*OFFICIAL* Alienware M18xR1/R2/18 Benchmark Thread - Part 3

Yeh I agree. I actually have come to really like the lines on the AW18 - its pretty tight, still not sure about that big goofy bezel though. But I'd deal with it if all was in order.
That Clevo P570WM is as ugly as sin though, face like a smashed crab, body like a dropped meat pie - a true gimp in a box :laugh:



But at least its pushing the envelope as far as performance goes which is more than we can say for AW.

 

PassMark Results | Baseline Validation: PassMark Software - Display Baseline ID# 241765

3920XM @ 4.5GHz | GTX 780M SLI (No Overclock)	3920XM @ 4.5GHz | GTX 780M SLI (1033/1500 @ 1.0500V)

 

I was wondering what's the max.oc.on. 2960xm cpu can it do 4.5ghz oc

Sent from my C6802 using Tapatalk

 

Sure, it should be able to. I was able to bench my 2920XM QS @ 4.8GHz. I gave some examples when I answered your question in this thread.

Nice! Disk caching made a big difference. Here's my new score using cache acceleration.

PassMark Results | Baseline Validation: PassMark Software - Display Baseline ID# 242044

 

Yep.thanks

.with the settings.in.bios.what overclock.are.there.with level 1-3-3 settings

Sent from my C6802 using Tapatalk

 

It will (or should be) obvious when you apply one of the predefined (OC LV 1, 2, 3) options. Just look at the bottom multiplier and that should be the maximum functional clock speed on 4 cores.

 

Though I have an alienware 3610qm but I can't over clock it.

Hence geting another one with 2960xm but it has gtx 580m Sli....

Sent from my C6802 using Tapatalk

 

Oh yes, certainly does. The two extra cores helps a lot, too.

This is dedicated to all of the people drinking the "Windows 8 is faster" Kool-Aid.

Physics Performance Comparison - Windows 7 versus Windows 8

 

brother fox i am really a bit scared to flash to unlocked bios can you please make a youtube video about how to flash unlocked bios in m18x r2? please

also found the techinferno thread about flash it but i find too complex ...whats the easiest way to bios flash unlocked bios? and whats the fpt tool? i cant get it anywhere

is your 4.9 ghz run stable while gaming? also which one runs cooleer 2920xm or 3920xm?

 

Everything you need is in the thread at Tech|Inferno. The firmware, fpt/prr tool downloads and instructions. Our friend svl7 did a fantastic job of explaining it. The first time you read through it seems like a lot, but when you follow the clearly explained steps it's really a piece of cake and only takes a couple of minutes. It is ridiculously simple to do, to the point that a video demonstration might cause someone to just dive in like a bull in a china cabinet and do things in a haphazard manner instead of following the instructions.

 

I managed to bios flash unlocked bios A03. I also tweaked around some settings to oc to 4.3 ghz. But it doesnt always stay on 4.3 ghz ??? how can i make it stay at 4.3 or 4.2 ghz all the time? Because when i run 3 dmark it stays at 2.0ghz max thats really disappointing and i did all the settings in bios and xtu and running in high performance mode

 

It's probably just a matter of not using the correct settings, overheating, or both.

First we need to know which motherboard (R1/R2?) and CPU (2920XM/2960XM/3920XM/3940XM?) are we talking about.

Also, what are the settings you are attempting to use for 4.3GHz?

 

My system

M18x -r2, 3920xm, 2x8gb G.Skill DDr3 1600 with 11-11-11+ 2x4gb DDr3 1333(Micron+Samsung) - Will it be a problem??

Running Win 7 HP SP1 64 bit

Settings on Unlocked A03 Bios

Level 3 Oc

Core Ratio Limit - 43/43/43/43
Flex VID - 25
Long Duration PWr Limit 99
Time Window 56
SHort Duration Pwr Limit - Enabled/99

Memory volts 1.55V - Speed 1867

Oc Feature - Enabled

Non Turbo Flex - Disabled

Extreme Edition Enabled
Flex VId - 25

Thermal Config

120C/75/55c/100/70c/90c/

tc 1 - 6
tc 2 - 9
tsp - 18

Power Menu - Advanced Chipset Control

Turbo Msr lock - Disabled

C-States - Disabled

Pri Plane - 1040

Using Arctic Mx 5 Paste (I know it sucks) will change paste later

I want to run 4.0 Ghz Stable at all cores all the never downclocked or anything and I really want this speed while gaming and benching please help

 

Try more Pri Plane and see if that does the trick.

 

Question: does it idle and run at 4.3GHz and drop clock speeds under load, or it never goes to 4.3GHz, ever?

Most of your settings are fine.

The mixed memory should not affect your CPU overclock, but I would ditch the 1333 modules immediately. That's going to choke your system pretty bad and negate the benefit of having an extra 8GB of available memory. Set your memory to "Auto" because manually setting it won't be of any benefit using the memory you currently have installed. The memory would need an SPD value to match the 1866 speed in order for that setting to be of any value.

