Alienware - m15 R5 - 15.6" QHD Gaming Laptop - AMD Ryzen R7 5800H - 16GB Memory - NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 - 512GB SSD
Model: AWM15R5-A104BLK-PUS/A217BLK-PU
SKU: 6468110
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Customers are impressed with the powerful CPU, high-quality keyboard and display, and excellent performance of the m15 R5 gaming laptop. However, some users noted that the laptop runs warm during extended use and has less-than-stellar battery life. The weight of the system was also mentioned as a potential drawback for some. While the sound quality is considered adequate, it is not a standout feature.
**********EXTREMELY IMPORTANT****************************** Make sure to perform a vBIOS flash on your 3070 by downloading and installing the "Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 Firmware Update Utility" from Dell's support website. Not doing so will limit your 3070 to only 4608 cuda cores instead of the full 5120. At the time of writing this review mine was shipped with 4608 cuda cores. It's possible that when you get your laptop it may already have the latest vBIOS with this fix but please check your cuda core count on your 3070 via GPU-Z or "system information" through nvidia control panel. ************************************************************************ As somebody who has owned several gaming laptops in the past, and who's also coming from an Alienware M15 i7 9750H w/ RTX2070, I can't begin to describe the excitement I feel when gaming on this laptop. I hope that after this review, you're just as excited as I am and get the chance to game on one of these! The reason this laptop is such a big deal is because of the "Max-Q" redesign. If you look at a lot of previous gen gaming laptops with the 20 series cards, they all have a technology called "Max-Q". In a nutshell, this technology allows your laptop to switch back and forth between the iGPU and the Nvidia card, depending on how GPU intensive the application is. This tech was engineered in an attempt to conserve battery life. However, it also removed a lot of GPU features that are typically found on your nvidia control panel if you were to be running a discrete GPU. I also ran into some performance quirks in the past when running older and less gpu intensive games with these Max-Q cards. While this same technology still exists with this laptop (and has been improved) under the name "Optimus", you now have the option of selecting the RTX 3070 as a discrete GPU!!! This means your laptop will fully run off the 3070 regardless of application. Here's a breakdown of my experience with this Alienware laptop and I've also included some recommendations/tips at the end that you can try in order to improve your experience: **********PERFORMANCE************************************************ NOTE: You'll want to have the AC charger plugged in to get the best possible performance. Even when the power settings are set to "High Performance" in Alienware Command Center/Windows there's still a drop in performance as is to be expected with any gaming laptop running solely off battery. - Insane performance with the AMD Ryzen 7 5800h + 3070. 3D Mark Time Spy score of 9401 @ 2560x1440. Graphics score: 9531, CPU Score: 8732 at stock settings. - Destroys Resident Evil Village at 2560 x 1440 with most settings set to high. Average of 130 FPS. Would get over 150 FPS as well in several parts of the game (See picture). Incredibly smooth with GSYNC on. - Spanks Doom Eternal at 2560 x 1440 150+ FPS with settings set to high - Average of around 370 FPS in CS:GO at 2560x1440 with all settings on high. - Handles an intense amount of heavy workload tasks whether that be rendering, emulated virtual environments (I used EVE-NG for emulating engineering environments and topologies on this laptop), or heavy multi-tasking. If you intend to run a few VMs, setup some emulated virtual environments, or maybe you're just the type of person that needs 50 chrome tabs open while leaving a twitch stream running and editing on Adobe Premiere, this laptop will handle it all and then some. - An included Mgig ethernet port! (2.5GbE). What?! Amazing! - Killer Wifi 6 AX NIC - Unfortunately, Alienware decided to decrease the GPU wattage on the 3070 included in these R5 laptops to 125W. However, the 3070s in their new X series flagship model have a max 140W GPU wattage. This leads to a slight decrease in performance. I'm not sure if Alienware did this to make their X series look better in terms of performance metrics or if theyre going to release a BIOS flash that will unlock the 140W max. In any case, the good thing is that it does lead to better thermals! Personally, when it comes to beefy gaming laptops that typically suffocate from a lack of airflow, I'd take a small performance hit to improve thermals. **********DESIGN & BUILD QUALITY *********************************** - Relatively thin design for a high end gaming laptop with an ethernet port - Very premium feeling build quality; especially the LED display lid -Huge fan of the massive rear heat exhaust vent design on these newer Alienwares. It prevents the main body of the laptop and front speakers from getting extremely hot like they did on my previous gen