My Transition from the G73JH to the P170HM

So it finally arrived. Its gorgeous As you know my old model was stolen so I decided to ditch the old Dallers views on looks over performance as there is no other model out there better than my JH and I did not want to own something that brought back bad memories.

My new setup (sig) should give you some idea of the difference between the mid range to high end setups it certainly has for me by a huge margin in terms of gaming performance. I sacrifice the looks, curves and lights of my old JH but substituted with I feel just as good looks it comes with very straight forward casing covered in Alluminium brush effects which is very tidy but everything works which the biggest factor, lovely keyboard and touchpad with all the ports you could ever want USB 3.0 and a fingerprint reader that actually works properly. The screen has won me over my 900p JH screen its the best part by far. Its slightly noisier because of more power required and more heat produced with bigger fans but as it stays cooler you hear the fans less, at idle they shut off its silent.

CPU 2760QM 2.4-3.5ghz temps idle below 40oC and between 60-70oC under a Prime test so pretty normal.

GPU in the 30oCs at idle. Wait for it...100-115oC during a furmark test after only 5 seconds... I paid £9 for a proper MX repaste job and they stupidly apply stock paste with a peel off square tab like sticky back plastic bunch of idiots. I wont say anything because im going in and doing it myself and dont want to void my warranty but this was PC Specialist who I heard such good things about. Not good when you pay out over a grand for it. The MEM IO jumped from 40oC to 115oC in the space of 2 seconds.

This is what I found...



After applying ICD7. Sigh. Always do the repaste yourself.... 73oC max after 5 minutes.



So now I have my temps barely pushing 70oC as they should be I decided to see what she can do. 850/1050 stable looks a bit like this:



With Results:

3DMark06 - 20592
3DMarkVantage - 16725
3DMark11 - 4117

I will now go away and push the hell out of before adding to my sig as 860/1100 seems stable in Furmark but people the biggest picture being...

I will never return to Asus for gaming now. IMO this proves that if you can overcome the looks and the power gain for the price for what in the UK is the same price as a G74 is unquestionable.

Now I am off to play Skyrim in Ultra. BOOM!

Ill be hanging around on the Asus forum though as Asus Gaming does one thing right, the people!

 

Congrats on your new laptop, you have good knowledge about the G73 so thanks for continuing to share it with the new owners.

I'll just ask that you keep in mind that it is still the asus gaming forum so keep the chatter about the P170HM to a minimum , it'll be good to compare performance of the G series against stronger contenders though. I know how new owners can be enthusiastic about their machines .

EDIT: That paste job kinda reminds me of the one on the 5870 in my JH...

 

Moving this to the Clevo forum... nice new machine!

 

Yeahhhh I was expecting you to post about your new beast
You recapped basically what I've been saying lately in Asus forums. Not gonna go back to Asus unless they wake up a bit and stop making awful decisions and focus more on power instead of bumping the price and making an awesome looking laptop.
And those scores are amazing congrats for your new baby mate

 

Managed to get a stable 870/1100 gonna run some tests later

Sadly after the long wait she is going to have to be returned however damn stuck pixel right centre of the screen right in the eye line when gaming, tried massaging it but no can do. Got the 1 year dead pixel policy but going through an RMA even though it appears quick brutal!

Repasted the CPU and now running at 30-35oC Idle 50-60oC Prime load.

The 2760QM is a beast.

I suppose its quick and easy and gives it a flat suface but sadly it doesn't the section not covered was the memory controller I nearly burned it out straight away, the compound was thicker than a thermal pad as well. Good ol ICD saved the day.

 

Post your impressions with some games before returning it and those clocks are amazing
I'm slightly below your vantage and 3dmark11 score (about 200 points) but a bit higher 06 (22k).
I think you'll should be able to run skyrim pretty well. I'm currently running an heavily modded version and it manages to push it above 40fps

 

Wandering if there is a way I can get the stuck pixel to come out as its such a pain that it is there it is flickering as well so you cannot see it on a dark background only on light grey which is weird. Gonna try a few tricks to prevent it going for an RMA and it wont be going for a while anyway.

