HP ENVY 14 - GPU Clock and Undervoltage POLL

You misunderstood me, I am fully aware that the Mobility 5650 can range between 450MHz to 650MHz. This is a known fact, and I've been stating this throughout the thread.

I'm asking how can we be sure it is up to the manufacturer as to what clock speed a given 5650 chip runs at? The only source I've seen that supports that claim is NotebookCheck, but a single line of text that says something without citing a source isn't necessarily true.

 

Seems that, for gamers at least (and I'm not one of them, lucky for me), the problem isn't that the card is lower-clocked, but that hardly anything can be done about it (i.e. overclocking).

I bet the stock 5650 at 550/800 wasn't quite enough for everyone here, and those that needed more bought it planning to overclock. No one here would care about 450/800 if they could OC it to around what folks in the Acer forums are getting.

 

Exactly. It's that they purchased the GPU with the clock speed specified. So there's really nothing HP can do about it except to design a new mobo and cooling system with the higher standard clocked GPU.

At best, the complaints will lead to either some form of compensation of Envy 14 buyers and the incorporation of the higher standard clock version of the GPU in the second generation of the Envy 14. By then though, ATI might have another GPU out that will make it into the Envy 14 gen 2.

 

1. Considering that HP uses the same card in their HP DV6 notebook that is clocked at 550/800, I would hazzard a guess that they would also use the same company that makes the 5650's for all their products.
2. Couldn't find any sites that provide information regarding different manufacturers of this card.
3. Comparison of AMD graphics processing units - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia it lists that the cards can either be 450/550 as for the core clock speeds.
4. Speaking with AMD & HP support both indicate that there is no such thing as a lower end 5650 card (take CS fact with grain of salt).
5. You are correct, I cannot be absolutely sure that this is correct, however information I have collected does not indicate that there is such a thing as a low end 5650.
6. You are correct, there is a lot of anger/lack of factual information available which leads people to believe that said low end video card exists.
6a. Additionally, leads people to believe that HP conspired to put said low end cards in these machines.

 

I don't know about that - the fact that we have to overclock in the first place to get to 550/800 is the issue for me. I'd probably have stuck with stock clocks if it was 550/800, but I'll probably be trying to overclock to that level now when I play games that could use that extra boost.

 

One technical correction: there is no card to speak of. When talking about "card" the only notebooks that employ a graphics card are those that have MXM spec. The Envy 14 uses a GPU that is soldered to the motherboard. HP is known to have custom configured GPUs for some of their systems.

HP likely spec'd out a GPU with lower standard clocks for the E14.

 

Really, for some odd reason I could have sworn the ATI Catalyst software said it was a PCI-e interface. Will double check that when I get home tonight. You are probably right on all accounts 2.0. They will probably "fix" this in release gen2 with a higher clock or better GPU.

 

It does operate over a PCI-e bus. I believe the actual lanes are just part of the motherboard.

 

Correct. PCI-e bus on the mobo. MXM is a different spec.

You can see that it's soldered to the mobo in the service manual.

 

Ah.. kk. I think I was going off of this info (which looks like a card) ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5650 - ProductWiki unbiased product reviews.

 

is anyone else really contemplating jumping ship to the acer 4820. the cost is $900 for an i5 w/ 5650 clocked at 550, and alot of people have OC'd it over 700. I got 21 days to return it. I really like the resolution and build of this laptop, but if i'm going to game this gpu wont cut it

 

I don't understand how you can be so confident. It's pretty easy to believe that the cards that run at 450 are just the lower binned cards. So it's not that they were designed to be low end, but the huge variation in ability among cards just means that if HP asked for 450 cards, then they probably got the shoddier specimens. Add to this the fact that there definitely is a difference in overclocking ability between the cards that has nothing to do with voltage (again, the dv6t card and E14 card run at the same voltage) and it's hard to believe they are exactly the same quality.

 

People have waited for the Envy 14 for awhile, and despite finding out about all the problems and shortcuts HP took they still try to rationalize it.