Alienware. - Best keyboard I've ever typed on in a laptop. The keys feel incredibly sturdy with zero play or wobble. These aren't even the optional cherry MX keys but they feel great! - The trackpad feels like a minor downgrade from previous Alienware laptops. My previous Alienware trackpad just feels more sturdy and doesn't depress as much as this one does. Also has a slightly loud audible click as compared to previous Alienware trackpads **********THERMALS***************************************************** NOTE:My ambient room temperature when testing was 76 degrees C. -It's no secret that Alienware gaming laptops run hot. Probably hotter than some of their competition. I was extremely impressed to see some thermal improvements from previous gen. I don't know if this is due to better ventilation/gpu/cpu placement design or the improved efficiency of the 3070 and the 5800h but it certainly runs cooler than my previous m15. As seen in my 3D mark thermal monitoring screenshot, during the demo, the GPU averaged around 72-75 degrees C. This was a massive improvement over my previous gen Alienware m15 ( i7-9750h + MaxQ 2070) which averaged around 92-95 degrees C!! During the demo, the cpu thermal was slightly better on this new Alienware keeping a few degrees cooler but nothing significant. However, during Graphics test 1 and 2, huge improvements!! Both the 5800h and 3070 stayed pretty cool averaging around 72-75 degrees C. On my previous gen Alienware, they were both in the low to mid 90s!! This was the case for both graphics tests. - I would highly recommend setting this laptop down on a solid surface and never gaming on your lap. The long protruding rear exhaust surface just gets way too hot to the touch. - Noticeable temperature improvement to the touch on the keyboard, front speakers, and main laptop body. On my previous gen Alienware, the keyboard, speakers, and front body of the laptop get extremely hot. While this one still gets warm, it's a night and day difference. - Audible fan noise has been significantly improved! My previous gen Alienware m15 sounds like a jet taking off the moment I start a game. While you can clearly still hear the fans, it's so much quieter now. Again, this is partly due to improved hardware efficiency with the newer 3070 and 5800h. - GPU thermals are also improved due to the lower 125W GPU wattage on the 3070 as mentioned previously **********DISPLAY******************************************************** - Incredibly sharp 8 bit 2560 x 1440 LED SDR panel with a 240HZ refresh rate -I'm not sure if this is an IPS, LPS, or VA panel but the color saturation looks incredible to me. It's definitely not a TN. It's certainly not the most color accurate panel but it makes greens, reds, and blues really pop; sorta like an AMOLED panel. Scenes in games with fire or flames, physics artifacts like explosions and sparks, look stunning. The green color in foliage just pops out at you. I was also pretty impressed with blacks. - Gsync!!! Combined with 240HZ and the 3070, games run buttery smooth -No HDR. This is the one feature I would have LOVED to have seen that would put this laptop over the top! ********** MY RECOMMENDED SETTINGS AND TIPS************** NOTE:These are the settings that I use that have yielded me an incredibly smooth experience with great frame rates when gaming. This completely ignores any regard for battery life as I game with the AC charger plugged in to get the best performance possible. -Apply all latest Windows updates - Open Alienware Update App and check for all critical updates. Look out for any critical BIOS updates that may improve system stability/thermals. Update chipset and GPU drivers. Make sure to perform vBIOS as stated in my previous note! - Update Alienware Command Center. Change Power Settings from "Balanced" to "High Performance". -Go into Nvidia control panel and select the following options: Manage 3D Settings>Preferred Graphics Processor: High-performance NVIDIA processor Power Management Mode: Prefer Maximum Performance Monitor Technology: GSYNC Vertical Sync: Off (you can turn this on if you still get screen tearing) Manage Display Mode> NVIDIA GPU Only Setup G-Sync>Enable G-Sync, G-sync Compatible - Go to display settings>Graphics Settings> Graphics Performance Preference: High Performance - Go to Device Manager>Display Adapters and disable AMD Radeon graphics. This will ensure your 3070 is driving your display at all times. I actually had to do this for Doom Eternal as it kept generating an error upon startup that it couldnt find a physical GPU. -Enjoy a smooth gaming experience! Overall, I am over the moon when gaming on this laptop. I did some research on some of the higher end options like the AMD Ryzen 9 5900hx and the performance increase when gaming is minimal. On average an extra 2-5 FPS and at best, an extra 7-9 FPS. This AMD Ryzen7 and 3070 combo is just killer. When you add a QHD 2560x1440 display with GSYNC and 240HZ your gaming experience becomes so seamless. The resolution upgrade from 1080p to 1440p (even on a 15 inch laptop display) makes a huge difference. I wholeheartedly recommend this laptop to the aspiring gamer out there who also wants to get some productivity work done. This laptop will easily handle it all!
