Need advise for tdp of 920xm

hi guys ,im running a 5870m on my M15X
just wondering,ppl said that after unlocking the 920xm's tdp to 90W
can beat the 2920XM
now my concern is...as the M15X got a 150W limit
so how can the laptop handling a 90w tdp cpu with only 60 left for the display card and ssd and dvd drive?
i would reli want sum advise from u experts,ty
PS: if it cant handle 90w,how high can i go for my machine?
PPS:i may be will upgrade my 5870m to 6970m,is it still able to unlock its tdp if running a 6970m?

 

hi and welcome to the forums elfegolas.
yup you pretty much hit the nail head, using top end hardware in the m15x doesn't leave much room to maneuver.
lucky the hardware in the m15x seems pretty darn good and USUALLY can handle more than 150w.

having said that, there's always increased risk of failure when overclocking. A 90/90 TPL is pretty darn crazy for everyday use, perhaps for a superpi bench or something?
i know some hardcore overclockers put their laptops next to AC units, use 240w psu's, install custom streamline windows and disable every convenient service. they then run benchmarks with a system at clock settings that are just stable enough for a complete run and screenshot. Viewers then come along and expect to get same results with nothing more than a few clicks of a button. hate to say it, but it doesn't usually work that way.

before even considering to overclock, consider the fact that you increase the chance to cause a failure. the greater the overclock, the greater the risk. increase settings in increments and do benches/tests inbetween each increment. hardware will USUALLY show signs of failure before resulting in a complete disaster (not always).

for reference, i use tdp/tdc values of 72/72 and TRL of 24x on all cores.
this is what i use for everyday use, i have benched with higher settings but was lucky enough to even get a screencap, let alone run the system at that for any extended period of time.

oh, i also went from 5870m to 6970m and was unstable at first, however i found out my PSU was dying. i now run it at stock clocks and undervolted (1v) core, with the cpu settings i mentioned above and working perfectly.

stressing the m15x over 150w for an extended period of use is kind of asking for trouble, ok for benchies (i've peaked at 180w before my psu adapter died on me ... had to be replaced so now i have a 240w m17x psu, i just got it today so i havn't had the oppertunity to do further tests)

hope this helps you understand the risks before overclocking
if the above slab of text is too long to read just read this part... remember to overclock in small increments rather than using some crazy values you saw another person use... for all you know they were cooling their laptop with a modified vapochill unit (now this i would like to see on the m15x lol)

 

* The 920xm with TDP raised to 90W is potentially a beast if the multipliers are raised to 25-26x +/- to take advantage of the increased available power, but it cannot beat a SB 2920xm because the high temps which accompany operations at that level under load will cause the 920xm to throttle quickly without auxiliary cooling or very low ambient temps. The 2920 can also operate at higher clocks (for limited periods) than the 920xm can reach under any practical circumstances.

* The M15x is not actually limited to 150W; various reports indicate that (at least some) PSU's can provide up to 175-180W to meet operating needs; nevertheless, power (and its brother, heat) is the primary limiting factor. The fact is there's often not enough power to drive the high performance components to their maximum levels at the same time. The saving grace is that the CPU and GPU rarely operate at the extremes simultaneously in real world applications, even rarely in most benchmark apps. But power management and balancing becomes crucial to extracting the maximum performance from the rig. The 6970M operates very nicely with the 920/940xm's if both are at stock settings, but heavily overclocking either or both provides a textbook illustration of practical power arbitration. Still, the performance available is astounding for a single card notebook.

You could write a book on this stuff.

 

thank you for all the reply,it reli help out
one more question for xero,so it can run stable if the 6970m is at stock speed,and the cpu is about 72/72 and trl 24x? and will this be heavy if i wanna keep the rig's life for about 3yrs?
as the 150W issue,i heard that is not about the PSU UNIT but the mother board limits it, coz i saw those benchies said that even they plugged a m17X's PSU on it,the mother board can only draw maximum of 150W(well as rev said,varies,may up to 180)

so for the health of my rig, is 72/72 safe for it?

