Unwhelming replacement (R1 to R2)

One of the discrete 280ms in my R1 fried on me recently so I called Dell and asked them to take care of it under warranty. They sent me an entire new unit which turned out to be an R2. Thrilled at my upgrade I did some side by side comparisons and found my original unit appears to actually be significantly faster in multiple areas.

Here are my old specs:

T9600 2.8 ghz Dual Core
4 gig
Dual 280ms

New machine:

Q720 1.6 ghz (2.8 turbo) Quad
4 gig
Dual 4870s

When the R2 refresh came out, I did a lot of research to try to determine whether or not it would be worth going through the headache of selling my old laptop and trading up. I determined (partially from the benchmarks on this site) that bumping up would not be worth it. The increase in the CPU for a comparably priced unit would be offset by slightly slower video cards. Even when they later offered a pair of 5870s I still figured that it wouldn't be worth the hassle.

Now that I have one in hand, the benchmarks are even lower than I thought. My dual 280s score faster across the board except in 3dmark06 which is only very slightly faster on the new laptop.

Here are the rough numbers:

3dmark06 old: 12800 New: 13500
Final Fantasy IV Bench old: 2600 new: 2400
Uniengine heaven demo old: 1500ish new: 750ish

Tests on the new laptop are a clean self loaded copy of win 7 running the catalyst drivers that came out yesterday. My question is, am I missing something here?

Thanks in advance.

-Byshop

 

Game speeds are varied with different brands of graphics card.

 

the 4870 cf was about the same as the 280m Sli, so no surprise there.

the 3DMark06 score on the new unit was helped by the CPU dependence and the I core CPUs are faster the the core diuo's.

I would demand the 5870s cards

 

Understandable, but this is significantly slower across the board.

 

I was expecting the 4870 to be about the same as my 280m sli, but what I'm seeing is much less. My new rig scored literally half what my old rig did in the Heaven demo.

I'm going to call Dell and ask for 5870s.

Any idea on the proc? I'm not that familiar with the i7 line. Is a 2.8ghz in turbo mode comparable to a core2duo 2.8?

-Byshop

 

the i7 is more powerful in general, however it requires more power which drains the battery faster.

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/laptops/2009/11/13/intel-core-i7-mobile-720qm-benchmarked/1

 

Thanks, that bench helps me to get a clearer picture. My next step was to try a handbrake encode but tom's already did it for me.

Bottom line is the CPU is not the issue, it's the noticeably slower video cards.

Now to call Dell and say "WTH". I bought my original unit with top tier video cards and they sent me middle tier back.

-Byshop

 

if you can't convince them for 5870's try at least for 5850's (if they come in crossfire), they're also great and can easily be clocked to 5870's speeds (although i'm not sure about crossfire, better ask about that >.>)

btw that uniengine demo on the 280's doesn't seem right, i got that with a single (now replaced) 260m @ 1920x1080 on my m15x

 

I didn't know 5850 was offered with the m17x. What are you going to do if 5870's don't play those games as fast as your old 280m sli did? Go back to R1?

 

It's not to my knowledge. The 5870s should be fine, and even if they aren't I'll be happy enough. I just don't want to get shafted with a downgrade because I had to do a warranty replacement. Faster on paper does me little good if it's slower in practice.

-Byshop

 

Have you Updated your Drivers? I got really poor performance with the stock drivers update to 10.7 or 10.8 from ATI

 

Why dont you just keep the old system.

Not sure how much role the CPU difference would play between your system and mine, but my system got 15k 3dmark06 out of the box.

 

Because his intention is to get dual 5870's.

