***ENVY 14 Gaming Lounge***

I'm thinking return immediately but I better not be so haste...

 

Considering I get a $1900 laptop for a little over $1300. No. (Thank you BCB).

However, if the machine is total crap, I will return it and won't even consider Rev. 2. I'll just suck it up with my current behemoth laptop and deal with it until something better comes along.

 

You could sell it. And keep in mind that your cost is hugely inflated due to the price of the ssd.

 

5 minute intervals in single player mode of BF:BC2

Medium quality @1600x900
This first run had quite a few loading screens, and the average is probably up to 5 fps higher than actual gameplay average:
min: 17
max: 202 (load screen)
average: 33.123

This is probably a more realistic estimate playing normally (just spent like 3 seconds in a loading screen):
min: 14
max: 178
average: 26.120

Low Quality @1600x900
If I play on the laptop screen I will personally go with low quality (at least until I overclock). It was playable.
min: 24
max: 61
average: 40.055

 

Yes, but otherwise I wouldn't have been able to afford it...

 

The only PC games I will be playing in the future is SC2, maybe WOW, and Star wars the old republic. I know I can run WOW on ultra settings and SC will be fine on high. Im going to assume SWTOR will be fine on all medium settings, so while the underclocking sucks..the performance level is exactly where I need it to be

 

If you play steam games download Alien Swarm its just like LFD and it is free! It is a ton of fun.

 

pretty much this. For what I need I'll live.

I'll overclock mine to 550/800 if I find a game that needs that extra oomph, otherwise...

 

Hi I'm new at this and really enjoy gaming... I was wondering if the underclocking is so bad that I will have a problem with next gen games or high end emulators... Also I would like specs that let me play gta 4 thanks

 

Just so people have an idea.

My 5650 is stable at 500/800, it worked for like an hour at 520/810 but then a crash.

 

And that was probably because of the memory. I'm shure you can run at max core speed in afterburner and have no problems what so ever if you leave the memory alone.

 

Hm, not what i expected but it's alright i guess.

Aw, I wanted to clock it to at least 550...

 

Perhaps, but it could just be that he/she got a relatively weak chip that doesn't handle things as well - after all, if all of our chips could run at notably higher clockspeeds, they'd all be 5730's.

Speaking of which, is it possible (gasp!) that HP kept the E14's price down by putting in 5650's that ATI tested in the lower reaches of capability? Since they up-brand the top performing chips in the 5650/5730 line, wouldn't it be possible that the lower-performers might be sold to OEM's at a lower price per unit? I certainly hope not, but until someone gets his/her E14 up to a stable 600 clock (after all, they supposedly go up to 650), I'm gonna be a bit skeptical - after all, some people here are struggling to get to a stable 550/800, when that's just the standard speed that many manufacturers ship them at...

Edit: Allow me to add that I'm largely Overclocking Illiterate, so if I'm way off base, go ahead and tell me why I'm wrong.

 

Hi guys. First post. Long time anadtech forum and other various tech forum poster.

Just ordered my E14 and I've been paying attention to this.

@gcrussell. I think not being able to reach higher overclocks has more to do with low voltage and less to do with batch build quality.

Most of the time, from what i've read and my personal experience, the chip will go as high as heat will let it, but voltage must be adjusted as you scale up. From what I've been seeing re: temps, the e14 seems to have really nice cooling. I wish we could confirm the voltage, but maybe someone will be able to do that before I get mine in hand.

From this, I took that the CCR thinks that the ATI 5650 scales from 450 to 650mhz depending on load. Can anyone confirm this? Although I haven't read anything about this, and it may be a double miscommunication.

TIA. and hi!

 

Okay, so it's probably a voltage thing rather than a batch thing - makes sense.

It seems to be something like that - the CSR seems to think that the 450-650 is some magical capability of the 5650, rather than the clock speed being set by the manufacturer and tied to other variables, such as voltage as you mentioned above.

 

the csr is wrong


while yes the card can speed up and slow down, that's only when it's not being OCd. in which case it can go from 100/150 to 450/800 (and also 300/300 apparently).


I managed to get mine to sit at 585/885 in furmark for 'bout 5 to 10 minutes.

is it stable? I dunno. I didn't let it run forever or something or play games with it.