 

nah it's not heavy at all. the temps are manageable with a good thermal paste application and only require cleaning the fans from dust every 3 - 5 weeks.

in my case the psu was tripping the overload which would cause the laptop to crash. i knew this because the led on the psu cable would turn off and require me to unplug and replug the adapter from the wall socket.

i got the 240w because the 150w was getting really hot since it was near max capacity a lot of the time. the 240w doesn't even break a sweat and stays rather cool. when the laptop draws more power than 150 watts (happens sometimes) the 240w says "no problem", my 150w would just crap out.

rev you already have an m17x with 6990m
so jealous of u guys

 

@xeroxide: 72/72 is a bit low for sustained 24x on all cores, though it's still better than the standard TDP. In my experience 90W TDP is no problem for daily use, even with a 25x multi, at least as long as you don't have a 6970m in the system.

@The Rev: Excellent post, you should write that book You ordered a M17x? Why not going for a 2920xm ES?

 

oh?
i've done video encoding with 72/72 and it seemed to stay on 24 according to throttlestop logs.

i set the encode to multi threaded so the cpu is used 100% the entire time, and up the TDP/TDC in real time till it stays on 24 multi (default of 62/62 would cop out at around 21-22 multi with 4 cores active). i sort of assumed any extra would be wasted as heat since it's reaching the TRL i've set.

 

Oh, ok, then everything's fine! It always depends on how the CPU gets used, e.g. if the FPUs get used very intensive, the power draw can be different to when it doesn't get used that much.

 

@xeroxide -- You are blessed with a very efficient 920xm. Most 920xm's I've owned or seen take about 80-82W to support 24x across the board under load (assuming the accuracy of HWiNFO32's reports of CPU Core Power). Should give you powerful headroom.

@svl7 -- Yep, got bored, needed another toy. The 2920xm ES/QS is still selling at around $800. The thing is, you can't really do anything with a 2920xm in the R3; all you end up with is 1 additional bin (3.5GHz v. 3.4GHz max-boost). If and when the BIOS gets revised or (maybe) unlocked to support extreme o/c'ing similar to the M18x, then I will no doubt be compelled to buy one. In the meantime, it's hard to justify, and I'm a very easy sell (as the 2820 would indicate).

 

Ok, this will give Dane some competition I completely forgot that the M17x r3 BIOS is locked... though there are "kind of 2920xm" ES CPUs on ebay for about $300 which are unlocked, Inap had one for a while and now Aikimox has one running in his M18x and it seems to overclock great, but without an unlocked BIOS it's not really useful, that's right...
You probably used the 25% off which was posted here a while ago?

@xeroxide: What are your multis doing when you run a 32M wprime on 8 threads with your TS settings?

 

Couldn't ever collar the alleged 25%-off deal, but got a very similar discount with a little help from my friends. Got it for a little over $2,300 (pre-tax), including 3 year Advanced Care warranty. Pretty well loaded, except for wireless HD.

 

Nice deal imo, wish if I could get such a system for this price over here, I'd probably sell my M15x and jump on the train as well. But to be hones I'm still very happy with my system, maybe I'll get something new next year, with the new GPU generation.

 

but then if i upgrade it into a 6970m,then how high can i set?btw
i tot the 5870m is drawing like 50-60w on loading,and u said 90w for 920xm is not a problem,but these 2 things is almost running at 150W and the ssd didnt even counted yet,you sure it can handle it? coz i gotta stick with this rig for 3yrs

 

Well, it depends on the application, some games are much more GPU intense than others, in the 6970m thread (link in my sig) I've written down some kill-o-watt readings while playing, in some games you'll have quite some headroom while others won't allow pushing the CPU too hard. It's kind of a balancing act sometimes.

