thinking about OCZ Whitebook over NP5796

i posted mine in here twice..somewhere. Maybe the thread requesting gaming benches. I dunno. And, hooper doesnt look like me.. I'm too dam sexy. ;P

EDIT: Nite, need beauty sleep

 

haha, yeah man I ow u a six pack. I dont know how I got u both mixed around I did remember though talkin with someone bout that farcry2 bench.

 

from what I've read. I saw mhooper claimed he can get the high points from everytest but one thing that made me doubt is I didn't see any screenshots of your tests like johnksss, rob(rkcom) and e-wrecked did. Rob who is system builder got 24 points average at 1920*1080 all ultra high in farcry2 with dx10 so you said you got 45 at the same setting. Those score was too differ to believe. I don't say you're fake but I wanna see the "true tests" not only "words tests". You've done very well in your thread with ss from your laptop. but now...

 

MastaMarek also made "words tests". Seriously, whats with all this BS xfire 3870s are weak? And according to the the OP, "i heard they are weaker than nvidia single GPU." come on. Sure, drivers for ati arent the best but still, they are still a pair of very powerful cards. Surely waaay better than a single 9800M GTX.

 

MastaMarek had done his tests at sager forum. I've seen those from there. he also posted his youtube videos which he played every game at max settings(but WSXGA not WUXGA) all games from his videos was ran very smooth(he also showed his setting before ran those)

Edit: you can find his videos from his sig.

 

3.98?!? You're insane.

 

Well, I do believe that the 9800M GTX in SLi would do better than the 3870 x2 in games if the stuff I'm seeing is accurate; Back when the 9800M GTX was released, the 3d06 and Vantage scores weren't much different than the 9800M GT. Seems now that the true potential of the 9800M GTX is starting to show with the improved vantage scores and the 56-57 fps scores in FC2 at ultra high at 1200p. The 3870 mainly competes with the 9800M GT, not the GTX. That's the 4850's job, which MSI is quietly shoving in their GT725

 

single card

idle temps

 

Hello to everyone. I recently received my Alienware M17 with the specs in my sig. I know I'm in the wrong area, but the M17 is essentially an OCZ WB. The CPU multipliers are locked in the BIOS, and I'm not able to OC the GPU's with anything I try. Is there any work-around to OC the CPU, and what are you guys using to OC the GPUs? I realize this is a shot in the dark, as Alienware does not condone OCing of any kind. I'd greatly appreciate any help you guys are willing to provide.

 

you can't OC the CPU..it's not an extreme. The BIOS won't give you an unlocked multiplier. The program AMD GPU CLOCK can be used to OC the GPUs..however, I haven't found much gain from OC'ing them. Also, some Catalyst drivers won't hold the GPU OC and just reset the clocks. The 8.11 drivers wont hold an OC.. the 8.10 will, I believe. Also, the stock drivers sent to you by Aware will hold an OC. But, like I said..not much gain, so it's not worth the time.

 

Don't attempt it. Overclocking a m17 voids your Alienware Warranty.

 

This is the Exact reason i don't want alienware's M17. I'm going to get it from XotixPc or something.

 

I do not have an extreme processor in my RKC, but the BIOS gives me multipliers, which I can modify and boot into.

Did not do any performance comparisons, but the option is there.

It would not surprise me if AW just disables it because OCing is taboo to their support.

 

good point.. didn't you mention that you had multipliers up to 12.5, before?

 

Yup.

There is a CPU Multiplier setting in the BIOS on the Advanced tab. It is set to 'Dflt' but can be set incrementally from 6.5 to 12.5. I temporarily set it to 6.5 to see if it would save without any problem.

 

12.5x200=2.5GHZ, so the multiplier max is locked to the default value. You can underclock (to save power) but you cannot overclock a non extreme processor.

Pretty much all processors can downclock using the multiplier (that's what intel speedstep is) but their multipliers are locked to a maximum value, extreme processors do not have a max multiplier value lock.

 

I am currently using the P8600. I can pull the trigger on an X9100, but I really can't afford any of the Quad Cores. I honestly didn't know that the ATI cards were so dependent the CPU, or I would have ordered the laptop with a bit beefier CPU to begin with. Will there be a considerable graphics performance gain to be had upgrading the P8600 to the X9100? BTW, is the X9100 a mobile-only CPU, scoket P (478)? Thank you all for your help.

 

Hi there, your name seems familiar, did you used to own a Dell E1705 with an OC'd Geforce 7950 GTX?

Anywho, E-wrecked is spot on. But I would also like to add that Alienware locks the multipliers EVEN FOR Xtreme Processors, so getting an X9100 or a QX9300 will leave you stuck at the default clocks: 3.06ghz and 2.53ghz respectively.

As for the GPU and as E-wrecked pointed out, you probably won't get much out of a GPU OC, but AMD GPU Clock tool works, which can be found here.

 

I remember TurbodTalon from the old notebookforum days when i had my XPS's and 1705 .My handle on those forums is XPS

 

Hey guys, good to hear from you. Yeah, my E1705's 7950GTX took a crap. Can anyone give me a thumbs up or thumbs down on a significant performance gain with the X9100 over the P8600? I installed the tool, but it has no 'Run As Administrator' option.

 

Right click the file, and select run as admin. Or, if you're logged into Vista under your admin account then dont even worry about that.

