Nvidia clockblock: vBIOS (unblocked in 353.00)

It's like my daddy used to say when I was a little stinker... "Son, an excuse is just a reason surrounded by a pack of lies."

 

This thread exemplifies why some "hardcore enthusiasts" do not get any sympathy. I absolutely do not support Intel exclusively releasing soldered CPUs or NVIDIA blocking overclocking on their cards even though I am probably not the target market for socketed CPUs or "custom vBIOS needing benchmarking overclockers". Most "hardcore enthusiasts" refuse to understand the benefits that soldering CPUs to a machine bring. A lot of your "desktop brothers" (a good example is Linus who adores the Blade) buy these machines that you characterize as BGA filth or jokebooks. Well guess what? some of us need battery life on our laptops and for various reasons we would like our laptops to be light and portable. Also very few people buy laptops just to game. I am not even going to try to give reasons because that would be pointless. Just because you do not understand the needs of people that buy computers radically different to yours does not mean that those needs are any less valid. The people buy that "BGA crap" are not all idiots but many times on this forum, I have seen groups of people being insulted for not wanting a desktop in laptop form. That's because most people that want desktop power get desktops. That doesn't mean that beastly laptops should not exist but it's a little hypocritical to want more choice while refusing to respect the choice that other people make. I remember a "hardcore enthusiast" on this very forum saying that someone with an 860M is not a hardcore gamer. Seriously? Since when has someone's commitment to gaming been dependent on the horsepower of their machine. Calling people retarded for wanting powerful portable machines doesn't help anyone. If anything it will lead them to think the same of the "hardcore enthusiast" that wants top end desktop performance in his laptop. Maybe the first step to getting people to support you in your very valid struggle to keep those amazingly powerful computers alive is to stop treating people that want different things like idiots and try to understand why they buy what they buy without equating their needs to yours.

 

Doesn't excuse the lack of choice. No reason BGA and PGA can't co-exist.

Also I see you conveniently left out BGA's very real performance problems. Anything BGA can do, PGA can do better in a slightly thicker form factor.

 

Thank you for showcasing your wonderful comprehension skills.

 

Some response are in bold inside the quotation .
Quite a lot of generalization and opinion masked as fact here. I agree that BGA sucks but you've not shared the benefits of soldered components in a gaming machine.

 

You are making the assumption that all PGA automatically means big, fat, and heavy, and bad battery life. My 4702MQ would challenge that.

BGA components have their place in (some) thin and light laptops. The point is they don't belong in Alienwares or 18" 4.5 kg SLI gaming beasts like the GT80.

 

It's the sorry lack of choices for the "hardcore enthusiast" that is the root problem. (You can also include people that prefer serviceable versus disposable hardware in this category, even though they may not be enthusiasts.) I don't care if some people want a jokebook... whatever floats their boat. Some people like iPads, tablets and Chromebooks. Fine... I really don't mind if they do. I want them to be happy. I want to have a reason to be happy also. The reasons are few and far between now. Just don't screw me over in the process and leave me with zero options that I find acceptable and then everything will be just peachy.

The exclusion of the enthusiast and severe lack of viable options is why terms like "jokebook" got invented and adjectives like "filth" are being used. BGA has been around for years. We didn't care because it didn't screw things up for us until now. This is backlash against a trend, not disrespect for individuals that don't know any better or don't mind.

We don't care about sympathy... we don't need it and sympathy serves no purpose in correcting the problem. This is more about generating bad publicity for Intel and highlighting the bad business decisions of the OEMs that are like sheep, too willing to comply. It is also a public service, alerting those in the buying public that are ignorant about new products and wrongly assume they will be amazing like they used to be. We don't want them to find out too late that the Clevo or Alienware laptop they have wanted for years is going to be a pile of trash that doesn't resemble or perform like what they have seen in the past.

It's really weird how some people get sensitive and personalize the hate for limited functionality hardware like BGA components instead of recognizing it for what it is. It's not a personal attack, it's another opinion about a product. The negative opinions are rooted in the lack of serviceability, functional limitations and hindered performance of those products. The negative opinions are being expressed now in a contemptuous tone because there is an actual need for it due to dwindling options. Intel needs to understand... some of us WILL NOT change according their plan, and they will lose sales by trying to force their way. If Intel does not want to lose money, they absolutely must give us what we require of them.

@TBoneSan - yes, Linus is an imbecile where high performance laptops are concerned. He lacks knowledge and experience in this arena, and it shows in a glaring way by the things he says and does. That's also a part of our problem... "professionals" speaking as if they are an authority rather than deferring to the real experts because of their ignorance. Linus is totally awesome when he sticks to stuff he knows about.