Posted by k1zit
Not even sure where to begin, so I’ll just go for it! For starters, this thing is a beautiful looking piece of tech. The “Dark Side of the Moon” color and finish looks fantastic. Very smooth and solid feeling surfaces. The RGB backlit keyboard is very responsive, comfortable, and nearly silent. The RGB color ways that the keyboard can produce are fully customizable and a nice touch on a laptop, as I have never experienced that on any of my previous laptops. The back lighting oval, the Alien head top logo, and power button are really cool looking and also add to the whole Alienware experience. Despite looking the part and feeling well built and solid, it is a tad on the heavy side (weighing nearly six pounds) but that is to be expected with a gaming computer and doesn’t bother me one bit. Setup was a breeze out of the box and just like other Windows based PC’s, you can choose to have Cortana help you through the process, or make her silent if preferred. Ultimately, I chose this laptop for playing ESO at home (with an external monitor) and remotely (built-in display). I wanted to have a mobile solution for starting a new character build, while also being able to play at friends' houses who are doing the same. So far, this is all working out extremely well. ESO is not only looking absolutely fantastic on the built-in screen, but is also running smooth and fast. The display is excellent. With the 2560x1440 resolution, text and images are clear and vibrant. Whether gaming, or watching movies on Netflix, the display looks great to my eyes. Gone are the days of blocky text on Windows computers. Finally! Of course a gaming computer needs graphics and a great processor and Alienware have given us both. Included with this model build are an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 and a AMD Ryzen 7 5800H. While this isn’t the highest spec’d laptop on the market, it is extremely capable and works perfectly for my needs. While this computer is marketed towards gamers and does a great job with it, it also performs well for other types of computing where graphics and processing power are needed. Being a photographer and videographer by trade, this system can keep up with my Adobe Creative Cloud Suite of apps just like my desktop computer. While it’s obvious the display isn’t 27+ inches and doesn’t provide the real estate to make photo and video editing particularly easy, it can do both while you are mobile and again, that is what matters to me. If you need more screen space for editing, attach an external display! Being able to user upgrade both the RAM and internal SSDs is also a welcome feature. This version comes standard with 16GB DDR4 3200MHz (upgradeable to 32GB) and a 256GB PCIe M.2 SSD. I am not sure how large of a third party SSD you can install, but I am guessing most all (any size) PCIe M.2 SSDs are compatible. Ports included are headphones, ethernet, 3 x USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports (one with PowerShare), and a single USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 port that will run an external display. Being a photographer, I do miss having a built-in SD card slot, but it isn’t a deal breaker since you can simply use a USB SD card reader. That said, I would still prefer to have one. The Alienware Command Center is also a useful and very welcome addition to the included software. From here, you can literally “command” many aspects of your PC, as well as monitor performance, and even overclock if preferred. The GUI of the command center is also nice looking and very easy to navigate (see my screenshots). If you choose, you can always install third party monitoring and overclocking applications, but in my use, I have found that the Alienware Command Center is all I need. Lastly, I have found that the built-in webcam, microphone, and camera app are very bare bones and quite frankly, junk. This is my biggest complaint about this laptop. Photo mode only allows for a maximum resolution of 1280x720 and video only up to 720p. While this can get you by in a pinch for Skype or ZOOM, I would highly recommend looking into third party webcams and microphones. Especially if you plan on doing any vlogging. Thank goodness there are several great affordable options available at Best Buy, but I definitely think Dell has dropped the ball in these hardware departments and could have, in fact, should have done better. Gaming computer or not, having a competent built-in webcam and microphone would not only save money for the user, but also weight when going in a backpack, and of course time setting up. As far as the built-in speakers, they fall into this category as well. While most people will be using headphones or monitors to play games or watch movies, it would also be nice for manufacturers to at least try to make these hardware features usable. I get that the speakers need to be small to fit into a laptop chassis, but small speakers do not need to sound bad. Better speaker components, and even collaborations with companies that are in the speaker business would (could?) go a long way. Is it perfect? Nothing is. Is it a solid mobile computer that can get many jobs done with ease? It most certainly is. PROS: Excellent design and solid feel Very quiet RGB backlit keyboard Bright vivid display NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 AMD Ryzen 7 5800H 2560x1440 is much better than 1080 CONS: Microphone Webcam Speakers Possibly a tad heavy for some users Fingerprints easily
