*OFFICIAL* Alienware M18x Benchmark Thread - Part 2

Not quite, but it helps. Without TRIM, you have to let a system with SSD RAID sit idle for garbage collection to kick in. I'm eager for the new RST with TRIM support to be released, and so are countless others.

I did some testing with different cluster sizes and determined that a 16k stripe with 16k clusters (aka blocks or allocation units) provides the best overall performance. I posted details with SSD benchmarks here.

Thanks, bro.

 

thanks for the great info, according to a couple of different sources, RST 11.5 which will have TRIM support for Raid configurations will be released Q2 of this year....

 

When I setup my SSD raid 0 array last week, I made it a point to run the "fsutil behavior query disabledeletenotify" query and it came back "DisableDeleteNotify = 0". I then thought trim was enabled for the array.

But if the upcoming new version of IRST only supports trim for SSD raid arrays, am I misinterpreting the result I got?

FWIW, I use this utility to "manually" run trim. I've never had any issues with it, but I'm not sure if it does the job on raid 0 SSD arrays? Seems to though?

http://forum.crucial.com/t5/Solid-State-Drives-SSD/SSD-Tool-free-space-trimmer/td-p/51198

 

The upcoming version of RST is supposed to add TRIM support for RAID arrays, not make it exclusively for RAID. I think you may have misinterpreted. TRIM support is present with RST except for RAID arrays as things currently stand. Garbage collection does work with RAID and it does a decent job if you allow the system to have idle time so it can work.

Thank you for that link. I have not seen it before. I'll try it to see if it does anything with my OCZ Agility 3 RAID0 array.

Edit: It does not work for RAID0.

You're welcome. I hoped it would be useful information. We're one-third of the way through Q2 right now, so let's hope it stays on schedule and comes sooner than later.

 

What you just said is what I was trying to say.

Sorry if I wasn't clear in my above post Mr. Fox. Sometimes what I am trying to say in my head doesn't always translate to the keyboard.

 

No worries, that happens to the best of us. There are plenty of times my words don't explain my thought as effectively as I would like.

 

New SSD benchmark: OCZ Vertex Agility 3 480GB RAID0 (compressible and incompressible results)



OK, all of you M18xR2 owners out there... let's see some benching action.

 

Raid 0 2x500GB Momentus XT Hybrid

CRUSHED...

 

I have yet to let my system idle for any amount of time or run any tool, as soon as I'm done using it, I shut it down. I set up my raid last fall and checked performance a couple weeks ago, no loss in performance. I talked with mushkin when I was setting my raid up and they said garbage works in a similar fashion but trims the way to go.

 

Yes, looking forward to TRIM in RAID0. Hopefully, the rumor of the new RST release in Q2 will turn out to be true. We need it.

I ended up doing another clean OS install because something happened with XTU no longer launching and causing my system to freeze with the XTU service running. I tried several times to fix it and finally did the clean install. Got XTU working again.

 

OK you new M18x R2 owners out there. Let's see some 7970M CrossFire and 675M SLI benching results. Here's a preview of what we can expect before good drivers and performance tweaks.

 

You're about to meet your match :tongue:

Tax return say hello to Vertex 4. Vertex 4 meet tax return .

 

Hahaha - SSD war is ON!

 

My numbers are all high except my 4K write (4K QD32 is fine). Any ideas why this is? I only get 60 vs. Fox's 283.

 

What RAID0 stripe size and drive block sizes are you running? This will affect read/write speeds.

 

stripe is 128kb, im not sure about the block size. how could it affect it to the point where its more than 4 times what I have right now. that doesnt seem right at all.

 

Those numbers look great overall, Brother Zero.

I'm running a 128k stripe right now with 4k block (cluster) size, which is the Windows default. That may explain the better 4k write speeds. I played around with stripes, clusters sizes and found each change to have a different effect. Running 16k cluster size improved sequential read/write speeds and 4k read/write took a hit. There was no magic number that improved all test results and I tried 4k, 16k, 32k, 64k cluster sizes. There were significant differences in one or more areas with each change of cluster size.

Did you do a clean Windows install or clone from a previous installation?

 

clean install but I figured out what affects 4K writes greatly, and that's CPU speed.

Maximum SSD performance on your laptop with ThrottleStop and registry mod

There's nothing I can do. I can either buy an Extreme CPU (which I won't do), I can also move back to a desktop or just deal with it.

I'll probably just deal with it .

I think my block size is 4k. I'll have a quick check.

