Radeon R9-M295X

That comes out to be 33.3....% (the equation you had before you edited your post).

 

How does Alienware manage to limit a 980M with 180W whilst Clevo does not?

Ah well good, that's more like it should be.

Sent from my Nexus 5

 

Yeah in a perfect world.

Both M290X and M295X have both 160GB/s bandwidth. That is one part of the equation
M295X could be a tiny bit thermally and/or power restricted. Take a look at GTX 880M and how it used to throttle even with beefy machines with the best cooling.
Both M295X and 880M are stretching whats possible inside a notebook.

125W of heat. Its a lot. Which is why I imagine Clevo, MSI and Asus only use 900M series. I bet Alienware got the M295X chips at a bargain price from AMD.

 

20- 25% for an underclocked m295x over the m290x.
Just had to point that out. Should be closer to 30% for a full clock m295x with full bandwidth.

 

Yeah comparing scores from MQ systems which definitely have bigger PSUs and most likely better cooled. How very convenient! Well done Cloud (of course it's sarcasm). Game7a1 is the only one around trying to compare apples to apples!

 

Hey, let's not go that far. I don't even know the formula for comparing GPU performance. I also don't know which benchmarks are overclocked or not (unless I know the clocks off the top of my head). I'm just making an educated guess, but even then, the m295x pales in comparison to the 970m.
It's good that Cloudfire made the benchmark comparison. We just need more information, that's all.

 

Owner uploaded an HWInfo log durng a bench. When I examined the log for its temps, something was wrong.
155 C for the GPU and 180 C for the GPU. Something's not right with that. He did have HWinfo using F instead of C, so if the numbers were right but the unit is wrong, then the temps could well be 68 C and 82 C for the GPU and CPU respectively.
I think this may be an HWinfo log error, but I'm not sure.

 

Seriously. Why are you guys finding excuses for everything?

First it was iMac and its bad cooling.
Then it was AW15 and its tiny 180W PSU
Now it is "underclocked" M295X. That can be applied to pretty much any GPU out there. What is underclocked and what isnt underclocked? What is "full bandwidth"? Do you guarantee that the VRAM chips can do more than 1250MHz? Can you guarantee that the silicon can take more than 750MHz, say 900MHz with 2048 shaders? Can a 180W PSU handle that? Can the notebook run without going in full jet engine mode all the time?

 

Given that the AW15's m295x has lower clocks and bandwidth compared to the iMac's and MXM'x m295x, the underclocked comment is true. We don't have a "normal" m295x we are gathering data off of (normal in the sense of the standard).
Asking questions upon questions to solidify claims doesn't really work.

 

Apple M295X is running at 850MHz. MXM specs listed in the reseller site are 800MHz. Dell M295X is 750MHz.

Maybe, just maybe, each OEM is using a clock based on what their machines is capable of handling
Apple is really pushing it though, high 90s with 850MHz.

 

I'll be honest, I thought the stock was 850 MHz.
But great, now we have 3 "different" m295x's.

 

Not the first time Apple has factory overclocked their GPU. GT 650M in the first rMBP was the same thing.

 

Nvidia cards is worse with a gazillion different specced GT chips.

The temps with Skydive was fine with M295x btw. Have him do some more demanding benchmark than that one, then we will know more. Unigine Valley for example. Or Firestrike Extreme or something like that. Or gaming, that would be the best

They played it pretty safe with 680MX though. 719MHz. Pretty low compared to 780M/880M

 

The Apple 650M was overclocked pretty significantly. +100-150 MHz on core and +250 MHz (1 GHz effective) on GDDR5 compared to most 650M and actually faster than some GTX 660M. But mobile GK107 runs very cool and they had just significantly improved the MacBook Pro's cooling with the Retina model, plus they needed the extra memory bandwidth for Retina resolution, so I guess it made sense. Apple always tailors their GPU clock speeds, I don't believe they have ever used standard off-the-shelf specs.

 

For starters I always wanted 980m and M295X to be compared in the same machine. Actually I wanted MXM machine, but that's unlikely as it seems.

Let's level, shall we:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/official-alienware-15-benchmark-thread.770319/

To save you the hassle:
3D11:
http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/9367470
Firestrike:
http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/5725758

That's the first runs in the topic. Not to mention there are worse than that. How are your calculations now?

 

2622 GS points more than oc'7970m in 3dmark11 P
2538 GS points more than oc'7970m in FS
When i read about m295x now and i see the benchmark results i think like: why they even "launch" it.
I see this as a comparison between 780m vs 880m(i mean m290x[8970m<7970m>] vs m295x).

Is that drivers, and not anything else affect the different final results of the Physics Score?
Test from 31.05.2014 i get 8750 PS
Test from 09.01.2015 i get 7807
Maybe it's time to go back to Catalyst 13.9...

 

Its not about finding excuses mate.

iMac has a crappy cooling - when i compare its cooling to my M6600 or M6800, or M17 R1 or any Clevo with MXM gpu - you see how poorly they handled its cooling.

