Hi guys,
There is a new BIOS on DELL's website: https://www.dell.com/support/home/nl/nl/nlbsdt1/product-support/product/alienware-m14x-r2/drivers
According to description this is a SPECTRE fix. We all know the story about Spectre Meltdown and many are afraid of doing this update because of possible performance slowdown.
I was afraid too, but I wanted to give it a try anyway. Before flashing a new BIOS I run Passmark Performance Test 9.0 just for comparison - hope this will be a help for you too. If you are about to update your BIOS please share your scores before and after flashing to A15.
My hardware: AlienWare M14xR2 with 1366x768 TN panel
CPU: i7-3820QM (Locked to 3.6GHz on all cores via ThrottleStop 6.00)
RAM: 16GB Hyper X Overclocked to 1866MHz
GPU: 650m (+135MHz to GPU and 50MHz to memory in Afterburner)
SSD in drive bay as a system drive (Samsung 850 EVO 500GB)
HDD in DVD bay (1TB some Seagate)
M.2 (32GB Kingston just for video editing cashing)
Win10 Home
Thermal Grizzly Krayonaut keeps all interior nice and cool even after OC![]()
Passmark 9.0 (only CPU Mark part)
BEFORE on old BIOS A08
1st run - 9 401
2nd run - 9 409
3rd run - 9 434
Average 9 414
AFTER on new BIOS A15
1st run - 9 429
2nd run - 9 463
3rd run - 9 460
Average 9 450
In my case it ended up maybe slightly better than before but keep in mind it turned out that I had an older BIOS then I thought I hadProbably most of you have A11, I was running A08 :O
If anyone interested my average score for hole Performance test 9.0 is usually around 3680 - 3700.
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Mastermind5200 Notebook Virtuoso
M.2? How did you manage that?
Also, why did you lock your CPU, is the heatsink that tiny in this beast? -
I'll start a new thread to answer your questions. Just don't want to mess up and off top here in BIOS thread. If you have any other questions please click a link below:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/alienware-m14x-r2-still-alive-in-2018-2019.823004/Last edited: Sep 17, 2018Mastermind5200 likes this. -
I have the same machine with an i7-3630QM. I would like to know how you overclocked your CPU and Ram. I am a noob in that department. Thanks!
Alienware m14x r2 i7 3630QM / 16GB DDR3 1600 / Geforce 650 / Win7
Alienware 17 r4 i7 7820HK / 16GB DDR4 2667 / Geforce 1070 / 2K 120Hz G-Sync / Win10Last edited: Nov 11, 2018
AlienWare M14x R2 BIOS A15 [march 2018]
Discussion in 'Alienware 14 and M14x' started by eclipse05, Sep 16, 2018.