HyperX 1600 & 1866 DDR3 Support and the R3: Petition Needed?

I believe I read a m18? Being able to use it. I cant find much information beyond just needing a bios that supports such. I want to see about starting a request thread on Dells site to push that unto the other sandybridge systems that don't support it yet. After all supposedly these systems are "overclockable".

This is correct? Or there is another factor in supporting that ram speed? Like a certain version of the i7/i3 or a certain chipset?? I cant find the right term to seach on google to answer this precisely on my own.

 

I checked the m17/18/11 sandybridge chipsets and they are from the same generation with no distinction noted as far as I can tell in XMP or max mhz.

I also note, you DO NOT need an extreme edition processor. Again, the specs for the cpus were written before the new jdec.

Kingston HyperX 8GB 1866MHz PnP Memory Kit For Notebooks - Sandy Bridge Notebooks Get HyperX Treatment - Legit Reviews

 

Can someone give more information how this works? I know its not limited to just Extreme I7's. Its more that the standards weren't finalized when the write ups for the CPUs were made.

Is it all sandybridge chipsets? Just needing the motherboard manufacturer to add to the bios options?

Here is original thread if helps.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...dybridge-1866-memory-before-looking-fool.html

 

the 1866 Hyper X plug and play works fine for the Sandy B 2630 and up ...

 

All this info should be in a sticky or something as I seem to answer (or come across a thread) every day with almost this exact same question

D.

 

Where is this information taken about the 2630 being the minimal processor? What article? As it is your incorrect. Look at the article I posted above. They were using a Intel Core i5-2520M...


""
debaucher, then where are they? I have googled without a good response. Like in the above response. Great, but where is he getting his information??

 

Bump. Supposedly this is asked always, but I'm not seeing the threads. I also again want to point out. It is NOT limited to QM or Extreme processors.

Intel Core i5-2520M was used in this review.
Kingston HyperX 8GB 1866MHz PnP Memory Kit For Notebooks - The Test System - Legit Reviews

 

Kingston HyperX 8GB 1866MHz PnP Memory Kit For Notebooks - Sandy Bridge Notebooks Get HyperX Treatment - Legit Reviews

They were using a Intel Core i5-2520M

1. You do not need processors supposedly supporting this. The older processors listed only what Jedec listed at the time.

With this in mind, its sounds like the simply need to add these new values into the Bios for our Sandybridge systems.

2. Alienware are supposedly overclockable. Alienware, your not supporting the new Jedec, are you then in a sense, limiting what we can do to our systems? Especially an upgrade thats not affecting the cpu itself versus the memory.


Would a petition be of interest? Is a thread on Dells forums needed? An official petition site. Or???

 

1600Mhz/1866Mhz is used by alot of people here. It runs fine with either SB i7 in the M14x/M17x R3/M18x. dont know about the M11x R3.

Dont understand all the fuss about memory lately.

 

Don't just throw articles around. The 2630QM and up are guaranteed to work with 1866MHz HyperX RAM out of the box. We have tested All AW/Clevo/Sager and many business grade systems and never had a single glitch. The memory runs at 1600/1866MHz as advertised and can even be OC'ed if the BIOS supports it.

In fact, it worked even with core i3 in Dell Vostro we tested a few days ago

 

This has be cut from another thread from the Hardware section by Mod(s) and thrown in here to help confuse people like myself Just to clarify my answer to what question.

Sandybridge, JDEC and 1866 DDR3.

Not sure what your asking.

JEDEC is just a standard.

Registers on the desktop P67 using SNB report a maximum of 1333MHz for DDR3 but are able to use up to 2133MHz at this time. Although there might be a BIOS option for 2400MHz I don't know of anyone being able to use this.

Also would add that the same CPU which can use 2133 on a P67 board can only use 1333 max on a H67 board even though there are options in BIOS for up to 2400. So seems more than BIOS plays a role here.

 

Why would I not "throw" an article that directly contradicts your findings with a limited amount of systems? Your referencing bios. The Asus at least is addressing the bios with a non QM processor. Can you explain why? If not, we are back to square one. You even admit the i3 works.

Which all circles back to I have seen nothing stating that only certain sandybridge chipsets/processors are limited.

We need someone in the know to give us the full story. Why is it working? The article seems to imply all sandybridge can. Its just a matter of support as the JEDEC for these faster memories came out after the release. If the article is wrong, I need to see the technical information or the engineer who can tell why.

