win32asmguy

That is great to see gear 2 on the csodimms. Trfc is also good for jedec timings.

Also still working on that Pro Max 18 Plus order as I still think its closer to what I want in an 18 inch laptop. The sales rep said they had an internal SKU issue so a new quoted order would have to be placed. The RTX 5000 Blackwell mobile can draw up to 175W this year just like the 5090 mobile.

Quad channel here is a bit misleading as it's two 32bit subchannels with ddr5 instead of DDR4 which had a single 64bit channel per module. CAMM's advantage will be better signal integrity over sodimm or csodimm even rivaling udimm. So 256gb might be stable at 5600mt at a given temperature compared to 4x64gb sodimm that may be stable up to 4000mt under the same conditions.

Well, Best Buy has the Alienware 51 18 with the 5090 on sale this week for the same as Micro Center so I am going to try that out instead! If its on par with the Hydroc G2 and does not have any issues I would probably end up pulling it apart and removing the E31 compound for PTM7950 instead. That testing spot definitely maxes out the GPU even without RT enabled.

Yeah I was thinking about that too. This: $529 - 285K (Micro Center) $449 - Asrock Taichi OCF (Central Computers) $149 - KingBank 2x24GB 8400MT (Amazon) Although it would mean selling off the Xeon and 12900KS setup. I am not sure how a tuned 14900K would compare to the 285K but my current Z690 board may hold it back. How is the Kingston Fury kit working in the Alienware? XMP profile working? Memory latency hopefully under 100ns? You might be able to use XTU to tune D2D and NGU for a little more boost. It seems like the Dell Pro Max 18 Plus is probably not happening. They cancelled my order due to configuration issues. It was a quoted order from a business sales rep so I am not sure what to think.

That would be great if you could test it. I generally have interest in these workstations as a professional option to Alienware with full Linux compatibility, better build quality and warranty.

Thanks for your continued review / information! By chance would you be able to check HWInfo64 memory information page for detailed specs on the timings for both the CSODIMMs and CAMM modules? It looks like this: That is from a non-CSODIMM Kingston Fury kit with tREFI tuned and at 1.25v. With SA Fabric and D2D tuned its around 90ns latency which while far behind a tuned desktop 285K is much better than most stock OEM shipping laptops. Some guys with Lenovo Legion 7i's have also hit close to 80ns as well. In theory a CAMM XMP module could do really well here if they offered single rank Hynix modules with desktop-grade timings.

That kit looks great for the price. I should probably see how far my current 2x16GB kit can go. The other thing is giving another go with the Xeon. Micro Center has a lone W790-ACE in stock that could solve some of the issues I experienced with using a W-2400 in the SAGE. The Noctua cooler would be in the proper orientation which should improve airflow for both the CPU and RAM. I am guessing the bios would be similar to the SAGE with the same quirks but who knows. The nice thing about the cores on the Xeon is that they get the full 2MB L2 cache unlike the 12900K/KS where its 1.25MB. So it is essentially Raptor Lake silicon.

Well I at least finally found the MSI bios setting for iGPU control, "Multi Monitor Support". I also found out that DDR5 on the consumer chips do not support gear1 (strangely the Xeon does support ddr5 gear1). Also set tREFI to 65k which dropped latency down to 57ns. IIRC you guys had your ddr5 tuned to sub-40ns on 14th gen so it has a way to go.. These sticks are actually Hynix M-die (4.D) according to HWInfo64. Kind of wish I had a Unify-X or other 1DPC board to work with here. I am guessing 8000 CL26-30 simply is not happening with a 12900KS either. I like the fact that in the hardware busters video he did not just run around the starting zone in circles at 500fps and declared that WoW can run on any system maxed out.

The Xeon was a tough chip to tune. In retrospect I think I purchased the wrong motherboard to go with it. I thought the W790-SAGE would be a good choice as it was 1DPC, but the CPU orientation did not help air cooling efficiency, disabled PCIe/M.2 with the W-2400 chip, and bios bugs. I think memory is more limited by mesh clocks for latency than pure timings. With XMP enabled I could see a difference of 15ns between 2.4ghz mesh (stock) at 3.0ghz mesh (max stable). I thought about picking up a Asrock W790 WS and see if it solves the issues I had with the SAGE. I should at least run XMP + tREFI 64k. Then see if I can go back and find a deep dive tuning guide to see what to do next. I will try the weekly boss out in K'aresh and see how it does. I also have e-cores disabled in the bios for simplicity. Ah, the MSI is moving on to its next owner. I had the same sentiment about its noise level. Its a shame that at the end of the day an Alienware is still an Alienware. I was majorly turned off from the brand after the M18R1 that leaked their stupid Element 31 LM/hybrid compound past their thin barrier from the factory. Waited a month for that to arrive DOA. It did not help that it had rainbow RGB on bootup by default along with high pitched fan noise. I still have the order for the new Pro Max 18 Plus open. It will be interesting to test out if it ever arrives.

I went ahead and swapped the z690 + 12900ks into my big fractal design r7 xl last night. Love working in that thing; plenty of room for my hands. With XMP stock it was getting 67ns latency in aida64. WoW felt much smoother and other than initial loading hiccups ran very well. The bios I am using does not let me disable the igpu surprisingly. I think the Alienware should do well with those fury sticks. Support for XMP in this Gen is a must have. They should also have options to tune sa fabric and d2d.

It is a MSI Pro Z690-A with 2x16GB Corsair Vengeance C32 6400 memory which is stable with XMP enabled. That 12900KS is the one I had bought for the NH55 but it was running much hotter than the binned 12900K. It is already delidded and has a nicely polished rockitcool copper IHS. I would want to find a different adapter to use my Optane P5800X via the primary M.2 slot (CPU lanes) instead of a PCIe slot (chipset lanes). It makes a great boot drive and is also good for testing stuff as it is a cacheless drive. I still think about a Z890 1DPC + 285K setup, but I don't use the desktop very much right now. I need to find a solution to keep multiple machines synchronized better along with a reliable KVM so I could use my laptop at my home desk as needed. So far the MSI QHD display built in KVM does not work well.

Wow the vanguard looks really nice! I wanted one of those too but the gaming trio was all that became available back in February without any silly bundles required. In theory they are similar but the vanguard has a vapor chamber. I still need to move mine into my z690 / 12900ks system so I can see if it does better than with the frequency limited Xeon.

Best Buy got the Intel Claw 8 in stock so I ordered one to try it out. The last handheld gaming console I owned was a Sega Nomad / Gameboy Pocket (can't remember which came out first) so this will be an interesting experience. My hope is that with the ConsolePort addon I can run WoW for non-raiding things, and Steam / Emulation along with maybe a few offline movies my four year old likes.

I appreciate this choice because they made a decision of function over form here. I doubt any engineers or users actually cared about how thick their mobile workstations were (within reason). Are we going back to M6800 sized systems? No. But it can at least be as thick as needed to sustain advertised performance in reasonable conditions.