M17x-r3 Overclocking (...sort of)

swapping out 6870/6970 did nothing, so...just cpu and mobo (and ram beyond a certain point, but that has to do with timings).
I knew mobo was part of it, but I didn't think it would be such a large deciding factor

 

So I tried this tutorial and I managed to achieve 105.06 bclk on 2630qm. So I was wondering is that good? I have not tried any higher than that so I don't know how far it can go. What is the highest anyone has gone on the 2630?

 

I have 16ghz of HyperX ram which may have something to do with it also, only takes one bad chip from the 4 banks to cause an issue, but it's not that important to me right now, what i want is a new bios from Dell allowing proper use of the 2920

 

What kind of program can we use to see the overclocked CPU speeds while in Windows? I got up to 10300 easily (sure there is room for more), but I just want to verify that it is overclocked?

Though, wouldn't this only be like 2.06ghz a core?

 

You can use quite a few programs to verify the overclock, don't be alarmed if you see a .1-.2 ghz lower clock than what you set though. I use CPU-z as it's very lightweight, you can also use ThrottleStop, HWInfo32, etc.

 

That is the thing though, anytime I look at those it still says 2.0ghz for the speed, and the actual speed is like 800mhz half the time because of the auto down-clocking.

 

Hey Crew,

Just got my M17x a few days ago. Seems that the new systems are all shipping with the 2X60's now. Mine was the 2860. Scores higher in CPU performance than the original 2920XM but not as high as the 2960XM (at stock clock speeds)

However, before looking into buying a system, I wanted to see what bearing RAM speed and CPU speed have on game performance. The result was almost none for RAM and very little for cpu's in the same class category.

Check out this article from Tom's Hardware
Benchmark Results : Tom's Ultimate RAM Speed Tests

With recent gen CPUs little difference is seen between the second gen core i7's. Only read performance difference was when you combined two identical GPUs against a first gen and second gen core i series processors. The Sandybridges were about 15-20% faster. Mainly due to changes in cache control and mobo design.

In the end, the GPU determines your platform's gaming capability and cache plays a large factor in RTS with huge numbers of units (Sins of a Solar Empire, Star Craft). The 2720 and 2760 is not worth the upgrade. It's only a few hundred mghz faster than the 2630 with no other architectural changes. You might as well spring for the 2800 series as it has the extra 2mb of cache which will really make a difference In benchmarks, disabling cache memory in processors makes more of a performance difference than disabling whole cores of the processor.

@ dookie

Your scores for the 6790 are perfectly normal. Check out this page which gives an extensive review of the 6790m
AMD Radeon HD 6970M - Notebookcheck.net Tech

The Vantage scores for the card are supposed to be between 11 and 13K on average. 12K on your system is totally normal. Scores at 14 or 15 are either hyperbole or oc'd.

In the end if your playing an FPS, the extra cpu power won't help you, neither will RAM speed. Timings play a larger role in most RAM benchmarks than memory clock. If you are playing an RTS, you'll want the extra CPU cache combined with a solid GPU.

I wouldn't waste the time fiddling with the bios for a few extra mhz to score higher in the synthetic tests. It won't make a lick of performance difference in real life. Save the oc'ing for the GPU. That's where you'll see the extra fps. And make sure you're using a good baseline for the card. Do your homework and see what ballpark you should be falling in.

 

14K in Vantage on a 2970m is definitely oc'd or a newer driver set that added a noticeable performance boost from when these reviews were done

AMD Radeon HD 6970M - Notebookcheck.net Tech

 

I just looked through the thread and didn't see anything posted on this...so just curious...What is a nice stable overclock on the 6970 using Sapphire Trixx?

Seems like it's pretty super easy to OC with that ap...just not sure what values I should plug in. Thanks!

 

800/1000 should work easily

Then work your way up to 850/1050...some can go higher

good luck

 

So how do you tell when to stop OC'ing? Does it crash/freeze?

 

yes that is one way...if you've gone too high, the app that you are using will lock up, bsod...or 3dmark11 won't finish. It will error out

One way is overclock to some number, then run 3dmark11 and see if it completes. Also, at the same time, i'm loggin my temps via HWINFO64. If 3dmark11 completes, i check my temps to make sure that they are at a level i'm comfortable with.

Another way is to download FURMARK and run the extreme burn-in test. This will heat up your GPU fast. Furmark also tells you your temps. If things are stable. Then you can move on from there.

 

Thanks Slick! BTW what temps do you aim for? Im probably more on the (just slightly) conservative end of things (dont want to prematurely melt down my expensive new MX17R3 - though I understand there is always a risk).

What kind of benchmark score differences have you seen with the OC? Any experience with OC'ing the CPU?

 

hey do i need the modded bios to do this OC?

Or do i just go use the normal bios.. and how do i change to 800/1000? Sorry i am pretty noob on this and there is not much info

 

you need to flash a modded vbios i'm pretty sure.... then hack the registry to allow overdrive to come on in catalyst.

 

oh i see.. how come this thread doesn't have any clear instructions? is there a place where i can have a full guide on overclocking and step by step on what to do? i don't wanna blow my system!

