ULV CPU performance

Hey guys,

i'm considering buying an M11x but I haven't taken the plunge yet because i'm worried i'll be disappointed in the performance of the low voltage CPUs.

Do any M11x owners do any CPU intensive tasks like video encoding, video editing, etc? How does the i5/i7 CPU handle these tasks?

Thanks for any info.

 

For transcoding, my sig rig isn't as fast as my i7 930/HD5870 desktop, not by a long shot. I only use handbrake and Windows Movie Maker Live, however...

However, with ThrottleStop and overclocking, you can achieve a neat ~3GHz across both cores (more if just a single core is loaded), on the i5/i7 mobile variants.

 

Really? The i7 stock clock is around 1.2GHz.. that's a 1.8GHz overclock.. I think that'd melt it

 

i am hitting 2.8-3.0 at temps that can play an 1 hour and 15 minute game no prob.

 

ULV CPU have insane Turbo Boost multi bumps (+5/+8 on the i7 640UM vs +1/+1/+1/+2 on the i7 950). Combined with FSB overclocking on the m11xr2, a 1.8GHz OC is nowhere outside of the realm of "easily attainable" (with ThrottleStop, a nice program developed and mantained by UncleWebb of NBR ).

 

Wow.. impressive. That's good to know.

So you think the M11x with an overclocked i7 would be a decent machine for a bit of light video editing?

 

*light* yes. I edit and upload all of my (meager collection of 2) HD 1080p youtube videos from my m11x, both to do with SC2. Only using handbrake and Windows Movie Maker from a Sony FHD handycam recording around 16mbps, however.... I've also tried my hand at commentating my Portal runthough (not uploaded, yet).

 

Hmm. Yeah I have a camera that shoots 1080p video at around 24mbps. I'm just hoping the M11x can cope with it.

 

Wow, I did not know throttle stop helped the i7 OC that much! I just thought it made them stay at the optimum turbo boost! I'll have to go back and re read the thread!

 

TS doesn't affect the clock, only the performance at that frequency.

 

So i'm seeing people getting 166mhz FSB what is the max multi on the i7?

Just been looking at the OC thread and the most I saw someone get (think it was you roxxor) was around 2.8Ghz.

 

i personally see the processor running at 2.8 very frequently. with a min of 2.4

 

So the multi on the i7 is around 17max?

They are very different from the E8400 and Q9650 that i've had OCing experiance with in the past with 445fsb and x9 multi's.

 

I'm using my U7300 at 1.73ghz to edit 1080p video using Premiere CS5, it runs it really nice! It can take a little while to encode though....

 

Ya I haven't observed anything higher than 17x.

 

Ok I edit videos on Sony Vegas Pro 10 (trial version)
It is a very powerful software and can really lag your computer on even some more simple videos.
Recording at 720p from HD PVR it works fine for editing and rendering. If you are using more basic software then it will easily run it.

 

For the Core i7-640UM, the maximum multiplier when both cores are active is 14 and the maximum when one core is active is 17. If you have a good CPU and some good memory and some luck, you might be able to increase the BCLK from the 133 MHz default up to 167 MHz.

14 x 167 = 2338 MHz
17 x 167 = 2839 MHz

If you are doing some video work then both cores will be active and you're going to be running with 4 threads at a max of 2.3GHz. These little UM chips are not powerhouses but they are certainly usable. For the heavy encoding jobs I guess you should depend on your home computer or if you need to be mobile then you'll have to step up to the M15x with a Core i7 quad core.

Intel has released the 660UM and 680UM so maybe Dell will be offering those as options for the M17x R2 in the near future.