*Official* Alienware M18xR1/R2 CPU Overclocking Thread - Learn How and Share Tips Here

Memory chips are under the heatpipe on both, that is a good thing, helps take away they heat.

And you mean how the heatpipes are not touching? That gap is irrelevant....all that matters is the temperature gradient from the heat source (chip) to the heat exchanger (fins). As long as there is a sufficient delta good efficient cooling will take place. The grouping of the heatpipes between those 2 points is not too relevant as their surface area is largely irrelevant in the way they work at transferring heat.

 

That's fine as long as your memory or shaders are not constantly in 90-100C range. In my case, they were hitting 95C, so I switched to paste instead and lowered 10-15C across the board. The pipes above the memory chips made it more difficult to apply paste there (on the primary GPU).

 

If I get bored I may try paste in place of pads on the memory.....but that would have to be really bored given the difficulty in taking apart the laptop

 

Yeah, totally agree, not something you'd enjoy doing on a daily basis. But since I have a dual piped HS coming next Tuesday along with a carbon fiber vinyl wrap for the palmrest, I may repaste it again, this time with ICD-24.

 

quick question...so who is the king of mobile cpus right now?

 

2920XM most likely

 

ok thanks.

 

Vzachari, I would really be suprised if there was a major change to the cooling system on R1.

Good to know Scook!

 

I would really be surprised as well...but pleasantly so

 

does anyone have a link to the 2920xm running wprime 1.55?

 

I can do the run, just let me know what would you like to see on a screenie.



On a side note, -

Can someone run Wprime 32MB (8threads) at level 1 OC' and post their scores (no tweaking, just a normal run please)? I'd like to compare the results and see if my ES is the same level of performance.
I just ran it a couple of times and got 8.9sec. Doesn't look too impressive to me.

 

just use 8 threads and a screener of cpuz & wprime 1.55 32meg and 1024m.
thanks.

 

I know wrong thread but does anyone know of any overclocking features in the 2720 that is safe and reliable. No one seems to talk of OC features and I think the bios has some FSB options to play with. Any insight from the gurus?

 

Done. This is with the ES and OC' Level 1 (Turbo @ 4GHz)

 

what ever a level one over clock is... im a 2920xm noob at the moment.

any chance of getting close to this?
Hardware news, Overclocking Competitions, Reviews

 

Dunno, I don't have time for benching. Of the bat I could bring the CPU to 4.5GHz across the board but it would probably throttle during the 1024 run. Should still be ok for the 32MB. I'm working on a custom heatsink that may let us keep the clocks long enough to finish the benchies.

At this point, I'm not even using a cooler pad, no elevation and the room temp is 27C. Level 1 is 3.4GHz - 4 Cores and single core turbo to 4GHz.

 

ok, thanks aikimox. wanted to be sure it's "across the board" on cores and not just one core

 

Here you go, 3.6GHz across the board (at least that's what it showed in CPU-Z during the run):

 

Here's a 3.7GHz (turbo still on):

Dammit, told ya I'm not a bencher...

 

yeah, but the 3.7 is on 4 cores right?

 

100% 10 char

Keep in mind that I haven't done any tweaking at all, zero.

 

To monitor each core's activity use ThrottleStop, it will tell you exactly what's going on during the run

 

hummm...i was thinking sandy would out do the 920xm in pure cpu benching....looks like that is not the case or maybe im missing something.

 

It was showing the same 3.7ghz during the entire run both in CPU-Z and HWinfo64.

 

The CPU is not a proper 2920xm, so wait with conclusions. Let's wait till someone with an OEM CPU joins the race. I'm very curious to see if there's a difference.

 

this cpu has been out for a while. i remember even dr650 was asking to see some wprime runs. since this is all cpu. it shouldn't matter about you using an es. it's still slated to be faster than a 920xm if you can run all 8 threads at the core speed selected.
that speed is great for not using any other cooling. i had to use the portable ac to get that run done.

 

I just made another run with TS and it showed the same speed (the entire run).

 

Here's a wPrime run at the speeds in my sig, then one with a retarded overclock. (104.20 blck 45/45/45/45)

 

ahhh, now that's more like it!. thanks nicholaus.rossi. now that makes much more sense.

 

Awesome! Do you change the OC settings within the Level 1-3 or keep those disabled and set manually?

 

I do it manually.

 

thanks, will be back in a sec


Something is fishy here, no matter what multipliers I set in the BIOS the actual frequency doesn't rise above 3.7GHz...


Edit: It rises higher only on turbo.


Edit2: Unless I'm a total noob the 2.4GHz ES CPU is limited @3.7GHz with up to 4.2Ghz turbo. Still, not bad for 300$.

 

Not bad at all. Mine throttles back to 3.7 and sits there as well for the most part. I'm looking forward to that quad pipe cooler. The only reason i got ridiculous scores at 4.7 was because I put the laptop in a deep freezer. The temps are out of control at that speed.

 

In everything else (Cinebench, Passmark, Futuremark) the 2920xm beats down even an OC'd 920/940xm, but for some reason with Wprime it has problems.

 

Nah, it wins there as well. 2920 is doing under 6 seconds while the 920 is around 6.2 seconds. Wanted to be sure though.

