Just wanted to chime in and say that, after a long time trying to figure out which gaming laptop to buy, I ended up with an Alienware 15 with a 980M, and I'm really happy with my choice.
Still, out of the box it isn't perfect. As many of you might know, the 180W PSU isn't sufficient and can cause throttling. It did for me. After talking to probably everyone over at Dell Norway, and trying to explain the issue, I finally got one of them to send me a 240W PSU. Turned out to be a lot harder than I thought, though. In US and Canada, you can just send Dell an e-mail, and they'll send it to you the next day. Not in Europe, though, and that's why it was such a hassle. Thankfully I got to talk to a relatively cool guy in the end, but if you're from Europe and are considering the AW15 with 980M, keep that in mind.
After receiving the new PSU and downgrading the BIOS, the AW is great. No throttling and it runs much cooler now - the absolute highest temp under load after playing some games was 78 degrees celcius. With the other PSU and BIOS, playing the same games, the highest temp was 89 degrees.
The screen is good as well. I have some minor backlight bleed on the bottom of the screen, but nothing serious at all. And I'm very picky when it comes to those kinds of things.
The build quality is great, the speakers are good, and it isn't that big. I was a bit worried it would be too big for my backpack, but it fits nicely.
If you're looking for a 15" gaming laptop, and are considering the AW15, I hope this can be of help.
And K.Jack, I'm not sure if you have any experience with this exact model, but in my opinion, you can safely recommend the AW15 to others on here.