PowerSpec 1720/*Clevo PB70EF-G* tuning!

OMG I somehow figured it out. My curve was set correctly after all. I think my GPU wouldn't go over 300MHz because I didn't have the latest drivers installed or something lmao. I just got 7781 on Time Spy

 

PL1 & EDP Other on boot are normal. You will get them every POST cycle. At least that is how my system is also.

If the core clocks arent moving it may be stuck in a low power mode. What power mode is selected under Global 3D settings in Nvidia Contreol panel? There is Optimal Power, Adpative, and Prefer Maximum Performance. Depending on poower plan, the cores clocks may cycle low or remain pegged at maximum.

 

They’re set on optimal. Should I change it?

 

For benching then maximum performance to keep the clocks pegged up. I'd return it after you are finished though.

 

For benching then maximum performance to keep the clocks pegged up. I'd return it after you are finished though.

 

@4W4K3

Hey !

I have the same laptop as you, only it's from schenker.

On my laptop, i have gpu and cpu undervoltage settings in the bios. I can go to -100mv on the cpu, cpu mem, gpu and gpu mem.

Do you have these settings as well ? Do they superseed the windows settings or not ? will windows set them back to normal once it loads ?

 

@Tootsie69 Which processor do you have?

The BIOS in my model does not have any undervolting settings. All of my undervolting are applied through Throttle Stop via Windows. So, technically on boot to OS load it is at factory defaults with no undervolting. There is only memory overclocking in my BIOS version.
I’d be curious to see your BIOS screens!

As far as I’m aware there is no other BIOS for my PowerSpec model. I’ve looked on Clevo and PowerSpec site but haven’t seen a BIOS listing for update.

In the original post/first page of this thread is a video containing all of the BIOS screens on my exact model from PowerSpec.

 

Clevo and most resellers do not publicly release BIOS revisions any more. AFAIK you'll have to request through your reseller. Further to that, the PB "E" series have been replaced with the R series so development has probably slowed on the older models assuming there's no major BIOS bugs to squash.

 

Phased out so quick! The good ones never last I've been pretty happy with this BIOS, I'm hopeful no bugs will pop-up long term. The memory overclocking is really nice to see in BIOS. That and FlexiCharger which I thought I might not use but turns out I use it all the time now!

 

OK, I wanted to regroup in this post and share my current settings which are benchmark stable, game stable, idle stable, sleep and resume stable. They are different than the settings in my initial post on Page 1 which is probably to be expected after 16 pages and several weeks of testing. I feel like I've come a long way!





The i7-8750H sits at 3.9GHz through any heavy CPU load I can throw at it. In games, it's usually at 4.0GHz given core utilization which surprised me.

I'm kicking myself for a few things. Firstly, the Custom fan curve is SUPER useful. I have been using the "offset" feature for weeks and only just realized I can tune the profile even more with "Custom" profile. So, huge golden nugget there! New scores in signature thanks to more accurate fan curve.

Second, getting rid of TS "PL1, PL2, EDP Other" limits for me has been a mixture of TPL settings and FIVR undervolt. If the Power Plane Limits are not set right, you will see limit flags! With the settings posted here, I can game and benchmark without and red or yellow limits anywhere! Amazing!

Lastly, you may notice my System Agent voltage is not undervolted. At stock settings the System Agent undervolts nicely. However, when you start to overclock the memory it becomes much more sensitive! Since I am running the memory at PC3000 speeds @ 1.35v I have left the System Agent default for stability.

Another area I have tuned is the Windows Power Plan!!! I use the default 'Balanced' plan and tune accordingly under 'Best Performance" Power Mode.

Within Processor Power Management, if you enable the settings via Park Control or regedit, you can very specifically fine tune the CPU. Power duty cycling, autonomous mode, latency sensitivity hint performance, etc etc etc. They all make some difference in how the system and CPU act.

 

Nice! What’s your CPU cache core undervolt set at?

I also just bought a cheap gaming pad + vacuum on amazon. I played CS GO for a couple hours and my temps were in the low 70s the entire time!

 

The system agent voltage applies to desktops too when tweaking memory

 

I have the XMG one so theyre pretty much the same.
I have the -100mV setting in the bios set just in case throttlestop doesnt open. Windows does not set it back to normal and will keep the undervolt.