 

You could check to see if write-back cache is enabled, if its disabled under the advanced view in RST, enable it and that might help out with the digits.....

 

Thanks Brother Stevie!!!

 

That's more like it!!!!

 

Yes, much nicer! That's a far better representation of the more expensive SSD drives you purchased. Good job.

How much were the Vertex 4, bro? I almost wish I had not purchased the Vertex Agility 3 drives, but I was running out of drive space and the prices were the lowest I had seen for 240GB SSD.

 

My 4K Read is still low (23 vs. 33) but I don't think there's anything I can do about it.

I think RAID lowers the 4K read and me being on a mobile platform without an Extreme Edition affects the 4K also (as well as other scores). Oh well .

I'm still happy.

Thanks .

Rep'd!**

$139+13% tax. $316 total.

They are quite nice! My last SSD was the Vertex 2 and one of them even died! The RMA depot is the next city over so buying OCZ is a no-brainer for me. 5 year warranty? What what!?!?

Rep'd!**

 

That's a good price on them. The warranty is good, too. It's amazing how fast disc space gets gobbled up, especially with games. I hope SSD prices continue the trend so we can all afford the largest available. Right now, the pricing of 512GB SSD is just insane. There's no such thing as "too fast" or "too much space" when it comes to computers. I have 2/3 of my games on the HDD, otherwise they would consume all of my SSD space. I only keep the latest games that I play most often installed on SSD.

 

Yes that's a problem I have to solve! I'm planning on just deleting games and keeping the save files.

I would love to have 1TB of Raid 0 Vertex 4 but I'm not a millionaire.

It would be redundant to have games on another HDD as I just came from a Raid 0 Momentus XT setup. No more mechanical drives for me .

My steam folder (22GB) sits on a 64GB XC SD card.

 

I still have all of the Steam games installed, I just moved 2/3 of them to HDD with SteamMover. In total, about 400GB of my total drive space is games. About 180GB are non-Steam games that don't require registry keys, so they were installed at one point and simply run from their installation folders now. The rest of the data space is being used by driver installation files, ISO files, a restore image, Linux partition, etc. I travel a lot, so I use the space to avoid having to carry extra stuff. I pack everything I might need on the data drive. I have an external HDD that I use for backup imaging of the OS and data drives. I kind of like never needing to reach for another storage device to access what I what I want, whenever I want it.

 

Fixed it.

 

Did you change something in addition to write-caching policy? If so, what helped?

 

It's to do with CPU states. These mobile CPU's have this annoying power-saving feature when running at idle. The difference seen in the 4K read speeds (23 vs. 32) is the result of me forcing the CPU to stay @ 3.4Ghz max turbo 4T (overclocked) vs. 2.55 idle (overclocked).

To keep the CPU @ such a speed requires a setting in the BIOS (Unlocked) or possibly running the WinRAR Benchmark and disabling multi-threading LOL.

 

So, you disabled C-states in the unlocked BIOS? I used to run my 2760QM CPU that way permanently. I never had a problem with overheating and it performed much better like that, especially in benchmarks and games.

 

Nah I didn't disable C-states, I ran WinRAR with multithreading off so it ran on one thread enbaling Turbo mode.

I then ran AS SSD to get what it would be like for my SSD to run at a CPU that would have its states disabled.

 

So, that read/write benchmark performance is only demonstrating potential. I was excited at the possibility that you were going to be experiencing that level of performance with normal everyday use.

I used to run with C-states disabled at all times @ 4.5GHz with my XM CPU as well, but I think with RAID0 it might prevent SSD garbage collection from working at idle time. So, when I built the RAID0 with the Agility 3 SSD drives, I turned C-states back on and re-enabled C7, which does slow read/write access times.

It's like robbing Peter to pay Paul, potentially. When Intel finally gets around to releasing RST with TRIM support for RAID0, I will disable C-states and C7 again. I really don't care for using C-states and C7 at all, but without any RAID0 TRIM support I have a hunch it is a necessary evil.

 

Hmmm, I'm mostly interesting in further studying CPU/RAM clock speed affects on SSD performance. Supposedly, 4.7Ghz is the sweet spot with sandy bridge-e. Ivy bridge plays even nicer with SSDs. I too cannot wait for RST 11.5 Official.

This gives further arguments that a 29x0XM is not a waste of money .

 

Yes, a 29x0XM CPU @ 4.7GHz works beautifully with Sandy Bridge.

 

Looks like I'm about to get higher numbers

New OCZ Firmware Boosts Vertex 4 Performance Up to 210%

 

Wow, that's awesome news. I look forward to seeing the results.

