What are chances of Alienware 15 R1 throttling?

I know there are threads about this and i have looked through the forum, i just have seen a really nice deal on the Alienware 15 R1 i7-4720hq with 970m with additional warranty, i also have a spare 240w power supply just in case.

My question is, what percentage of people actually get throttling with these or similar specs? is it something like less than 10%? or do all machines of this spec throttle? if it doesn't happen to that many people then i may as well risk it.

Or would i be better of just sticking to my i5-4210h with 970m that i already own?

 

the throttling is in the processor, it is going to throttle down to 2,5ghz because intel use something to reduce the speed of the processor when something is warm ... i dont know what, but when something is hot the processor go down to 2,5ghz in your case (i7 4720hq ) 2,6ghz, it is not going to matter to much becase you are not going to see any difference on fps playing at 2,6ghz or 3,4ghz on four cores ... maybe 1fps or less . the 240w will allow you to overclock the gpu. all the machines throttle .. is an intel problem, becase haswell chips has a lot of limits .. one of them is the TDP. i dont want to extend the explanation ... in my case i use the four cores at 3ghz and an overclock on gpu with stock voltage
http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/16068916
any question you may have about this system you can ask me

 

I had 2 R1's none of them throttled with the 970m. i still dont recommend it though. since the 970m is really outdated now.

 

I see Judal that you already have a thread about throttling, will be worth a read, how is your GPU temp?

I would stick to my current laptop but for some reason i feel i need warranty for a laptop costing this much.

Not sure yet, maybe if i can take price down further, might get it.

 

It won't throttle with those specs and 240W adapter. The power throttle was only with the GTX 980m and 180W adapter. If there's throttling, it'll be due to temperature or other reasons.

 

sadly this is a lie ... i have an i74710hq with gtx 970m and 240w and with high load the cpu throttles down to 2,5Ghz because of current limit throttling
the pch reach 90°C or more easy while playing games and that send a signal to the processor to reduce the speed

 

the gpu run super cool... after a repaste i have no thermal problem ... the main problem is pch heat and ram heat
playing btf 4 on ultra 1080p

 

also the ram generate a lot of heat... that caused a lot of battery cables explode
i had to add thermal pads above everything to solve that, make my own pch heatsink and repaste my machine

 

Please dont spread misinformation ram temperatures are barely existent. the the dc in cable could have problems with some batches when express changing was enabled. thats why newer bioses disabled it.

 

i pointed the ram location with a laser thermometer and i can see 100°C some times

 

@rinneh i cant touch that zone after playing because it can burn my fingers... only that zone is hot on my lap after playing

 

That is the radiating heat from the heatsink and the mosfets near the dc in cable socket. ram only generates about 40c of warmth while being under load.

 

is the ram ... i touched it too, and it become insane hot

 

Your ram shouldnt be the heatsource. I suspect its still the heatsink, radiance etc from warming it up. Is it overclocked?

But the DC in cable does not "explode" by heat, the full load while rapidcharging seemed to caused the problem where there was a too heavy power draw in combinatoin with some bad batches of the DC in cable. I had that cable problem.

 

Use your laser thermometer one more time. And show @rinneh the results Anyway, 100C sounds very strange.

 

Laser thermometer is useless when something else makes the ram warm. It doesnt detect the heatsource.But ram in general does not generate a lot of heat.

 

With an OK laser thermometer should he anyway see where the heat is coming from. Nice 100C should be easy to localize
His sticks is perhaps damaged / defective. They can still work ok

 

it does ... i have 2 hyperx impact. also you dont have this model ... i lived with it more than 1 year

 

@Papusan the problem is that where the ram is, that space is super insulated without 0 airflow from anywhere, that is why i tried to cut the back panel with a laser cutter without success

 

Not so good internal cooling is perhaps one of the culprits. Remember the PCH chips also gets hot in your Aw model

Edit. @judal57 You were a bit quick, LOL

 

I had the R1 previously for 1 year. With stock ram though. 4720HQ with 970M and a 180watt psu.

 

Remember you have not had every weird problem with the first *Echo* model as many others You know what I mean

 

I had no issues indeed. for me that machine was pretty good and served me well.

 

probably because you run all at stock ... i like to push hard overclocking

 

No i didnt. had it repasted, oc-ed and running prema gpu bios.

 

It's a shame you do not have it anymore, i have also repasted mine with the best thermal paste 73W/mk ... is hard to believe on you

 

They sell tens of thousands of these machines. this forum collects only problem cases. makes people think every R1 is flawed, but i dont believe thats the case or else those tens of thousands of laptops would have caused an enormous scandal. in my case nothing was wrong with the R1.

I actually had 2 R1's. The first one came damaged because the postal services crushed the package. But used it 2 weeks until the new one arrived. Both didnt had the issues as described. I am really not THAT lucky.

 

It was not a lie then. I said there would be no power throttle, and that if there was any throttling, it would be due to heat or other reasons. In your specific case, heat caused it. Besides, manual overclocking is not encouraged, nor officially supported in these machines.