Also just a heads up, throttlestop will know theres a -100mV in the bios and will show it.

 

Any change will override the setting rather than act on top too.

 

CPU cache undervolt set to -0.155.3v

 

Updating once again because today I managed to shave off some temperature by applying the same logic from MSi Afterburner to Throttle Stop. I'm always learning as I go so I apologize for any glaringly obvious information I may share.

Instead of letting the CPU boost to 4.1GHz 1-2 core, or 4.0GHz 3-4 core, I made all cores 3.9GHz so the CPU remains steady regardless of load. While some games will run the CPU at 4.0GHz there is actually nearly no performance gain over 3.9GHz and the increase in voltage simply makes the system run hotter. You coul limit this further down to 3.7 or 3.5GHz and probably not lose gaming experience. There is a small hit in benchmarks where the CPU is loaded, proportional to your down-clock.
I found limiting the 8750H to 3.9GHz with a -.230v undervolt maintains less than 0.9750v VID under most loads and peaks around 60W. The cooling solution in the PB70EF-G is more than capable of this.

Also the relationship of cache speed and core speed has eluded me. Cache always seems to be a few hundred MHz lower than core. For my system, it default wants a 300MHz separation. At 3.9GHz core, it wants 3.6GHz cache. I had been manually forcing 3.8GHz cache and thinking "Faster, more performance!"

BUT, as it turns out; there is zero performance boost running the cache higher without also boosting the core. Since my core is locked to 3.9GHz, upping the cache to 3.8GHz (limit) does nothing but make it run HOTTER! That's right, it was detecting the 200MHz rise from 3.6GHz (where it wanted to be) and adding a small voltage increase because of it. The CPU was hotter as a result.

So, relinquishing my grip, I lowered the cache down to 3.6GHz and VOILA the CPU is probably 3-5C cooler while under load. I played an hour of WWZ and saw peak 78C on a few cores, the rest lower. Nice!!

 

I see that you are a perfectionnist. I like that.

Here is a screenshot of my bios. The real question is : do i need another software like yours to achieve the undervolt in windows or the bios version superseeds that ?

My laptop is always in AC mode, so will the flexicharger help ? Won't it keep charging discharging over and over ?

best

 

Cooooool. Thanks !!!

 

Reference Meaker's post below.

Personally, I would use ThrottleStop in Windows and leave the BIOS default. While using the computer, mid-game, or really at ANY time you can adjust your settings to adjust for temperature. If you tune in BIOS, every time you want to make an adjustment you need to save your work, reboot, go into BIOS, make the change, and then boot back up. To me, that is a pain! Within Throttle Stop you will have all of the BIOS undervolt options and more at your fingertips.

Having said that, there is no harm in using the BIOS method. IF you're more happy using the BIOS, go for it!

FlexiCharger will stop the battery charging altogether after a set maximum charge point. My start and stop charge points are 40/80%.

So, when the battery discharges below 40% it will accept a charge again. When the battery charges to 80% capacity it stops charging. Even when plugged into the wall, if the battery is 41-80% (or higher, somehow) it will not charge. This saves charging cycles and battery life overall. You can set the limits to your preference, and disable the feature altogether when you want to travel and use 100% of the battery again.

 

BIOS vs firmware tweaks would overwrite each other, it should never add on unless setting a static voltage.

 

Thank you for the clarification !

Another question, I have disbled ME engine in the bios, do you know what it's for ? What can we disable safely in the bios?

Any tutorial on the bios settings and what they mean ?

 

Question about the display. I know it's the AUO409D panel, but how low can the minimum brightness be set? Other laptops with this panel usually come in around 15 cd/m2.

Can you comfortably use it in a pitch black room?

 

I don’t have a light meter unfortunately, not sure the exact brightness of the display at minimum.

I’ve used it very briefly in low light for movies and the backlight intensity is not overwhelming. I’ve not noticed any bad backlight bleed on my model but that’s kind of varies unit to unit.