OCZ is really starting to turn things around with their SSD products.

 

Yep, they are by the looks of it. Maybe it's to do with a move away from Sandforce controllers to Indilinx that OCZ acquired some time back - which is actually Marvell hardware.....either way, it's looking alot better....

Look forward to seeing Zero's new benches with the updated firmware! - they should ROCK!!

 

Man, I'd love to get some of that Sata 3 action. Unfortunately I'm going to be sticking to the R2 for a while. Just sold off my 6990's and a bunch of other stuff to pay for a set of 7970's. From what I understand they consume about 10/15w less then 6990s, which means I'll be able to do a bit of overclocking. Can't wait to see how they perform in the 17x R2 vs. 18x R1/2. That is assuming they even operate in the R2, which I have a feeling/hope they will. Who knows, maybe on the GPU front I'll be able to be competetive with the 18x. Though not in things like 3DMark06 since I'm still on the old 940XM.

 

Sounds like you made a wise move there.....those 7970's should pummel a fair few M18's into the ground LOL

 

DR650SE where you getting then from?

 

I was going to get them from upgradeyourlaptop. Two cards, x-brackets, screws and shipping/insurance was going to run me $1,119. But I just saw that I can get the M17x R4 (i7 3720, 500GB HDD, 1080P, 7970M) for $1,211 through AAFES. Free shipping and no tax. I think I may just have to use the funds I got selling everything for the M17x R4. Maybe later on down the road get a pair of cards for the R2.

More on topic, Looks like there was an M18x benched with 7970 crossfire.

AMD Radeon HD 7970M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-3920XM Processor Extreme Edition,Alienware M18xR2 score: P10310 3DMarks

Check out the graphics score. 11K

 

DR650SE maaan, that's insane!!! 11k for a laptop in 3dmark 11??? My jaws just dropped after i realized what could masters of OC do to this machine when it arrives)

 

Wow! Hopefully 7970 will be for sale on may 10 T_T on m18x!

 

13K+ should be doable (tessellation off)

11.5K+ tess on

https://www.sapphireselectclub.com/ssc/TriXX/TriXX.aspx

Trixx working again with 12.2+

 

Cool, i'll try Trixx later today.

EDIT: oh wait, i tried these before and they dont' recognize the 7970m's. You can use MSI afterburner though..

 

If your 3DMark 11 and 3DMark Vantage say "This Score is Equal or Better Compared to Similar Systems." it is safe to assume your graphics cards are operating fine? I just want to make sure the GPU's on my refurb are OK before calling in about other issues wrong with the m18x.

2630, 4GB 1600, dual 6990, 500GB 7200RPM HD

For reference:
AMD Radeon HD 6970M / 6990M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-2630QM Processor,Alienware M18xR1 score: P21265 3DMarks
AMD Radeon HD 6970M / 6990M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-2630QM Processor,Alienware M18xR1 score: P6243 3DMarks

 

I prefer to edit the BIOS' and increase CCC overclock limits. Is this impossible for the 7970M?

 

As of right now, the 7970m bios isn't modifiable...something to do with the driver and how it prevents changes...so says the author or RBE (radeon bios editor)

We've gone as far as pulling the vbios with bootable USB and ATIflash and made changes via hex editor, but we were chicken to flash back

svl7 will be playing with the 7970m vbios this weekend so we'll all know what we can and cant do...but if the 7970m is like the 7970 desktop, the bios is locked down

You can still overclock with MSI afterburner though. This is the only way i found to do it so far. The method is outlined in my 7970m install guide

 

Personally, I prefer to overclock with software (using Trixx with 6990M CF and NVIDIA Inspector with 580M SLI) anyway. The vBIOS voltage mod on 580M is helpful for more extreme overclocking, but software overclocking on demand is super simple and probably better for the life of the GPU compared to always being overclocked. With the M18x in a CF or SLI configuration, overclocking is needless except for competitive benchmarking. 6990M CF and 580M SLI already handle gaming quite excellently at stock clock speeds.

I only resorted to vBIOS mods on malfunctioning AMD GPU modules because setting the clocks speeds at the vBIOS level circumvented issues caused by PowerPlay and buggy drivers (constantly stuck 2D and ULPS clock speeds, and frequently crashing AMD drivers, for example). Had I not received defective parts, that probably would not have been necessary.

 

So two 7970m can be had for $1200? DR650SE your going to have a kicking rig there. Maybe you should make your own heatsink like SVL7 if you can keep your 920xm cool enough you should be able to get quite a score