Why wont it work on this? http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m11x/578120-can-r3-use-hyperx-its-potential-like-m17.html

The only reason I can find without documentation showing otherwise is that Dell did not add support for the JEDEC with these speeds in the bios.

 

It only runs at 1333 on the R3, unless this new bios A03 thats rumored to be out soon changes it.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m11x/578120-can-r3-use-hyperx-its-potential-like-m17.html



With such in mind, I'm moving this out of general and into the M11 forums since we seem to be getting the short end of the staff.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...3-support-r3-petition-needed.html#post7808266

 

Lots of bad leads given and not enough information. All the information I can find do not point to any processor or chipset of the sandybridge being the limitation.

With this in mind supposedly all our brethren sizes can use the HyperX at the faster speeds. Yet, we cannot. If this is simply a bios issue with inserting JEDEC speeds. There is no reason why Dell cannot do this if we get enough people to ask.

Would this be enough of an issue for you all to support such a petition? Be it this thread? Dells forums? Or an official petition site?

 

Seems M11x R3 is the only one not supporting it.

It runs fine on the M14x/M17x R3/M18x.

 

Why do you now have at least three threads about this exact topic rather than just keeping everything in one place?

Also what is the big fuss anyways? The M11x is meant to be an ultra-portable that can game. Not a powerhouse that can be portable.

And the real world notices in RAM speed is negligible from what I understand. I'd think 1333 is plenty fast, especially considering we could be stuck with something like 900 if the M11x was like other ultra-portables.

A petition won't do anything. If tests show that it is a huge improvement then a BIOS release in the future may enable support for it, or it will be an R4 only thing. I would think though with the ULV processors in the M11x it really wouldn't be worth much.

Maybe someone with more knowledge could say something, but I've yet to read anything worth much on this topic.

 

I had HyperX 1866 RAM installed recently,was using BIOS A04 with no issues,until i updated it to A08,then it refuses to restart at all,sleep issues aplenty & black screen.Someone pointed out R3 is not able to support 1866 speeds currently & suggested i turn it down to 1600,which i did.& those problems indeed went away.Out of experimentation,i turn the memory frequency back to 1866 for testing,sure enough,all the previous issues came back.To summarise;

A04 + 1600/1866 = OK
A07/A08 + 1600 = OK
A07/A08 + 1866 = Nay

maybe mine is an isolated case,although i hope what i have encountered helps you guys.
(& thanks to Cavebear for pointing out to me the memory change)

 

A04 what size? 15? 17?

 

*First thread.
Finding what the deal was. Which still left more questions than answers without any good knowledgeable sources beyond what I found article wise.

*Second thread.
Discovering we are the only ones shafted.

*Third thread.
This.

I'm pissed at this state of affairs, and I cannot believe you are not either. I don't know. Maybe you have money to throw around (Macbook Pro)? So you can just upgrade to a R4 while there was NO REASON this couldn't be done on a R3?

_______________________________
Now.

1. Alienware are supposed to be modifiable and top tier. Are you attempting to excuse them not adding this simply because its smaller with a less powerful processor???
2. Realworld is different for each person. I can tell you with what I do (3D artwork) it WOULD be noticeable. In a game? Probably not as much unless it super memory intensive. (Below shows in fact in can be noticeable)

If you look at the benchmarks.

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1599/10/

They were stuck with the Intel 3000, so that especially would help them. However, even day to day tasks like for me, Zbrush would. For all of us. Those few games that can run on the Intel 3000 just at the edge of playable would become so. Thus saving battery life as instead of the Nvidia, you could choose the Intel instead.

Finally, I would argue since these run at the same wattage. You possibly could get more battery life with the same application running. Why? Because each call to the memory would finish sooner, so an process would complete quicker thus leaving more "time" left on a battery (which would really help with my rendering).

Now, what should we do to get this implemented? If dell falls through, contact a bios modder like "The Wiz" to see if this project would interest them?

 

No useful difference between 1600 and 1866. Have an M18x and use 1600. Zero need for 1866.

 

You mean M15x or M17x huh?

 

1. Yes they may be considered one of the tops for gaming systems, especially laptops, but once again the M11x was never meant to be a powerhouse. They never planned on people looking for maximum performance to buy it, but rather the people who wanted maximum portability with some gaming ability. If they thought otherwise then the M11x should also allow GPU upgrading like the larger systems among other things.