 

i don't know why the benches are faster on the older one but the new one is faster then the old one the 4870 are faster then the 280 by quite a margin unless the boards them selves are defective

try to run some game on the new one look at fps if they are slower veryfy CFX statu verify you have catalist AI on advanced if you try all and the 4870 remain slower try a reinstall of win7 following clkosely the driver install order sometime and istall chose to go wrong because moon phases are not well aligned

or you could try to see if you can stuck the cpu in turbo mode ati's cards are quite dependant on the cpu clock speed so if you are runing in quad mode at 1.6 then the nvidia will always win the 4850 in the m17 can be faster then the 280 provided you have the right cpu so the 4870 should be to if the cpu you have is good enough

if the thing remain slower request a replacement for the unit it might be defective

 

I say you try to update the drivers if you haven't done so cuz stock drivers soook hard

 

The old system is fried, so keeping it isn't an option. I was expecting an identically configured R1 unit but apparently that's not an option either. I'm running the latest Catalyst (dated 2 days ago) on a completely clean Win 7 Ult load.

When I saw the parts manifest on the order before it arrived I was optimistic when I saw I was getting an I7 that maybe they'd include a pair of 5780s but I wasn't crestfallen when I found out they didn't. However, these benches are way under what I was expecting from what I thought to be a fairly comparable configuration.

My question in this thread was to see if there was anything glaring that I was missing in comparison and also to gather more information about the rest of the specs.

I've spoken to Dell about replacing the 4870s with 5870s. I offered to pay the difference since I realize that even though the 4870s might be slower the 5870s will be an upgrade from what I had (DX11 support).

-Byshop

 

Hello,

If you are upgrading to 5870 CF, just an advice that you need to wait for the A01 versions of the slave card which is not released as of yet, otherwise you wont get POST.

 

Not sure what you're talking about. Dual mobility 5870s are a standard config on the m17x so obviously they must be working.

-Byshop

 

Ok one of my vid cards just took a poop so I ran 3dmark06 on one card and I scored over 12k will post a screen when I get home I also am running 10.7 as 10.8 just was not as good you should give those a try or try reseating the cards.

Also, just to clarify the 4870 is not a middle tier vid card
it Was one if the top dogs uUp untill the 587 the only cards that where better where the 285m's in sli0

 

I would of done a Clean install of windows. Then redo the tests.

 

OP must be doing something wrong. In almost every benchmark I've read (and from previous experience owning 4870 xfire), they keep up with or beat the 280M's most of the time.

 

As mentioned, I -did- do a clean install. You have a nearly identical configuration to my new R2. Do you have the Uniengine Heaven benchmark installed? I'd be curious to see what your score is. I ran the bench with the following settings:

Version 2.1

API DX11
Shaders: High
Tessallation: normal
Anisotropy: 4
Anti-aliasing: off
Full Screen: unchecked
Resolution: 1600x900 (for some reason my R1 won't run this fullscreen)

-Byshop

 

I just re-ran the benchmark at those settings. Here is my score:

FPS: 30.0
Scores: 757

-Byshop

 

I think I have found your problem Your not running in Xfire as my score with one card is close to yours



My second card took a poop so I am waiting for my replacement to come

Here is that 3dmark Score. True testament to the performance of these cards only 366 points away from your Dual 280M's. It is either your secondary GPU or the crossfire cable check them and reconnect and reseat if necessary.(also make sure you have enabled crossfire)



Uploaded with ImageShack.us

 

Unigine
Heaven Benchmark v2.1
FPS: 45.2
Scores: 1139
Min FPS: 3.5
Max FPS: 84.5

Hardware
Binary: Windows 32bit Visual C++ 1500 Release May 21 2010
Operating system: Windows 7 (build 7600) 64bit
CPU model: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q9000 @ 2.00GHz
CPU flags: 2009MHz MMX SSE SSE2 SSE3 SSSE3 SSE41 HTT
GPU model: ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4850 8.762.0.0 CrossFireX 1024Mb

Settings
Render: direct3d11
Mode: 1920x1200 fullscreen
Shaders: high
Textures: high
Filter: trilinear
Anisotropy: 4x
Occlusion: enabled
Refraction: enabled
Volumetric: enabled
Replication: disabled
Tessellation: disabled

Unigine Corp. © 2005-2010


cfx is definitly disabeled look at my result on the m17 with 4850

this is from the 4850 on a m17

 

Lol @ granyte Did he mention it was a 4850 on a M17? Run it again at 1600 X 900 windowed mode to make him a believer

 

FYI, i have run a few tests on my original system which i still have (not the system in my signature below)

I ran these from stock and my original system has dual 5870's and an i7 720qm with 4gb ram so it should be a fair indicator. All run from trial versions of the benchmarking software so i couldnt change any settings from within...

