Those of you who check the Dell XPS forums know that I have had a couple of XPS systems (multiple from every model) and have done some benchmark/temp mini-reviews on them. I received the X1 Extreme a few days ago and decided to do the same for this. This is a "live" review as I will be updating it over the next couple of days. I welcome any benchmark requests (as long as I have it or it is free that is, lol).
Specs of my X1 Extreme:
CPU: i7-8750H
GPU: 1050 Ti Max-Q
Ram: 16GB DDR4 2666MHz (single stick)
SSD: 512GB Intel 7600P (SSDPEKKF512G8L)
Screen: FHD
Stock Benchmarks with windows power slider at "better peformance" and Lenovo Vantage left on "enable intelligent cooling"
Time Spy - 2402
Time Spy Extreme - 1106
Fire Strike - 6549
Fire Strike Extreme - 3324
Fire Strike Ultra - 1694
Sky Diver - 19280
Cloud Gate - 24046
Ice Storm - 79560
Ice Storm Unlimited - 160401
3DMark 11 Performance - 8661
3DMark 11 Extreme - 3262
Unigine Heaven Extreme -1113
RealBench System Score - 91,862
CPU-Z Multi Score - 2611.3
Cinebench R15 - Open GL 96.16FPS, CPU 915 cb, Single 174 cb
Corona - 4:08
7-Zip Total Rating - 32880 MIPS
PCMark 10 - 4892
PCMark 8 Home Accelerated - 3672
PCMark 8 Creative Accelerated - 3516
PCMark 8 Work Accelerated - 5294
Y-Cruncher 25M (sec) - 27.068
Y-Cruncher 1B (sec) - 133.006
Super Pi 1M (sec) - 9.248s
Super Pi 32M (min:sec) - 8m 48.422s
Prime95 64k Bench (iter/sec) - 20068.76
Prime95 2048k Bench (iter/sec) - 210.53
AIDA64 Cache -![]()
Thermals
Testing for the thermal section is done with a variety of tools. I am using Prime95 29.4B7 to test the CPU, RTHDRIBL as a light GPU load, and RealBench 2.56 as a heavy workload on both the CPU and GPU.
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Undervolting
The CPU in my little X1 seems to be pretty decent quality wise. I was able to undervolt it by 165mv and it is 4 hour RealBench, 10 hour Prime95 Small FFT, and 8 hour AIDA64 system stress test stable. I am not concentrating on a how to for this but can add more detail if anyone requests it.
Repasting
Some how Lenovo managed to apply more paste to the X1 Extreme than Dell did their XPS 9570, no small feat mind you. Removing the stock paste and applying some Kryonaut yielded the results above. Not a huge decrease, but worth it in my opinion. I may try something different like ICDiamond to see if it helps because the dual tripod design of the heatsink doesn't apply much pressure.
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custom90gt Doc Mod Super Moderator
Last edited: Dec 20, 2018 -
custom90gt Doc Mod Super Moderator
Modifications
So I think I've arrived at a point where I am fairly happy with my results finally. Here is a list of everything that was done before I re-ran all of the benchmarks.
1. Undervolted the CPU and CPU cache by 165mv - by far the best "bang for the buck" so to speak.
2. Repasted the CPU and GPU with Kryonaut - worth it if you're comfortable with repasting and already have the supplies
3. Set the Thinkpad Vantage Program to optimize for performance - seems to increase the long and short turbo boost to a higher wattage. Causes the system to run hotter but not out of hand.
4. Removed the fan grill "sticker" from the bottom of the case - very much worth it to me as the noise these fans put out were beyond annoying prior to doing this.
5. Overclocked the GPU by 200MHz and the vram by 350MHz - not only do I get a big performance boost, it actually runs at a much lower VID.
