New M6500 Discussion Thread

That's pretty much it on the head, except that there are lots of points in between that the processor sets itself to as far as freq multiplier instead of just the slowest and fastest possible. I was actually pretty suprised at how dynamic the multiplier was at any given point depending on what you're running.

And yeah, the i7s are only going to give the max boost to a single core at any given point as you said.

 

Spill-

OK, so how can anybody know if they are getting throttling?

Seems to me that if you would need to run a single core application full out for a while and see if you maintain 2.8 (on a 720qm).

Then, run a fully loaded 4 core/8 thread application for a while and see if you maintain 1.6.

Any other test seems very flawed since in between those two points, only Intel knows what the speed should be.

SteveG

PS - I am curious about this because I moved from a Studio 17 to the M6500 to avoid all the hassles they seemed to be having with throttling.

Now, I am thinking I wasted alot of time researching this and alot of money going to the M6500 based on testing that is really inconclusive.

 

No, the Turbo Boost steps are well defined. Have a look at this table:
List of Intel Core i7 microprocessors - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The default multiplier of the 720QM is 12x which results in ~1600 MHz if multiplied with 133MHz. ~2800MHz is 21x 133, which is the maximum you can get. In between you have multipliers of 13x and 18x resulting if frequencies of 1730MHz respectively ~2400MHz.

So the easiest way to tell the Turbo Boost behavior is not to watch the frequency but the multiplier.

 

Debguy-

This is very interesting, but still...couldn't I see a multiplier of 12x (which seems like I am not being throttled) but have only 2 cores active, so I should be at 18x... then in fact I am being throttled?

Regards,
SteveG

PS- It doesn't matter to me now, since I already own an M6500, but I am starting to feel I could have gotten by with a $1500 machine with a similar processor and not worried about throttling.

 

now come on.....that's just not correct thinking....the throttling is not a design flaw......it's built to do that....I just can't get into another throttling thread...lol

 

Just because fan comes on does not means it's throttling. I have read all threads before I got my M6500 Covet 920XM. I like the fan coming early to cool the system. CPUz show me the clock multiplier is x15 when I run CPU app that uses all 8 threads. when I use one or two thread, I see CPU multiplier go upto x24. During the test, I heard fan running. Based on my experience, fan and throttling are two separate event on M6500. BTW, I am glad that my system is running cool.

 

I have been running XP64 and Fedora 64 on my M6400. I just put Win7-64 on it and I am getting the following WEI Scores:

Processor: 7.2
Memory: 7.2
Graphics: 6.6
Gaming Graphics: 6.6
Primary Hard Disk: 7.6

The M6400 has 12GB Ram, a Crucial SSD and a Corsair SSD.

Crucial C300 SATA600 256GB SSD: 255MB/s read (SandraSoft Lite)
Corsair P256 SATA300 256GB SSD: 222MB/s read (SandraSoft Lite)

From reading the WEI benchmarks here, I do not see that the M6500 is that much faster (except for the higher end graphics card which I do not need).

With the SATA300 controllers, neither laptop can top out the SATA600 SSDs.

With what I have been able to glean, I do not see that the M6500 would give much faster compile times than what I am already getting. The only difference might be the faster 1600 ram jump.

Anyone know if Dell has a laptop with SATA3(600), eSATA3(600) and USB3 in the works (or adding it to the M6500) to remove some of the bottlenecks ?

Thanks,
Tim

 

You might want to test that memory because I get a 7.5 on the memory with only 8 gigs of Dell Ram (2 gig per dim).

 

Do you recommend any specific memory tests ?

What speed memory are you using on my M6500 (DDR3-1600) ?

My M6400 is using the DDR3-1066 memory.

Also, does WEI report based on speed or size or both ?

Sandra Soft indicates:
5.55GB/s Aggregate Memory Performance.
88ns Memory Latency

Thanks,
Tim

 

TheZoid-

Isn't throttling a safety device? I don't think its "built" to throttle.

If you have a machine that has sufficient cooling and proper voltage/current, throttling should not occur... correct?

I do not consider throttling when four cores are being used and a 720 is running at 1.6...that is what its designed to do. Its when 4 cores are used and the 720 is slowed to 1.2 due to something else.

Anyway, I am not starting a throttling thread... Just want to understand what you may already know (and maybe feel good about my purchase? ).

Regards,
SteveG