HP ENVY 14 - GPU Clock and Undervoltage POLL

Thats pretty much as detailed as you need it. You'll see it if you install Afterburner.

 

Thank you very much!!!!! You are AWESOME!!!

 

It's simple :

HP choose the 450 mhz cards in order to not have overheat issues on the i7 quad core configurations.

 

No, because it's a different motherboard and GPU setup on the quad core i7's, that's why it's a selectable option depending on which CPU you get. I doubt it's an overheat issue, but if it is, then offer the higher spec'ed ones for dual core machines.

 

Looks like an inferior 5650 is used in the E14

 

Its the same motherboard, it's just the vram bios that's different (one says HURR HURR THERE'S A IGP SO CONNECT TO THE CHIPSET, the other one SAYS HURRHURR THERES NO IGP).

1) Hp bought 450 mhz in one batch, they're not going to flash i7 to 450 mhz and i5 to 550mhz because the batch they used are cards who failed the factory 550mhz test and were downclocked at 450mhz to be sold cheaper.

or

2) Hp is lazy as and didn't even bother to think about "ho yeah downclocking may be totally detrimental on the i5 flashed cards since they don't overheat".

My bet is that HP was greedy enough to only buy only one batch of 450mhz for both i7 and i5 envys. They just flashed them differently for that IGP stuff, preventing extra costs and overheating on the i7. HP didn't downclock anything, they just bought the low end of the 5650's (downclocked by ATI, why the not brand them 5640 or 5645 ? awesome ATI) and edited/flashed the bios accordingly to the IGP or no-IGP setup.

That said to me premium doesn't mean "the most powerful" it's just a branding of looks and quality. Not performance, damn just look at apple's "premium"...

 

Side note, are there any 5650s that run at 650MHz default?

 

I'm satisfied with my Envy 14 as is. The only game I play on it is Fallout 3, and that runs quite well even at a high resolution on an external monitor. That said, I can understand why many people are upset about the under clocking. I kind of doubt that HP will do anything about it, though.

@MagusDraco, how is long term stability with the OC?

 

*shrugs* I didn't use the oc for more than like 30 minutes in a game.

others got an hour before crashing so who knows.

I'll find out later if I ever play a game that really needs the 550 core clock speed. otherwise I'll just play at 450 for my stuff.

 

We got an admin reply on the hijacked blog post:

The Plastiki Docks Down Undah - Page 2 - The Next Bench

 

haha, nice work

 

To be honest, I just see that as an attempt to shut us up. >_>

 

Was playing some Starcraft 2 today. Even at 1366x768, it definitely benefits from the extra muscle of a 550mhz 5650. Had to turn a few settings down to get totally smooth gameplay.

Even my desktop with a 3.8ghz q9550 and 4870 xfire dips below 60fps in big battles with everything on ultra @ 1920x1200.

 

yeah. seems like they didn't fully fix up the speed. little annoyed but oh well. can't help that. New UI slowing things down a bit.


man I need to figure out how to set shadows to low permanently (can't do it from the settings menu if the shader is on medium or high. and shaders are where you get the biggest graphics change)

 

It's my fault, but I also feel a little deceived thinking that a higher resolution display, and the advertisement of an ATI 5650, meant I was getting at least the middle of the road 5650, and not a cheap version. Last time this happened I got an Acer with 1gb of DDR2 ram, which seriously underperformed.

I thought that buying a premium $1200+ laptop assured I wouldn't have to deal with this type of headache.

 

What I want to know if there is a way to fix this without HP doing a recall. Is it possible to flash the card to higher standard clocks? Can this be done through an update through HP? Are we truly stuck with this underclocked GPU? Someone please tell me otherwise?

 

well, it think this is locked so i think someone has to make a hack for it, unless hp releases an update.

 

The fault is the hardware. The 5650s in your Envy 14 systems are underachievers .

I wish HP would correct this but I don't think they will.

 

Anyone else find that tree huggerette in the 2nd video on that plastiki site strangely attractive?

 

Are you on something?

No offense.

 

She's the one who sat in the tree 15-20 years ago, isn't she?

 

Of course. Aren't you?

 

Which tree would that be? Awww come on, don't say the ugly one. That's not nice.

 

Alright, guys. I've spent a bit of time on the phone today with two upper level departments of HP's phone support. Both thought this is a design issue and didn't have a quick solution.

