Ordered m18

[Popcan]

Just looking for opinions and also sharing my new laptop purchase with other enthusiast! 😝. 
 

This is all just my opinion. I also tend to ramble.🙃 fair warning! But this might help someone who is in the market.
 

Just pulled the trigger after many many days of contemplation.  Looking at everything from the 3070 ti to the 4090.  Started with a m17 r5, then a x17 r2 then again to the m16 and finally settling on the m18.

 

Reasoning… if you that’s what you want to call it.

 

I was originally planning on spending $1500-2000. Browsed the heck out of the Dell outlet site. And then hopped over to the Alienware site and went back and forth.  The 3070 ti is an awesome card and I had one sitting in my cart many times but I tend to hold on to stuff for a while and since this is the first non second hand gaming laptop in over 10 years I really wanted it to be as future proofed as possible. So, I splurged and got the m16 configed with the 4090.
 

 After a decent amount of researching I found that in some cases the 4080 outperformed the 4090 due to thermals. (in my research I was not comparing alienwares of course).  On top of that the 4080 vs the 4090 did not justify an extra $600 to me for the power improvement. So with that extra $600 freed up, I decided to put the money towards the M18.  Nostalgia is a big one, I remember drooling over the m18x back in the day with those dual graphics cards 🤤

 

 I figured they are brand new and should be relevant for at least a few years.

 

I ended up with a:

 

4080

3900hx

16gb ram (because dell overcharges!)

1600p 165hz (the FHD option doesn’t make sense to me)

mechanical keyboard (of course!)

 

Out the door for $3004 🤑

 

However… With the extra cooling potential of the m18 I wonder if I made a mistake not going for the 4090?…

 

 

 

[Reciever]

@ssj92 also just picked one up, might have it on hand 🙂

[Popcan]

Awesome sauce! I’m excited to see what kind of scores people can cram out of these things.

[ssj92]

Hmm did you use the 15% off coupon? 
 

mine was $3264 out the door for:

 

i9 13900HX

32GB RAM

RTX 4090

1TB SSD

QHD 165Hz

cherryMX keyboard 

 

Go here and enter email. You’ll get a code within 12-48 hrs.

 

https://www.dell.com/preferences/signup/?c=us&l=en&s=bsd&ref=cpcl_us-en-bsd-04-fcca82af-9bb0-4ca0-a440-2bbb2a2cf418-dell-coupon-codes-saving-1-new_cta_link_signmeup

[Popcan]

Oh snap!  I didn’t hear about the coupon.  I’ll have cancel the order and get that.  Thanks!

 

Dude! Many thanks, you saved me $500! I very much appreciate it!

[serpro69]

4 hours ago, ssj92 said:

mine was $3264 out the door for:

Wow, that's a nice price. I'm getting +2k here in Norway for the same spec M16 ...

[ssj92]

3 hours ago, Popcan said:

Oh snap!  I didn’t hear about the coupon.  I’ll have cancel the order and get that.  Thanks!

 

Dude! Many thanks, you saved me $500! I very much appreciate it!

I hope you bought the 4090 model with that coupon. For $200 more than what you had paid, you would have gotten a nice upgrade. 

 

4080 is nice but in a properly cooled system (m18) I expect 4090 to perform well. 

[Popcan]

6 hours ago, ssj92 said:

I hope you bought the 4090 model with that coupon. For $200 more than what you had paid, you would have gotten a nice upgrade. 

 

4080 is nice but in a properly cooled system (m18) I expect 4090 to perform well. 

After a few more hours of ocd filled research on the 18in laptops and the upgrade only being $100 more now I decided to take the risk. 🙃

 

Thanks again man! Do you have a "tip system" set up on your youtube channel? I'd like to buy you a beverage.

 

6 hours ago, serpro69 said:

Wow, that's a nice price. I'm getting +2k here in Norway for the same spec M16 ...

 

That's awesome, I had a m16 in my cart so many times! Being able to see actual hands on reviews of them and bench tests was great. 

I think the m16 is really best of both the 15.6in and 17.3in laptop world. A lot to offer in a sleek and portable package!

 

On a side note, I'm going to grab a couple 16gb 5600mhz sticks and see if they will run at full speed. Unless Alienware did some sort of Tom foolery, it should work I would assume.

