XPS17 (L702x) Video Encoding experience

Tried to do some fairly extensive video encoding (ripping a 3D bluray to a 3D MKV file) today.

I was interested to see that the Turbo boost was working at no more than 3.1 GHz for about 5 minutes; the fan came on hard; and the turboboost started dropping until the CPU reached 2.30GHz (the rated speed), where it stayed for the entire 1hr 30 mins it took to re-encode the bluray disc.

The CPU loading was close to 100% on all 4 cores and the CPU was running at 80 deg C even with the fan full on; even though at this point there was no turbo boost in effect.

Bit useless technology then, if it isn't there to work when you need it the most, because if it was turned on the laptop would simply melt down!

How are high-end gamers finding this machine? Does it throttle back to rated CPU speed when pushing it hard with a game?

 

I'm not really sure what's going on, but at only 80C, I doubt its throttling. Here's my best guess.

Perhaps the CPU power was not needed, such as if the Blu-ray drive is the bottleneck. 35.48fps is a ton of bandwidth, and the drive is probably designed as cheap as possible to just be able to smoothly play blu-ray movies (which have a max of ~30fps at 1920*1080). Being able to do 35ish seems like a comfortable gap.