Going to test clevo 980m in alienware m17x R4, m18x R2, AW17

[Guest]

@Fox

If this is what you: Want: Alienware ALX-18 - Core i7-5960X | Unlocked Dual BIOS | 3xGTX 980M SLI | 64GB DDR4-4266 Quad Channel| 6x1TB mSATA RAID0 | 3K IPS| 1kW AC Adapter

And this is what you are thinking of: Have: Alienware M18xR2 - Core i7-3920XM | 2xGTX 980M SLI | 32GB DDR3-2133 | 2x256GB SSD RAID0 | 2x2TB HDD RAID0 | 250GB mSATA | Dual 330W AC Adapter

It might be best for you to just get them 980M cards for your current system, trade in the 780M cards and hold out for another few years since that "want" system is a pipe dream at this point. with AW.

LOL. I may never get what I want. Nobody builds or sells what I want. But, I am no longer looking to Alienware to meet my expectations. If they do, great. I'll be super happy about that. If not, I will just buy another brand (assuming another brand offers what I want, otherwise I will buy nothing at all). My fanboy-ism is conditional, with many strings attached. It is terminated abruptly, as soon as they stop doing what I require them to do in order to be worthy of my patronage. Looks like they stopped. Oh well, nothing lasts forever. It was nice while it lasted. Que sera, sera. Easy come, easy go.

If I go with a 980M SLI upgrade and decide to suck it up and live with the Windows 8 atrocities, the 780M SLI is moving to the M18xR1. I am running it right now with only IGFX. The primary reason I am even considering 980M SLI upgrade instead of buying a P570WM3 is saving $3,000 and having a free 780M SLI setup for the M18xR1. That's 200% bang for my buck. GTX 980M SLI will be strictly for the sake of number chasing fun and vanity. My GTX 780M SLI setup already does everything I need it to do with respect to gaming EXTREMELY WELL and I wouldn't spend a dime on it for gaming. In fact, it would be a total waste of money if all I did was play games because 780M SLI is still more powerful than a single 980M. That's one of the nice things about having two powerful GPUs kicking a$$ and taking names. So there's nothing for me to lose and everything to gain, except for the Windows 8 part. Obviously, I have a very low opinion of the pile of crap OS known as Windows 8 or I would not be posting this stuff and my 980M SLI upgrade would either be installed already or on its way via express courier.

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You will probably explode now in pure anger, but I`m getting a notebook next week with 4940MX which I plan to downclock and undervolt with Intel XTU...

Yeah I know, you are like now.

I will of course play around with overclocking (A lot of it), but when I`m not doing benches or need greater CPU performance, I`m gonna make it spew out as little heat as possible when I found the CPU speed needed for my tasks. I plan on getting a pair of GTX 970M which will do nicely with my 100W heatsinks, so someone will finally test out AW18 with Maxwell to find out if AW18 works with them. If someone doesnt test them before me that is

Nope, now why would I be mad about that? I want you and everyone else to be happy. If that makes you happy, then it's all good. It's not like you are requiring me to do what you want for yourself, so no reason to be angry.

I apologize if my recent expressions of grumpiness toward Alienware, Intel and Micro$haft has given anyone the impression I'm an angry sort of fellow. I am normally very cheerful. I just have a low tolerance for products that are garbage. I want to spend my money on good things, not trash. I don't like being surrounded by trash without any good options to choose from.

[Paolo11]

I'll be honest. I could not wait for these guys to have the 980M SLI working on AW 18 last month so I decided to make a Steambox build with dual EVGA 980 GTX SC SLI. Here is my build:

Paolo11's Completed Build - Intel Core i7-4790K, EVGA GeForce GTX 980 (2-Way SLI), Corsair Air 240 - PCPartPicker

Maybe in the future I will upgrade my GPUs.

[Guest]

Thanks, and also apologies if I insulted your experience by asking you if you'd run the same increased voltage in Windows 7, 'twas not my intention.

It was just a little bit, but no worries. We're guys, so we do that on accident all the time, LOL. Apology accepted, my friend. Cheers for offering it.

[mikecacho]

@Fox, i felt the most recent Nvidia releases were a slap in the face, 780M (780M not as much) , 880M (WTF is this POS) and feel that the 980M should have been what the 880M could of been... With that being said i feel like the 980M is actually a real step up in stock raw performance and efficiency. So i feel 100% confident in that purchase, Now i just need to see Nvidia get back to releasing solid drivers to support this new tech.

[Cloudfire]

What notebook are you getting?

Alienware 18.

.

Nope, now why would I be mad about that? I want you and everyone else to be happy. If that makes you happy, then it's all good. It's not like you are requiring me to do what you want for yourself, so no reason to be angry.

I apologize if my recent expressions of grumpiness toward Alienware, Intel and Micro$haft has given anyone the impression I'm an angry sort of fellow. I am normally very cheerful. I just have a low tolerance for products that are garbage. I want to spend my money on good things, not trash. I don't like being surrounded by trash without any good options to choose from.

