New Alienware Q3 2020

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It should do, I ran and installed the Nvidia displayport firmware update, which now says no update required, but still locked to a max of 200hz :confused:
Then I'd assume that you are running it in 10 bit mode?
It doesn't support 10 bit @ 240hz, you have to turn it down to 8 bit.
 
Soldato
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Now at order complete in depot:

04/12/20 11:30 BPO - GLASGOW ORDER COMPLETE IN DEPOT.
04/12/20 11:30 BPO - GLASGOW FIRST BOX SCANNED INTO HUB.
04/12/20 08:33 BPO - GLASGOW ORDER ON DELIVERY.

Hoping it'll go out for delivery this afternoon now, with who, no idea yet though.
 
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has anybody tested the 38" model with an AMD GPU yet? I'll be buying a next gen CPU at some point next year whenver the stock situation gets resolved and wondered if I have to go Nvidia to have VRR working, or would I have the option for both (For the record, I'm not fussed if i'm tied to nvidia, just wondering what my options are)
 
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Mine (aw3821dw) arrived not long ago. No dead pixels, and very vibrant. Chuffed to bits coming from an ancient 30" Apple cinema display
 
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Okay - mine just got delivered

I have it mounted with a monitor arm

- it is less big than I expected, going from 34 to 38" is noticable, but not a game changer
- the curvature is less evident than I thought
- it is also not that bright
- quality is stunning
- 144hz is a game changer

a few questions for everyone:
- do you need to connect your monitor via USB at all? is the software helpful for anything or not at all?
- any settings changes that are strongly recommended?
 
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Reddit post for new Dell roadmap showing two new Alienware monitors this autumn.
AW2721D - 27", 16:9 1440p, 240hz, 1MS fast IPS, HDR 600, and G-Sync Ultimate
AW3821DW - 38", 21:9, 1440p, 144hz, 1MS fast IPS, HDR600, and G-Sync Ultimate

Alienware seem to be matching LG and filling out their line up that missed 27" 1440P.
Interesting to see how the 27" 1440P IPS 240Hz comes out against the 27" G7.

I assume G-Sync Ultimate needs the v2 module, so these will have none of the vsync issues plaguing the Odyssey range.
Are there any new Alienware monitors coming out that support HDR1000 or higher + 144hz or higher ?
 
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has anybody tested the 38" model with an AMD GPU yet? I'll be buying a next gen CPU at some point next year whenver the stock situation gets resolved and wondered if I have to go Nvidia to have VRR working, or would I have the option for both (For the record, I'm not fussed if i'm tied to nvidia, just wondering what my options are)

According to Dell sales it will actually work. I would take that with a pinch of salt though, you know what these sales people are like.
 
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Okay - mine just got delivered

I have it mounted with a monitor arm

- it is less big than I expected, going from 34 to 38" is noticable, but not a game changer
- the curvature is less evident than I thought
- it is also not that bright
- quality is stunning
- 144hz is a game changer

a few questions for everyone:
- do you need to connect your monitor via USB at all? is the software helpful for anything or not at all?
- any settings changes that are strongly recommended?

As far as I know you do not need to connect the USB unless you use their software, and there is no particular reason to use their software, on the contrary people seem to be having issues with it. Certainly I am using mine without the USB and without the software. The"variable backlight" defaults to off so if you want that you need to go in to the settings to change it. I am running mine with it off cus variable backlights annoy me! Other than that I am using it as it came out of the box. I have not really looked at the game modes as yet. Actually there aren't many settings. The default setting is "fast" which if this is similar to the LG monitor is probably the best for this panel.
 
