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

Hmm that is strange :S those temps are way higher than they should be, maybe has something to do with windows 8

I don't think my temps even passed 80 when gaming for a while, but the good thing is that your temps are still greatly within safe range unfortunately I can't offer you any advice tho

 

did you repaste your laptop? Mine, is brand new, bought it last monday. I don't know what to do.
I tried doing the prime95, and believe me just under a minute my temps rose to 93 degrees Celsius!!!

I don't know what to do.

 

Those temps are not terrible after running a stress test on a 3820QM CPU. In fact, they are pretty decent for peak temps after a CPU stress test. What are the ambient temps where you are using this system? Depending on how warm the working environment is, they might even be really great temps. Did you change any BIOS settings?

 

ambient room temp in singapore is 26C. Ran a prime95 test for less than a minute, cpu temp rose to 93C so I have to stop the test, I'm afraid it might mess up my laptop. is it still normal?

Regarding the bios, no I did not change anything on it.

What can you recommend on my situation?

 

Well, 26°C is 79°F and I think this is largely the reason for those temps. That ambient temperature is too high for ideal CPU performance, and that is a powerful CPU.

What I would first recommend is to stop running prime95. It is subjecting your CPU to unrealistic conditions that are not exemplary of real-world utilization. If your temps stay under 90°C while gaming, then you don't really need to worry unless they go that high and stay that high. If you elevate the back of the laptop and/or use a cooler like a U3 it will help with cooling by improving air circulation. (You don't benefit much, if at all, from using the fans on the cooler... only the improved air circulation, which can be achieved by simply raising the back of the laptop.) You can also use ThrottleStop to slow or limit the maximum speed a bit. You don't need more than 2.8 to 3.0GHz for excellent gameplay, since that is mostly handled by your GPU.

If you see sustained temps at 90°C or higher (not random and brief peaks) then you probably should look at repasting the heat sink with an awesome product like IC Diamond.

 

Thanks for your response, i consider that as expert opinion.
Anyway, I will try to monitor my temps while gaming and also, I will stop prime95.

As for raising the laptop, I've been using this product since I bought my laptop. ( BlueLounge Cool Feet )



UPDATE: did a clean install again, updated all the drivers, saw an improvements on my temp, temp doesn't go past 86 degrees celsius while playing CS:GO, L4D2, and Guild Wars 2 all on high-ultra settings.

 

sorry if this has been answered before but how is performance with windows 8 on a m17x-7970m ?
gained more fps/stability ... ?

is there anything NOT working in windows 8 ?

tnx

 

New nvidia drivers (310.70) boosted my score with 3dmark11 by another 100 points, got a 6400 bone stock

 

Hello NBR

I recieved my M17x R4 yesterday, and ran a few tests. The specs are as follows:
i7 3630QM
6 GB 1600 CL11 (4+2)
500 GB 7200 rpm
7970m

With Enduro on, I could only make 3DMark06 run on the Intel 4000, so I FN+F7'd and got it running on the right card. Also did a 3DMark 11 "Full Experience" benchmark Drivers are the newest beta 12.11 only a few days old. Nothing is OC'd, everything running stock:

3DMark06: 23500 points
3DMark11: 6506

I didn't save or upload the results, as it was mostly a test to see if everything is running as it should. But I think the scores are alright.

Another thing: I used Intel Burn Test and Furmark to check if the temps were okay. The CPU maxed out at 82°C and the GPU at 69°C. That's pretty good, right?

 

hmmm either mine is running slow or yours is running fast... I might have a lemon though as my puter has been a buggy annoyance since i installed the 2x SSd's

 

I just jumped up by 700 points in 3dmark 11 just by updating my drivers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Spec as in my sig, just did a clean install of Win 8 then updated my drivers to 12.11 and jumped from 5800 to 6500 points (stock clocks)

I didnt think drivers could have such an impact!!!!!!!!

 

Just pulled this off. Not too shabby.

ImageShack® - Online Photo and Video Hosting

 

=[ ,

 

Look at your clocks. You're stuck in 3D-low. Need to figure out why your clocks aren't going to 3D-high.

