Throttlestop 940xm help

Allrighty, just upgraded to 940XM, and I want to use throttlestop.

I read the guide, and I don't understand half of what it says ^^
On a serious note, I did interestingly read it and I do get parts of it. But there is so much usefull info in that thread, it's a bit to much for me tonight to get a basic start with TS. And I would like to start tonight with some settings

I am not looking to really push it to its limits, I just want to use the potential of the 940xm on a daily basis.
What's my next step, what settings should I put in throttlestop? Maybe someone can show me theirs?

I already found out I can turn it 'on' and 'off' ^^
And there's 4 profiles default I can play with, i'd like to start with the performance one

This is what I came up with after reading the guide and some similar setups.


- On all profiles, I checked Clock Modulation 100%, Chipset Clock Mod 100% and Set Multiplier Turbo (as in the screenshot).
- On all profiles I set 65TDP(W) and 62 TDC(A), which I understood is pretty safe for normale use
- for the Performance one, I used 80 TDP(W) and 70 TDC(A) for benching.

Current benchmark results (7970m at stock speeds):
- P18728 3DMark Vantage without TS (so just the stock values): http://www.3dmark.com/3dmv/4557013
- P19010 3DMark Vantage with TS (and the above Maximum CPU power settings): http://www.3dmark.com/3dmv/4557160
- P6006 3DMark11 without TS: http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/5777952
- P6164 3DMark11 with TS: http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/5779286

the scores with and without TS to me don't look that different (a few hundred points in Vantage, +- 1100 in 3dmark11 which is quite some more).
Interesting to see also in Vantage that with TS, while the CPU score goes up, the GPU score goes down 750 points?

Is there other stuff I can/should set? Are the current settings I use a bit similar to what others use and the benches what they should be?

 

I see you do not use the BIOS OC.Go BIOS-Advanced-Performance options:
Turbo mode: Enabled
DDR3 voltage: 1,5V
CPU vcore: Default
CPU Frequency oc: 5%
Vantage stock vga clock must +20k in this settings.
When i benching TS settings 95/62 or 70 and TRL:26 if bsod the system,need +75 or +150mV cpu vcore.

 

When making comparisons, keep in mind that when you exit or stop ThrottleStop, it will continue to use your previously selected TDP / TDC settings. If you set these to 80 - 70 and then click on Turn Off or exit; your CPU is still left sitting at these settings. These values are written directly to the CPU. Even after you do a warm reboot, your CPU might still be using these higher settings if the bios didn't reset them. Switching to profile 2 would be the best way to do a fair comparison of different TDP TDC values.

When dialing in maximum CPU performance, I prefer doing some quick CPU benchmark testing with something like wPrime 32M test. This allows you to keep an eye on ThrottleStop while this benchmark is running so you can watch your multipliers and core temperatures. What values are you using in the TRL window for your Turbo Ratio Limits?

Unless the ThrottleStop log file shows that your laptop is using Clock Modulation or Chipset Clock Modulation throttling, there is no need to check either of those boxes. All that does is waste CPU cycles trying to fight against something that is not happening. The 5% bios OC option also increases the core voltage so you might be better off sticking to some simple multiplier overclocking while learning about your new CPU.

Have fun playing. Take your time. It takes a while to get the most out a 940XM.

 

TLR shows 25-25-25-25-0-0 (didn't touch this bit yet)

I don't really feel comfortable using the bios stuff yet and increase core voltages, that's a bit overkill for me atm (especially not yet exactly knowing what i'm doing).
So i'd like to stick to some multiplier clocking at the moment

I'm just looking for some confirmation or some hints/tips to help me getting there, and if it's performing as it should atm

The one thing that keeps sitting in my head, is that I read everywhere that you 'unleash the beast' with throttlestop, I do see score increases, but not that drastic.
So i'm wondering if i'm just doing something wrong, forget an important part, or that this is how it should perform if I wish to not do more pro stuff like increases voltages etc.
And the GPU scoring lower in Vantage while using TS, also stays interesting

 

Starting to get the hang of it and getting the scores I always dreamed of (though I believe still a lot of cpu tweaking is possible, even without increasing voltages) when I combine TS with GPU overclocking (which didn't have massive impact with my 720qm which seemed to be the bottleneck, but with the 940xm its a whole different story).

P20523 in 3DMark Vantage AMD Radeon HD 7970M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-940 Processor,Alienware score: P20523 3DMarks
P6689 in 3DMark 11 AMD Radeon HD 7970M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-940 Processor,Alienware score: P6689 3DMarks

Now that's starting to look at something

 

Bump your TDP - TDC up some more and then run a wPrime 32M benchmark on your 940XM and compare your score to what a 720QM gets in the same benchmark. In CPU dependent benchmarks that fully load your CPU, there is a night and day difference in performance between those 2 CPUs.