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As far as I know you do not need to connect the USB unless you use their software, and there is no particular reason to use their software, on the contrary people seem to be having issues with it. Certainly I am using mine without the USB and without the software. The"variable backlight" defaults to off so if you want that you need to go in to the settings to change it. I am running mine with it off cus variable backlights annoy me! Other than that I am using it as it came out of the box. I have not really looked at the game modes as yet. Actually there aren't many settings. The default setting is "fast" which if this is similar to the LG monitor is probably the best for this panel.
Thanks mate - that is helpful feedback

I am running it withouth the USB, as I think less cables = nicer setup

I have an RTX 3080 FE + Zen 3 5800X and bearly get 60 FPS in Watch Dog with ultra + RTX. Ubisoft really sucks LOL
 
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Damn the HDR performance is so abysmal. Half of the screen need to be overblown to get brightness to the bright object, these zones are absolutely massive and dimming algorithm is extremely raw. Is is just not usable at all, causes way more problems than benefits. Some highlights look really nice and you get similar feeling to viewing HDR on OLED (I have LG 55B7), but the rest of the frame has to be completely destroyed to achieve that. On video demos it looks somehow but real time rendering like games it gets completely lost. You don't even need a dark scene for the screen to look like if it had IPS glow all around it. Like I said, if you have bright object on the screen, more than half of the screen area gets completely overblown. Not like this is particularly surprising, I am following TV market closely and I know how bad those Nano IPS TVs are at HDR, and I didn't expect much, but damn, massive blooming is visible on a much wider variety of scenes than I expected, on vast vast majority. I expected to have problems only on darker ones.

The gamut thing that I talked about in deleted post in not entirely true either. It was looking good because HDR in Windows enabled itself by default (maybe because I had HDR display connected before, who knows) and what happens then is Windows taking over control over picture and will send SDR content with proper colors to the HDR screen, so the wide gamut of the display is not forced. Disabling HDR reveals insane oversaturation and forced wide gamut, which looks horrible. Tinkering with color balance in OSD helps a bit but cannot get it to proper sRGB look.

Now you can have HDR enabled at all times to fix this problem, but then you are forced to use Variable Backlight at all times, and I've already encountered examples where it is unstable and causes flicker.

G-sync module didn't blow me away either. It does not flicker nearly as much as my 38UC99 with low framerates and during stutters/loading screens, but it is not entirely stable either and feels similarly sluggish around lower framerates like low 50s or lower. Almost unproportionally so, like if it was having some frame pacing issues below like 65 FPS. Generally not impressive at all, VRR quality increase from UC99, outside of random flicker that LG has, is basically none.

This is quite problematic because the only upgrade left is response time and refresh rate. Refresh rate can basically be ignored since I typically push my games to the limits and 85 Hz of UC99 is not easily hit anyway. Response time difference is massive though. Even setting both to the same refresh rate, AW3821DW is way cleaner on UFO test and just dragging windows around to see how much they blur. The blur is way, way less AW. But that in itself doesn't really justify the upgrade for that kind of money, especially when the rest is quite seriously messed up.

I will probably return it. It just doesn't deliver on the points that I expected it to, the points that were my reason for trying to upgrade.

That said, I wouldn't say that I don't recommend it. If you are running some older terrible screens like AW3418DW, various Acer X34 iterations or older LG gaming screens, not to even mention abominations like AUO's AMVA ultrawides, then this is way, waaaay better and you are definitely going to be satisfied with the difference. I am just coming from a different place and it didn't make enough of a difference to justify spending that kind of money. I wanted seamless VRR and at least usable HDR. VRR is still not seamless and HDR is terrible.
 
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Disabling HDR reveals insane oversaturation and forced wide gamut, which looks horrible. Tinkering with color balance in OSD helps a bit but cannot get it to proper sRGB look.

This is my current biggest issue with the 27inch. My desktop looks absolutely terrible with the oranges in my wallpaper looking closer to red. I find it crazy that dell refuse to add an sRGB mode to clamp the colour gamut. The solution of enabling HDR does work but as you said the dimming zones are far from good.
I'm honestly considering a return for these reasons. I absolutely love the design but the overblown colours just don't do it for me.
 