3dMark Vantage scores:

P12048
cpu 10573
gpu 12552

3dMark 06 score was 13808 from recollection (with slider set to performance under 3d settings in CCC)

I wasnt overwhelmed or underwhelmed byt these scores as im new to this but it may give you an idea of what you should be looking for IF you have a similar setup to my original system.

If anyone thinks these scores are normal or whatever, please feel free to comment.

 

my run in window mode winodw mode auto disable CFX just saying and i don't bech really high because my cpu is olding me back 2.oo in a c2q is not helping my score

 

dell is required to replace the system with equivalent or better specifications. It appears they have held up this on their part. If it's slower in some applications versus the previous configuration that's an indication of different driver optimizations(or lack of physx support), not lesser performing hardware.

I agree.. the R2 he has now is a superior system in processor and graphics cards.

 

What I don't understand is how the OP got 13k on 3dmark06. Like others said, make sure xfire is enabled. I think 15k on 3dmark06 should be the average score of 4870 xfire. I have no clue what the impact is between OP's cpu and mine will do on 3dmark though.

 

the 48xx serie sadly is verry dependant on the cpu to the point where when i overclock of about 200 mhz on the cpu i get a 7-10 fps bump on crysis making the game jump from limit on the playability to runing quite well

 

Thanks for the info guys. Now that I have some numbers from people with comparable systems I have a better idea of where I should be, which is exactly the information I was hoping to get. Crossfire -is- enabled unfortunately (that would have been a pretty easy fix if it were not) but now I can play with the system and tweak it to get it where it needs to be.

-Byshop

 

do you have catalyst AI enabeled to advanced that to disable crossfire ?

also try to use open hardware monitor it is able to monitor the clock on both card as well as sayin thier actual voltage and many more maybe your cards are throteling

veryfy you have a 240W adapter as the system will throttle with a lower one

 

Well if thats true, how come my 720 with 5870's doesnt even get up to 14k? - the 5870's are a better card so that blows that one out the water doesnt it?

 

Like I said, the difference could be the CPU's. I don't have quadcore, so can't much comment on that. As for my score, it pumped out 15k+ out of the box after i enabled the xfire.

 

his dual core probably ahs a much higher clock speed then our quad this is why he pups higher scores try booting with some cores turned off to see if turbo boost can kick in and give more performances

 

Ahhh, yeah....i missed the 620...was looking at gpu's and obviously, that benchamrk is cpu intensive so explaining the 15k......silly me ! lol

 

So after turning the Mipmap detail level down to the absolute minimum I was able to get the Heaven benchmark north of 1000, but the behavior is inconsistent. Now I'm back down to around the 750 mark again with no changes to settings.

I've spoken to Dell and they are replacing the video cards with 5870s so we'll see how it goes after I make the swap.

-Byshop

 

Good luck the 5870's are great cards but riddled with issues you where better off with the 4870's honestly

 

Issues can be resolved through driver updates and firmware. Performance is relateively static by comparison.

-Byshop

 

Still waiting on the replacement cards. Dell support accidentally sent me a pair of secondary 5870s (both right-hand cards) which I sent back. Next shipment they sent me four 280ms (lol) which I have also sent back. Hopefully I 'll have some updated benches on Thursday.

-Byshop

 

Dell is apparently sending me the wrong parts again. Can someone please confirm the correct part numbers for a primary and secondary 5870 for an Alienware m17x r2? I have C8245 (primary) and RV546 (secondary).

-Byshop

 

Man crazy stuff these guys sending you all these random parts LOL.

Sorry to hear the inconvinience to you but what the heck hey 4 GTX 280m's LOL. Geeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. What the thinking you gonna SLi 4 cards in the notebook now. I want in ehehehheeh.

