*** Official Clevo P65xSA/SE/SG / Sager NP8650/51/52 Owner´s Lounge ***

What M.2 Wi-Fi card is better between Intel AC 7265 and Killer 1525?

 

They're wired to the Intel GPU.

Rift works, but not optimally because Optimus (ha get it) increases latency and may not allow you to get above 60Hz which is just terrible for VR.

 

So I've done some extended testing in Unigine Valley and I'm fairly certain that I've finally found my 980M's stable clocks at various voltages (determined by leaving Valley looping for 20-30mins with no sign of any driver crash and recovery - clocks monitored via GPU-Z).

- 15% core overclock -> 1297MHz (+170) @1.0625V (stock voltage)
- 17% core overclock -> 1317MHz (+190) @1.0750V (+1.1% overvolt)
- 20% core overclock -> 1352MHz (+225) @1.1000V (+3.5% overvolt)

There's definitely plenty of further headroom but I'm not willing to go over 1.1V to get there. Temps were under control (never once exceeding 80°C with max fan FN+F1 profile activated, peaking in the mid 70's for most of the tests).

Power consumption in taxing games such as The Witcher 3, Dragon Age Inquisition, Metro Redux and Crysis 3 typically hovers between 170-190W at the most aggressive overclock/overvolt. This would fall to roughly 160-180W at stock voltage overclock. Metro Redux benchmark (the most power hungry benchmark that I could find) managed to get the peak power draw to ~215W for a very brief time, but typically drew between 180-210W. This did not change much at the lower voltages (seems to be more dependant on pure clockrates).

The 180W adapter with an efficiency rating of 87% means that in these games at max GPU overclock/overvolt, the PSU is working between 80-90% of it's maximum rated capacity.

Based upon the 180W PSU, which would be the wisest choice?

 

1352Mhz on the core, I don't think you need more than that! That's a good overclock, and you get diminishing returns above that in terms of power & heat.

Metro Last Light is one of the most demanding games for me too in terms of global wattage usage - lots of CPU used on all threads. 215*0.87=187W, that's your peak wattage based on the efficiency you quoted (which sounds sensible). You're quite close to the power limits of the PSU it seems, but it doesn't really matter as long as it's not shutting down & you're not burning a hole in the carpet, you can always buy another one if it craps out after a year or two!

I've found Heaven Benchmark to be one of the most lenient benchmarks in terms of overclock though, especially VRAM overclock. I can run insane VRAM overclock during Heaven, but not on anything else, I know you're talking core overclock though. Gaming is the best test though - like 10 to 15 hours of gaming over a couple of weeks - no crashes is a good sign of a rock stable overclock, although some games more sensitive than others (see Titanfall, Assassins Creed Unity - have to dial down my core overclock by 26Mhz for both of those games).

 

I've already got a spare power adapter, seeing as I had to replace my P651SG recently through that disastrous display swap. The new adapter is a lot more compact so I'm doing all my overclock testing on the old one as it doesn't tend to heat up quite so much.

That Metro benchmark sure is brutal. Luckily the actual game itself seems to be sightly more forgiving. Yeah, I guess the best way is to see how hot the power adapter is getting during actual gameplay. It gets toasty when the Metro benchmark is running at full tilt, but that's absolute worse case scenario with VSYNC off.

I'm using Unigine Valley at the moment but I'll use 3DMark FireStrike to do a second round of testing. I just know that stable VRAM clocks are somewhere within the region of 1400-1440 (+300 to +375).

 

I see, thanks. I wouldn't mind replacing the screen altogether, but they're all grainy like that, aren't they? Especially the 3k/4k ones.

Had there been a display I could be completely happy with I'd jump on the opportunity as soon as possible...

Gotcha, thanks. So basically as long as the consumer Rift doesn't outright block Optimus configurations it should at least work but for a decent experience gotta get a Batman then.

 

At least the external output on mDP works with 120/144Hz monitors. I'm not too big on Rift and other similar displays yet. Too early and I prefer something more advanced before jumping in.

@Artemiy : As for the issue on screens. I don't think anything glossy has this issue at 1080p.

 

The matte LG FHD panel doesn't either.

It's a nice bonus to lessen the blow coming from the Sharp panel.

My major gripe with the screen is now the backlight bleed. This has not been solved.

