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

Ah, thanks.

And I even ran that benchmark, but could not place it this time.

 

I know you have, I've seen your videos. Amusing huh? I don't even own the game!

 

I need to reinstall that game. It got wiped out after a bios flash.

 

OK, now it's not throttling again, LOL... crazy. This is using a stock vBIOS. There has to be an answer to this. Probably something simple. System draw is going beyond 330W now with no problem and that is normally where it plummets. I had made a Windows drive image at a point where it was not throttling. I restored it here and now it's working good again. This really makes me wonder if it is a driver issue. If it was BIOS or vBIOS behavior causing it, not sure restoring this image should have made any difference.

 

lala you got to reinstall driver everyday on Alienware to stop throttle. I think it is related to driver as 347.09 version do stop core throttle but it still throttles memory clock and OCing messed up. We got to wait for next Nvidia driver release.

 

Whatever it is, I wonder if I shut down and cold boot if the throttling problem will be back again? Definitely strange, and odd that a vBIOS mod of any kind seems to make it worse. It definitely seems related to power consumption, but that could also be a driver bug.

 

During the 3DMark13 benchmark with Area 51 the middle card runs at 800-900Mhz core instead of 1.5Ghz

Not even enabling Power Management Mode "Max Perf" fixes it.

Current drivers for Maxwell are garbage. I'm currently using 344.80. Don't like 347.09 either.

 

It may be change registry values. Main problem is we cant install Win 7. And Win 8 takes control over system bios. Yes i think we got to wait for new driver release. Anyway they killed 18 series in cold blood.

 

Yep, and here is the reason why.
The graphics card amplifier.


Going to have to say that weighs more than a dual psu and connector box. And will not fit in a laptop bag.

 

EXP GDC Beast Laptop External Independent Video Card Dock - US$49.99

Gogo Alienware

 

That's what a desktop rig is for. Personal opinion only of course....

 

For sure.

I asked on Alienware Arena if they will bring back the M17x's dual video config and received: "SLI configurations are not in our future plans, we are aiming towards the Graphics Amplifier option. "

Gonna go cry in a corner and hope to god Pascal is MXM 3.0b

 

If it were to be changing registry values, hypothetically if we locate it that would do the trick.. no?
Anywhere think they are able to get their mitts on the official AW 980m 4gb vbios soon?

 

Well, no dice with SLI. Might be a hopeless endeavor... time will tell. I have one 980M working pretty well. Having to settle for using a machine with only one GPU is a massive disappointment, but it will have to do for now.

For those that are curious, these overclocked benchmarks drew between 315W and 340W with just one card.

Vantage: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-3920XM Processor Extreme Edition,Alienware M18xR2



3DMark11: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-3920XM Processor Extreme Edition,Alienware M18xR2



Fire Strike: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-3920XM Processor Extreme Edition,Alienware M18xR2



For reference, stock clocks...

 

Those benchmarks are wicked sick for a single 980m. The 3DMark 11 GPU score is about as high as I can get with my SLI 680m's on stock voltage.

I kind of feel like I may be backed into a corner now though. I have held on to my M18xR2 with the sole intention of upgrading it to 980m SLI. Upgrading to 780m SLI doesn't seem worth it considering the performance gap between 780m SLI and 980m SLI. If the R2 is not able to run 980m SLI properly, all things considered, I feel like I will have no choice but to sell it.

 

Yup, that's like being between a rock and a hard spot. I am right there with you. There is a chance it might get fixed... it's still early in the testing and tweaking phases, but I would not hold my breath if I were you. And, if it does get fixed, expect severe overclocking limitations with a single 330W AC adapter.

 

Could always keep it and use it for BIOS flashing if anything goes wrong... but if you need the money for a new machines, well..

 

Absolutely... I plan to keep my M18xR1 and M18xR2 for that very purpose, plus they are both still beasts. They can both still kick the teeth out of single 980M GPU laptops with 780M SLI. Worse case scenario, they should still keep pace with any single GPU machine through the next GPU release as well, and still outperform the latest and greatest new machines without the flagship GPU for a couple more years. It's hard to stop a moving train.