 

if you're afraid of vbios updates and registry hacks...the simplest way to overclock a 6970 is to download, Sapphire Trixx. Set the CPU slider to 800, set the RAM slider to 1000. Then click apply.

That's it. Enjoy your game

 

ahhaha +rep bro.. i shall do the trixx, and hope that it does the trick..

i see what i did there hahahahaha

 

do you have a 6990m?

don't worry about a melt down, you won't brick your card with an overclock as long as you don't increase the voltage. Worse that will happen is that you'll freeze or blue screen. Then you reboot and all is back to normal

what kind of differences in benchmarks? Well, i was benching 3dmark11 yesterday and scored over P4500 with tess off. Stock, you're probably looking at 3800-3900...so that's 600-700 points in 3dmark11...this is HUGE.

Where i notice it the most currently is in Crysis 2 DX 11 on ultra with high rez texture pack installed. What wasn't playable before is playable after

with respect to CPU, unfortunately, you can't overclock it much on a sandy bridge because the mulitplier is locked. Only the extreme processors are unlocked and guys are getting 4+ghz on them.

You can raise the front side bus (now called BCLK) up a few percentage points, but that's it. It really isn't worth it for a 2-3% CPU overclock. I just let the built in turbo do its job.

 

hey bro..

i am using trixx now but the thing is the utility resets to 680/900 everytime i restart the computer. Any way to get around it?

 

Flash you vbios

 

didi you go to the "settings" tab and click "load on windows startup"? You can also experiment with "restore clocks". can't remember if it sets it to stock or resets to your previous settings

 

bro u r my saviour.. the fps jumped from 25fps to stable 40-50... i am now so intrigued by overclocking LOL

 

awesome!!

 

haha so if i wanna go into advanced overclocking, all i have to do is flash my bios to modded A08 and also hack registry to get performance tab, and then trial and error with the 2 programs u said until i get a good one?

What is a good one to start trial and erroring with? 800 and 1000 is good but i wanna push my system to the limits..

 

i think 6970s will go to 850/1050...but after that, you might have stability issues. Furmark is a great tool used by overclockers. It is a GPU heater

Find what your max is, then back off a little for safety

 

thanks budd.. i will try 850/1050

 

Hi all.

Currently working on overclocking my 2820QM, could go up to 104.77 stable withinn vantage but can't go too much higher.
Was just wondering of changing the memory from 1333 to 1600 will help overclocking the cpu a litle more ...

 

no i don't think so. You've upped it 5% which is about as much as you can do by raising the bclk.

 

Ok thanks dude.

Was just wondering... why some people are able to go above 106 whereas others can't pass 100.50.

 

You can try an experiment, lower your ram speed in the bios and see if you are able to overclock more.

The problem with raising the bclk is that all other things are a multi of it. So when you bump it up, you've just increased the mhz on everything on your computer including the PCI-E, USB, SATA buses etc...Putting in 1866 ram for example won't solve that bottleneck. The PCI-E and SATA's are very sensitive to increases in speed and will crash or become unstable if you go beyond say 5%

 

Ok, thanks again.
Will try to find a 2920 / 2960 cpu, in order to bench some more.
Will try to push a litle more the actual system, with the new RAM landing in a few days.

 

you can get 2920's on ebay for mid 600's

if you buy it at Shirley's...the price is negotiable. I bet you'll be able to get it for around $550-575. Anyways, use the "make an offer" button

Then sell your 2820 to cover the cost

New Intel CPU sandy bridge i7-2920XM Mobile Processor | eBay

 

so i can get the Parts from Ebay, like if i want to upgrade my Processor and GPU? and then put it in yourself?
oh, and also where i can get those parts other than Ebay? like the Dell itself maybe?

 

yes for sure. You can upgrade almost everything in your alienware.

You can also get parts in the NBR marketplace and some clevo resellers like Eurocom, mythlogic etc

 

thanks for your info, i'll try that

 

Hi,

Just wanted to share with you my OC settings after some testing. This is my first post (as I recall) so don't know if this is the right thread rolleyes: Don't be hard on me ok?)

It's a M17x R3 with 2760qm, nVidia 580m and 16 GB 1600 MHz Crucial memory . Max BCLK I can get is 105.5 KHz. I didn't touch any other thing at the BIOS. I wonder if I should allow the processor for a TDP of 55... I'll try that in the future. My memory runs at 11-11-11-28, which I think is the standard for 1600 MHz (I didn't tweaked that either, as I think I won't get improvement because of the already tweaked BCLK).

With the 580m, I must say I only avoided throttling problems when I started using the A08 BIOS with the blind method update from A04. I also updated the 580m BIOS with the one in the forum for 0.87v that fixes P0 and P1 fix to standard values, but the key was the A08 BIOS which did the trick. Stable values for me running MSI Afterburner are 735 Core, 1470 Shader and 1580 Memory without throttling.

With this settings I get 4400 points in 3DMark 11 and can play Crysis 2 on Ultra 1080, but I found 1600x900 to be smoother and offer the same graphic experience for my 17" laptop screen.