Yup those 2 numbers you mentioned sound correct to me. Thats what I saw when some people posted up their pics last time.

Theirs said both were rev. A00
DP/N 0C8245 and DP/N 0RV546


So what is it they are sending you now LOL?

Cheers.

 

They are sending me two c8245s this time. Luckily I got a hold of the on-site technician who I've been working with and he hasn't sent back the original incorrect order (two RV546s) so once the new package arrives we can mix and match until we have a complete set.

Wish me luck.

-Byshop

 

Ah i see i see. Yep good luck chiefs!!!

Hope it all goes well this time around.

Cheers.

 

Well, I had the chance to tweak the 4870s before they went off. Two things improved performance.

1) Loading the Dell ATI Beta driver instead of the ATI reference driver. I got a noticeable benefit from this.

2) I did manage to get the Heaven bench up to around 1000 by turning mip maps down to the absolute minimum. With Standard Settings turned to Performance that leaves MipMap one setting above optimal performance. Turning that one option down to optimal significantly improved performance.

That being said, my 5870s arrived today (they sent four, along with an unrequested motherboard). I popped em in and immediately got 1300 on the heaven bench using the default DX10 settings at 1920x1200 fullscreen. The 3dmark score went up a smidge (I'm just shy of 14000 now) but I didn't expect better video cards to help a 4 year old benchmark that much.

Still, I'm happy overall now. The limiting factor here is probably my quad, but at least a replacement CPU is cheap and easy should I find my performance inadequate.

Thanks for the info guys. It was very helpful.

EDIT: Oh, I forgot to mention. BSODs and black screen freezes up the wazoo before I applied the beta vbios.

-Byshop

 

Ah great to hear its finally all sorted. Top Stuffs. Yeh that 3d mark 06 score is heavily dependent on the CPUs. Vantage will show you a much more accurate GPU reading. You can select the GPU tests only and it should get around high 13k to 14k.

Enjoy testing out your working system now.

Cheers.

 

Did they send the cards and the mobo directly to you or through a technician? Would be sweet if you could install them on your own.

 

They shipped them through a technician (including the previous two incorrect orders), but I installed the parts myself. The tech was more than happy to let me do his job for him.

He called me to set up an appointment to take apart my laptop, but the earliest he could was the next day. I told him just to drop off the parts because a vid card replacement is braindead simple on these laptops. He jumped at the chance to get paid for a service call that he didn't have to do any actual work on. Nothing against the tech, but who wouldn't say yes to that?

So I popped the 4870s out, he drops off the new cards and takes off. I start the install only to find that the cards were wrong. Swearing my bad luck, I called him up and let him know that Dell sent two secondary cards and he said he'd get it straightened out. I put the laptop back together.

Next day he shows up, I have the laptop already apart. We open the box and find four video cards instead of two, but four Nvidia 280ms. Cursing more, we called Dell. I looked up the part numbers for a primary and secondary 5870 (on this site actually) and we read them over the phone to Dell. I put the laptop back together again.

Fast forward today, he opened the box -before- he came over and confirmed the parts. However, they sent four cards (again) and a motherboard we didn't ask for. At least they sent four of the right cards this time. I popped em in and checked them out and the tech takes off. Right after he leaves, freezes, BSOD, etc. I called him up and told him to hang onto the extra two cards they sent until I tell him otherwise.

I jumped on here because I remember seeing the vbios thread. Flashed the cards and now everything seems happy as a clam.

EDIT: Whether or not they send stuff through a tech appears kinda random. I had a foot fall off the base. When I asked for another foot, they said it's not a distinct part so they sent me a new base. They directly shipped me this piece, that at the time I didn't realize was that portion that literally every component in the laptop mounted to. I have to completely shred the whole unit and rebuild it in a new base just to fix a missing rubber foot. Fun stuff.

-Byshop

 

Sounds like you're going to have a lot of fun taking apart your machine.
I will make a note of that vbios issue as I will be getting a system with cf 5870m next week.