180W was proven to be barely enough, machine even has to syphon power from battery to keep up with power demands, heck even Alianware reps confirmed that they are working on BIOS which would utilise this technology better - which explains the fact that run with gimped (low clocked) m295x in their line-up and since its a 125W TDP card that under-clock didnt change anything.

Reason I'm interested in its scores with 240W PSU is due to fact that I wish to see how it performs in system with decent cooling and when it has comparable clocks to iMac edition when its getting enough power (and cooling). And being a 125W tdp card combined with 40ish TDP CPU and screen, drives and rest of the system components you can see that 180W is simply not enough. Its just basic math.

It is a fact that m295x is inferior product to 970m i have no delusions about that. But building inadequate cooling around very hot chip such as in iMac or not delivering enough power as we have in AW15 is just sad Alienware system design decision.

I can understand iMac logic - "Its a feature, so that during winter times you can heat your room"

But seeing what Alienwares used to be and where are they now - its just sad. Its just sad. Quite a few people have proven that new AW's run louder, hotter and their build quality has degraded. There is especially interesting review from a forum user who compares m17 r1 and r2 which confirms everything I wrote. I'm sad, really sad where AW has gone.

And with their marketing video where they emphasize how thinner it now is - guess what, competition is thinner. They could just look in house into M6600/M6700 and modify chasis to get flashy AW design with MXM and Socketed CPU in thiner-than-previous-aw chassis. I didnt mention M6800 as it has worse cooling that its predecessors.

 

Comparing my new AW17 R2 to the AW17 Ranger, here's how they compare:

Build Quality
No contest - the R2 is mostly plastic, the screen hinge is very plasticky and the lid is "wobbly". Pressing down on the back of the display produces flex. Build quality has gone way down.

Noise
The R2 is actually quieter than the Ranger with the M290X. I have no other AW machines to compare it to. But compared to my ROG G75VX and the G751JT, it runs much louder.

Heat
The internal components of the AW17 are kept very, very cool. Surprisingly so. Stress testing the CPU using XTU resulted in a max temp of 70C. However, the chassis suffers. The keyboard gets warm/hot after 10 minutes of gaming. The area above the keyboard gets very hot too. The Ranger didn't have this problem.

I just posted a quick review of the AW17 R2 in the Alienware forums

http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/alienware-17-r2-quick-review.771355/

It isn't a bad machine, but not really any better than anything out there, and certainly worse than the previous generation of AW laptops.

 

Its nice that CPU is cool but having hot palm rest and keyboard while gaming is a big no-no for high end premium gaming machine. Although its not premium any more.

 

Ooh didn't realise the quality had gone down so much.. I would never buy a laptop ever again which has a hot palm rest and keyboard while gaming.. I still remember those horrible experiences with my Hp laptop when I was a newbie to laptop gaming.. Well didn't know the great Alienware had fallen so far..

 

The palm rest remains cool, it's just the keyboard that gets warm/hot.

 

It gets warm/hot now during winter time, but when summer comes it will just get hot

 

The new AW15 BIOS just released and it should improve the permanence of the laptop. I've asked the AMD owner to update, and most likely, he'll redo the benchmarks.
Now we get to see what the m295x is really like*.
*Uhh... 95% like? 99%?

 

I have the GTX 970M, so that BIOS update likely won't do much for me.

Interested to see how those with the m295x fare though.

 

Actually, it might. One user who tested the beta BIOS with the 970m reported improvements in benchmarks.
Give it a try. Shouldn't hurt any chances of returning it, if you are that is.

 

Official BIOS updates are pretty safe I'm assuming.

 

Yes indeed.. With Alienware at least, it's straightforward... You down the BIOS update exe, make sure your battery is plugged in along with your AC Adapter.. Close all your programs, run the exe and the BIOS gets updated...

 

Had a response from zentrica. Should be able to get my hands on a loan card soon

Zentrica however only does B2B sales so somehow we would have to buy the cards by the batch via NBR as a community if we want to buy from them in the future.

They are selling these cards to systems builders so it is likely we will start to see laptops shipping soon with an mxm m295x inside.

 

Wow that's good to hear! Looking forward to some benchmarks soon.. My only worry is that your M15xx might not be able to handle the 125W cooling requirements. and hence the temps you get would be excessive in comparison to a M17x R4/AW17 with much better cooling systems... However, I'm not going to judge.. let's wait and see..

 

Great news! I think a lot of people in this community are awaiting your review before deciding whether to pull the trigger on the M295X. No pressure.

What if I told you, his M15x is water cooled?

Seriously though, did you not see the 4.25 GHz 920XM he has in his sig?

 

Congrats, King! If there is a machine around that can cool 125W GPU, it's his. At least those are my observations, I hope you wont prove me wrong The batch order is not good tough, I don't know when I'll have the money, that's first. Second - how the orders would be proceed? One of us collects all the money, buys them, and then re-sends them? Sounds like quite the hassle.

