Alienware 17 R4 GTX1080 Improved Heatsink review

So a bunch of people were talking about a heatsink found on ebay that is supposedly "improved" compared to the original heatsink assembly that comes with the laptop.


Here is the "improved" heatsink I'm referring to:

https://www.ebay.ca/itm/CPU-Vacuum-...h=item3afb3cba8e:g:K8cAAOSwWLBaO2Ng:rk:5:pf:0

I've been playing with my laptop for the past few months repasting/repadding and although I've had some good results with LM it wasn't that impressive (high 80s Celsius while playing games for CPU, same for GPU) and I had to use a LOT of LM for it to work.

I've finally been able to get my hands on some pressure paper (expensive stuff...) and it turns out the pressure between the heatsink and the dies is almost nonexistant, hence why I needed a lot of LM so theres at least contact.

So I went ahead and bought that version of the heatsink, and it turned out to be just great. I haven't used LM, only MX-4 since I was out of Conductonaut and the difference is day and night. An hour of CPU+FPU+GPU stress test on AIDA64 won't get past 80C for the CPU and 65C for the GPU, and that is with the laptop sitting flat on my desk, without its rear raised and without a cooling pad.

Thought I'd share my experience with you all since quite a few people were wondering about that heatsink. Feel free to ask questions.

 

Short 3.5minutes run of AIDA64 just to show... temps don't change it stays the same even if I run it for 1h+

-0.130V CPU undervolt, stock clocks
Max GPU voltage locked at 0.850V, stock clocks

 

I got one of their copper GPU heatsinks and the fitment was crap for the price. I managed to muscle it in with adjusting a lot of the clamp setup and banging on the heatsink fin side. Still requires me to jimmy it all in there with fan and all screws undone and funky sized thermal pads on bottom end.

BTW this was a GPU copper 5 pipe M17x R4 unit.

 

Yeah I was only sharing my experience with that specific heatsink + fan unit. I don't know or care about what else is selling. Good to know though I guess!

 

You know if one was made for the 15 R4? Do they use the same heat sink?

 

Unfortunately I don't know, my guess is that it wouldn't

 

The 17 inch version is more wide, they cant be interchanged. The seller just repurposes the R5 heatsink for the R4 and doesnt look like the photo at all. Some users on this board posted photos of it and in real it looks kinda crap. If you have thermal issues. Try using a 0.3mm copper shim between the CPU and heatsink and use soft 0.5mm pads for teh CPU VRM's to bridge that gap. The extra pressure helps with the thermals and this is now my to go solution for heatsink issues in these models.

 

Another AIDA64 run, but for 3.5 hours just to show how awesome temps are now. Keep in mind, laptop is not raised, just sitting flat on a desk with no additional airflow underneath and without liquid metal. I'm impressed with the cooling system.

 

So, TL;DR was it worth it?

Also, do you happen to have pictures of how the laptop looks with the naked copper? It may be worth it aesthetically speaking

 

And what was the contact like? I wonder if copper shims (The 20mm * 20mm * 0.5mm) would make a good difference or improvement with LM vs this heatsink vs liquid metal.

 

It isnt naked copper its actually painted.

It was worth it in my case. Im not a fan of shims so I wouldnt use them

 

Is this will work with AW17 R% with i9 and GTX 1080?

 

Would like to see a test with raised back and:
- log with HWInfo (cpu core clocks, cpu temps, thermal throttling, voltage and wattage, gpu - same, pch)
- warm up session for 15 minutes any game you like/cpu and gpu demanding game
- tab out, reset hwinfo and play for 30 minutes
- tab out and screenshot

 

Wow, OP you should ask for some payment

 

I learned this is most comparable way between multiple testruns since you get rid of the idle core clocks which blur the average clocks and temps.