No more pri plane should be needed. In fact, setting it to 0 (meaning "Auto") is more than enough for 4.3GHz. Setting is to zero is the same as manually setting it to 896. Having it set to 1040 will not cause the problem you are having right now. And, you would need 1040 for like a 4.5GHz OC.

Most of your settings are fine.

The flex is higher than it needs to be. I use 18 to 20 for 4.3GHz, 38 to 40 for 4.5GHz.

Set "Level 1-3 Overclocking" to Disabled, then change any values that get reset when you do that to the values you have right now.

Set TC 1, 2 and TSP to the highest values available. All of the sensors on the same screen should be set to "Disabled" while you are there.

Disable the Watchdog Timer and Bi-Directional PROCHOT# in the BIOS.

Install XTU and if you see a button for "Package Turbo Power Lock" change it to Disabled. If you don't see it, don't worry about it. If it is present and set to Enabled, when you change it to Disabled and reboot it will be gone.

Install ThrottleStop and set that up. Also, once you have it set up and working correctly, be sure to give props to unclewebb for making an awesome utility for us in the http://forum.notebookreview.com/har...arket-upgrades/531329-throttlestop-guide.html thread. Any feedback you can give him would be appreciated. You can download the latest from unclewebb's signature on any post in this thread.

<iframe width='853' height="480" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/xb2HPbk_O1I" frameborder='0' allowfullscreen=""></iframe>

 

Nothing to be proud of, but I broke P15k after close to 1 yr of owning this Alienware 18. Ambient temp is rather high, at 28C, so this is about as good as I can do. Well actually I believe there's some gas left in the CPU, but I have always been insistent of having 1 clock speed for every benchmark. This CPU setting will run Cinebench and wPrime 1024M without crashing. There's also a bit left in the tank for the GPU, but I am fairly sure I am close to tripping the onboard circuit breaker.

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-4930MX,Alienware unknown


Time to update my score on the leaderboard. Oh, I am using the latest 337.88 driver.

At 4.2GHz, I get about 9.1 something in Cinebench. And about 5.6s in wPrime 32M, 173s in wPrime 1024M. Max power observed in Cinebench is 90W, max temp observed 97C since it's a shorter benchmark. In wPrime 1024M I observed about 87-88W max power, and 99C max temp.




So there we have it. I have mentioned this some time ago. If you live in somewhere as hot as Texas, without A/C, with the Haswell CPU you are looking at maximally ~86W of sustained power dissipation. Unless I can get the CPU cooler, there's not much room to push. This is the Liquid Ultra which I applied since January, before people were really interested in it. The temp has worsened a few Celsius since fresh application, but that's to be expected. In a few months' time I will open it up and re-paste.

 

Nice! Updated leaderboard.

 

I would actually open it up right away and see if anything has dried out. The last thing you want is liquid ultra drying out on your die. The heatsink can be sanded to remove the dried out/oxidized crap, but I'm not sure if there's any good way to remove dried up stuff off the CPU die without physically damaging it. Desktop CPUs have a heat spreader to take the fall, but laptop CPUs bear the full brunt of it.

 

Brother fox thanks for your reply,

I tried every settings didnt install xtu and throttlestop though

also what are the max values for TC 1, 2 and TSP?

and in which menu i can find the Watchdog Timer and Bi-Directional PROCHOT# in the BIOS?

still

 

Hey I actually opened up my to check that out last Sunday. Things hadn't dried out a single bit! The metal looked exactly like I had left it 2-3 months ago. I lapped the Heat sinks a little since I didn't on my first application and wacked it back on without bothering to clean . Temps are as good as ever!

 

kh90123 is TBoneSan?!

The plot thickens...

 

...He has Liquid Ultra on his CPU. I have too. Mine was applied a lot earlier though.

 

I know I know, but in my original post my comments were directed towards you. But the way TBoneSan replied was almost as if my comments were directed at him instead. So I thought I'd throw in a little humor.

 

Ok all you 880m owners.. no excuses not seeing you flex some muscle now your unlocked vbios is available from the TI forums.

 

I wonder what the real difference is with this gpu besides the extra vram. Are they just more carefully selected and cherry picked silicon I wonder..

Serverna do you actually notice them running much hotter than 780m?

 

You could be right. I just ran a quick test on 3dmark11 and got a 11033 gpu score. the highest is 11527 at something like 1243/1650 or so.
I'll have to investigate a bit more seriously when i have time.

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-3940XM,Alienware M18xR2

 

Nice.. I had a feeling they'd be no difference there.

 

If you have a 780M that is performing well, 880M isn't a viable upgrade unless you are swimming in cash or just like to play. Neither of which are bad things.

Sent with love from my Galaxy S4

 

Thats a disappointment.. Looking to swap back to 780m... ? ..

 

it is not possible to overclock gtx880m as high as gtx780? Is it not enough power from the mmx port to the graphics card, because gtx880m has more ram?

