*OFFICIAL* Alienware 17 and M17x Benchmark Thread - Part 4

thank you for yor advice but it seems as lower in everything else in my case, btw anyone have noticed flicker in crysis 2 or nfs shift2 with lastest combo 11.6/11.6 cap1 and cf 5870m?

i'm gonna reinstall vantage ASAP anyway

 

Well, if it's lower everywhere else as well it would probably be the easiest solution to do what scook9 said, reinstall the OS.

 

That's confusing to me, because I had the flickering when running CrossFire in Shift 2 all the way up until 11.6, CAP 1.

 

I haven't got rid of it yet, i'm so confused too, i've got confirm from CptXabaras about flickrering no more in nfs shift 2, that seems only me remain in that trouble

 

I'm also having an issue where as soon as the race begins the game freezes. I have to CTRL+ALT+DELETE out and then log off. That's happened since I bought the game though.

 

Edit: My bad

 

17 days later, my setup is still stable. I broke 7K in 3Dmark11 after some tweaking:



Uploaded with ImageShack.us

Result

It looks like I'll have to reapply thermal paste on the first GPU (and maybe the 2nd one too); I recently swapped my old 5870Ms to reflash the VBIOS for M15x users and I was kind of lazy when reapplying paste...

 

wow sweet run ichime, dam that thing is a beast.

 

Nice one ichime. My 6970s should be inbound. Can't wait to put them on dice and kick em in the balls

 

I'm looking forward to it. man i wish i could get some and a SLI cable

 

Hi NBR Forums

I recently purchased an alienware m17x r3 but I am having trouble playing games such as Crysis (1) on medium and even SC2 on ultra.

I ran a 3dmark06 benchmark and it seems that my score is 2k lower than other laptops with similar specs. Is this a big difference? I'm just wondering if there is something wrong or did I get what I paid for?

Here is a screenshot of my benchmark:
ImageShack® - Online Photo and Video Hosting

To clarify, Crysis 1 is unplayable on High or Ultra, Medium on all settings is okay until later in the game. Starcraft II has graphic lag in normal melee games on Ultra settings and High settings.

m17x r3 specs: i7 2720 | 6gb 1333 | 1080p 120hz Screen | 1.5gb Nvidia 460m GTX |

 

not sure if dice would help much since we're still stuck with the stock voltage. i'm hoping i'm wrong about that.

 

Keep in mind that on the 5870s where stamatix hit a wall at around 960mhz on the core dice allowed me to push 1010mhz. And my limit was around 950mhz core without dice. O think i could have gone past 1010mhz, but never tried. So even at stock voltage, I should still see some gain. I bet if allowed the 5870s could have pushed at least 1.2v.

Somehow we gotta find a way to get around the stock voltage limit.

 

yeah the voltage being locked really take out all the fun in benching. i'm pretty sure that dice would help but still need more juice to run the high oc's.

waiting to see what you can do with those bad boys.

i'm waiting on my 2820 to come, then i prolly try your dry ice trick to bench.

 

Yea, I'm hoping to reclaim the top 3DMark11 spot

Can't wait to see how the 2820/dice run works out.

EDIT: Top scores updated with ichimes run

 

Yes, the lack of voltage adjusting sucks... but dice really helps a bit when you want to push the core. It allows you to go a bit further.

 

This is my 3D mark11 score. Everything is stock.

Processor: i7 740QM
Gpus: 2x 5870M

 

Leaderboards updated, thanks for sending me the links guys! Helps when I can stay on top of it NIce score Simplified. Added it up front.

 

Hey guys I've got a question for anyone willing to answer. My 6970m works great when I OC to 825/1150 and I have never had a crash, but when I go to 850/1200 it crashes after about 3 mins of running something like FurMark. My question is which do you guys think is the cause of the instability, core clock from 825 to 850 or memory clock from 1150 to 1200? And also what clocks should I try next to see the highest stable clocks I can run? Thanks, any input would be appreciated.

 

Those clocks are probably unstable for your machine, each card is going to have different levels of overclock that it will handle even though they are all branded as the same part. I would recommend going to the last level you know you are stable at(probably 825/1150) and slowly working up on the core only by 5mhz each time. Once you set it the first time go to 830/1150 and run Furmark and/or games to make sure it is stable and doesn't crash, then move 5mhz more to 835/1150 and test it again, keep doing this until you crash or freeze and then do the same with the memory clock. You also want to watch your temps as it may be stable but have high temps into the risk range. If you ever pop into the 90's for very long at all then go ahead and back it off even if it is stable. Hope this helps, ask if you have any additional questions.

