[CPU + GPU Temperatures + Benchmarks] - XPS 15 [9560] Kaby Lake

What do you mean? Haven't you looked at an XPS 13 or 15, and said to yourself "god, I wish I could get a laptop with a tiny screen and absolutely huge bezels!"? Haven't you looked at a quad-core laptop and thought to yourself "man, I wish that laptop had a CPU that was 50% as fast!"? Haven't you felt a cool laptop and thought to yourself "boy, I sure wish this CPU was 90C right now!"? If so, the Razer Blade Stealth is for YOUUUUU!!!

 

Problems with the razer blade stealth...
1. It's too big, should be thinner so the CPU runs hotter...Proper CPU cooling in a laptop should burn a hole in your pants when properly cooled...
2. Bezel needs to be wider. I need to be able to put my stick notes on my bezels... they need to be at least 1" all around...you know..like a word doc margins...

 

Haha but I swear, they must be deliberately trying to be as bad as they are.

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Just a correction to point 1 - ... able to burn a hole in your pants and fry your genitals....

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Haha that's how it can be marketed as an office computer.

"People have been complaining about our big bezels, but they fail to understand that the bezels we put into our computers are the best in the industry. Not only are they industry-leading, but they also are engineered to precisely fit sticky notes. Lastly, we've implemented poor battery life as an anti-theft measure." - Min Liang Tan

 

We have already a Razerbook thread No need for this

 

K guys, so I've been working for the past few days trying everything under the sun to tame the GPU temps.

The CPU temps after my liquid metal repaste are excellent. They are in the low to mid 60C's under full load.

During games ( stock) the GPU would max out at 80C to low 80C's.

After my liquid metal repaste, the GPU temps now lock at 76C under full load. Some improvement, but I want more lol... Especially having worked with numerous systems as you can see in my sig.

I know we're dealing with a small cooling system in a 14" chassis and one thing is for sure in that the thermal conductivity / capacity of the cooling system is definitely being reached when it comes to the GPU.

It may be a long shot, but my goal is to get the GPU temps in the lower 70C's and gosh even upper 60C's would be stellar, but I just don't see that happening without some major work or a miracle with the right combo of things...

I've even considered modifying the heat sink unit all together in adding bigger fins and heck even a bigger fan that can pump out more cfm's (maybe a fan from another Dell line of laptops that is somewhat close, but the XPS fans are so small so that's a bit of a stretch). I really think it's more of the heat pipes themselves and the exposed VRM's / FET's etc....than the actual fans... that's at least what I'm thinking... I may try to double stack the heat pipes, but then I'm thinking, would that be too much heat for the fans to be able to pump out?

These fans are (both of them) are rated at 5.2 cfm.



So after spending hours and hours over the past few days on this...I'm really going to crack down and find the culprit to get this XPS to reach its maximum cooling potential, whatever that may be. I just know that there is some headroom and that's what I'm after....

Fire Strike Combined Test LOOP is running and everything is at full tilt...

 

Go for it bro @iunlock ! If anyone can do it, you can. This is going to be one of your most interesting projects.

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This is indeed my most challenging project, you're absolutely right. I thought the AW13's were the most challenging, but with this XPS...It sure does bring something new.

I've tried pretty much every combo under the sun so far and due to dealing with physical limitations here, there's only so much we can do until we hit the ceiling of law of physics.

I'm still running some tests and have a few more ideas so I'll keep everyone posted.

 

Rev them engines....

Testing in progress....



::iunlock::

 

Fasten your seatbelt, you're about to take off
Now you're using LM with the GPU again?
Btw are you checking for long-term VRM throttling - it appears to be a bigger issue than the CPU and GPU temperatures alone, surely less convenient to debug because it takes more time?
Did you try out the "tape" mod?
http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...bservations-undervolt-repaste.785963/page-110

 

Haha yea it's been wild, but fun. I did repaste again (was on LM) last night with Kyronaut to collect more data with it being on traditional paste. As for the VRM's those do get toasty so I've been going down the list of trying pretty much every combo imaginable. As for the gaps, I did tape those yes, as I do in most all of the laptops I work on.

Fun stuff and I'm still at it so stay tuned.

 

Here you guys go! Now that you know where the monsters are....CCHHAARRGGEEE!!!


After running through varies tests, I'm getting really close to finding the right combo.

Note: It's not about lining the bottom randomly with thermal pads, as that will only block air flow and make things actually warmer.



Special shout out to @pressing, for being just a cool guy and fun to bounce ideas around with... all them late night discord brainstorming sessions haha... Great stuff mate.

 

I'm sure the 9550 was similar to that, I had great results by just sinking the chokes.

 

Great work guys, so what's the solution?

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Here are some results at the track last night with the:

XPS 15 / i5-7300HQ / GTX 1050

Broke 6K on Fire Strike and look at graphics score!