A paying customer should not have to overclock the GPU to reach performance values standard on many other laptops with poorer cooling solutions.

 

Don't know if I missed it somewhere, but has anyone had success with setting the clocks to 550/800 using this method?

 

Some can't reach 550/800, some can, and some can go (a little) beyond. Nevertheless, we shouldn't have to overclock (which may or may not void the warranty, though the tech's aren't likely to know anyway) just to get to what should be stock clock speeds.

 

Yeah I understand that. It really doesn't seem to make sense that a more expensive system like this would be clocked this low...

 

Or there are those who try to find flaws so they can rationalize not to buy it.

 

I bought both the dv6tse and the Envy 14 and I'm keeping the Envy, but until I see evidence that the 5650 in the E14 is as capable as the one in the dv6tse, I'm doing it with full knowledge that I'm getting a "worse" card.

 

If i cant OC the GPU to 550, i will seriously consider it.

 

You mean people who tried running games and found the 5650 underperforms? Then others reading about it on a forum? That's hardly trying to find flaws - it's just being aware of what the product is.

 

What's pictured is an MXM 3.0 card. Usually found in Sager and Clevo notebooks. They are pretty big at around 5" x 3.5" roughly. My HDX is MXM 2.1.

All Envys just use the GPU soldered to the board. Some of the Elitebook series uses MXM cards.

 

The average 3Dmark06 for a 5650 is around 6,800. The average for the Envy 14 is around... 6,800. I do not believe that is underperforming.

 

I don't understand the contention..

As I understand it, the Envy 14 comes with an ATI 5650 mobility card that appears to be clocked at the lowest end of the spectrum of 5650's.

We are unhappy because we believe that the Envy 14 should have had at least an equally spec'd card as the other HP laptops carrying the same card title.

Through further testing, some users have found it impossible to over clock and reach the spec of many other ATI 5650 mobility cards that currently are being sold in both HP and other brand laptops with similar size and configurations.

We have concluded that either an under volted chip, or a lower binned (read: cheaper) 5650 has been placed in our laptops.

Therefore our course of action is to ask HP for a fix. Which could come in a number of ways, most logical to me would be a voltage unlock.

I believe this can only benefit all HP Envy 14 owners and prospective buyers. Don't you agree?

 

The contention is the "fix." You're assuming it would be a voltage unlock, but in all probability that is not the case. Doesn't wholly make sense considering how these things work. The voltage is likely fixed at the component level and not BIOS since there is only one available GPU for the motherboard.

What's most likely is that HP used a GPU that is clocked at 450mhz. That would explain why some are able to reach various overclocks before losing stability. The only "fix" for that is a new motherboard with the higher clocked GPU. Something that's not going to happen.

So in essence, the complaints will likely end up being implemented in a later version of the Envy 14.

 

I didn't mean the general bios that governs the entire system.

When you say "component level" you are talking about something other than ati's bios?



That makes sense, although maybe the i7 and i3/i5 motherboards are somewhat different.

 

Im simply stating that his notion that HP was the first to put a card in such a small laptop is wrong. Other company have done so and done it better. And whoops yes the Z is a 330M. That skipped my mind by accident.

With that said, if IBM and acer can do it to their consumer laptops it is a joke that HP can't do it to their premiums

 

It's a 100mhz, guys. I really doubt that anyone has been able to figure out the difference in FPS between the 450 and 550 model in a real time situation.

What is transpiring here is:
1) Folks are comparing 5650 models at 720p (acer, lower HP models) and extrapolating that data to the envy's much larger 900p screen. Protip: the resolution is going to adversely affect FPS. Whether Starcraft II is at "ultra" or "high" is immaterial- you are playing at high resolution with a better looking screen.
2) They cannot brag about their synthetic benchmark scores in which you can drastically and artificiality increase results via core speed clocks. Overclocked my desktop card about 100mhz core, received a massive increase in 3dmark score with no difference in the FPS I was receiving in legitimate gaming situations.