Posted by MrShinyCadillackness
As with any laptop or desktop designed for gaming, the CPU and GPU are the two main focal points when determining what model to purchase. It is because of this that I was certainly excited to see how the latest Alienware R5 model performs. The Alienware R5 comes equipped with the latest Ryzen 7 5800H for mobile and is powered by the Nvidia Geforce RTX 3070 to tear through the latest games. Despite some controversy with the GPU implementation, the Ryzen Edition of the m15 still deserves some attention combining a relative sleek looking package, decent hardware, and respectable build quality. Granted, I was curious to see if it can still perform and if it could still be a competitive option. Once opened, the Alienware m15 Ryzen Edition is much more compact than I thought it would be. Physically, it is not overly obtrusive or thick like some gaming laptops. Immediately one of my favorite features was that most of all the main ports are neatly aligned at the front of the unit. Naturally, this allows you to easily access the USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports on the right and the Ethernet port without other cords blocking your access. Furthermore, there is an additional USB 3.2 Gen 1 port on the front and also a USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C port. I was also quite impressed with the style of the laptop. It has a nice smooth brush feel to it and a stylish etched pattern on the top of the display. I was also impressed by the LED light that runs in a loop at the front as well as the iconic alien head LED light. In addition, the keyboard was responsive and was fairly quiet when you typed. Surprisingly, it was actually more comfortable typing on this keyboard than some of our other laptops. Moving on, the 240 HZ 1440p display is insanely gorgeous with excellent clarity and sharpness. HW Info lists the display as an LG model LGD0690. I was pleasantly surprised on how bright it was at max setting. Connectively, the contrast was wonderful throughout and color was exceptionally vibrant. The contrast was especially noticeable when viewing the included Alien desktop wallpaper. Before we move on to the performance aspects, there were a couple of observations that I would like to mention. First and foremost, I tried to change little as possible with regards to settings in order to maintain the closest out of the box experience that I could. With that said, the main significant change was that all of the drivers and updates were downloaded and installed by the OS. Although not preferable, most will probably let this task finish. Additionally, all of the startup executables were disabled. Connectively, I also disabled the UEFI Capsule setting in the BIOS to prevent it from updating over Windows update automatically. The BIOS should never be updated like a piece of software. Furthermore, I did not alter anything that would reclaim back some of the hard drive space used, even though for some reason Dell's Windows 10 installation already costs you 46 GB immediately upon your first boot of the OS. I was pretty disappointed with this, especially given that they only gave you a 512 GB SSD. You will more than likely need to fresh install to reclaim a good portion of that space back or perhaps upgrade to a bigger capacity. After updates and drivers, it blossomed to 53.6 GB used. Lastly, as most are probably aware, this particular implementation of the 3070 is cut down. GPU-Z shows 4,608 CUDA cores instead of the full 5,120. The TMU count is 144 instead of 160. Unfortunately, this is not ideal and, at the very least, Dell should have mentioned this on the specifications. Hopefully, the full chip can be unlocked via an update to the firmware or BIOS. Nonetheless, I hope this could at least provide some guidance on what to expect during setup. As for my performance tests, I tested each of the three of the main components: CPU, GPU, and SSD. For gaming, I tested three games: Rise Of The Tomb Raider (2016), Crysis 3 (2013), and Doom (2016). I used the highest preset in each game, and where film grain and motion blur is an option, I disabled it. Each game ran at the native resolution of 2560x1440. Throughout all of my tests, I monitored thermals with HW Info, HW Monitor, CPU-Z and GPU-Z. I used Fraps to watch the frame rate. On Rise Of The Tomb Raider, with anti-aliasing set to FXAA (default), as soon as the opening sequence loads, the fps explodes. I was reading anywhere from 88-95 fps walking along the mountain. As soon as the weather kicks in, I dipped to 82 fps. Depending on your camera angle, I noted frame rates up to 130. With the game running, GPU- Z has the 3070 at around 75c. The CPU hit around 83c. Once the mountain gives way, I dipped to the low 70s and