Tongfang Models 2021

Pretty toasty even with two LM applications, but not too surprising for a thin-and-light model I guess.

 

Main issue imo: can't undervolt mobile Ryzen, only decrease wattage. Looking forward to see Tiger Lake in this chassis.

 

The GPU is pretty toasty too, maxing out at 87C with factory paste and 82C with LM in a short test like TS. With GPU edge temp over 80C, hotspot temp would be close to or over 90C, not to mention with how temp dependent GPU Boost is, having the chip run that hot will lose quite a lot of boost bins. The TS Graphics score is pretty low for a nearly 150W 3080M.

 

The Prometheus is doing better with the slightly larger chassis which considering the similarities is certainly an example of the cost of getting thinner. I asked them whether they were going to offer the DTR chassis, THICC, or whatever they call it and they told me Tongfang is not providing them at this time. I'm guessing like others there is an expectation that all available cpu/gpu's will be absorbed in the more profitable thinner segments?

 

The THICC series are made by Clevo, have nothing to do with TongFang. And yes, the extreme supply issues means every OEM except Clevo has killed off their less popular DTR segment.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/202...ecs-agree-chip-shortage-could-last-into-2023/

 

Ah, thanks. It looks kinda Clevo-ish but I thought these guys were just moving the Tongfang stuff and ah, homages, if you will, are rather common in the industry.

 

Oh, I wish TongFang made a DTR. Clevo needs some serious competition in that segment to get off their ass and improve.

 

Tbf he didn't undervolt the gpu either. And yes, I've seen Prometheus scores of 13k+

 

My first Clevo looked like a shoebox that had been stepped on. Some progress has been made but I agree, it would be nice to see someone shaking things up. Not that it's going to happen in this market; it's easily the worst I've shopped in over the years as far as choices. Just a few short years ago there were a half dozen that met my requirements and I based a purchase on the small things. Now there isn't a single one that hit every mark and I'm purchasing the least objectionable option.

 

He did OC the GPU though, which is the same as undervolting with a power limit (optimizing the frequency at each voltage point). With the mobile GPU as power limited as it is, the only way to reduce power/temp would be to both undervolt and underclock, which would lower performance as well.

 

Sounds like Eluktronics should be catching up on orders over the next few weeks. Here's a cut and paste...

Eluktronics 5 hours ago When the next air shipment arrives, we should then have all of the laptops on hand to complete any current open orders, but they will be as advertised with the 5800H + 3080.

End copy...

Thread is here: https://www.reddit.com/r/eluktronic...ny_concrete_updates_for_april_orders/gur7ysv/

What I get out of that I'm a few weeks out.

 

Darn, it looks like that TongFang GM7ZG8M with 3080 allows dynamic boost to be disabled however the extra power is not allowed to be added to the gpu I would guess Tongfang did this to be "safe" since they only include a 230w power brick so there might be power limitation...

 

Nope, it's allowed to use the full power of the GPU. Eluktronics just published the control center that allows for it: https://www.reddit.com/r/eluktronic...date/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share

Sent from my Pixel 4 using Tapatalk

 

True. I'm particularly interested in game performance rather than synthetic benches anyway. If the 3070 reliably hits 60fps at QHD and the 3080 is only 5 to 10% faster there's no reason to go for the latter for me. Both will be equally obsolete within three years or so...

 

Based on the early benchmarks the intel/3070 seems to be falling into the category you describe. Another tidbit sorting out now is that the Prometheus really does have better thermals compared to the Mech 15 in particular but also the Max 17. They claimed it was so, just looking at the size of them you'd figure it goes that way, now we're seeing numbers supporting it. As to the new control center it's reported as having the same options as the XMG which was already updated and some intrepid owners installed. It most def allowed for 140/150 (model depending) and running benchmarks back to back with dynamic boost off does net a gain.

Don't know that I agree about the 3 years. Let's face it; a few parts come out which gives some tiny advantage that can't be discerned without benchmarking, despite knowing we won't be able to tell the difference in real world use, we'll still want it anyways.

 

Well, the difference today between the mobile 1070 and 1080 is still meaningful, but the 3080 is just a souped up 3070 so I expect the performance gap between them to be negligible in a few years. Unless that 16 GB RAM will pay off for QHD.

 

I think the bar is what the PS5 can do, how our laptops fair long term is probably going to be based on their capabilities relative to it. If they had offered the 3070 with the 5800 I would have bought it. I really wanted to scratch my mobile AMD itch, that's the only reason I went the way I did. I'm old; I don't think, "Next year I'm going to do (X)." What I think is, "Next year if I'm still alive I'm going to do (X)." You get just so much time to scratch those itches.

 

One last thing before bed. Eluktronics promised a new BIOS, control center, drivers, and manuals this week. They didn't get the manuals out but they did the rest. Not too shabby for a small shop that has also finally received stock and is trying to kick out orders delayed months thanks to COVID, shortages, etc.

I want that damn manual though, I've got weeks to wait and nothing much to obsess over. Bastids!

