Intel i7 920XM Quad Core Processor "Gone"

Alienware had dropped the 920xm and the only option now is the i7 940xm.
What's next??????????

 

I wonder what they do with the ones they didn't sell yet, may i get one for free if they are already cleaning out the old stuff? Oh well, will buy a 940xm on ebay anyway by the end of this week.

 

Why change the 920 for a 940? The difference seems marginal.

 

Check my Sig

 

920 can be had for a half the price of 940. I don't know if it's worth that much unless you want the highest numbers.

 

I would imagine the rest of the 920xm's will be used for spare parts, repair's and replacements.

 

Yeah, i normally want all the latest that you can get at it's specific time and if i can get it for cheap, i'm still willing to pay the difference, even if it's more, an OEM would be very expensive anyway directly from Dell. (Where i live the upgrade on a new configurable M17x costs 1500$ and on ebay i pay 560$ for 940XM at the moment, found 420$ for the 920XM)

Good thinking, though that's too bad for me then i guess, no free processors

 

and it's even wost in the m17x as all 4 cores can turbo at the same time so you just change your tubo multi to the one of the 940 and woila no more diference between a 920 and a 940

 

?????????????????? can we try that again, please.

 

I understand that you might be able to do this on a 920 to get it to the same as a stock 940, but if you can do this, can't you do the same increase on a 940XM to raise it even higher then, also isn't it clocked higher already? I've seen some benches and tests and the 940XM was slightly superior and got really the most out of it so far. 920XM VS. 940XM, should not be the same with the same percentage of overclocking/modification added and both should raise equally and there will be still a performance difference... No? or where do i have a mistake in my logic...

 

benches and tests at stock sure, even then it's minimal... 133mhz... but they cap out around the same. it's the same core and they're both unlocked. sorry but they're the same.

They're both pushed close to the limits. My friends 940xm and my 920xm both cap out at 26x with tdp/tdc at around 92/88. Any higher and you get system instability or prime95 core fails... sure i could probably get a higher result, but getting errors means the bench is worthless (at least in my books). intel just made one final push to get sales before SB comes out, that is all.

 

it's gone because they ran out of stock and are just sticking with the clock revision 940. The 820 is gone too, and soon I'm sure the 720 will be too. There's no reason to offer the slower processors anymore in a DTR, in this situation it's a case of less is more. Less options to choose from are better.

 

I see, but since i don't want to use software o/c's all the time, i think i might be still satisfied with the slightly higher performance on stock (and the 5% bios o/c), but thanks for this explanation, sounds right to me. I wish i could have tested this on my own to find out, must have been pretty interesting to see that result with your friend as you compared it

 

both need to use throttlestop to see the full potential. the real power is being able to control the tdp/tdc so the cpu does not throttle back, provided you can deal with the extra heat of course.

of course stock for stock, the 940xm > 920xm... but why buy an extreme and keep it at stock? you pay a huge premium for having things uncapped, unlimited... to see it run at stock makes me a sad panda

sorry horrible SP quote i had to sneak in there >.>

oh also, when i chose the 920xm, the 940 was just out and double the price... i guess if they're similar in price i'll say... why not, MIGHT get lucky with a slightly better binned chip, but it was literally $400 vs $800

 

edit moved to front page. For more exposure.

Great discussion going on here though.

Cheers.

 

I don't think Dell's run out of stock on the 920xm's. That's it the 920xm is dead.
There is so little difference between the 920xm & the 940xm dell would rather sell the 940's and use the 920's for repairs,exchanges & maybe outlet sales.

 

Awww, don't be sad, i'm really a noob when it comes to cpu overclocking, i don't know if it's that huge change to me to get used to, if i just have to open ThrottleStop and select the corresponding multipliers or tdp values, every time i load up windows and i'm good to go for ANY application. But sometimes i just want to start the laptop up and enjoy some streamed movies or doing other work calmly. (I'm only using SetFSB sometimes when i benchmark on my 720, and i don't use it at all for games or normal work, i do O/C the GPU's thou in some games to improve fps for games at high settings below 60fps, well that's not more than 5 clicks, excluding starting up RivaTuner )

I'm not sure yet if i would notice an O/C in a game that well anyhow either, as if i would care if the game performs 120 or 150fps Stock Vs O/C, with V.Sync On, once the game is setup and looks smooth i turn off the fps counter anyhow, i usually only check things when i see issues to analyze

But of course i want to get the best out of it, if i can save valuable time, if i wanna do intense benchmarking and/or encoding/rendering/calculating, i will most likely consider to O/C the system if i am already able to do so by having a XM processor, absolutely right

It's a question of stability, comfort and time saving to me, so i will reconsider an O/C for each application or in total.

 

I just want to jump in for a quick sec and post some remarks. The 920XM and 940XM CPU's are basically the same chip. I say basically because the only differance is the 920 operates at a multiplier of 24, and the 940 operates at a multiplier of 25. They both have the same FSB, and voltage, so when overclocked, on average your going to top out at roughly the same frequency. It's really only the chip programming that changes. Obviously throttle stop puts both chips on a level playing field.

I have both chips and have benchmarked both extensively. I perfer the 940XM simply for the fact that I don't want to have to use throttle stop to increase the base multiplier of the 920 everytime I start up the computer. But for my benching, I perfer my 920XM. And the only real reason is because I have a very good chip. Some chips will overclock better then others where your topping them out and my chip is one of those. Vantage with my 920XM I have scored over 22K for just the CPU benchmark. If your not going to overclock and want the fastest stock performance 940 is your chip, but if you want value, I would go for the 920XM. Particularly the ES chips that can be found on Ebay since they are a fraction of the cost.

