Alienware 15 R3 Kaby Lake review

ApolloX75 · December 1, 2017

So I broke down and replaced my trusty MSI GT780DXR with an Alienware 15 R3. I have always been intrigued by Alienware ever since I was a kid but never thought I'd actually go about buying one, but hey it was an expensive but well thought out purchase. I custom ordered my R3 through Dell, which ended up being cheaper thanks to their promo deals at the time.

Kaby Lake i7 7700HQ

16GB DDR4-2400

GTX 1070

256GB NVMe M.2 drive

1080p 60Hz IPS w/ GSYNC (more on this later)

On to my impressions.

First things first, my R3 decided to be a prick out of the box, blue screening on first boot and then randomly refusing to POST on a cold boot. Several calls to Alienware support (who are actually pretty damn good) ended up in us determining that I had received a bad stick of RAM. Two days and a Purolator truck later, I was up and running. Seriously as a side note, the Alienware tech support team was really easy and pleasant to deal with, I can't speak for the rest of Dell however. I'm a little miffed at their QC department for not catching this, but not much I can do about that.

So after all the drama was concluded and I could finally test my new acquisition, how does it handle?

Pretty damn good all things considered.

Dell/Alienware really know how to build a chassis; this thing is thick and rigid with little to no flex anywhere, the aluminum and magnesium used reduces the overall weight however this is still a very hefty laptop. One design choice I do not like however is the soft touch plastics on the palmrest, it collects dust and skin oils like crazy and is a pain in the ass to constantly wipe it down. The internals are well laid out and easy to access for quick upgrades; of which there are only a few since the GPU and CPU are both soldered to the motherboard, you can add up to two full size 2280 M.2 drives and one half size 2242 plus a 2.5" HDD/SSD. The cooling system is phenomenal especially since they have solved the teething issues with overheating that they had on the earlier production run. I haven't seen temperatures higher than 75C on the CPU so far and that was after several hours of gaming.

The AlienFX lighting is catchy and somewhat useful at the same time illuminating your surroundings and allowing you to find ports in the dark with ease. The keyboard is solid and has a great feel for typing and gaming, excellent key travel and everything seems to be laid out just right. Except the TactX macro keys on the left side, they are very annoying to get used to and I really think they could have squeezed a numpad on here. The trackpad is good; not great or astounding but serviceable. It does not work properly if you are pressing keys and trying to swipe on the pad at the same time, which seems a little backasswards but whatever if you're gaming you're gonna have a mouse anyways.

Now on to one of the odd choices I made. In the Dell configuration you can choose three different screen options and they are a 1080p 60Hz IPS, a 1080p 120Hz TN, or a 4K on the higher end of the spectrum. I went with the IPS because personally I can't stand TN panels on laptops, they always seem to look washed out. The screen is crisp and clear with excellent colour and responsiveness, and GSYNC is a huge boon to the overall package. I wouldn't recommend the 4K screen for a 15" laptop as you're just asking for eye strain at that point, save it for the 17".

Software, how bloated is it?

Oddly enough not really. I'm a little unnerved by the fact that my laptop has GPS built into it for Dell's location services. I can understand the why but I'm still a little leery about the whole thing, they do offer theft recovery services though. There is a really neat built in hardware diagnostic system I am now very familiar with that can be accessed on boot. The only included Windows based software is the Alienware Command Center which controls the AlienFX and other various features; the Killer networking software which I highly recommend you immediately download the updated version to solve some wireless hiccups and last but not least Dell's Service and Update software which allows you to get system updates such as new BIOS and driver updates quickly and easily. Otherwise it's a standard stock Windows 10 Home (or Pro if you so choose) install.

Performance. What's it like?

This little beast can average 110-120FPS in Shadow of War at Ultra settings; Time Spy score was 5382 and Firestrike clocked in at 10596, both highly respectable scores especially when you consider this is a laptop. It scores a respectable 383 Single thread and 2038 Multi thread in CPU-Z's handy little benchmark tool which puts it at a level above my desktop's 4790k at stock speeds. There is no overclocking for the HQ hardcoded into the BIOS; for that you need to choose the 7820HK, which I was sorely tempted to do and may kick myself for not doing it later. Hard to say. Otherwise the 7700HQ performs very well in all tasks and despite having a reputation for running hot the Alienware cooling system seems to handle it just fine. Another point to make is that waiting for the Coffee Lake update may be wise. I was impatient and didn't wait as my older laptop was giving me a lot of grief so waiting may be sound advice at this point.

Battery life is acceptable to excellent. I can average about four hours of internet browsing and general use which far outstrips what my old GT780 was ever capable of. If you start gaming you can immediately cut that down to about an hour and a half. One big downside to having a GSYNC panel is that these units cannot deploy the switching graphics trick, so no iGPU at all. Bit of a bummer but I'll take GSYNC over that.

~~I was hoping to Cinebench it tonight but that download is taking forever, so I'll add it later in an edit.~~ It finished, here's the score: 720CB, and that was with a couple background tasks I didn't catch. Pretty damn acceptable for a mobile quad core.

Overall my experience with this laptop has been very positive. The hiccups at the beginning were disheartening to be sure but the problem was solved quickly and relatively easily with minimal work on my part; however I am comfortable with tearing a laptop apart, others may require the services of Dell's roaming technicians. I did immediately add a 2.5" SSD to my laptop to expand the storage as I was a little cheap and only ordered the 256GB NVMe SSD with no secondary. The process to add the drive involves removing seven screws from the bottom plate and utilizing the included hardware, overall very easy to do as it took me maybe all of five minutes. I also personally don't usually put much stock in long warranty times as anything that will go wrong is usually in the first few months anyways so I opted for a single year of warranty, if you're less technically inclined and find the idea of tearing apart your expensive laptop to repaste it after the first year, go for the longer warranties.

TL;DR: The Alienware 15 R3 is an excellent performer with excellent thermals and a hefty chassis. It's heavy, it's loud, it can last a decent amount of time on battery and it's wickedly fast for 1080p gaming when properly equipped with the 1070. Definitely well worth the money spent in the end if you need a mobile gaming machine that can easily do work as well. It's a little flashy but overall well built and designed.

If anyone is interested in pictures just ask and I can add them. Also any questions feel free to ask them, and if you want more benchmarks I'll be happy to oblige when time permits.

Theguywhobea · December 1, 2017

I'm actually really surprised at the hate Alienware still receives these days. Especially with their notebooks, they're actually pretty competitive, I wouldn't call them over priced. They make a solid machine that performs well and like you said, their Alienware support is actually pretty good. When I had an Alienware 13 about a year ago it was quite a nice little machine, the only reason I didn't keep it was the underpowered CPU as this was back when they still used the U series CPU's. I think the best thing that ever happened to Dell/Alienware was Micheal Dell stepping in a taking the company private again. After that they started making incredibly solid machines again I would recommend to anyone.

genexis_x · December 2, 2017

OP, have you tried undervolting on the CPU? Will reduce the CPU temp and provide more headroom for the GPU to OC (manually via Afterburner or automatically via GPU Boost 3.0)

ApolloX75 · December 2, 2017

1 hour ago, ZM Fong said:

OP, have you tried undervolting on the CPU? Will reduce the CPU temp and provide more headroom for the GPU to OC (manually via Afterburner or automatically via GPU Boost 3.0)

I have not tinkered with it that much yet. I'm also considering opening it up to repaste with something a little higher quality.

Edit: So for curiosity sake I tinkered. A -.110V undervolt dropped temperatures by almost 10C on the hottest core when running OCCT. Not too shabby. Things stay under 65-68C.