Power Plan Controversy

Dont think it would cause any stuttering at all. Using the resource monitor you can see the the clock speed is always higher than the actual usage.

 

Not many programs will see frequency adjustments that happens in the order of microseconds, let alone your eyes.

 

I know what you mean but i believe (i hope atleast) that the cpu can do the calculations faster than me and avoids limiting the cpu usage before the change

 

Oh I get what you mean. Well, the problem isn't the CPU calculation part, but more related to the power management aspect. If the software/hardware is not capable of switching fast enough, it won't matter when the CPU finishes you know what I mean? And somebody did mention micro-stutter earlier.

This is why Core i7 will fix it since the integrated PCU will do the job far faster and more elegantly than any current solutions will do.

 

It was me that mentioned the micro stuttering in Cod4 but i think it has to do with the game itself and not with the power plan. Ive tested about 5 games and a 3-4 benchmarks so far since i do game alot and i would prefer to avoid any issues like stuttering. I said to myself after the first hiccup im going to notice in a game im going to instantly change back to full time high performance mode (since 99% of the time i have the laptop plugged in). And so far i didnt have any issues at all.

Programs shouldn't be affected at all since they wont spike the cpu when doing something so the clock will be "fixed" at a certain speed.

The only thing to worry about is the games since cpu usage might vary depending on whats on your screen, physics calculations and so on. The only way (from my point of view of course) to test it, is play a bit with balanced then with high performance and see if you notice any changes. Especially in games you played for a long time since it would be really easy for you to tell the difference based on the game behaviour.

 

Very few programs actually load the CPU at 100% all the time. Only code that can do that consistently are power viruses(a term used for code designed exclusively to enable the CPU to reach maximum power).

Even running a CPU-intensive program the CPU will change its clocks up and down hundreds of times a second.

So I checked out the wake-up times for power states. C6, which is the lowest power state Penryn core CPUs can support, takes 150-200uS to get out of the state. Via advertised their fast-switching P-state saying that "stutter" problems Pentium M CPUs had wouldn't show in their processors since they switch(the Via CPUs) too quick to notice. So maybe the "stutter" is indeed related.

 

If the program is not cpu intensive then i doubt you are going to notice the difference But i dont think that matters that much since as i said a few posts before even double clicking a folder gets my cpu back to 2.8ghz.

So at the end the only thing you have to worry is gaming and stuttering which can only be tested by the users since different hardware might react different and so on. Same goes for games.

Where did you find the info about C6 btw, could only find this:

If C6 is actually "worst" than these then its a bit irrelevant since your computer it never going to be C6 -> gaming.

In other words C6 to C0 stuttering is a bit different from saying C1->C0 should cause stutter as well.

 

I might as well add C6(also known as Deep Power Down), which have been present in mobile Intel processors Penryn and Silverthorne(MID variant of Atom).

C6-Flushes the content in all the caches and saves the CPU state to a small SRAM. At this state, the CPU has only few pins active(14 in Silverthorne I believe).

There's also one between Deeper Sleep and Deep Power Down called Enhanced Deeper Sleep which flushes L2 caches and lower voltage further.

Back to the original topic. Even the most intensive real world programs have times where the CPU can idle to save power for microseconds.

 

Because of this thread I have set all my systems to Balance and not High Performance like they were before. What was I thinking? Do I really want my system running like the old Pentium line?

 

What do you mean ? Did you actually notice any performance differences at all ? Cause i surely didnt

 

what he meant was, always at full speed => always fully heating => always making noise with their fans.

 

Ah, thought, "what was i thinking having it at balanced profile"

 

hahaha can happen to anyone (happened to me often enough )


funny thing is (somehow).

it defaults to balanced, which is the best mode. and most people don't even know how to change. those that do know, should know what the different modes do. so it's quite fun that those who know, how to change to high performance, should know as well, how it's a useless mode anyways.. how ironic.

 

Very true. I looked at my friends' laptops and some had it on Balanced and had no idea about Power plans. I guess in their case, ignorance is bliss since Balanced is the best plan.

But some of my other friends had it set to High Performance because they just saw the little purple dots and figured High Performance was better.

That's why I thought it was important to show people how they really work and get the word out that Balanced is not less performance.
In fact, my computer has been running cooler lately with the same performance.

I'm still looking into how the CPU sleep states work in conjunction with the power plans. But overall, I'm glad that I cleared up some confusion for myself and others regarding power plans.

 

So, does 'Balanced' save more power compared to 'Power Saver'?

 

no. power saver lets all run on minimal. balanced does this as well, but when needed, goes to maximal.

balanced is always > minimal, except when you never do anything with the laptop.

and, again, the details on what the powerplan does exactly is all visibile in the powerplan. and changeable. at least from vista on.

 

hehe, that's, i guess, why high performance got removed in win7 from the visible options.


and about the cpu clocking and all, it's in the powerplan. how the cpu reacts, and what it really does then, is cpu dependent. you can watch how it behaves with cpuz.

 

I'm sold.

Switched to Balanced after a read through it.

Although I would like to see more test's performed.

 

Good choice

I will post some more tests in the future and if anyone else has some test results of their own, feel free to post them.

 

There's a reason all the details of the power plans can be adjusted. The most important (generally) are the CPU power state thersholhds (easy to change).
Just set your plugged-in plan to use from 1 to 100% and you're done.

I run my own power plans.

 

For those of you that have made the switch from High Performance to Balanced, have you noticed any difference, for better or for worse?

 

Better, on both my desktop and laptop.