 

Hi I had a question. I was thinking of buying a PowerSpec 1720. I want to make sure I understand it does not have Thunderbolt correct? Also, although I will play first person shooters on it from time to time I want to use it for music production which needs good fast realtime processing. It seems to me that both fans are connected to the gpu and the cpu. If I disable the gpu (and use the intel graphics) will the unit still thermal throttle the cpu out of the box under half to three quarters load? that is about what it is doing on my i7 6700 laptop and it is almost fast enough. Also I thought I read that if you run on battery, it will always throttle the cpu back, even if not using the gpu.. is that correct? One more thing, has anyone raid 0 two nvme SSD's together and tested to see if the bus has the bandwidth to provide even more speed?

 

The sager/clevo models that resellers like us sell do have thunderbolt.

 

Out of the box you may see some CPU throttling even if using Optimus under high CPU load. I’ve taken various steps to prevent this all after purchase (undervolt, repasted). If you’re OK with running Max fans it will probably solve this.

Correct, no Thunderbolt on the PowerSpec model. Among various other budget saving features. No thumb print reader, no glass trackpad, etc. I’m really happy with the price to performance of the PowerSpec line.

On battery it will attempt to throttle the CPU and GPU for power saving. There are some steps you can do to counter this in Windows Power Options, CCC Power Mode, ThrottleStop, etc. The battery life at maximum Turbo/clocks is not long though!

 

Thunderbolt would be nice but by the time I want to upgrade the video card and add an external one, it is probably better to get a new laptop with latest cpu and motherboard. I guess undervolt would not be so bad. I think/hope I just need a little more cpu speed. I did look on the sagar site, the NP8977 at $1699 was the closest but it had no Thunderbolt or gsync. I found an HP 17 omen on sale for 1,124.99 8gb ram same processor 1070 gsync Thunderbolt but only one m.2. I am not sure if I should save my money for the laptop after this one I am going to buy or spend more money for a laptop that might last me longer without upgrading. Decisions, decisions. Thanks for the info.

 

The NP8377 is perhaps what you are interested in.

 

Hey! how did you solve it?

 

I had a weird snafu with the CPU being stuck in C0 mode and consuming 8W on idle for seemingly no reason. CPU utilization 0%, no programs open. All higher P/C-states were disabled, but the laptop was acting normally otherwise under load. I actually gamed for several days and used it normally for a few days before even noticing the massive idle power draw and increased idle temp (50C vs 36C).

I uninstalled programs, reverted settings, reset all overclocks; did all I could within Windows to no avail. I then completely re-installed Windows, all my programs, wiped the harddrive, etc. It still was stuck in C0 and not working properly! I was livid.

Then I got smart and cleared CMOS to reset the BIOS. Something I should have tried from the start but because the laptop was functioning normally (other than idle) I was *sure* it couldn't be a BIOS problem.

As it turns out, once again, I was wrong. The BIOS reset fixed everything. Idle power draw closer to 0.8-1W now, C3-C7 now all accessible and functioning. Idle temps back down to 30's. It was a humbling moment, because I reinstalled Windows for no reason! Lots of swearing and headache for no reason.
From all the data I have I believe it was a memory overclock that slowly corrupted the integrity of my system/BIOS but never actually threw an error code or BSOD and only affected idle power draw. In short; user induced error.

Lesson; never be sure about anything. Especially when it's an assumption. Follow troubleshooting procedure to save yourself literally hours of unneeded installs!

 

Yes, always start with the easy fixes first

 

Hey there. @4W4K3 I Like to see that your trying to get the best out of the laptop and happy to see your good results with that.
I got the Clevo PB71EF aswell and currently I'm trying to tweak it.

Edit: Specs

Spoiler

• i7 8750H
• RTX 2070
• 16GB RAM, Crucial 2666mhz, Dual-Channel
• Samsung 970 Evo Plus, 500GB NVME SSD
• repasted CPU/GPU with "Kryonaut" thermal paste

Testing done with: discrete mode (no g-sync), performance mode and high performance powerplan

However, i'm not very successfull with that and the laptop performs quite poor after tweaking it with undervolting the cpu with -0.125v (core+cache) and MSI Afterburner (I followed @B0B 's guide basically) but even tried to copy 4W4K3's settings lately without getting even any near to his results.
The opposite is actually the case with any undervolting: for example not only was the native CineBenchR20 score very low with ~2250pts. but even went down from ~2250 pts. to ~1800 pts.!
The same with other benchmarks. I will upload my results and settings later on for a better picture, because I really think there's something off.