Also, stop citing this "premium" crap. It's a worthless marketing distinction. The Sony Z model is legitimately "premium" and you are going to pay up the *** for that. I paid 800 dollars for this envy 14 model- and am very, very happy with the build quality and performance. The other models in this price range were asus machines with 310Ms and dv6s. To each his own I guess.

 

Anyone who plays demanding games will notice the difference between 450 and 550 mhz, the 100 mhz difference is quite a bit, there's a 22% difference in performance between the 450 and 550.

 

QFT. (Quoted for truth)

Well, relative to HP's other consumer models, the Envy would be "premium."

That's not quite correct becasue the 22% difference in MHz will not translate into 22% difference in games. It'll translate into a couple of frames per second give or take. And it depends on the game. Some games blend CPU/GPU utilization. Some are more GPU dependent.

 

Well said....What's scary is how long this thread went on before someone mentioned the obvious.

 

I'm sure we can get some of the people who have overclocked up to 550/800 to test this for us. Part of the issue is that most of the people here want to maximize their graphics quality with what they've got. Losing the 100 mhz of clock speed requires sacrificing some graphics quality to keep the game at a playable framerate, or going from a borderline framerate (30-35 FPS) to a sub-optimal framerate (25-30) while keeping the graphics quality at the same level. When you're playing Mass Effect 2, that's not a big issue, as the Envy 14 can run it at near full-quality without dropping below acceptable framerates, but if you're trying to play Metro 2033, that clock boost might be the only way to bump the game into playable territory at all.

 

100 mhz is a difference. Any overclocker can tell you that. Of course when your games are running 60 fps+ anyways 4 or 5 fps isn't going to do much. But when you are running 20 fps those 5 fps can go a long way. Just because you are a general consumer don't expect the rest of us are.

It is premium. What the hell do you think you were paying for? The screen is $100 (or I guess 200 now...) and the 5650 is cheaper binned so thats minus points. So essentially you are paying th extra few hundred dollars for what? A good casing? Beats audio? Give me a break. Its a premium laptop, as they marketed as one, hence the price hike and it deserves premium parts and not something lackluster.

Your envy was $800 and that was after a good deal of BCB or coupons. If you were to apply that to other laptops you would get great savings that put laptops equal or greater than the envy at what? 500-600$?

I was very tempted to return the envy but I still have new toy syndrome that prevents me too. That and the obvious price hike from HP is somewhat of a deterent.

Sony Z managed to shove a full powered processor and decent graphics into a 13 inch shell. Its pretty much one of a kind so of course you are expected to pay through the roof for it.

 

Not even close to being correct. I'll leave other to point out the major fallacy.

 

You can't make a strong assertion like this and then expect others to support it. If you're going to rudely shoot somebody down like that, back it up or shut it up.

 

1) Folks are comparing 5650 models at 720p (acer, lower HP models) and extrapolating that data to the envy's much larger 900p screen. Protip: the resolution is going to adversely affect FPS. Whether Starcraft II is at "ultra" or "high" is immaterial- you are playing at high resolution with a better looking screen.

What you've said here makes sense. I'd like to see some proof.

 

The standard, free version, 3dMark06 benchmark has a set resolution lower than either the 720 or 900 setting. Sythetic benchmark scores would be a good way to compare apples to apples therefore these wouldn't be subjected to this interpretation.

That being said, homeskillet's post is absolutely valid when comparing real world FPS at maximum supported resolutions, however.... Here's where it gets even more complicated..

Depending on the game (oversimplified), both the 720 and 900 resolution set played on a graphics card with 1gig memory shouldn't notice much difference in regards to FPS. The most common bottleneck at these resolutions should be the gpu. Therefore increasing the speed of it's processing should have a much more dramatic effect over the FPS than any other factor including a resolution switch from 720 to 900.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but this is how I've understood things.