Unless you're getting a driver error about sys files and needing to run as admin. That's a different story. Just run the program normally. And if you insist on OCing the GPU.. I managed to push the clocks(remember to clock both independently) about 50-75 above stock clocks with no issues. DX9 would drop off after I pushed any further. Oh, and be careful.. On numerous occassions after OC'ing the GPU I would reboot and when Vista went to load, it would BSOD with an internal power error, or a video driver error right as Vista went to load up. And, would continue until I hit F8 and started vista with last known good config.

 

I am getting the driver error and admin errors. I ordered the X9100 CPU, so hopefully that will improve my performance.

 

You are referring to AMD GPU clock, yes? post a screen shot of the error?

 

I got the tool working, but the GPU clocks keep snapping back to stock.

 

Then it is either your ATI Driver, or the BIOS. Any idea which BIOS youre running? And, which driver version for video?

 

8.552.00. I used the Mobility Modder and CCC 8.11. I'm sorry, I have never owned an ATI GPU before. I'll check on the BIOS version.

 

Go here:
http://www.ocztechnology.com/drivers/OCZ_17_inch_DIY_Gaming_Notebook__OCZDIY17A2/

Download the M98 driver for your Version of Vista. Now you can OC.

 

Is this supposed to work for the Alienware M17? I've installed it three times with no success.

 

no..you havent. the M17 driver is OOOOOOOLD. And do a clean install. Not gonna explain the process to clean install, but it's same as Nvidia and can be found on the forums.

 

The driver installed after another attempt. I did use the clean install method from the get-go. Don't know why this time it worked. Same problem though...clocks snap back to stock. I appreciate this help though.

 

Hmm.. Ok.. try this, when you open amd gpu clock, before setting a clock..drop the box down and pick the 2nd card. It should bring up your stock clocks and show 660/850 or whatever.. right? Now change those values, and click set clocks. NOW drop down the box and choose your original card, it should also show the 660/850 clocks. Now change those clocks and set. Now, open gpu-z and see if the clocks stuck. If not, then I suggest downloading the M88 driver on the OCZ site. 8.543 I believe it is.. But, use GPU-z to check clocks, dont rely on the AMD GPU Clock for accurate feedback.

 

OK. I will try all of that. Thank you for the help.

 

Can an AW M17 be flashed with a standard OCZ BIOS to unlock overclocking?

 

Yes.. it *should* be able to, no problems. But, what are you tryin to unlock? The OCZ M26 bios is nothing special. Any clue what bios version is on the M17?

 

I think he's trying to unlock the overclocking...(The clue is in his post...)

 

well, there's no OCing without an extreme CPU anyhow. And, its prolly safe to assume the M17 already has that enabled.

 

I got the overclock to stick with the M88 driver. I OC'd both cards 25Mhz over. Exact same 3DMark score, +15C. You guys weren't joking when you said that the ATI GPUs don't OC very well.

E-Wrecked, are you saying that the M17 CPU can be OC'd if it's an Xtreme?

 

If you have an extreme processor, it can be OCd. The QX9300 can go to 3.3 GHz and the x9100 can go to 3.3 GHz via BIOS. No more than that.. any non-extreme cannot be OCd.

And, the only way to truly OC the ATI cards with large gains, is to flash the BIOS of each card. I've toyed with some of the methods..haven't actually tried flashing as of yet. And, I don't think I will. Im quite satisfied with the performance.

 

I have done the BIOS flashing thing with my 7900GS and 7950GTX. There is a forum member who just got his M17 with the QX9300, and it's getting 13,140 3DMarks. How are you scoring almost 16K on stock clocks with an X9100? Could you PM me with some specifics on flashing the ATI BIOS? A tutorial and the programs needed? Does flashing the VBIOS overvolt the cards?

 

I can't PM you on any vBIOS flashing. I haven't tried, and its not likely I will. You can google it though, and there's plenty of resources available. Im waiting until the 8.12 Cat drivers are released. I have a feeling that they will unleash the beast in this machine. And, 13140 is dam strong for a 3dmark. Also, if you read the whole sig, and click the blue links you'll see that the 16.2k score is OC'd all the way.. and not run @ default. The other score of 15815 is @ default and still OC'd all the way. Click the links and check the Orb site.

 

Alright man. I really appreciate all of this help. I'll google the details and see if this is something I'm willing to pursue.

 

no worries.. just +rep me if ya love me

 

Here's where I'm at so far. I dumped the master and slave VBIOSes with ATIFlash. I opened them with the Radeon BIOS Editor (RBE). According to that, the HD 3870s run at 1.2 volts. I can already OC them with software. The real gains come from over-volting, but I don't have the balls to flash an over-volted BIOS. I've read that some GPUs are very sensitive to even a slight overvolt. There's got to be someone else trying this. Can you offer any advice?

Of course I love ya! +rep.

 

That was where I got skeered.. I didn't wanna change voltages, but I feel that's the only way. Much like the GTXs. Maybe you should look into some NBR folks method for flashing them.

 

real gains only come with over volting when your doing a serious over clock. but going 25 to 100 mhz above stock is not even worthy of a voltage over clock. and since someone over at k|n could only get to 100mhz before it started acting crazy pretty much means that that may be it's limits....(speculation of course)

 

The problem is that I'm not real sure what increments to use for overvolting. Would going from 1.2v to 1.3v be too much of a step? What is a typical overvolt?

 

ours is 1. volt to 1.03v or 1.05v

not sure about going from 1.2 to 1.3

 

What about SetFSB for non-extreme OCing?

 

shhh...

 

Wait don't shhh qaz. Lol

I just bought a t9400 because i thought it can be overclocked to 2.93ghz

But i can't try it cause my notebook is still no where near to be ordered. Lol