 

Well they sold out their first batch. Next batch due in 6 weeks due to Chinese New Year delays!

I haven't got water cooling sorted yet the m15x will struggle with the card especially at any kind of over volt. Still in planning stages. Iam moving back to Europe from Japan this summer with family also for new job so VERY busy but I do my best for you guys...

 

I was looking into possibly purchasing one of these R9-295x cards myself. One of the original GPUs (Radeon 4000 series, I forget the exact number atm) in my Alienware M17x R2 just went bad on me last Saturday afternoon, and now I either need to scrounge up some kind of replacement for it, or buy an entirely new laptop. The graphics corruption is so bad it's even affecting the display of simple windows on my desktop, rendering them completely unviewable.

I had found Zentrica, and they did look B2B to me so I was thinking they might not work. Does anyone happen to know what their minimum order on these cards is? When I tried placing one in my shopping cart it went in as a quantity of one, but when I tried placing the 7000 series card in my cart, that one defaulted to a minimum quantity of 10.

Beyond that I had found somewhere in China selling used 7000 series cards.

The other option is trying to figure out which GPU went bad and pulling it. But if one of them went bad, I can't say that I really expect the other one to last much longer. (My laptop is about 2 weeks shy of 5 years old.) I also saw the benchmarks on the two GPUs combined and they had a comparative rating to my 6-7 year old desktop card together, so I wouldn't expect to be able to run much in the way of games with only one 4000 series GPU.

 

Wait on the 295 since AMD supposedly might release a refresh for 2015 if GF doesn't screw up their timeline. If you must have 295. I would consider 970m instead.

 

It would be interesting if AMD released a refreshed mobile gpu with HBM and lower TDP.
HBM addition to M2955X could conceivably accomplish that... though I'd personally prefer the new architecture as well.

 

Well if the leaked Carrizo slides here are anything to go by, it seems AMD has made some progress in efficient at least in CPU architecture. I'd like to see a totally new GCN 2.0 or something rather than a revision of 1.0, possibly on Samsung 14nm finFET!??!?!?!?

 

I have been told by Zentrica that they can only loan the card out to someone living in the UK.

I have now passed on the joys of testing this card to fatboyslimerr due to this annoying fact. Good thing is they don't seem to mind who tests it. Hopefully he can get the card in a month or so

 

I'll order in some dry ice to enable the card to run at stock. Fun times ahead. I'll research how to take a gpu-z screenshot....joke

 

Yeah, I find zero reasons to buy M295X over 970M

 

*Looking at the clock block thread* Yeah, right.

 

So they backtrack some and then we are supposed to be all lovey dovey towards nvidia? I don't think so. They will never get my money.

 

They just backtracked on the backtrack and disabled OC via vBIOS. Now drivers won't even save you!

 

Why am I not surprised. Once fooled. Twice a fool. I won't eat the faeces they are shovelling.

So I guess you will be backtracking on your previous post concerning there being no reasons to get m295x OCing might be one them them. It is fun and isn't really possible with nvidia any more.

Locking down their hardware gives the red team a better chance to catch up if they care.

 

Which previous post? Don't you mean Cloudfire's?

 

Whoops! Haha

 

So you would want to deal with a 150W M295X to match a 75W GTX 970M?
I mean loyality to a brand can only go so far in my eyes. Disabling overclocking is one thing and I do not support it. They said they were gonna revert the overclocking on drivers, the vbios thingy is still not confirmed going for all brands but could be brand specific. But supporting a company that continue to use an architecture that was announced in 2011?

But every man for himself. If you want to deal with a hot and loud notebook because you want to support AMD, you have every right to. Likewise, other people can deal with disabled overclocking from Nvidia (if it comes to that) that seems to not care about their customers that want to overclock. Both are doing something wrong anyway, so I can see both sides here

 

Kepler was also released at that time. 780m and 880m was also released at that time. M295x was released before maxwell.

Yes it is high time we get a new architecture I agree with you there. Amd are behind. I hope they release something soon. M295x is simply a stop gap and a 780m/880m competitor.

 

That Clevo and MSI which usually use AMD GPUs in their machines don`t include M295x in their machines, might hopefully be because they are waiting on M300 series. I really really hope AMD got something up their sleeves. You can`t find M295X on ebay either.
Building M295X didnt involve any additional cost to AMD anyway, since Tonga is being made for desktops too.

R9 370x/380x/390x that is right around the corner hopefully should shed some light on the possibility of a mobile card based on 300 series. If they reuse/rebrand 200X cards, well there is our answer that M295X might be what they have for mobile. If a more efficient 370X/380X arrives, M3xx could absolutely happen

 

370X is 280X, 380X is 290X and 390X is the only new silicon in 300 series. This was announced (possibly unofficially) awhile ago. Bit of a let down if I'm honest. Also read 390X is a 300W watercooled card!!!

 

Not confirmed yet, just rumors. But we will see