 

Thank you for showcasing your wonderful argumentative (snark) skills. Lots of incorrect assumptions/generalizations and prejudices here but I'll bite.

What benefits to the end-user? Thinner machines with worse cooling and inadequate PSUs to boot? Oh wait, it doesn't really matter because BGA is TDP-locked anyway . Iris Pro graphics? Irrelevant in performance notebooks with dGPUs IMO.

Unless ofc you're referring to the benefits for Intel, who saves money on manufacturing, and OEMs, who cut corners on cooling design and power bricks.

Ultimately BGA is anti-consumer and planned obsolescence. I fail to see how that benefits us.

Linus knows diddly squat about notebooks. Or worse, maybe he does know but willfully ignores it and chooses to use inferior notebooks anyway. Because hey, it's a secondary and complimentary PC for him and most other people who own powerful desktops, not the primary machine. Who cares if it leaves much to be desired, right? But that doesn't describe everyone. Plenty of people use notebooks as their primary computing device and need powerful but more importantly uncompromising solutions, which BGA does not provide.

BGA vs. PGA has correlation to battery life. Optimus is the key. There is nothing preventing PGA CPU machines from using Optimus.

Form factor wise, we are talking the difference of millimeters and ounces all things considered. BGA laptops aren't that much thinner than PGA laptops. It's that OEMs purposely make BGA laptops thinner than they have the right to be by skimping on cooling while throttling components and pairing them with inadequate power supplies so they don't overheat.

Exactly, which is why such ppl should not be buying BGA. BGA processors are only good for gaming because gaming workloads do not stress the CPU to the max. But try to do any CPU-heavy content production work, for example, and BGA will TDP throttle, and there's no way to increase power limits to compensate like you can with PGA.

 

Here I go...
1 - No, it doesn't. Almost everyone here has spoken about what is affecting them personally.
2 - No. We totally understand, we just don't want them, and we wish people would understand the DETRIMENTS as well when buying.
3 - Yeah, sure, enjoy your battery life and your lightness and portability. Just don't complain that you can't have a machine as powerful as Mr. Fox's M18x R2 in the package of a Razer Blade... which is what most people TRY to do lately. Also, I bolded that word because MOST people don't "like". They claim they "need", which is 90% of the time false.
4 - This is a given. I don't know why you brought this up.
5 - Nobody said that people who buy "BGA crap" are idiots. We said people who go hunting for 1" thick laptops to play BF4 on ultra at 2880 x 1620 at 60fps without overheating and with silent fans are idiots. And more of these exist than you think. Thin laptops are designed for LIGHT loads. I don't care if Maxwell is exceedingly cool and you can shove a 970M into a Razer Blade now. They're not designed for excess load and heat output. And there is NO GUARANTEE that the next generation will be as cool OR as power-frugal as maxwell is (at stock, using its voltage tweak "tricks"). So if next gen comes out and they design the top-end notebook GPUs to be put into Razer Blades, then they're going to be instantly cutting down on the power they can put in the flagship chips that thicker machines will be able to take advantage of. We don't want that.
6 - We don't "disrespect" others' choices. As I explained above, it's when people are unrealistic that we get annoyed.
7 - What we do is we try to make them understand that 1" thick notebooks are not all bells and whistles that do everything you could toss at them without issue. It is something they refuse to understand. Not our faults.

 

Hey, let's not undersell thin and light laptops here. I agree with most of what you just said, but laptops like the X7 Pro can very well keep up with M18X R2. While it might run hot, it's a marvel of engineering that they managed to shove two high-end GPUs under that frame without it literally bursting into flames.

And yes, you could argue that this is exactly the problem, because if-you-can-fit-it-into-a-frame-that-thin-it-means-the-industry-is-holding-back etc. etc....

 

See where it's going?

Also, no, the Aorus X7 Pro does NOT keep up with that. That machine has various reports of throttling like crazy... when under actual decent load. People seem to forget: 1080p 60fps gaming is usually not a whole lot of load. Not even close. The only time you'll force a GPU load there is if your single GPU is running at 99% constant and cannot maintain 60fps. It's why Killing Floor 2 would constantly give me near 80 degrees on single GPU on max fans while running stock speeds, and could be replicated in other notebooks. But then we run into maxwell's coolness.

Yes, it is an engineering marvel, but it doesn't work properly for everything you could toss at it, not counting super demanding CPU tasks (which I don't expect any laptop on the market to handle without solid elbow grease from users). The W230SS and W230SD from Clevo does it with an i7 and a 860M/960M. The AW13 for all intents and purposes does it. Neither the CPU nor the GPU will break on you even if you loaded up something that forces a bottleneck like Crysis 3 etc. And this is what should be aimed for. Full functionality in the scope of the machine.

