The truth about 240w vs 330w adapter

Hello guys, I hope this helps somebody on their doubt as if you need to switch to a 330w adapter.

My laptop is:
Alienware M17x R4
i7 3820QM 4.1ghz Overclock level1
GTX 1070 MXM 8gb
32gb RAM Corsair Vengeance 1600mhz CL10
1tb SSD Samsung 860 Evo
17.3" 120hz 1080p Display
240w 330w adapter

http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/alienware-m17x-r4-gtx1070-mxm-successful-upgrade.825475/

I had a massive doubt about if this system needed more power than the 240w adapter it came with as the 1070 was pulling around 125w - 143w regularly under hard gaming and seeing my combined test on Firestrike and in some places on games didn't make my cpu load 99% I thought I was power starving.

the 330w adapter is here!!!!!! I tried both, the 240w and 330w, ran 3 firestrike test and also Battlefield 1 gaming performance Annnnnnnd… scores on 3Dmark didn't change a thing what so ever. I was pretty disappointed I purchased the adapter for nothing, money to the waste.


But then I tried them both during gaming and the performance did change. take a look at the video I made for you guys to see real world performance difference running the same intro video with both the 240w and 330w adapter. Remember Alienware includes a Hybrid power BIOS on their laptop that have the GTX 1070 with the 240w adapter so this makes up for those extra watts needed sometimes. I am so glad I found this improvement and I thank you guys for the input, so well this answers the question about power starving and how Firestrike doesn't really stress the system enough in its combined test. If you have a similar system and are running the 240w adapter chances are you are not getting 100% out of your system (and this is without the 3940mx which is on the way and has a higher TDP).

Watch the video and focus on the CPU power consumption and how it relates to the core speed when it goes down and also monitor the fps.
Hope this helps the community and is of value to some. Cheers guys!

 

I'm not sure where you got the idea that you needed the 330W adapter for that configuration. A 1070 at 145W + 45W CPU + 15-20W for the rest of the system gives you a total draw of about 210W, which is still in the efficient range of 87.5% load. Only thing using a 330W adapter would do would drop your load down to 63.4% which is still in the efficiency range and is less taxing for the PSU to supply, it will be less hot.

 

Did you watch the video to see the fps comparison at certain times? I'd suspect throttling mechanisms in system BIOS/FW: Dell/AW are infamous for detecting adapter capacity and altering system behaviour

OP Firestrike combined is a total POS of a test. I don't know what the bottleneck is but it always manages to only partly load both CPU and GPU and never helps to find a total system power limit. Concurrent CPU and GPU stress tests are needed like aida64/prime95 and heaven/furmark

 

Also, you're likely being held back slightly by that i7
Edit: nvm 4.1GHZ OC

 

Well, the test says otherwise and remember the cpu pulls more than 45w constantly if you watch the video carefully look at the CPU consuption and during gaming it goes up to about 52w with the turbo boost. Plus the ram alone consumes 6w and both fans full speed plus the 2 SSD's and the 120hz display. Im telling you I was a bit sceptical but my test proved it does indeed need more than the 240w, maybe 250w obviously not the full 330w but in the end it does give you a stability gain in some CPU GPU intensive games and apps. And remember PSU degrade over time when used at their limit so lets substract a few watts from the 240w too. I agree with @bennyg on the firestrike test.

Watch the video again and look at the CPU consumption ONLY and youll see a constant difference.

 

Its ok for the gtx 1070 still

 

Can anyone explain why my GTX 1070 mxm pulls peaks between 130w - 150w max in my laptop under heavy gaming? isn't it rated like at 120w? Max temps under long heavy gaming sesions: 82° average 75°