Clevo P870DM-G Review

As in Core Voltage: 1.1750000 ? Sorry for dumb question, but this is a starter OC/etc

 

Yes, that's right, bro. The default is "Default" and doesn't even tell you the amount. Change it manually and then the "Static" button will no longer be grayed out.

@Meaker - dynamic voltage works OK in terms of stability, but it's still higher than it needs to be for 24/7 operation. If you leave the voltage value setting to default, Haswell and Skylake processors run hotter and tend to throttle under load due to excessive voltage. Unfortunately, you cannot select "Static" when voltage value is set to default. Not sure why Intel did that, perhaps to account for lousy bin quality control with Haswell. Thankfully, Skylake seems to be better in terms of bin quality variance.

The default voltage for Skylake is high enough to support a 45x4 overclock, which is ridiculous for a CPU that runs 40x4 stock.

 

Well, the default voltage on sandy bridge was more or less enough to support a guaranteed 4ghz OC and 95% chance to run a 4.2ghz stable. From a CPU that runs 3.3ghz. Intel's default voltage usually is excessive enough to support up to 0.5-0.7ghz of OC.

 

It's only the architecture extremes of the older chips that tended to have poorer margins.

 

Right, let me try this again then.

No throttling with this profile, 44x1/43x2/42x3/41x4

 

This was stock clocks and default voltage and power settings (no changes to anything except enabling Turbo Boost Short Power Max, which you should also enable,) on the Sky X9. This was with stock IC Diamond before I did the Liquid Ultra or delid.

 

Using your same settings and just enabling Turbo Boost Short Power Max, I get an XTU score 1255! What the heck!

Also, if I don't turn on the fans on full blast, it would throttle towards the mid of the benchmark as temps reach 98C on the default clocks/voltage. Setting the fans to full blast and the throttling is gone. I am gonna stick with the 4.4 GHz profile I made with a voltage of 1.166V for now

 

Voltage may be too low. Maybe not low enough to crash windows, but low enough to impair performance. Try it with everything the same, except bump the voltage up to 1.175V in XTU and see if that helps.

 

Raised the voltage to 1.75V, still can't reach your score Were you on Win 10 or 7 with that stock benchmark?

Here are the settings, I don't know what else to do:

 

Ok a bit better now, 42,41,41,41 profile with 1.175V/Adaptive Voltage, everything else on stock:

 

@Matrix Leader - that was before I installed Windows 7 (look at the task bar). I get similar scores in Windows 7 at the same clock speeds.

Don't worry a great deal about matching it. XTU Benchmark sucks as a performance measurement anyway. It's brutal and generates a ton of heat, but doesn't accurately indicate that a machine with a higher score will perform better. (Cases in point are my 4930MX and 4930K. The 4930MX doesn't perform better in most things, yes has a more impressive XTU score than my 3920XM does. Running 500Mhz slower, the 6700K XTU is very close to as high as my 4.5GHz 4930K XTU score, but the hexacore CPU will beat it at almost anything you put it up against.)

 

@Mr. Fox I Think you run that stock Xtu bench with faster ram(2400Mhz) vs Matrix lower clocked ram. Xtu bench like faster memory speed.

 

That is also true. Plus, he has SLI which creates extra work for the CPU. SLI takes a minor hit on CPU performance, but more than offsets that loss with a massive increase in graphics performance.

 

He could try to disable Sli and test again. I think if you go up from 2133 to 2400Mhz is about 40-60 points in Xtu bench.

 

What I love about SLI is, remember that app I once showed you to play videos @ 60 FPS or 75 FPS in my case since it's a 75 hz panel? Now I can set SVP (Smooth Video Project) to use GPU 2 while MPC-HC uses GPU 1 using DXVA so that gives the best performance leaving SVP with a dedicated GPU to perform the buttery smoothness videos FPS increase.

PS: SVP has now been upgraded to SVP 4 which is a complete overhaul but is not a paid app, very cheap though.

 

No Mr. Fox! Lol

 

One of my 980M GPUs is dead... doggone-it. Feels really wrong to use a Panther with one GPU. Sacrilegious, even... and, yes, I can tell a HUGE difference without SLI. Very disappointing to not have two 980M working in my primary WMD.

 

How did it die? I wondered about the impact of my mod on the life of over volted cards, it could help.