 

Are you saying you respect the Alienware 13 more than the X7 Pro?

 

Grrr I am so annoyed, Why did they have to block the overclocking again! I opened evga precision X and it crashed my system I got the lovely BSOD. Just leave it alone. So frustrated right now.

 

I would say so. I respect a machine that does what it sets out to do.

In the same breath, I disrespect the GT72 and GT80 Titan from MSI because of their CPU issues. Their CPUs become power limited easily. Svet's BIOS does nothing to help the chips. They market it as being the best, but it isn't.

If I buy a "gaming laptop" it should "game" in all circumstances. That's what you're selling. It shouldn't "throttle if I play Crysis 3" or "overheat if I play BF4". I'd rather the super thin machines stick to midrange cards/CPUs where they do best, rather than people over-cram hardware.

 

Question. Whoever has Windows 10 on their laptop, have you tried out the new beta driver 352.63 and checked to see if it still has a block on overclocking?

 

It may throttle, but it still gives performance equal or surpassing a GTX 980. That's what people pay for; true high-end desktop performance in a thin package.

 

They pay for throttling machines that can't even operate at spec? I know I don't...

 

Yeah, I understand that. There's no denying that part.
But the whole notion of paying top dollar for a machine designed out of the box to only work at ~80% capacity (ballparking here) is just... insane to me. Why not get a system with weaker GPUs that will operate at 100% all the time? Why do we NEED to over-shove power into thin platforms? This is the huge problem I'm having. People are using their wallets to say the equivalent of "it's okay to sell me a car with specs to drive at 120 miles per hour that shuts down when I hit 95 miles per hour, because I'm only going to drive at 80 miles per hour".

 

You're missing the point. When people buy the X7 Pro, they are aware of the overheating issues. They still buy because it has absolutely unbeatable performance for its size. If they were to use 2 965Ms instead of the 970Ms, it wouldn't be nearly as powerful.

 

Actually... most people who buy the Aorus don't know about its throttling/overheating issues. Maybe most people HERE do, but various other forums all around? People assume the Aorus are fantastic laptops because they're reviewed as being fantastic and problem-free from various places. When I tell/show people that a bunch of laptops like the blade/Aorus/etc throttle like crazy (in games they're asking about, like GTA V/BF4/etc) they're legit dumbfounded, because reviews don't say anything about it.

Also, you're right about two 965Ms not being as powerful. No arguements there. BUT that just means people are willing to buy something that doesn't work properly because it's thin. And that trend is probably gonna continue on into the foreseeable future. If you want a powerful machine and you want it to work perfectly, be willing to get some weight in it. It's just the laws of physics. People want too much, and unlike with the enthusiast market where we're being stunted for choice and getting gimped cards like the 980M, where we ask for working gear... people are legitimately begging for non-working gear because it's thin, or simply demanding that flagship cards be designed for their thin needs, because "who cares about thicker laptops?".

I want things to be sold working, as much as the designer can make it so. Laptops, phones, video games, everything. Don't bite off more than you can chew. Don't make machines DESIGNED TO FAIL THEIR OPERATING SPEC. People want thin laptops? Fine. Let them buy a thin machine with appropriate hardware. If they want something more powerful, let them deal with the weight or size. It's why I have little issue with the AW13 or the P6xxSx line from Clevo. They're machines that work within their designed spec. If someone was asking for a gaming laptop, I probably wouldn't recommend the AW13 to them. But if they were willing to accept the ULV CPU and didn't want to use much CPU power or play more mild games like LoL/Minecraft/CS:GO/L4D2, etc I'd say go ahead. They're not expecting miracles from it, and the machine'll do what it's designed to do.

 

Thickness, weight and aesthetics. Three aspects valued by customers.

I think it is pointless because they have been stated many times in the forums when people come looking for machines.

That's exactly my point. Is he a "bimbo" because he weighs in portability and aesthetics more heavily when reviewing his machines instead of just focusing on ultimate power?

Just because you want other functions does not mean that you don't want gaming and business laptops do have gaming GPUs.

It comes down to [thickness, weight, aesthetics and battery life] vs [superior power, upgradeability and even aesthetics (some people prefer the larger machines)]

I would appreciate it if you point out where I make that assumption. Besides, your GE40 has a worse CPU, screen, GPU, smaller battery, is 71% thicker than the blade and is hotter. It also has its advantages but I would hardly call that a good example for socketed CPUs in portable machines. Also I didn't state at any point that BGA components should be in machines like the AW18, quite the opposite.