You have been a bit over the top lately about soldered CPUs, Intel bashing and Microsoft mocking. Not that you are wrong though

Nah I was referring to buying a $1000 CPU to run it on a max speed of a $300 CPU lol. Oh well, atleast I have a powerful CPU to take out for spin whenever I want to.

btw, does XM processors deal with lower voltage better than QM processors? I mean, are they better binned and therefor can do say -0.1V easier?

[godfafa]

btw, does XM processors deal with lower voltage better than QM processors? I mean, are they better binned and therefor can do say -0.1V easier?

No. It just depends on the CPU itself. Not the name of it.

I have tested more than five 3940XMs and they all behaved very differently.

So this means well OCed 4900mq @ 4.2 could be better than poorly OCed 4930 or 4940mx @ 4.2.

And 4900mq can even run the clock at lower voltage. It is your luck to get a lucky cpu.

[Cloudfire]

No. It just depends on the CPU itself. Not the name of it.

I have tested more than five 3940XMs and they all behaved very differently.

So this means well OCed 4900mq @ 4.2 could be better than poorly OCed 4930 or 4940mx @ 4.2.

And 4900mq can even run the clock at lower voltage. It is your luck to get a lucky cpu.

Well thats interesting. Im pretty sure XM processors have better quality in silicon because they are rated to run higher speeds than QM processors. Better silicon quality, means they should deal with voltage better in general. I just wonder how they do with lower voltage.

You are probably correct that its a silicon lottery and each XM processor are different, but wouldnt you agree that in general, XM are better with voltage and overclocking than QM processors?

[godfafa]

Well thats interesting. Im pretty sure XM processors have better quality in silicon because they are rated to run higher speeds than QM processors. Better silicon quality, means they should deal with voltage better in general. I just wonder how they do with lower voltage.

You are probably correct that its a silicon lottery and each XM processor are different, but wouldnt you agree that in general, XM are better with voltage and overclocking than QM processors?

I beleive that was story in the old days.

Now I think silicon quality depends on the "time" it is made. Of course, there may be an exeption but usually it depends on time.

That's why I believe haswell refresh has better quality than haswell.

I think 4910mq has better silicone quality than 4930mx.

[godfafa]

@svl7

How is your tests going on?

[Khenglish]

Well thats interesting. Im pretty sure XM processors have better quality in silicon because they are rated to run higher speeds than QM processors. Better silicon quality, means they should deal with voltage better in general. I just wonder how they do with lower voltage.

You are probably correct that its a silicon lottery and each XM processor are different, but wouldnt you agree that in general, XM are better with voltage and overclocking than QM processors?

Intel doesn't really test their CPUs anymore. An xm can be a piece of crap, but all CPUs pass xm testing thresholds because they are so low, so therefore all you are paying for is an unlocked part with the possibility of overclocking, even though a crippled qm may have been a better overclocker.

[Robbo]

Intel doesn't really test their CPUs anymore. An xm can be a piece of crap, but all CPUs pass xm testing thresholds because they are so low, so therefore all you are paying for is an unlocked part with the possibility of overclocking, even though a crippled qm may have been a better overclocker.

Don't bother buying an XM then Cloudfire if all you're interested in is getting icy temperatures from an undervolt, you might save some cash!

[godfafa]

@Cloudfire

I actually had tested AW17 for intensive OCing CPU for about a month.

The stock CPU was 4900mq and I had decent bench score with it.

XTU overclocking records @ HWBOT

I was curious how mx cpu will do on my AW17 (which I dont have now).

That's why I bought two CPU from ebay. 4930 and 4940mx.

I tested both CPU for alot of hours. And the best silicone quality was found on 4940mx.

The second was my stock 4900mq and the worst one in my case was 4930mx.

[Cloudfire]

Intel doesn't really test their CPUs anymore. An xm can be a piece of crap, but all CPUs pass xm testing thresholds because they are so low, so therefore all you are paying for is an unlocked part with the possibility of overclocking, even though a crippled qm may have been a better overclocker.

I assumed they took the best part of the wafer and allocated them for Extreme processors.

Take the 4940MX for example which Dell is now shipping with a stock clock of 4.4GHz on all newer AW machines. I mean, if a company so big as Dell guarantee clocks like that, they got to have great belief in the quality of the CPUs. Its 400MHz above rated specs from Intel.

Don't bother buying an XM then Cloudfire if all you're interested in is getting icy temperatures from an undervolt, you might save some cash!

Too late, already on its way to me. I bought it to play around with OC every now and then plus increase reselling value

@Cloudfire

I actually had tested AW17 for intensive OCing CPU for about a month.

The stock CPU was 4900mq and I had decent bench score with it.

XTU overclocking records @ HWBOT

I was curious how mx cpu will do on my AW17 (which I dont have now).

That's why I bought two CPU from ebay. 4930 and 4940mx.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]13318[/ATTACH]

I tested both CPU for alot of hours. And the best silicone quality was found on 4940mx.

The second was my stock 4900mq and the worst one in my case was 4930mx.

Thanks.

You are right on your previous post that the tine they produce the chips affect quality, but it also depends wether or not they use a different stepping I think.

4900MQ and 4930MX should be produced around the same time, so if you got better result with 4900MQ, it could mean that Khenglish are right that you pay to have it unlocked. Huh, me dont like.

