Alienware m9750 question

[imported_hopeless]

I've read a little bit about the Alienware m9750 and how fast it goes through the battery.

Is it possible to underclock it for times that you aren't gaming and want the battery to last a bit longer?

 

[Brainonska511]

Since it uses a Core2Duo mobile processor, not much you could do there - you could run something like RMClock or SpeedSwitchXP (etc...) to keep the processor locked down to its lowest multiplier while on battery, but they may or may not work with the C2D, which already is good at saving power on its own.

The main power draw of the m9750 is the graphics card(s). The 7950GTX is a power hungry monster, and even more so if you go with the SLI option. You might be able to clock the GPUs down a little, but I doubt you'd see much difference in battery life, as the mobile GPUs usually already have some power-saving features built in.

There are plenty of other notebooks that have pretty good graphics and good battery life. Of course, they won't be the best graphics, but you can't get great battery life and great graphics in one package unless you wanted to carry around some huge battery.

 

[Tarrant64]

Originally posted by: Brainonska511
Since it uses a Core2Duo mobile processor, not much you could do there - you could run something like RMClock or SpeedSwitchXP (etc...) to keep the processor locked down to its lowest multiplier while on battery, but they may or may not work with the C2D, which already is good at saving power on its own.

The main power draw of the m9750 is the graphics card(s). The 7950GTX is a power hungry monster, and even more so if you go with the SLI option. You might be able to clock the GPUs down a little, but I doubt you'd see much difference in battery life, as the mobile GPUs usually already have some power-saving features built in.

There are plenty of other notebooks that have pretty good graphics and good battery life. Of course, they won't be the best graphics, but you can't get great battery life and great graphics in one package unless you wanted to carry around some huge battery.

:thumbsup: True.

That Alienware laptop in particular isn't geared towards long battery life. It's mostly geared towards high performance that has mobility as a plus as opposed to be being tied down with a desktop. There are only a handful of laptops that can compare if not do a little bit better on performance, however they all have poor battery life. Don't expect much more than 1.5 hours.