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So the monitor STILL hasn't arrived today, we've went from the 02/12/2020 when ordered to the 03/12/2020 ETA when trackable and then who knows now. Last update at 11.30 at the Glasgow Depot so it's made it up here now but no local tracking details etc to me yet so I'm going to have to assume that it won't arrive until Monday now as I don't expect a weekend delivery.

I'm not exactly in a rush but the courier choice for some of these deliveries is definitely fairly awful when some are sent via UPS and there is literally no issues and it comes rather quickly.

Hopefully after all this no dead pixels etc although Dell are at least good at replacing that stuff.
 
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Damn the HDR performance is so abysmal.

Yep see I don't like HDR in LCD monitors so it doesn't bothed me that it's terrible, I will never switch it on, lol. I am leaving HDR out of the equation until I get an oled monitor. HDR was disabled ( and still is, lol ) in mine but perhaps that is windows? I don't know.

I am really happy with the monitor. You are right, I guess, depends where you are coming from, but for me it's a fantastic upgrade. No regrets at all!
 
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So the monitor STILL hasn't arrived today, we've went from the 02/12/2020 when ordered to the 03/12/2020 ETA when trackable and then who knows now. Last update at 11.30 at the Glasgow Depot so it's made it up here now but no local tracking details etc to me yet so I'm going to have to assume that it won't arrive until Monday now as I don't expect a weekend delivery.

I'm not exactly in a rush but the courier choice for some of these deliveries is definitely fairly awful when some are sent via UPS and there is literally no issues and it comes rather quickly.

Hopefully after all this no dead pixels etc although Dell are at least good at replacing that stuff.

Probably just the time of the year and how busy the hub is. But yes, I can feel the pain. It's really frustrating when something important does a dance on the way.
 
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If you are running some older terrible screens like AW3418DW, various Acer X34 iterations or older LG gaming screens, not to even mention abominations like AUO's AMVA ultrawides, then this is way, waaaay better and you are definitely going to be satisfied with the difference. I am just coming from a different place and it didn't make enough of a difference to justify spending that kind of money. I wanted seamless VRR and at least usable HDR. VRR is still not seamless and HDR is terrible.

Did mummy/daddy not give you enough hugs as a child?
 
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This is my current biggest issue with the 27inch. My desktop looks absolutely terrible with the oranges in my wallpaper looking closer to red. I find it crazy that dell refuse to add an sRGB mode to clamp the colour gamut. The solution of enabling HDR does work but as you said the dimming zones are far from good.
I'm honestly considering a return for these reasons. I absolutely love the design but the overblown colours just don't do it for me.

This is certainly a big problem, especially since calibrated ICC profile wouldn't help either since as far as I remember it does not apply for fullscreen games. Maybe flip model presentation enforced since Windows 1809 did change something in that regard, but I don't think it works for all games.

Yep see I don't like HDR in LCD monitors so it doesn't both me that it's terrible, I will never switch it on, lol. I am leaving HDR out of the equation until I get an oled monitor.

Maybe it will never be great, at least until miniLED or dual layer LCD, but it could at least be usable. Having even most basic 10x4 FALD instead of just edge lit columns going through the entire screen would go a long way in reducing bloom and it would make it usable at least. Now that you have to light through the entire screen just to lit one small object, it just doesn't make any sense whatsoever. Well it makes financial sense, they just took the old backlight and made different LEDs controllable separately of each other. Wide color gamut also comes from backlight adjustment on Nano IPS, this is not Quantum Dot.

Anyway, looks like 38UC99 is going to run another 2 years. Assuming it lives that long. Maybe I will give 38WN95C a try when it becomes available and for some reasonable price, not 20% more than AW3821DW. Though again that would only be response time/resfresh rate upgrade, just without issues with enforced wide color gamut. I wonder when desktop display manufacturers are going to get their thing together and finally offer significant picture quality improvements.
 
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