Benchmarks with the above mods:
Time Spy - 2549
Time Spy Extreme - 1184
Fire Strike - 6942
Fire Strike Extreme - 3522
Fire Strike Ultra - 1795
Sky Diver - 20829
Cloud Gate - 27566
Ice Storm - 76172
Ice Storm Unlimited - 161975
3DMark 11 Performance - 9242
https://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/130691973DMark 11 Extreme - 3455
Unigine Heaven Extreme - 1191
RealBench System Score - 114,708
CPU-Z Multi Score - 3428.2
Cinebench R15 - OpenGL 101.61FPS, CPU 1206 cb, Single 171 cb
Corona - 3:07
7-Zip Total Rating - 38846
PCMark 10 - 5224
PCMark 8 Home Accelerated - 3524
PCMark 8 Creative Accelerated - 3492
PCMark 8 Work Accelerated - 5191
Y-Cruncher 25M (sec) - 25.041
Y-Cruncher 1B (sec) - 121.208
Super Pi 1M (sec) - 9.264
Super Pi 32M (min:sec) - 8:45.5
Prime95 64k Bench (iter/sec) - 27908.59
Prime95 2048k Bench (iter/sec) - 241.88
AIDA64 Cache -
To make things easier to read here is a before and after:
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custom90gt Doc Mod Super Moderator
Here is a quick and dirty against my Dell XPS 9570 benchmarks and temps both stock and modified:
Obviously there are pros/cons to each laptop. I would say the X1 feels much lighter and easier to carry around, has a better keyboard, has a spare NVMe slot, and doesn't have the GPU throttling that the Dell does. The XPS feels better built to me, the screen is much better, much better battery life, and is much faster at CPU related tasks than the X1.
So after reading about @B0B's experiences with the Overpowered laptop and having single vs dual channel memory, I decided to purchase 32GB of matched memory to re-run some of the benchmarks. There are some decent gains to be had even from a synthetic benchmark point of view and it helped to even out with the XPS by a bit:
Last edited: Jan 2, 2019 -
There is lot of talk in reddit about somekind of "mesh" in the back panel that interferes with the fans. Many have said that removing the mesh will help a lot with the fan noise. Not sure what mesh they are talking about as i haven't seen it in any pictures.
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custom90gt Doc Mod Super Moderator
*on edit* after looking again, it's just a stuck on mesh so I went ahead and removed it. The fan pitch is much much better now. It's still louder than my XPS but not near as annoying anymore!Last edited: Dec 18, 2018Dannemand likes this. -
custom90gt Doc Mod Super Moderator
Alright I have the benchmarks with the "Mods" in place. I will finish up my excel calculations later today and post everything up, including the comparison to my Dell XPS 9570...
Dannemand, jeremyshaw and kirth like this. -
custom90gt Doc Mod Super Moderator
Alright that about does it. Let me know if there are any benches or anything someone would like to see. I am still undecided which laptop I will keep as they both have their ups and downs. I will play with the lenovo some more though.
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Good job, Man! That's a lot of hard work leading to amazing results. I was looking at this model but eventually gave up on it. Too many compromises in the end. Entry level GPU. Limited storage for a 15" machine. You absolutely have to undervolt if you need real performance. And those temps are still not quite convincing. If your room temp is 25-30C, it will easily break 90C even with repaste + undervolt + raised back. No black magic here. But it's a very nice machine for sure. Very stylish and fits the niche quite nicely.
Personally, I ended up getting a E485 with Ryzen 2700u + Vega 10. Only cost me 500$, but those 10W can provide half of the CPU+GPU performance of a X1 Extreme for less than 1/4 of the cost. In addition, I have a crazy storage capacity in this slim 14" package - Full-size NVMe + 2.5" bay = 6TB SSD storage that can be achieved right now. Finally can happily ditch W10 and move to the dark side, as linux seems to work very smooth with Ryzens.9ac3 and custom90gt like this. -
custom90gt Doc Mod Super Moderator
Yeah I am fortunate to have an office in the basement so my temps are pretty much a constant 22C. I'm actually pretty surprised by the temps of the laptop. Lenovo does limit CPU power pretty quickly so that helps with the temps. The 1050ti is good enough for the games that I play when I'm not at home on my 2080ti and 34" monitor. Sadly there aren't any great thin gaming laptops aside from the GS65 and Blade 15, but those laptops are $$$. I paid $1200 for the X1 and $1000 for the 9570, but the 9570 was refurbished.
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custom90gt Doc Mod Super Moderator
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Richard Zheng Notebook Evangelist
Are you going to try and overclock the display? If you try, can you post your results?
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custom90gt Doc Mod Super Moderator
I haven't planned on it, but can give it a try if you'd like. Are you hoping to hit any particular Hz?