 

I've been sifting through my results for Cinebench R10 (single and multi) and the 2920xm did 6344 Single and 23346 multi. This is level 3, Bclk = 103 and everyday use (not extreme, non-realistic day to day use). Bclk @ stock = 6144.

3Dmark06 CPU = 6944 for the 2920xm @ level 3 / Bclk = 103.

Best 920xm score was on one of the 920xm OEM's that could hold a 29-30 multiplier @ 30/90 and it is ~5110 single. Non-OC (No TS), it was ~4343.

I had so much single threaded results because World of Warcraft is primarily single threaded (in case anyone was wondering).

If you could, run 920xm/940xm 3Dmark06 CPU and Cinebench R10 CPU (Single and multi).

Here are some results I've collected over the last year or so (The M18x results are from a single 6970 running Dell's drivers on a fresh/clean install):

 

I have a problem i did the overclock to setting 3, but when i try to render a video to 1080 it only turbo boosts to 3.5, i havent been able to hit anything above 3.5

 

Is it worth saving money on CPU and then overclocking it and if so, which is best buy price/performance wise? i7 2620, 2720 or any other?

 

i get mine to stay stable at 3.82ghz on quadcore tests. i think the best way to do it, is to first raise the bus clock frequency to 105 mhz, then you dont have to set the multipliers as high to get the same overclock. for example:
100 x 36 = 3.6ghz
105 x 36 = 3.78ghz

i find i have alot better temps and stability doing it that way, then just simply turning the multipliers up. dont know if its correct way to do it but works for me.

 

Turbo boost is dependant on temps + cooling. If the cpu is too hot, it won't turbo or turbo as high.

Only the 2920 can be overclocked. The 2720 is the most cost effective cpu. A 2820 is a 100mhz slower than a 2920 across the board but lacks the overclocking feature.

It's best not to touch the bclock too much as it can cause problems. Generally speaking you can push it about 4-5% without breaking anything, so as long as you're stable, it's a good oc in my books.

 

I'm saving up for a i7 2920xm and 6990 CF... Sounds good.

 

Hi guys... I'm sorry if I ask this but I really don't know what to buy... I'll get a M18x and I don't know if the 2920xm is a good choice... I guess in gaming the 2720qm would be enough, but I do real serious renderings... I usually use keyshot 2 pro and vray with 3ds max. I know the cpu makes the renders... but is it a real difference between the 2720qm and a oc 2920xm (@4ghz)? Is it a good investment those 975 usd? By the way... I know it's offtopic but I'm really concerned... does a 6990m crossfirex can handle programs like maya or 3ds max? I use an ati radeon hd3200 (notebook) and a turion x2 @ 2.0 ghz and the only problem is with heavy files (over 40mb)... I don't know if I must get the 6990m's or the 460m sli (I've been reading the cuda supports better the 3d programs)... the 580m sli discarded... I'm not crazy to pay 1200 usd (but crazy enough to pay 975 usd for the 2920xm for my work). I won't buy a desktop... I only come home to sleep about 4-5 hours per day, so I need power with me, not on my desk... Thanks in advice for your replies

 

To be honest, if you have to spend the cash better I would go 2820, 6990s (in CF) and invest in a good SSD, for what you are going to be doing I think you will see the best of both worlds by getting yourself an awesome SSD and a great CPU, at the end of the day the 2920 will cut the rendering times but not going to wow you, also I would seriously consider going at least 16GB RAM or 32 even

The 6990 will handle that and not even break a sweat

So in other words, go SSD and RAM save the cash on the XM, in my humble opinion XM is great for benchmarking and milking the extra performance out of an already damn fast CPU... and all this coming from a guy who bought the XM

 

So how are people hitting 4.0? How do I cool my system more?

 

You would be one of the few people that would actually use a 2920xm to its full potential. I use Autodesk's Inventor, AutoCad and Catia with zero problems. Though you will lose out of certain features only available to the firepro 8900 and quadro 3000m/4000m offered in the Precision m6600. If you have the money and take your CAD work seriously, I would invest in the 2920xm. At the very least buy an ES off ebay for ~$350. I make pretty complex 18"x18"x18" Robots using Inventor and I have absolutely no problems.

I'm going to contact dell and see if I can see the price of a firepro 8900 and if it is compatible with the m18x. If the firepro is cheap enough, there is no reason to not to get an m18x over a Precision m6600 or Elitebook unless you can't swap out cards yourself.

 

The easiest thing to do is prop the rear of the laptop up with a book, just make sure not to block the vents by putting it too far under the base.

Other than a proper notebook cooler, hold your m18x over an air con vent set to the lowest it can go.

Mine can turbo up to 4.5ghz but it drops down to about 3.7-9 after a while depending on room temps. (8 thread load)

 

Yes, I tought the same. The difference between 2720qm and 2820qm is .1 ghz and the cache... and 200 bucks... do you really think those 2 mb cache make any difference in rendering time? and I'm thinking to get the crucial m300 6gb/s 256gb, and 16gb ram hyperx 1600mhz... is that enough?

 

If you don't go for the 2920XM, pick the 2630 or 2720QM. There will be virtually no difference between the 2720QM and 2820QM to justify the 200$.

Crucial is a good choice, either the M300 or M4. 16GB RAM is more than enough for most tasks.

 

I put it on my central cooling vent and still not hitting more than 3.5

 

Change the OC' settings in BIOS to 36+ for all core ratios