 

Made possible with the i5's much lower power consumption and heat I take it?

 

GPU clocks?

 

Great score! Well done dude.

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i5 should not outperform i7 in any task : (

 

Looks like I answered my own question...

GPU core clocks aren't exactly correct in 3dmark results but it looks like he's around +220 on the GPU core which would set him around 2GHz assuming no throttling and +460 on the memory which is nearing 8GHz which would be a hefty overclock compared to my memory that can only do +260...

 

Hey guys...just now getting to the computer, busy today...st. patty's day and all...Anyhow, yea the whole i5 outperforming the i7 in the graphics area reminds me of desktops and how i5's are more than enough for gaming haha. Sucks I know....but I'm sure we'll figure something out here with the i7.

As far as the clocks, no those are not correct. Higher OC does not translate to better performance. That is a big misconception...if you go look at a lot of the records on hwbot you'll see that efficiency is what brings in the Gold. Not uncontrolled WOT numbers.

 

The guys at GamersNexus has most likely misunderstood or used wrong test methodology

 

It doesn't always tell the whole story. The analogy made was more so referring to the general stigma of pre 14nm days.

::iunlock::

 

I know Pure cores aka high clock speed is still King as we know by the Ryzen discussion vs. Intel. But that i5 outperforming the i7 is a bit hasty conclusion

 

You're taking it too literal. Grasp the gist and humor. The issue is that the i7 in the XPS isn't paired well due to thermals and throttling issues, whereas the i5 is at that balance point where it does pair well.

::iunlock::

 

HaHa. Remember not everyone reads the entire thread with a magnifying glass as I. But I agree... if the OEM's use processors with lower performance or throttling than a cheaper one... Maybe they should stop selling these for the model. It's like offering something that is not up to the expectations the customers have. This means that customers are scammed into paying more for something they can't get Oh'well they get something back... Pure throttling

 

Haha true... Can't argue that.

I've tried to set the clocks the same to match the i5, but it didn't help much.

Getting close though...

::iunlock::

 

Hey guys just noticed something crazy...

So on Overwatch I usually play on Ultra Maxed out settings (Not Epic, but second to highest) and the GPU temps before maxed out at 76C.

Well, I decided to turn it down to Medium for giggles and it seems like with the VRM's carrying less of a load, the GPU temps were in the low 60C's?

Can those of you with OW test this and see if it decreases your overall GPU temps on Medium settings? I'm really curious now...

(For a game like OW it looks great on the 4K screen even at Medium)



At medium settings there are a lot less load on the VRM's so in this particular scenario, there is obviously a link there. The temps won't just magically go down LOL so this has me pretty curious and the only thing I did different was turn down the graphics settings. Hmmm....

Yes, I'm scratching my head too.... (Lol... Meaning a 15C+ drop in temp is pretty extreme for just a detune.... It looks to be a chain of events happening here more so on the software end.)

 

I'm confused as to what you're confused about. Less load on the GPU is less load. The GPU will be cooler, the VRM will be cooler, etc. I'm sure your GPU VRM isn't that warm when you're watching youtube videos right?

 

I guess you're not grasping the point lol, of course things will be cooler, but a 15C+ decrease in temps is pretty darn drastic if you ask me.

To help you understand, it's just one of those things where you spend hours upon hours trying to troubleshoot (in this case targeting vrm's etc...to cool with the right combo) then stumbling upon (yes the obvious) how much of a dramatic difference something so simple can make. Understand?

It's kind of like a, "wow you gotta be kidding me," moment. Get it?

Now to prevent you from getting confused again, the goal here is to be able to run our game settings at the highest possible settings, while getting the best cooling we can get. Not the other way around.

There's something else going on here than just heat that's causing all the issues were seeing with the GPU. For one a design flaw keeping the vrm's exposed and then a software issue that causes a lot of abnormal behavior.

Anyways... The scratching my head remark was more so to imply that, "oh how ridiculous this is..." and has nothing to do with the obvious that you've pointed out haha...

I hope you underhand now.

::iunlock::

 

I think we also have to keep in mind even with the best thermal paste, coollaboratory or conducanaut or whatever it's called, we're reaching the thermal cooling capacity of the cooler. The cooler works great for cooling individual components like the cpu or gpu only but once both are active and producing alot of heat...you easily see its limit... I can do 62c max in prime95 with 0 throttling but when I run real bench, I'll hit 72c...even with a luquid metal paste and perfect contact with the cooler. If we had a beefier cooler with slightly larger fins I think we'd see a dramatic change in cooling performance. Having fans that could produce 20-60% more airflow would only go so far because the fins are so small...


