M860TU / NP8660: Comprehensive CPU/GPU/HDD Stress Test Results

As requested, I've run a series of consecutive stress, stability, and benchmarking tests, to gauge the notebooks ability to handle and dissipate heat while under extended periods of heavy load. I took a screen after each step, and they'll be included here; this will be a post containing alot of pictures.

I ran:
Prime95 CPU Torture Test (Small FTTs) x2
wPrime 1.55 1024 test
1 hr of FurMark Benchmark
BurnInTest x2
HDTune x2
1 hr of Orthos
1 hr of FurMark Stability Test

So, let's get started...
Idle Temps:

RightMark reads CPU temps as 4-6 degrees lower than HWMonitor, but I tend to trust the higher reading. My HDD is running around 50°C since the driver update; how far can we push it?

CPU Testing:

Post-Prime95 Run #1:


Post-Prime95 Run #2:


wPrime 1.55: I went ahead and ran both benchmarks, multithreaded, of course; I don't know much about how the scores measure up, but the CPU temps still impress.



Summary: Overall, CPU maxed at 52°C during all of the testing. No problems so far. Now on to...

GPU Testing:
FurMark Benchmark, 1280x1024, No MSAA, 1 hour


FurMark Stability Test, 1280x1024, No MSAA, 1 hour


^Finally, some heat! Ignore the FPS minimum of 13; that's a result of my screen saver kicking in for just a split-second around the fifty minute mark; the minimum would have been 25 otherwise, and the average/max were not affected.

Next, I ran a test to simultaneously push the entire system (as recommended by Gophn). I ran it twice because I didn't have any data in the optical drive during the first test. If you've never seen BurnInTest, here's a preview:

^Just two minutes in, and the harddrive is at 58°C. I seem to have misplaced the readings taken after the first test, but here's the temps immediately after the second, which was run moments after the first ended:

^The HDD maxing at 60°C satisfies me, especially since I reported idling at higher temps than that straight out of the box.

HDTune:
I realized that I'd forgotten to stress the HDD before the burn in, so I decided to press my luck by running HDtune immediately after the BIT.
#1


Then I got mean, and ran it again:
#2

Again, my harddrive idled at 61°C before the chipset update, so I'm okay when these temp in light of everything I just put it through. I was also looking forward to seeing how long it would take for it to cool down after the thrashing it just took. More on that later....

I was bored, and in the testing zone, so I decided to throw the cpu into one most test, an hour of Orthos.

After 20 minutes:


^I took this screen to show that the HDD had cooled to idle temps.

After 60 minutes:

CPU almost hits 60° lol

Finally, here we are within 3 minutes of finishing Orthos:


In conclusion, I'm really impressed by the M860TU's cooling solution; what I like most is how fast it cools down after you're done working it.

Aside from the stress and thermal testing, I figured that I would add in the benchmarks from a few games. Between work and the hours I put into these tests, I haven't been able to put any real extended time into playing, so this'll have to do for now.

Company Of Heroes, 1680x1050, all settings maxed

No AA enabled:


AA enabled:


I have no idea why it performed better with AA enabled. Anyway, this gives me great hope for how well I'll hope to be running Dawn Of War II.

DMC4:
I ran the performance test in DX9 and DX10. Care to guess which one performed better?
Dx9:

Dx10:


Lastly, I ran the gpu/cpu tests for
Crysis, 1280x1024, all HIGH, no AA:

CPU:


GPU:


1680x1050, all HIGH:
CPU:


GPU:


Of course, the requisite 3DMarks:


Well, that's all I've got. I suck at formatting posts, so I hope the information contained herein is somewhat easy to read and analyze. My testing really should extinguish all of the flames that are being stoked over the so-called heating issues of this notebook.

In conclusion, I hope this helps, and I'd appreciate all feedback and questions; you can skim through my post and add up all of the hours this took me. I pray it's not time spent in vain.

P.S. - sorry it took me so long milcs!

 

nice stress test

 

The temps seems good, the results are great.

 

nice and thorough.

everything look pretty good.

thanks for the hard work.

 

Just one word... Amazing!!!
Thank you very much for that and for clearing so many things out.
What an amazing post, what an amazing laptop.

 

Good job on the test's, just wondering was this with or with out notebook cooler? I'm assuming with out.. but just to make sure

 

Thanks for for the test cleared up some questions I was starting to have about the NP8660. Still waiting on mine.

 

Rest assured, there was no cooler involved. I still want to get a cooler eventually, but I'm waiting to find out which one has the best fan configuration for this notebook.

I appreciate the comments everyone. Thanks for the love.

 

Yeah same here, I'll be also looking for a cooler how ever fall/winter is on the creep so laptop temps should drop as it is, since I have a habbit of keeping my windows wide open during these cold seasons..talk about cheap cooling

 

great tests! Nice post. Have been wainting for a long time to see the stressed out temps! +rep for u

and amazing performacne!! wow this just is a perfect laptop after all!

 

Thanks racoon. I was surprised by how well it held up myself.

I'd really like to know how the Quad-Core equipped model that PCMW is selling deals with heat.

 

Nice one Kevin. i hadnt sen this post before so it was an interesting read.
you certainly made your HD sweat with them 2 alomst critical temps 62c & 63c

 

Nice job, thanks

 

Hey kevin, are your fans sealed? My HDD runs a lot cooler it idles around 43-49 ant it never went higher than 52c.