Either way, Im getting the 4940MX which is the latest, and since you got best results with it, it may be promising

[tanzmiester]

swapped my m18x r1 for AW17. now in Uefi win8 cant get control of any overclock, neither Evga precision, nor Msi afterburner works properly. in Valley it show that my memory is 1600, while on my clevo it is 2500.

also cant read and save bios and cant flash it too. any ideas?

[Guest]

Well thats interesting. Im pretty sure XM processors have better quality in silicon because they are rated to run higher speeds than QM processors. Better silicon quality, means they should deal with voltage better in general. I just wonder how they do with lower voltage.

You are probably correct that its a silicon lottery and each XM processor are different, but wouldnt you agree that in general, XM are better with voltage and overclocking than QM processors?

That used to be true about quality with Intel CPUs, but Brother godfafa is correct. Getting a good Haswell CPU is totally a crap shoot. Paying extra for a Extreme CPU doesn't necessarily get you the premium chip you would expect. They've gotten really sloppy with binning or something. One Haswell Extreme mobile CPU might run 4.8GHz or better without any trouble and another CPU just like it might struggle to handle 4.3GHz with grace. Same problem exists with Haswell desktop CPUs. Seems that Devil's Canyon and Haswell-E improved the situation a little bit on the desktop side of things, but still seems there is some inconsistency more than there used to be.

A mobile Extreme CPU, or a desktop K or X CPU, will get you tons of flexibility that does not exist in ordinary CPUs, so to me they are worth it for that reason in spite of the wildly inconsistent overclocking abilities.

[tanzmiester]

anyone with Uefi win8 and 980m can test if their overclocking/bios reading/writing works, please? and memory clock displayed right in GPU-z monitoring?

[tanzmiester]

it seems that i am stuck at 1600Mhz for memory on both 980m and 970m instead of 2500. in afterbuner memory slider just doesnt work, same in evga precision.

installing back 770m fixes the issue. ive got Alienware 17(r5) here with 3d screen, windows 8.0

oh, well.. anybody needs an AW17 with 3d screen? lol

[samXLR]

it seems that i am stuck at 1600Mhz for memory on both 980m and 970m instead of 2500. in afterbuner memory slider just doesnt work, same in evga precision.

installing back 770m fixes the issue. ive got Alienware 17(r5) here with 3d screen, windows 8.0

oh, well.. anybody needs an AW17 with 3d screen? lol

Maybe =p,

How bad are the scores with the 980m in it? (as in, maybe its ... just "visual"?)

[mikecacho]

I gave up on the SLi back when it was considered "hybrid" i felt that if i paid for 2x the GPU performance, i expect it to happen... Well it still has not.

[tanzmiester]

the scores are really bad, my friend with AW17 r4 is getting 1940 score in Valley with Ultra+4msaa with his 970m, i am only getting to 1930 with same settings, but with 980m! :0

and in his machine everyhting is working just fine, incl oveclocking. i get about 30% less frames than my 980m clevo machine does. my 970m performs even worse in this AW17.

i am about to try unlocked bios, but my friend told me i will loose the windows key in case i will flash it, any way to avoid that?

[Guest]

You don't need to care about that if you know the Windows product key and keep it in a safe place where it cannot be lost. There is no unlocked BIOS for the Alienware 17 that I am aware of. You would need to replace the BIOS chip on the motherboard like svl7 has on his Alienware 17.

[XPSSD]

3DMark score really disappointed - only 7416 Fire Strike score NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-4710MQ,Alienware 04WT2G vs 8886 score on Clevo NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-4700MQ,Notebook P15SM , for what we are paid so much money? For this crappy locked BIOS? For this limited productivity?

'All Powerful'? Dell are you serious???

[tanzmiester]

3DMark score really disappointed - only 7416 Fire Strike score NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-4710MQ,Alienware 04WT2G vs 8886 score on Clevo NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-4700MQ,Notebook P15SM , for what we are paid so much money? For this crappy locked BIOS? For this limited productivity?

'All Powerful'? Dell are you serious???

i have found the solution! nvidia inspector+evga precision that is. the only combination that allowed me to change memory clock and use full power. it seems that the card is locked in p2 mode for some reason.

what i did: enabling K-boost in Precision, then altering P2 memory clock from 1600 to 2500. now getting +80% performance gain.

perhaps this information can lead someone knowledgable what could be wrong with the card in this machine by default?

P.S. k boost was the first thing i have tried, but it only boost the gpu clock, adding inpector to the mix added that missing 25% on memory.

[XPSSD]

i have found the solution! nvidia inspector+evga precision that is. the only combination that allowed me to change memory clock and use full power. it seems that the card is locked in p2 mode for some reason.

what i did: enabling K-boost in Precision, then altering P2 memory clock from 1600 to 2500. now getting +80% performance gain.

perhaps this information can lead someone knowledgable what could be wrong with the card in this machine by default?

By default - GPU clock fluctuate even non overclocked, tried your method - not worked for me

[godfafa]

As I said, in new AW17 and AW18, the graphic score will be deducted 3-5% and clock fluctuates.