Quoting you from a few pages back : "The growing severity of retardedness among the spoiled adolescent and yuppie gamer-brat crowd really is taking its toll. When stupidity exists in large numbers, the results can be truly devastating." or "The pantywaists that got us into this terrible mess, with their pathetic sniveling and whining about 5 pound 15-inch and and 7 pound 17-inch laptops being too big, thick and heavy should be spanked severely and sent to bed early, with no dinner." This is very much aimed at individuals, not a trend. The thing is that not everyone that buys BGA doesn't know any better. But you know, screw us for wanting thin and light machines. The market isn't split between web browsers and hardcore enthusiasts, there are a lot of people in between.

If you don't care about sympathy then why did you start a petition and ask desktop users to help you generate bad publicity against Intel and NVIDIA for your case? This isn't sympathy for sympathy's sake. It is sympathy for people to support you and help you establish choice for everyone so that hardcore enthusiats (or people that want serviceable hardware) by generating that bad publicity that you need.

My post was not me getting sensitive or personalizing any hate that you might have for whatever components. Why would that even be the case? This post was an attempt to point out to you that people that buy BGA are not all idiots and neither do they want the extinction of hardcore enthusiasts such as yourself. They see advantages to BGA that you refuse to (or cannot?) understand.

I would hardly call reducing my post to "rant", an argumentative skill but anyway.

Thinness, lightness and aesthetics. Not all benefits have to be in terms of performance. Cooling might be worse but it is still good enough when CPU temps remain in the mid 80s and GPU temps are lower than 80C. As for the inadequate PSU, it is very much an AW issue, not a BGA issue. I ran XTU for an hour this morning after reading D2 Ultima's article about how HQ CPUs cannot hold their clocks for long and he's right. My CPU hovered between 3.2 and 3.3 Ghz for the hour instead of the 3.4 Ghz that it should have. How significant most people find that is another issue though.

Well for some people, like Linus, portability comes first. Then, it is about how powerful we can make a powerful machine. Some people use laptops as secondary computers, it is also a market. But just because someone uses a laptop as their primary device doesn't mean that a PGA notebook will benefit them. That is why colleges are filled with Macs because they are powerful enough to do the work and they have other benefits that make them ideal for college students. They do not need PGA.

Except I've been on quite a few threads when Enthusiasts make it clear that they do not want Optimus on their machines.

Except a laptop like the blade is 100% thinner than a rather thin socketed machine like the P750ZM, this may be insignificant to you but a lot of people do not share that opinion including myself.

Gaming is also one the most intense things that people do on their laptops. Software like Autocad, Inventor or even 3dMax are not as stressing. They run very smoothly on the Blade, now I am sure that there are more powerful applications there that necessitate more power but if I do not use them, why should I care? Why should I not buy BGA and miss the benefits that I have presented earlier? Because someone else out there needs it? Yeah right. Ideally, people that want BGA should get BGA and people that want sockets should get sockets but one is not universally superior to the other.

A lot of people totally understand too. Also, sometimes, those detriments are not applicable to them but rather to you. Hence, they cannot relate. If they believe that their machine plays a game fine and you tell them that it throttles by 100 mhz, they do not care because it is insignificant to them and they're buying a machine for them, not for you.

People sometimes ask if there is such a machine because they don't know the market. What is wrong with that? They just want to know if their perfect machine exists but unfortunately it does not. I don't understand what complaining has to do with any of this. It is not a problem that socketed laptops solve. I also want to understand where you draw the line between a want or a need. Do you need to play games at the highest settings? Do you need to benchmark? No but you certainly want those things. Whether they want or need battery life, lightness and portability is irrelevant. I know I NEED those aspects in my machine.

I brought it up because it explains why people want gaming machines for gaming as well as long battery life and portability.

Except "people who go hunting for 1" thick laptops to play BF4 on ultra at 2880 x 1620 at 60fps without overheating and with silent fans" are not idiots. They want to know if such a machine exists, that's it. Thin laptops are not designed for light loads even if you may think so. Unless you have your own computing terminology where you redefine light load. If they decide to design top end GPUs that fit into the Blade, you cannot blame BGA buyers for buying what suits them. BGA users do not have an agenda against you and they don't benefit from you being overlooked. You should blame NVIDIA for refusing to cater to you.

It is unrealistic to you because you know the market. Do you ask questions on forums before buying a new machine? I doubt it because you know the market very well. People that come and ask unrealistic questions do not know that their questions are unrealistic. That's why they ask for help and you try to educate them on what is available on the market. I am sure that even you have noticed many people constantly bashing BGA owners in these forums but if you haven't, it really will not take long to find an example.

