? kinda hard to find both 'very good' and 'with numpad' mechanical keyboard.

Wow! This is the biggest downgrade I've ever seen! The m16 R1 was one of the best, if not the best 16 inch notebook in terms of cooling.

The fan control was suboptimal, but that should be fixable on any notebook via custom fan curves. The important thing is that the m16 R1 had the cooling hardware to be reasonably quiet and very fast! It was heavy, but thin and still portable. Almost all competitors are equipped with mediocre cooling in favor of unnecessarily high mobility, which can only do one thing: Either reasonably quiet and moderately fast or very loud and very fast.

A real shame for Alienware. They used to be a respectable gamer brand, but Dell has castrated them into a toothless tiger so that the m16 R2 swims along in the same mediocre mishmash as thousands of other thin & light gaming notebooks.

Dell doesn't care that the cooling is then super loud. That's ridiculous. They don't care for criticism about fan noise from buyers and testers for years, but as soon as some weak-chested customers find the m16 R1 "too heavy", they immediately destroy a great product!

I don't understand this at all. Alienware already has such a stupidly thin and light marketing shitbook with the x16. Why is the m16 now also built to be thin and light?

And the huge disadvantage: the cooling. Up to 62db is just sick! And the other modes are also far too loud! In balanced mode 52db! What have they been smoking at Dell?

The m16 R1 is quieter in Witcher (51 vs. 54db) and at the same time consumes 70 watts more power! With the same power consumption, R1 could remain much quieter than this accident of a successor!

In 2023, I really thought that some manufacturers had finally realized that not everyone wants thin and light notebooks. The m16 R1 was not a mass-compatible product, but it was a very good one! But I guess there is no room for quality if only inferior mass-produced laptops shall be sold.

I actually wanted to buy the m16 and was just hoping for a brighter display :-( Congrats, Dell for the worst successor ever!

In principle, for Intel this is an acknowledgment of its shame before AMD.
With a monstrous consumption of more than 100W in PL1, this long-term construction from Intel cannot score even a measly 3000 points in CBR15, while the Raptor cores are already closer to 3500+ at "10nm", not "7nm" from Intel.

Otherwise, the laptop is not very interesting.

In reviews, the authors constantly ignore key data on the SSD form factor - where is the information about which SSDs can be installed Double-Sided or Single-Sided?
The inability to install a Double-Sided SSD reduces the buyer's choice by an order of magnitude, especially among 2-4TB models. It's as if no one on this site in the editorial office cares at all whether it is possible to install there the maximum capacity SSDs and a significantly increased selection of models in the Double-Sided form factor.

Moreover, it is not clear in the photo where and how 2 M.2 SSD 2280 are installed - on top of each other?! But this is crazy in terms of thermal comfort for NAND chips!

The laptop negates all its versatility because of the 14" keyboard, instead of a full-fledged one with a classic numpad.
Such a laptop is completely unsuitable for work, but only for entertainment, which immediately reduces the value of the model by half.

Quote from: NikoB on March 11, 2024, 13:16:15The laptop negates all its versatility because of the 14" keyboard, instead of a full-fledged one with a classic numpad.
Such a laptop is completely unsuitable for work, but only for entertainment, which immediately reduces the value of the model by half.

Say that to Mark Zuckerberg; 14" laptop without numpad and even an external keyboard without numpad, yet the work is being done just fine: https://imgur.com/swH8lG7 (https://imgur.com/swH8lG7)

Quote from: Neenyah on March 11, 2024, 14:10:49Say that to Mark Zuckerberg; 14" laptop without numpad and even an external keyboard without numpad, yet the work is being done just fine

He hasn't coded anything for a long time and hasn't done anything serious; he has a laptop purely for consuming content (from employees) but not creating new ones.

He can afford it, but he is not the one who actually creates something on a laptop.

The argument is purely idiotic. As usual with a bot.

Oh, ok, didn't know you were buddies so I will trust your words about him more than his own.

You didn't write a single number in your comment though, do you really need a numpad for your usual delusional spamming?

