***Gigabyte P35X owner's lounge***

I agree. I'll probably go back and read what you did to get it like that and follow what you did

 

Awesome! Seems like -60mV, repaste and prop up did the trick! I knew the laptop could do it.

Edit: Boy do I want it know.
Edit2: you didn't even use max fans!

 

That's all find and dandy everyone just as long as you know when you undervolt you are losing performance.

I tried everything.

Undervolting, 99 on power management, overclocking gpu, it all came down to the same clock speed on the CPU. You can either be forced throttled or you can pretend to be in control and throttle it yourself before hand. Either way the net result is the same. Lower performance.

Anyhow. I would probably have kept ed it too. It's really nice. However something just told me to move on. Idk.

 

I have the CF4 and have been using it as stock in the past few days.
After going with this thread from the beginning I want to provide a user's perspective:

I played BF4 for 4 consecutive hours yesterday, game was maxed in graphics, screen set to 3k, laptop on the table not propped-up.
At some point I checked and there was the expected heat on the back. The fans were pretty loud but did not bother me. I'm sure it was throttling but didn't check.
I felt none of it in the game.
The only thing I did on this laptop is to set my "high performance" power setting to 99 and prevent the CPU from turbo-boosting.

If I checked with benchmarks they would show the throttling but as a user playing an intensive game I felt nothing. The game played great all the time. Not even one second of stutter or anything.

I respect your need to paste, reduce throttling etc. I will probably end up doing it myself because I like to give my laptop maximum breathing space for a longer life.
However, this thread is full of messages with scary graph that, frankly, don't mean anything in real life.

Enjoy your P35X V3's. I am enjoying too.
Dor

 

Not sure you know what undervolting is. No 2 i7-4710hq chips are identical, meaning that some require less voltage than others to run stable at the same clock speed. The manufacturer lets the chip use a certain voltage for a certain clockspeed that will work on all chips. This means that some chips get more voltage than they actually need. So you can run a chip at the same clockspeed with less voltage than stock, =undervolting.

When you undervolt a chip, you run it at the same (clock)speed with less voltage, thus less power and thus less heat, giving the same performance with more thermal headroom.


Edit: This thermal headroom leaves room for higher clocks on the CPU/GPU, effectively improving performance, not worsening it.

 

I see what you're saying about CPU throttling, but I haven't noticed any GPU throttling myself. Where did you notice this happening?
I ask because if you're going for a 970M vs a 980M, that's like a 30% performance drop. Which means that if the 980M isn't throttling, you're going
to have to overclock the 970M by at least 30% to get the same performance you have at stock here (from the GPU anyway). I dunno, maybe the games I play
just aren't as CPU intensive? Never noticed a problem in games. Now that I've stuck a different wifi card in (my old Clevo's wireless N realtek card) I don't have BSODs
and it can find WiFi instantly after waking from hibernate. I'm not trying to persuade you to get a P35X, you've been down that road

 

What card did you put in exactly? No problem for me with the Intel.

@Garbageman: it has been several times people in this thread explain it to you (Robbo9999 spent a long post on it) but undervolting the cpu, or GPU, or anything with transistors is a matter of stability, not performance . Your transistor needs a minimal tension to work properly, and usually the manufacturer (Intel here) set the voltage to have a security ahead, as two chips are never identical. Meaning that you can lower the voltage applied to the transistor under the security value from Intel, to optimize the heat produced at the exact same clock frequency . This is called undervolting.

Over/underclocking is what you did when you changed the multipliers on your third and fourth cores. By putting a lesser value on multiplier, the working frequency of the core is lower, thus you produce less heat, but here indeed you lose performance.

What I did so far is only undervolting, that you did too, that has no negative impact on performance. It makes the cpu run a bit cooler, that can help for the throttling.

