Best benchmark tool to demonstrate 580M thermal throttling?

I happen to have just got access to the Mobile Graphics Engineer from Dell who works on the M17xR3 line. While I know if I play SW:TOR for a couple of hours on Tarsis I can demonstrate the problem, I was wondering if there is a nice (free) benchmarking tool I can run through a few times that will push the video card hard enough to cause the issue. No overclocking or anything - I want to show the problem with the stock settings.

Thanks for your help!

 

Use Furmark. That will stress the GPU within a few seconds. Run it windowed with GPUz graphing beside it. Watch the GPU clocks go up and down.

 

Furmark would probably be the quickest, easiest way to demonstrate the issue.

 

And if the engineer says something like "Well of course Furmark will do it" then use OCCT or the Heaven benchmark or almost any of the Nvidia tech demos on their site will trigger it very quickly, as in sub 10 minutes.

Also, just don't elevate the laptop, that should make it hit the throttle about half as fast, and technically speaking we should not be required to elevate our laptops to use them, if that was they case they should have included raised feet.

 

However, Dell engineers and techs have traditionally rejected Furmark results for any purpose regarding GPU heat or power usage, dismissing it as a power virus. Shame, because it provides the fastest, easiest demonstration of the throttling issue.

Good point about removing any risers to improve ventilation.

 

So Heaven maybe? I actually had a Dell Support tech install Heaven to demonstrate the issue. I have a 580M / no 3D support. Anyone know some nice stressful Heaven settings?

 

DX11 maxed out with 8xAA will stress it out pretty well.

 

Heaven is very stressful, just set it all to high settings and off you go, it should heat up almost as quick as Furmark.

 

To my surprise, it doesn't though. I o/c'ed to 700/825, set AA to max (8x?), AF to 16x, Tesselation to extreme, etc., maxxed out every setting I could find. Darn thing never went over 68C. Whoops. The back was still elevated when that was run. I'll try again.

Edit: Removed the back stands, ran at 1600x900 windowed (to watch the temps and clocks), set to 8x AA, 16x AF, Extreme tess, etc., all of which kills performance (21 FPS v 51 FPS at default settings). Temps increased by 7-8C, but still didn't hit the throttle point. Probably work with someone who doesn't have highly effective paste, etc. on the GPU.

 

Furmark, run an xtreme burn-in test, do an enormous resolution (can be higher than what your actuall screen resolution is, just run it in WINDOWED mode), AA to max (8x MSAA), Dynamic Background, Dynamic Camera, no temp.alarm and hit "BURN IN TEST".

That will make that sucker throttle, like it was made to do nothing else..


- Scott.

 

Amazing that you can't get it to throttle. I can get it to throttle stock, as in no modded vBios so it is running 30% slower after 63c, just running Heaven sitting on my desk totally stock mine will hit the 77c throttle before the end of the Benchmark set.

 

I'm using the A04 BIOS, so the 63C throttle doesn't occur, and the clocks stay in P0 state throughout (700/825 in my case). It shows what a difference good paste and, in some instances, a little heat sink manicuring can accomplish. As a practical matter, the only time I encounter throttling (usually expressed as a black screen or crash to desktop, rather than kicking down to P1) is when the 580M is heavily o/c'ed (i.e., 860/960 or above with .92v) running highly stressful loads (Vantage or portions of 3dMark11) or Furmark, which I avoid.
Getting the 63C throttle eliminated for all users and the 77-78C throttle point eliminated or at least extended to 90C +/- would be a huge benefit, but the 580M's infirmities and limitations are grossly exaggerated by some. As a practical matter, I never encounter throttling except during extreme benchmarking. With a bit of care and effort, that can apply to anyone, but it shouldn't have to. The entire throttling problem is entirely Dell-inflicted for no necessary purpose.

 

Yeah, I can hit the throttle after about 10 minutes of Furmark. It throttles exactly around 77-78c ... and my core clocks drop down to like 73 mhz

However when gaming, I never seem to run into the throttle. Played Skyrim for hours on end, same with Left 4 Dead and the Diablo 3 Beta... no throttle to speak of.

It's kind of unnerving though. I'm expecting my games to throttle at any minute, but they never seem to.

 

That's usually where Furmark does it to me, but sometimes it will keep going on out to 84C +/-. I have no idea why and am still trying to identify the particular combination of vbios settings, drivers and whatever (mostly HW64, TStop) that allow this to occur.

 

I just ran the Heaven benchmark twice and didn't get any throttling either. Framerate was about 25-50 throughout on default settings.

I don't play real intense games like Crysis so I'm hoping I won't run into this nasty throttle.

 

These 580M's can eat a lot of pixels with proper care and feeding.

 

The lower t63C throttle doesn't affect everyone, only the few unlucky ones who have 580m's that seem to eat more power. It does however affect everyone with a overvolted vbios. The higher 77C throttle I guess only affect people who are still on stock paste, repasted badly of have really high ambient temps. I know some users from India have 32C ambient which is bound to affect the GPU operating temps.

Like the Good Reverend said, proper card and feeding and all should be fine. Still though, it would be good of Dell to remove the lower throttle, I don't even reckon that one is even thermal based, maybe a sneaky ploy to prevent people from overvolting; as well as raise the 77C throttle to 90C.

 

I know Dell is aware of this... are they planning to release an updated BIOS any time soon?