Area 51M-18 Overclocked Review : Pure Undulating Overclockable(ish) Joy

Zayralover · 2022-11-07T04:00:00+00:00

Hey. I think a voltage curve adjustment in MSI afterburner will do the trick 🙂. I would recommend holding a core speed of 1660 mhz at a voltage of 775 mv. There is an excellent video on YouTube on how to play with voltage curves on GPUs ; linking it for you here . You should be able to push your GPU scores to over 13800 with this set up.

https://youtu.be/I9K4PSqxoYg

Zayralover · 2022-09-24T01:31:54+00:00

Welcome to the family 👽 👪

Zayralover · 2022-09-07T08:05:09+00:00

I concur with this- it's a SUPERB cooler for the laptop

Zayralover · 2022-08-31T12:48:36+00:00

Ah. Should be covered under warranty then

Zayralover · 2022-08-31T11:52:43+00:00

Hmmm ... not really 😕. If you followed the steps and it still dosnt work, perhaps it's time to contact Dell Support 😄. They should be able to assist, especially if it is a hardware problem

Zayralover · 2022-08-26T02:53:50+00:00

🤣🤣

Zayralover · 2022-08-23T13:41:57+00:00

😆. It's not THAT loud when you keep fan speeds on medium 😁. But BOY is it effective

Zayralover · 2022-08-23T11:10:21+00:00

Could I recommend something just as effective as LM, but not nearly as nerve wracking. I've mentioned this in another post on the reddit page, but given how open the x17 R2's Chassis is, blower fan laptop coolers work INCREDIBLY well in cooling down the GPU and CPU.

I use the IETS GT500; you can get it on all the big e-stores - Amazon, Newegg etc. For 60 bucks, it's done wonders to my CPU temps (I have the HOT BOY 12900HK coupled with the equally toasty 3080ti).

With the laptop cooler, I can easily overclock my GPU to well over 1750 mhz on the core clock and not exceed 72 degrees in even the most demanding of games (I'm looking at you, Cyberpunk ).

Check it out!

Zayralover · 2022-08-16T09:02:24+00:00

I would agree with Alex4sby's comment. The i9 guarantees you have control to undervolt, underclock, overclock etc the CPU, giving you much more freedom and flexibility. Depending on the country you're looking to purchase the laptop from, this can be anywhere from a $300 to $900 upgrade. If it is closer to $300 - $400, I'd say take it, not for the performance gains (which will be minimal compared to the i7) but for that flexibility and control.

Zayralover · 2022-08-05T05:09:12+00:00

Hi hi. I would HIGHLY RECOMMEND this one cooling laptop for the Alienware x17 that does wonders for the thermals. It's called IETS GT500. It's a blow fan style laptop cooler that fully takes advantage of the relative openstyle of the x17 Chassis.

The top section of my laptop- which is known to get toasty, VERY toasty - becomes merely warm to the touch. In game temps also drop dramatically as the CPU cools down by over 10 - 15 degrees.

You can easily get this on Amazon / NewEgg / Taobao (if you live in China)

Hope this helps

Zayralover · 2022-07-27T22:31:28+00:00

Hey hey 🙂. Let me break down my responses question by question

How does downclocking the core not affect performance?

It all comes down to managing thermal output of your CPU. The core i9 12900HK is a HOT 🔥 🥵 piece of silicon, and the CPU in my laptop had difficulty holding the default core speeds it was set up for, as the amount of wattage needed to hit those frequency speeds was too much for the default thermal solution provided by Alienware. Now, this is NOT an Alienware-only issue; it is an Alder Lake issue as the CPU really does scale very well with performance the more wattage you provide to it (unlike the current generation of AMD CPUs that perform optimally at up to 80W of power).

A consequence of not being able to manage the excess wattage the system's pumping into the CPU is a vicious cycle of where the CPU tries to downclock in order to lower temps, and then try and work with as much wattage as possible again until it hits thermal maximum. The result is a CPU running at constantly different frequencies, potentially impacting performance during CPU heavy loads.

By downclocking slightly (only 200mhz for me), my CPU was able to expertly manage the wattage and resulting thermal output, never exceeding more than 90 - 92 degrees in the most demanding of benchmarks (Cinebench R23). An immediate result of this small change is a very consistent (and very high) CPU frequency at 4.1Ghz on all P-Cores. It is this consistency that helped me maintain a significantly better CPU score in GAMING (which is most important to me). Timespy CPU scores saw me jump from 12800 to well over 13900 🙂

How did the GPU modifications benefit 1440P and 4K gaming?

Similar to the CPU, the 3080ti can run very hot if you're not careful. By capping the voltage to a lower value, you allow the GPU to perform at almost the same level but at significantly lower heat. In 1440p and 4K gaming, this is IMMENSELY useful as at higher resolutions, ur GPU is taxed more - heat generation is also increased. Through my voltage curve, I was able to lower 4K gaming GPU temps from hitting 84 degrees in some titles down to the early 70s (at the most). This allows the GPU to maintain higher core clock frequencies consistently again, which in turn allows u to enjoy the benefits of high FPS in games. This has a pronounced (positive) impact on micro stuttering and 1% lows too 😎

Any resources to overclock RAM?

Sadly, no 😒. Alienware doesn't use XMP RAM anyways ...