 

This is what I was looking for. Most guys here are trying to juice everything from the laptop and get it to run smoothly and perfectly. I play a lot of golf and that's like expecting every golf shot to be perfect, which is not going to happen. My scorecard might say I got a par on the 3rd hole, but for all we know I could have hit three terrible golf shots and then chipped in for par. Point being: nothing is perfect.

$2.6k for a laptop? Heck people spend a lot more than that on cars and try to trick them out to make them run faster and better for racing. They don't all run flawlessly, but they get the job done. Does this laptop do what you want it to do (play demanding games, multitask well, etc)? If so, then why bother about the whole overclocking, undervolting, and performance optimization when you are squeezing out maybe a 5-10% increase at the cost of BSoD? I'm not huge into tech, but from a newbie it seems like you guys are focusing on the minutia when it does the main things really well.

Not bashing anyone at all, I've learned a lot from this thread and the forum overall, just trying to see why some are happy with their stock laptop whereas others are trying to trick it out as much as possible and returning it because they're disappointed.

 

Yeah my Intel worked great (nice speeds etc) until I woke up from hibernate. Then it'd either not be able to find a signal until I manually disabled/re-enabled the adapter or it'd cause a BSOD.
It may well have been a driver problem but it happened way too often for my liking. I've only had the Realtek in for a few hours now so I don't want to declare the problem fixed, but it's an RTL8723AE
WiFi / BT combo card for those keeping score. WiFi and BT working fine.

 

That's what I'm saying too. I haven't undervolted, re-pasted, done anything really and I haven't noticed any throttling in my games. The only time I noticed throttling is
when I opened up XTU and it said it was throttling.

I'm glad to see at least one other person is keeping their P35X V3

 

Nope. I have tested it. Undervolt lowers your cpu clock or maybe not the clock but the turbo. It definitely effects total speed output. I have seen it myself with XTU.

If you turn turbo off you lose performance

If you undervolt you loose performance

If you turn vsync on you loose performance

I have spent hours going back and forth with the settings and saw the cpu drop to 2.9 GHZ in either scenario.

I went back to default and I would see 3.3 GHZ being throttled and then I would slowly undervolt and I would see my cpu GHZ drop.

Guys ...

It's okay. Your chemicals are kicking in and you are in love but when the honeymoon period is over you will realize. Justify however you want. Not a big deal to me.

I am just saying it's a fantastic laptop. BUT they don't make 3800 dollar laptops with MUCH better cooling for no reason. It's because there are hardcore gamers out there that want MAX UNALTERED PERFORMANCE.

sure. This is a niche laptop. Slim nice and powerful. Just not the laptop for me.

Not trying to be rude. But just stating the facts that I experienced before I returned it to help other people.

 

What laptop costs $3,800? That's a ton of money for something that'll have to be replaced in four years or so. And yea, the more money you pay the more you will get in return so it makes sense that the more expensive one will cool better, but the trade off is this one is cheaper by a good bit in comparison.

 

I have been researching this one very heavily ...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834152687

3800.00

IPS Display
9 Cell Battery
4980 Processor

Switch Technology which is amazing. You can manually switch via hardware and reboot into Intel video chip and get much more battery time. This is awesome with a 9 cell battery.

I can reboot into this mode and go to class and have hours of battery time and then after class reboot into going mode.

Raid
Extreme Cooling

Listen. I hate bulky laptops. And this one is huge. No exceptions. I do not know what the answer is what is the ultimate machine. I'm sure this one is not it. But I know want two things I want and long battery life and extreme unthrottled performance and I might have to go this direction.

Only thing that has me waiting is that for this price I can get a dual sli 980M Sager or wait for the Alienware 980M sli. I am just tired of waiting though.

 

More often the most expensive laptops feature a very powerful cpu, like some Alienware that have 4 something ghz inside.

As regards clocks while undervolting I am a bit puzzled by your saying.
Here are the recording of cpu clocks in the three scenarios, stock (red), undervolt (green), undervolt repaste (blue).