 

Thanks, I managed to get them to 835/1200 so far and played a bit of bad company 2 and it ran great. My temps during FurMark Burn-In at 1366x768 were idling in the low to mid 80s. I'll try you method to see just exactly how much higher I can go.

 

Here is my first 3DMARK11 score with 920xm turbo mode on (no further overclock) and default 6970s clocks. No tweaking just clocks some services

http://imageshack.us/f/823/3dmark11920xm6970sdefau.jpg/

Dont know if its any good as i dont occupy with benchmarks. Jut post it for you all that want to check.

Thus i didnt manage to run whole 3DMARK 11 with high or low 6970s overclock. I thought the cpu ghz was the issue but i finally found its the 6970s clocks settings.

I think i got a place on the fame list

 

Heaven Benchmark Score=656 with FPS at 26.1
PCMark=2680 (oh no)
3DMark=6000 (double oh no)

WEI CPU index 4.6.

Any guesses as to why my scores are so low? Most test run great during the GPU section but when it gets to the CPU they craw. All drivers current as of Dell's website.

 

Stealth mode? High temps => throttling?

 

From my knowledge Stealth mode doesnt exist on the r3 models. Temps are below average. CPU never reaches over 60 C and GPU highest temps at 77 C.
Test ran multiple times between balance and performance mode. GPU mode enabled and detected in test.

 

Stealth mode does exist on the R3, but unlike past models(R1, R2) its not controllable in any way. If you are on A/Cpower everything runs at full speed, on battery its gimped to roughly half clocks. Another issue is if you unplug it sometimes you have to reboot it for it to return to full clocks even after plugging in again. The three things that will usually fix low performance are:
1- plug into a/c and reboot
2- make sure you are on the dGPU NOT the IGP
3- perform a power drain

 

1. Never thought to try this
2. GPU active
3. Done multiple times

Also did a clean windows install with no luck yet. GPU performs fine in all test but CPU is having issues. Could this just be a driver issue?

 

Hi everyone,

Are the below scores normal for 2720qm & 6970m w/4GB 1333 RAM? If you have that exact config I would LOVE to see your scores.

I need some help checking to make sure my CPU is running right. Long story short.... I bought a i7-2720qm ES on ebay and installed it today, runs good so far, integrated graphics and all. I am trying to determine if this ES 2720 is running as good as a OEM 2720 would. (on a side note, this ES has 2720 2.2/3.3ghz clocks, but also has 8mb of L3 cache like a 2820, see photo here, CPU-Z call it a 2720, HWinfo32 calls it a 2820).

Here are my stock 2630qm Vantage3D scores P12064, and here is a 820/1100 GPU overclock P14002.

Now with the 2720es, I get stock 12329. OC 820/1100 14264

On CPUmark, the 2630qm is getting 6808, and the 2720qmES is getting 7683.

Temp wise the ES 2720 is pretty much the same as my 2630 was, maxing out @ 80C, if not a few degrees cooler since I repasted with ICD.

PLEASE Don't flame me for buying a ES CPU, I know the risks.

 

It sounds like your GPU is working just fine so let's focus on the CPU. The other things that can change your CPU is your Windows power preferences, make sure you're on High Performance and make sure to check the advanced settings as well. Also if you're running anything like throttle stop make sure nothing is limiting it, I know I turned on TStop yesterday during a bench run and didn't realize I had it set to 8x instead of Turbo which gimped the heck out of my CPU.

 

I am not really familiar with throttle stop, so I can't say it is causing a problem or isn't. I was watching HWinfo and the intel turbo meter during the Passmark runs, it looked like the CPU was running all 4 cores at 2.7-2.9ghz throughout.

@DangerClose, I tried clicking on the scores in your signature, but I had to remove some stuff from the links to get them to work right, they don't go straight to your scores.

 

That's strange, thanks for letting me know man. If you don't know what TStop is then you're not running it. Something may be up with your CPU then. Keep in mind if you're trying to compare to my scores, just don't, I'm running really high overclocks on the CPU(107.0 BCLK w/TStop locking it at Turbo) and the GPU(as high as 890/1225). But your scores seem a little low to me, your CPU is holding you back a bit but not enough to lower your scores that much. What drivers are you running?

 

On a side note I got a chance to run some more Vantage runs, here it is, over 15k GPU!



Uploaded with ImageShack.us

3DMarks: P16,548
GPU: 15,215
CPU: 22,445

 

I am running the current Dell M18x drivers. I knew not to compare my scores to yours. What I really need is someone with a 2720, 6970m, and 4gb of RAM to run Vantage and Passmark. Then I would know for sure. I think my 2630 scores are normal, I've seen others that are similar, but I've had trouble finding 2720 scores.

