Stevenxowens792

@Mark - on the a01 bios, one of our members pushed 850/1080 clock but BSOD after that. Gaming clocks vs Benching clocks is what you have to think about here. The challenge is that you really need to monitor both cpu and gpu temps while playing games. Before making some adjustments myself my cpu was very close to 100c. A lot of the time. I had updated my turbo settings in bios and was running at absolute max and this in turn with gpu overclocking was killing my game play. On the m14x its a 1 or the other type situation. The machine doesn't have enough cooling to effectively overclock both at high levels. If you want to try an experiment, use a modified bios and then a game like crysis 2. choose a map and run it over and over. Start at stock levels, play for 10 minutes, check temps and then kick the clocks up. Repeat until you get BSOD. Once you get a BSOD back the mhz down about 10-20mhz and then try again except this time play longer..say 20 minutes. No BSOD means you can probably play at this level. For me I start at 700/900, then I up'd to 750/1000 and found that is my sweet spot for gaming. Now for benching I can go much higher. But for gaming the law of diminishing returns kicks in and i get very little performance increase above this level for the amount of heat. Keep us posted. Try some other modded bios's and see which works best for you. SVL has already done an exceptional job getting these put together for us. Best wishes, Steven X

SVL - sorry yeah I wasn't done yet but wanted to get my thoughts down. I will post some screenshots and update the system section. Thanks!

Synopsis - Your stuck on an island. Your immune to the zombies. Help your fellow man (and woman) get out alive. Along the way, do some drugs, drink some beer, make some weapons, jam some music and oh yeah.. kill some zombies. My System: Alienware m14x cpu - i7- 2630qm gpu - nvidia 555mGT memory - 4gb hard drive - 60gb ssd screen - 1366x768 Windows 7 home nvidia driver 275.33 Game Install Size (7gb) Game Settings (maximum in game) Game performance : @750/900 60-90fps. Avg provided by fraps is 72. Game performance : stock Avg provided by fraps 58 System Utilization : At 750/900 My GPU temps stayed constant at 72-73c with 99 percent GPU utilization at almost all times. CPU utilization was another story at stock bios settings my temps were 85c max and the game utilized all 8 threads anywhere from 10 percent to 50 percent. Most threads were below 45 percent utilization. I need to perform some experiments to see what type of FPS impact it has be running the game with only 4 threads to simulate the I5. I5 users rejoice! - I set the cpu to 4 threads while playing tihs game and ZERO FPS IMPACT! I have a screenshot of before and after and it was 73 fps before at 8 threads and 73 after at 4. So outstanding news! Game play : Graphics : outstanding however most of the island is static and can not be manipulated like crysis or crysis warhead. I would give the graphics a 8 out of 10. Sound : the sounds and effects really pull you into the game. 8 out of 10. Controls : sloppy at best. It's not a precise fps shooter for certain and lots of folks are switching to xbox 360 controls as even the best mouse does little to improve the experience. 6 out of 10. Experience : The game is very fun so far. You can upgrade your character for different types of attacks and create weapons based on plans that you get by completing missions. The zombies are dynamic and pop up when you least expect it so it makes the game fun. Personally this is my type of game. I wish it was more of a military style FPS with zombies (ala Day By Day Armageddon) but I will take what I can get. Stability : I have not had the game crash on me but we have experienced 2 patch upgrades. I have lost the ability to play offline (Angry about this). Others have had issues with crashing but its hard to identify the root cause as most won't list drivers or system specs. 6 out of 10 Overall 7 outta 10. Its a fun game, I would buy it again no doubt and I am expecting to have many fun nights stomping zombies. Best wishes, Steven Owens Screenshot Notes - 1st 3 are to show performance. First one is non oc gpu with 8 threads cpu Second one is non oc gpu with 4 threads cpu Third is the oc gpu with 4 threads. The rest are OC GPU... http://img97.imageshack.us/img97/7339/deadislandgame201109100n.jpg http://img36.imageshack.us/img36/3898/deadislandgame201109100c.jpg http://img713.imageshack.us/img713/694/deadislandgame201109100q.jpg http://img851.imageshack.us/img851/9226/deadislandgame201109082.jpg http://img198.imageshack.us/img198/9226/deadislandgame201109082.jpg http://img651.imageshack.us/img651/9226/deadislandgame201109082.jpg http://img339.imageshack.us/img339/8972/deadislandgame201109082a.jpg http://img839.imageshack.us/img839/9226/deadislandgame201109082.jpg http://img600.imageshack.us/img600/9226/deadislandgame201109082.jpg http://img834.imageshack.us/img834/9226/deadislandgame201109082.jpg http://img220.imageshack.us/img220/9226/deadislandgame201109082.jpg http://img844.imageshack.us/img844/9226/deadislandgame201109082.jpg http://img822.imageshack.us/img822/4257/deadislandgame201109082w.jpg http://img33.imageshack.us/img33/9226/deadislandgame201109082.jpg http://imageshack.us/g/97/deadislandgame201109100n.jpg/

Keep the 6990 at all costs.. that is a higher priority than the case itself. (no seriously) i would lose almost all other extras. I would consider that the priority. Good luck and keep us posted please!