Since it is such a common issue, can you take a few minutes of your time to point me to five threads where this is showcased? I would really appreciate it.

 

I'm looking to manipulate public opinion for my own benefit, and others that share my view, and have an adverse financial impact on the industry by highlighting the incompetence of the pathetic offerings from OEMs that should know better. Anything I can do to help spread the word is an honor and serves our collective needs and purposes.

But, I guess it depends on how you are defining sympathy.

#1 doesn't apply, even though the growing prevalence of BGA garbage is truly tragic for those that want something better.
#2 is what Communities like this one are for. If the topic of discussion isn't one's cup of tea, they are more than welcome to not read, not respond, start their own thread, or do whatever else it takes to make them happy. They are also welcome to express an opposing view. If they are going to be offended by the passionate expression of differing views, this probably isn't a good place for them to hang out.

Some are buying BGA garbage on purpose because it suits their needs. We're very happy for them and wish them well. It's fortunate that there is something available that suits their needs. It's equally unfortunate that for those that want something more, the options are swiftly evaporating.

The "idiots" are those that made a misinformed purchase, bought something that looked cute and had a "gaming notebook" label on it; but, find themselves a crisis situation, having purchased an expensive product that is incapable of meeting their expectations. The wise and informed are those that did not make that mistake. I have had my message system disabled because I cannot keep up with the requests from people seeking assistance with performance and thermal management issues with those machines.

Anyone that the above does not apply to should feel more than welcome to exempt themselves from falling into that category. They know who they are. Conversely, if the shoe fits... maybe it's time for some quiet reflection.

 

3ds Max can definitely be tougher on a CPU than any gaming workload if you're rendering out a 3D scene with a ray tracer. Maybe you're referring to working in the viewport in real-time, in which case that's a GPU workload, but we're talking CPUs. Sad part is, BGA isn't just detrimental to people who do editing, rendering, compositing, etc. Even in CPU-heavy games like Crysis 3/BF4/GTA V or when gaming at 120/144 Hz they will TDP throttle. And then there are ppl like D2 Ultima who multi-task like crazy or stream while gaming which jacks up CPU usage even more.

 

Case in point, the unfortunate soul who purchased a 4712HQ system and has now found out that his 37W BGA chip won't even hit 3GHz under full load after a -80mv undervolt.

I set my 4940MX to the same constraints as his chip and actually got 3.21GHz turbo at 37W with the same -80mv undervolt.

Intel has to be using inferior silicon in their BGA chips as well. My 4940MX isn't exactly the best example of an efficient chip...

http://forum.notebookreview.com/attachments/screenshot-13-png.124035/

He obviously wasn't informed about the poor performance of those chips. We can thank Intel and their turbo bin marketing for that.

 

The saddest part about that is that because it is BGA, you're stuck with it... like it or not. No part swapping... period. How that can be viewed as a desirable or redeeming characteristic on something marketed as "high performance" or with a "gaming" moniker is completely foreign to a lot of us.

 

Especially considering that the machines using them generally reflect no discount despite how much cheaper BGA chips are for Intel and the system builders. *cough*MSI*cough*

 

WARNING! WARNING! I wrote a book below!

Spoiler

Your CPU is an i7-4720HQ. You throttle to 3.2GHz or so, on medium load. XTU stress is medium load on a CPU. Record a 1080p 60fps video using "high" quality in Shadowplay then render it using Handbrake. Your power consumption will go beyond XTU's stress test, and you'll throttle further, regardless of your temps. There's people who want to buy machines SPECIFICALLY to do these things. Or specifically to play games on external, higher refresh-rate screens, which uses up much more CPU power. There's people buying laptops to livestream off of. There's people doing MANY things which have a far heavier load than 1080p 60fps gaming, and there the throttling becomes quite apparent. Also... what about people who buy 4870HQs? Or 4980HQs? The Aorus sells with the 4870HQs and so do the gigabyte machines (in the UK at least). Those are faster chips and would probably throttle further. What if it's 3.6GHz to 3.2Ghz? What if it's 3.6GHz to 2.8GHz? Etc etc.

Yes, because Linus has a desktop, and a good one at that. And his main desire for a laptop is a secondary machine which he uses for whatever odds and ends he wants when he is not doing something at his desktop. He is not looking for a primary machine, and thus his needs change. For example: I always say it. The Razer Blade was designed for people who have desktops as primary machines. The storage, limited I/O and upgradeability, etc etc, all points to that. Now, that aside, the Razer Blade is EXCEEDINGLY overpriced. For people wanting something in that realm of thickness, I much quicker tell them to get a GS70, or to consider the slightly thicker/heavier P650SE. I have mentioned the P35x V3 as well, though I distinctly remember it had some issues and I always say to check first, as I don't remember if they got them solved (issues with the wifi etc), but it's a good machine to look at otherwise.