Factor in wimpy AC adapters being a limitation to overclocking on many newer machines and it might go longer than 2 years. A machine with a wicked GPU that cannot be overclocked is basically worthless. There is also some satisfaction to be had by beating "newer and better" crap with excellent old stuff. P570WM3 will be in that envious sort of position for a good while yet also, unless Clevo releases an X99 SLI machine. X99 with single GPU won't hold any interest for me.

 

Yeah. I love seeing people with 2600K CPUs and 980 GPUs and they're like "yeah I can run everything!" and I'm like "yeah, my laptop too" then they can't even beat a firestrike run XD.

That being said, I'm hoping that somehow there's a broadwell M line that's cooler and draws less power, if only at the level of ivy bridge. It'll be faster than haswell no matter how you look at it.

Also, I don't know if you know, but the P570WM is back on Clevo's website. I don't know if it's in production again, but the fact that it's there now along with the P6xxSx soldered stuff, the P7xxZM desktop mainstream CPU + unsoldered mobile GPU, and the PxxxSM-A series with its socketed mobile CPUs and GPus line, where before it was removed from Clevo's website entirely, means that it may be found for a while longer. So hope is not lost for you yet with one of those machines =D

 

That is the machine I have my eye on at the moment. I've been reading about it over in the Sager/Clevo forum pretty much all day.

 

I think maybe it was a Sager decision to stop carrying them and not a Clevo stopped making them scenario.

I am going to make a concerted effort to obtain one. It all depends on my cash flow. You can buy them brand new from Eurocom - Panther 5 is their special name for it. I really wish I had saved the $1550 I paid for 980M SLI, but I can get a barebones P570WM3 and put them in it, or get one with 780M SLI and put that back in my R2 and keep the 780M SLI in my R1 in the R1.

I have also kicked around the idea of a P377SM-A but have reservations that I will be dissatisfied with that machine's ability to handle heavily overclocked CPU cooling. I don't want anything that can't run a minimum CPU overclock of 4.5GHz with manageable temps. My M18xR1 (typing on it now) is idling at 45x4 with c-states disabled and is only 65°C. My R2 does the same thing without a problem. I don't want to gain on the GPU side and lose on the CPU side or I have accomplished nothing. I do not see any benchmarks from P377SM-A owners with impressive Extreme CPU overclocks in forums. Those on the Futuremark search page all appear to be running stock, and that has me a bit worried. I don't know if it is a reflection on the machine itself or merely an indication that P377SM-A owners are not CPU overclockers.

 

Looks like a super nice machine, but it will never do with only one 980M. I might as well downgrade my R2 to 680M SLI because that is still a little bit more powerful than one 980M.

The 4790K is a very good XM CPU substitute and a great alternative to a wimpy BGA turd, but it has to be SLI no matter what or I will not pay money for it.

3DMark11: Compare Mr. Fox's 680M SLI versus single 980M

Vantage: Compare Mr. Fox's 680M SLI versus single 980M

 

We can still get one new with 980M SLI from Eurocom (Panther 5). I'd actually like to get one used with 780M SLI to save money and swap those into the R2 and put the 980M SLI in the Clevo. The M18xR1 is running like a top with 780M SLI and I would like to keep it that way.

 

First run. Just at 4ghz CPU with TS off.
When it's not throttling I can see obscene fps in the benchmark.. its then kick down by some throttling.

Anyway, first run, just installed the cards..woohoo..no playing around yet

P15076 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-3920XM Processor Extreme Edition,Alienware M18xR2


Brother Fox.. what happened when you tried K-boost ? edit - same results

 

Just installed 347.09

P16470


http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/9251600

update http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/9251632 P16929

I didn't get any throttling - . Pretty good score for stock considering my physics was a crappy under 9K

If drivers can make that much of a difference ..surely a good set is all we need... could it be that all nvidia drivers thus far have not made any concessions for Alienware?

I think I'm going to try and mod some offical dell 980m drivers now they have released a machine.

 

Damm very nice little improvement just from changing GPU drivers. I sure can't wait for Nvidia to release a new proper GPU driver! :thumbsup:
Try out some gaming - your gonna love it haha

 

New benchmark

https://developer.nvidia.com/content/monster-hunter-online-benchmark

 

That's not an Alienware

 

I was going to say "Alienware wishes it was"...

