R3 CPU behavior

I am extremely tempted to upgrade to an R3 for the stronger GPU and far superior battery life over my R3. However the one thing that really holds me back on my R2 is CPU performance. A am worried about not being able to overclock the R3 cpu and more importantly not being able to run TS. When i run prime95 on my R2 my cpu will only get 1.4-1.5ghz but will run at 2.1-2.2 were it should be with TS. Can any R3 owners tell me what kind of speeds you get under load with your R3?

I am also interested on other peoples opinions on the R3 getting better CPU options in the future(like the review sample ones). Or if any kind of TS or pin modding will be possible.

BTW i am running 640um@150mhz+TS and 170mhz while gaming.

Thanks

 

ThrottleStop can monitor the Sandy Bridge CPUs that are used in the R3 but Intel and Dell have locked them so you can't adjust the TDP/TDC higher like you can do with the R2.

Hopefully a new R3 owner can run ThrottleStop and turn on the Log File option and then upload a log file while gaming to MediaFire or anywhere convenient so we can see what speed they are running at while gaming. No one has sent me any data yet.

When both cores are active, a Core i7-2617M is designed to turbo boost up to 2300 MHz. If you are running Prime95 I'm pretty sure that there will be some turbo throttling over time when the CPU automatically switches to the lower TDP limit but I don't think the throttling will be anywhere near as severe as it was in the R2 models.

When gaming, I don't see any significant CPU advantage compared to your 640UM running at 170 MHz.

 

You sure about the 2.3ghz?

I thought 2617m is 1.5ghz up to 2.6ghz turbo boost?

 

2.6 GHz is when 1 core is active and 2.3 GHz is when both cores are active. That is the maximum speed.

Games that aren't well threaded and aren't working the CPU too hard might average 2.3 GHz to 2.4 GHz. Games that are working both cores and triggering some turbo throttling might only average 2.0 GHz to 2.3 GHz. A ThrottleStop log file will show this.

 

Thanks for the input unclewebb. My biggest fear is lower cpu performance on the R3. I might just have to invest in an R3 and if it doesn't perform send it back. I could make some nice side by side bench videos before i sell the R2 which i think alot of people would find usefull.

 

I had an r2 and i7 the best I could get is 150mhz plus what ever turbo would boost it up to. I took my 256gb ssd out of my r2 placed in my r3 loaded some drivers and removed some old devices and immediately my game play was smother and much more enjoyable. With no overclocking. My r2 had both CPU and gpu over clocked and I would have choppy moments on some games. R3 runs great and I am not disappointed with the swap.

 

Which games? My biggest issue with the R2 is areas in wow with alot of people. Like a main city at peak hours but more importantly large battles were a drop to 10-15fps is a big problem.