 

However changing fro 720p to 900p you are pushing more pixels which takes more processing power which the extra mhz will help. Lower res will always have higher fps. However it looks pretty bad unless you still have a CRT screen.

 

I ran 3DMark 06 at 500/800 last night with no problems but crashed at 550/800. Didn't try anything in between to see what the actual limit was. A little disappointed but not enough to return it as I bought the thing mostly for the backlit kb, screen and solid build.

 

I'd like to remind everyone that just because you can pass a single run of 3DMark06 with an overclock by no means makes it a stable overclock.

You're supposed to overclock incrementally. If you crash, you should back down one or two increments and then start stability testing.

People can do 3DMark06 "suicide runs" at ridiculously high frequencies on their CPU/GPU, but that doesn't make it stable.

Just a quick reminder. If you're overclocked, passed a 3DMark06 run and are wondering why StarCraft 2 or some other game keeps crashing all the time, you probably have your answer.

 

So I've read about 20 pages of bellyaching about 100 MHz, and I've yet to see someone post the real world difference in performance. What kind of FPS increase do you see from the clock increase? 10 FPS? 20 FPS?

Do you honestly expect a game that is completely unplayable will become a dream? I have a feeling what you'll find is you'll get more FPS, but it still will be a pain to play.

 

Good advice ExodusC. I set mine back to stock clocks actually and didn't actually do stability tests.

My desktop is a Core 2 E8500 overclocked to 4Ghz. Before leaving at it's current bios settings I ran Orthos stability for 24 hours and looped 3DMark 06 for 12. Some people are even more stringent and nothing wrong with that at all.

 

Yeah, I've been overclocking for some number of years as well. Unfortunately, I have bad luck and usually end up with chips that overclock very poorly. :/

Doesn't stop me from doing it though.

 

I can safely say I see an increase in FPS in Quake wars from the 100mhz overclock. Average jumps from in forties to in fifties when maxed.

 

So i picked up a copy of starcraft 2 and guess what? I played it on ultra and i felt no lag whatsoever! Just the screen seemed a little crunched because im used to playin SC2 on a 1920 x 1200 27" screen. besides that i noticed no problems. SC2 isn't very demanding at all.

 

Rather than argue over whether the 100Mhz makes a substantial difference, the focus should be on HP. I would think that a company would already have a clear reasoning for their choice of components in a laptop, but none of us have heard anything from them yet. Right now many feel cheated by HP's decision to place a lower dinned gpu in their premium laptop, and it has clearly been marketed as a "premium" laptop. If you don't feel affected/offended by that decision that's great, but for those who would like more answers from HP, we should be trying to get them. The few times I've used their online tech chat support have gotten me nowhere. I should stop being lazy and call to see if that gets me further.

My opinion is that heat is not an issue with this laptop. Even if true, others have pointed out that the voltage is at the same .9V as the 550Mhz gpu in the dv6tse, voltage being the main contributor of heat-correct me if I'm wrong on that. Without an official response from HP, my stance is that they chose to cut costs on a cheaper gpu. If that's true, I wouldn't ask for anything more from HP other than to be more clear about the specifics of their components when they make a change. The change they made was to use a lower end 5650 in their upper class laptop, when their lower class laptop is at 550Mhz. If HP has always used 450Mhz 5650's in their products, then I probably wouldn't mind it being in the Envy 14. I probably won't use the 450Mhz gpu to it's fullest potential, the discrepancies between the components with the same name and title across their multiple products is what bothers me.

 

I OC'd the card last night to 550/800 and ran WoW on max and high settings for about 4 hours. The increase was very noticable, tho still not playable at max settings. With the settings lowered down a bit but still pretty high, I could see a 5-9 fps increase going from around 30 to 35-40. The GPU temp in afterburner showed it averaging at 69 degrees, and it spiked to 74 degrees. I am not using a notbook cooler. I had it sitting on top of a glass desk.