 

They got the manuals out late or early in the morning. Two thumbs up for the Eluktronics boys.

 

Apparently new bios allows it to run it cooler and faster: https://www.reddit.com/r/eluktronic...date/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share

 

Some people couldn't enable discrete graphics without the new BIOS, it's required for the new control center which brought new overclock settings and the 15 watt boost (15 watts can go to the CPU and GPU simultaneously giving you the boost on both instead of one or the other) which is found money.

So yeah, there is some win going on in Eluktronics land right now. Still not going to keep up with the 165 lappies in actual gaming but they are picking some of them off in benchmarking.

 

I don't get your last sentence, which 165 laptops?

 

The legion primarily, sometimes the GE76. There is thread over there regarding the legions over optimistically titled,
Check 3dmark Prometheus XVII already beating the vbios flashed Asus and Legions in top 100.

It can be read here
https://www.reddit.com/r/eluktronic...k_3dmark_prometheus_xvii_already_beating_the/

That was before the new BIOS and control center. Highly misleading title as it should have been "some" not just beating without the qualifier. The guy took some heat for it.

In any event Eluktronics is benchmarking well for it's power; assuming the reliability is there it should probably be on some short lists.

 

Yes I read that thread.

Surprised that the Tongfangs would underperform. From NBC's reviews of the XMG Neo 3070 (= Max 17) and the GE76 3080 I had the impression that the XMG's 3070 was doing relatively well, in some game benches being even on equal footing with the ge76 (eg in gta 5).

 

We're in early days, a lot more hands have been laid on the 76 so I'm not feeling like the whole story is out there yet. To me it looks like it's holding it's own fairly well considering the power gap. I'm also not ready to hang my hat on both the GPU and CPU getting the 15 watts, I'd like to see some actual draw numbers. Have to admit the benchmarks appear to be up though so it seems to be doing something.

 

I posted my draw numbers a few pages back for a (smaller) related model, 60w CPU + 140w GPU, so dynamic boost bypass is something Tongfang is capable of. I would expect this in all of their 2021 models now.
It's not "this" BIOS, but it probably is since I had it before Eluktronics published about it and it's the same feature set.

 

You're talking about the XMG BIOS I think? They said somewhere over on reddit that Tongfang provides a customized version of whatever BIOS revision they're pushing out to resellers and XMG had already released the latest version with their customization. Eluktronics has now released the new control center with the option included which needed support from the new BIOS; also released at the same time. Just going over it so we're on the same page about what's transpired so far with the updates. I'm not casting shade on them (or you) I just want to see a consensus that we're actually getting the wattage all the time and what if anything we're giving up.

In other related news Premamod appears to have flashed a GE76 VBIOS to the Prometheus ----> https://www.reddit.com/r/eluktronics/comments/mstqce/amazing_time_spy_scores_by_eluktronics_14k/ So you have 155 watts there and you can bet the setup was well fiddled.

 

I'm not using the XMG or Eluktronics drivers, I have the drivers as delivered from Infinity, in a MECH G3/NEO (Tongfang GM5ZG7W) chassis. The actual image was flashed a few days prior to delivery to me, so these drivers must have been out in the wild (to resellers) for at least a few weeks.
This is with cc build 22, afaik Eluktronics is build 26.
Changes are probably just fixing the 3070 displaying as 150w instead of 140w since the rest appears the same.
It's Tongfang making all this stuff, they won't develop 1 dramatic feature for just 1 reseller, if they make something it's going to be applicable to all since that's the best for them.

 

They didn't, a better way to put it would be that they make a feature set available and the resellers are picking the options they wish to offer from among them. At any rate it sounds like your not one of the guys that installed the XMG control center, I had thought you were. Mine is still weeks out so I have some time before I can play with it.

 

We really need a side by side comparison between the different control centers.

 

It would be great but not sure if you're ever going to see one, it's fairly invasive software and hooked in some aspects to the BIOS. As an example of the latter the Eluk lappies needed the BIOS change before they could offer the dynamic boost off feature. Right now based on a youtube of the XMG control center the Eluk guys are saying the two are comparable after the update; haven't seen anything on the rest. Maybe Wil. has more information?

 

Another, more radical hypothesis may simply be that all resellers share the same BIOS and CC, but the more flashy resellers (Eluktronics, XMG) have their own CC shells. Eluktronics may have updated their CC later because their BIOS was not yet rolled out, not because they have different features than the others.

 

Not a hypothisis: The CEO of Eluk is saying that they get it from Tongfang and there are available customizations that resellers can ask for with each revision Tongfang makes; he did not specify what is possible. I did not say they had different features than others, I said different than the older revisions which did not include the ability to disable dynamic boost. I'm not sure what may be possible if anything at all between different resellers and their CCs, the only part of that I can resolve is that the XMG and Eluk are now on the same base revision and appear to have roughly the same feature set.