 

so, no one have tested the AW18 with XM CPU and 880M's?

 

Nope. Hardly anyone seems to bench anything any more. When the M18xR2 came out with 3920XM/3940XM and 680M SLI it was at least a couple months before anyone showed up. Now most of them have disappeared. I guess most people just play games and don't know what their systems are actually capable of. It's sad, but that's the reality of the situation.

 

What can I say, Watch Dog is insanely addictive. I've spent 90% of my free time over the past 3 days doing nothing but playing the game.

 

I love playing games almost as much as I enjoy benching. So, I get that part. Both are addictive once you start going on it. I just don't get the idea that people spend big bucks to own the best they can afford and then never find out what it's capable to doing. Even if they don't get a lot of pleasure from benching, for no reason other than curiosity one would think they might want to know that. I'm not saying it's inherently wrong, just seems odd to me, that's all.

 

I think part of it has to do with how disappointing Haswell turned out and how hot it runs. You literally need Liquid Ultra to bench 4930MX, and not too many people are comfortable doing that.

 

True dat! I'm disappointed with the Alienware 18, too. But, I've still benched the crap out of it to find out how far I could go with it. It's nowhere near a match for the M18xR2, but it's better than any other new laptop except the P570WM. It sucks that it's 3rd best option and lags behind last generation's best, but it could be a lot worse... like a pile of crap MSI, Razer or Asus laptop, LOL.

 

I think that there are a great many users who don't bench for a number of reasons.

1. Lack of understanding on how to overclock CPU & GPU with the software to do so (Throttlestop, XTU, Afterburner, EVGA Precision etc)
2. Lack of understanding on BIOS settings for CPU overclocking
3. Fear of (or lack of knowledge on 'how to') changing stock BIOS/vBIOS to unlocked or modified version that are not officially supported by Dell
4. Fear of breaking something in the process of overclocking (eg toasting up a GPU) and having no warranty support (as most know, it's mainly safe as houses)
5. Fear or inability to open up their machine to repaste CPU & GPU - as mentioned, Haswell is a hot potato and needs some Liquid Ultra 'love' to allow maximum performance
6, Finally, lack of interest

I guess that there are plenty of people who own fast sports cars that don't take them to the race track - for some, just owning one is good enough. Just my thoughts on why there is a lack of benching of late.....

 

That's a pretty fair list there brother Steve. I was able to relate to many of them at one point or another.

7) Forgeting that Alienware's are designed to OC
8) Lacking a pair

 

Haha! - nice point for number 8 LOL. Everyone starts out by being a noob, right? - no one was born with inbuilt overclocking abilities (well, maybe Mr. Fox, who probably came out of the womb benching ) so we all have to start out somewhere and learn. For some, I guess for some, the fear is just too great and they turn their backs on even wanting to get into that scene.

 

Haha glad you liked the input Yeah that's exactly right though - we all have to start somewhere . Heck, I'm still a big goofy noob when it comes to a lot of things.

 

Wish some one could just show a 3Dmark11 test and show me a score around 17-18k which I would been very happy with:

 

Those points make good sense, but I was benching with a 2720QM and 2760QM, pushing those wimpy little quad CPUs to their limits long before I purchased my first XM CPU. Everyone has to start somewhere, and you don't need an unlocked CPU to have fun doing it... at least not until you start craving more. The benching bug took over in short order for me and with John's help it became a passion. I was also overclocking the 6970M/6990M CF setup long before I decided I needed an XM CPU to add to the excitement. The original engagement in benching was because I wanted to know what my machine could do, and how it compared to others, and I needed something (numbers) that I could wrap my brain around to validate it. It was not a passion for overclocking to start with... just curiosity and a need to know.

 

I know it's not the sexiest setup but if anyone is curious what the base config 860m sli and i7 4700 can do with a decent oc on the gpu's here is my result

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 860M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-4712MQ,Alienware 01W2J2

http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/8405984

+75 mhz core (990 boost clock) +500mhz on the ram (still hoping that's a safe oc no issue so far after 10 hours of stress testing)

 

Awesome job! Thanks for posting that, bud. Show us some more benches, too. +1 Rep

Also, welcome to our community. Glad to have you with us.

 

hi my m18 is completely disassembled do you adwise me to repaste the cpu and gpu whit liquid Thermal paste then i read in one thread where can i find it ? i have all three headsinks whit three pipes .
i have SPIRE SP7 Thermal conductivity 2,17w/m-k

 

You will find a slideshow here for Liquid Metal on Mr. Fox's post #47

 

hi thanks @t-bone it sims that the collaboratory liquid paste gives great results ,,,, i find here in a swiss shop the collaboratory ultra + cleaning set . i think i let the original and control the temps before repaste ...

 

waiting for kingston 2666mhz 8gb stick ram

 

Even if the sodimms could do it, you'll still need a golden chip with a strong enough IMC to pull it off

 

No one knows that yet since it hasn't been done yet.