Aw m18x R2 Dual 980m SLI upgrade!!

Looks like we've still not got to the bottom of Peter's low sli performance. There seems to be other inconsistencies with his system too, like D2 Ultima said the CPU is fluctuating down to 1.2Ghz which is not gonna help the situation, thermal throttling/power throttling? GPU usage in BF4 was 90% in the single player campaign, is that normal for BF4 sli?? This low GPU usage is also seen in his Crysis 3 results, I've yet to see any game where he has managed close to 100% GPU usage on both cards. To me 980M sli is broken on the Alienware machines as it stands until proven otherwise. (There's still the Auto Fan Table GPU Throttling Bug too.)

I think the CPU fluctuation that he's seeing needs to be sorted out first, because it's not a predictable system otherwise. Then to try and sort the sli issues I think Mr Fox had some good advice about driver reinstallation in his last post above.

 

Well that's what my video was for, to show the utilization on 780Ms and the FPS, which apparently got much worse after the intro parts. Didn't expect to ever drop below 60, but I did. I don't do that in MP. Interesting. BF3 never had such drops, and its SP ran about 3x better than its MP.

 

@ D2Ultima for Clevo P370SM3 can the cpu be overclocked as well? like xm or mx series cpu oc to 4.5 ghz?

 

I think Peter should do some tweaks for his CPU.
From my experience of 980m single and sli on m18x R2, 980m did nothing on 3940xm.
Only win8.1 had the BIG influence.

 

Yes i noticed that my CPU holding back dual 980ms. I tried to overclock it to 4.9, unfortunately it is not stable at that high clock. I think it may be power throttle, as yet we dont know how much Aw R2 with dual 980ms draws power. I get only around 75-80% performance from 980ms. I ran firestrike especially for physics score @4.5Ghz, i got 12389.
which is higher then what 4940MX got to offer. I believe that 3920xm or 3940xm is still best processor chips.

i think main culprit is Win8.1 . i got to find solution for Win 7.

 

I think the opposite actually, I think your over ambitious overclock is to blame for your weird CPU behaviour, and it's possible that is hampering your 980M sli with it's constant sporadic CPU throttling to 1.2Ghz. At 60Hz gaming you'll be fine just dialing that overclock well back - in fact just to eliminate that variable I would put the CPU back to stock, and then check sli performance (specifically GPU usage). Hell, a 4710HQ is fine for 60Hz gaming! You have to start eliminiting the variables if you wanna find out why you're having low GPU usage, a good start is to have a CPU that is behaving predictably!

 

Myself and sveveral epiple I know have overshot cpu overclock causing gpus to perform worse. Always was happening the Jayztwocents. He actually had Jacob from evga come to his house to figure why his tri-sli was performing so bad and Jacob discovered his cpu was overclxoked to much. This was the case even though the cpu was stable and not crashing.

 

No, you're definitely doing something wrong. I've set my machine to 3.8 GHz before and I've never had it fluctuate like that, staring at the sensor in HWiNFO64. Unless your monitoring tool is off and reporting erroneously, your CPU is behaving weirdly; not something mine ever does or has done.

And my CPU is on Win 8.1 as well.

 

I think we are getting a bit ahead of ourselves here.
Quit with all the tweaking and set it all to factory.
Set power to balanced for the first 30 seconds. Then set it to high performance. to see if that is really doing anything.
Now load up throttle stop and set it for like 3.7 ghz which is what a 3940xm will run at on all 4 cores with stock watts and volts.
TS should lock the cpu at this speed. Provided you have past experience with it.
Then retest and see if cpu now holds. Then we can either rule it out at that point or not.

 

Implying that our advice is worthless, and then you proceeding to ask him to put his CPU to stock, which is what I had suggested in the first place, maybe less of the patronising and more of your own advice, but what can you expect from a self-titled "Overclock Master" (see your description under your name). (I'm not saying your advice is worthless, not by any stretch of imagination - but really!)

 

Last time i checked you didn't have an extreme cpu or did i miss that part?
Or the part about you having a M18X R2? Or did i miss that as well?
Or the part about "Our" Which would mean "Me-Johnksss" included.

You need to quit over thinking things.

Ps, since I hold most of the records. Yes, I can claim that title. Can you?