[ssj92]

3 hours ago, Popcan said:

After a few more hours of ocd filled research on the 18in laptops and the upgrade only being $100 more now I decided to take the risk. 🙃

 

Thanks again man! Do you have a "tip system" set up on your youtube channel? I'd like to buy you a beverage.

 

 

That's awesome, I had a m16 in my cart so many times! Being able to see actual hands on reviews of them and bench tests was great. 

I think the m16 is really best of both the 15.6in and 17.3in laptop world. A lot to offer in a sleek and portable package!

 

On a side note, I'm going to grab a couple 16gb 5600mhz sticks and see if they will run at full speed. Unless Alienware did some sort of Tom foolery, it should work I would assume.

There should be a “thanks” button on my videos that allows you to tip. Other option is on my older videos (such as area-51m review) there should be a paypal donate link. 
 

the 18” laptops we get today are not the same as the older 18.4” models. The new ones are smaller, have a smaller screen, so they’re not as big as people may think. I plan to compare the size to my area-51m and m-18x. From the dimensions it’s similar to area-51m in size more than m18x.

 

with the 15% off coupon the 4090 model isn’t much more expensive than 4080 models with tax. It’s definitely worth the upgrade especially the vram alone. 

[serpro69]

4 hours ago, Popcan said:

That's awesome, I had a m16 in my cart so many times!

 

I think you misunderstood, what I meant is that the price I'm seeing here is 2k more than that lol. So the M16 I want to get comes up to around 5.5k usd total (with 4 years of warranty)

Tried to use the same coupon link to get 15% off, but it seems like it only works for US-based purchases (The checkout says smth along the lines of "your coupon is valid but can't be applied to the product")

As nice as this laptop seems to be, I'm really not sure that it's worth this much lol. So I'll probably keep looking for something else or waiting for prices to drop (at which point we'll probably start seeing 14th gen on the horizon )

[Popcan]

1 hour ago, serpro69 said:

 

I think you misunderstood, what I meant is that the price I'm seeing here is 2k more than that lol. So the M16 I want to get comes up to around 5.5k usd total (with 4 years of warranty)

Tried to use the same coupon link to get 15% off, but it seems like it only works for US-based purchases (The checkout says smth along the lines of "your coupon is valid but can't be applied to the product")

As nice as this laptop seems to be, I'm really not sure that it's worth this much lol. So I'll probably keep looking for something else or waiting for prices to drop (at which point we'll probably start seeing 14th gen on the horizon )

 

haha yeah, I did misunderstand you!

Thats a big bummer that it won’t work…

[ssj92]

Got to play with my friends m18 for a bit:

 

 

[Popcan]

 

First sorta review is out.

 

looks like the Liquid Metal isn’t making good contact on all cpu cores with this m18. A re-application might be in order. Gpu seems to be fine. on this 4080 and it hit 179 watts.

On one of the LTT videos where they liquid cooled a 13900k they had a similar issue where the Liquid Metal wasn’t making good contact.  Additional liquid fixed the issue.

 

In the comments someone commented on using 5600mhz ram and it worked correctly.

I will confirm when I get a chances, unless someone beats me to it.

 

The speakers and screen def appear to be lacking compared to the other offerings. 290 nits…

 

on the performance side, time will tell but I think there is a lot of potential in the cooling on these laptops.  Gpu always had great thermals.  @ssj92 seems to be the case with his friends laptop.

Thank you for that quick review ssj92, despite not feeling well, hope you get better.
 

 

 

 

[ssj92]

1 hour ago, Popcan said:

 

First sorta review is out.

 

looks like the Liquid Metal isn’t making good contact on all cpu cores with this m18. A re-application might be in order. Gpu seems to be fine. on this 4080 and it hit 179 watts.

On one of the LTT videos where they liquid cooled a 13900k they had a similar issue where the Liquid Metal wasn’t making good contact.  Additional liquid fixed the issue.

 

In the comments someone commented on using 5600mhz ram and it worked correctly.

I will confirm when I get a chances, unless someone beats me to it.

 

The speakers and screen def appear to be lacking compared to the other offerings. 290 nits…

 

on the performance side, time will tell but I think there is a lot of potential in the cooling on these laptops.  Gpu always had great thermals.  @ssj92 seems to be the case with his friends laptop.

Thank you for that quick review ssj92, despite not feeling well, hope you get better.
 