I generally doubt that he was ever capable of writing efficient and complex code. He very quickly stole ideas from others (which was proven in court) and raised the necessary money in time to hire those who were actually capable of doing something. Another "golden Jewish boy". What's new here?

Quote from: NikoB on March 11, 2024, 16:36:37I generally doubt that he was ever capable of writing efficient and complex code.

Yeah, true, he couldn't as he didn't ever use a numpad 😥 He is nothing but a numpadless billionaire.

Quote from: Neenyah on March 09, 2024, 10:32:12Fan noise is irrelevant because thermals are excellent so just adjust fan curves and make it quieter for a bit higher chassis temps, no big deal for those situations where you have to push it at prolonged 100% (work)load. Sweet package overall.

Could not disagree more! The thermals are much worse than on r1. r1 had great thermals. Lower fan noise while consuming 70watts more in Witcher3. With adjusting fan curves you could make m16 r1 a quiet but still powerful laptop which was an almost unique selling point of r1. With r2 you get significantly less performance (not great for a "successor" isn't it?) with same fan noise levels or same performance (= power draw) with much much louder fans. This m16 r2 does not deserve the name Alienware. You clearly don't know what you are writing about. It is just another slim and light notebook with crappy cooling. This does not deserve the Alienware logo on it.

Quote from: Gastredner on March 10, 2024, 20:44:10And the huge disadvantage: the cooling. Up to 62db is just sick! And the other modes are also far too loud! In balanced mode 52db! What have they been smoking at Dell?

The m16 R1 is quieter in Witcher (51 vs. 54db) and at the same time consumes 70 watts more power! With the same power consumption, R1 could remain much quieter than this accident of a successor!

Exactly this! It is so sad that many people do not see those simple connections. m16 r2 is not only louder (3db are clearly audible) but also consumes 70watts less power (=less performance)! With the same total system power, the new m16 r2 gets much much noisier than m16 r1. How in the world could someone not call this the worst successor in notebook history??

Quote from: Aiman on March 11, 2024, 18:39:36Could not disagree more! The thermals are much worse than on r1. r1 had great thermals.

How? R1 48°C hottest spot, R2 48°C hottest spot. Right in the middle of the chassis, R1 40.8°C, R2 39°C. On the touchpad, R1 27.4°C, R2 22.2°C, all of those (from "Max. Load") measurements are clearly equal or lower on the R2, so how are the thermals "much worse"? 🤨

I agree with the rest of your comment, especially about the excessive fan noise which is certainly extreme for a direct successor.

R.I.P. Alienware. M16 R1 was an innovative product and one of the few options out there with great cooling. R2 is a scam. It is just another slim and light laptop like you can find one every corner. Highly stupid and disgraceful move by Dell. Not to mention the much less attractive and stylish design.

How can you disrespect your community more than with:

1. Less performance ("Our Core Ultra 7 155H is about 10 to 15 percent slower than the Core i7-13700HX on last year's m16 R1"). The author does not even mention the 13900HX which is double as fast as the R2's toy CPU!!!

2. Insanely worse cooling ("The more demanding Core i7-14700HX or Core i9-14900HX are not offered due to thermal limitations", insane 62(!!!) vs 53db (nearly DOUBLE as loud as the already super loud R1!!!) in stress test while consuming almost 70watts less power!!! This cooling is a piece of s***)

3. Almost same outdated 330 nits panel where others come with 500nits for years!

Sorry to say it with Torvalds' words: "f*** you, Dell!"

Quote from: LinuxGamer on March 15, 2024, 08:30:16Alienware. M16 R1 was an innovative product and one of the few options out there with great cooling.

I agree with most of what you say but the M16 R1 cooling, although reasonable, missed the great advantage of the X16 R1 cooling having 4 (!) ordinarily (!) sized fans. This combined with easy fan maintenance of all (!) 4 fans, vapor chamber, liquid metal on both CPU and GPU, good cooling firmware and good airflow / vents would enable very good cooling in a not too thin chassis.