I'm planning to repaste with Diamond IC24 just thinking of the summer in Spain, as now my system works fine about temperatures.

Please let me know if you think I should post this somewhere else.

Cheers

 

Welcome to the forum, Rooke. You can also post scores in the benchmarking thread (stickied at the top). Those are excellent scores in 3dMark11, much better than I can do using those settings. Please post a screenshot showing the game score, together with GPU-Z and CPU-Z, or a link to 3dMark.com where the score was posted so that we can learn. Those are super scores.

 

Ok, I have the 2630qm and ordered this ram Newegg.com - Kingston HyperX 8GB (2 x 4GB) 204-Pin DDR3 SO-DIMM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Laptop Memory Model KHX1600C9S3K2/8GX and installed it just like kune posted at the beginning of this thread. Everything seems to be working fine and no conflicts and i noticed my score on memory went from a 7.6 to a 7.8 but when I look at the ram from windows or online programs it is still telling me it is PC3 -10666 /DDR3 1333. It is not showing 1600/12800 at all.

Am I doing anything wrong or and ideas on why this is happening?

My bios version is the AO4 if that makes any difference.

 

Can you basically overlock the GPU as high as you want as long as your temperatures are below the 77 throttle?

 

Sorry, there was a mistake with my 3DMark11 statement before. It's 4000 and not 4400 points. I'll post the screen captures at the benchmarking sticky thread.

 

That makes a lot more sense. Thanks.

 

Given the increase in WEI score, it sounds like your R3 is recognizing and utilizing the faster memory just fine (my HyperX 1600 only scores 7.7), but external programs are failing to note the change. Be sure that you are properly set in the BIOS. Go to the Advance Tab>Performance Options>Memory Overclocking>DIMM Profile and set to XMP Profile 2. You can also set the Memory Frequency to 1600 (from Auto), but that should not be necessary. Save and exit.

 

When I first got my HyperX they scored 7.9. Now they score 7.8..

Makes no sense whatsoever - the transfer speeds are the same in the AIDA64 RAM benchmark, double-u tee eff?

 

In theory you can, but voltage (and power) will be limiting factors independent of temperatures. As clocks increase, power demands increase to support the increased processing. The stock .87v can only support overclocking up to about 800 MHz core (max); many cards will be unable to go beyond 750 MHz. It is somewhat situational; a card may carry an 800 core easily with relatively undemanding data, but falter even at 750 under extreme loads. It's a function of the power needed and limited ability to provide that power because of voltage limitations. When the power demands of the card exceed the power available, it crashes. By increasing the voltage (to .92v - and only .92v in the 580M), you can increase the clocks further to support faster processing up to the system's ability to provide the power needed and the cards ability to use it. There comes a point, which differs from card to card, where more power is available than the card is designed to handle, at which point it crashes to protect itself or because it loses logic control and doesn't know what else to do. You can also hit BIOS or port limits, but that doesn't seem to be much of a factor in the R3. I'm sure others can explain more fully the electronic theory behind the interplay of voltage, power and overclocking, but that is the short bus overview.

 

Ok, I went into bios and double checked everything and I am in XMP profile 2 and in auto, I also tried to manually switch to 1600 memory freq. and it still shows 10666/1333 using AlienAutopsy and that program called System info for Windows (SiW).

Now I can go to dell.com and do a system detect for hardware upgrades on their site and it shows that I have 1600Mhz but it does not show the mfg of the ram. I also downloaded Intel Extreme Tuning Utility and installed it, and it shows I have 1600Mhz and the name of the ram. But I can not overclock or do anything with XTU it just shows my system info.

Why is AlienAutopsy and SiW showing me my old speed/freq?

 

Hi!
Can some one explaine me such thing....
I'm trying to set higher Bus speed in M17x R4 bios, but in the field can be entered only 9954 or 11002 (haven't tried the second one, cos it must be too high) My CPU is 3720qm.
Why so?
And the thing is that I can't make my Kingston hyperX run at 1600 with 7-7-7-20 timings....

 

i cant stop and not notice 1 thing (im wating for my kingston hyperx 1600mhz as well) but in bios the memory frequency option lets you go up to 2133, not only 1600 as everyone says about m17x r3, whats the deal with that? can i ever acheve that? sorry for my english

 

ivre got a problem, i also have an alienware m17x r3 and i had 4 gb ram ddr3 1333mhz, i bought kingston hyperx pnp 16 gb kit 1600mhz and installed them, at first i tought it was a bug when checking with cpu-z or memtest but then after i tryed to tweak the settings i noticed it wasnt, so i doesent matter that i load setup defaults, or that i put from auto mhz to 1600mhz setting , i tested with different programs and they all show me that my ram speed is 797.5mhz. what should i do???? also when i try to set xmp profile 1 or to, after a restart it is back to default again.

 

its says 797.5 because the ram is "double data rate" (DDR) hence it reads at 797.5x2= 1600 roughly..... for example a set of 1333mhz ram reads 667 usually in those programs. that is the correct reading you are getting. your good to go.