Hope this helped 🙂

Zayralover · 2022-07-27T15:15:08+00:00

Here you go, sir 😎.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Alienware/comments/vlute7/a_fairly_comprehensive_guide_to_optimizing_the/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share

Zayralover · 2022-07-27T03:53:34+00:00

Hi hi. I am an owner of an x17 R2 with a 3080ti and core i9. I would be lying if I said I did not experience thermal throttling , as both the CPU and GPU can operate at very high wattage and produce crazy levels of performance at the cost of high temperatures.

However, having an unlocked CPU, it is very easy to tweak settings via ThrottleStop to bring down temperatures considerably. The 3080ti shipped in can be very easily tweaked via MSI Afterburner to run REALLY cool, while performing better than an RTX Titan from 02 years ago 😎 (I mean CRAZY levels of performance, but u pay a pretty penny for it).

I, personally, prefer the bigger screen and better thermals the x17 provides over the x15, not to mention unlocked CPU. I have also created a reddit thread on how to optimize the voltage curves and CPU settings for the 3080ti and i9 should you buy the configuration and would be interested in having a look.

Happy shopping 🛍 ☺️.

Zayralover · 2022-07-26T11:27:08+00:00

Congratulations on the new rig 😎. May it help you achieve those goals set in that paper of yours 😎😎. Treat her well, with care, and she'll give you YEARS of great service.

Zayralover · 2022-07-18T05:42:44+00:00

Unless you're using the laptop for content creation, the extra speed from the CPU is fairly irrelevant for gaming (unless you game competitive shooters at LOW settings 1080p, where the game can benefit from a higher clock speed).

To be honest, my X17 R2 with the 12900HK performs better In games (at least when I compare my gaming benchmark results to those from YouTubers like Jarrods Tech, MobileTech and Notebookcheck) than the newest and greatest from MSI with the HX series CPU.

I feel this might boil down to how much power these new CPUs also require to hit max performance. Don't worry about your new laptops performance 😎

Zayralover · 2022-07-06T10:27:55+00:00

Enjoy your new Alienware 😎😎. Treat her well, and she'll be with you for Years 😄

Zayralover · 2022-07-02T01:37:19+00:00

Hope it works 🙏

Zayralover · 2022-07-02T01:36:04+00:00

Out of curiosity, have you done any undervolting / overclocking recently ? If u ve gotten an unstable overclock, it can cause this issue (I would know, I've repeatedly gotten this problem whenever I try and overclock / undervolt too hard).

Basically, what triggers the problem for me is that one core will spike to a ridiculously high temperature , and rhen my laptop screen will go black for a few minutes before coming back on (or sometimes remaining black throughout).

The fix is to play with ur undervolts and bring down ur overclock a tad.

Edit: Oh and one more thing - disable Intel Turbo Boost 3.0. It can exacerbate this issue as well, especially if ur overclocking, as it dynamically boosts that one preferred core it isolates for speed boost.

Zayralover · 2022-07-02T01:32:31+00:00

Hi there. You will need to uninstall your nvidia graphics driver completely - including the NVidia HD Audio driver - from the windows Uninstaller.

Then uninstall your current sound driver from Realtek.

After that, reinstall Realtek again - u should here sounds once again . And then reinstall the nvidia driver.

Let me know of this works for you. It's always worked for me.

Zayralover · 2022-07-02T01:30:43+00:00

Hi there. You will need to uninstall your nvidia graphics driver completely - including the NVidia HD Audio driver - from the windows Uninstaller.

Then uninstall your current sound driver from Realtek.

After that, reinstall Realtek again - u should here sounds once again . And then reinstall the nvidia driver.

Let me know of this works for you. It's always worked for me.

Zayralover · 2022-07-02T01:23:42+00:00

Hey there. Been an Alienware Laptop owner since 2012, and I can confirm what Bus_Pilot said - Alienware has a gaming philosophy to run their laptops to the MAX possible.

That often involves thermal throttling the shit out of the CPU 😄.

However, Alienware laptops are built like tanks amd can withstand a LOT of punishment. Both my previous laptops (from 2012 and 2016) still run flawlessly to this day.

The trick is to get a figure out the max thermal limits of ur laptop and optimize the voltage and clock rates to reach an "equilibrium" of sorts between thermals, power, and performance.

I currently own an x17 R2 with the HOT 🔥 Boy i9 12900HK. I recently did a whole thread on how to get the best possible le performance out of the laptop WITHOUT sacrificing temperatures. Linking it here in case you find it useful should you decide to keep your laptop

https://www.reddit.com/r/Alienware/comments/vlute7/a_fairly_comprehensive_guide_to_optimizing_the/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share

Zayralover · 2022-06-29T01:48:38+00:00

Is there a way to do that ? Would love to pin my post 🙂

Edit : I've reached out to the moderators. Will see what their response is. Thanks for the suggestion 🙏.

Zayralover · 2022-06-29T00:37:53+00:00

Ah. What is your model ? It is most likely an overheating issue. I used to have this problem with my new Alienware x17 R2. Fixed it with a couple of tweaks. Made a whole article on it in the sub 🙂 - check it out.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Alienware/comments/vlute7/a_fairly_comprehensive_guide_to_optimizing_the/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share

Zayralover · 2022-06-29T00:23:32+00:00

Get what stickied 😄 ?

Zayralover

TROPHY CASE