The problem is that many games and 3D benchmarks are not fully using what your CPU is capable of. When gaming or 3D benching, turn on the ThrottleStop Log File option so it can track how much of your CPU is being used. That information can be found in the C0% column. The log file will also show you what multiplier you are running at when fully loaded. This can be used as your guide when bumping up TDP - TDC or bumping up the multipliers in the TRL window.

Here's a good thread to give you some ideas of what is possible. The 720QM gets left in the dust compared to an XM CPU that has been fully tweaked.

Pushing an i7 920xm to new levels by increasing the CPU core voltage

 

Define 'some' more (i'm not sure how far I can go).
Like 90/75 for example? How about my TRL, I currently use 25/25/25/25/0/0

I'll do some wPrime 32M benches, up to now I seem to have tried to compare my TS Bencmark 32m scores with other's wPrime 32M scores, which seems like... different ^^ Maybe I should use the same software for starters

Currently, with 80/70 and 25/25/25/25, I have a 10.103 score in wPrime (v2.09) 32M.

The logfile which pretty much goes with this (think it starts in the middle somewhere):
I'm still learning to read the logfile, but I 'bolded' the part which I believe I should be looking at? (multiplier lower as I would expect, at full load)?

2nd run: 90/75 and 29/28/28/26 score increases to 9.205sec and I seem to almost hit the 24x multi * I think I am starting to understand a bit how throttlestop works and how the processor works after reading your link/posts.
Here's the log for that run:

And a last 8.985sec but with 95/80 and 29/28/28/28 which to me feels like I might be pushing my luck with the processor, or am I still within safe limits?
It shows it's not stable in 3dmark Vantage at least, the planes cpu test makes the system reboot (edit: managed to stabilize it at 27/27/27/27 although in the last 3dmark Vantage test the score collapses from above 20 to 15-16 ish).

 

There is no need to increase your multipliers so high. At least not yet.

If you look at your last log file, at full load, the actual multiplier your CPU is using is averaging less than 25. Your temperatures are still great so you are not hurting your CPU. You will need to increase your TDP TDC settings further to start taking advantage of the 25 multiplier and then work your way up to 26.

When 3D Mark scores head for the toilet, that usually means that you have officially pushed your power brick to its limit. A hungry CPU and GPU needs to be fed lots of juice. It seems like you have an excellent CPU but you might have to start asking the experts about how much power a hungry R2 really needs to reach its full potential.

 

Actually, after this post I lowered the TBP to 26/26/26/26 and just got a 8.358 in wPrime 32M , with 95/80

So I think I found my tune of the 940xm, not pushing it to much and not touching the voltages, but still using alot of it's potential. I feel it's really unleashed now, and I do understand the legend this processor (and the 920xm) became the last years, it's an absolute beast.
It's some points here and there all the time, but they all add up and if you keep pushing, in the end you have a massive increase if you compare it to where you came from.

Together with a slight OC of the videocard (950/1375) i'm getting great scores (for me at least) in Vantage and 3dMark11 which I never thought possible in an R2.

The result after last night testing is P20785 and P6820, I think these are great scores for the current setup. At least i'm pretty happy with them
My score Vantage score before the 920xm was mid in the high 15k.
Now with the 920xm, and some tuning, i'm in the high 20k (P20785) and hoping to hit the 21k in the near future without to seriously pushing the hardware.
Same for 3DMark 11, I came from mid 5k, and am in the high 6k (P6820) now, hoping to hit the 7k.
In windows 7 my scores used to be some 100's higher then in windows 8 now, so I think if I had windows 7 I might have already hit the above scores in 3dMark.

One good thing though about TS, besides the control over the processor. After fiddling with the settings and reading all the articles and replies to my questions, I feel more confident trying stuff out, as I have a better basic understanding of how the processor works.

 

Glad to see that everything has worked out for you and thanks for the +rep comment. The 920XM and 940XM are a couple of ThrottleStop's biggest success stories. Thanks goes to Brian over at T|I for challenging me to find out what could be done with an XM + R2 combination.

ARK | Intel® Core

The desktop Core i7-920 is built on the exact same 45nm technology and has a TDP rating of 130W. Many users have overclocked these to 4000 MHz and ran them well beyond the 130W TDP rating without any problems. You will cook a power adapter long before you ever hurt one of these XM CPUs.

Nice to know that there is still lots of performance left in that CPU if you ever want to do some suicide benching.

http://go.hwbot.org/submission/2202343_svl7_wprime___32m_core_i7_920xm_6sec_56ms/