Quote from: RobertJasiek on March 15, 2024, 10:15:23

Quote from: LinuxGamer on March 15, 2024, 08:30:16Alienware. M16 R1 was an innovative product and one of the few options out there with great cooling.

I agree with most of what you say but the M16 R1 cooling, although reasonable, missed the great advantage of the X16 R1 cooling having 4 (!) ordinarily (!) sized fans. This combined with easy fan maintenance of all (!) 4 fans, vapor chamber, liquid metal on both CPU and GPU, good cooling firmware and good airflow / vents would enable very good cooling in a not too thin chassis.

Fully agree! The X16 has an awesome thermal concept, but Dell wastes the whole potential by making it absurdly slim! That is so dumb and shows that Dell does not care for great product quality and fan noise but for silly marketing slogans :( With the same 25mm like on the M16, the X16 would be the world's quietest high end laptop while retaining a thin profile and sufficient portability. Why don't they go for a slogan like that?

Quote from: Aiman on March 11, 2024, 18:39:36Lower fan noise while consuming 70watts more in Witcher3.

Sorry, I was wrong about that and copied Gastredner's typo. We meant 70watts more in the stress test of course.

Quote from: LinuxGamer on March 15, 2024, 08:30:16R.I.P. Alienware. M16 R1 was an innovative product and one of the few options out there with great cooling. R2 is a scam. It is just another slim and light laptop like you can find one every corner. Highly stupid and disgraceful move by Dell. Not to mention the much less attractive and stylish design.

How can you disrespect your community more than with:

1. Less performance ("Our Core Ultra 7 155H is about 10 to 15 percent slower than the Core i7-13700HX on last year's m16 R1"). The author does not even mention the 13900HX which is double as fast as the R2's toy CPU!!!

2. Insanely worse cooling ("The more demanding Core i7-14700HX or Core i9-14900HX are not offered due to thermal limitations", insane 62(!!!) vs 53db (nearly DOUBLE as loud as the already super loud R1!!!) in stress test while consuming almost 70watts less power!!! This cooling is a piece of s***)

3. Almost same outdated 330 nits panel where others come with 500nits for years!

Sorry to say it with Torvalds' words: "f*** you, Dell!"

+1

Quote from: LinuxGamer on March 15, 2024, 08:30:16insane 62(!!!) vs 53db (nearly DOUBLE as loud as the already super loud R1!!!)

Every +6dBA by ear - exactly 2 times louder. +9dBA, this is about 2.5 times louder.

Have to agree to the previous comments. Dell failed disastrously on the m16 r2! Never seen such a shame of a successor. Much worse cooling capacity which removes the advantage of the predecessor's ability to deliver almost full performance at bearable fan noise.

QuoteFan noise when gaming is tied closely to the power profile selected. For example, fan noise would settle at 52 dB(A), 54 dB(A), and 62 dB(A) when running Witcher 3 on Balanced mode, Performance mode, and Overdrive mode, respectively

52db is the quietest? Dell, are you kidding us?! This cooling is a disaster. Dell, please go back to R1 and give us laptops with appropriate cooling which can deliver at least 90% at no more than 40-45 db! There are plenty of customers who are fine with 2.8 to 3kg if it means quieter fans without compromising performance.

My first Alieware was a 4th gen i7 with 780M 17 inch machine and currently I'm using the 7th gen i7 with 1070 model, both are top class machines, there's no real competitor at the still reasonable price.

I was seriously considering the M18 last year until I got a chance to see the unit in a retail store, the M18 model with RTX4080 overheated in less than 3 mins of gaming, under 25C room tempreture, the CPU went straight to 100C. The M18 design simply could not handle the 13th gen i9.

Now, on this M16 R2, the cooling and preformance with drop further, what's the point?

The point is reduced manufacturing cost, amongst super heated gaming laptop competition, if you look at the Alienware prices in China, the M18 and M16 R1 is priced above $3,000 USD, top unit is priced above $5,000 USD, the price almost doubled to previous generations.