As you can see turbo and stock frequency are the same, blue being more in turbo state because less throttling. I do not want to be obnoxious, I just want to understand how this laptop works.

 

I am unfamiliar with that program.

Maybe XTU is flawed.

All I know is that I used XTU and tried one thing here and there multiple different ways.

Download XTU.
Undervolt via that program.
Add to view:

CPU Temp
GPU Temp
Thermal Throttling
Power Limit Throttling

And you will see your cpu speed stay exactly at 2.7 or 2.9 GHZ the whole time and never reach above 3.0.

This is fine. If you want that.

I just done want to adjust my pc to live with it. That's all.

 

That reminds me of my old Sony VAIO Z11. It had a physical switch to switch between Intel and nVidia chips (and you could set it via BIOS). That thing had great battery life too.
Is there a difference between that and being able to disable the GTX980M via BIOS on the P35X? I'd actually like to know

 

Is this not basically what optimus does for us, only more seamlessly? The only advantage of not having optimus is that the IO can be controlled directly by the 980m, and not having to worry that the wrong gpu is used at the wrong time but optimus has matured a lot over the years.

 

That thing looks like a beast. The problem with waiting is that you could theoretically always be waiting as there is always better technology coming out. At some point it's better to just pick the best one available that suits your needs and roll with it.

 

I think the main difference is that with the Dominator optimus is completely disabled and you can hook up to 4 monitors while the gigabyte you can't because of optimus. MSI has both technically, four monitor hook up and battery savor mode.

 

That 4K monitor is 48Hz..

 

Jean get us a how to stop throttling guide pls, also can you put together a picture guide applying liquid ultra?

 

Well I've officially decided to get the p35x. Wish me luck. However, I still need to decide on a thermal paste. I've heard good things from this thread about both gc extreme and ic diamond (not trying liquid ultra, at least this time), however, there hasn't been any clear winners. What are you guys experiences with both, and which do you recomend?

Also, if anyone could link me to an undervolt guide, or explain how to do it, that would be great. I know there was a guide a while back, but it was several years old with outdated programs, and id prefer something more recent.

Thanks

 

Undervolting != Underclocking, you gotta get some reading done.

FYI: http://forum.notebookreview.com/har...arket-upgrades/235824-undervolting-guide.html

 

I'm just letting you know what real life experiences what was going on with the laptop when I did various things to it. I don't need to read to see that my processor was dropping in speed in XTU when gaming on Ultra settings BF4.

 

Then you were doing something wrong, period. No need to spread false information.

 

Nope.

I don't care what you think bro.

Take it as you will. I have owned:

P34w V2
GS60
P35x

I have no reason to spread false information.

I simply installed XTU.

1. Undervolt to -70 on CPU.

CPU dropped in performance

2. Set 99 to power management

CPU dropped in performance

3. Overclock just the GPU to +135 +300 with undervolting CPU

CPU dropped in performance

Due to throttle in heat because CPU had to force itself to work harder with the overclocked GPU.

...

Like I said no matter how many different ways you work it the CPU is going to run at the lower speed that it was designed to because of heat.

Now whether you undervolt it first or throttle it afterwards it is what it is. Post or pre your done.

You will never be able to overclock that card.

Now if you are okay with a 2.9 GHZ cpu with 3.3 spikes be my guest with a CPU running at 89 degree.

...

But listen I don't care any more I have moved on. It's your money, not mine, I got money back.

Good luck everyone.

It's a beautiful laptop. I wish I could have kept ed it.

I'll let you know whatever I pick!

Regards, Cheers, Peace!

 

Nice guide, but I assume the programs used now are different. Xtu for the actual underbody and prime 95 for the stability right? Or am I missing something

 

I will do a repaste guide. For undervolting, I can explain what I did, but I am no expert.

 

But will you agree that you are not running the laptop at complete maximum performance? That you are sacrificing something for the sake better cooling?