 

So your 920XM which i assume is the one you got with your system is OEM, is the 940XM OEM aswell or such an ebay QS chip? Maybe it's the QS cpu's that do not overclock that well, and a 940XM OEM is superior to a QS in that specific point, just a thought, hm....

 

Thats something I've thought of as well, although there is really no reason for the 940 to be superior unless at base clocks. I'd love to test it out though.

Here is my highest:

Validated 920XM - 4248.15mhz

Validated 940XM - 4261.03mhz

I'm sure I can tweak further to get a few more mhz out of them, but just a little lazy at this point.

 

i have 2 OEM 940XM CPU now and they are both not good. one overclocks to 28X multiplier but causes random system shut down, the other is not even stable at 26X. makes me really question the yield of 940XM.

 

Really? So it seems even more likely the 940 in general is no good at full performance then... I'm not sure now what i want at all lol I want to have the latest, i want the highest numbers of course, may it be just for once to tag along you guys. But i really have to reconsider as i'm sure i don't want to pay for so insignificant on stock but major on full load and vice versa. Can't decide now, option 1. 920XM good in full performance and more stable O/C, option 2. 940XM higher in stock and default bios O/C, but sucks on full perfomance O/C. And we have like a 1/4 price difference between those 2 at the moment.

Did i get this right, to summarize?

 

Well each chip is differant. You may get a 920 that isn't as stable at really high overclocks and you could end up with a 940 that overclocks really well. Thats the thing about CPUs. Two 920XM's may act differantly even if cut from the same wafer

 

Wow, i din't know there could be so "little" differences already in such a mass product, i always assume the best case scenario, which i should not do then, eheh.

Well, then i don't care at all i guess, what the heck, gonna order the 940xm and be happy when i don't have to manually O/C it, and if i do, i'm gonna live with the maximum i get out of it and where it runs my apps safely thru the night, don't want to count milliseconds in a minute, or minutes in a day and sometimes it's stable and sometimes it's not. I'm already happy if i get somewhere near your benchmark results, even with a 1000 lower, which should be well possible, no?

 

Well if you could score 1000 less then my scores, you could make it to the top 5 on the benchmaking thread on 3DMark06 and Vantage. I havn't given 3DMark06 as much attention as I'd like, but I increased TDP for the CPU, OCed multiplier, overclocked and overvolted the GPUs and everything was walking on the instability/crash line. Stock 940XM I would expect around 19,500 stock, and Vantage about P14900 or more. I score the same with my 940 and 920 on vantage because the 940XM ES doesn't seem as strong under a load as the 920 OEM. But again thats probably just my chip. I might sell it and get another when I get back to the states.

Here is a thread where I tested differant BIOS' for both of my chips to provide dell engineering some data for BIOS A09 to convince them to drop the CPU crippling act. Looks like it worked

940XM/920XM Tests - All done at stock settings, no increased TDP, No bios OC, stock GPUs all same conditions. You've seen it, but just a quick stock reminder so you don't have to dig it up.

Overall though, I would go with the 940XM because it's faster at stock. I don't want to mess with throttle stop all the time, so I use the 940XM ES when I'm using the notebook for everyday use. Any benching I do I do with my 920XM. So if stock speed/ease is what you value most, definately the 940XM

 

Yep, seen it, didn't pay attention to the FSB in CPU-Z, i merely compared results more or less, so that was stock "stock", good to see it like that once indeed, good comparison base for everyone and see what they can expect around there

I'm sure i will be already satisfied with the BIOS O/C, and if i really have to go for ThrottleStop and do some benches on max performance with new drivers, sure why not, but then i also like to find the highest stable with the highest numbers i can tweak.

Thank you very much for your advice and the solid information, i think i have decided and don't mind the differences at max. performance, i get what i get, and i'm willing to pay more, i'm not that much of a cheapskate

 

no prob. Yea all the scores were done at stock stock.

Niether am I. I have a collection of CPUs that I need to start selling off. Maybe for an OEM 940XM. I have a 330M, 450M, 520M, 540M, 720M, 920XM, and 940XM. Time to sell and recoup funds for more CPU testing

 

well, after a lot of troubles and replacements, finally i've got the close to perfect dtr laptop.

@Grimfan, im happy to report back that my current 940XM is one hell of a beast. it overclocks like my first laptop with a faulty cpu (random shut down) which goes all the way to 28X for 2 cores, 27X for 3 cores and 26X for 4 cores. i've been stress testing those speeds for 3 days now, constantly running wPrime, furmark and 3dMark06+vantage. not once crashed, rock solid stable. either the 940xm yield has improved or im just lucky this time.

my MAX speed with throttlestop is about 3.86GHz (29x133) for 2 cores (not as stable as 28X though) and 3GHz (22x133 90/62 TDP/TDC) for 4 cores 8 threads (still stable but i prefer not to go any higher). no fancy add on cooling, just plain old M17X HSF with AC MX3 applied twice to get that result. max temperature for 2.8GHz (21x133 82/62 TDP/TDC) is about 92-93C. never reached 100C so no thermal throttling.

on a side note, i've overclocked my CF5870 as well. at stock voltage, im getting 850MHz gpu and 1100MHz GDDR5 rock stable. max temperature after 30min furmark stability testing is 83C and 77C for both cards. not bad considering i did not up the voltage, and did not peform any retention mod. just AC MX3 applied once. and nice performance boost too.

3dmark vantage (before GPU OC and old 940XM / after GPU OC and new 940XM)
P15346 / 17241
GPU = 14706 / 16982
CPU = 17651 / 18069