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    i7-920XM vs. 940XM

    Discussion in 'Alienware M15x' started by usmc362, Jun 15, 2011.

  1. usmc362

    usmc362 Notebook Consultant

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    Is there a really big performance increase with the 940 vs the 920? The reason I'm asking is yesterday when the Dell tech support guy left I re-installed my 940 and I feel like such a jerk but when I put it in I looked on the right of the chip and the pins were seated properly but I failed to check the left side cause it looked ok. Well when I tightened everything down about 5 pins broke off and of course it's trashed. I called my friend and he said he could send me a 920ES for $225 or a 940 for $450. When I had my 940 in, I would get above average scores on different benchmarking programs at stock settings. As soon as I used ThrottleStop and I tried countless settings to find that sweet spot but no matter what settings I used, my benchmark scores were drastically lower. Does the 920 work better with T.S. than the 940? Thanks in advance for any responses.
     
  2. widezu69

    widezu69 Goodbye Alienware

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    They are essential the same chip. I have a 920XM and my benchmark scores are quicker than some 940XM ones. Throttlestop can manipulate both to a similar extent.
     
  3. The Revelator

    The Revelator Notebook Prophet

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    They work the same vis-a-vis Throttlestop. As a value proposition, it is hard to justify the higher price for a 940xm, much less double the price. However, for the extreme benchmarker, the 940xm offers the capacity to operate the CPU at 27x across the board, whereas the 920xm is limited to 26x, at least in the M15x. That difference is meaningless in most situations, but can be valuable to the user who seeks the absolute maximum performance levels. It all depends on your priorities, and how much they're worth to you.
     
  4. svl7

    svl7 T|I

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    Yeah, the 940xm is simply a slightly higher binned 920xm, if you're really lucky you can push a 920xm to 27x across all cores as well, but I've only heard of one 920xm which was capable of this so far... and all the 940xm can do it. But this only matter when benching.... :D
     
  5. DR650SE

    DR650SE The Whiskey Barracuda

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    Here is a 920XM that was pushed to 28x on all cores, and thats with the FSB at 143MHz :D

    [​IMG]
     
  6. svl7

    svl7 T|I

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    Wow, yeah... I was talking about your 920xm :D Didn't know you managed 28x as well... this remembers me that I didn't try 27x with my 920xm when I had dry ice around... will do this next time...

    But how did you manage to raise the BCLK without BSOD? Luck? Or are there some more tricks that I don't know about?
    SetFSB only brings me to BSOD-heaven with my 920xm.

    Anyway, absolutely fantastic work!!!
     
  7. DR650SE

    DR650SE The Whiskey Barracuda

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    Thanks, there is a trick, sorta, the M17x R2 allows your to raise the cpu voltage, but only by 75mV, and 150mV. Without dry ice though, the CPU would throttle, and you see during the wPrime run, it never went above 44*C
     
  8. svl7

    svl7 T|I

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    Ok, thanks a lot for the info, totally forgot about this. The M15x is missing this feature... would be a lot of fun for benching :D Hmm... the M17x bios got modded.... I still have a little bit of hope that this will happen to the M15x bios as well one day.
    With voltage comes heat... a lot of heat, but it would be great for pushing the system :D

    I looked for a hardmod for the voltage, but wasn't able to find any information so far, don't think it has been done on a mobile first-i7 so far, or I simply missed it.
     
  9. DR650SE

    DR650SE The Whiskey Barracuda

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    Yea, would be great for benching, maybe talk to Nando, I think he is the local PLL, pin mod expert
     
  10. svl7

    svl7 T|I

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    True, he might have some info, thanks!
     
  11. usmc362

    usmc362 Notebook Consultant

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    can you use SetFSB on an M15x? What is the PLL?
     
  12. svl7

    svl7 T|I

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    "Asus N61JQ"

    But I don't know whether there were different clock gens... anyway, good luck of you're gonna use it with a XM CPU :)