M17xR3 First Impressions and Review-DaneGRClose

I believe the non-Extreme CPUs probably have this feature locked. The Extreme CPUs are unlocked by Intel but then it's still up to bios support from Dell so these CPUs are not locked by the bios. If they are locked in the bios, there isn't any software that will be able to do anything with them in terms of multiplier and turbo power limit adjustments.

 

The features are all listed and adjustable in the r3's bios, but one of two things usually happens
1. settings do not save
2. settings save but are not applied

anyway, isn't oc supposed to be limited to fsb only on H series next-gen core series mobos? I was surprised that I even saw the features in bios.

 

overclocking is limited, did you see any multiplier options?

Changing the turbo power limits can hardly be considered overclocking as you are still within the stock Turbo speeds

 

The only overclock currently available is bclk, and it only works 1 / 10 times.

 

It works every time for me but it works in strange incriments only and doesn't net much of a performance gain in real world scenarios so I've just left it alone. This may be totally different for others though as I have the base cpu.

 

last time i played with this, my bclk was permanently lowered to 99.67

'base'


jacked up to 100.32



Is this even safe to do?

 

There isn't much to be gained by BCLK overclocking on Sandy Bridge before you lose stability. Can you post a screen shot of the ThrottleStop TPL window? Are all the adjustments locked for your CPU?

 

Mine showed as locked on my 2630qm

 

all locked
oh, wow, I have family in Cochrane @unclewebb

 

Thanks for the feedback. ThrottleStop checks the lock bit and if it is set then it disables features. The same lock bit controls both the turbo power limits as well as the long and short time interval that you can exceed these limits so neither is adjustable. Just have to hope that the 2920XM will be different.

The new C7 button on the main screen is an example of another locked feature. This lets the CPU use all of the sleep states up to and including C7 if it is available. On some CPUs this feature can be toggled but in the pictures posted above, another lock bit is set so another feature to control the CPU has been disabled by the bios.

 

So basically one of our favorite big brothers, either Dell or Intel, has decided to eliminate consumer overclocking then? I'm guessing they new the SB's didn't like having the BCLK adjusted and thus they locked all of the other options This is ridiculous, just another way of trying to control consumers and another of the reasons why I'm starting to become one of those awesome consumers who doesn't buy much of anything anymore.

 

As far as I read leading up to the release of sandy bridge, oc has been limited to multiplier only because of the ring bus design (everything is on the same bus now).

 

Danger, how do you feel about R3's design? What's the significant improvement that you can notice?

 

I think the 3 biggest improvements I've seen are:

1)The battery life, I can get nearly 4 hours of surfing/word/etc battery life if I need to, this is a huge improvement over my R2 which I was very lucky if I could get 2 hours out of with a single card and i7 quad.

2)The weight, even though a few pounds isn't a big difference it still makes it nice when you're packing around a backpack/bag full of stuff to be a few pounds lighter.

3)The touchpad, I hated the touchpad on my R1/R2 and absolutely love this one.

As for design I've already said a few things about that in the main review:

"-Although it resembles the M11x, the changes in the chassis lines and styling is one I personally like."

"-The red color on this rig is amazing, I didn't personally like the red available on the M15x and M17x R2, but this one is something to see. The color is almost chromatic/prismatic depending on the light you have it under and can change from hues of a metallic burnt orange to metallic blood red depending on the lighting and angle."

"-I feel the media buttons are a major step back, the touch strip above the keyboard on the R2 was actually touch and worked well, now the media buttons on the R3 are actual physical buttons that need to be depressed and for some reason aren't acurately responsive."

 

Intel. See this article MaximumPC put together back in January.

Maximum PC | Sandy Bridge Washes Ashore

"The Death of Overclocking" about halfway down the page. Read the whole article though... its a 'good read'.

 

Yeah I read that one already, but it was also my understanding that each manufacturer could choose to unlock options through the BIOS if they chose to do so. I actually subscribe to Maximum PC and read that article a while back, thanks for the response though BB. Do you know if that's correct that the manufacturers could still choose to implement some options into the bios for OC'ing?

 

Not sure Dane. Where did you read that? Do you have a link?

 

Let me find it and I'll get back with a link, I may be wrong on that but pretty sure I had read somewhere that they were features that Intel had essentially eliminated but had given the manufacturers the option of including them in the bios if they chose.

 

That statement is not true. All of the original Core i5 and Core i7 CPUs could use turbo boost even when all of the cores were fully loaded. Look at the 920XM. The default multiplier is only 15. When users are running them with all 4 cores averaging a 24 or 25 multiplier; all 4 cores are definitely using turbo boost to do that.

Over heating plays an insignificant roll in this. The chip's power control unit determines how much turbo boost you get and that is mostly based on power consumption and current flowing through the CPU. Temperature doesn't become an issue until you hit the throttling point at about 100C.

Sandy Bridge CPUs have two power limits that are spaced about 25% apart. For short periods of time, the amount of turbo boost you get will be dependent on the high power limit. When that time period runs out, the CPU will automatically reduce the amount of power consumption back to the lower limit and the amount of turbo boost you get will decrease so the CPU is able to stay within the lower power consumption limit.

The 2920XM has these power limits unlocked by Intel. The time intervals are in the same register and are also unlocked. If you are using one of these fully unlocked CPUs, you can still be limited by the bios. The bios can set whatever maximum turbo multiplier, turbo boost limits and turbo time limits that it likes and if it sets the lock bits at the same time, no software will be able to change these limits once you boot up into Windows.

