x220 and starcraft 2

Playing starcraft 2 1v1 online my temps maxed at around 85C . You get decent fps when not scrolling or until you have a high number of units. Once I got around 100 zerglings my fps dropped in the single digits and was unplayable. Any engagement with high number of units was unplayable.

i5 2540
8GB Memory
Resolution was 1280x720 and all settings set to LOW.

Overall result: unplayable

 

You guys have to keep in mind that this driver technology (HD 3000 IGP) is still relatively new and will take more time for intel to get things mapped out of it.

In the mean time I still recommend applying better themal paste to the CPU and GPU to help off set the temperatures, assuming you are that concerned.

 

Your temps look much better.... but, why not run something that everyone else can directly compare to? (wPrime for example)

 

Can someone please try Heroes of Newerth. I would like to know how well it performs on high.

 

wPrime does not work either on my desktop nor x220


Besides, in games that I played or use to play the temps are just fine. I don't play benchmark anything now days. :wink:

 

Are you using the older April drivers or the new ones released by Intel a few days ago?

 

Ok, wprime 1024M test. Temps of both cores rose to about 82C (real temp) by the last quarter of test. Test result = 642.038 sec. Notebook only slightly warm underneath.

CPU is i5-2410 set to turbo, ambient room temp I guess is probably low to mid twenties Celsius. Received notebook about one week ago.

Happy to do more tests if you can recommend something.

 

does not work well on high. I put all the settings low w/ native laptop screen resolution 1366 x 768 (I think) and it plays well that way. I use these settings on my 23" 1080p monitor. this is not a gaming laptop by any means anyway so vidock might be an option. this is basically the only game I play right now and I think it looks cool with all settings low anyway. also updated the intel graphics drivers

only using 2gb ram though w/ the 5400rpm drive (dunno if that matters but loading is slow)... bumping that up may help

max temps during gaming this way is 60-70c with bios fan setting

 

Same thing with me until I realised you had to run it 'as adminstrator' (right click on wprime application in folder once it is unzipped).

 

I'll give that a try. Thought I did however.

Edited: You are right. Used administrator and now working.

 

Interesting, those are pretty good temps. I bet you could even shave few degress off that by doing a good job with the thermal paste. So whats there to conclude then, that there are lots of faulty units?

 

wPrime completed using 1024M for the entire 10 minutes.

Cores using Real Temp were 90c-89c at the end of the test. Three quarters way through it read around 86c-83c Ambient room temp 80 degrees

 

I'm not surprised. They promote or allow enticing discounts (esp in the in the US) and are then, inevitably, overwhelmed with orders. Quality control takes a dip and the result is over-variation between units and a lottery for the purchaser.

 

Ambient room temp 80 F lol..... *envy*

On the bright side, it may just be crap job with thermal paste. I'd open the baby up and just check whether there is any (paste) between the CPU and the cooler and whether it's seated properly.

 

I just tried a round of wPrime 1024M--max temps were 76c. However the ambient around here is only 55F.

Interestingly, the temps I'm seeing on SC2 are slightly higher than for wPrime, probably because it stresses both the GPU and CPU.

 

So, it's basically down to occasional bad paste jobs rather than bad thermal design on the X220?

 

Great, let's all play the lottery then!

 

I'm assuming that reapplying the thermal compound will void warranty? Ugh

 

only on brands that have tamper evident stickers. acer springs to mind. never had any problems with business grade notebooks though

 

Yeah but I read that in the case of the X220, it means virtually taking apart the whole freaking machine. Most purchasers simply won't attempt it, including myself. Seriously, at this price level and quality, haven't we got the right to expect the thermal paste application to be done properly?

I decided, in part, not to buy a Dell XPS 501 because of numerous reports of the same issue. Very disappointed it's commonplace at Lenovo too

Clearly the company bean counters have identified that part or the assembly process as being too expensive and a must for efficiency savings.

 

"Commonplace" seems a bit severe at this early juncture perhaps. It would be worrying if it was widespread, but I think perhaps more evidence is needed before declaring it commonplace.

Petrov.

 

OK, I did the wPrime again and this time I put the fan on continual which I did not do before. Better results for a full 10 minutes. 80 degre ambient

 

True. And even if it was widespread, it would be a far less serious a problem than actual bad thermal design per se, which was being suggested on another thread.

I just did wprime again on max settings, non-stop for half an hour, and it averaged around 81 most of the time, briefly hitting 83 occasionally and a couple of seconds of 84. In a stuffy room. Are those temps nothing to worry about, then?

 

The CPU and GPU are on the same chip. So you'll need to run something like starcraft 2 or Pc Mark Vantage: Download 3DMark Vantage | 3DMark 11 – The Gamer's Benchmark for DirectX 11

 

Just a couple more data points.

My 2520 idles around 45-50 and playing both Starcraft 2 and Left for Dead 2 results in peak temps just under 80. My SC2 frame rates are not as high as I hoped with some of the detail up, but with most of the settings at low it is definitely playable. L4D2 is very playable with most settings in the low-medium range.