But before I return the laptop I want to try my best to figure out and fix what causes this bad performance, especially with tweaking (Undervolting, where you're supposed to increase it)
Hopefully you guys can help me witht that.

To start off, here are some benchmark results without any tweaking like undervolting:

• PC Mark 10: https://www.3dmark.com/pcm10/38225414
• FireStrike: https://www.3dmark.com/3dm/38117379?
• TimeSpy: https://www.3dmark.com/3dm/38117124?

In contrast to that, the undervolting results follow later on.[/spoiler]

 

@lappyluke Have you replaced the thermal paste in the laptop? This is going to be one of the main reasons you aren't getting similar benchmarks or similar temps.

When you run Cinebench, what does the clock speed do? If there is any deviation from 3.9GHz for even a second you are limited either by power or thermals. I'm running back to back benchmarks with no deviation in clock speed mainly due to the repaste with (most recently) Phobya NanoGrease Extreme.

In the grand scheme of things, a benchmark difference of a few hundred or even a few thousand points does not mean much. If you can game consistently for hours on end and you are happy I would forget an obscure benchmark score. I imply this thinking when I want to enable extra visual features and things that "hurt" performance. When it comes to reality, and my gaming experience, and my visual enjoyment, I'd rather sacrifice performance for enjoyment. So, if it works well and you can enjoy it consider keeping it!

 

Everyone does like a different t balance which is why PCs do have an advantage

 

Yes! The CPU/GPU are repasted with "Kryonaut" thermal paste (so a pretty good one aswell). The temps of the different cores seem to stay in a difference-margin of about 2-3 degrees. So as you said, that seems to indicate the repaste is good.
All testing done with discrete mode (no g-sync), performance mode and high performance powerplan. So I shouldn't get any power or thermal limiting, right?
As I said, the results are even worse after undervolting the cpu with -.125v. And we're undervolting to eliminate power/thermal throttling so I shouldn't get any of that and thus also better benchmark results, huh? Not the case for me here

Alright, so I finally got to upload the other results (I'll edit the post above aswell).
1st pic no UV | 2nd with UV
CinebenchR20: 1. 2.
FireStrike: 1. 2.

 

Here's my ThrottleStop:
I see that it constantly shows these yellow/red "EDP other or "PL1/PL2" but don't really know what it means or how to get rid of, if thats of any importance.

Spoiler

Edit1: My Idle temps are about ~50 degrees on both CPU cores and GPU (read that your idle temps are at 30°, wtf?)

Edit2: Did you OC and UV your GPU? Your Curve Editor looks a bit emphasized before being set to a fixed mhz/voltage (see below).

Even though you wrote that you think your CPU is a good one while your GPU is average, it seems that your current highest FireStrike Score (17800) has a pretty high graphics score (21 223) with a quite "normal" (?) physics CPU score (16 341)

Referring to your post here:

Spoiler

Edit3:
Notice the extreme physics CPU score drop at my FireStrike bench with UV: going from 16.247 without tweaks over waay below to 12.156 points (!)
Also, I just don't get how I could even get such an inferior result like 1800 at CinebenchR20 for the processor.

Oh jeez, this is so frustrating

 

There are a few differences between our TS profiles. Namely;

Non-Turbo Rato - 0

IccMax Amperage - Mine are all maxed out

Disable and Lock Turbo Limits - Checked/Enabled

Min/Max Cache Ratio - I limit mine to 36-38

SpeedStep - Disable

My CPU Core and Cache are undervolted significantly lower

Not TS related but also the DDR4 2666MHz in my machine is overclocked to 3000MHz with tighter timings

I also imagine our TPL windows settings are quite different. It's not a good idea to simply copy settings from another machine because your hardware might react differently. However, this was just to highlight the number of changes in this one software alone. Add to that I've made a number of Windows power/registry tweaks, I've repasted with 3 different thermal paste for testing, and I probably have 20-30 hours of "tweaking" into this specific machine alone; that is mostly why my signature score is higher.