 

None of what you said makes my advice invalid, nor does it validate your own - but I can see you're living up to your title at least! But anyway, looks like we both think Peter should run his CPU at stock for testing purposes, I've made my point.

 

Yeah...No.
The whole point of this was to run Throttlestop. This is the only program known to actually combat windows 8 need for power control of the cpu. This is why I stated. "Lets not get ahead of ourselves" This should be were you first start at. And that was not mentioned.

No one said anything about your advice, quit trying to single yourself out. If i was going to seek advice I would have just asked godfafa_kr since he is in the exact same situation. With the same parts or equivalent.

You may have made a point in your corner of the world, but it had nothing to do with what i was talking about.

 

Sounds good, but I'd be more inclined to think the act of running it at stock clocks & voltage (which we both suggested) would be the thing that gets his CPU behaviour under control in the most significant way (ie not throttling to 1.2Ghz), afterall not every sli Win8 owner runs Throttlestop or needs to in order to have a functional CPU that is worthy of testing for 100% GPU usage in sli. I am a fan of Throttlestop myself, and I think it would be a good thing for him to use to help tune his CPU more in the future, but I don't see it as strictly necessary for testing his sli setup - more important to stop the 1.2GHz throttling which is most likely to be achieved by reverting to stock clocks & voltages (no Throttlestop required).

 

Facepalm!

Im done.


Hey peter, just pm me later bud.

 

Laughable! ;-)

 

You certainly are.

This
M17xR3 Nebula Red (refurbished), 2630QM (Throttlestop modified for max Turbo up to 56W indefinitely), GTX 670MX 3GB (@1.05V, 1124Mhz Core / 1150MHz VRAM, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670MX video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-2630QM Processor,Alienware M17xR3, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670MX video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-2630QM Processor,Alienware M17xR3), 1600x900 WLED(overclocked to 78Hz, calibrated w/ Spyder4Pro), 16GB 1866Mhz RAM (9-10-9-27, flashed from 1600Mhz original)
Has nothing to do with the situation at hand. So you have no real clue
Try buying some expensive parts then give advice on it.

 

Even more laughable!!

 

You apparently don't understand. Both of you are offering advice intended to address the same CPU behavioral symptoms, but what John is recommending makes a lot more sense. At least it does to me as an overclocking enthusiast. It's critically important (to the extent you can) to stop Windows 8 from behaving like Windows 8, which is likely at least partially to blame for how Peter's CPU is behaving. ThrottleStop is the only tool we have that does that. Windows 8 hinders CPU performance even when the CPU is not overclocked.

Doing any kind of laptop CPU testing on Windows 8 without ThrottleStop is like testing an NVIDIA GPU with the Windows profile set to "Power saver" and the NVCP set for "Adaptive" power management mode. Both would be pointless endeavors. Windows 8 CPU performance is broken. ThrottleStop does not cure Windows 8, but it helps minimize the symptoms that Windows 8 cancer imposes on laptops.

This is why I am pissed about not being able to run Windows 7 on the M18xR2 if I want 980M SLI. Being forced into downgrading the OS and losing CPU performance as a trade-off for improved GPU performance is not very pleasing. I may end up doing it after all is said and done, but that really puts a big damper on my excitement level, and makes me in less of a hurry to spend my money on an upgrade.

 

Exactly!...

 

Ive said it before and I will say it again:
GTX 980M SLi require a beefy CPU
Forget about HQ processors and low clocked QM processors (Maybe this is why Alienware may be discontinue the AW18)
If you have a XM processor and it shows a tiny bit of throttling, it will take the GPUs down with it. Since GTX 980M SLI requires Windows 8 too, and it offer less CPU performance in itself (referring to Mr Fox Win7 vs Win8 benchmarks), CPU bottleneck isnt far fetched imo

 

Some good points, but I'm fairly certain he'd be able to sort his problems with sli & the current CPU issue of throttling to 1.2Ghz by simply reverting to stock for sli testing purposes. But no doubt, Throttlestop will not hurt to run as well. This whole assertion hinged around Johnkss initial patronising post (#558) and has now developed almost into an argument of semantics surrounding some of his statements. Back in the land of reality with Peter's laptop: Throttlestop & stock clocks & voltages sound good to me, agreed!

 

Next time ask me instead of assuming you know what im talking about. We could have missed that whole bit of nonsense.