 

If you want I can run a bone stock run of each, the only difference between my cpu and yours at stock is .1ghz due to the multi. Let me know if you want them and I'll throw them up. If passmark takes into account your SSD I may be a bit behind your score on that one.

 

That would actually be awesome if you could do that. Your RAM will help you out also since I only have 4GB, but it would be interesting to see your system stock. Passmark has multiple tests, but I just ran the CPU ones to get the CPU scores. I've been looking at the 3dmark website for scores. It is hard to weed out OC'd scores for stock, but when comparing CPU scores, mine looks at least as good as other 2720s.

I'm hoping our CPU scores stock will be similar, esp since my 2720 actually has the same 8mb L3 cache that your 2820 has. I have 30 days to return the CPU if it doesn't work properly so I want to test it thoroughly.

Right now I'm running constant Prime95 keeping all the cores @ 100% and looking for problems, so far so good.

On another note, should I look into Throttlestop, or if not interested in OC'ing my CPU, is that just a hassle?

UPDATE: Windows experience index went from 7.4 for the 2630 to 7.5 for the 2720qmES.

 

I'll run the tests now, do you want only CPU scores on Passmark or a full run? Also are you running 32 or 64 bit? TStop is something I only use during benching while overclocked so honestly unless you do some ridiculously CPU intensive work on a regular basis there's not really a big point to it. It's a nice tool for monitoring temps and clocks though.

 

Here's the tests at absolute bone stock, which sucks after running a 16.5k bench this weekend lol. I ran 64bit passmark.

[IMG=http://img18.imageshack.us/img18/3073/passmarkcpu64bit.th.jpg][/IMG]

[IMG=http://img855.imageshack.us/img855/2577/stockvantage.th.jpg][/IMG]

The passmark is a screenshot of the CPU scores only so you can see where each category compares.

 

Thanks and bunch Danger, I +rep'd you already.

You got a CPUmark of 8349. I wonder if that is all CPU, or if your 16Gb of RAM into play also. My 2720es did 7683, so yours is 8% better.

On the CPU score of 3Dvantage you also beat me by 8% (I see a trend here). Clock for clock the 2820 should be 3% faster.

So the question is... is the extra 5% coming from the RAM or is my ES processor not up to snuff?

 

More ram won't affect a cpu benchmark. However faster ram might.

 

I would say it's the CPU, I'm only actually running on 8gb right now and it's the stock Dell junk so that's not going to make that big of a gap. Also with Passmark it has a completely seperate RAM test set so that doesn't play into effect much if at all. Another thing to keep in mind on some CPU's is depending on how much stuff is unlocked on them you may need to set things that aren't accessable due to the BIOS being locked up tighter than Fort Knox. You may want to try to download and use throttlestop to see if that helps at all, it may be your multi playing games with you.

 

I am going to try and find some stock 2720 scores for reference. At least I am beating my 2630 fairly well.

 

Here's my stock run on Vantage AMD Radeon HD 6970M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-2720QM Processor,Alienware M17xR3 score: P12716 3DMarks

I couldn't do Passmark because my 30day trial expired.

 

Thanks a bunch. I appreciate it.

Your CPU score is 19166 vs my ES processors 19722, so that means my ES processor is probably performing up to snuff. Too bad your GPU beat mine though, you got 11434 vs my 10959. I wonder if you have better drivers or something. Still this is what I needed, thanks again.

 

If you're running Dell drivers just install either 11.6 or 11.7 directly from AMD over them. Quite a bit of a performance boost in them.

 

I keep doing this, but every time I do it, the drivers stay the same. Do I need to install them into the same directory as the Dell drivers, or just let the install do itself "Express" style? I've tried it like 4 times and every time the drivers stay the same. I wonder what I am doing wrong.

 

You may not be doing anything wrong, friend. In fact, I'd almost bet money you're doing everything right. Many times an AMD Catalyst update does not include a driver update; just CCC and other "stuff" in the package. The CCC version number also does not match the driver version number.

I am on Catalyst 11.6. My AMD drivers are version 8.861.0.0 dated 05/24/2011.

 

No the problem you're most likely having is that you need the driver that ends in OCL here's a few links for you:
11.6
http://www2.ati.com/drivers/mobile/11-6_mobility_vista_win7_64_dd_ccc_ocl.exe
11.7
[email protected]

 

Have any of you guys seen or tried this? Enable higher overclocks in CCC with reg entry - Tech Support Forums - TechIMO.com

 

I haven't done anything along those lines as I don't use overdrive and have yet to hit the overclock roof of my card when using Sapphire Trixx.

 

That was it Danger, I am now running 11.6! Thanks again. Now to see how it affects my Vantage score.

UPDATE: Wow, P12861 stock clocks. 11515 GPU & 19803 CPU.

Big difference.