If you are not planning to use them, then fine. But it doesn't mean that other people don't want to or try to. And then run into problems. As Mr. Fox said above, where people buy those machines and then have to near-harass him about it. It brings me back to the point I made with Datashell earlier. Do not design a machine that cannot operate at its specifications. People are over-designing and people are buying because they THINK that it's okay, and it's going to work, and they're wrong.

Well if they believe their machine plays fine that's all well and good, but most of the time, these users aren't playing anything that puts supreme load. There's quite a few people in the P65xSx forums who have run into stuttering issues because their CPU ended up throttling from 3.4GHz to 2.9GHz and then goes up and down, or something. @HaloGod2012 had an issue with his AW17 R2 where under any real load he'd instantly clock down from 3.3GHz to 2.5GHz and it'd screw with his games badly. Linus reviewed the GS70 stealth and in Crysis 3 it basically hit 2.9GHz on the CPU because of heat/power in a game that ACTUALLY stresses your chips. As I said: if you have a car that's designed to hit 120mph, but it shuts down at 95mph and you don't care because you never pass 80mph, you have a nice experience I suppose, but your car still has a problem. A problem it wouldn't have, if they designed it for 90mph, etc.

People can ask what they want, and I will reply if someone asks. I may sound a bit brash, but I'm just listing facts. I don't have any problem with if someone ASKS if something exists. There is however a difference between "hey guys, I'm looking for a fairly thin laptop, I don't want it to be over x weight, and I want it to be pretty quiet with the fans, does anything like this exist?" and "okay, I want a laptop. It can't weigh more than 3.5 pounds. I have $1100. I want to play games like BF4 and Crysis 3 and GTA 5 on "high". The fans need to be quiet too." and you tell them "that doesn't exist, and can't exist because <reasons>" and they go "no, look, other people <insert misinformation here>, I want it, give me" and they don't listen to anything, or are angry that you're not "helping" them. Also, just by the law of physics, you can't do that. And even more so, answer this... if there was a thin, light, cheap, powerful, quiet, problem-free gaming laptop with the best CPU and best GPU in it... why would anybody at all ever want a thick laptop? Everyone would buy that... the fact that people don't buy it should mean it doesn't/can't exist.

A "want" is something you "need" now that you would do without if the tech didn't exist. Like... if you needed a laptop, but since the power you needed in the form factor you wanted wasn't available, you bought a larger machine because you did need the power and a laptop. But now that you know the tech "exists" for that small form factor, you suddenly are incapable of owning a thicker laptop, because <list reasons>. A "need" is something that can't be compromised, and other things need to be sacrificed for it. For example: I didn't NEED an SLI laptop. I needed a laptop, and I needed a powerful laptop. I could have gotten a P157SM-A or a P177SM-A and been fine. I WANTED more power and I WANTED a 120Hz screen, so I chose the machine I have in my sig.

If you want to buy a machine for other purposes first and have gaming as a secondary, fine. That has nothing to do with this. If someone wants a gaming machine for build quality, that's fine too. But they shouldn't expect to get a machine that runs BF4 on ultra and has 8 hours battery life. And there ARE people who do this, mind you. There's people who'll moan about 6-7 hours of battery life being necessary because #School and no wall outlet etc, but then they want to run every game on ultra when plugged in. It doesn't work like that. More power = less battery life, and this seems to be something people can't grasp. If you prioritize battery life, you need to sacrifice power. It's plain physics.

Thin laptops ARE designed for light loads. The problem is that people misunderstand and think "1080p 60fps gaming" is a heavy load. That's the same reason why Crysis 3 causes so many peoples' machines to throttle and overheat... because it's medium load. Most users are never going to put a laptop under heavy load. Heavy load would be programs that'd hurt the CPU like Linpack or Prime95. There are programs out there that use instruction sets that are punishing as hell on a CPU; drawing ridiculous amounts of power and producing copious amounts of heat. Need I bring up my old screenshot where I had 80W of power being pulled while doing Linpack at stock speeds WITH an undervolt on my 47W CPU? *THAT* is heavy load. 120fps gaming, games like Evolve and Crysis 3 and GTA 5 have medium load on a system... either the CPU or the GPU or both. And these super thin machines aren't BUILT to handle that. They just aren't. Hell, my machine isn't built (out of the box, stock settings) to handle heavy loads. I have tweaked it to do so, and I have my laptop working as a well-oiled machine. I don't crash. I don't BSOD. I don't overdraw my power. I don't allow it to overheat. You are incapable of doing this by design on the thin machines, because of XTU's limited options (even with unlocked BIOSes) and the gimped cooling due to the thinness.