 

As a data point the Prometheus memory is 1.2 volt, cas 22, dual rank, no XMP, no useful settings in the BIOS, doesn't leave a lot on the table for an upgrade since there isn't much native 3200 that's zipppier at 1.2 volt. One thing I miss about Clevo is having more stuff to fiddle with, kind of makes it your own when you bond during the early tweaking.

 

Clevo bios fiddling is only really possible with the prema-modded one. It's quite boring without. That being said, I'm looking forward to a more no nonsense laptop in between DTR DIY projects.

 

... aaaand just pulled the trigger on a GM7MG7P (Intel, RTX 3070, 16GB 3200 RAM, 1 TB Samsung 970 EVO PLUS) with Dutch reseller laptopparts4less.

 

Yeah, I've been Prema all but my first Clevo, it wasn't a thing for that one. They were all DTRs so you also could play with the hardware a little bit. In my case I buy them with the cheap drive and memory options or none if allowed and then put in the good stuff myself.Don't know that I'll go back to a DTR though, flight restrictions and old age are making them a tougher go.

 

BIOS Version N.1.14COM03
EC Version 1.18.29.00
Control center (specific name, GamingCentre3) version built 31/03/2021.
The Eluktronics CC is built 2 weeks after, on 15/04/2021, guess I've been beta testing for them
I've trawled the config files - I'm not sure if the values within are read from BIOS on profile selection, or the app writes them when selected. Occasionally when 140 watt+ is selected and profile switched, upon changing back the file will be reverted to 135w with no user input. I'm unsure where this 135 comes from if not from file (unless it's hardcoded in the app somewhere).

CC guaranteed - the icons and localisation (text
values) are all from file. Tongfang might build per supplier, but I certainly wouldn't bother myself if I could do everything via config.
The application package itself when pulled apart contains references to mechrevo, monster and a few other specific reseller brands. These references exist in both eluk and the version mine came with.

BIOS, "INF" (for infinity) did appear in the model name, so potentially some per reseller BIOS building happens here, although the BIOS version number was just COM so I'm assuming it's relatively standard.

I can't imagine any reseller would ever spec to not have the full feature set though.

Interestingly enough there is AmdCoreVoltage and AmdCoreFreq options in the profile.json files. Potentially AMD version overclocking/undervolting is the feature the Eluk rep was hinting at in future?

 

Not sure we can get undervolting the way AMD works their laptop cpu's? I tend to agree with you on most of that though, if you're a reseller why not include it all? On the other hand over on reddit you can see that people are swapping to other versions to get a newer one but also to get some different features. Like Brightsmith I'd really like to see a comparison between them to get an idea of what might be missing if anything at all.

 

Congrats on that! They offer any LM and if so did you go for it?

 

Yes and yes

 

How long will the wait be for that bad boy?

 

I've been hovering over the order button for a 5900HX + 16GB 3080 PCS Valeon (Prometheus) for a couple of days now. I just want to see some real reviews on thermals and keyboard etc etc.

I can't find any as yet, so if anyone has seen any, please let me know.

 

Two weeks tops.

 

Check the OP, otherwise you'll find most user reviews/experiences on reddit under r/Eluktronics.

PcSpecialist is not the best for service imho, also they only offer Arctic MX4 paste for the Ryzen which is insufficient to cool the beast.

 

There are quite a few benchmarks and such up for it Skiddy if you want to stroll around the Eluk reddit. There are no pro reviews up for it save the Dave one which includes no actual content in terms of facts and is the intel/3070 model.

 

Sadly, it's my only real option. Anything of similar muscle would cost 50% more getting it from the likes of XMG etc.

In a perfect world, I'd get some professional temperature readings, assessment of the keyboard, speakers etc, panel specs and response rate tests, and a stretch goal of a real comparison between the stock Arctic that comes with the Prometheus and a custom LM application. None of which I can find. Although the initial performance numbers are certainly promising.

 

The keyboard is widely reported as being decent, and the Dave review agreed with that. Speaker quality is all over the place but it's one of the hardest aspects to quantify in review. There are now a fair few with and without LM and the numbers seen to show a gain. I think some time will be required to really get a handle on what it brings on average because Tongfang doesn't get much coverage from the major sites so it will come from users in aggregate.

I forget to mention that there is a Chinese video review; I couldn't get it to translate well but if you've got Chinese it may be worth looking at. There is also a YouTube video a man made primarily showing a number of benchmarks which may be of interest. If I remember right it's the 59/3080.

Edit... When I think about it I think BoaT did a before and after LM with one of the Tongfangs.

 

Double post

 

Why, what is wrong with PCS ? They are very reliable and offer up to 1 year dead pixel warranty so even if you have 1 stuck pixel you can send it back for a replacement.

Laltopparts4less have good price but they dont seem reliable, their website is very outdated and they do not offer dead pixel warranty so if you pay a ton of money for a new laptop but you receive it with 1 annoying bad pixel then you are screwed and either accept it that you got a lemon or go through the torture of sending it back for a refund.

Not to mention that they are breaking at least 1 EU law...

It is interesting that USA barely got any of these high end Tongfang laptops with 5900HX while the EU only got 5900HX models.