 

Sorry to hear one of the 980Ms are toast. I am going to try to hold on to my Panther 5 as,long as I possibly can. Lookin at yours and Premas work with the machine it definitely is impressive but not enough for me to get rid of my Panther 5 at this point. I see the Skylake X9 as a replacement for my Alienware 18 and my Sager NP9380S though as of now but I am enthusiastic to see what Pascal brings to the table. I will probably migrate and purchase the next iteration of the Skylake/Cannonlake CPUs with morE and efficient power ratios.

 

I don't know. I have been neglecting all of my systems since the arrival of the Sky X9 for no reason other than lack of time. I went to play Black Ops 3 on it the other day and the screen kept turning black and the system was locking up. This was not with any overclock or voltage mods, just totally stock. I think that one 980M may have had some behavioral problems since it was brand new and it finally gave up the ghost. After further testing, I narrowed the problem down to the one GPU. It does it consistently with the offending GPU installed in the primary slot. Examining both sides of the card with a high-powered magnifier headset, I can see no visible evidence of a component failure. Everything visible looks fine.

@Meaker - you think tacking on those extra IC chips that I ordered could help? I've never purchased the hot air station, but need to.

 

I'd like to figure out a way of producing an elegant 800W+ AC adapter using a desktop PSU for the Panther to use in lieu of a 3-piece setup. I think that would be more convenient. I've been looking on the web and I cannot see where anyone has ever done that. I wonder if it is because the power output demand for the laptop is 19.5V and the desktop PSU is only 12V?

I have removed all reference to Alienware products from my signature. I'm selling my M18xR1, M18xR2 and all of the spare parts to buy a replacement 980M, a 4960X upgrade (both for the Panther) and saving any leftover cash to put toward a dual GTX 980 SLI Sky X9.

 

Wouldn't it be possible to make a 990W (3x330w) ac adapter using three of the 330w adapters in a similar way the 2x330w was done? maybe 4x330w even? lol

 

This truly makes me sad. I have never owned an Alienware but it was due to dedicated and helpful people like you, i had utmost respect for Alienware community. This feels like end of an era. I can only imagine what your feelings will be.
@ Mr. Fox

 

That got me curious about it as well. I started looking around, and I think you are right about the voltage. Even if you find a way to make everything work from a desktop PSU, I don't know if it would end up being an elegant solution in the end.

 

BTW, I have a dual 330x2 PSU but how do I actually make sure that the laptop is using it or it actually works?

 

Buy/ use a kill-a-watt. Run bench tests and monitor wattage.

 

Considering I can get one adapter to pull over 400 watts from the wall the dual adapter isn't needed until you have an unlocked vbios and do some serious overclocking. In its stock form it was only pulling close to 300 watts from the wall during my tests. Might save you some lugging around for now and it will be needed later.

 

Voltage Booster / Inverter ? off the top of my head though the numbers would have to be worked out....

Not saying this one will work but just as an example

http://www.ebay.com/itm/DC-Converte...ge-Charger-Step-Up-Volt-Booster-/181718197052

 

So is Eurocom or Mythlogic shipping the P870dm-g with the modded bois or unlocked vbios or both now? Anyone have any info on this, this is the last day of the Eurocom 500 off deal so I wanted to ask.

 

Thank you for those kind words. Indeed, the end was near and many of us knew it when their flagship products started to ship with BGA filth and one GPU short of a full load. The past year has been similar to watching a member of the family slowly bleed to death with no way to save them.

I had a lot of great years with them. Truly amazing products and amazing service for the longest time, and build quality that remains unmatched even by their own current products. They treated me and other customers like kings and made us very glad to do business with them, and in the process built a cult-like following and subculture of elitists that were passionate about every aspect of owning the best the industry had to offer.

At the end of the day it's a business transaction and they have chosen to build and sell products I find to be worthless mainstream trash (or worse). That doesn't change the good times or the good friends I have made along the way... especially those in this community and at Tech|Inferno. I am grateful for all of those things. I doubt I will ever find a brand that cares for their customers the way they used to care for theirs, if for no other reason than it is extremely costly to do the things they have done over and over to build die-hard fans of their brand. But, nothing lasts forever, and now it's time for a new source that delivers products that meet my expectations. I will not lower my standards for the sake of maintaining brand loyalty. That would be like the tail wagging the dog.

It's awesome that there are a couple of notebook models available, from ONE competitor (Clevo), that perform well enough to impress me without being built so crappy that they make me want to vomit. It's a shame there are not more. We live in very sad times for mobile computing technology. AMD wimping out on us for several years running combined with the behavior of Intel and Micro$loth, and the voluminous array of lackluster garbage they are producing, are not helping things be any less crappy.