I attempted to run it at 575/800 and it crashed a few times. I almost pulled the trigger on the m11x deal last night for $750, but i realized I can play on such a small screen. The Acer is still definently on my mind, even tho the screen size is smaller, it can easily clock to about 700 where I cant see this GPU going any further than 550-560.

 

Premium means different things to different people. HP marketed the Envy as a premium laptop, yes, but not a premium performance machine. The Envy includes a backlit keyboard, slot loading drive, high quality audio output, aluminum casing, edge to edge display, high end styling... all features you don't see on budget laptops.

In terms of performance, other premium laptops offer much less for a much higher price. Macbook Pros include a severely underclocked 330M with 256MB RAM for over $2000.

Std 330m: clock 575 MHz, memory 1066 MHz, shader 1265 MHz
MBP 330m: clock 500 MHz, memory 790 MHz, shader 1100 MHz

You got what you paid for. You paid for a 5650, you got a 5650 within the spec range. An extra 5-10 FPS isn't the difference between low to mid range, and premium to lack-luster.

What exactly are you expecting HP to say? There are any number of reasons the GPU is the way it is, from supply chain, to inventory, to an arbitrary whim. None of that changes what your GPU is, so the only logical thing to do is assess what the actual impact of the decision is. All of this fuss over a few FPS seems silly when put into context of the whole machine.

 

Anyone with both Envy 14 and DVT6 (I know, I'm asking a lot) can compare the temperature of the laptops on your lap at full load? I'd rather take the slightly underpowered 5650 if the laptop is cool to the touch. The Envy 14 I sent back was extremely cool compared to the current Compaq heat furnace I have. Gaming is only 25% of my use for the laptop. Battery life and heat management is my primary goal.

 

I know I'm quoting myself. I'm thinking now I should have written my post on what my problem is with the 5650 instead of as a collective. Yes Premium means different things to different people, and I never claimed that the premium meant premium performance. Usually Premium does not mean lowering the quality/performance of components. I'm saying that in respect to the dv6tse to the Envy 14, both HP products, one specifically marketed as the step above the other in regards to style and design while having a gpu with the same title of 5650.

I got what I paid for as it was advertised on paper, and I like the machine a lot. Though, I'm not pleased by HP using different versions of the same gpu that also differ in performance, no matter how small some might argue the difference is, without mentioning it. That argument goes both ways too. I probably would applaud HP if the dv6tse had a 450Mhz core and the newly released Envy 14 had a 550Mhz core, but technology doesn't usually regress as it seems it has now.

I expect HP to say it was a decision based on heat concerns. Then I expect them, if called out by tech review sites and/or enough complaining owners, to use a higher performance gpu down the road.

 

Bullcrap. My 5870 (desktop) even lags at times in SC2 on full ultra especialy when there is a lot of things going on or sometimes during non pre rendered cinemas and you are saying the 5650 can play it without lag.

And I'm always an advocate against apple because they overprice like no other. However, they are "one of a kind" with the OSX and their strictly controlled hardware and insane battery life and their awesome touchpad and unibody that puts Apple into a place where they can charge that much in their laptops.

Also its not like they have the normal macbook with a 330M clocked at 575 and then choose to use a lower clocked card for their pro.

Alot of the things you mention aren't even "premium." Some normal consumer HPs have backlits, the audio is a gimmicky joke, other companies have full aluminum casing without calling it premium like asus. When did slot loading become premium? A lot of the user here rather not have it and add an extra storage or decrease the size of the e14. The 14 does not have a edge to edge display. The Bezel is huge. And styling is all subjective and I hate the flowerly patterns on the e14 but I could care less how a laptop looks.

If HP markets it as premium it must have something over the consumer laptops either in quality in performace or quality in parts. And from what I read in the threads there are huge amount of problems with some brand new envys and from what we see with the 5650, the part quality is also very poor. I mean its not like they downclocked it to 450mhz but instead they choose cards binned for that which then means they used cheaper parts.

So what part of the laptop is "premium", hell according to anyone, besides the name?