Those tests were done on stock paste as well now I have done a repaste and once I get all of the tweaks done tonight ill post some new results.

It certainly takes an age to get a new setup back to how it should be.

 

what room temp u have my friend?

 

Ah very cool indeed I am in the UK and it is winter around 18oC room temperature with our current heating on.

Need to get home and run some benchmarks because with stock paste the temps were far too high for my ambient temp.

 

Update:

Well I have found that 865/1125 is my maximum and 850/1100 is completely stable. Happy days with 142gb/s Bandwidth however the stuck sub pixel is well and truly stuck I tried everything to free it up programs and massaging the lot and no doing. Sadly it will have to go back in the new year.

Temps are spot on after applying ICD however i still feel my CPU is not performing as it should while benchmarking, is there anything I need to do to get it to run at max performance? I have done the usual high performance settings 100% etc and the turbo is working correctly. Will core parking effect it? I have not made any registry changes yet.

Still over the moon with my Ultra + extra settings 1080p 46-52fps Skyrim performance

 

have u run any vantage test?if no run one and tell us how many points u get for cpu..u can also run a passamark test for cpu.

PassMark PerformanceTest - PC benchmark software

as for the core parking issue i unparked my cores and i didnt see any difference in benchmarks or while gaming..how did u apply icd7??also u use a cooler??what settings u have in furmark test??thx.

 

Furmark and initial benchmark tests are on the first page screenshot.

CPU does not go above 60oC after applying ICD even with an hour in Prime95 and the 6990M running furmark burn in with all settings up hit 74oC with stock clocks and 79oC with my overclocks after 15 minutes.

Temps seem fine maybe I am just expecting too much, going to benchmark my new clocks when I get in tonight as didn't have time will also run the Passmark test and post.

How did you get 4300+ in 3DMark11 as I am only hitting 4150 with 850/1100 on a 6990M and a faster CPU? Is that with Tesselation on or off?

 

it is with the tessalation off!! what method did u use to apply ICD7??in furmark u used AA too?

 

Thats exactly the performance you should get Im using an additional FXAA shader pack, it brings down the performance a bit (around 40-45fps of average) but it really makes things awesome.
BTW im doing ultra here with fxaa and forced 16xAF thru NVCP.

This is my config, if you want give it a go. It is heavily tweaked for visual goodness instead of perfomance, with alot of things enhanced and modded:

Code:

