The Alienware m15 R5 gaming laptop was missing about 10% of its CUDA cores when it initially
launched, I’ve covered this in another video linked down in the description, but now Alienware
have released an update that unlocks the rest of those CUDA cores, however it’s not exactly
doing quite as well as I expected.
I’ve retested the m15 R5 in 10 different games to show you how well it performs both
before and after the update, and I’ve also tested out thermals so we can get a complete
picture of how this laptop is supposed to perform.
These are the specs of my m15 R5, I’ve got a Ryzen 9 5900HX processor, Nvidia RTX 3070
graphics, 16 gigs of memory and a 1080p 165Hz screen.
It’s worth noting that the 1080p 165Hz screen I’ve got means that we’re stuck with optimus.
The 1440p 240Hz or 1080p 360Hz options come with advanced optimus and G-Sync, so I would
expect those to perform even better to what I’m showing here.
Here’s how things looked before the update, so both system information in Nvidia’s control
panel and GPU-Z show 4608 CUDA cores, and then once the new VBIOS update was installed
we can see the correct number of 5120 cores are shown.
So I basically downloaded more CUDA cores, hopefully not too long before we can download
more RAM.
The update wasn’t available for me through the Alienware update software, you have to
manually go to the website and get it.
Hopefully this changes, otherwise I’m sure a lot of machines will probably never get
patched.
Here’s the download page for the update on Dell’s website.
I found it interesting that under fixes & enhancements it notes “corrected the CUDA core information
in system information from 4608 to 5120 in the Nvidia control panel application”.
Based on that description it kind of just makes it sound like this is a superficial
fix rather than actually modifying the amount of available CUDA cores, so let’s check
out some actual performance tests and see what the differences were before and after
the update.
These are the screenshots from hardware info when running the Heaven GPU benchmark in the
same room with a 21 degree Celsius ambient room temperature.
The TDP and clock speeds are basically the same and within margin of error both before
and after the update, but check out the temperature differences.
After the update was running 6 degrees cooler on average over the course of an hour.
The GPU hot spot temperature was also around 7 degrees cooler after the update, so same
workload in the same conditions, literally the only change was the VBIOS update.
So what’s going on here?
I don’t know for sure, but this is what I think is happening.
On average the RTX 3070 was using the same 122 watts both before and after the update,
but before the update that same amount of power was available for fewer CUDA cores.
After the update that same amount of power then becomes available for 10% more CUDA cores,
and CUDA cores take up physical space on the die, so in theory more CUDA cores equals more
physical surface area, so my thought is if you’re spreading that same amount of power
out over a bigger area then it could lead to lower GPU hot spots.
Again I can’t say for sure, this is just my best guess based on the information available.
Now although things are clearly different with the GPU only workload, there’s basically
no change when the processor is also under load, like when we’ve got an actual game
running for instance.
These are the temperatures for both the CPU and GPU when under combined stress test, so
both processor and graphics are fully loaded up, both before and after the update we’re
looking at basically the same temperatures.
Likewise the clockspeeds are essentially the same too, technically after the update was
around 20MHz slower on both the CPU and GPU, but this is quite small and within margin
of error.
Again the power levels for both CPU and GPU were about the same in these CPU plus GPU
stress tests, no obvious important differences.
So just to summarize things so far, after that VBIOS update in a GPU only stress test
I was seeing lower temperatures, but that was about the only difference, and then when
the laptop was under combined CPU plus GPU stress test there was basically no changes
to note.
Just before the games, let’s take a look at 3DMark results, as these are typically
GPU heavy.
I’ve got the updated results shown in purple, and in all tests the updated system is scoring
better than before the update, though the differences aren’t that big.
The timespy graphics score is about 3.5% higher after the update, while the Firestrike graphics
score has a 1.8% improvement.
The Port Royal ray tracing test on the other hand was around 6.7% higher after the update.
So after the update there’s clearly a boost in these GPU only workloads, but what about
actual games?
The results surprised me and weren’t quite what I was expecting, so let’s compare 10
games both before and after the update.