2. See below.

If you really want it done, and Dell doesn't add it, then that would be your only option.


Now then...

What I get from that article is that they upgraded from 6gb RAM (1gb x2 & 4gb x1), to 8gb (4gb x2). This means they were going from a smaller amount that probably wasn't running in dual-channel (screenshot says dual but I'm pretty sure it is actually running in flex) to a larger amount running in true dual. The extra 2gb by itself would be enough to make them notice a boost in tests.

Everything I have actually read has shown very little improvement, if any, by just switching to a faster ram speed. I want to see them test again, going from 8gb 1333 to 1866 in the same system. I bet it would hardly be noticeable.

My R3 gets better results than their tests with 6gigs, but less with the 8gigs. Big enough difference between my tests and theirs with 8gigs to make me think it is the processor playing things down rather than ram speed. If the M11x had real processors and not ULV ones, I'm pretty sure it would be much closer if not better.

THIS is a good read if you want to see some real tests. It compares 1333 to 2133, but that's even better as it shows a bigger gap and still hardly any gain. It's in German though so HERE is a thread that links to it and sums things up, as well as having someone else provide other tests. But the German stuff is still easy enough to figure out as the charts are in English.

Finding real, legitimately done tests on this topic that aren't done wrong or isn't just someone stating their opinions seems to be kind of limited. What we really need, and maybe we have some but I have not looked, is someone to take their M17xR3 or M18x and go from slower ram to faster ram of the same amount.

I do 3d art too, on my MBP though, but I feel upgrading ram amount would be more beneficial than ram speed. I'm perfectly happy with 8gigs but going up to 16gigs would net you a bigger gain for less cost then faster ram I'd bet. But I also bet that the ULV processors in the M11x's would end up being the bottleneck in the equation.


Here is a quote from another forum I liked...

Same is going to hold true for speed.

 

Dell just release another BIOS update for M14x which is the A04 version.

 

Even with your links small gains, they still persist.

Even more, I point to toms percentage increase.
Conclusion : LGA 1156 Memory Performance: What Speed DDR3 Should You Buy?

However, you missing the equation. The already faster ram allows for more overclocking than a 1333 would have. In short, it gives you more headroom.

Moreover from a sister article

Benchmark Results: Application Benchmarks : Core i7 Memory Scaling: From DDR3-800 to DDR3-1600

Both which the Kingston provides. The latency isnt any better than stock but the speed is. As it is, Im sure given more time, newer modules may even be able to have a faster JEDEC.

Since we are limited cpu wise. I rest my case. Is it a huge difference? No. Is it noticeable? Depends on the program and time needed to complete process. The point is it can be done, and there is no reason Alienware could not implement this in BIOS.

Afterall for us tweakers, since we are CPU bound, we have to eek out performance from any other method. As far as the excuse that its not as powerful as its brethren, and thus not worthy of adding this JEDEC into its bios. I call hogwash. If someone wanted such a system, there are plenty of much cheaper 14" systems that provide near same specs. People buy the Alienware because its a GAMING platform. That is ADVERTISED to at least be capable of some overclocking (even its only like 1 mhz).

If you feel the way you do, I don't understand why you wasted your money on this system versus getting like a better value Asus. Why not leave this thread for those who are after what should have been included? If people want to "waste" their money on faster ram with what you feel is negligible performance increase. Let them.

 

I agree, if you OC then faster speeds may be worth it because of the added headroom. But as it sits right now, the M11xR3 isn't really overclockable. It doesn't even mention overclocking on alienware.com except under tech specs for the i3, so they have not claimed any overclock ability with the i7. And OC abilities in the BIOS is extremely limited, nothing like my old M17x's were or the newer larger systems are probably.

I would be willing to bet a later BIOS will allow the faster speeds, and the R4 will support it from the start. But whether it could be used to its full potential would also require them to do something about the processors offered in the M11x. If they continue to offer only ULV ones or limit OC abilities, or not offer them at all, what real gain would it net? This is where I feel the weakest link will always be with the M11x because they figure if you want true power you're willing to buy bigger and give up battery time for performance.

As far as why I "wasted" my money on the M11x rather than an Asus is as simple as I would probably go insane if I had to deal with something that had the specs of other 11" systems. I didn't want anything larger since I have my 15" MBP and feel that's large enough. I also feel the build quality is second only to Apple and the backlight keyboard is a must.

