Alienware 15 R2 Power Usage with Prime95 + Furmark

Hello all,

Just thought I would share some some power usage results from testing to determine whether a 180 watt power adapter was enough for the 6700HQ and 970M with slight overclock (+135MHZ core, +300Mhz Memory using MSI afterburn). For all test I used a P3 P4400 Kill A Watt meter.

Running Prime95 (v28.7) my temps where getting up to 94c In-Place large FFTs Max Power consumption. These temps where to high for my liking reaching dangerous territory so I used a cooler master laptop cooler and temps dropped down to 85c. Im sure they would be lower if I did a repaste, I also have CPU performance mode turned on in bios. My max CPU Package power reading in XTU was 55W @ 89c with laptop cooler pad. I never had any power or current limit throttling. Please note that my CPU only hits 3.1Ghz while under 100% load and not under load fluctuated from 3.5Ghz-3.1Ghz. Can anyone confirm the same results on the 6700HQ?

While I had prime95 running I started up furmark v1.17.0.0 and ran 1080p with 4x MSAA in windowed mode. My power reading with slight GPU overclock never went above 165 watt. At the same time I was monitoring the battery with passmark batterymon and didnt have any battery discharge.


Please note that this test is COMPLETELY unrealistic for what you would have during a gaming session. Furmark is crazy intense designed to push your graphics card to its limit.

While playing witcher 3 on ultra settings with high post processing and nvidia hairworks power usage was 125 watt. CPU reached 80c (no laptop cooler)
2015-10-25 17:31:32 - witcher3 ultra
Frames: 1803 - Time: 60000ms - Avg: 30.050 - Min: 24 - Max: 37


All test done with +125mhz OC on 970m

 

Hey Tony V can you also overclock the CPU?

Just wondering if the i7-6700HQ has the same ability to OC by 200MHz as the i7-4710HQ?

 

can you please run firestrike benchmark with this little OC and see what score do you have ?

 

I can check when I get home, while poking around in intel XTU it looked like all of the settings where locked down IE core clock and voltage. I will double check to see if maybe I was missing something though like a setting in bios or and XTU setting.

notebookcheck.net has a great mobile processor benchmark list and I find it strange that the 5700HQ ranked higher than the 6700HQ. There isnt a whole of performance increase between the upper mobile processors it appears.

 

Sure I can run it when I get a chance

 

http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/9025945 i had 9500 cpu points on firestrike. making an undervolt and making shure that 4 cores run at 3.5Gz

 

Could you capture a screenshot of you intel XTU core overclock control settings page ?

 

each cpu is different, the last time i did it, an AW15 owner with the same processor as me, cant boot his notebook. i dont recommend you to use my values. Only to look.

-Core voltage offset: -65,4mV
-Cache voltage mod: -65,4mV
-processor graphics voltage mode: -49.8mV

1 Active core = x35
2 Active cores = x35
3 Active cores = x35
4 Active cores = x35

dont use my values, you need to test your cpu.

 

Here is my firestrike results http://www.3dmark.com/fs/6321403 with STOCK CPU settings and STOCK GPU settings, physics 9878, graphics 7147. Did you run that test with an OC on your graphics cards and by how much? your points are over 1000 higher than mine. My CPU was most likely averaging around 3.4GHz because it was not under a sustained 100% load, and with screenshot below I forgot to capture right after test so it dropped to 3.1Ghz thus lowering the average shown.

 

My graphics are up to 8477 after a +135Mhz core and +300 Mhz memory OC. http://www.3dmark.com/fs/6321700 . I did notice my graphic driver version is slightly lower. Maybe I will try to update nvidia drivers. Also my core clock is reporting WAY low it should be 1074Mhz

 

i used the prema mod, here is a link to download the Vbios mod for the AW 15 R2 https://biosmods.wordpress.com/aw1x-r3/
"These vBIOS use stock clocks and voltage and also keep the stock Turbo functionality intact (minus the throttle) unless, You decide to overclock/overvolt"
i didnt increase the voltage of the gpu. to make the overlock i use msi afterburner, and i tell you that i cant see any difference on heat overlocking the gpu (gaming temperature 65-68°C)

core clock: +150Mhz
memory clock: +300Mhz

 

I checked the link you mentioned, I only see the download for the 980M and not the 970M am I missing somethings?

 

you have an alienware 15 R2 with a GTX 970m don't you ? this is the Vbios mod for your notebook