Some of the desktop power supplies have become very attractive and sleek looking. Having a single box would be nice, and probably no more, perhaps less space by volume. But, if it did not work as well that would be an issue. Having to add something externally to recondition the power output would defeat the main advantaging to having it, too. Maybe I can come up with a DIY project like I did for the dual PSU setup I invented for my extra-terrestrial beasts. It will be a lot easier not having to deal with a stupid ID chip and signal wire, that's for sure.

You can find out in less than a minute without having to buy anything. Very simple... set a high CPU and GPU overclock. If your laptop shuts off abruptly in 3DMark 11 Test #1 it is not working. If it continues to run like a banshee without missing a beat, it is working flawlessly. Under the most adverse conditions, my Panther pulls momentary peaks that fall just short of 700W with the 4930K at 4.6GHz and both 980M GPUs running balls to the wall. The Alienware M18xR2 with extreme CPU and GPU overclocks pulled over 500W with 680M SLI and right at 600W with 780M SLI. That will last about 1 second with a single 330W AC adapter.

When Alienware rejected the notion of needing of needing a dual 330W AC adapter to support their flagship products was our first sign of trouble. They were provided irrefutable proof that the problem was real, shown what I had done to effectively address it, and asked nicely in their IdeaStorm blog, more than once by a lot of customers, and here we are today. They solved the problem by producing anemic garbage instead of pushing the envelope on performance like they used to, and then had the General Manager make guest appearances through social media and produced many hours of YouTube videos in a lame effort to distract us from the huge mess they were making.

 

OT but I just flashed Prema Mod on my P771ZM... Adds an absurd amount of options lol...

 

Most of them you wont need to touch it's true.

 

This is indeed a turning point for me as well when it comes to DELL/Alienware products. With this Alienware 2015 refresh they have totally casted aside us enthusiasts that there products catered to make more money. I see Alienware has finally decided to put Dual 980M in their laptops for a limited run but the are still using the same CPUS of last generation. Looking at the Skylake X9 I will also look to be getting one of these in the future. I never thought Alienware would succumb to the masses and start producing underpowered laptops that i could get in any store. I am disappointed they have taken this route and they have lost me as a customer for the time being and they would have to show me a complete reversal back to excellence for me to return. I am glad i got the Panther 5 when I did because Eurocom is the only company selling them now. I am glad Clevo/Eurocom is still pushing the envelope with high powered laptop units that cater to enthusiasts like us. When/If they can update the Skylake X9 chassis with Pascal and dual video cards with a more powerful Skylake or Cannonlake CPU i will be ready to purchase. Occulus Rift would be the next phase of gaming and i want to experience it with the most powerful laptop available next to the Panther 5.

 

Maybe they're taking the laagf (laptop as a gf thing to personal) and think you'd rather be on vacation with some super slim super sexy model whose only use is to say all the things she's capable of doing while in reality can't do half....

oh let's try this, i'm tired(throttle)...
Lets go show this other couple how we crunch lobster(benchmarks)...i'm watching my figure..

Well this vacation we'd prefer taking Predator/Phoenix on a vacation.

Lol

No offense to anyone of any-size i try my best to respect everyone equally.This is just for humor purposes.Anyone offended my humble apology.

 

A bit far perhaps

While the dual PSU thing certainly works, a more portable option would be nice, even if it used a fan at higher power draw.

 

If I may add this that is confirmed from Sager...

From the point, that you talked to Sager about it when you read the issue, and that Sager had been working with Clevo, and we now have a updated EC firmware that should correct the CPU current throttling being experienced. Some final testing are stilling being done, but the most current solution are passing all our testing, and most likely what it will be the final release version.

So that sager customers can contact Techsupport for the updated EC Firmware if they would like to run testing’s now.

So sorry... all of the above was posted from my phone. Sorry that it may be rough info. The point is Sager does have a fix for this for customers....

 

Nice! So that should fix this? Glad that did not take long. Will let @Prema know we may have more work to do when he is back from vacation.

 

That is so awesome and I am relieved to hear this beast is going to be unleashed! Thanks for the update and keep us filled in.

Sent from my LG-H901 using Tapatalk

 

Has anyone tried testing HDCP 2.2? With netflix 4k or Amazon 4k?

 

So what about us CLEVO owners and not Sager? I don't see any BIOS update from Clevo's download pages for ANY laptop so I felt like they don't bother with posting any BIOS updates, what are we to do?

 

Have you tried contacting your reseller?

