Clevo P170SM, GTX1060 Bad performance

Hello! I have recently successfully upgraded my clevo p170sm with an MSI GTX 1060 card, however I have noticed that the card is performing poorly in comparison to many other upgrades with similar specs.

My current specs is:
OS: Windows 10 home 64 bit
Bios: Prema bios v3
CPU: i7-4800mq
dGPU: MSI GTX 1060 6gb(with 88TDP vbios, deviceid 1C20 if it matters)
iGPU: Intel HD graphics 4600
Ram: 2x8gb @ 1600mhz (let me know if brand is important)
Storage: SSD
PSU: 230W

Here is a Firestrike bench i recently ran with a slight GPU OC(stock clocks scored even worse, around 8800)
https://www.3dmark.com/fs/26266935

As you can see, the score is not outstanding. I compared my score to other people with similar hardware, and none of them scored as poorly as me during the graphics score tests even when they use stock clocks. Even in unigine heaven test, I can only score around 1300. GPU temp is not great, but also not alarming(stays around 70c during bench with oc)

Drivers are up to date. Tried fiddling with nvidia control panel settings. The only thing that helped a little was flashing vbios with 88W TDP.

Can someone please be so kind and help me identify why my graphics score is so low. Let me know if there are any more information i can provide.

 

Do you have any overclocking software installed? Throttlestop may be able to show you where you are being throttled, such as Power1/Power 2 limits, cross-temp throttling where your GPU slows down because your CPU is hot. Maybe install AIDA64 which may also display some relevant details. Obviously you could also reset your BIOS to defaults and then do a clean Windows install as well. There are many different things that could cause throttling so try to gather info from those sources. CPU-Z and GPU-Z are also good programs.

Sent from my SM-G970U using Tapatalk

 

Hi Sierra, thanks for the response. Yes I do have MSI Afterburner installed. I do have throttlestop installed, but I doubt cpu heat is the problem, although I am a complete noob so do correct me if I am wrong. When running games and benches, CPU never drops clock speed and runs at 3700Mhz on all cores while maintaining temps well under 70. The only time I have seen it go to above 80 is during small FTT test in Prime95. As for Power1/Power2, Im not sure how to check this. The only place I see throttlestop mention it is here:

I did however notice this in GPU-Z under Performance Cap Reason stating when hovering
- pwr:Limited by Power Limit
- thrm:Limited by temperature limit
- vrel:Limited by Reliability voltage
- vOp:Limited by Operating voltage
- idle: Limited by GPU utilisation


Any idea how I can tackle these Performance caps? When I bought the card, I read that a 230W PSU would be enough to power the card. What am I missing?

Edit: Here is a little more information from HWInfo. Screenshot is taken with unigine heaven running in window mode.

GPU Reading:


CPU & IGPU Reading:

 

After some more testing, I managed to Bench TimeSpy with a 3790 graphics score, which is than average score. The firestrike bench is still bad though 10630 graphics score, which is below average. Any idea why this is happening? I know TimeSpy uses DirectX12 and Firestrike uses DirectX11.

 

To increase speed of the system, try upgrading to i7-4940mx, x4 8GB ram cards at max speed - PC3-12800. Fit x2 matched fast Samsung SSD's in Raid 0 config. Once Win10 is installed, setup a freeware ImDisk ram drive (12GB) to then install a 10GB+ swapfile on it. That might remove any SSD bottlenecks or excessive wear on them. My setup isn't ideal, but it runs A LOT! faster (and soo much quieter) than before. I tune mine down to run cooler with MSi Afterburner. I no longer run with the fans all screaming, even with x4 LDplayer VM's running android VM games (EvE-Echoes).

My bios setup is a dogs dinner. I flashed my p170 with a different system (whatever i could find online for free, it might be a Prema???) and latest video bios to the original PcSpecialist / Nvidia ones, it seems to think its a style-note now on booting but the GTX980m now works.
(This Clevo P170SM cost initially £300, but i have spent £1000+ upgrading it) as a laptop its pretty good, just not very mobile.

 

Same for my PowerSpec after flashing with a found (but working) BIOS online. It's now a 'StyleNote' on boot.

 

That's STOCK Clevo BIOS.

 

I think I read somewhere that prema bios is a must have for me for the computer to recognize the 1060 at all. Correct me if im wrong. I think I discovered why my gpu graphics score is so underwhelming. The card is running on PCIE x1 3.0 instead of PCIE x16 3.0. At this moment I am not sure whether its a faulty gpu i received or if my mobo is trash. Trying to figure it out!

 

If 16GB is enough two sticks will usually clock a bit better.

 

My laptop worked fine with the GTX 1060 without Prema BIOS. Currently upgrading to a Quadro P3200 which should be 20% faster.

 

That's a nice little upgrade.

 

hi blacky, what was your laptop? I got a p170sm, I wonder if that works for me hmm

 

I have a P177SM1

 

Is there any reason why you prefer stock bios over prema bios? Sorry if the question is stupid, I thought people preferred prema over stock because of more bios options and better ec fan control

 

I don't have a preference. I use both. I found that while Prema BIOS has more options, I rarely change them and sometimes changing the default ones causes issues. I also don't have time to tinker with my machine, I just need it to work super reliably.

 

If you are going to leave it stock that's perfectly valid.