Dannemand likes this. -
Richard Zheng Notebook Evangelist
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custom90gt Doc Mod Super Moderator
On a slightly more happy note, adding dual channel memory helped out with some of the benchmarks and helped it catch up to the 9570.Dannemand likes this. -
Richard Zheng Notebook Evangelist
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custom90gt Doc Mod Super Moderator
I believe bandwidth is limited by the connection type is it not?
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Richard Zheng Notebook Evangelist
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custom90gt Doc Mod Super Moderator
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Richard Zheng Notebook Evangelist
Thanks for your results
EDIT: Did they fix the bricking issue already? -
custom90gt Doc Mod Super Moderator
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Richard Zheng Notebook Evangelist
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custom90gt Doc Mod Super Moderator
Well I had no problems switching to and from discrete graphics.
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Richard Zheng Notebook Evangelist
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custom90gt Doc Mod Super Moderator
Hah I guess I just lucked out (had no idea it was an issue). I updated the bios on the 24th and here is what it says:
- Fixed an issue where the system might not boot with Discrete Graphics. -
Richard Zheng Notebook Evangelist
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Why did u not undervokt the iGPU?
Any advice on how to test overclocking speeds of the iGPU to get a stable value?
I moved from a XPS to the X1E any do t regret it. Especially the keyboard on the X1E is a big plus. -
custom90gt Doc Mod Super Moderator
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Richard Zheng Notebook Evangelist
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custom90gt Doc Mod Super Moderator
I tried to follow this guide on overclocking an LCD with intel graphics.
Sadly it didn't work out because of "bandwidth" limitations. I then turned on the dGPU only mode in bios and was able to set a custom resolution with the NVIDIA control panel. Sadly not worth it for the extra 7Hz. -
Richard Zheng Notebook Evangelist
I wonder if you can drop in a touchscreen into the FHD model. Does anybody know if you can do this?
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Also the thickness might be a problem for the slimmer display assembly. -
Richard Zheng Notebook Evangelist
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Same deal with GPU 1050 GTX MQ. Synthetic tests showed that +200 MHz GPU/350 MHz vRAM OC was "stable". However, real life test showed that GPU can't be forced beyond 172 MHz while playing games such as "Metro Exodus" or "Far Cry 5".
My point is....did you get "stable" real life operation with the proposed CPU/GPU undervolting/OC values, leaving aside the synthetic tests? -
custom90gt Doc Mod Super Moderator
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Thanks!custom90gt likes this. -
custom90gt Doc Mod Super Moderator
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custom90gt Doc Mod Super Moderator
toughasnails likes this. -
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custom90gt Doc Mod Super Moderator
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custom90gt Doc Mod Super Moderator
Oh I see, I've never listened to the guestimate that windows provides. My 6-8 hours is real world usage with some remaining battery life. I have a few PC Mark 8 battery benches as well. Not as good as my 9560/9570s but good enough for what I did.
katalin_2003 likes this. -
I am trying to decide between XPS15 and X1E for video editing and animation workload. Also I am going to be in warm room temp.
So I wonder which machine would you recommend? I would go with 4K screen option so my most concerns are
1- performance
2- surface temperature
3- fan noise (I know x1 has a louder fan, but I wonder how bad it is comparing to xps) -
custom90gt Doc Mod Super Moderator
Here is a quote from my 3rd post when looking at the two:
"Obviously there are pros/cons to each laptop. I would say the X1 feels much lighter and easier to carry around, has a better keyboard, has a spare NVMe slot, and doesn't have the GPU throttling that the Dell does. The XPS feels better built to me, the screen is much better, much better battery life, and is much faster at CPU related tasks than the X1."Dannemand, katalin_2003 and arash_illusive like this. -
Richard Zheng Notebook Evangelist
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custom90gt Doc Mod Super Moderator
toughasnails and katalin_2003 like this. -
Richard Zheng Notebook Evangelist
I was thinking of getting one of these or a P1. The P2000 GPU is basically the same, but drops 1GHz on the memory clocks. How much of a difference would that make, and can I OC the memeory to make up for the difference
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Extreme benchmarks + temps
Discussion in 'Lenovo' started by custom90gt, Dec 17, 2018.