@Robbo - clocks are solid as a rock but temps crept up to 87°C with the 20% overclock & overvolt in The Witcher 3. Reducing it down to 15% overclock with stock voltage cooled it down to a peak of 80°C. So even though it looks as though those clocks and voltages are 100% stable, I'm going to have to stay with stock voltages for games for temperature reasons. P651SG has damn fine cooling but clearly wasn't designed for prolonged overvolting.

 

You have proponents on both sides.

I've had both and can't really say one is better than the other. Others say the Killer is a bit better/faster for WIFI, but has bluetooth issues. You also hear a lot of complaints about the Killer software suite.

 

Killer 1525 did have Bluetooth issues initially but these were resolved in an EC update from Clevo. I haven't had experience with the Intel 7265, only its predecessor the 7260.

Scan replied to my email. They're looking into why the display panel (LG) was not the one I was told would be included (AUO). Not sure where this could lead but I am glad they are looking into it.

 

I think I slightly prefer the Intel.

 

if you have the killer card then try to install the qualcomm generic driver rather than the killer ones because they are much stable, but on the other hand you might as well just get intel 7265 if that's the case. both has equal sorts of problems here and there, and to me it's just not worth the $20 to get the "gamer feel"

 

I've been running Windows 10 technical preview on my np8652 since I got it. Hotkey driver and creative sound suite all work properly. Airplane mode used to work, then after new builds it would be broken until I reinstalled it. Then it started having issues where every other time I tried to use it I would get a BSOD, hopefully that's just a TP issue.

 

Good to know that Clevo drivers are compatible with 10. I couldn't stand not having the Creative Soundblaster software installed on this laptop.

 

What does it do anyway ? I couldn't feel what it changed to the sound, so after a few tries I uninstalled it for good

 

Scan have replied saying that they will try to rectify their display swap error (I may be getting an AUO panel after all!)

The guy asked how I figured it was the wrong panel - hope I won't get in trouble warranty-wise for taking a quick peek at the back of the LCD panel! I haven't damaged anything.

It improves the sound quality and volume of the in-built speakers massively when configured correctly.

Not a concern if you use external speakers all the time, but my Bluetooth speaker sits the opposite side of my room and sometimes I just can't be bothered to keep relocating it when I want to watch a simple YouTube video for example!

 

Yeah X-Fi MB3 is useless for the built-in speakers. It increases max volume but adds noise, clipping and distortion. Had the same problem with Dolby Home Theater V4 in my old Lenovo Y500. Laptop speakers work best as-is, any additional software processing just makes them sound worse.

Ironically it works much better with headphones. The SBX virtual surround is good for games (increases competitive advantage) and movies.

 

can't you just tell him that you checked via software? HWinfo, AIDA64 and numerous apps will tell you what the lcd panel is, and once you know what the panel is you can just look it up to find out the connector for it.
and in fact, usually finding the model number on the LCD itself is way more confusing than just software checking...so there's no need for you to tell him anyways

but for most people all they cared is loudness, which is reasonable. a volume of 20 with SBX is equivalent to 50 without SBX, so for average people SBX is fine to use, just don't expect anything to get better other than loudness

 

Yeah well most ppl are dumb, look up the loudness war. That's pretty much what the software does, equalization and dynamic range compression to make the laptops speakers sound louder and crappier. Ppl are so desensitized by all the Top 40 garbage they think more louder all the time sounds better.

 

well this is why beats can make any money at all. and laptop speakers aside the onboard realtek DACs are also mediocre so... actually I wonder why you said SBX works better for headphones, it's the same kind of signal compression so wouldn't it screw up regardless?

 

Well the headphones will have a different frequency response so will react differently to the speakers and each will have different adjustments for that.

 

Beats made mad money because it jumped on the crest of the iPod revolution and Apple earbuds sucked. Also marketing and celebrity endorsement helped a ton.

Onboard sound is mostly fine nowadays, typical problems are EMI and underpowered amps. I don't hear hiss through the headphone out unless I'm using sensitive IEMs with Windows volume at borderline dangerous levels. I don't have power-hungry headphones either.

