M17x 2630qm turbo to 2.8ghz only?

hi guys,

i just ordered an Alienware m17x with the i7 2630qm. Intel says single core turbos to 2.9ghz...

but on the Alienware site, it says "2.8ghz turbo mode"

Which one is it? and if it is 2.8ghz, why are they ripping us off 100mhz?

 

Probably a typo.

 

Even it if was a typo, would you really care about a 100 MHz difference?

 

actually yes...100mhz would bother me. On my desktop, i've got it cranked to 4.7ghz, but you can't overclock this cpu so ya, it bugs me.

ALso makes you wonder why alienware throttled it back?

 

Alienware likes to throttle things lately. It is severely annoying.

 

i don't get it with the throttling

Anyways, i talked to my dell rep and there are 2 skus...one 2630qm goes to 2.9ghz and the other to 2.8ghz.

The dell xps gets the 2.9ghz sku and the alienwares get the 2.8ghz sku

Intel® Core™ i7 2630QM 2.0GHz (2.8GHz w/Turbo Boost, 6MB Cache)
Intel® Core™ i7 2630QM 2.0GHz (2.9GHz w/Turbo Boost, 6MB Cache)

If anyone knows anything about this please chime in cause there are other implications involved

 

The XPS Turbos' up to 2.9 GHz because the BIOS tells the CPU to Turbo Boost only one core. The Alieware Turbo Boosts up to 2.8 GHz because the BIOS sets the Turbo Boost for two cores. If four cores were enabled, we'd set the Turbo Boost frequency at 2.6 GHz. Seeing that most games don't eat up more than two cores, Alienware allows for Turbo Boost on two cores.

There is no such thing as two CPU SKU's. It's a matter of Dell engineering the XPS and Alienware notebooks to work differently when it comes to Turbo Boost.

 

Those are internal Dell skus...i understand that there is only one i7 2630qm

But if i was running an app on an alienware that only used one core, i would expect it to turbo to 2.9ghz also.

AND

if i was running 2 cores on the Dell XPS, i would expect that i would get 2.8ghz on both cores.

I'm just going by the intel spec

So are you saying that the XPS only turbos one core even when all 4 cores are used?

 

Correct. The XPS is not considered a gaming machine anymore, hence the Alienware moniker. You will get a powerful CPU which can be used for media and graphics work, but the graphics are subpar for gaming.

Here's the math on the 2630QM when it comes to Turbo Boost speeds:

(Speed in MHz) + [(Turbo Multiplier) + 100 MHz]

Four Cores: 2000 + 6 * 100 = 2.6 GHz
Three Cores: 2000 + 6 * 100 = 2.6 GHz
Two Cores: 2000 + 8 * 100 = 2.8 GHz
One Core: 2000 + 9 * 100 = 2.9 GHz

 

Thanks for the info. I was curious about this.

 

I forgot the mention that Nehalem uses 133 MHz steppings, and Sandy Bridge uses 100 MHz steppings.