Sager NP6110 / Clevo W110ER One year Later and i5 dual core vs quad core gaming benchmarks

This is kind of a combination brief review of Prema's undervolt mod, Sager NP6110 (based on Clevo W110ER) one year later update, and benchmark between Intel's Ivy Bridge dual core i5-3360m and i7-3610qm gaming performance comparison.

It's been about a year since I bought my Sager NP6110 / Clevo W110ER. It has been an awesome little laptop. If you haven't already seen my review from a year ago it can be found here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/sag...er-np6110-clevo-w110er-first-look-review.html

Since its release there have been some third party developments which help this gaming munchkin improve performance and cooling. Namely the Prema BIOS mods, but also some user mods like Calibre41's machined CPU cooler and user applied copper RAM heatsinks. Prema's BIOS mods come in multiple flavors including undervolting and overvolting the GT 650m GPU. I ran with the UV modded version which resulted in reduced temperatures overall. And the system is still capable of overclocking by a significant amount even undervolted (1050MHz vs stock 835MHz).

I was hoping to do this months ago but time and other projects just got in the way. In any case, I did test the dual core i5-3360m vs the quad core i7-3610QM in gaming and some system/CPU benchmarks. I plan on updating with Prema's OV mod results as well a little bit later.

I ran a large number of gaming benchmarks, all of them from the original review of the NP6110 and additional ones. I compared the original launch machine with that of the machine with the following modifications:

- Prema's undervolt mod (visit biosmods.wordpress.com)
- Propped up back end of laptop (improves cooling, simple solution)
- Copper RAM heatsinks added to top of CPU and GPU heatipe cooling blocks


System Specs:

Sager NP6110
Display: 11.6" 1366x768s (set at 100% brightness)
CPU: i7-3610QM quad core CPU / i5-3360M dual core CPU
GPU: GT 650m 2GB DDR3
RAM: 2x4GB Samsung DDR3-1600 RAM
Storage: Samsung 840 500GB SSD


Software used during the benchmarking and reporting:

- PREMA UV BIOS MOD
- FRAPS for recording benchmark FPS where not included in the game/benchmark, and taking in game screenshots
- IrfanView for managing screenshots
- nVidia Inspector for overclocking GPU
- Throttlestop for overclocking CPU
- GPU-Z for verifying GPU performance
- HWMonitor for CPU and GPU temperature monitoring
- P3 P4330 Kill-A-Watt for measuring power draw from the wall
- nVidia WHQL Driver 314.22


From the benchmarks you will see listed the following configurations:

i7-3610qm Launch:
- System stock at launch (May 2012)

i5-3360m/i7-3610qm Prema UV:
- System using Prema's UV BIOS MOD with GPU clock at 950MHz (boost), vRAM at 900MHz
- CPU at stock speeds

i5-3360m/i7-3610qm Prema UV OC:
- System using Prema's UV BIOS MOD with GPU clock at 1050MHz (boost), vRAM at 1150MHz
- CPU using Throttlestop, i5 @ 3.5GHz, i7 @ 3.1GHz

All benchmarks were run at 1280x720 unless otherwise indicated and medium or high presets as indicated. There are many results showing 0 for the i7-3610qm launch because I did not run those benchmarks when I originally got the laptop.

Temperature and power measurements were also taken and are shown below the benchmarks

The purpose of this data is to showcase power draw vs performance vs temperature. I am intending to normalize the data so its easier to assess benefit of dual core vs quad core. In most cases benchmarks and games were largely unaffected by using dual core over quad core with the one exception being Battlefield 3 where FPS were cut almost in half with the dual core compared with the quad core.

 

BENCHMARK RESULTS:

Artificial Gaming / GPU Benchmarks:

3DMark06


3DMark Vantage



3DMark 11


Allbenchmark Catzilla


Unigine Heaven



Game Benchmarks:

Alien vs Predator


Batman Arkham City


Battlefield 3


Bioshock Infinite


Crysis


Crysis 2


Dirt 2


Dirt 3


Just Cause 2


Last Remnant


Lost Planet 2


Max Payne 3


Metro 2033


Resident Evil 5


STALKER Pripyat


SKYRIM


Sleeping Dogs


Street Fighter 4


Tomb Raider


Trackmania Nations


Witcher 2


World in Conflict



POWER MEASUREMENTS

Game Benchmarks Power Draw (click to expand image to full size)