SBX works better with headphones because good headphones can be driven to a higher max volume than those tiny laptop speakers (whose drivers are way smaller than typical 50mm+ drivers in headphones) without breaking. A little dynamic range compression can actually improve sound for competitive gaming because along with a little EQ (this is what SBX Scout Mode does, it raises the mids) it brings subtle cues like footsteps, reloading, grenade pins being pulled, etc. more forward into the mix. Along with virtual surround it's great for soundwhoring in games that don't have good sound to begin with. For those that do have great sound, like Battlefield series and most Source Engine games, SBX should be turned off and in-game should be set to headphone mode. SBX also needs to be turned off for music.

 

Too late! Didn't think of that. Oh well. I don't see why it should affect warranty if I didn't damage anything. I mean, everyone always advocates re-pasting and that's more involved than taking a quick gander at the screen panel.

 

Actually taking the panel out is not normally covered under warranty as is usually more involved.

 

I didn't swap the panel to a different one. Just had a look at it. I didn't damage anything in the process. Oh no, what have I done?

EDIT: HWInfo confirms it is LG LP156WF4-SLB5 which is significantly worse than the AUO panel in terms of contrast ratio, viewing angles and colour gamut:

http://www.panelook.com/LP156WF4-SLB5_LG Display_15.6_LCM_overview_18872.html

http://www.panelook.com/B156HAN01.2_AUO_15.6_LCM_overview_19049.html

Have I just given Scan an excuse to fob off this legitimate complaint?

 

Just updated Hotkey and airplane mode. Airplane mode works without BSODs. Hotkey won't let me change text/font size. Besides that, everything works perfectly on the latest Windows 10 build.

 

Turns out Scan do have stock of the matte Sharp 4K display and not the glossy. If I had known this I would have gone for that instead.

The knowledge that the LG panel has only 400:1 contrast ratio vs 700:1 of AUO is killing me.

 

Hey guys, so I recently bought a Eurocom M5 Pro / Clevo P650SG from Eurocom, and I've been having some minor annoyances with the screen. The screen that came was the stock one with 1920x1080 FHD IPS LCD screen. I noticed that the colors are slightly yellow and warm (Although I read somewhere that this is how all LCD screens are and that they could be software calibrated, correct me if I'm wrong).

Also, I went to this site to test my screen: http://jasonfarrell.com/misc/deadpixeltest.php and when I tested the black color in a dark room, I saw very noticeable backlight bleeding and clouding around the edges.

http://i.imgur.com/X7Z9nri.jpg

I was wondering whether this was normal and whether I should get my screen replaced? If so, do I send the laptop back and have them replace it or are they going to send me a screen and I have to switch it myself? As you may tell, I have not much experience buying new laptops so I wanted some guidance and opinion from everybody.

Thank you.

 

Backlight bleeding is normal for all IPS screens. If you do not see it during normal use and you're only seeing it in dark rooms and the screen brightness on high I would not worry about it.

Calibrating the screen could fix your yellow/warm issues too. You can also try different color profiles under the Color Management option built into Windows.

 

Thanks Hutsady. I used the Windows 8.1 calibration tool and calibrated my display screen to the correct colors. Now another problem appears. Whenever I open up a game to run in fullscreen, it doesn't listen to my calibration and would just use the pre-calibrated colors causing my game to look yellowish/warm again. But if I run that game in windowed mode, the color calibration stays. Is there a fix to this or am I stuck with playing games in windowed mode?

EDIT: Nvm, found a solution.

 

Where did you find an updated Airplane mode driver? The latest on Clevos site is from 2014.

The latest Hotkey driver is dated: June 30th.

 

If you really want accurate colours, buy a hardware calibrator. I use a Syper4Express, wasn't too expensive, and solves most of the colour issues.

 

Spyder4Pro here, works great at making my fairly sh*tty screen look half decent - amazing that greys are actually grey now & not light blue!!!

 

Scan haven't replied yet.

They said they'd be able to rectify the AUO/LG mixup but they're taking their sweet time with these emails. Obviously I'm not high on their priority list. Ehhh :/

 

Sorry, I only actually updated my Hotkey software. I reinstalled Airplane mode to the original version which now works on the latest build without causing an instant BSOD.

 

well, even if they do offer to fix it, you do realize you still have to send your machine in for a mobo exchange right? this thing is gonna take a long time regardless which is what I dislike about repairing process nowadays, the repair takes like 5 days, the shipping to and back takes another 5 days, now two weeks are gone. at least with PCs you can ship components back for repairing sometimes, with smartphones and tablets the wait time becomes a true nuisance

 

Yep, but there is no other way.