 

Remember that setting the TDP to 90W (or whatever) doesn't do anything by itself. Think of TDP as a governor, which limits the power and therefore the speed of the CPU. When you increase the TDP you increase the CPU's power allowance, but whether that extra power is used is entirely dependent on the CPU, i.e., the multiplier settings and the particular load. The TDP setting does not reserve power for the CPU; it just changes the restriction on its use. Any power not used by the CPU is available to other components. The multipliers are the key determinant of the CPU power use, as opposed to potential, not the TDP. I often leave TDP at 90W as a matter of convenience (or laziness) even when running the CPU at stock settings because it just doesn't matter. The 920xm will use a maximum of 55-58W under full load with stock multipliers. Then, if I later want to raise multipliers to 24x or 25x or 27-26-22-22, I don't need to change TDP. At this moment, I'm on 90W TDP, but because multipliers are stock, I can overclock the 6970M pretty much to its limits. There's still plenty of room to play, you just can't max out the 920xm and the 6970M at the same time; there's not enough power to support both.

 

Seriously you need to get your name changed to The Reverend. Your words of wisdom are of no equal. Right now, I have brought my CPU TDP/TRL right down to stock. Finished my project and I don't need the power any more. Also using the 6970m at 715/900 (6990m speeds) and undervolted to 1v. Playing Crysis 2 everything on Ultra, DX11, High res textures. Temps max out at like 76C on the GPU which is amazing.

 

You're very kind, widezu69. Fact is the 920xm/6970M is a thoroughly civilized setup at or near stock clocks. And powerful as Hades. It will be interesting to see whether the same holds true for your 6990M. I suspect very strongly that it will; you just may have less margin for error given the additional power demands of the 6990M, if that proves to be true.

 

Yes, the 6970m + 920xm is a great combo.

I recently upgraded both at once, and the performance nearly blew my socks off. Amazing upgrade over my 260m, doubled frame rates in most games. I know a lot of people don't think that the 920xm makes much difference, but I definitely saw a decrease in load times for my games, particularly with a slight overclock.

Rev, my M15x is pretty much the same as yours now, same SSD etc. Just don't have the 8gb ram.. that's the next upgrade..

 

Congratulations and welcome to the world of M15x Extreme. I sure love mine. The memory is the least important, but it's so cheap it's hard not to upgrade, and it lets you safely disable the pagefile for the benefit of the SSD.

 

oh? both hwinfo32 and throttlestop report max multi.
intresting the results should vary so much.
i tried a little experiment and did a real world encode as i normally do, ran the thing twice, same video same settings.
once at 72w and the other at 90w tdp/tdc. the result was practifcally just seconds apart (considering the entire encode took well over an hr i'd say it's close enough)

so.... next upgrade to create the ultimate m15x.... killer nic anyone?
lol

 

I'm going for the ultimate M15x including a custom paint job that inap is kindly doing for me. It will potentially look like this:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/att...2388-stripping-paint-m15x-chassis-capture.jpg
I'm also potentially getting a M17x R3 so killer 1103 is going in that one and 1102 is going in the M15x.

Edit: I take back what I said about the undervolt. Giving me artefacts all over the place. Flashed back to default with 6990m clocks.

 

what? no charging bull logo?
where's the charging bull log widezu69?

shame about the undervolt, perhaps we can swap... yes?
but yeah i've seen inap's work before, it'll look fantastic.

 

thank you very much rev，u r just our moses to lead us to the m15xtreme lol

 

Guys, does anyone know if it's possible to get my hands on a m17x PSU without buying the actual system; and if yes - how to go about it ? The M15x I've got now gets scary hot.

 

DELL Dell - 240 Watt 3 Prong Additional AC Adapter with 6 ft Power Cord : Laptop Accessories | Dell Australia

is the one i got
you may need to check for the correct plug (for your local area)

 

Awesome, found one on our european website. Thanks xeroxide!

P.S. Pricey...

 

sure is, both the psu and battery are
oh be sure to disable the power warning in the bios

 

at 72/72 my multi's are 23.5x... what it went down
had to bump to 74/74 now... am i degrading it perhaps?
only thing i changed since my last test was the vid card, power adapter and new bios.