 

I didn't, I will try

 

You do realize that a Sager notebook is a Clevo, right? The list of boutique brand names of Clevo dealers is a really long one and Sager is probably the biggest Clevo dealer/reseller, but they are still a Clevo. If Clevo updates the EC to fix a problem with the P870DM (core machine) it probably won't be unique to only the machines they sell to Sager and it should not make any difference what vendor you bought it from. In theory exactly the same scenario that it won't make any difference what dealer you bought your car from, or if you bought it from a private party second hand, if the manufacturer issues a technical service bulletin or a component recall to fix an issue all owners of that particular car will have access to the fix provided by the manufacturer.

But, @Prema will need to incorporate that EC fix into the BIOS mod as well. Hopefully, it will include something for the lazy fans, too. The way they are slow to respond reminds me of the Alienware 17 and 18, but HWiNFO64 fans controls are non-existent.

 

Right, just don't wanna have Sager branding in the BIOS. anyway, I contacted evolution about this and got a reply within a couple of minutes that they will forward my request to Clevo to get this BIOS

 

Sounds like it has a high hysteresis value, it's something I can edit on mine, hopefully it's just a stored value Prema can get to.

It will make the fans twitchier at idle.

 

The differences in the BIOS are typically the splash screen logo, and some (Mythlogic is one of them) allow you to have your own custom splash screen using your own logo if you want to. On the main screen they will say "Clevo" unless the reseller has branded that also. Most people that are using a @Prema BIOS have no branding unless Prema makes a special version for the OEM (as they did for Eurocom on this particular model). The public version should be free of any branding other than Prema's own branding. Some of the Clevo resellers will void the warranty on the machine, which is why Prema cautions everyone to check with their reseller first, unless they don't care about the warranty.

It very well may be that simple. I don't know since I have no experience with it. But, based on my discussions with Prema I think the Clevo EC might be a lot more edit friendly than the Dell/Alienware EC (which is filled with treacherous land mines that control a lot of things on the machine). I know Prema and svl7 won't touch the Dell EC with a 10 foot pole, LOL.

That would be great. I like twitchy fans much more than I do lazy fans. When I am benching or gaming on any of my laptops, I just crank 'em up full blast, so that doesn't matter to me. It might be important if I were a student or librarian, but I am OK with only using 2 speeds: FULL OFF and FULL BLAST. Having twitchy fans in the M18xR1 and R2 was always nice. Having lazy fans in the 17 and 18 has required the use of HWiNFO64 manual fan controls to keep the machines cool.

I wish I could control Clevo fans with HWiNFO64. I think that's the only thing I miss going from Alienware to Clevo at this point. That was a very useful feature. I don't know why it does not work on Clevo.

 

When the Perma BIOS is available publicly, will there be a way to save the current BIOS if one decides to flash back in the future? Reason I ask is because Clevo doesn't have any BIOS updates on their drivers downloads page for any laptop so it looks like they don't provide BIOS files to their users which is kinda sucky.

 

It makes sense that they do not because they sell through dealers that usually have the BIOS branded with their own names (For example, Sager, Origin and Eurocom do) so you would get the BIOS from the Clevo reseller, which got it from Clevo in a generic form. Some Clevo Resellers may not post them for download because they want to be in control of that process. BIOS flashing can brick machines when user error comes into play. Some people do crazy things, like turn off the machine before it is done, or trying to flash running on battery when the battery is almost dead (I'm serious about that). But, I suspect a quick call or email to the Clevo reseller should be all it takes to get that from them. But, no... there is not a built-in way to save the current BIOS. That could be tricky, even dangerous, because "BIOS Updates" are often a package with multiple product updates that can actually include Intel ME and EC updates, and there are some of those that don't play nice if you start mixing things up.

 

I have a Sager and have used these BIOS/EC in the past (please use at own risk, as they say);
It now boots up with XMG logo and works perfectly, I requested a Sager BIOS update from the vendor, no luck.

Palkeo
http://repo.palkeo.com/clevo-mirror/

Premas
https://biosmods.wordpress.com/stock/

XMG/Schenker
http://www.mysn.de/driver/XMG/

 

Did anyone notice in these to pics that the core voltage is set to static but the reported static voltage is higher than the static voltage set in XTU by quite a bit?

Pic 1 set 1.162 volts, reported 1.207 ?
Pic 2 set 1.165 volts, reported 1.214 ?

If you change it back to adaptive and run a core stress test it will run at 1.217 to 1.3 so the outcome is less but why different than whats set to be static in XTU core menu?