Apparently their 970M motherboards have the AUO and the 980M have the LG (seems the wrong way round to me). That was what a rep said on their forums. So it may be more complicated than a mobo swap, which is why they're stalling. I don't know for sure, just guessing.

I don't want to let this opportunity slip though. I bought it under the impression that I'd be getting an AUO display. To be given a display with a significantly lower color gamut and nearly half the contrast ratio is very irritating to say the least.

 

It does not overclock better because of asic quality, it just leaks less current and requires lower voltage for same overclock, but at the same time more leakage (lower asic) means that it can take higher voltages (because it leaks) so in the end that number means nothing.

 

higher ASIC means MORE leakage, lower voltage, lower ASIC means more LESS leakage, higher voltage

 

This. I explained this to @Robbo99999 over PM in the past. Voltage is determined based on ASIC/leakage so all samples of a given GPU stay within a narrow TDP range.

People in forums always try to explain it one way or the other (usually higher ASIC = higher OC) but ASIC quality doesn't mean anything as far as overclockability is concerned.

 

hey octi, can you explain why GPU boosts 2.0 relies on ASIC tho? it just doesn't make any sense to me why they would clock up more only on the higher ASIC ones

 

Hey, so I want to pull the trigger on the Sager NP8652-S from Xotic this monday as that is the day the IPS screens are supposed to be in stock and I have a couple of questions for you guys.

1 - I won't be buying OS as I have W7 disc at home. Do I need to flash some sort of drivers/BIOS or something for the W7 or will this sort itself out normally as I will boot the OS? My reasoning being that certain new notebooks have W8 drivers instead of W7.

2 - What about the Prema custom BIOS? What are the advantages of it over the stock one? How does one even flash BIOS? Never did that before.

3 - This is going to be my first SSD powered PC, is there anything I need to know? I remember reading about changing paths for default Windows /Download folders as such as you probably don't want your SSD to become littered with all sorts of files you download. Is there some sort of complex guide that will help me with these things?

4 - A lot of you guys are talking about calibrating your displays right after you get your notebooks. Is this common? Should I do it as well? Is there a significant difference? What are some free software tools that will help me with this?

Thanks in advance!

 

Where did you read that? GPU Boost 2.0 is based on TDP and temperature.

 

Not unless you are going to the extremes no (talking liquid nitrogen).

 

1. No OS on there, so no drivers. When you install Win 7, then install the appropriate drivers from the driver's disk the reseller may/may not include. Or source them from HERE. The "Model" with all the drivers is P65xSE, even if your model is P65xSG). I don't think order of driver installation is critical (maybe outside of installing the "Chipset" driver first) but the order from the manual says you should install drivers in this order: Chipset, Intel VGA (get latest from intel.com), Nvidia VGA (latest from nvidia.com), LAN, cardreader, touchpad, hotkey, airplane, Intel MEI, appropriate WLAN, BT, IRST, Sound Blaster (SBX), Fingerprint.

2. People that flash Prema BIOS typically do so to allow fuller control of their notebooks (ex. full range of OC-ability, etc.). I'd say don't worry about the Prema BIOS if you don't know what it's useful for. Unless you have certain issues, even flashing stock BIOS/EC is not necessary as, unlike OEM drivers, you'll have the latest pre-loaded without OS.

3. For clean Win 7 installations, this guide is helpful. Pick and choose "optimizations" as appropriate for you.

4. I think Xoticpc still ships the LG IPS with this system, which is generally well-received. So unless you notice experience-breaking, discoloration issues when you receive it, don't worry. Enjoy!

 

Anyone else notice that black colours go off colour very quickly when you tilt the screen just slightly with the LG panel? Only black - not any other colour. It goes sort of blue-ish/purple-y.

Does the same happen with the AUO panel? Is it just the matte cover or a specific flaw of the LG panel?

 

Hum doesn't happen on my AUO, maybe my eyes aren't as sharp as yours. It happens only when tilting?

 

Just vertical tilting? What about side to side?

 

Both, but especially both combined.

I thought this kind of thing should be a TN trait.

 

It can depend on the exact technology of the panel. It may be the other angles are not so good at blocking all light from the back light.