Swapped my 840QM for an 920XM

After reading much about this particular upgrade in this forum (and others) i decided to go after a Core i7 920xm. As others put it, i swapped my junior processor for a mature one

My experience with this swap: WOW!, i would think (on specs) there are marginal differences between the 840 and the 920 but in practice the differences are notable.

Note: i haven't overclocked the system yet; these are stock speeds.

First: Windows WEI score: processor went from 7.2 to 7.4, memory went from 7.4 to 7.5

Second:
Benchmarks on Performance test 7 x64, Sisoft Sandra 2011, Everest ultimate 5.5: performance gains ranging from 21% to 28% mean (for the whole system) that's impressive right?

Furthermore; to me i seems like the whole system feel snappier, like it was optimized for this configuration.

i think i will overclock eventually, but right now i am very happy with the system at stock speeds.

So yes, i think it is a very good upgrade, by the way i payed 250 euros for the processor (Used)

 

I did the same, but from a 720 to an 920XM.
I've did the 5% overclock in the bios and loving it.
I've payed 324 euros new on Ebay.

 

sn0w13, do you feel the same about the M17x R2 being 'optimized' for this processor. does anybody else know about this? (was it designed and tested on this processor?)

 

The R2 is the only M17x that proc will fit in.

 

Been inching in this direction myself... good to hear it is noticeably faster.

 

I cant confirm you feel the "crunch" power of the chip from everyday tasks to real game sessions. The CPU just soothes everything out, and if you apply your thermal paste correctly, it doesn't produce any additional noise. And that is just on default clocks and settings.
Now if you can undo core parking, get Throttlestop up and running, and are willing to try some of the more detailed cooling mods, then we are talking serious power.

 

Definitely, good points to remember about TS, so used to only being able to run it on my M11x-R2 where it makes all the difference in the world.

 

oh wow. Looks like Imma gonna have to pick one of these up. Upgrades for the summer:

i7 920xm (or 940xm)
CF 6970's.

 

What ru going to put the cf 6970's in?

 

I'm going to try TS this weekend.
The only downside is that is getting way hotter then my 720.
At idle i'm getting about 60 degrees and at full load max 98

 

Just received my 920, building up some courage to strip my R2 down and fit it. What thermal paste did you use?.

 

It took me about an hour using the video from here.
I've used Zalman Super Thermal Grease.

I did another stress test and now my cpu doesn't get over 87degrees.
Wright after I've put it back together I got 98degrees.
Guess the paste is beginning to settle down.

 

Read somewhere on here it takes 200hrs of use for the paste to settle down and you get the final temps.

 

That's good news.
I'm using the 920XM since 3days now.

 

What is it idling at now?

 

I went from a 720 to a 920xm ES over the weekend. My initial temps were high but I seem to be hovering in mid 80s under stress test load. With a pair of 5870s in both configurations, my 3dmark06 score went from 13600 range to 18871 with no additional changes or tweaks. Definitely worth the $450 I paid.

-Byshop

 

Thanks Byshop, I'm going from a 820 and 4870cf to 920 and 5870cf. Mind you in original config(820/4870) i'm getting 15000 range in 3d06 with a 5% o/c thanks to the wiz

 

Iddle temp is now about 62.
getting 19726 in 3D06 with 920XM 5% OC and 5870CF.

 

From my understanding, one of the primary reasons that the 920/940XM CPUs provide such a dramatic increase in performance is because the M17x actually DOES do some special stuff when you have an XM CPU installed.

In particular, the M17xR2's BIOS is configured to ignore the usual TurboBoost behavior of active cores vs. available turbo bins and instead, will apply maximum turbo for ALL cores simultaneously, regardless of current core activity.

When Dell "accidentally patched" the special XM CPU behavior in the M17xR2 A08 BIOS, it generated quite an uproar from the community. You can read about all the specifics in the http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m17x/515247-m17xr2-bios-a08-discussion-thread.html

Needless to say, it was quickly fixed by the A09 BIOS.

 

Thanks m00t, i did not know this but looking at my system in some tooling confirms your story.

i also noticed my Memory NB frequency changed from around 1995MHz to some 2395MHz (give or take some percents of fluctuation) that will explain the increase of memory performance i also noticed. (does this have to do with the processor or the fact that i have Hyper-X DDR3 installed?)

 

just for reference, my 920xm has been installed for 3 months now. It idles at 40 degrees C, and at full load goes up to mid 80s, sometimes 90s if it is a very long hard load (and thus the fans get very loud). This is without special cooling techniques, but I was very careful with an even coat of thermal grease.

Also, the i7s and extreme processors do run memory at higher frequencies. I think it is automatic.

 

My 920XM got delivered. Now to finish with this customer and get that sucker installed!!

 

Mine will be here any day now! Please keep me posted with thoughts on performance difference from the 720-920.

 

Here is exactly what m00t was talking about when Dell released a BIOS that deteriorated performance. I did a ton of research and test on it.

Dell A08 BIOS test results.

 

My R2. They're already semi-compatible (windows will boot with them installed), a custom bios is being worked on for full compatibility.

 

I think its all speculative so far.

 

What's speculative about it? The 6970's will boot into windows - and as far as I've been able to find out, clocks seem to be operating at normal speeds, however, there's fan speed issues and reports of serious artifacting which seem to be related to bios problems. And 6970 support is being worked on for the next custom bios release . . . . yeah nothings in stone, but there's a lot more than just simple speculation going on here.

 

The 6970 'S is whats speculative. The issues you mention are happening with a single 6970.