However, I would recommend calling the HP case management line about your Envy 14 complaints. Here's what you should do to have the best conversation with them:

-Have a prior case number related to your Envy 14. Just spend 5 minutes on the phone with the base tech support to get one: 800-474-6836. They will not be able to help you, but you need a case number.
-Wait until you're calm and rational enough to have a polite phone call with Case Management. This is particularly important if you just got off the phone with tech support.
-Call 877-917-4380 and wait until the extension prompts end. You should be transferred to a case manager or to an answering machine where you can leave your information to be reached later.
-While on the phone with the case manager, be sure to stress the difference in performance between your laptop and the DV6tSE. Mentioning the significant price gap is also a good idea.

I'm still thinking a tech blog should pick up on this.

 

Hm, maybe that's why I didn't see what you saw in her.

I really don't think they're going to do anything about this, but I'll still help out and hope they might do something about it.

 

It's definitely a long-shot. Our best chance is to make as much noise as possible, though.

 

Send a link to this thread to Engadget. They like that sort of thing. Anything that makes Apple look good... even if inadvertently.

Check their about us page or tip us link to contact them.

 

Thanks for the walkthrough, I will call and see if I can talk to someone there tomorrow.

I have already been in contact with someone at engadget about it (they haven't yet reviewed the 14); we will see what comes with that. Really though, I am not sure this is much of a story - the gpu does run within 5650 specs, so it's not like it's fraud, but it's a huge let down. I would expect the 'premium' consumer line to perform better than the more mainstream dv series, especially when we are paying more. A higher rez display isn't going to justify it to me.

I got my envy14 today and after a clean install I can't get it stable above 500/800. I have already decided that I won't be keeping the envy if this is as good as it gets. I am trying to decide between the Envy14 and the Vaio Z. I was leaning toward the Envy for two reasons - price/value and the better graphics card (assumed it was going to be 550mhz). With it hitting the same benchmarks and gaming performance as the 330m, I think I'd rather pay more and just keep the smaller form factor, better battery life and better build quality of the Vaio Z(my envy14 has some small but real build flaws that will have me RMAing it either way).

Something is going on with the GPU, whether it's undervolted or just bargain bin silicon. Hopefully it ends up being something they can fix. I don't have high hopes.

I have a couple weeks to think about it, we'll see how it goes.

 

I just made a graph. It's not a very good one, but I'll also attach the excel file if someone else would like to clean it up.

 

Great effort, Xephon. Could you make the prices on the other three units green, and make the Envy 14 price red? That'll make it even more apparent how this situation just doesn't fit.

 

Okay, not exactly "sat", then. To be fair to your assessment, the picture on Wikipedia makes her out to be quite cute.

 

This sucks. The HP Envy 14 NOT only has a stripped down version of HD 5650 GPU, but it also has DDR3 VRAM. I was hoping this laptop to have GDDR3... Used ATI CCC, and it's confirmed, its DDR3 VRAM. My desktop has HD4850 and it reports its GPU as 512MB GDDR3.

 

The 5650 GPU is spec'd to run at all of the speeds, from 450 to 650 but does require a voltage change. So, if you were designing a notebook where the predecessor performed well but people complained it was hot and the battery life was too low (aka, Envy 15), you might look at running the GPU at a lower voltage (less heat) that is within the design specs. Looks like that is what we got. As for the memory, the 5650 is spec'd with 800 Mhz DDR3/GDDR3. I am not sure that is a factor for concern.

What I do find interesting is that the core clock is never mentioned on the laptop specs. Are they hiding? Likely not. All they claim is that we have a HD5650 GPU with 1 GB dedicated. It is also interesting that the GPU is at 550 in other notebooks from HP that are considered lower end. That part simply makes no sense. If it was a design choice, why would you not take that finding an apply to all your products? BTW, I also see that Sony did the same with the 5650 on their laptops.

 

Yeah, but that's not that bad. GDDR3 performs just a tiny bit better than DDR3 but produces more heat and consumes more energy. I do care about the 450 clocked 5650 though, since we can clearly notice a difference from that and the normal 550Mhz.

 

hmmm... the HD5650 video card in the Acer runs at 0.95V stock.

 

That's not a big deal at all, as long as the memory can keep up with the core, then it makes no real difference. You can have the fastest memory in the world, but you'll always be bottlenecked by your core speed. That's not to say there haven't been instances where a slow memory speed has bottlenecked a card before, but I really don't think that's the case here.

 

I got a reply from engadget about the underclocked 5650 tip I sent in. It seems like HP has been dragging their feet on giving them a unit to review so they haven't even received their Envy 14 yet. I gave them a list of Quality Control and performance issues to look out for that many have voiced in the forum, and reiterated the disappointment of HP putting lower quality components in a premium laptop. Hopefully they voice the concerns in their review!

 

Good job Poofay.

