Cross-posing
Hey all!
I posted here several months ago after ordering the Area 51M, and after a few weeks with it - and with jut a couple days left in my return period - figured it might be helpful to post some impressions. TL;DR version - Lots of positive surprises, but still has some of the issues you'd expect from a desktop replacement from AW. Overall, though, I'll definitely be keeping it.
First things, first - Dell's ordering process is absolute garbage. Simple as that. If I want a MacBook Pro, I go to Apple's website, click MBP, select a size, have a drop down for some options, and order. The laptop arrives in 2-3 days. Even on brand new releases (I've ordered several within an hour of them going up), Apple's 1-2 week delivery is HYPER conservative. I ordered the Area 51M in the middle of February, and after not one... not two... not three... but FOUR delays, I finally received it in the first week of
April. Every single time I was given no notice or courtesy email. I had to reach out to Dell and waste my time to get an update. And that's just shipping. The actual process of ordering it is a pain, too. There are a million combinations of this thing on their site, and eventually you'll find there will be one "pre-configured spec" that, once customized, ends up being more affordable for your desired build - even when every.single.part is the same - than ordering a different configuration start. And then every other week there's a 15% of here, $300 off there, 17% off there but with higher prices, etc. Just... yuck.
Fortunately, the machine itself has been great!
You immediately notice the build quality. It's not svelte like a MBP or Surface... but it's not trying to be. It's a non-apologetic desktop replacement - meant only to be moved on rare occasion to the LAN party, the hotel for an extended stay, or to your buddy's on a weekend. This is not meant for coffee shop reading or airport lap work. But it doesn't try to be that. It's a tank, and fortunately feels supremely solid - possibly the most rigid palm rest of all time - zero keyboard flex. A wonderful, solid hinge. Everything just feels of very high quality, and I'm a huge stickler for that. Keyboard feels just fantastic. The trackpad is far from Apple good, but it's toe-to-toe with Razer or Surface, IMO; though I wish it was a bit bigger. While yes, it's heavy, and yes, it's large, it's much smaller in person than I expected. I had the Alienware DTR of old in my mind, but really, it just feels like a Dell or Toshiba or HP laptop from ~8 years ago; just MUCH better build. But it's not a monstrosity - the thin bezels and angled design when closed really bring the thing to a manageable size when sitting on a desk.
The screen is the best 1080p LCD laptop screen I've ever used. On one hand, that's a great compliment... on another, that obviously makes it clear it could be much better. Backlight bleed and LCD glow are kept to a minimum. Colors are solid. It gets more than bright enough for inside the home. 144hz G-Sync is incredible - I'm used to 165hz at my desk and so giving up the high refresh rate would be really hard. It's a good monitor, for sure. And the thin bezels again make it pretty modern looking. But at the end of the day, I do think being 1080p is probably the biggest knock I have against the whole device. Thing is, the rumor is we'll see 4K - possibly high refresh rate - later in the year. Will I regret that? I don't think so (unless they suprise with OLED); I think 1440p would be the sweet spot, but rumors also suggest that's never coming.
Most importantly though... performance, right?
I spent a solid week tweaking, and while I've been able to clock higher and chase 3D Mark scores, the stability hasn't been quite there and temps were ridiculous. For day to day gaming, right now I've been sticking with the following; though I may bump things down even a bit further in the interest of temps:
i9 9900K @ 5Ghz on all 8 cores with ThrottleStop. -125mv Undervolt.
RTX 2080 @ 1875 boost clock @ 875mv, +300 on the memory
64GB DDR4 @ 2400 (BIOS update rumored to unlock 2666 - so, so lame)
1TB 970 Evo Plus x2 in RAID0 with generic heatsinks from Amazon
I've been stable in 3-4 passes of 3DMark, an hour of R6 Siege there, an hour of Overwatch over here, and an hour of PUBG there. The tiniest adjustment to the UV on the CPU gives me total system freezes; any lower mV or higher clocks on the 2080 gives me some graphical glitches in Metro Exodus. That said...
pretty insane for a laptop, don't ya think?!
Overwatch sees the CPU hit about ~75c average and 80c max; GPU hits about 70c max.
R6 Siege - which is notoriously hard on CPU - hits about 80c on average and hits 90c VERY rarely for a split second. GPU hits about 67 max.
PUBG has no idea what it's doing, but averages after 3 rounds at 74c on CPU and 69c on GPU.
FireStrike nets me at 24K like this, I got to 26K with more agressive settings. 28,000 graphics score.
This is all with unlocked framerate and "performance" fans which is about 1 tier down from max. They're loud, but they're not whiny and they wouldn't be picked up on a headset.
I intend to De-lid my CPU and I already have some FujiPoly Extreme pads and Thermal Grizzy K paste for the CPU and GPU. All that replacing the stock cooling should
easily shave another 3-4c on all the temps above.
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So yeah - it runs warm, for sure. But versus other gaming laptops, I feel like it's pretty damn solid - and that's ignoring the fact it's a full desktop 9900k which runs hot in anything, and a 200w 2080. It's not nearly as cool as my old custom water loop - but it's in a laptop, ya know? And something about that just seems cool to me. In no way, shape, or form do I think most would want to justify the cost - it's spending a lot of money to get objectively worse performance and cooling than a desktop, of course. But, it fills a niche that I find pretty exciting, and I'm really glad this exists, even if I know I'll probably go right back to a desktop in a couple years when I grow bored of the "uniqueness."
Happy to answer any questions!