[Display]
iTexMipMapSkip=0
bFXAAEnabled=1
fMeshLODLevel2FadeDist=10000000.0000
fMeshLODLevel1FadeDist=10000000.0000
fSpecularLODStartFade=1500.0000
fLightLODStartFade=3500.0000
fTreesMidLODSwitchDist=5000.0000
iShadowMapResolution=4096
iShadowMapResolutionPrimary=4096
fShadowBiasScale=0.1500
iShadowMaskQuarter=4
iBlurDeferredShadowMask=0
fShadowDistance=8000.0000
iMaxDecalsPerFrame=100
iMaxSkinDecalsPerFrame=25
iAdapter=0
iSize W=1920
iSize H=1080
iMultiSample=0
iMaxAnisotropy=1
iPresentInterval=1
bFull Screen=1
sD3DDevice="NVIDIA GeForce GTX 485m"
fInteriorShadowDistance=3000.0000
bFloatPointRenderTarget=1
fGamma=1.0000
iShadowFilter=3
fDecalLOD2=1500.0000
fDecalLOD1=1000.0000
fShadowLODStartFade=200.0000
iTexMipMapMinimum=0
bTransparencyMultisampling=0
iWaterMultiSamples=0
iShadowMode=3
bTreesReceiveShadows=1
bDrawLandShadows=1
bDrawShadows=1
fLeafAnimDampenDistEnd=4600.0000
fLeafAnimDampenDistStart=3600.0000
fMeshLODFadePercentDefault=1.2000
fMeshLODFadeBoundDefault=256.0000
fMeshLODLevel2FadeTreeDistance=2048.0000
fMeshLODLevel1FadeTreeDistance=2844.0000
iScreenShotIndex=0
bShadowMaskZPrepass=0
bMainZPrepass=0
[Imagespace]
iRadialBlurLevel=2
bDoDepthOfField=1
[LOD]
fLODFadeOutMultActors=15.0000
fLODFadeOutMultItems=15.0000
fLODFadeOutMultObjects=15.0000
fLODFadeOutMultSkyCell=1.0000
[Grass]
fGrassStartFadeDistance=7000.0000
b30GrassVS=1
fGrassMaxStartFadeDistance=7000.0000
fGrassMinStartFadeDistance=400.0000
[Decals]
bDecals=1
bSkinnedDecals=1
uMaxDecals=1000
uMaxSkinDecals=100
uMaxSkinDecalsPerActor=60
[TerrainManager]
fTreeLoadDistance=75000.0000
fBlockMaximumDistance=250000.0000
fBlockLevel1Distance=70000.0000
fBlockLevel0Distance=35000.0000
fSplitDistanceMult=1.5000
bShowLODInEditor=0
[BlurShaderHDR]
bDoHighDynamicRange=1
[BlurShader]
bUseBlurShader=0
[Launcher]
bShowAllResolutions=1
uLastAspectRatio=3
[Water]
iWaterReflectHeight=512
iWaterReflectWidth=512
bUseWaterDisplacements=1
bUseWaterRefractions=1
bUseWaterReflections=1
bUseWaterDepth=1
[MAIN]
fSkyCellRefFadeDistance=150000.0000
bGamepadEnable=1
bCrosshairEnabled=1
fHUDOpacity=1.0000
bSaveOnPause=1
bSaveOnTravel=1
bSaveOnWait=1
bSaveOnRest=1
[GamePlay]
bShowFloatingQuestMarkers=1
bShowQuestMarkers=1
iDifficulty=2
[Interface]
bDialogueSubtitles=1
bGeneralSubtitles=1
bShowCompass=1
[Controls]
fMouseHeadingSensitivity=0.0125
fGamepadHeadingSensitivity=1.9000
bAlwaysRunByDefault=1
bInvertYValues=0
bGamePadRumble=1
[Particles]
iMaxDesired=750
[SaveGame]
fAutosaveEveryXMins=15.0000
[AudioMenu]
fAudioMasterVolume=1.0000
fVal7=1.0000
uID7=0
fVal6=1.0000
uID6=0
fVal5=1.0000
uID5=0
fVal4=1.0000
uID4=0
fVal3=0.5000
uID3=466532
fVal2=0.8000
uID2=554685
fVal1=0.8000
uID1=1007612
fVal0=1.0000
uID0=94881
[Clouds]
fCloudLevel2Distance=262144.0000
fCloudLevel1Distance=32768.0000
fCloudLevel0Distance=16384.0000
fCloudNearFadeDistance=9000.0000
[General]
fdefaultfov=82
iStoryManagerLoggingEvent=-1
bEnableStoryManagerLogging=0
[Trees]
bRenderSkinnedTrees=1
uiMaxSkinnedTreesToRender=40

 

Glad to see you are loving your new laptop, shame about the stuck pixel though! I've always liked Asus laptops, but there gaming series I've always found to be expensive and too bulky for the performance they offer. They do look good though.

Here's to hoping they realise this soon and next year we get some high end GPU options coming out from them!

 

This was always my view from when I had my JH and they never did and sadly I dont think they ever will. However my move from Asus to Clevo has been one of great promise.

I cannot fault Clevo for the stuck pixel it is totally unrelated and is due to the make of the screen but from the moment I turned it on installed windows and the drivers that came with it I cannot fault it, everything works as intended and I have not faced an issue yet apart from the thermal compound application which was done by someone on work experience during the build by Pc Specialist which makes the stuck pixel even more fustrating as a gaming laptop of this calibre is bound to come with problems but has not.

In the UK you would be stark raving mad to spend £1500 on the G74 when for the same price you can hit the top of the top end in mobile technology for the same price.