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Hah, you didn't really clarify anything for me. Less GPU load will make a huge difference, go play a round of Doom II and let me know how cool your GPU temps are, lol. What's the abnormal behavior you're speaking of? When keeping logs, are you looking at GPU utilization? If high settings is causing 100% GPU load and medium settings is causing 60% GPU load for instance, why would 15C be an unfathomable drop?

If mechanical engineering and medical school has taught me anything, it's when you hear hoof beats think horses and not zebras (or more simply, the most simple answer often is the right answer).

 

Wow if only we've all been to medical school and mechanical engineering we'd know the answer to everything too. You'll still clearly know more than a professional who does this everyday for dozens of different models for many years and is directly involved with Dell themselves to assess their units...

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I never said I know the answer to everything, I did however say that it would make sense that lowering the load on the GPU would lower the thermals. Maybe I'm really missing iunlock's point.

 

Indeed. As previously mentioned the cooling system, at least for the GPU is way too small.

I've considered customizing the heat sink to use bigger fins, however, according to the data and some tests done to measure the "end point" thermals, the bigger issue are the thin heat pipes, which does not have the capacity to distribute the heat from the GPU.

The xps needs four things, a thicker heat pipe, proper cooling of the vrm's, bigger fins, and larger fans.

I think it's safe to say, that the design could have been better.

There are a ton. It's confusing because the behavior is so random and the ratio does not make sense...look at @Pete lights screen shots to get an idea of the graphs.

I'm not talking about the obvious here. Having both the i7 and i5 with the same GPU I've tried several times to adjust the i7 to match that of the i5, yet the i5 (even at the same power consumption) runs 10C+ cooler.

What we're trying to do is find out what is causing the i7 to run so much warmer and to narrow in on the cause of the abnormal behavior.

All good. Again, it's not about the obvious here. Of course feeding less power should result to lower thermals overall. However, it's much more than that with what we're dealing with here.

I guess my surprise comes from you thinking that I some how didn't realize the obvious.

::iunlock::

 

The i5 runs hotter than the i7? Did you mean it the other way around? Have you disabled hyperthreading? My i7 will easily drop a few degrees with HT turned off.

 

What I means is that even with the i7 detuned down to match the top the i5, the i5 xps still runs cooler at the same power consumption.

As for disabling the turbo / HT, yes... Have tried it all, but again the goal here isn't to gimp our i7's, rather it is to try and maximize everything we can while running native clocks.

It already stings to know that even a detuned i7 doesn't match up to a native i5 with GPU thermals.

::iunlock::

 

I wouldn't be surprised if dell come out with additional bios update for improved power consumption and throttling limits...


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Yeah they should be near each other, how are you measuring power consumption? Perhaps intel has the default voltage to the i7 increased over the i5? Maybe you can set a static voltage in throttle stop? I've never tried or thought to try such a thing though...

 

You've got it. Static voltage.

::iunlock::

 

Most likely Dell's hired firmware writers who are having fun and screw up as usually. Nothing new in that house

 

Switch the values for the i5 and put it in the i7..better yet, Intel Atom. Who knows... any form of software crippling is dumb....

 

so is it possible to set static voltages for the i7 and it will stick?

 

So you're setting the static voltage to the same on both of them and it actually takes? I never thought to try it as I usually work with the offset. How else are you limiting the i7 to i5 speeds? I am just seeing if there are any other areas. Also have you considered the repaste? How different are the temps? Another thought I have for you is just about every heatsink I've seen in a 9550 has been bent in some way, maybe looking at the levelness of the heatsink is worthwhile?

 

Is it just me or am I getting a really horrible job with thermal paste by dell? I haven't opened the laptop yet, but I did do some undervolting. I find the temperatures rather high, and I'm wondering if i did something wrong in the process.

My FIVR Settings: (CPU Core and CPU Cache have the same offset, while Intel iGPU is at -125mV)

Temperatures at STOCK: (HWiNFO64)
- Thermal Throttling at 2200MHz was observed occasionally,hence lowering temperatures also.

Temperatures at -139.6mV Underclock for CPU Core and CPU Cache, -125mV for Intel iGPU

Just to clarify, I checked SpeedStep, BD PROCHOT, C1E in the main ThrottleStop window and only altered the Offset Voltage Option, while setting it to Adaptive. Stress Test Program used was Prime95 Torture Test Small FFTs

zPrime Scores and Temperatures:
32M: 6.512 sec
1024M: 193.462 sec
Min/Avg/Max temps in hwinfo was reset immediately before the test and recorded right after.

 

Silly question, but do you have throttle stop set to turn on?

 

I think its turned on (to clarify, it shows Turn Off after Turn On is clicked? )

 

Yeah that is correct. Maybe Dell's paste job is just that bad? It's saving your voltage settings in FIVR? What are you testing temps with?

 

I tested the temps with Prime95, exactly 10 mins each.
On a side note, I just added the scores & temps for zPrime