 

Maybe on the flipside you should also choose your language more carefully, (be a better communicator) rather than expecting people to seek 'clarification' of your intent where no duplicity or potential for confusion is initially seen in your post.

 

When you have your XM you can always test out that theory if you wanted - just restrict the clocks and see how it fares, dispelling the myths!

 

Dude take a chill pill! Seriously! That's no way to talk to a respected member like Johnksss...

 

what in the...

 

Over ambitious? i did upgrade my system cpu to extreme to get more performance out of my system. Anyway i just revert back to stock clocks, now Dual 980ms gups usage also dropped about 12% (Tested with BF4 before gpus utilization was about 88% at cpu clock @4.6 x4 now 74 - 78% at stock clock). Im surprised that still im gettin same fps in game as it was with CPU at 4.6.

I dont have much knowledge as you do OC legend As i know GPU clocks got to be revert back isnt it as short term turbo boot at 28ms by default? I think my CPU is holding back my cards or it may be issue with drivers.

lol I'm with you on this, i hate win 8 too. Anyway i found this little tool Timer Resolution. just ran this tool click maximum then launch crysis 3, straight way crysis 3 fps boost to 78fps (before it was around 64fps). Now i think my cpu is holdin back 980ms/

 

Please, 'respected member', there are no kings & queens here, would you like to curtsy to Her Majesty perhaps! C'mon, get a grip, all sorts of people can have valid points, you don't have to be an 'Overclock Master' just to make them!

 

Weird. Peter, your firestrike score from the first page seems about right for a stock 980m sli set-up from what I've seen other people get with the same set-up.

Have you tried running the heaven benchmark on extreme and monitoring the gpu usage? It should give you 99% usage on both gpus even with your cpu at stock.

 

Was that with Throttlestop too?

 

Your CPU will hold back your 980Ms in some games. Crysis 3 is one of them. If my 780Ms (~60% of your 980Ms or so) are bottlenecked by my 4800MQ, then an extra 1.1GHz extra on a chip with a (albeit slightly) weaker performance per clock (not an extra 40% performance) isn't gonna give it all the extra juice it needs. I told you it probably would bottleneck you in Crysis 3 etc before.

As for battlefield, that game is a mystery to how it runs. My 780Ms can't handle 60fps ultra in the campaign apparently, but benchers are able to get it done on a dual core Pentium G3258 with a 7870 not using mantle? Blah.

Anyway, in most (read: 99.9%) games out there, your CPU, even at stock, will be just fine. There isn't a better setup you can get for a laptop either. Even if you grabbed a P377SM-A with the dual power adapters and the EM heatsinks for better CPU cooling and got a XM chip to be 4.5-4.6GHz constant and not overheating with 980Ms, the boost is not that great. Some games... just demand more from CPUs than we currently have available. Call it coding for the future or making a game "too next gen" or call it unoptimization like I do (how do you design a game to draw more power than PCs can produce at the time of making?) but at the end of the day, there are going to be games that just need more than can realistically be provided by most. Don't worry about those games.

I'm sure in most of your other games you get mostly unbeatable performance though, right? Should tear apart your old 780Ms or whatever you had in there before, no? =D.

Also, remember too: some games are just very hard to run above certain framerates. Take The Evil Within for example... a 570 could get it to run near max at 1080p at 30fps, if I remember benchmarks correctly. But people tossed 980s at it and couldn't get 60fps 1080p constantly. The game just doesn't like being above 30fps.

Anyway, bench some other games and let us know how things are. We're all eager for some game benches =D. Hope you get your CPU running at 4.6GHz constantly and properly soon, and looking forward to THOSE benches too.

 

No firestrike score is low, cosz both GPUs did throttle many times during benchmark. yes i just tried to run Heaven 4.0, my both 980ms throttles many times during benchmark and fan just dont want to speed up at all . I got no idea why it throttles only when i use any benchmark software, in game it never does that. Check out below screenshot of Heaven 4.0.

Spoiler

As start up low temp. No throttle


When temp. reach around 68C (fan still very quiet)

I didnt use that tool yet.

 

About that for a minute. Nope!