If I make a few changes to improve visuals or lower fan noise I can't score as high as my signature scores. Those are all nose-bleed, sacrifice everything settings for the ultimate points. They are not the same settings I game on, or even browse on. Going back to what I said earlier; sometimes a score is just badge people like to show off. When it comes to real-world scenarios the highest scoring PC out there might actually be incredibly terrible to daily drive and use.

I believe the CPU performance comments were because my Cinebench scores were very high and when I uploaded them to HWBot I believe I was placing #3 or #2 in the world for 8750H. It's a very narrow criteria but I felt like I had won the lottery when I uploaded that score.
In comparison, 3DMark scores are much more popular and when I uploaded I saw something like 80-90% better than most results which is good but it's not 99% like the CPU seemed to be in HWBot.

Even now, go YouTube laptops reviews and notice MANY 8750H scoring in the low-mid 2000's. After repasting, undervolting, tinkering most people can get the score into the high 2000's. Even a lot of 9750H processors in 2019 laptops CANNOT break 3000 points. I see 2500-2800 points regularly from brand new machines.

With minimal effort I felt like I was breaking 3000 points straight out of the box with the PowerSpec. I can repeatedly hit 3100 points run after run after run. To me, this is an indication of a really well designed cooling system. Silicon lottery might have some influence too...

 

Yeah, sure there will be a few differences in the settings as you seem to have put a lot of time into tweaking and fiddling around with the settings.
However, there also seem to be many other around here getting way better results out of the box without any tweaking at all, and after tweaking shooting even higher. While my machine seems to perform even worse directly with just undervolting in a way lower margin.
So I think there could be more to it if I'm not completely overseeing smth here.

What are your temps while gaming something like e.g. Overwatch with 144 fps?

 

I'm currently playing WWZ, Wolfenstein YoungBlood, and some FarCry 5.

Load temps tend to be anywhere from 70-85C depending on game. Very occasionally I will hit 90C on a few cores especially when WWZ is throwing hundreds of zombies on-screen. If I don't limit the framerate and let it hit 200-300FPS the CPU really works very hard. Limiting the framerate to 144FPS brings dow nthe temps quite a bit in some games.

Ambient temp is currently 23-24C. With Chrome open (several tabs) and my 3D printing slicer software open I'm idling right now at 42C GPU and 42C CPU. If I close everything it might drop to 38-40C at best.

I've adjusted my fan profile in CCC to be more aggressive and ramp up about 20% sooner than default. By 65C the GPU is at 100% fan speed. At 75C the CPU is at 100% fan speed. This helps keep the load temps lower because it gives you maximum RPM at a lower temperature.

EDIT - Another thing to consider. I have enabled core-parking which lets some cores sit idle and consumer no/low power. I've also adjusted my Windows Power Plan CPU settings a bit. These will make a big difference in idle temperature. 6 active cores are much hotter than 1.

 

Hey lappyluke. I actually had a similar experience as you.
At first I followed a Throttlestop tutorial and would only get ~2300 on Cinebench R20 Multicore. What was happening was that the CPU was throttling down as soon as the benchmark started and not running at full turbo speeds. Check your Throttlestop TPL window. Make sure Turbo Boost Power Max and Turbo Boost Short Power Max are both checked. Clamp are both unchecked. I'm not in front of my laptop, but I believe I have my numbers set to 55, 70, and slider to 48. I'm not 100% sure what all the settings do, but the 2 numbers are related to the PL1 and PL2 throttling. It's the low and high Power Limit throttling of your CPU. You're not getting enough power to the CPU so it's down clocking. Once you get those settings set correctly you should be able to run an all turbo of ~3.9GHz throughout the whole Cinebench R20 and get a score >3000.
What's funny is by having the wrong settings I would've had a better score just running the laptop stock without any Throttlestop settings.

 

Hey Outrager! Oh yes, exactly! I did get better benchmark results with NO Undervolt at all which seemed to be very weird for me.
I will definitely check my settings and look up the ThrottleStop guide!
However, I've now done some testing again without any tweaks (no undervolt at all, no msi afterburner etc.) and turns out my results are still very bad.