 

hi all
I have brought a x220 recently and got addicted to starcraft 2. recently i reinstalled all my files onto a ssd to make everything faster and cooler. here is my result.

starcraft2 runs better if you do not turn on turbo at the power management. in fact when i set my x220 to run at max it actually makes the game unbearable. so i set it at balanced and i sad the fan to go all out. it keeps the temp around 80 to 85 on realtemp and the game is much more playable. as for the zerg comment, yes playing zerg on x220 is impossible. there is just too much graphic to work around it. but i play terrans so things are much better for me. however i am having trouble with the intel graphic driver, at first i download the lenovo hd 3000 driver and my WEI shows to be 5.4 business and 6.2 gaming. however after i went to intel to download hd 3000 driver, it dropped my graphic rating to 4.5 business and 6.1 gaming. maybe i dont have the newest driver. can someone link one to me?

overall starcraft 2 is barely playable depends on race and power management.

my machine detail
i7 2620
4 gb memory
intel x25 80gb ssd
intel mSata 80gb ssd
windows 7 pro 64

ps. i travel a lot and so i play alot of my starcraft 2 with clearwire 4g
so sometimes i cant tell if i lag because of internet or game play. as far as playing singles, i lag when playing zerg.

 

t3a,

Just a question out of blatant curiosity. How well does your X220 perform on Turbo when on battery only without the AC adapter attached? You may find surprising results if what I think is happening is happening.

 

Based on dreamwonder's results, you can significantly boost sc2 performance by upgrading to 8gb of rams from 4gb.

Here some numbers from dreamwonder's thread (sc2):
x220 i5, 4gb 2 dimm at 1333 = 31 fps
x220 i7, 4gb 1 dimm at 1333 = 34 fps
x220 i7, 8gb 2 dimm at 1866 = 54 fps
x220 i7, 8gb 2 dimm at 1333 (corsair) = 48 fps

http://forum.notebookreview.com/lenovo-ibm/581663-starcraft-2-kingston-1866mhz-amazing-results.html

 

That's surprising. I thought the latest driver from the intel site was meant to be better.

 

My wei actually went up 0.2 for graphics and 0.1 for gaming after updating.

 

I may try it.

There is a difference in naturalness of motion when I hook up to my Dell 22" monitor in 'projector only' mode compared to 'extend' mode. The former is great, the later stuttery, although only very slightly. I have 4GB ram installed, so maybe I just need more of that?

The driver for the monitor, which incidentally has a 1680×1050 resolution (16:10), is the default Intel one. I did try an old Dell driver for it but motion got a lot worse still, so went back to the Intel one.

I would prefer 'extend' to be as good as 'projector only' but maybe I'm asking too much?


^ I'm referring to watching films, not gaming.

 

the game fine if i left it at turbo with out ac plug but overheats at 90, but i tested with i7 and ssd i can play very will without lag with balanced setting. but as soon as i left it to turbo or max turbo my temp goes up form 80 to 90 and once it reachs 90 its not playable.

you know i been looking at it and that is the reason i still havent upgraded my graphics card. as far as i was told lenovo lock the new sandy bridge at 1333 so the 1866 will not work at its full potential. which is a shame. also i researched and found out that the kingston memory overheats and dont "not designed for laptop" when i called them. so i am confused. and cant make up my mind to buy it.

 

I don't seem to have this problem, but I know what you are talking about. I had that with my old computer, did the same thing. I unfortunately didn't have a fix for it.

With the x220 I tend to just stick on my 22" without extending. I'd try the new drivers... might help.

 

As far as i know, the kingston hyper X plug and play memory are designed specifically for sandy bridge laptop. It should automatically clock to 1866mhz from 1333, hence the plug and play. However, I do not have the x220 nor the memory to confirm this but it seems like dreamwonder's x220 is working fine with it. Realistically, I would go for 8gb 1333mhz as its cost/benefit is much greater.

 

dreamwonder's test is severely flawed, he tests the SC2 with high textures even with 4GB of ram which makes SC2 automatically think your HD 3000 has at least 512MB reserved.

To my knowledge the HD 3000 reserves 384MB if you have 4GB of ram and over 512MB if you have 8GB ram thus why dreamwonder got such good results upgrading from 4GB to 8GB.

A better test would be to test SC2 with 4GB on medium textures and medium settings vs SC2 with 8GB on high textures and medium settings both test's should be using dual channel memory (2 dimms) with HD 3000 IGP.

Another thing to note is dreamwonder uses a x220 i5, 4gb 2 dimm at 1333 in his first test. Does this mean he has 2 x220's and why are the rest of the i5 benchmark's not there? Very fishy.

And the last thing to note is dreamwonder does not show 3DMark benchmarks results with a the memory changes, because going from 4GB to 8GB yields little gains; it's just his SC2 test was flawed from the start with the wrong textures settings.

So in theory the only thing dreamwonder gained from upgrading to 8GB is that he can now play SC2 with high textures vs medium textures on 4GB, both should give the same FPS given that both are dual channel and the same speed memory.

My two cents + tax.

 

Good points. Just thought I'd mention that dreamwonder bought two laptops and returned one so s/he did the original test before it was returned. Nothing fishy there.

 

In regards to the medium vs high texture, fps was identical for all the tested configuration. Remember the fps was taken at the start of a game, so maybe at that point it does not need alot of memory for texture. But then again I've also tested with medium textures for huge battles on all my configurations except for the 1 dimm config (did not spend alot of time on it) and notice no difference in fps.

As for 3dmark, 8gb 1333 vs 8gb 1866 only gives about a extra 150 points for me, both is on the i7. For the 4gb 1333 (2dimm) on the i5 i got about 4600. The score for i7 8gb 1866 is posted on a earlier post.

 

any idea on how well this would work on a X220T with i7-2620, 8 GB ram, and an SSD main drive?