1366x768 native rez. I took some fraps video and frankly I don't like how it came out. The video makes the game look slow when in fact its beyond smooth. So I may just post some screenshots or something. Rest assured, even with 2 month old display drivers, it runs fine. Best wishes, StevenX http://forum.techinferno.com/pc-gaming/1121-dead-island-review.html

Running it at the highest details available in game. 60-90fps at 750/900 clocks. It's beautiful. Good Luck, Stevenx

WOW... huh... I have my paste and haven't done it yet but now im half tempted to send it back. As i don't want to break any agreements.

Borderlands is one of my favorite games of all time. My wife and I played it until the very end on coop. I usually don't finish many games as I get bored fast. I just really liked the world, the weapons and the graphics. I purchased Rift during the summer camp sale and I just now (2 nights ago) made it to level 50 which is the highest level. You can earn prestige by playing pvp and tier status from dungeons/raids I think. I really like this game. I have tried loads of MMO's but i just didn't think they were worth paying for. Champions, dc online, conan (i liked it but...), Dungeons and Dragons online. Rift is just amazing.

Agreed ... very cool vid!

You know what would be really cool.. A modded A01 bios that has increased gpu voltage (already completed) and a lowered CPU voltage (to lower cpu temps a bit). Take some from one side, give it to the other.

@all - I can't say ive never had the cpu throttle back. The shin-etsu 3 months old now and is about to be replaced with the ICD Diamond for testing. I know I have hit mid 90s without issue and that's without throttlestop. The challenge is that the higher GPU overclocks really eat into the CPU cooling as well. So as you need to lower your bios settings to help adjust to get max CPU performance without hitting that throttle-point. It gets confusing but the bottom line is that if you are going to overclock you really have to watch temps closely.

Congrats EA.. you've found porn.. I hope that helps you in your quest to figure out what all of us gamers have on our hard drives. Games ... and ... porn... duh

Im sorry SVL.. I honestly didn't see your thread. Android browsing is not as robust as pc. 3G (slow speeds) take forever.

@HT - Thats not a bad deal at all. Compared to a even a bottom end alienware the price looks very nice. How have you liked the crossfire on the dv6z

I assume this still has the "battery fix" so once again I am sticking with bios A01 or updated bios A01 with voltage increase. I use mine for gaming mostly so I want the loudest fan possible that provides the coolest temps possible.

Decreases Fan Noise. Drivers & Downloads Choose bios and then download accordingly. Best Wishes, StevenX

@mini- I play rift at ultra settings. Just overclock the gpu to 750/900 or 750/1000 (only 1 fps difference) and you will spend about 95 percent of your time over 30fps. It's smooth... In meridian it drops to 21-25 fps sometimes due to population and latency but it does that for everyone. Again .. that's what i run rift at right now. ultra at 1366x768 (native resolution for me) Congrats, StevenX

Thanks to GEARS I am now on a Deadmau5 kick which in turn bled into a Crystal Method Kick which in turn has made me pulll out the old Daft Punk, which is now turning into a Lords Of Acid (circa 1991) kick.

I notice that both Neo and Dane seem to have the purchased version of 3dmar11 since the score is from a different source than the internet page. Im also wondering what is different about the free version of 3dmark11 vs the paid version.

At Neo - how is your bios setup? Is it at default settings or higher? Outstanding score. That is what I am talking about. 2K.. I just wonder how the a01 updated bios is going to impact gaming on battery. Setting the gpu at balanced.

Not to sound rude, but alienware notebooks are not (in my opinion) designed for beginners. They can be used by them, but it's not a notebook that you can boot up and get max performance. I dont have shogun so I can't comment on that but a m14x is a medium level notebook that can play most games at medium to high levels. Witcher 2 you can play at medium to high levels (may need some tweaking as I have shown on other posts). I really don't know what else to tell you. 1.5 is fine compared to 3.0 but if you get a good deal on 3 I wouldn't pass on it. I would still get the I7 vs the I5 as BF3 is around the corner. screen res is up to you.

I need to figure out where I am going wrong then... with a SSD, heavily optimized system I should be hitting higher than 1900 then. Serious congrats though. I know you used to push the old m15 and 17 very hard. For general gameplay, its weird. Here is an example... Rift, say I am looking at a static item, and I am getting 31fps, no oc. I then oc to 750/100. I am now getting 37fps. If I up it to 800, no change. CPU limited, nope! Only using 1 or 2 threads most at like 60 percent. It seems like the diminishing returns for overclocking on my machine is around the 750-760 range. any higher and very little difference.

@Dane - What are your clocks? I can't see them on the pics. Also have you updated 3dmark11 to the latest version? Your cpu scores are a little higher than mine, which is no surprise in that I have had to scale mine back in the TDP to keep heat down. Great Run!

Here is what I do know.. Regardless of TIM utilized the cpu and gpu are on the same heat sync with 1 fan. The CPU creeps up fast. The weird thing is that With the GPU at 800/1080 the system starts to get hot. If you have ANY updates to the bios for the cpu turbo then it adds to the heat. The gpu sticks to around 73-75c but the CPU goes well over 90c and very close to 100. The system begins to scale back quickly. It's a fine line to walk to find the right balance. No matter I will continue to game at 750/1000 since that's plenty of performance for most games.