What's the email address? I would like to express displeasure at HP putting the laptop up and yanking it, as well as the screen issues (possibly only 768 *eww* for the UK), and underclocking.

 

i also sent a message to Engadget

mega pissed about the underclock and non-GDDR3

 

As much as I dislike Engadget, I guess it's better people know about the issue.

I still think people are overreacting just a little to the 100MHz underclocking. Still, it is something that is a little upsetting, and even though I doubt HP can do anything about it (I'm still guessing the cores were binned to run at 450MHz, since most people can't seem to hit 550MHz stable), I guess it's better to raise the issue than disregard it.

 

I took this from the Gamers thread. You can see that 100Mhz does make a significant impact on performance. I won't be gaming so I probably won't encounter problems with the underclocking either. I do personally feel a bit cheated since HP does not have a clear answer explaining their choice. Presenting the information, however minor it seems, on a platform like Engadget will only benefit the end user in the future.

@PlasmaBomb
I submitted my concerns to Engadget by clicking the Tip Us button on the top right of their web page.

 

Man with brains!
Afcourse everybody is overreacting. You get 5-10% more performance on stock 5650M speeds...
If you're not happy with that, than you had to choose the envy 15.
HP is one of the first that CAN put a 5650M inside a very small chassis at a reasonable price.

Be realistic, don't expect some company can put a 5830M or similar into a 14" notebook... unless afcourse, if you realy like to have some more issues, heat, it will be thicker, etc.

 

Someone did respond to you by email, though? Can you PM me that email address?

 

HP is not the first nor is it the best. Sony Z series have it on a 13 incher. As do the Lenovo Y460 also a 14 incher ON FULL SPEED. The other 14 incher to compare with is an Acer and that too is on FULL SPEED.

So we know 550 can be achieved with smaller laptops so there is NO excuse why HP didn't do this besides saving their own money will overpricing this laptop because of the hype.

 

I don't think you can compare the Envy 14 and the Sony Vaio Z. That's a joke. The Vaio Z starts at $1900, compared to the Envy 14 at $999. I don't know what the appeal of the Vaio Z is, but I certainly won't pay $1000 more for it.

If you're really that unhappy with the performance of the 5650 in the Envy 14, return it and buy an IdeaPad Y460.

Again, I don't think HP can do anything about the 5650 at this point. If anything they'll do something in the second generation of the Envy 14.

 

I thought the Z series was a GT 330M, not an ATI 5650?

It seems likely that ATI bought the lower performing 5650s for the Envy 14. But I'm not sure if they did this to save money, or if it was part of a design decision to the GPU slower to reduce heat. Other Envys have had lots of complaint about over heating, so its possible that this is what was happening.

I agree that it should be possible to run the 5650 at 550, particularly given that the envy 14 is larger than the 4820TG. Just not sure if this was a cost issue (how much more would a 550mhz capable 5650 cost? anyone know?) or a design issue.

 

So comparing 450 Mhz (6770) vs 550 Mhz (7390) is around a 8.4% difference in performance. If that scales to frames per second in games you'll get the following:

450 -- 550 MHz
18.32 fps -- 20 fps
22.9 fps -- 25 fps
27.48 fps -- 30 fps
36.64 fps -- 40 fps
91.61 fps -- 100 fps

 

Sigh...

While I too am a little upset regarding the 450/550 clockspeed issue people need to stop using the terminology that HP underclocked this card. The spec for the ATI 5650 is 450-650. If you say it is underclocked, HP will only respond with: "No, it is not. Here is the range of core speeds, and we are within those parameters."

Underclocking would indicate that HP lowered the card from the minimum of 450 to something lower say 350/400.

Additionally, there isn't a spectrum of 5650 cards. All 5650's are the same. There is no such thing as a cheap/lower end 5650 model. This is a setting made on the card by the manufacturer.

This could be due to A.) HP chose to go with a setting that they felt would lower the heat/energy draw from the card (although I know as much as many of us have found heat is not an issue). B.) The facility in China that made the notebooks were not provided/skipped a step while assembling the notebook.

I want HP to make the change\address the 550 clock speed as much as the next person, but please lets at least get our information correct before raging a war based on incorrect information.

 

How can you be sure of that? I'm just curious.

There is so much misinformation and misplaced anger going around in this thread it's hard to find any factual information.

 

Information can be found here: Notebookcheck: ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5650

Core Speed * 450-650 MHz

The Envy 14 clock is at the minimum setting but within the spec of the GPU core. It's not underclocked relative to the standard spec of the chip.

If you want a faster clock, then over clock it yourself or find another manufacturer who is willing to run the 5650 at a higher clock.