I don't blame people buying what suits them. But the thought that we're going to get gimped hardware because everybody got happy at thinness and nobody bought thick machines anymore just scares me. People are voting with their wallets that machines designed to NOT work under their specs are just fine.

I always look for advice. Even if "looking for advice" means silently reading information people have put out. When I am looking to buy something, I want to buy something good, and I always do research. No matter how much I want. Everyone should do that before spending a large amount of money. Me spending a lot of time in say... the P770ZM forums counts as research. Even though I don't plan to buy it, if I did, I would already know all I needed to know. But even if I know the market, I wouldn't buy any machine I don't know a ridiculous amount about. It is how I work it.

Yes, I have seen it. But the current BGA spec as I pointed out, don't work under designed specs, and if you get a bad chip, you can't change it. We bash it because it has things about it we rightfully can bash, but we're not going to tell anyone to avoid a decent machine with a BGA CPU if that's what they really want. As long as they understand the downsides... they already know the upsides.

Honestly, I don't feel like hunting for them right now. I mainly do this on OTHER forums than NBR, though.

 

goddamn WALL OF BOOKS

Nailed it.

OT: Prime95 v28.5 really makes Haswell cry due to support for Haswell's AVX2 and FMA3 instruction sets. Apparently there is a 10C temp difference between running v27.9 and 28.5 of Prime95 on Haswell machines.

 

Best suited in tablets .. or a smartphone.

 

D2 "War and Peace" Ultima

 

D2 Ultima = V. S. Naipaul confirmed?!

 

Holy crap...Illuminati!

 

I'm definitely not V.S. Naipaul. If I was, I'd have money for 980Ms. XD

 

"marvel of engineering"?
If you are not being ironic I totally disagree.
The X7 Pro is a freaking piece of crap!

1. It uses a Crystal Well CPU (4870HQ) but the iGPU (Iris Pro 5200) is disabled by design -- AFAIK no way to be enabled without hardware mod, if possible.
2. The BIOS user password is disabled. Only the administrator password can be set. Really? Why?
   
3. No support to TPM (Trusted Platform Module)
4. CPU overheats like a toaster. Any serious thermal design engineer would have *at least* included a third blower, but you know: "keep it cheap because it's intended to last until the warranty expires".
   
5. Battery not available for sale. I've tried to source it from everywhere. No luck. It was the final problem that made me return that crap!
6. The cooling system and battery technologies are just the same as every other laptop -- no innovation at all. That's why you need the blowers running on maximum speed and making that absurd very loud noise.

Could it have been improved? Certainly! So, the "marvel of engineering" is total b*******.

 

^Me thinks he was fooled by the Linus stamp of approval and the Slick Aorus marketing

 

Indeed! Giga-byte customers are fools!!! The truth is out there.

 

Basically if Linus provides a ringing endorsement of a gaming notebook, you know that's the one not to get. You can always trust Linus to never tell it like it is.

 

After our countless times yelling at him, he's finally started pointing out if the CPU throttles (under what load, and how badly it does) though he doesn't "say" throttle... he says "I was able to achieve <clockspeed> under <load here>, so take it as what it is".

But yes, Linus indeed wants a machine for secondary usage. It's not a problem that he wants that, but his recommendations tend to that trend. But we'll yell at him till he improves.

 

That's because the engineering on this thing is actually quite bad, as is the build quality. The Blade has a much more sophisticated chassis and cooling design.

Every single review of the machine I've seen mentions heat and/or throttling as one of the main issues with the notebook.

Let me play Devil's Advocate for a second here. I have $3000, and I want a machine that can match a high-end desktop in terms of performance, and I want it to be moderately portable. You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to buy an X7 Pro. Because I'm willing to deal with the heat, and I don't care about specs. I want a powerful machine that can play GTA 5 on max.
I'm not buying the machine for its specs, I'm buying it for its performance.

The X7 Pro exists because consumers like that exist. (Most) consumers don't walk in asking for help and say, "Hey, I want a machine with two GTX 970Ms in SLI that is under an inch thick" They walk in and say "Hey, I want a machine that's really powerful, that can play x games at Ultra settings that is under an inch thick."

It doesn't function to 100% of its spec, but it still functions as being a high-powered desktop (in terms of gaming performance) in a thin and light package. To the consumer, the function of the machine is not 'Have the performance of 2 GTX 970Ms in SLI' it is 'Have the performance of a high-end desktop'.

And I agree that perhaps Aorus should not be advertising it as if it can. And that the average consumer is not extremely knowledgeable about computer parts. But this does not mean that thin and light gaming laptops should not exist.

