The New Alienware 15 (About CPU Selection)

[EldrickKnight]

Hey,

 

I am planning to buy the new alienware 15. Hopefully, it would be my first "gaming" machine and I am pretty excited about it. I want to play the latest titles (high to max settings, 1080p, honestly I do not care much about the ultra details, running them at 60fps is enough),hence, I think gtx 1060 will do the job just fine.

 

However, I cannot make head or tails of which cpu variant I should go with. i5 6300HQ looks decent enough, but i7 6700HQ is much powerful. Honestly, I cant even afford the i5 variant (around 174.000 japanese yen) at the moment, and i7 variant sounds very expensive (around 205.000 yen).

 

So, do you think that i5 would be enough or do you think that it will bottleneck the whole system?

 

Looking forward to hear your opinions.

Thank you all in advance.

 

Best,

Eldrick

[Droidbot]

the i5 is around the desktop i5-6400 in terms of performance, but just a touch slower.

6700hq is similar to desktop i5-6600/k in terms of performance.

 

You're not gonna notice a world of difference between the two machines, and Alienware don't solder CPUs down so when the 6700's price goes down just buy one and drop it in haha

[Dabombinable]

4 minutes ago, Droidbot said:

the i5 is around the desktop i5-6400 in terms of performance, but just a touch slower.

6700hq is similar to desktop i5-6600/k in terms of performance.

 

You're not gonna notice a world of difference between the two machines, and Alienware don't solder CPUs down so when the 6700's price goes down just buy one and drop it in haha

https://ark.intel.com/products/88967/Intel-Core-i7-6700HQ-Processor-6M-Cache-up-to-3_50-GHz

Unfortunately, they do (they use FCBGA based i5 and i7, meaning that they are soldered in place).

[Droidbot]

1 minute ago, Dabombinable said:

https://ark.intel.com/products/88967/Intel-Core-i7-6700HQ-Processor-6M-Cache-up-to-3_50-GHz

Unfortunately, they do (they use FCBGA based i5 and i7, meaning that they are soldered in place).

Gah.. 3rd and 4th gen CPUs are PGA, thank god. Thought intel would stop doing this crap and let people actually upgrade their own stuff

 

 

[Dabombinable]

3 minutes ago, Droidbot said:

Gah.. 3rd and 4th gen CPUs are PGA, thank god. Thought intel would stop doing this crap and let people actually upgrade their own stuff

 

 

Its primarily to allow OEM to make thinner devices with lower power consumption (think of FCBGA chips being well binned compared to the desktop counterparts). If they really wanted to, Dell could throw a desktop SKU i5 or i7 in. but that would murder the battery (and cooling system).

[Pendragon]

15 minutes ago, Droidbot said:

You're not gonna notice a world of difference between the two machines

Yes you will. All the benchmarks online show the i5 impacting the performance of the 1060. 

 

5 minutes ago, Dabombinable said:

(think of FCBGA chips being well binned compared to the desktop counterparts)

They aren't better binned.

 

25 minutes ago, EldrickKnight said:

snip

Majority of Alienware's right now have a serious heatsink defect that causes high core temp differentials. You can fix it yourself, or just avoid the laptop. If you aren't comfortable tinkering with it alot, the stock performance is very bad and leaves alot to be wanting. 

[Dabombinable]

2 minutes ago, Pendragon said:

Yes you will. All the benchmarks online show the i5 impacting the performance of the 1060. 

 

They aren't better binned.

 

Majority of Alienware's right now have a serious heatsink defect that causes high core temp differentials. You can fix it yourself, or just avoid the laptop. If you aren't comfortable tinkering with it alot, the stock performance is very bad and leaves alot to be wanting. 

Look at the TDP....

[Pendragon]

Just now, Dabombinable said:

Look at the TDP....

Um. Please test them before pointing at "specs". You need to push nearly 1.3v to push the 6820HK to 4.0ghz. That's not "better binned". That's binned to the shit. Intel uses leftover chips for the mobile solutions. The mobile and desktop chips are essentially the same in performance clock for clock. So you measure it by the same standards, which chip can push higher OCs with lower voltages. And also 45w is a lie. You can push desktop level TDP levels on unlocked systems like P650RS. 

[Dabombinable]

1 minute ago, Pendragon said:

Um. Please test them before pointing at "specs". You need to push nearly 1.3v to push the 6820HK to 4.0ghz. That's not "better binned". That's binned to the shit. Intel uses leftover chips for the mobile solutions. The mobile and desktop chips are essentially the same in performance clock for clock. So you measure it by the same standards, which chip can push higher OCs with lower voltages. And also 45w is a lie. You can push desktop level TDP levels on unlocked systems like P650RS. 

Note: that's if you overclock. At stock speeds the power consumption will be lower. And the voltage reuired depends a lot on how well the power delivery circuitry is built-in desktops you'll notice that for example a 4790K will overclock on an Z97 Sabertooth than a H87M Pro-running more stable at a lower voltage.

[EldrickKnight]

uhm thanks?

I just wanna know whether i5 is going to bottleneck the system or not.

I am aware that they are very different in performance-wise. But I do not think that I can afford i7 atm (unless you come up with a really good argument that justifies that purchase)

 

many thanks,

eldrick

[Pendragon]

27 minutes ago, Dabombinable said:

Note: that's if you overclock.

You're putting the mobile chip at a comparable speed to the desktop one. That was your original point that it was "better binned". At 4.0 ghz that's stock for the 6700k. Whereas you can undervolt the shit out of the desktop chip, the 6820HK is drawing tons of voltage. At "stock" mobile which is 3.2ghz, the desktop will still draw far less power if you underclock it and undervolt it to appropriate levels to reflect the performance. At the any given clock speed, the desktop processor will always be better than the mobile one in the latest Skylake generation. 

 

10 minutes ago, EldrickKnight said:

snip

Yes it will bottleneck it. A i5 is fucking trash. 2.8ghz skylake quad core no ht 4 threads.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_puyZj2TqIo

 

And all Alienware laptop heatsinks are fucked at the moment. So. In case you didn't catch it the first time I mentioned it. 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/warning-some-i7-6820hks-and-i7-6700hq-have-uneven-core-temps-due-to-uneven-heatsink.797477/

It's also not "some" anymore, it's in basically every single one that's been tested. 

[EldrickKnight]

2 hours ago, Pendragon said:

You're putting the mobile chip at a comparable speed to the desktop one. That was your original point that it was "better binned". At 4.0 ghz that's stock for the 6700k. Whereas you can undervolt the shit out of the desktop chip, the 6820HK is drawing tons of voltage. At "stock" mobile which is 3.2ghz, the desktop will still draw far less power if you underclock it and undervolt it to appropriate levels to reflect the performance. At the any given clock speed, the desktop processor will always be better than the mobile one in the latest Skylake generation. 

 

Yes it will bottleneck it. A i5 is fucking trash. 2.8ghz skylake quad core no ht 4 threads.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_puyZj2TqIo

 

And all Alienware laptop heatsinks are fucked at the moment. So. In case you didn't catch it the first time I mentioned it. 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/warning-some-i7-6820hks-and-i7-6700hq-have-uneven-core-temps-due-to-uneven-heatsink.797477/

It's also not "some" anymore, it's in basically every single one that's been tested. 

I was not aware of the heatsink problem. Thanks for pointing it out.