 

First of all, stop clogging the thread with your flame war. It is more repeatin info over and over and insulting each other than actual constructive ideas.

Second, while this laptop is not perfect, it's not as horrible as you make it out to be garbage. I don't have it (yet) but there are many people on here who had no problems with the laptop, and many others who's problema were with things not in gigabytes control, such as faulty wireless cards. On the flip side, many people have had problems, and the cooling isn't ideal.

The bottom line is there is no perfect laptop. If you don't mind throttling, or are willing to fiddle for max performance, this is the only laptop that has the 980m and ia both thin and light. If you want no throttling and aren't willing to fiddle, I first ask why are you looking at thin and light laptops in the first place, and second, this isn't for you. Just agree to disagree, and move on.

Now on the undervolt part... use facts. post graphs. Bring in knowledgeable people. Don't just repeat things, especially without backing them up.

 

Thanks mate.

 

Everybody agrees on the fact that put of the box this laptop should not need that much tinkering to work breezy (it is not that much in my opinion).

However, as garbageman himself pointed out earlier in the thread, performance are great even if it throttles! You can use it out of the box and play 60 fps AAA games without knowing what a cpu clock is.

If you have concerns, please, use PM, do not add posts to an already long thread.

 

Well said Jean, though I still think the laptop shouldn't have been advertised with 3.5ghz turbo, gigabyte firmware limits it to 3.4ghz. As again, buyer beware, this laptop throttles (both thermal and power), if you wanna do the mods necessary (-70mV undervolt seems to reduce the temps greatly, that is the easiest thing to do atm) and repaste, and be ready to debug any situation (like driver problem I and some others encountered on intel iGPU, or some others had faulty wifi cards), and you badly want a thin laptop with 980m, then get it, otherwise I would advice to stick with AW or Razer (no experience with MSI sadly), as those brands seem to perform with the advertise specs right out of the box + they both have the looks to show an expensive laptop.

 

Yes good point, why the 4710 sold as 2.5-3.5 by Intel has its turbo at 3.4 here?

 

Probably Gigabyte couldn't make it stable at 3.5ghz no matter what they tried and then limited it to 3.4ghz, the average user won't ever recognize this so that they will get away with it instead of rehashing the entire cooling solution at immense cost. Though it is a valid return reason in my book.

 

That is interesting. Because indeed in XTU my Intel is indeed rated at 35x100MHz=3.5 ghz. Now looking very closely to frequency clocks during my benchmarks, cpu indeed hits 3.5 Ghz, but for a very short time, maybe 1-2 secondes, maybe it is the way turbo is behaving. Remember the sold clock is 2.5 Ghz, with turbo 3.5

 

That is weird, mine never hit 3.5ghz, ever, always 3.391ghz max

 

When I look at this benchmark, I see the cpu hitting 3.5. It is really short though! The switch multiplier 34 to 35 stays like one second. It is mainly staying between 33 and 34.

 

I have my cpu underclocked by 70 mV and my cpu runs at a steady 3.3 ghz. At least when its under load and need to run at that speed.

 

Also, sparkle999 was reporting better performance at -50 than -70, even if it seemed stable.

 

Btw I am getting a good cooler tomorrow / sunday, CM Storm SF-19. If it helps I will report here. Also I guess my CPU won't pull off -70mV, it again gave a shutdown, right now testing -50mV. We'll see (you lucky dudes can pull off -70mV ).

 

A number of bickering posts were deleted from the thread. Some interesting facts were pointed out, of which some were unfortunately lost in the purge. But as you all know:

Now please carry on. But DON'T slide back into this debate. Try and keep the holiday spirit going, guys. Ideally all year long

 

Thank you.

I have always thought this laptop was amazing. If anyone has read my previous posts will confirm this like you did.

I thought I was willing to keep tweaking and tweaking and it just got to a point where I didn't want to do it any more.

Just want to make sure everything has all points of views.