 

Well i dont have much knowledge how game program structured, but yes laptop cpu it not capable enough to send quick sequences to gpu to rendering graphics or cpus not gettin enough power to do. Yes P377SM-A is powerful indeed, but it looks weirdo
As my current setup with 980ms is capable to drive external monitor @60fps IPS display and im happy with it. As 60+ fps is just useless on IPS monitor and i do enable V-Sync always.
Yes im goin to download some game bench tools, if you wann do bench any specific let me know hahaha i just revert back clock to 4.6Ghz

 

Outside of traditionally CPU bound genres like RTS, MMORPG and flight sims, Crysis 3 is one of handful examples where hyperthreading and more physical cores actually yield significant gains. (almost 40% gain from i5-3570K to i7-3770K IIRC)

 

I was only pointing out the P377SM-A as it can use XM haswell CPUs (for extra performance per clock) that your M18xR2 can't. Since they use more power than the Ivy Bridge versions and since the AW18 can't take a second 330W brick, that's the only model I saw fit to mention using the XM CPU at such a high speed for.

Anyway, it's not just laptop CPUs. Desktop CPUs can't do it either unless they're the hexacore versions. Your 4.6GHz ivy bridge i7 is pretty much the same as a 3770K at 4.6GHz (as long as it works correctly) which means stronger desktop cards like the 970 SLI or 980 SLI etc won't be fully realized using the simple 4790K CPUs etc.

 

Indeed. There's no secret sauce to desktop chips, unless we're talking about the hex or octa cores. The desktop quad cores appear stronger than the mobile ones solely because they're clocked higher (and extra 2MB of L3 cache against the lower end mobile quads). Match clocks and you get the same performance. 4710HQ actually beats i5-4670K in multithreaded benchmarks because of HT.

 

Yes i can assume that laptop CPUs are not gettin enough power to do better. Can someone please explain why my 980ms throttles in every Benchmark software (Heaven 4, 3DMark firestrike and 11) and it does not throttle at all in any game that i played so far. :S

 

I don't know. My 780Ms don't throttle in those situations as far as I know. It sounds like classic 880M behaviour though. Have you attempted forcing power settings to "prefer maximum performance" in Nvidia control panel for those benchmarks? The option looks like this:

 

Thanks!! i tried but it doesnt make any difference, I did notice carefully that even if i do manual fan profile and keep both cards under 60C then also it throttles during benchmark. Now i think it is power throttle indeed.

 

That setting is supposed to keep the clocks at the max 3D clocks as soon as a program with its flag is run. It even works for Binding of Isaac Rebirth for me. Can you try forcing the game to 1 GPU via NCP and see if it makes a difference?

 

Damn!! Single GPU @ maximum performance = NO throttle!! :| Hence, it means 980m at maximum performance uses 100W + power. I think i got to make dual PSU mode. Now it make sense why Dell is not releasing 980ms as they may aware of their stupid power supply.

 

Let us know if dual PSU helps. You said it doesn't throttle in games but does in benchmarks, which is basically EXACTLY like the 880Ms.

 

Is our buddy godfafa_kr seeing this same behavior or not?

Peter, what are your CPU BIOS settings? Did you start testing with ThrottleStop yet?

This adaptive behavior can defy logic, as two GPUs are more powerful than one, in a demented way of engineering the GPUs may actually start behaving that way because they are not under enough stress and slow down to avoid burning up as much energy.

 

He used NCP to force power management to max performance, and it still downclocks... so it sounds like it's literally broken somewhere. We're probably going to need an unlocked vBIOS for it. The fact that it doesn't happen in regular games is the tell. Something about the benches themselves are downclocking the cards, but it won't happen with one. Exactly like 880M behaviour.

I want to ask one of the Clevo users to check and test this.

 

Overclocked cpu and an overclocked gpu you can pull about 330W my friend. Maximum

 

Ill take a shot from the cannon... Lack of driver/vBios support?

 

One of my broken GPU is sent and I am still waiting for them to get me a new one.
Anyway, when I first benched (before my gpu got broken), my CPU never got throttled.
I am not good at GPU OC but I am sure I did a very nice CPU OC and at [email protected] I was able to pass lynx 0.64 avx 20 times without extra cooling.

No CPU throttle with 980m sli.
But my 980m got throttled and got broken

 

Is it even possible to use Throttlestop in W8 in UEFI mode? I've actually installed W8 to see if I can live with it it in full UEFI mode and launching Throttlestop gives me a hard lock up.