 

I hate to see a laptop that is less than the sum of it's parts - to me it just points to an expensive & poor design - not a good combination! I want to get bang for my buck and want to get at least 100% of the spec out of each component (if not more when it comes down to it - because I like the value/performance of overclocking!). Obviously I don't like thin notebooks! If these thin notebooks could be designed with radically more efficient cooling - then yes I'd be a fan! I think manufacturers should try that route if they go thin & light when using high end components.

 

There is a limit to how much cooling you can have in a <1" chassis. We all want thin gaming beasts that run cool and quiet, but the technology simply isn't there yet.

 

There are GE series with MQ and HQ. I know what hit performance took due to this. But what did Aesthetics, Design, Dimensions and Cooling got instead? Oh yeah, better cooling because less performance to cool down. That's a WIN!

 

Maybe a lot of people, but not all... bulk FTW!

[parsehtml]<iframe width='640' height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/DsUCRcK7QYc" frameborder='0' allowfullscreen></iframe>[/parsehtml]Forcing something to be thin that shouldn't be can have a truly devastating effect on performance.

 

Yeah, but we can dream.

 

Of course we can. Dreams can keep us going during tough times, and they can give us something special to strive for. Sometimes the sweetest dreams turn into nightmares.

 

I know, but I wish the manufacturers would innovate more when it comes to their cooling designs, as well as tightening up the specs and tolerances of their mounting systems: flat heatsinks, mirror finishes, more efficient cooling pipes, etc. It would likely cost a bit more, but at least you'd be able to truly get the performance out of the components.

 

Yeah, but then a lot of people would whine and moan about stuff being too expensive or outside of their budget. It's a catch 22 situation. Engineering amazing stuff is expensive and stellar quality manufacturing comes with a high price tag. I'm able and willing to pay extra for something extra amazing and better than what I already have, but some people don't want to or truly cannot afford to. Alienware has been expensive for years, but you always got what you paid for and then some... and, they've been bashed by haters for pricing their merchandise accordingly. (Just using that as an example... It's not that way any more... you get less for the same price, or maybe even pay more for less.)

You can't do wafer thin, super light, have face-melting extreme CPU and GPU performance with an anodized metal chassis, a 30K retina-detaching 13" display and a full day of battery life for 3 easy payments of $59.95. Probably not even 3 difficult payments of $5995.00, LOL. [ LINK]

 

Yep, lets bring back the true quality, even if you have to pay a bit more for it. People would buy it, it would get a positive reputation, performance would be good in reviews & in forums, I'm sure there's a market for it, but if they're gonna do it then do it properly - no polishing turds with marketing/gimmicks & spin please!

 

I've seen others that claim "it's just fine" etc showing framerates in games and not mentioning the other issues. It depends on where you look I suppose, but remember not everyone knows where to look. I've seen minds relatively blown from a simple notebookcheck review (and they are VERY into ASUS' notebooks and MBPr-like aesthetics over other things, even).

But the point is that the performance is so hindered that a very well working single-GPU machine could do better. I cannot see why a user would specifically, especially with a good budget, decide to buy a machine that DOES NOT WORK PROPERLY because they want it to be thin. And even more to that point, that machine isn't even going to last very long. If you keep thermally throttling all the time, you're going to wear and tear it hard. If it were five years ago and that X7 Pro was using two 570Ms, almost nobody would even consider it, because the GPUs didn't thermally throttle back then. They simply overheated and if the drivers didn't crash they kept the heat. Maybe took on serious damage too. The problem is that NOW people are all gung-ho about shoving the extra-cool maxwell into small envelopes and users are more than happy to deal with a machine that DOES NOT WORK because they want "thin". But as I said... 4-5 years ago... they would have bought a thicker laptop or done without the power. It just does not make sense to me. I can't see the sense. All it does is that it tells manufacturers that they can sell garbage but because it's thin or cheap (lenovo Y50) people will jump on it.

But it DOESN'T because it keeps throttling. You say you wanna play GTA. GTA is such a bloody CPU hog that I've seen it use 80% of my CPU in Windows Task Manager, and doesn't seem to go much higher. That's me at 3.5GHz with weaker GPUs than two 970Ms. You're wanting to put a throttle-happy, hotter CPU in a thinner form factor with STRONGER video cards? That's insane! You'd get worse performance than me!

here we do agree. I again am not saying thin/light shouldn't exist. Never did I say that. What I AM saying is that they need to design themselves in spec. Stop giving false hopes/ideas that stronger tech can exist in those form factors than is feasible.

 

Just have to say, the title of this thread is great. Kudos.