Now, interestingly, the M16 R2 is priced at $2,000 USD(R1 is $3,000 at same spec), why? Because competitors are no longer falling behind, the ROG performed super good with their G14 and G16 recently, and with only half of the price compare to same spec-ed Alienware models, the Alienware simply could not sell! That's why DELL eagerly to roll out a new model, and that is M16 R2.

It is necessary by law, as with the ban on incandescent light bulbs, to limit the total consumption of all notebooks, including 80W gaming laptops, and then the problem is for manufacturers, as they will, for us consumers, to demonstrate performance growth at exactly the same PL1/PL2 as last year. Only corruption in power does not allow this industry to be forcibly limited to such a limit. The planet would say thank you. Although, against the backdrop of criminal miners (they serve exclusively the interests of corrupt officials/embezzlers in all countries), now all the attempts of the green ones look shameful and ridiculous...

And with a consumption of 200W+, it is not surprising that even the body of an 18" laptop does not allow us to properly cool these monsters with cheating consumption from year to year due to the shame of Intel with technical processes since 2016...

Quote from: NikoB on Yesterday at 12:06:04It is necessary by law ... to limit the total consumption of all notebooks ... and then the problem is for manufacturers ... to demonstrate performance growth at exactly the same PL1/PL2 as last year.

Agreed. Then and only then we would see the real technical progress.

No. Why 80? Why not 74 or 92?

1W maximum for a whole machine. And inside a 0.3W TDP CPU which if benchmarked today could score 6135/94017 in Geenbench 6.2 by never going 1°C over the room temperature. We also have to completely eliminate gravity from the planet to increase efficiency (lighter weight of a laptop, less weight to carry around the globe, less energy is wasted in transport).

Quote from: Hotz on Yesterday at 17:37:03Then and only then we would see the real technical progress.

And laptops which would cost more than a small apartment so the real tech progress would be reserved for less than 1% of the global population.

Come on Neenyah, you are not being serious. The wattage of 80W is probably just an example.

It would definitely make sense to create standards for power consumptions: for example 3 standards depending on the size of notebooks. We roughly have 3 notebooks sizes (small - medium - large), and each one of them could be given a maximum power consumption of 35W, 70W, 140W. I'm not saying that it must be these exact values, it's just an example. And each category should have standardized Pl1/Pl2 values across all notebook manufacturers. If any user wants more, he should be able to overclock at his own risk (like on desktop computers), but other than that it should come with the standard settings out of the box.

We have a total mess and chaos with laptops. Comparing different laptops is almost impossible because each one has a different PL1/PL2 values. I regularly get annoyed when looking for benchmarks on notebookcheck, because the  are all over the place. There are other factors too, which make comparisons difficult (different hardware specs), but the power consumption is the one thing that could be limited easily across every laptop. And that would already make things better.

Niko is always repeating precisely 80W thus my question why 80 and not some other figure. And I agree with that in general, I agree with you too, but there really mostly are total power consumption limits in place; most slim & light laptops without dGPU are using up to 65W. Some of them up to 100W but not that many as in the first group.

Gaming laptops and workstations are also in three groups pretty much - up to 170W, up to 230W and up to 300W. Again, rare exceptions exist above that but those are some standards.

PL1 and PL2 values are different because of different manufacturers and their approach(es) to design(s) and thermal solution(s). That won't be changed unless we get standardized laptops and just one manufacturer (but then we can all move to North Korea too). Compare that with Formula 1 for example because that is a great parallel in this case - different teams (laptop OEMs) run identical engine (CPU) in their cars (laptops) but their results greatly differ because one team is struggling with proper cooling (thermals in laptops) so they have to run at more conservative mode (PL1/PL2), other team is struggling with something else... In the end we have McLaren being much better with Mercedes engine than Aston Martin is with that same/identical engine, just like we have Lenovo or Asus being better at optimising their gaming laptops for less noise and better thermals than Dell/Alienware is capable to do so with their own, despite each of them using the very identical CPU and GPU combo.