Also, here's my full report.

AMD Radeon HD 7970M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-3820QM Processor,Alienware M17xR4 score: P7404 3DMarks

 

Not running on 100% battery apparently =P

 

Looks better. I'm running a pretty aggressive overclock so that would be much of the difference with mine.

 

welcome to the present the 12.11 beta have long since been declared as a performance driver

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

 

Nope, gaming or benching on battery is definitely a no-go. Your battery won't provide the juice needed for that with a powerful GPU.

 

Has there been much movement on the Dell 680m cards ? im seeing 8ks in clevos ... so im torn as to wich GPU to order with my machine

 

We are seeing 9k's in Alienwares with Dell cards.

 

wow... care to link me and show me how etc thats frankley insane

 

Start there and read through
http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...enware-m18x-benchmark-thread-part-2-a-66.html

 

You guys should join in for the NBR foldathon. Those sandy/ivy bridge CPUs and Nvidia cards would do really well. There are also so nice prizes awarded in a random drawing to the participants. AMD cards will work well too. Its only a week long and every little bit helps!


Sent from my Samsung Captivate/ICS CM9 via Tapatalk.

 

AMD Radeon HD 7970M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-3740QM Processor,Alienware M17xR4 score: P5858 3DMarks

Hey guys, I just benchmarked my system with no overclocking and you can see my specs in my sig. is a 5858 score good? It shows me that most other users with my specs have scores upto 1700 points higher. :\

 

5850 is not great. But it's slightly below average, Stock clocks people get over the 6000 mark, people getting 1700 points higher than you have overclocked a lot. In my sig is what I got my first run with the 680M, but I have no idea what's up with your low score. Try update drivers and such.

 

definitely update ur gpu drivers. the 12.11 beta / enduro performance drivers both give u stock scores at around P6400-6500 points in 3dmark11.
post above is also correct in stating that those 7k+ scores were on OCed systems. i myself get 7400ish with the clocks shown in my sig.

cheers

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

 

I've got all updated drivers, jaybee maybe you could link me to the most updated beta ones? atm i'm using the dell ones.

 

check benchmark3d.com for the most current amd drivers,thats what i usually do

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

 

Maybe you just need to do a clean installation of the video driver, make sure you completely remove the all current video drivers before installing the latest drivers available.

If possible, try to clean up the registry as well, this can be done manually or with tools such as driver sweeper.

 

I just flashed the OC bios to my 680m last night. Immediately threw up +320/+500 on her at stock voltage and pulled a P8301. Saw an easy +10FPS in Far Cry 3, almost 15-20 in BF3 and my temps are stable at 75C. I was super surprised to see a +8k score at stock voltage and so far things have been fairly stable.

 

You did that at stock voltage? Holy crap lol. I've never raised my core that high (even overvolted) but I'm going to try now

Here's mine at +242/+600 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-3740QM Processor,Alienware M17xR4 score: P8216 3DMarks

 

stop your making my laptop feel old!!!

On a more serious note, awesome run bro!!

 

lol sorry man! But look on the bright side, you'll upgrade to Haswell and I'll be stuck with my ancient r4

I did a couple runs at +320/+500 and +300/+600 and got some weird results. I thought my Graphics score would skyrocket up to 8.7k or so, but it stayed around 8.5k (the same as when I ran +242/+600) but my Physics score went up to 8.8k+ both times! Normally my Physics score is 8.1-8.2k. Anybody have any idea why my Physics score rose but my Graphics score didn't?

Oh, here are the results btw
+320/+500 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-3740QM Processor,Alienware M17xR4 score: P8394 3DMarks
+300/+600 (I thought this run would be better than the last, but nope) NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-3740QM Processor,Alienware M17xR4 score: P8301 3DMarks

Weirdness. It's like overclocking my gpu is helping the cpu instead of the gpu. Both runs were at 1.05v

 

i guess if u overclock one component too much the other one doesnt get enough juice headroom anymore in order to perform to its max?