So I've got some reference benchmark number by the manufacturer for Prime95, Cinebench R15 and R20 and was told these are their testing values that I should safely reach to tell my CPU isn't faulty.
Did the test several times and my results are the following:

.	Reference by manufacturer	Results
Prime 95 (small FTT, no AVX)	3416 mHz	2693 mHz
Cinebench R15	1297 pts	869 pts
Cinebench R20	2537 pts	1965 pts

So the performance seems off even without faulty (?) TS settings.
I'm really thinking about returning it, even though the price that I paid wasnt bad for that specs. But if it performs bad, why have that specs in the first place, right? And if it's something I can actually influence, I'm not experienced enough with this to find out what exactly is causing this; and I'm testing and trying for quite some time now already

Thanks for your reply and helping on that matter.
If you have any other tips let me know

 

Did you turn off TS properly? You need to turn it off, save, delete the .ini file, then shut down the laptop for the undervolt to reset properly.

 

I checked my options and read through the throttle stop guide.
I actually had the settings as you recommended already, so no changes here.
The only thing that was checked differently than you said was the first "clamp" checkbox on TPL>>Turbo Boost Long Power Max, but that's actually checked on default after cleaning the TS.ini though.

Just in case, I turned TS off, saved and deleted the ThrottleStop.ini again.
So now I've got a fresh TS again without any UV.
Without any ThrottleStop activated my results change to:
CB R15: 1233 pts
CB R20: 2296 pts
So this is the performance how it ships - better, but still below expectations.
And Undervolting should not only decrease temperatures but increase the performance, however it seems to rather decrease it quite noticeable..

Still, doesn't seem to change much. Especially the window under "Limits" shows still the same limit reasons:


Don't know what to do anymore at this point.

 

These are my settings. I still the PL1 warning when running something like Prime95 since I can probably bump up the lower power a little, but I'm okay with it throttling a little to stay a bit cooler now that it's summer and kind of hot .

 

Okay so I've done some more testing and tweaking, mainly with Cinebench R20:

At last, I've settled with the following Undervolt for now:
-250mV CPU Core
-125mV Cache
I increased the standart TPL settings for PL1/PL2 from 55/90 to 70/90 to get rid of PL1 power throttling.
With this, I repeatedly get about ~3.030 pts in Cinebench R20.



I've started with the @B0B 's recommended UV of -125/-125mV, but got PL1, PL2 and EDP other throttling.
So I tried to a) go further with the max PL1 and b) increase the undervolt.
I was hesitant to increase the PL1 further than 70 W so it doesn't get too hot and thermal throttle.
(How much wattage should you set for PL1 and PL2? I left PL2 at default 90W because it seems high for me (?))

From there I tried copying 4W4KES UV settings with -230 mV and -155 mV and the other options made and it was all good at first, getting about 3.030 pts aswell. But later on after trying other under-voltages, and going back to this (no other changes made) i consistently got BSOD.

With -250mV/-125mV I don't get BSOD though.

Other things that I experienced:

• getting BSOD when changing my CPU cache Min/Max from 36/38 (4W4KE's settings) to his newer settings of 36/36
  or even just changing it to the default of 8/38 (downloaded a fresh TS after that)

@4W4K3

You said, that your settings in your signature are just "nose-bleed" max performance settings and you would'nt use them for daily use or even gaming.
What are you actually using daily/for games then?
I thought B0B's suggested settings in his PB71EF-G video are for an everyday experience increase. But with those settings I still get PL/thermal throttling (because of too low PL1 setting even with 70W!) which he states got negated in his laptop.

There are quite a lot options with ThrottleStop that I don't understand thoroughly and even the guide couldn't help on, so there is a lot of testing different unknown options and a lot of questions:

For example:
- why is my cpu always @ max. clock frequency (about 3990, 40000 MHz) while in IDLE? I understand that activating SpeedShift EPP on 0 gives the cpu the max. power is wants, but it shouldnt fixate it at the max core clock like taking the maximum performance power plan (unneccessary power consumption in idle right)
- under TPL: what about the Power Limits ? (PL1/PL2) How high can/should I set them?
And the turbo time limit slider? PP0?
- what is the limit reason "EDP other"?
- under FIVR: how high should you set the current amperages "IccMax" CPU and Cache?

---
Will add pictures when I get home.