 

585/885 is a pretty nice oc. What were your temps at the end of that?

I'm also wondering if access is different between the i3/i5 vs i7 builds. ie, Can we overclock better without switchable graphics?


I think this will be solved soon enough, and at any speed, the 5650 is a nice little card!

 

temps were 76ish in furmark.


no clue what it would be like in games. was only running furmark for 10 minutes like I said.

SC2 phase 1 (no patches) gave me 78 C at 550/800 and 61-70 fps on high, except shadows which were on low. Mothership dropped fps to 50-60 (but it's the mothership. it screws every vidcard up...'cause well...the cloak it does is annoying)

 

Question: Does it hurt my computer when it crashes after an overclock? My temps arent high, low 70's...

 

has anyone played cs:source and Mass Effect/Mass Effect 2 on high everything yet? i just want to know the fps y'all are getting.... in 1920x1080 and in the native 1600x900 if possible.

thanks all!

 

Just played a nice game of Starcraft II beta with all high, except medium shadows. I was playing on an external, 1680x1050, and was overclocked at 500/800 (10.3 drivers). I got a steady 50-60fps for the first 20 mins of the match, then it went down to 35-45 fps during heavy fighting. This is perfect. The game felt very smooth even at 35 fps.

My highest temps were.... core 1/2- 77/74C, GPU- 72C. This is the hottest I've seen my processor, so SC2 must take a real toll on it. But still, you just cant complain when your temps are in the 70's =]

I did not have any crashing problems due to the overclock like I did last night with Bad Company Two at the same clock speeds.

 

I've played Team Fortress 2 on all max settings and it ran just great. Can't remember the fps I got, but you will be totally fine with CS:S. Not sure about Mass Effect 2, haven't even played that game before.

 

Anyway the msi overclock tool is crappy at best.
Are you guys sure you arn't managing to run rivatuner ? I mean rivatuner does display the "DRIVER NOT RECOGNISED" since 2008... to nearly all cards and it still worked flawlessly for me on any laptop I had.

If you launch rivatuner and got access to the overclocking tab , then it should work to OC with rivatuner. Im pretty sure it's graphic clockgen is less crappy than msi's one I mean with a non accurate clockgen you could be unstable at 550 but stable at 551..., possibly causing the crashes, aside from undervoltage. The tab is either under low level system setting or system setting the two buttons here that are tooltiped.


Then again, I dont remember if someone properly tried but, in catalyst setup in ADVANCED view there should be the ATI overdrive overclocking tool. But then rivatuner is imo the best overclocking tool ever, theres overclocking you can set for 2D usage 3D usage and 3D low usage... And rivatuner dynamically disables or enable overclocking wether you're running a game or not.

 

see that customize tab for the driver settings.

I don't get that. So I can't OC.

I sorta get a customize tab beneath the graphics card but *shrugs* my only options are info and those two screens (green one, and the one with the color bars)

 

I expect we will need to add the device ID into the rivatuner config file. I will take a look later after I have finished setting it up

 

well if you ever figure it out shout in our general direction.


also, I have no clue about the voltage but this guy may be a lil undervolted (again, like the sonys). If that's the case well..that sucks.

 

I reckon it will be. I cant see them clocking it at 450 and then leaving it stock volts. But the sony guys are still getting decent overclocks with it undervolted, so I reckon there will be hope for us yet.

I will let you know how I get on with riva in a bit

 

alright. good luck.

 

Do you guys tried to overclock with ATItools ? Or is it now the same as AMD tool ?

 

damn it! Just modified the config file in rivatuner and still no dice Thats worked for every other ati card I have used (4670/5650/4650). The Device ID is unusual as well, its only 4 digits, they are usually 5

 

doesn't help that I have like 5 display devices or something somehow.

..least in the ati system tray icon (2 intel, 3 radeon)

 

ati tools and ati tray both of those lock your system up

 

It was the same like that on my Envy

 

then it's probably standard then.

 

Whats up with my shader speed? I'm not really familiar with afterburner or rivatuner, but shouldn't the shader speed automatically be in a 1:2 ratio?

 

shader clocks are only for nvidia cards

 

AHA! I'm in the habit of overclocking NVIDEA cards, so that explains that


So apparantly I need to modify a .cfg file to get afterburner to work... what one / what needs to be modded?