I wish the best of luck to whoever has this laptop or wants to buy this laptop because I think it is very workable and worth it.

I just think there are a lot of other options out there as well and like everyone has said it's just simply personal taste at this point.

 

Allright; quick guide to undervolting this laptop; I may edit this post later on:

To undervolt a CPU, you need a software that allows you to modify CPU parameters. I use here Intel Extreme Tuning Utility because it is simple and provides a lot of useful features in a nice design. You also need something to test the stability of your undervolting. To do so, you need to stress you cpu during some time. You can say that the undervolt is pushed too far if the laptop crashes, literally, meaning that the CPU is not stable.I use personally prime95 and the stress test integrated in XTU for roughly an hour; but everyone has his/her own tests.

0) Make a backup. If you undervolt without stability, it can introduce errors into your Windows installation and corrupt it. Better be safe and have a USB recovery key ready. you can find plenty of tutorial on internet or use preinstalled Smart USB manager.

1) Go into XTU. Set the values of Dynamic CPU Voltage Offset and Processor Cache Voltage Offset to -50mV to begin with. I am taking these two parameters because I assume that they impact more the CPU behavior, but I would like more tips about it, since I am not an expert.

2) Test your setting: run a stress CPU test, like prime95 or the integrated stress test of XTU. If everything works, nothing should happen. If laptop crashes, the undervolting is pushed too far.

3) Repeat this process until you reach the optimum point undervolting/stability. Once again, do not push too hard on the undervolt without extensively testing the stability of your laptop, or you will run into real troubles needing reinstalling Windows. From what I read on this thread, -50mV is a good start. Some people succeeded at -70 mV, but I would advise to go mV by mV then. I am currently @-62mV, no problem so far, but remember every CPU is different, so your optimal value will be unique.

And here it is! Please, correct me if anything here is wrong or risky. I am really eager to learn about this topic!

 

Thanks Jean, I am doing 15 minute stress test of XTU to test stability (probably not enough though, people advice 45 minutes). And another thing is I never touch Processor Cache Voltage Offset, I didn't do a search on this but I feel like it is a parameter effecting L1-L2-L3 caches (I am most likely wrong). When you make your repasting guide thread, it would be good to add this bit of undervolting there as well. For me -50mV looks fine, I didn't try -60 as I don't see much difference between -50 and -70 in terms of temperatures.

 

Just reporting back that removing the Intel 7260AC removed any BSODs I was having. My laptop now reconnects to WiFi when I come back from hibernate and Bluetooth is still working fine. For whatever reason, I guess the drivers aren't working with my laptop or I got a faulty WiFi card. Whatever, putting my old RealTek RTL8723AE in made it great again. Hope this helps anyone having the same issues.

Edit: Forgot to mention that I'm just doing that until I find a reliable AC card. At that time I'll report back.

 

Works great for regular browsing, casual gaming, lot of lagging in lan, I think I may give killer a try

 

Joe, are you seeing BTHUSB errors on Event Viewer? I am not getting any BSODs but I have this bluetooth error everytime I log on.

 

I just checked Event Viewer and I see I do get BTHUSB errors when I log on but not when I resume from hibernate. That's weird because I use my headphones all the time.
At least I'm not having Bluetooth problems.

Edit: It seems I was getting the errors with my Intel 7260AC too but like I say I've never had Bluetooth problems.

 

Yeah look, I'm never going back to a physical switch. The four years I used that thing I wished I had Optimus instead of Sony's pre-Optimus solution. I never had to restart windows but I had to close things like media player and my web browser when I made the switch. If I had to restart my entire machine it'd be really annoying. I'm just curious if that has *any* effect on battery life, because I don't think it would. Maybe it's for the ports as you say, I know Optimus can suck when working with multiple monitors.

But hey, that laptop is for people who want to use more than one external monitor with their laptop and need a lot of USB ports. That's a very different crowd from the thin 'n light crowd.