M17x R4 - 3940XM/3920XM On stock 2 pipe heatsink?

I'm wondering I could pair the stock 2 pipe heatsink along with the 3920XM/3940XM with the R1 fan that is 10.55CFM and goes up to 5200RPM. Could this setup provide acceptable temps? I have heard the 3 pipe chichen pipes are a hit and miss so I'm a bit iffy on them

 

Yes the stock 2pipe is pretty decent, I also have this 10.55 cfm fan. OCed my xm hit around 80° C to mid 80° paired with Grizzly Kryonaut, was still ok, but then I paired it with Conductonaut and it was hitting around 70°.

 

There should be a Dell OEM 3-pipe that's specifically for the Extreme CPU's. Did they not make one for the M17x like the M18x?

EDIT: Wow it doesn't look like they ever supplied one for the M17x. That's a little disappointing.

 

Wow that seems to be a good combo with conductonaut! Seems like that will be the route that I will be taking with the faster fans and the conductonaut

 

Nope!

As far as I am informed, top line for m17x r3/r4 were the 28xx qm and 38xx qm (no xms factory stock).

 

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I am using 2920XM in M14xR2....I think you will be fine

Although M17xR4 has some weird power limit with XM chips as well so you probably can't even OC

 

Not sure if I am glad that I haven't bought and R4 after reading through this thread, no three pipes and odd limit.

 

The power limit only affects OC. Running a stock XM CPU works fine although that defeats the purpose.

GPU seems to run good in M17xR4, better than 17 R1.

Although 17 R1 can run and OC 4930/40MX CPUs, those have a 115w GPU limit.

So depends what you want. Or just get a M18xR2 and enjoy up to 330w combined TDP with 3920/40XM + single GPU (1070, etc.) or SLI.

Need to desolder a chip on the M18xR2 to get over the power limit of 330w on newer boards (980M SLI+). Older configs such as 680m SLI don't have that power limit issue of course.

 

I'll personally stay with my M17x R4. Its almost in perfect preserved condition apart from some minor scratching on the palm rest and minor wear and tear. Anyhow, I hope to at least overclock my XM cpu to 4.3 while staying under the limit if possible since others have managed to oc.

 

You might have better luck with 3840QM as those have +4 turbo bins for OC. So it can reach 4.0Ghz on 4 cores.

3920XM and 3940XM should also be able to OC a bit. I got 2920XM which uses more power and heat so I can't get much, not to mention I am in a M14xR2.


A nice M17xR4 setup would be:
3920XM/3940XM with slight OC
32GB RAM
2xSSD RAID0
GTX 1070
120Hz Display

I had 17 R1, but I have M18xR2 so see no point in M17xR4 otherwise I would also prefer M17xR4 over 17 R1 over design alone.

 

Well I already bought the 3940XM. No going back now. I mainly perfer these older generation of alienwares because of the design language and overall distinctiveness.

 

Let us know how high it can go. I might consider swapping my 3920XM from my M18xR2 and 2920XM from my M14xR2.

 

Yup. I'll do some more researching too to see how high I can go. I will be capped anyways on how high I can go because of my 2 pipe heatsink and the Artic MX-4 thermal paste. My only saving grace is the 10.55CFM 6000RPM CPU fan that I just installed yesterday.

Edit: I have a similar setup as above but I only have 12GB of RAM along with 1TB HDD and 128GB SSD. I don't plan to spend anymore money on this laptop at all. My final upgrade was the CPU

 

I don't think you will have major issues with heat. Should be fine.

My M14xR2 is running a 2920XM at around 70-80C temps under load with all stock config. IC Diamond thermal paste.

 

Under full CPU load, My 3630qm cpu at max fan speed fetches around 70-75C which is ample room for the XM cpu. Only problem is that the system (bios) can't automatically use 6000RPM without me setting that speed in HWINFO. So the system only uses 4200RPM as it was the max speed of the old cpu fan.

 

So I just got my 3940XM and it made a Huuuge improvement on all of my games. On firestrike I went from a 8 500 CPU score on the 3630QM to 10 500 on the 3940XM. I went to overclock it to 4.2 and most games fluctuate between the 3.5 - 4.2 like call of duty modern warfare 2019. It just goes up and down constantly with thermals hitting a wall at 92C with very CPU intensive games like GTA 5 (Running at 4.2 all the time oddly). If only someone managed to really figure out this stupid power limit this machine would really be powerful

 

Are you using a 330 watt PSU?

 

Yup. The main problem is the same everyone has. The turbo power limits don't exceed past 60W even if set in bios or in XTU.

 

I heard the R3 didn't have this issue..I have a R3 that's supposed to come yesterday (went back to seller for some reason) so once I get it I might try 2920XM or 2960XM in it. I have 2920XM in my M14x so maybe I'll transfer it.

 

I was reading through some old threads and have heard that some have been able to fix this. But nobody says who or how.

 

As far as I know, no one actually "fixed" it. I think people thought it was fixed because they experienced same as you in GTA5 (no clock fluctuations) but unless you can run CB or all games constantly at OC it's still hitting that limit.

Idk if @M18x-oldie has it working properly, he has M17xR4.

I do know M17xR3 doesn't have the same issue, I think....damn now I need to tear apart my M14x just for the CPU, assuming my M17xR3 ever arrives.

 

Well its definitely a let down not to have a full unlocked CPU, but I was honestly mentally ready for it anyways. Besides, this quad core laptop CPU surpassed my expectations. On GTA5 I'm able to run 4k at about 40 fps with the naturalvision graphics mod. And in modern warfare about 100-120. I can say I'm very happy with the laptop