But like you say you have to love Asus for what they do with their laptops, I am massively impressed with my new Eee PC which I only use for work and Football Manager and it performs to perfection.

 

Wow, color me absolutely green with envy! What a beastly laptop and nice GPU overclock too. Temps are sweet, Clevo's internal build quality is second to none!

Please continue to visit the Asus section of the forum because your comments and advice are always appreciated.

 

Well so the lappy has to go back in january? you still have time left to game on it
So what settings are u running skyrim? Ultra preset?

 

Your settings hurt me because of the FXAA is that not specific to Nvidia? I find that switching back to x8 Anti Aliasing put me comfortably back upto around the same FPS. I went in and tweaked the majority of the settings myself turning on the land and water shadows etc. Game is bloody gorgeous in 1080p I see what all the fuss is now compared to 900p.

Yup gonna send her back in January it is worth the sacrifice however for a glossy screen I find it so much more vibrant than a matte.

Dont worry my friend that is why I got the Eee pc Asus still flows through my bloodstream so I will pop on there in a bit once I punch out my new benchmarks

 

Yowzers nice oc there. I was #1 for a while on vantage single 6990M gpu score, then someone beat me. 886 max I was able to get it to. Not going to oc again... too risky on a lappy. Want your CPU But would still take my SSD over yours. My SSD has 256GB and yay that is a lot of GB I learned that on the interwebs

 

Eh The same fuss i was talking about back in times lol. Anyway nope, Fxaa is made by nvidia but works wonders with ATI as well.
The "hurt" in the perfomance probably comes from shadows/terrain and other options tweaked to absurd values, althought i think its awesome as it looks.
Well im experimenting as well since my desktop still keeps 60fps no matter what extreme configuration i use...on the other hand, on my clevo i had to adjust a bit the things.
So ultra preset here (8xAA) but with forced AF thru driver, land shadows,reflections,trees and so on....and still going strong
Changed fov as well because it simply sucked default.

 

Yeah I have always stuck with Kingston dunno why just always found their items affordable and they never fail on me, all my RAM too I could gone for an Intel or the same spec as yours but the price difference was substantial to the point I would have to drop the CPU down to a 2630QM so couldn't do it within my budget.

Nope as I said with your settings but with FXAA off I can run the same frames so it has to be that I switch back to just 8x and I am fine. I run my FOV right out to about 95-100 looks amazing.

 

Ah ok i didnt get it before.
Well if that's ok stick with it if you like as that config has the eye candy boosted like shadows/water/sky and large rendering area
I'm not using fxaa as well, just plain 8x too, and I'm averaging around 40-45fps, sometimes dips to 35 but depends on the situation.
Absolutely stunning none the less.

 

The game is sublime I cannot believe people were complaining how bad it looks when the landscape is totally engrossing, people seem to forget that Baldurs Gate 1+2 the greatest RPG of all time IMO was run in 2D and still it beats the latest RPG's for storyline. I.e The laughable Dragon Age 2.

Will run some proper tests later once I get up a mountain in the snow am running benchmarks atm to update shortly.

 

please do not compare anything to dragon age 2 ! It was the biggest piece of sh$$ I have witnessed in my life, especially comparing it to dragon age 1 which was awesome!!!! dragon, witcher and witcher 2 are the best rpgs i have played. For some reason I cannot play older games due to my brain telling the graphics sucks! . off topic i know

 

Oh man for the longest time I felt ashamed that I didn't like Dragon Age 2. Glad to hear there were some other people that didn't enjoy it. And beware Yiddo Skyrim will absorb your soul. Just like a dagger to the back with a soul-capture enchantment.

 

really ? I looked at some of the skyrim videos, doesnt look anywhere close to Witcher 2 in terms of graphics, atmosphere and characters. It feels too big and bland. Is it really good?

