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New Alienware 17r4 Specs?
Hi All!
Just bought a new 2016 17r4 and I am looking to upgrade the M.2 drives and see the best layout for HDD's.
From my understanding the platform has 1x mSATA, 2x M.2, and 1x SATA HDD.
I know there are a few new releases on the M.2 front and I would like to pick the best choice.
I want to accomplish the best boot speed and function, my previous 17r1(vastly upgraded) used a mSATA for the boot drive.
My soon to arrive configuration is:
i7-6820hk, 32GB 2400 ram, Nvidia 1080 8GB, QHD 120hz G-SYNC, 512GB SSD, 1TB HDD, 1535 Killer, Win 10 Pro. 330w PS.
I am not really clear of the best layout for the primary drive slot, ie. should I run both M.2 slots(are they the fastest), I read in a post here that the mSATA is used for cache? is this true? Also it was noted that PCIE interface drives hit very high temps? true? compared to what?
My initial thoughts are shove my current PC's drives into this one (17r1 update bugged stuck at log in)(custom 980gtx 8GB running UEFI, negating all common repair efforts. . .). They are S-850 512GB mSATA, 2 x S-850pro 512Gb, S-850pro 2TB. But if anyone knows if the new 950's are better or even the 960's, I would go that route. I am not familiar with the interface speeds or the improvement as they pertain to the 2016 17r4 interface.
I went a little nuts with the SSD's in my previous build. In the hopes of absolute reliability(fail), heat and power consumption vs. spinning HDD's. Now I would like to take a more common sense approach and get more information as it should be more avail., it was not then. . . Any and all help greatly appreciated!
hindesite
276 Posts
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November 25th, 2016 14:00
Re MNVe drive temps in my 17r3: in benchmarks, you may see temps rise high enough (and very quickly) to where the drive throttles data transfers. Whether this is going to show in real world use, I have no idea. It shows in multiple runs of HDTune, but not so much in CrystalDisk Mark, which stresses the system less.
See the thread I started about it: en.community.dell.com/.../19666575
5thAlien17
35 Posts
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November 25th, 2016 15:00
Man those results are disheartening to say the least! I tried to comprise my build to reduce heat in the system/power consumption, but there wasn't really any comparative information available at the time. I do know I was genuinely surprised at the level of ambient heat from the SSD's in the system. I was not expecting that at all. I constructed a custom triple heatpipe with copper fins for the GPU, as the OEM ones could not properly cool the system with the factory GPU muchless the upgraded 980 custom card. I build desk stands with thermal monitoring and variable fans to properly cool my system when I do use it for gaming. It will run TC's The Division on ultra setting no problem as long as the stand's fans are running. For example, the temps at the exhaust will hit 120deg, in a heartbeat. I adjust the fan speed to maintain 90deg. exhaust, or I can max them out(not as efficient) and it will hit 70+'ish range. I had originally hoped that the SSD's would be much cooler and lower power consuming than the HDD's but I realized soon after that was not the case, even at idle. . .
hindesite
276 Posts
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November 25th, 2016 17:00
The results don't look great, but who knows what changes have been made with the latest NVNe drives, or the 17r4 itself. It is likely that generally airflow may be higher inside a laptop under stress so the SSDs may run cooler than when I benchmarked them. And remember, this is a benchmark, and may not be relevant to real world use. It would be unusual to be reading and writing to the SSD at the limit for a solid 20 seconds or so.
However, I've pretty much come to the conclusion that it is worth using a cooler, just to reduce the need to run the internal fans, and hence increase their life.
Liky
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61 Posts
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November 26th, 2016 05:00
Why I dont see GTX 1080 being offered on the site, where did you found it ?
5thAlien17
35 Posts
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November 26th, 2016 10:00
It was just recently released so the website may not have it listed yet but if you call in the associates have it available.
ScaryFatKidGT
4 Posts
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November 27th, 2016 22:00
You have to click NEXT in the upper right