On the desktop boards, Gigabyte has left this power register unlocked with the 2500K and 2600K CPUs but Asus and Asrock seem to be locking this register. You'll just have to wait and see if Dell is going to allow full overclocking of the 2920XM similar to how you could run the 920XM at full speed with the help of ThrottleStop. If Dell did this right, you wouldn't even need ThrottleStop because you could access all of these limits in the bios. On the other hand, they may limit the maximum multiplier or the turbo boost power limits or time limits and completely lock these CPUs down. Until someone puts a 2920XM in an R3, you won't know what's possible.

 

Updated the first post with some basic low quality/resolution pictures of the computer. Expect a lot more content to come of more tests, higher quality pics, more pics, etc this week guys. If I could see some more requests on what you guys want to see/know about the R3 it would be nice

 

Can you post more FPS for games?

Games like Crysis, Fallout, Team Fortress 2.

 

I don't have TF2 so unless someone wants to buy it for me I can't do that one lol, I'm always open to donations J/K I can do Crysis and Fallout 3 and NV though, any more requests?

 

More 3d vs non 3d benches. That is helpful for people who are considering whether to get 3d or not. Also let us know if the game looks good in 3d.

 

Hey Danger, is the power cord illuminated? lol

 

Any updates?

 

^^ This be good bump, I reckon.

 

Sorry guys, the last week or two has been hectic with work and another project I was doing, I will be sure to get this updated tonight or tomorrow and answer all of the questions.

 

Yes it's illuminated as all the AW's are.

 

Updated the first post with Crysis numbers, they're very interesting More to come tomorrow on FO:NV/3, a couple more 3d vs non-3d games, and movie battery life times.

 

thanks again dane - and do let the werk/fam know we're all very much appreciative of your xtra efforts here on the M17x R3 review, lol!

 

I must be blind, cuz I don't see your low-quality pix. Am I missing drivers or something? Weird.

 

Are you saying you literally can't see the pics at all dookie? Or what are you saying?

 

You bet, I'll tell the fam thanks but I don't think werk would like it too much if they knew how much time I was on here while working lol

 

Was I only supposed to see the pix of your benchmarks and of your nebula red unit? I was expecting pix of gaming or something lolz. Maybe I read it wrong?

Please advise, and sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused you.

 

No inconvenience, I didn't provide any screenshots of games, just ran either in game benchs or the game+fraps and then reported the min/max/ave frame rates. There isn't much to post a screenshot of for most of the games as they're just text files for the most part so I figured I'd just post the numbers on them.

 

Ya, I saw the numbers for the games a while back.

Can you share a quick vid of 3d gaming on SC2 on ultra? Can you try it with glasses in front of the camera, and then without glasses? Just kinda curious what it looks like

 

The problem is looking through a camera won't do anything for you, you have to have to simultaneous vantage points directly behind the lenses or it won't do anything but look like a scrambled image. There's been alot of youtube vids of people trying the same thing and it's just that a scrambled you tube vid lol. Honestly I wasn't all that impressed with SC2 in 3D, it's alright once you get it dialed in but not as good as some of the other games like COD and Metro 2033. Metro 2033 looks simply amazing even on low settings in 3D/Dx11. If you still want vids just make a request and I'll get it up this week.

 

Nevermind then lolz. So does the 3D screen + 460m perform well when its on 2D mode? Or is the fps still same no matter what, simply cuz the screen is diff hardware? Or is 3D a software thing solely? Hope you know what I mean.

 

Sorry man, it would be cool but the glasses open and shut the lenses one after the other really fast to get the 3D on this. Yes the screen performs just fine at any setting 2D, 3D, 60-120hz, etc. The fps do change as it's a software situation not a hardware one. The 3D renders 2 frames at the same time where the 2D only renders 1 at a time, it roughly cuts your FPS in games by half.

 

That's a great description--thanks!

 

Hello I am new to these forums and was considering buying the m17xR3 as soon as it is available again. I have one request for DaneGRClose. Since the m17xr3 is not available in my country I am gonna purchase it in the USA and ship it internationally. I saw in Ur sig that your wife owns the Dell xps 14. My dad owns one of those and I was hoping if u could post a couple of pics of Ur m17xR3 sitting next to the xps14. I just want to get an idea of the size of the m17xr3 since it is not available in my country and no one I know actually has it. Thanks in advance

 

Yeah no problem, I'll post them in just a few minutes.

 

Here's a few pics, notice the XPS 14 with a 9 cell battery is about the same thickness as the R3, that should give you a rough idea of the size difference.

 

Thnx for the images, they've really helped

 

Man, those pix look yummy. I like the red color. Here I thought it was gonna be all red and bright/flamboyant like the Beats headphones' red, which is too bright/candy like for me. I like the bloodred color.

 

is that an Alienware M17x R3? Looks like a M15x and why is blue the alienhead logo? isnt it white? Or Im colorblind xD

 

Yup it's an R3 and the dimensions aren't very Far off of the dimensions of the M15x lol. Yup it's a blue Alien head, custom straight from the mother ship itself j/k it must just be the lighting as it's only white. I guess that's what I get for taking the pics with my wires iPhone, stupid apple products

 

great pics dane, truly shows the M17x R3 packs a punch size wise!

 

I posted about this a while back, how I was so anxious that at work, I found a piece of cardboard, and cut it according to the R3's dimensions lolz. Every now and then I pick it up. It's bigger than my torso! Nonetheless, I think grad school will allow me to have it on the table without worry about being in anyone's way.

Dane, do you find that the R3 is heavy? Approx how heavy is it compared to a 12pack case of soda?

 

dookie11
According to my home scale, it's 9.6lbs. It's heavy when lugging it around, but not when carrying / using on lap / etc because the load is distributed along the ~17" width.

in my bag, it feels like two inspiron 1545s or,
xps 15 +a big heavy book

it also doesn't really fit in my bag, haha.
Well, it does, but nothing else fits with it