shot right back up to the low to middle 90s. Inside the cave, I quickly shot up to 102-105 fps. If you switch the anti-aliasing to SSAA 2x, the story changes. At the start of the game, I noted frame rates from the high 50s to low 60s. Weather effects dips you to the low 50s. Overall, there is about a 20-40 fps decrease between the two anti-aliasing methods. Additionally, even more impressive was that GPU-Z reported the board power draw for the GPU never exceeded 115 watts. The performance was so crazy that I was curious to see how it would compare to my desktop that houses a GTX 1080. With both on the same settings at 1080p, my GTX 1080 notched 91.85 fps and the 3070 hit 100.18 fps. Crysis 3 should come as no surprise to anyone with its graphic intensity. Using the very high preset and anti-aliasing set to MSAA 8x, I immediately noted anywhere from 50-65 fps. There was an occasional dip but to see this game smooth at 1440p is mind blowing. Once you start fighting, the fps ranges anywhere from 53-65 fps. Cutting anti-aliasing back to MSAA 4x, allows you to stay above 60. I saw one instance of 59 fps, but typical range is 60-75. Finally, once you dial back to MSAA 2x, I never dropped below the 70-85 range, with occasion dips to the mid 60s. I saw one instance of 90+. Overall, this was extremely impressive and it looked absolutely stunning at 1440p. CPU temp hit 95c and the GPU stayed around 75c. Finally in Doom 2016, I was expecting the same staggering results and I was not disappointed. With all of its settings maxed out and motion blur off, the game literally did not drop below 160 fps and averaged around 170-200 fps. Perhaps the most amazing thing was that when I turned the in game metrics overlay on, the latency between CPU and GPU literally did not go past 3ms. This game was literally chew up and spit out. Aside from the GPU, which is stunning in its own right, the CPU certainly steals the show. The Ryzen 7 5800H just crushes everything that is thrown at it. With eight cores and sixteen threads, and a paltry 45w TDP, this chip just screams at you. Unfortunately, while I did not have a sample of the 11th generation i9 to test this CPU with, I did have an i7-1165 G7 in my ASUS laptop that was at least of this current generation, though please note that the i7 is only four cores and eight threads. For my encode test, I used Handbrake 1.3.3 and encoded a 28 GB M2TS file using the Very Fast 1080p preset. I set the audio to pass through the source. I also set the frame rate to match the source. I disabled two pass encode and removed subtitles and chapters. My results were as follows: i7-1165 G7: 29 Minutes and 1 second / Ryzen 7 5800H: 16 Minutes and 32 Seconds. As you can see the Ryzen handles multithreaded tasks very well. As for a single threaded test, I used Musicbee 2.4 to encode a 24 minute WAV file into MP3 using LAME 3.99. I used a constant bit rate of 320 kbps and set the internal algorithm to 0 for the highest quality (-q command). I set the maximum encoding threads to one core. Lastly, I included CPU-Z benchmarks for both processors. i7-1165 G7: 1 Minute and 14 seconds / Ryzen 7 5800H: 1 Minute and 11 Seconds. i7-1165 G7 - Single: 563.9 / Multi: 2,698.3 / Ryzen 7 5800H - Single: 581 / Multi: 5,665. Moving on, I next wanted to give you an idea of the SSD performance. HW info has this listed as a 512 GB Samsung PM991a NVMe running at 4x over PCIe 3.0. While the drive is fairly decent, it will not break any records. While sequential results were alright, the 4K read pretty low. My Crystalmark 8.0.2 results were as follows (see screenshot for full results): Sequential Read Q8T1: 3,102.99 MB/s / Sequential Write Q8T1: 1,436.26 MB/s Sequential Read 4K Q1T1: 42.85 MB/s / Sequential Write 4K Q1T: 115.91 MB/s Supplemental to these results, I manually transferred a 31 GB music folder containing 5,494 files and 1,179 folders from my Samsung T5 over the USB Type C port. The transfer averaged around 415-425 MB/s range and finished in roughly a minute. In conclusion, the Alienware R5 Ryzen Edition is a solid performer that doesn't fully disappoint despite some who might completely write it off due to the cut down GPU. It is certainly fair to critique such a decision, especially given the price points involved. In addition, I was quite disappointed about the 46 GB bloated Windows installation. However, this does not fully negate what the hardware is still capable of at its current configuration. It still a high performance machine. The Ryzen 5800H is still a monster CPU, taking mobile multitasking capabilities to new high heights. The RTX 3070 still powers through games like they are nothing, even beating my GTX 1080. Furthermore, the 240 Hz 1440p display was absolutely drop dead gorgeous. The keyboard was extremely comfortable and the customizable LEDs are another plus. The laptop itself looks really stylish and has a nice polished feel to it. While there is certainly room for improvement, the Alienware m15 R5 Ryzen Edition deserves at least some consideration. Therefore, the R5 comes recommended only for those are who are content with the above concerns.
Posted by Dragonhunter281