I'm not trying to stop people from going with faster speeds by just speaking my mind, but the performance gain has basically been proven to be negligible except in very few applications. And I feel other "issues" would need to be addressed first so that the faster speeds could net slight performance gains for those that want it.

 

Hey I have the Ao3 BIOS on my R3 (it shipped with it) I do not think it comes with the update you were hoping. How can I double check?

 

Curiousity picqued now, if faster ram can provide more fps when gaming on the HD3000 then will quick sync for video encoding be speeded up since it uses the HD3000 as well?anyone know or care to test? What about when the 2920xm is overclocked does it also speed up quick sync?

 

I don't know who decided to combine these threads. But I wish you had not. They were separate. The thread in the M11x was correct as it deals with our unit specifically since the rest of the Alienware lineup does not have this issue.

Could you at least move this thread back into the m11x section with the petition title?

Katana: It should. Not much however. See the links to the benhcmarks Rockwell and I posted to earlier showing real world application difference.

DeeVu, the only way you could tell is if you owned some 1600 or 1866 ram to attempt to use in the system. If cpu-z showed it still running at 1333 speed. Then no, they did not address it. Unless Dell makes a detailed readme for changes in bios.

 

Yep, my answer to your post in the hardware section looks out of place here but then again as your question was cross posted by copying from here it didn't make much sense anyway.

Let me see if I understand right, your complaining you don't get to use the higher speed RAM as available in the higher end laptops only because it's not given as an option in the BIOS. If that's the case then fix it yourself or dig deeper in your pockets. For a long time the practice has been to give the higher end market more options while the mid/lower end don't get them even if they could use them. Just the way the world works.

 

Except alienware is a higher priced option laptop.

Even more funny if you read some of this. This option is on mid end options as well. Like the Asus with only the Intel graphics.

So thanks for your opinion, but I don't think you saw the entire picture before deciding to "group" these separate threads. Especially when the answer you gave me is incorrect. On modern CPU's the FSB is separate from the cpu core multiplier as we both know. The sandybridge can take the higher memory as standard. It just when they posted the original specs, the higher speed ram was not available. Please reference the article I linked earlier.

If you have a different article stating differently in that this is actually overclocking the FSB of the sandybridge chipset.* I would welcome it. NO ONE thus far has shown this. Just regurgitating information they got from others or their limited personal experience. Thats the reason for the thread in the hardware section to get more data from a larger group than just the alienware people on those original threads. Again though, I have not been given any data/proof to counter my theory. So after a few days of this, I began the thread in this section because no one has been able to disprove it.

*Even if it was/is. Thats supposed to be one of the selling points of the Alienware.

 

Was that post aimed at me? If so...

I didn't group these posts. A mod is required to move posts, I'm not a mod.

What did you consider incorrect?

There is no Front Side Bus on SNB. Maximum officially supported clocks for mobile 2nd Gen core...


To see your processor max official support check reg 0xE4 of Bus 0, Dev 0, Func 0.

Or an easier way is to use HWInfo32 under memory

As you can see the i5-2500k has a maximum support for 1333MHz even though I'm using 2133MHz. Technically it's not MHz but MT/s. Anything above 1333 can be considered overclock even if the module can run natively higher as it's operating above the system spec.


My opinion, if you didn't get it first time, is that you will find it very difficult to get support of 1866 even if your hardware supports it, not that I don't wish you luck in doing so.

 

Actually you are not understanding even though I just told you. Those specs were written up before the newer memory was on the market. Its all Intel had at the time.

If you want to consider that "overclocking" your welcome to it. But I do not in the same way sometimes chips and chipsets can take larger amounts of memory than their original specs listed as thats all they had at the time of writing.

If Asus can do it on a lower end notebook. While Alienware has done it for every system except this. There is NO reason why I should not persue it. Even if it comes to naught. If anything if it does come to naught, it will back up my reasons to not buy another Alienware again as the only reason I got this over a Sager was the size.

 

Hi friends... I have bought the hyperx plug and play 1600mhz for use with my m11xR3 but I think the system read them at 1600??? I understand you say this is not possible, but...
Please have someone try this memory in other m11xR3?? how can I test to see what is the real speed at what are the memory realy working? Any program?

 

Look under Memory and SPD

CPUID - System & hardware benchmark, monitoring, reporting