Cyberpunk 2077 was tested in the exact same manner both before the update in the red bars,
and after the update in the purple bars.
Regardless of the setting preset, or whether or not we’re using ray tracing, the updated
laptop is performing better.
The new vBIOS update was reaching almost 13% higher average FPS at low settings, while
ultra settings was 4.5% ahead.
It’s not all gains though, Red Dead Redemption 2 was tested with the games benchmark, and
the system before the update was actually slightly ahead between low and medium settings,
granted it’s only a small amount and for the most part a couple of FPS is within margin
of error.
The updated laptop was ahead at ultra settings, and generally I’d expect higher setting
presets that are more GPU heavy to see the benefits of the CUDA core change.
Things really start getting weird in Shadow of the Tomb Raider.
Regardless of the settings in use the updated system was consistently behind.
Sure it’s often just a 1 to 3 FPS difference, but the laptop prior to the update was coming
out ahead consistently.
Assassin’s Creed Valhalla was similar, at most setting presets it’s within margin
of error, though for some reason high settings was a fair bit different in favor of before
the update.
Control is a GPU heavy game, and at medium and high settings the updated system is back
in front, though it’s just a 3 FPS or so difference, nothing major, putting high settings
around 4% ahead after the update.
Here’s how things look with ray tracing enabled, another workload that’s heavy on
the GPU, and this time the update was almost giving us a 5% boost to average FPS.
Performance improves with DLSS enabled, and at max settings the update is back to giving
us around a 4% performance boost.
Battlefield V was another weird one where the laptop was doing better before the update
at all setting levels.
I double checked the results after the update and got the same again, it’s only a small
change, but again I’m not really sure why we’d see lower performance with more CUDA
cores available.
Microsoft Flight Simulator was always slightly ahead with the update both in terms of average
FPS and 1% lows, regardless of setting preset in use, but it’s often quite a small difference.
Watch Dogs Legion doesn’t really tell us anything useful, both were about the same
at the highest ultra setting preset, while results at lower setting presets were going
one way or the other.
Likewise The Witcher 3 was very similar before and after the update, no real changes and
it varied slightly one way or the other based on the settings in use.
CS:GO was generally doing better after the update, the 1% low results were ahead with
the update at all setting levels, while average FPS had the biggest improvement at max settings,
though it’s less than a 2% gain.
These are the differences out of all 10 games tested at the highest setting level, though
I’ve also included ray tracing and DLSS results which are adding more results in favor
of the updated system despite them coming from the same games.
In any case out of this selection the updated m15 R5 was best case offering 5% higher average
FPS in Control with ray tracing, while some games were actually doing worse.
Now it’s a small difference either way, and in general the trend is positive, but
still I wasn’t expecting to see some doing a little worse, granted it could be some other
issue with the testing, though I feel confident on the testing both before and after updating.
Testing at 1440p may have shown a bigger difference as this would put more of a workload on the
GPU, but unfortunately I’ve got the 1080p screen model here.
I guess I could have used an external screen in order to run at higher resolutions, but
basically I was just using the data that was already collected prior to the update.
Those 10 games were just tested out for my usual game benchmark video, but that was before
I found out about this issue, so instead of just scrapping that work and doing it all
again anyway I figured it would be useful to show you the before and after differences.
Given we actually saw worse performance in Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Battlefield
V, compared to others the m15 R5 still isn’t stacking up well for an RTX 3070 gaming laptop,
at least in these titles, but I should note that the other screen options with advanced
optimus should perform better as they would bypass the iGPU.
Battery life saw basically no change either, after the update running The Witcher 3 lasted
a couple of minutes less, but this is margin of error stuff and not enough to draw any
solid conclusions from.
So at the end of the day after the update the m15 R5 doesn’t get that much of a performance
boost.
In general there is some improvement but nothing major.
Personally I did expect a bigger difference than this given 10% of the CUDA cores were
missing, but perhaps at least at 1080p it wasn’t enough to matter.
In any case I think it’s good that Alienware customers are now getting that full 3070 that
they’re paying for, and that the problem has been resolved.
I’m still working on the full review of the Alienware m15 R5 gaming laptop, so if
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