New Alienware m15 gaming laptop has been crippling its own RTX 3070 GPU
But a fix is currently in the works
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Editor’s note 6/11/2021:Dellhas reached out to us and gave the following statement: “Last week, we discovered our new Alienware m15 gaming system was limiting CUDA Cores on 3070 configurations. We have released a firmware update to help resolve the incorrect setting. Please check out the support pageherefor the updated vBios.” Alienware m15 owners should now be able to get the full power out of their laptop. Original story continues below.
Dell’s latestAlienware m15gaming laptop got some recent attention after it was announced that the martian-themed machine would beditching Intelin favor of using theAMD Ryzen 5000series, the first Alienware portable to use anAMDprocessor since 2007.
That spotlight might not have done it any favors though as it now transpires that a few m15 models are reporting 4,608 CUDA cores for theGeForce RTX 3070 graphics cardrather than the standard 5,120, a ‘mistake’ that appears to have been an intentional design choice by Dell.The issue was initially reported byJarrod’sTechon hisYouTubechannel, with benchmarks showing that he became suspicious of the machine when benchmarks for the m15 R5 didn’t correlate with other results from gaming laptops usingRTX 3070hardware.
After reaching out to Dell directly, it was previously confirmed that the decision to gimp the GPU was made by its engineering team after ‘careful testing and design choices to bring the most stable and best performance possible’, but also mentioned that more CUDA cores could be unlocked via a future update.Since then,Tom’s Hardwarealso contacted Dell and it has now emerged that the limitation is actually an error and that a fix is being developed for a mid-July release.“We have been made aware that an incorrect setting in Alienware’s vBIOS is limiting CUDA Cores on RTX 3070 configurations. This is an error that we are working diligently to correct as soon as possible. We’re expediting a resolution through validation and expect to have this resolved as early as mid-June. In the interim, we do not recommend using a vBios from another Alienware platform to correct this issue. We apologize for any frustration this has caused.”
The truth is out there
Some users overon a Reddit threadhave started to fix the issue themselves by flashing the VBIOS of the RTX 3070 in them15 R4onto the new m15 R5, but with a fix coming so soon we would either hold off until the July update or wait to buy the device if it’s still sitting in your basket.VideoCardzalso points out in its coverage that the crippled 10% reduction in cores isn’t mentioned once on the website which adds weight to Dell’s claims of this being a mistake, especially given how seriousNvidiahas been in the past with ensuring manufacturers using their mobile GPUs are listing key information like power TGP (total power draw) and clock speeds.The entire situation is very unusual but not likely to cause long-term performance issues given how easily the issues were fixed manually by folk who already own the laptop. It makes very little sense to purposefully cut the CUDA cores when Nvidia gives manufacturers (mostly) free reign on clock speeds and power to help increase battery life or keep the thermals at a bearable level.The Alienware m15 Ryzen Edition R5 is available starting at $1,794 (around £1,300, AU$2,350), with a choice of either theAMD Ryzen 9 5900HXorRyzen 7 5800H, and either theRTX 3060or RTX 3070 Nvidia mobile GPUs.
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Jess is a former TechRadar Computing writer, where she covered all aspects of Mac and PC hardware, including PC gaming and peripherals. She has been interviewed as an industry expert for the BBC, and while her educational background was in prosthetics and model-making, her true love is in tech and she has built numerous desktop computers over the last 10 years for gaming and content creation. Jess is now a journalist at The Verge.
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