My Experience Upgrading the AREA-51m R1 to an i9-9900KS with a Custom Optimized Profile

[amirhesamsadeghpour]

 

Time spy test score

Old Cpu  9900K:

https://www.3dmark.com/spy/56481843

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New Cpu 9900KS :

https://www.3dmark.com/spy/64018720

 

After upgrading my Alienware Area-51m R1 to the Intel Core i9-9900KS, I noticed that almost every user who performed this upgrade experienced significant CPU performance degradation. Most reported Time Spy CPU scores were only between 8000 and 9000 points due to power limits, EDP throttling, BIOS limitations, and the lack of a proper 9900KS profile in the BIOS.

I decided to fully optimize and tune the system manually. After testing multiple BIOS versions, tweaking hidden settings, optimizing memory timings, tuning power behavior, and creating a custom optimized profile for the 9900KS, I finally achieved a stable and fully optimized result.

Previously, with the standard i9-9900K, the best temperature I recorded during Time Spy was 96°C. However, after upgrading to the i9-9900KS, the system delivered noticeably higher and more stable performance while running significantly cooler, with a maximum Time Spy temperature of only 71°C.

My final Time Spy score reached 18,411 overall, with a CPU score of 11,206 — paired with an EVGA RTX 3080 Ti XC3 that scored 20,767 in graphics performance, which is currently the highest known CPU score achieved with an i9-9900KS on an Alienware Area-51m R1.

What makes this result even more impressive is that the CPU maintains excellent temperatures and efficiency while delivering desktop-class performance inside a laptop platform.

 

 

I compared the performance of my laptop using two processors, the 9900K and the 9900KS. You can see the temperature difference between both CPUs in the Time Spy benchmark. There is more than a 25°C temperature gap between these two processors on the Area-51M. The reason is the power limitation of the 9900KS. By undervolting with XTU, you can achieve higher performance at lower power consumption and significantly lower temperatures.

 

 

 

The 9900KS on the Area-51M is power-limited by the BIOS. Since voltage profiles for the 9900KS are not defined in the BIOS, it only allows the CPU to use up to 130W. I am trying to remove this BIOS-imposed limitation. However, even with this 130W limit, you can still achieve significantly lower temperatures compared to the 9900K or any other processor, along with higher performance. If I can remove this limitation, I can increase the CPU score in the Time Spy  cpu score benchmark up to 13,000.

 

 

System highlights:

• Alienware Area-51m R1 

• Intel Core i9-9900KS

• Custom optimized BIOS/RU tuning

• DDR4-2666 overclock to 2933 CL17memory tuning

• Fully optimized thermal and power behavior

• Stable high-performance operation