 

unnoticeable but it feels good

 

That's good to hear. Even if the performance is the same, you'll still be saving power. I've noticed that my fan has been a lot less active lately.

I just want to make sure that we're still getting full performance and so far, it seems that everyone is.

 

This is really interesting and useful.
I did not have a single idea about that. I will definitely use balanced mode.
Thanks for this...

 

Power management settings are too basic and can be changed easily. I use a mix of balanced + High Performance.

 

I think I tweaked my Power Plans, so this might not work for me. Anyway I'm planning to do loads of tests once my laptop arrives, and I think this thing's plausible to..but hey--so the High Performance power plan nullifies SpeedStep that Intel boasts in their processors?

EDIT: IIRC that's not what RMClock reports.. When I use my laptop at home I keep it plugged in and in HiPerf mode, and it shows that the multipliers work.. BTW RMClock plots the Multiplier activity in graphs...depending on the VID and FID, so you'd see at which multiplier your CPU is working at. Even RivaTuner can do it.

 

That is true...I just wanted to show that High Performance isn't necessarily the best for people that are only choosing between the default power plans.

Looking forward to the test results.

 

On Windows 7, the standard power plans are now "Balanced" and "Power Saver." "High Performance" is now hidden by default.

I assume the same rules apply to it as it did in Vista, in that Balanced is actually the same amount of performance, with the added benefit of using less power.

 

This is pretty helpful. Has anyone tried playing with the manufactures own power setting? i tried using Asus's and it allowed me to change screen brightness, CPU speed, graphics setting and a bunch of other things.

thanks

 

Since I updated to Windows 7 with a clean install, the manufacturer's power settings are no longer available. But I still believed that Balanced is the best power plan to use anyways.

 

Has or could anyone run a benchmark comparing the power plans in Windows 7?

Thanks!

 

Why do you prefer balanced?

When plugged in it doesnt matter does it?

Ive got it on High Performance all the time... dont tell me thats bad.

 

why should you? you don't run yourself all the time at maximum just because you need to do it sometimes. why should the pc? there is no GAIN. it's useless heat produces, useless additional fan noise.

let the system relax when it's not requiring to run. it's the most intelligent way to handle it. full load while idling? what for? nothing? exactly. in other words, quite stupid waste of resources.

 

Exactly. I agree 100%. That's the main reason I created this thread.

Since it's been proven that Balanced works just as good (if not better) than High Performance, then there's really no advantage to using the High Performance power plan. Balanced takes advantage of the advanced abilities of our processors, etc to keep the computer running as powerful as it needs to and as conservatively as it needs to.

This is a post I made earlier in the thread. It shows how Balanced works to let the processor only work as hard as it needs to.

 

Wow I had no idea. I was using High Performance this entire time.

The thing I don't like about balanced is that it puts the computer to sleep after a while and I like my system running cause I need constant email notifications. But I changed that just now.

By the way, I have my closing lid setting set to hibernate instead of sleep because when the computer is asleep and in my backpack, it tends to wake up as the books press up against it and manage to hit some keys. This makes my laptop boiling hot...so I set it to hibernate and now the only way to turn it back on is through the power button. Can I somehow use the sleep mode and not have to worry about some keys being hit to wake it up?

 

Okay, so using High Performance disables all of the processor sleep states? Interesting enough. I just have BatteryCare switch between High Performance when plugged in, and Power Saver when unplugged.

I have Power Saver set to save power wherever possible, and have the CPU set to 0% min and max in the settings, therefore it seems to only run at 785MHz or something.
High Performance is set to not really save power at all, but I have the setting to run at 0% Min, and 100% Max.

Eitherway, I customize my own plans because I tend to not like my laptop sleeping itself if plugged in, and I'm generally just picky in where I want to save power.

 

yeah, just configure how you like it.

to possibly fix the wakeup issue, try to disable stuff in the device manager. a lot of devices there have the option to wake up your system, and you can configure that. as well as in the bios, sometimes.

but to be 100% sure, use hibernation.

 

Yeah hibernation is exactly what I resorted to.

I tried all the other fixes - looking for an option in the BIOS and disabling the option in the power management tab. I don't have either of these

 

i said device manager.

this:



looks similar in vista/win7. this has to be turned off by all devices to get it to stay quiet.

but for 100% guarantee, only turning it physically off (a.k.a. hibernation) is way to go, indeed.

 

Yeah I know, I don't have that power management tab for the keyboard in device manager properties.

 

but you have it for about any usb port, and other things. just go trough all the devices, look at each. those who CAN wake up your laptop will have that checkbox by default.

 

Has anyone had a chance to run these tests on Windows 7?

 

Update: Edited first post

 

Very useful.

 

That Power Saver one baffles me. If the CPU is throttled to 40% then how is the utilization going above that?

 

Because it's using 100% of the CPU. You can use 100% of the CPU if it's throttled to 1,000mhz or if it's allowed to run at 2,00mhz.

Just because the CPU can only hit a particular speed, doesn't mean you can't utilize those limited capabilities fully.

 

But on balanced the utilization never exceeds the frequency unless that is just a weird coincidence.

 

What's the frequency set at on balanced? I'm assuming it can go all the way to 100% or at least more than 40%... so it doesn't need to utilize the CPU completely in order to get the task done. As opposed to when it's throttled at 40%, it has to run it at 100% utilization to get anything done...

 

I think my balanced is min 5%, max 100%. I guess it gets confusing because of two things on the same graph with the % possibly not being of the same thing. Are both the % of the max the CPU can go at stock, or is the blue the % of max at stock, and green is the percent of the throttled speed. I will have to fool around with it tonight.