 

 

 

I'm good now. My laptop comes tomorrow, super excited. I ordered honeywell ptm7958 phase change paste and I already have honeywell ptm7950 phase change pads. From my experience, these are the best for laptop thermals. If mine also hits 100c like that then the liquid metal is definitely not making proper contact. I may test on my x14 first but we'll see. 

 

I bought 32gb 4800mhz ram but will be curious because it says it supports 5600mhz and 5800mhz xmp. Personally I am waiting for the 48GB DIMMs to become available so I can do 96GB RAM upgrade. I might try 1TB RAID0 (2x1TB) to see if both 2280 slots are wired to CPU. Should get 10-14gbps speeds if it works. 

[chewbakaats]

I'm pumped about getting mine in..should be tomorrow, 3/24! I'm very curious as well what memory we can upgrade too..especially 5600 and 5800mhz speeds.  Let me know if any of you guys get some kits and if they work and I'll probably pull the trigger to.  

[Rengsey R. H. Jr.]

What is the highest speed memory available now? I can't find anything faster than 5600mhz.

[Popcan]

9 minutes ago, Rengsey R. H. Jr. said:

What is the highest speed memory available now? I can't find anything faster than 5600mhz.

 Currently laptop ram maxes out at 5600mhz. This will change of course if it hasn’t already.

The Intel 13900hx officially supports 5600mhz ram. 
 

ssj92 was referring to the xmp profile some ram supports. Which is a overclock of sorts. Pretty much the manufacturer of the ram saying it’s officially 5600mhz but will run at 5800mhz. (Or whatever it might be) Usually has better timing as well.

 

 

 

 

[Rengsey R. H. Jr.]

53 minutes ago, Popcan said:

 Currently laptop ram maxes out at 5600mhz. This will change of course if it hasn’t already.

The Intel 13900hx officially supports 5600mhz ram. 
 

ssj92 was referring to the xmp profile some ram supports. Which is a overclock of sorts. Pretty much the manufacturer of the ram saying it’s officially 5600mhz but will run at 5800mhz. (Or whatever it might be) Usually has better timing as well.

 

 

 

 

ok. There are Kingston Fury 5600mhz is on sale right now for around $250 for the 64GB set (32GB x 2) 

[win32asmguy]

3 hours ago, Rengsey R. H. Jr. said:

ok. There are Kingston Fury 5600mhz is on sale right now for around $250 for the 64GB set (32GB x 2) 

 

Is there a benefit from choosing 64GB (dual rank) over 32GB (single rank)? I am also looking at ram options for the m18.

[Popcan]

8 hours ago, win32asmguy said:

 

Is there a benefit from choosing 64GB (dual rank) over 32GB (single rank)? I am also looking at ram options for the m18.

Single is going to be faster, probably. By how much? Idk. From my understanding, dual rank is like having 2 sticks of ram in the same slot. You could end up with not enough bandwidth to utilize both.

 

https://history-computer.com/single-vs-dual-rank-ram/

 

a good read.

 

 

[ryan]

Dual rank is faster

[MogRules]

16 hours ago, ryan said:

Dual rank is faster

Feel free to correct me if I am wrong here, but wasn't that supposed to essentially shift, or at least equalize once we got into faster DDR5.  I know it was definitely the case with DDR4, but I thought I remember someone saying that would eventually even out. 

[ryan]

Not sure about that. But I'd take dual rank over single rank every time as I want the best performance in games. Perhaps when ddr6 or 7 comes out it won't matter but for now dual rank is slightly better

[electrosoft]

3 hours ago, MogRules said:

Feel free to correct me if I am wrong here, but wasn't that supposed to essentially shift, or at least equalize once we got into faster DDR5.  I know it was definitely the case with DDR4, but I thought I remember someone saying that would eventually even out. 

 

As we've progressed through DDR, dual rank isn't as much of a priority as before. It can still provide a little bit of benefit for DDR5 but I would be more concerned with frequency, terts and primaries in that order. All things being equal, I'd get dual rank just because why not if it provides any type of tangible benefit.

 

 

[Popcan]

Oof! I appear to be spreading false information 😬 my bad... I stand corrected.     

 

 

Wanted to prove myself correct but couldn't find what I thought I knew lol.... I must have read the double sided single rank and thought that was double... idk... 

 

   Here is a video that puts it in terms people like myself can understand lol...