 

msi afterburner.cfg

set

EnableUnofficialOverclocking = 0

to

EnableUnofficialOverclocking = 1

 

I ran the Just Cause 2 benchmark and got an average of 24.12 fps while running FRAPS.



Uploaded with ImageShack.us

 

Was that done using an auto-detect setting? Have you tried using lower settings to see if that improves the FPS?

 

Hey, I'm a new member but I've been reading this thread from the start because of my interest in an Envy 14. Here's my predicament; I've been sold on the Envy 14 for some time now but some posts have discouraged me a bit and I've gone back to research. I previously owned a Dell Studio 15 but was beyond unhappy with it, and the replacement due to a faulty chip set. This made me skeptical of getting a Dell but my research lead me to look at the Dell Studio XPS 16.

So here's my question; Would you guys recommend the Envy 14 despite the small faults you've found over the Studio XPS 16?

I know they aren't that comparable seeing as one is 14.5" and the other 15.6" which makes the Envy 14 more portable. And also the Studio XPS 16 has a bit of a price premium.

Oh, and I'll be using it for multi-tasking and gaming but not so much any of the newer titles. Just a little CS 1.6, CS:S, DOD, DOD:S, all the HL installments, TF2, and possible some COD. I'm assuming both laptops will be able to play these games no-problem and I won't be using AA, but when I did have a desktop I had a 9800GTX+ which chewed through all of these games giving me 100+FPS. Would either of these laptops put out those frame rates (doesn't have to be ultra settings) ?

If this post needs to be moved to a different thread, do so.

Thanks,
-meeps

 

Yes.
And folks here have already tested most of the games you mentioned on the highest setting with great FPS.

The complaint about physical-ness comes from notebook-veteran-enthusiasts. And for an average Joe wouldn't mind.

But on the flip side alot of people are getting perfect machines.

I guess it comes down too are you will to wear a pair of shoes to just go to the mall with alil dirt and some frayed laces?

But to each his own.

 

Well since you say the majority have gotten perfect systems I guess the Envy 14 is looking like the better choice (I'm a bit of a perfectionist). The only pros to the Dell were the i7 and the 5730 which performed better on some games according to notebookcheck.

A favor to ask of anyone reading this. Is it possible to SS your 'high frame rates' in CS:S DOD:S TF2 or HL2? I'm curious to what the 5650 will perform at seeing as you all say it's slightly underclocked so that the framerates recorded on notebookcheck are now irrelevant.

 

No, the 3Dmark06 Average for the 5650 was around 6,800 on NBC... which is what we are seeing with the non-OC config on the Envy 14.

Also you have to check the machines that were used to test. Some have better processors, using lower res screen, etc. which can improve the score.

 

Regarding the whole 5650 underclocking, here is my theory.

HP has been trying to squeeze as much battery life out of this thing as possible b/c this is a direct competitor to the MBP. Typically, higher clock speeds do not negatively affect battery life as much as higher voltages. So, to save on battery life, they undervolted the GPUs, but as a consequence, they had to lower the clock speed for stability.

Now, the question of the hour is... is it possible to increase the GPU voltage w/o a hardware modification?

Personally, i'd jack the GPU voltage waaaaay up so that i can maximize a stable OC, coz i only plan on using the dedicated GPU while plugged in.

 

Final Fantasy Recommended & Minimum System Requirements:
http://www.ffxivcore.com/topic/8808-26-new-screenshots-rec-system-requirements/?

So... yeah, I don't think there is a laptop in existence that will hit the Recommened Spec.

Should be playable on Envy 14 as it is above the Minimum Spec.

I'm not interested in this game, but a lot of folks here are.

 

It is most definately possible to flash the Vbios of the card to increase the voltage of the card.

Im not sure about ATI cards, but I did it before with my G51 to increase the voltage of the card to get higher OC. There's a tool for nvidia cards to flash the bios, not sure if there is an ATI counterpart.

 

Not really a tech savy person, but will the 5650 be interchangeable with better ati cards down the road? I'm a little concerned that the 5650 will become obsolete rather quickly.

 

no, the graphics card is attached to the motherboard

 

has anybody tried installing the AMD supplied Catalyst drivers, with the AMD GPU Tool?

ATI Catalyst? Mobility Display Driver