Quix Omega

Probably, but no one is sure. I've already bought an XPS 15 (9550) which has both Thunderbolt 3 and an Nvidia GPU so I'm watching for a good solution to show up, although I think I'll wait for the next-gen graphics cards to show up before I actually shell out for a setup.

Really no point on that, it's a U-series chip (which are power limited) with integrated graphics. And since you're limited by the notebook's cooling system you can't really do anything. If you want performance, get something else. It's a really nice laptop otherwise though, I have the 2015 XPS 15 and love it. I was looking at the XPS 13 but got the 15 to get the quad-core H series i7 and Geforce 960M, but maybe size is more important than performance for what you're doing.

I imagine they didn't and that this whole thing was a scam.

If you want lower temperatures while gaming you can disable CPU Turbo in the bios, it will keep the CPU from speeding up to it's turbo speed and save the extra heat. The GPU in the m14x (or m14x R2 or the new 14) is not powerful enough to require anywhere near the CPU power the laptops actually ship with so if you're gaming and not say encoding movies this is a good idea. As a bonus it prevents the GPU from throttling in most cases. Just remember that you did do this in case you feel like turning it back on later. I leave turbo boost off on my m14x R2 most of the time. It saves battery life too. Re-pasting this laptop is a huge pain, you need to totally disassemble it (I've done it to mine) so make sure you're comfortable with the idea before you do it.

Probably, but there are no guarantees. Mine will run at 1150/3000 if I push it. I normally run at 1100/2800 for a little headroom.

If you're talking about Lucidlogix Hydra performance is terrible. Even if it wasn't terrible overall the HD4000 is so slow that it would bring the GT650M down to it's level and be slower anyway. I recommend flashing the unlocked system bios and overclocking the GPU, that really works and can yield good results.

I recently thought about doing this myself. I also have a i5-2500K. I recommend overclocking your 2500k to 4.4Ghz and if that works out trying for 4.7Ghz. If you're using the stock cooler get something better. I have a Corsair H80 closed-loop cooler but it's total overkill. Stop where ever your chip does. I did a bunch of research on this exact issue lately and found that upgrading to Ivy Bridge would net me anything from a small increase to a small decrease and Haswell chips overclock unevenly and unreliably. Normally after 2 years Intel would have produced something worth upgrading to but apparently they've been spending the entire time working on power efficiency. I would wait and see what Intel comes out with after Broadwell (which is likely to not improve the CPU performance situation either). But if gaming is what you're looking to do, buy a better GPU. Radeon 7970s are being fire-saled right now and the "next gen" isn't a quantum leap forward so they're a pretty good buy. When it comes to game performance you're not going to see much difference between a 2500k and 4770k.

Actually, there is a bios image on this forum that has the disable BD PROCHOT option. I haven't actually had the overheating issue, since I repasted my system hasn't hit the ceiling, even with the GPU overclocked. Maybe my ambient temperatures are lower than others, I live in a fairly cool part of the world. I do normally disable CPU Turbo (the CPU is massively more powerful than the GPU anyway) to lower fan volume but I've tested with it enabled without issue. BD PROCHOT, seriously. http://forum.techinferno.com/alienware-m14x-aw-14/4667-m14x-r2-a13-unlocked-bios-modified-vbios-now-available.html

The only thing you can realistically do is flash an unlocked bios and overclock the GPU. You should be able to match an overclocked 750M because they're the same silicon with slightly different clocks. Radeon 7950's are great aren't they? I've got a couple in my gaming rig.

I think I'll stick to the A11 bios unless I run into trouble. I had a lot of issues with my desktop when I updated the bios and eventually had to go back to an older version to get everything stable at my everyday overclock again. A11: NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-3630QM Processor,Alienware M14xR2

No, it will not disable turbo boost, some of us have disabled turbo boost because we'd rather have less noise and lower CPU performance.

I'm not sure the battery issue actually affects all systems because I've never had it. At this point I wouldn't flash a new BIOS anyway because I'm not having any issues.

As long as you don't use the GPU it will perform OK. If you bought the i5 version with the GT 630m it may not even have the overheating problem, I personally haven't tested one, I found the 5Ghz performance to be passable for short distances, 2.4Ghz is crap. Apparently the Killer card will help compensate for the issue so you might be able to live with it. I personally love the look and feel of the XPS 15 but I didn't like the fact that it performed on par with cheap economy notebooks that were 1/4 the price.

Pretty low assuming you follow all the instructions to the letter.

I can get mine to 1150/3000 before it starts to get unstable. Not doing anything unusual, just afterburner. I normally run it with turbo disabled because it's quieter but I've had no issues with turbo enabled. It's possible you have a low-clocking chip. It's more likely if you have a newer notebook because Nvidia added higher bins to their grading for the 750m and a few other newer models. My notebook has been repasted with IC diamond which may or may not be relevant.

If you haven't repasted your notebook with high-quality paste that might very well help. Another thing you can do is disable turbo on the CPU, I have it disabled most of the time because the notebook runs cooler and it doesn't affect gaming performance. I can run my system with turbo on and the GPU overclocked without issues, but every system is slightly different and my environment could be cooler than yours.

This is definitely not true, you can use any msata drive you like. It's possible you have an issue with your specific laptop, it's more likely that two msata drives you tried were defective. I've been using a 256GB A-Data SX300 in my M14x R2 for 8 months with no problems.

I would suggest thermal tape, but truth be told the memory doesn't run hot anyway.

From memory I don't recall seeing any thick pads on my m14x R2. The GPU and CPU are covered in fairly-generic looking paste and the GPU memory has thin thermal tape on each chip. This picture shows 6 memory chips, which is a bit odd because I thought that memory chips are normally installed in even numbers. http://www.your-motherboard.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Dell-Alienware-M14X-R2-Motherboard.jpg

Depending on age there may not be a Windows 8 driver for it. I have a 802.11g USB dongle that won't work with anything newer than XP. "compatibility mode" doesn't work for drivers. Try looking on the manufacturer's site for updated drivers, if that doesn't work post the model so we can check it out. P.S. Also try every single port on the notebook.

I recommend using the unlocked A11 bios from this thread instead. http://forum.techinferno.com/alienware-m14x/1787-%5Bm14x-r2%5D-vbios-mod-higher-boost-clocks-test-versions-only.html If you use the "FPT" method you don't have to use the blind flasher so if you follow the instructions correctly the risk of bricking your system is low.

There are a bunch of throttling options in the unlocked bios, I have no way of testing it out because my laptop never gets even close to that hot. You may want to try disabling CPU turbo first, that will get you more thermal overhead for the GPU and the m14x's CPU performance outstrips the GPU by so much that the loss in clock speed won't be noticable. You'll still be GPU bound in basically every game.

That would decrease your overall cooling efficiency, the heat pipes are already servicing hottest components so you're best off cooling the fins on the other end. I'm also hoping you mean the fan surround because cutting a fan is a really stupid idea. It would unbalance it and cause it to rotate unevenly. That generally ends with more blades breaking off.

The color gamut is not great. If you're used to high-end IPS screens it's going to disappoint. I only have an Ultrasharp U2311H and the difference in color accuracy is very apparent when I switch between the two. It's difficult to get a decent laptop with a decent screen. The m14x's 900p screen is passable, but not great. Color gamut is not good and it's very glossy. It's bright and crisp with good blacks so I can take the good with the bad. It's also good for gaming with low latency for a laptop panel. The 768 panel is a cheap low-end POS.

Not unless you want to brick it. The replacing the system bios with a totally different model's bios is a very bad idea.