Edit: added pictures

 

Okay, this is weird. I went from being able to consistently get 3000+ on Cinebench R20 multicore to now only getting ~2200.
The turbo speeds used to stay at 3.9GHz, but now just bounce back and forth from 2.2GHz to 3.9GHz.
The only thing I changed was adding a 2TB FireCuda drive.
Do you think adding that hard drive did something to affect my system?
My current settings are in this post: http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...-pb70ef-g-tuning.829255/page-20#post-10942377

Edit:
Nevermind. I reset ThrottleStop to stock and re-did my settings to be the exact same as my original and now it's staying at the 3.9GHz all core turbo speeds. So weird.

 

I just bought one of these open box from Microcenter. I'm loving it except for the screen. The screen is an AUO409D and I see these faint horizontal lines, it's especially noticeable in the Windows Blue color that defaults in Windows 10. But it's noticeable on every color really. If I return it, it will be because of the screen.

Other than that though, it's so much better than the Alienware m15 r1 I had prior. In fact it's better than most every notebook I bought prior. But my most recent experience was with an AW m15 R1. That machine was horrible. Very inconsistent temperatures, could not stop it from throttling from temps. Core temperature differences between 15-25c. I tried everything. Something I think was just causing that heat sink to not sit flat. When I got this 1720 out of the box, temps did get up to 95-98c and core temp differences about 12-15c... I thought I was in for a repeat of the AW m15 r1. However, after a repaste and -.125 core voltage, upping PL1 to 80w, even sitting flat on a desk during a blender render the CPU only gets to max and average of 86c during the render. But the better news is, it stays locked at 3.9ghz and no Power or Thermal limit throttling.

I have a lot more testing to do, such as combination GPU/CPU stress testing, etc. But, so far, this is way more promising vs the Alienware system I had. Yes, I know this is a lot thicker and a bit heavier, and I will miss Thunderbolt 3 and the Alienware Graphics Amplifier port.

Oh also, the keyboard deck is SO much cooler on this laptop. On the Alienware m15 r1 I was getting 55c on the keyboard! On this one I get 44c max. 44c is a lot more comfortable than 55c. 55c felt like the thing was going to melt. 44c is just barely warm to the touch.

 

55C on the keyboard?

 

It’s an Alienware, Meaker. 100C is the normal. And well known overheating problems from previous models won’t be less the thinner and slimmer vs. last gen models.

 

@lappyluke I could be wrong but I think the BSOD's you are experiencing will be most related to the CPU cache undervolt. The difference of -.125mV and -.155mV on my system is enough to experience some instability.

I can usually run hours of certain games/benchmarks at a more extreme undervolt without adverse effects. It makes troubleshooting somewhat tricky. More often than not my instability/BSOD's happen at idle or under lower usage like browsing the web. Not always, but especially when undervolting the cache I would not always experience problems in-game and benchmarks ran exceptionally well due to the additional undervolt. For normal usage, my cache sits closer to -.130mV for "total" stability and a better/safer user experience. Same with memory timings, I ran some benchmarks with very tight timings that would pass any benchmark without problem but would almost immediately fail a thorough memory check/test. So, for normal usage I've loosened back up the memory timings to avoid problems. The most common one, fan speed. During benchmarks it's 100% all the time, but I never have them that high for web browsing or even most gaming.

Clock speed and power consumption do not always coincide. If you have core parking enabled and all CPU C-states enabled you can comfortable sit at 3.9-4.1GHz idle (8750H) and less than 2W. I am in this exact scenario as I type (not exactly idle with Chrome, 5 tabs, GPU-Z, and ThrottleStop open). I am at 4.1GHz and ~2W power consumption. If I close everything it goes down to around 1W or less.

I have always been impressed with the cooling and airflow of this model. For reference I just finished ~1.5hrs of World War Z gameplay and my CPU hottest cores ranged from 78C-84C max! The GPU is SO consistent sitting at 66-67C the entire session! The combination of custom fan curve, Phobya NanoGrease thermal paste, and MSi Afterburner tune/undervolt really work well. I am playing at 1080P Ultra settings, GSYNC enabled, etc.

If I find more time on my day off I'll try to post some TPL settings that work for me. There really isn't a magic combination though, and some of the settings have little to no effect on certain systems.