 

I was thinking about that, but why would the cpu benefit from overclocking the 680m too much? My Graphics score seems to top out around 8.5k or so, but my Physics scores are crazy high compared to how they normally are. The only explanation I can think of is the 680m is somehow handling some of the Physics load, but idk if that's possible.

One more run, +322/550 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-3740QM Processor,Alienware M17xR4 score: P8424 3DMarks

I think I'm done with the overclocking for a little while. I'm starting to feel bad for abusing my laptop lol

 

Can you run that test again, but this time show gpuz with your actual voltage. 8.7k gpu you can not do on stock vbios voltage.

Looking at your over clock...You will need to run gpuz in sensor mode. First click the ? on the right side and start a render test in single gpu mode. This will tell you what your true clocks are. Then use afterburner to increase by 5 mhz while test is still running. when you get into the 300+ range, the clocks do not change the same. sometimes it takes 10 to 15 mhz over clock before you will see the true clocks change and i feel that is what's happening with you. Along with a few other standard problems im sure.

 

Thanks john, I'm still a total noob when it comes to the 680m, it helps to get advice from the benchmark master

I've been using nvidia inspector to overclock, but I'll switch to AB and download gpuz. Do you think 1.05v is a good voltage to go with, or should I try something lower? Thanks again!

 

you guys make me want to jump ship to nVIDIA this late in the cycle . Restraint restraint! Awesome runs btw

 

Thanks man, it's an awesome card. I might regret not waiting a few months for the 780m, but for now I'm really enjoying it. I'm going to try out johnksss' advice and go for 9k. To put that in perspective, I never broke 7.5k with my 7970m/3630qm combo. 680m ftw! lol

 

good luck dude!!!! looking forward to seeing how far you can get.

As for my machine, I can't get it to run through a single 3dmark run.

 

Inspector is good if you have to do them independently like we had to do with the 580m's, but that is not needed here. So afterburner is the better choice for over clocking. Besides, if you have the afterburner app, you can monitor you temps and clocks from a cell phone. And 1.05 is good, but after benching you can probably just go back to stock voltage and enjoy your gaming.

 

Thanks man, I'm still learning

Why can't you finish a run on 3DMark11? The 6990m is still an awesome card, you should be able to break 4k with no issues

I forgot about that Afterburner app for my phone, I'm going to get that set up so I can monitor temps and clock rates. I keep a 1.05v vbios and a stock voltage vbios on my thumb drive so I can flash back and forth when I'm done benching. I didn't realize how easy it was to use nvflash before getting this laptop

Thanks for all your help bro.

 

I think it has to do with something in windows 8. It won't get past the detecting system configuration in either test. I just formatted my machine and it still isn't working properly.

Edit: Finally got it working, but scores aren't looking to good on windows 8. Might have to setup a partition for windows 7 just for benching.

 

Yes, very easy. and you can even flash faster from windows using an auto flashing bat file. Which can do the same in dos mode.

 

Glad you got it working, I've read that 8 isn't as good for benchmarking as 7 for some people. How are you liking it other than that? Is it hard living without a start button? I'm thinking about setting up a partition to play with Windows 8 some.

Thanks, I'll look into that. I saw a few people were doing it that way over on techinferno.

 

I actually use a 3rd party app and have a start menu anyway. I don't mind it much at all except for the fact that it isn't good for benching. Games don't see to have a problem though.

:Edit: looks like this is the best I can do at the moment on windows 8. not to impressed lol.

 

That's not bad at all man, it's way higher than what a stock 6990m would do. With Windows 7 you'd break 4k easy

 

thanks dude!! once I get around to installing windows 7 I think I'll see how high I can push my clocks!!

 

My goodness.. THIS may be a good reason for me to finally try Windows 8.

@failwheeldrive, it's TOO hard to live without a start button, at least I couldn't do it. I'll try tony's idea, after all Windows 8 has some cool features I've been wanting to use for a while.

 

hello

First teste Drivers 13.2 Beta 3

Spoiler

AMD Radeon HD 7970M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-820QM Processor ,Alienware score: P8423 3DMarks