But it's abundantly clear they don't.

Ohhh and nice score by the way! :thumbsup:

 

You guys might find this benchmark interesting:



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Yeah, that's an awesome score. Congrats.

I think I am done trying to get my M18xR2 to play nice with 980M SLI. I have already spent enough calories on that to burn a house down. It's working perfectly with a single 980M, but throttles really bad with SLI. I don't do the single GPU thing, so it doesn't matter to me that one 980M works flawlessly... don't care, has to be SLI or nothing. I am using my M18xR1 right now because I don't even want to look at the R2 with only one GPU working correctly in it. I'm not interested in using the 980M SLI in the Alienware 18 at this point. Too much hassle and I don't like using Windows 8 or pure UEFI.

I am going to focus my efforts on getting a P570WM instead. Alienware is no longer supporting performance enthusiasts with good hardware, so I am no longer supporting their brand. I just need to get the cash together to buy one.

 

Already posted this, but anyway, it'll crush laptops on the minimum framerate.

Alienware 18 with 880M SLI should score around 14-18k with the ranked mode.

Expect it to burn the CPU too .

 

Oops, my bad. I hope you understand I don't like skimming trough 160+ pages .

 

High CPU load from the 720P resolution, and so the 6 cores help.

Not sure why min fps is so much trouble.

 

I think because you have the X79 desktop chipset your primary GPU works at x16 instead of x8. They match with mobile chipset, both of which are x8.

 

That's why I don't waste my time overclocking my M18!

 

Try to disable sli and reenable sli and see if they go back to 16x. Mine do not drop to 8x so im guessing, neither should yours.

 

It can also take more than just re seating the card once. It can take as many as 20 times to take.

 

Did you try swapping them to see if the 8x follows the GPU or stays with the same slot? Could be a BIOS setting if it says with the same slot instead of following the GPU. Where the 880M cards the same way?

 

Looks good.

Edit:
I got 17k on cpu score for that test.

 

Any new.uodated drivers out by.nvidia for gtx 880m sli owners .

Which bump up the performance.

Also the new m18 kinda goes wonky in.benchmarks i think the fans turn on quite late temps escalate .

Is there a way to.increase fan speed of.cpu via software .

Same for.gpu .

If i choose.to get a laptop cooler does it effect the cooling .

Sent from my LG-F340L

 

Call of Duty AW
980m SLI OCclock Core 1407 Mhz, Mem. 2907Mhz. Resolution 2560x1080

 

Looking good Brother Peter!

Looks like SLI is not really invoked. Or is it?
And is that 2560x1440P or 1920x1080P?

 

Thanks John!!
Yeah it's, gettin lower frames. I think it's related to game, as BF4 works fine. i got LG 29UM65 2560x1080p.

 

Ah, ok. that makes sense then.

 

This is where I am right now with a Firestrke benchmark and small OC



NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-3920XM Processor Extreme Edition,Alienware M18xR2

 

Nice run.

Is your display scaling turned way up? It doesn't seem like many things can fit into your screen space.

 

13.4k stock for me in 3dm11 with 347,25

the 880ms are throttling on several tests and only hit 993 on the last test. as low as 600mhz on the first subtest. very interesting and confirmed my suspicions that 13.4k is low for 880m sli.

14,270P in 3dm11 with modded 880m bios by johnksss

 

Indeed. I've made similar observations. The first test is absolutely rife with consistent down clocking, almost to the point where it generally runs at 700mhz on core clock.

If you don't mind my asking. What are you scoring on the Heaven benchmark--and do you notice similar dips in core clocks--with everything running at extreme settings under 8xAA?


This is why I firmly believe that the fight for getting the 880m fixed should not be a fight to abandon, but rather, one to co-opt into the current protests regarding what nVidia is doing to the mobile Maxwell GPUs.

 

I'll run heaven now

1600x900 (extreme preset) with 1080p alienware 18 display

score was around 1800+

gpus never throttled, and they ran at 993mhz/1400mhz

___________________________________________________

SCORE
P14495 with NVIDIA GeForce GTX 880M(2x) and Intel Core i7-4910MQ

gtx 880m @ 993/1400

http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/9332968

progress so far...