Overclocking the Alienware M14X (i7 SB + GT 555M) - Benchmarks / Videos!

Hey all,

I ordered my Alienware M14X on 4/19 and the expected delivery date is 5/11. I will keep a log for this virgin OC beast - I upgraded from the m11x-r2, which I also heavily overclocked!

Alienware M11x, Soft Touch Stealth Black
Overclockable Intel Core i5 520UM (3M Cache, 1.866 GHz Max Turbo Frequency) - OC'd @ 2.85Ghz
8GB Dual Channel DDR3 at 800MHz
1GB NVIDIA GeForce GT 335M
320GB SATAII 7,200RPM (OCZ Vertex LE)

My m11x-r2 was blessed enough to be stable at 2.85Ghz (i5) @ 185mhz and with the GT 335M OC'd at 580 / 1392 / 960 which scored 8957 in 3DMark06 and in Vantage of P3862. This little packs all this power and still does not overheat! CPU and GPU idles at 45, and full loads at 77-78 and 71-72 respectively.

Keep in mind I was also able to OC the graphics card so much thanks to the bios mod that increased the voltage by .5!

http://forum.notebookreview.com/alie...e-voltage.html

And as for the CPU OC'd I manually OC'd it to 166mhz (max in bios) and then by using:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/alie...ver-166-a.html

I got all of these goodies for 636 + Tax

Alienware M14X - Nebula Red with Soft Touch Finish
Intel Core i7 2630QM 2.0GHz (2.9GHz Turbo Mode, 6M cache) - stock
4GB Dual Channel DDR3 at 1600MHz
1.5GB DDR3 NVIDIA GeForce GT 555M using NVIDIA Optimus technology
500GB 7200RPM SATA 3GB/s (popping an OCZ Vertex III SATA3 in there ASAP!)

I am hoping to overclock the Alienware M14X just as heavily! I know that Dell said we can overclock w/o losing the warranty. According to my knowledge Sandy Bridges are usually overclock by increasing the multiplier and usually not the mhz. And according to this thread:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/dell...555m-card.html

The GT 555M graphics card can be OC'd like a baws. Yes like a boss. Apparently it runs relatively cool even OC'd. This will definitely make the m14x really shine!

Unboxing video! Enjoy!

First boot!


Overclocking the CPU:


Subscribe to this thread for future benchmarks and pictures!

I got all these goodies for 905 + Tax!
Edited by RagingAzn628 - 5/1/11 at 10:14pm

In other words, this CPU is NOT "unlocked" ie. like the 2500k or 2600k?

Yeah that's what I said. NOT "unlocked" = locked ... Lol.

More power is always nice. The only limit is the ability to overclock on these CPUs

I believe these machines are built to be overclocked (Hence Dell allows overclocking) - with the M11X the max you can OC in the BIOS is 166mhz. I believe it will be the same (in terms of how high you can set the mhz to) for the m14x. Although it looks like you cannot change the multiplier you will definitely be able to change the mhz.

Nope. Not worth it. I take my laptop to class and plug into my 22" when I'm back at the room.