 

Since when do people listen to others views on something without trying it first? Skyrim is far from perfect but it is the best we have and is 100 times the game Dragon Age 2 wanted to be. Seemless open landscape and endless playability with all of the features Gothic 4 left out and an environment to stand and stare at forgetting you are being attacked by a wolf

 

Update 2:

3DMark11 - 4144
Vantage - 16709
3DMark06 - 20783

850/1100 I am happy with these clocks. I get this output:



Not going to push her any further at this point happy with these

 

Is your 2760qm OEM ? It seems it performs a bit less than it should.

 

Yup it is shop bought and the stepping and codes all match OEM but it does seem a little low although it appears at the top end of the benchmark tests and is within the average. I have turned all utilities to high performance but not much change.

Coming from an XM it is difficult to not be able to adjust the TRL/TPL

 

Uhm a few things comes to mind:

- upgrade your ec/kb and bios, some previous releases fixed a bios bug with sandy refresh microcode, maybe that's help
- disable core parking mate if you already didn't. Althought it sound unuseful it does help alot with substantial gains
- keep the good ol' ThrottleStop opened for peace of mind


Based on your new scores I don't see your CPU crippled or slow performing honestly since I'm getting around the same scores, being only 06 much higher (around 22k).
The rest seems in line.

 

Yup on the latest BIOS with parking turned off now and still around the same with temps below 65oC at all times. It might just be settling in maybe

The difference in 3DMark06 shows up the difference in Nvidia vs ATI which could be the architecture or it could easily be something like better drivers giving that extra performance boost and it figures that I am seeing better results with the newer benchmarks. Lazy AMD.

Tweaked my Skyrim settings so I am still on max but seeing a good 50fps+ now and in some places a solid 60 outside. I really need more free time in my life roll on Christmas time so I can knuckle down and explore

 

Yeah its always the same thing in benchmarks.
Anyway thats good to hear, i still need to bench with my newer clocks, and i think ill do it in a sec.
Im planning to do a case mod for much more airflow since the p150hm is less efficent with cooling, and im currently testing it, so if its good ill post a small tutorial.

Anyway thats great to know about skyrim. Mind to share your settings/tweaks?

Right now im doing an average of 55-60 outside and in cities/crowded situations around 40-42, with these:

- 4gb LAA patch
- HD Rock and Snow textures (2048x2048)
- HD Textures for cities, ambients, houses, carpets etc (2048x2048)
- DLL perfomance mod
- Ultra settings+FXAA
- bTreesReceiveShadows=1
- bDrawLandShadows=1
- bDrawShadows=1
- iBlurDeferredShadowMask=0 (kills jaggies to near shadows/dynamic casted shadows)
- iShadowMapResolutionPrimary=4096
- FOV 82,5

Althought i noticed that we can step down Object detail distance and shadows, then bumping shadows res to 4096 while keeping the same perfomance.

 

Ok heres my results, pretty in line, so i guess your cpu is doing fine Im on 720-1700 with no overvolt, if i had the 580m prolly i would be able to push it further without much heat increase.
The old 485m is still the same card, but its more power hungry, and obviously oc lesser (maybe with 1.03 overvolt i can push it further, but theres no point i guess).

3dmark06


Vantage


3dmark11
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 485M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-2760QM Processor,CLEVO P150HMx score: P4021 3DMarks (p4021)

So far based on what i read around i could be the one with the highest oc on stock voltage on a single 485m. Other users seems to get those clocks only with an overvolt, so i guess it puts me in a sweet spot for further overclock. Anyway our cards have so much power that i think im fine with it as it is

 

No see compare your CPU scores to mine and that is were you are battering my overall score 600 more pts on 3DMark06 and 1k+ on vantage!

There must be something not set right with my CPU.....

I am running a 220watt adaptor would the high 6990M overclocks be causing an issue? The brick does not even get warm however.

Will bench again tonight now I have unparked the cores..

 

Well if that helps I'm running unparked along with ThrottleStop turned on (for temp readings mainly).

 

Will check later, sigh. If it was 100 pts I wouldn't care but that is a big drop in performance from the CPU. My Gen 1 920XM could hit 19k+ in vantage and match the CPU in 3DMark06 so this should easily. + I have faster RAM.