Artificial GPU Benchmarks Power Draw (click to expand image to full size)


System / CPU Benchmarks Power Draw (click to expand image to full size)



TEMPERATURE MEASUREMENTS

Game Benchmarks GPU Temperatures (click to expand image to full size)


Game Benchmarks CPU Temperatures (click to expand image to full size)


Artificial Benchmarks GPU Temperatures (click to expand image to full size)


Artificial Benchmarks CPU Temperatures (click to expand image to full size)


CPU/System Benchmark CPU Temperatures

 

Hold another for future updates

 

Thanks to yours and Prema's hard work!

+1

 

Thanks to yours and Prema's hard work! You to unclewebb!

+1

 

Fantastic !!

I'm grabbing that UV bios ..... now!

:thumbsup:

Update** few days on the UV bios and the "nvidia Inspector" driver level 59 fps limit (which I was running before), its really transformed the experience, the fans are no longer RAGING away like crazy when I'm gaming on my lap (with "not so" idea air flow) - as well as lower temperatures, I can hear myself think!

Top job, well done to Saltius, SVL7 & Prema

 

Yeah the UV bios is very impressive.
Thanks so much for this post as i've just got my W110ER so its great to compare scores and temps to make sure everything is in order.

Everyone's hard work is much appreciated. I'm loving this little laptop so much!

 

is there any particular reason you run 314.22 driver? Awesome work and so detailed! This is the kind of thing manufacturers should be doing on all their laptops, great work! This is favorite laptop ever!!!

 

It's the latest WHQL...

 

I know, I was just curious because of all the talk of older drivers being more overclocking/power friendly.

 

My thought was most users will use the latest WHQL. I was getting higher artificial scores with a 302.something but other games got a boost from latest driver updates. Plus I didn't feel like sorting through a bunch of drivers to find the best one. I figured latest WHQL was more realistic.

 

Great work as always HT and Prema will try UV and see how that goes.
Does the UV Bios include the GPU boost or was that done maually?

 

Boost is all working normal in UV version...if you want extra you have to use the usual software candidates like NvidiaInspector or MSI Afterburner.

ENJOY!

 

ht did you use throttlestop in the tests? I suspect this will cause the I5 to be similar or hotter than the I7 in the same scenarios.

 

Read near bottom of first post:

 

ah my mistake, kudos for the hard work

 

Great ! Thank you ! very interesting for me since i'm using a very similar dual core CPU.

 

Awesome info HTWingNut , I have the i7-3610qm in mine, but need to set up Throttlestop correctly and find out how to overclock the GPU properly.... just became an owner of a Clevo W110ER. Love it so far!

 

I first want to say thank you for the reviews of this laptop HT and the UV bios Prema. You guys are the reason I purchased a w110er. My question is where would I find instructions for underclocking the I7-3630? I currently have the UV bios installed and it has reduced my temps and power consumption a bit which is nice. I ordered this laptop from Malibal and was expecting to have a 3610 installed, but apparently they didn't have them in stock so they upgraded me for free. While this could be considered nice, I would have prefered the 3610 due the thermals in this little laptop. (They also only gave me a 90W adapter instead of a 120W adapter. I did end up purchasing a 120W adapter, but watching power consumption, I haven't gotten close to 90W draw yet with the laptop so I mostly use the 90W one while out and about since it is much smaller and use the 120W adapter while at home. ) Anyway, was hoping to underclock this to see if it cools it down a bit. Any recommendations? Thanks!

 

Well, apparently it is fairly easy under Windows 7. In the Power Management Settings I just set Maximum Processor State to 90%. Portal 2 and Skyrim both had virtually no change in fps and the laptop does seem to run a little cooler. The 650M in this stays pretty cool even during heavy gaming while the I7 gets pretty darn hot, even when set to 90%. Hot being in the 80C to 86C range. The air blowing out of the side vent is nice and toasty, especially while playing Portal 2. I guess all the liquid physics calculations are taxing the processor more? Maybe that is just a source engine performance quirk. Haven't checked to see if this has affected battery life yet. Are there an settings in the Prema bios that I can make to help lower the temp profile without sacrificing too much performance?

 

Use Throttlestop to reduce the multiplier lower which will reduce temps, of course at the expense of performance.