And about benchmarks... I agree with you too there but I would argue that thermals and fan noise is of greater factor for laptops than absolute benchmark numbers. Hypothetical situation and question about it - would you rather have a laptop which is loud like a fighter jet and runs relatively cool to get max performance or would you rather get almost completely silent laptop with just a tad warmer temperatures and 92% of performance of that first one? I know which one would I get, heh.
 

Quote from: Hotz on Yesterday at 20:04:21The wattage of 80W is probably just an example.

Almost so, the Neenyah bot, as usual, lies, I previously wrote both 100 and 120, as an example, but I would like 80W to be the peak power, because modern cooling systems can easily cope with this in a fairly large case from 16" .

Of course we need standards, not PL1/PL2 scams. NVidia has forced all laptop manufacturers in their contracts to EXPLICITLY write the consumption of chips in order to stop fraud with different levels of performance at different power and therefore different noise levels.

But the cheaters and swindlers at Intel naturally did not do this, for a banal reason - they have nothing to hide against the obviously better technical processes of TSMC and therefore AMD will always win against them at the same PL1/PL2 level. Do you understand? The scammers at Intel could stop this fraud with different PL1/PL2 with one stroke of the pen, but it was they who benefited from it with their outdated "10nm". And AMD in 7x45HX, in 2022, realizing that Intel was blatantly deceiving buyers, they simply took it and were forced to do the same with Zen4 and immediately defeated Intel in absolute performance. But at the same time, they were also 30-60% more energy efficient.

Now Intel has a slightly better "7nm" Meteor Lake, but it's still nowhere near Zen4 in terms of performance per 1W. No miracles.

If Intel (which partially, to its complete shame, already uses some of the crystals from TSMC in Meteor Lake) by some miracle gets ahead, I'm sure they will immediately require writing a real PL1/PL2 for each laptop model in contracts with all laptop manufacturers, because it will now be profitable for them. But AMD simply has a small market share and does not have such influence.

80W is a purely empirical figure, which allows you to cool the processor and dgpu in a 16" case at an acceptable noise level.

The main thing, of course, is not consumption - but silence when working with a laptop, which is what most buyers want. But to simply compare laptops, you need to know PL1/PL2 right on the product box and the volume of the case and the cooling system.

Now there is complete chaos going on, and even obviously reviews with false data on performance or noise level, or all together.

How can you choose the right model, except for the option of personally checking all the interesting models, and doing it all over again every year? But who is capable of this, except multimillionaires?

All reviews are half-hearted and hide details, leave things out or outright lies, which are revealed when cross-comparing the data in these reviews.

I have seen many popular bloggers and review sites, but all of them leave out important details either intentionally or due to lack of understanding from the authors. And at the same time, there is a lot of subjective information outside of formalized tests.

And where there are no comprehensive formalized tests by which it is easy to compare different models, there is deception or omissions that are beneficial to someone.

Quote from: NikoB on Yesterday at 21:39:56

Quote from: Hotz on Yesterday at 20:04:21The wattage of 80W is probably just an example.

Almost so, the Neenyah bot, as usual, lies, I previously wrote both 100 and 120, as an example,

Lol.

10 November 2023, 18:38:08:

Quote from: NikoB on November 10, 2023, 18:38:08I have already written many times before - it is necessary to legally prohibit laptops with a consumption of more than 80W...

Yesterday at 21:53:05

Quote from: NikoB on May 06, 2024, 21:53:05It will be normal when all laptops are legally limited to a total consumption of 80W,...

Today at 12:06:04:

Quote from: NikoB on Yesterday at 12:06:04It is necessary by law, as with the ban on incandescent light bulbs, to limit the total consumption of all notebooks, including 80W gaming laptops...

There is more, I'm lazy to keep copy/pasting from a phone.

Quote from: NikoB on Yesterday at 21:39:56...
80W is a purely empirical figure, which allows you to cool the processor and dgpu in a 16" case at an acceptable noise level.
...
(other explanations)

Aaah! Ok, I understand your point with the 80W. Very interesting indeed. I mostly agree with your writings (and other explanations as well).