Something is either not set correctly or not working correctly. Considering switching to MX4 from ICD as well.

 

Yup take into account that I'm running stock 1333mhz ram with 4 stick configuration.
Probably that hampers my scores a bit as well.

 

What temps are you currently sitting at idle and load with your CPU/GPU?

I notice in Vantage my performance drops from 2800ops to around 2300ops near the end the test but my temps on all cores remain below 65oC?

What could be causing it to throttle down? Core parking wouldn't affect that would it? Arghhh damn work I wanna be at home!

 

You mean disabled core parking? Or having it enabled?
Parked cores could lead to sudden performance drop because they are parked afterall.
Having it disable does only good things
About my temps, well consider I'm on a worse cooling system than yours due to small chassis and only two small fans.. Here they are:

CPU idle: 38-42c. While browsing reaches 50 sometimes since turbo kicks in almost instantanely.
Gpu: idle 36-40c on stock clocks. It goes to 42 of average while browsing.
CPU load: with the above benchmarks it peaked 71c. Max reported was 80c after a few hours of gaming/stress testing. Average is around 70-75c.
Gpu load: around 81c with 720-1700 with the mod in working on. Otherwise it's up to 85c which is normal for my gpu.

What bothers me is your CPU temp (gpu seems in range, it's a smaller die and more power efficient, like the gtx580m).
The ICD is a wonderful TP but it can seriously lower the load temp about 15-20c compared to mine?
I'm using mx4 as you know and CPU is repasted with a small line of TP across the CPU core.
What method have you used?
I'm not implying anything mate, but could be possible that those readings are wrong?
Also remember I have ThrottleStop always running and turned on in background if that helps in some manner.

 

I haven't run any benchmarks since disabling core parking so that may have fixed the issue I will check when I get home. My temps do struggle to get up high since I applied ICD and I always use a thin line method on the CPU with warmed up compound. All readings register the same so the CPU is definetely right but as the turbo works depending on load and temperature I dont understand why it would throttle like that, at the beginning of test its fine as it nears the end it drops.

GPU temps are around 35oC at idle gaming low 70's and furmark pushed the highest temp to 86oC.

I will run Throttlestop and check my C0% later as well it is drawing upto 58 watts so power should not be an issue.

I will consider switching to MX-4 if nothing else works.

 

Well keep us updated, im curious to know whats the problem.

 

WIth 2760qm you should get above 20k on 3dmarkVant for sure - got 19.5k with 2720qm 8mb though.

 

Kingpinzero It was indeed Core Parking.

Please find enclosed the real result of my monster:

 

Hahahah that's good mate, glad you sorted it out.
So my initial diagnosis was right now the scores match up, try to run 06 again I'm sure you'll catch up with the scores

 

Will go find my highest overclock now so I can set up some sig benchmarks.

For a second there I was worried I had a CPU with a bad hip

 

I may do the same since 720-1700 isn't the max oc I can use with benchmarks.
That's the stable clocks with games iirc I can do 750-1800 for benching, didn't bothered with it alot thought.
My point was to see how the older 485m fares against an higher clocked hd6990m and I guess we're there althought it's a furnace lol.
A gtx580m will close the gap I guess, but at this point I'll wait for the refresh coming next year

 

Final Update:

850/1125 is my highest stable benchmark overclock.



Still in awe at the amount of bandwidth:

3DMark06: 21316
3DVantage: 17074
3DMark11: 4154

3DMark06 I have to drop the Core down to 825 which cripples me slightly but it locks up above that.

Staying put with these I have spent too much time benchmarking not enough time gaming Clevo FTW.

 

Right behind you

This is my highest benchmark oc i can do without overvolting, 750-1800.
As i said im fine for half hour, then it crashes the driver. At 720-1700 doesnt happen thought, so i think i would need a bit more juice to push this baby that high.

3dmark06


3dMarkVantage


3dmark11
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 485M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-2760QM Processor,CLEVO P150HMx score: P4168 3DMarks

Clevo is awesome, hands down.