Overclocking Performance - General Applications
We wanted to focus on the benefits of overclocking with the XPS M1710, so we'll start our performance results there. One of the first things we did when we received the notebook was to set the maximum overclock and begin stress testing, and after discovering that the system ran stable we didn't think there would be much need to test any of the other options. However, due to increased noise levels, temperatures, and periodic CPU throttling we decided it was necessary to test all six clock speed settings. We used a variety of commonly available benchmarks which we won't bother to describe here. If you need one more details about the benchmarks, feel free to ask in the comments section. Test settings for the games were generally maximum detail with 0xAA/8xAF and 4xAF where noted.
Starting with the general system performance benchmarks, we immediately get some interesting results. SYSmark 2004 appears to benefit at every clock speed increase up to the maximum, although the relative increase is less at the top two settings. Looking at the separate Internet Content Creation and Office Productivity results, the Internet Content Creation test suite hardly benefits at all with the final speed bump, whereas the Office Productivity results continue to scale well all the way through Bin-5. PCMark05 achieves its best performance at the Bin-3 setting, but MobileMark 2005 shows a serious drop off in performance at the maximum clock speed. We actually ran the MobileMark 2005 Productivity test several times at the Bin-5 setting just to verify the results, and we reported the best score out of the three individual test runs. The other two scores were 272 and 284.
The severe drop in performance in MobileMark 2005 may be a result of running on battery power, as it's possible the battery couldn't handle the load and the system was forced to reduce processor speed. This particular test represents the most severe drop in performance we measured at the maximum setting, and given the requirement that MobileMark run on battery power our conclusion for now is that users shouldn't overclock - especially to the maximum setting - if they aren't going to be plugged in. We would generally recommend that anyway, as the overclock settings are simply going to further reduce battery life and the system as it stands already has a relatively short mobile lifespan.
We wanted to focus on the benefits of overclocking with the XPS M1710, so we'll start our performance results there. One of the first things we did when we received the notebook was to set the maximum overclock and begin stress testing, and after discovering that the system ran stable we didn't think there would be much need to test any of the other options. However, due to increased noise levels, temperatures, and periodic CPU throttling we decided it was necessary to test all six clock speed settings. We used a variety of commonly available benchmarks which we won't bother to describe here. If you need one more details about the benchmarks, feel free to ask in the comments section. Test settings for the games were generally maximum detail with 0xAA/8xAF and 4xAF where noted.
Starting with the general system performance benchmarks, we immediately get some interesting results. SYSmark 2004 appears to benefit at every clock speed increase up to the maximum, although the relative increase is less at the top two settings. Looking at the separate Internet Content Creation and Office Productivity results, the Internet Content Creation test suite hardly benefits at all with the final speed bump, whereas the Office Productivity results continue to scale well all the way through Bin-5. PCMark05 achieves its best performance at the Bin-3 setting, but MobileMark 2005 shows a serious drop off in performance at the maximum clock speed. We actually ran the MobileMark 2005 Productivity test several times at the Bin-5 setting just to verify the results, and we reported the best score out of the three individual test runs. The other two scores were 272 and 284.
The severe drop in performance in MobileMark 2005 may be a result of running on battery power, as it's possible the battery couldn't handle the load and the system was forced to reduce processor speed. This particular test represents the most severe drop in performance we measured at the maximum setting, and given the requirement that MobileMark run on battery power our conclusion for now is that users shouldn't overclock - especially to the maximum setting - if they aren't going to be plugged in. We would generally recommend that anyway, as the overclock settings are simply going to further reduce battery life and the system as it stands already has a relatively short mobile lifespan.
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Tommyguns - Friday, May 11, 2007 - link
$4000 for a laptop to play games on?!Not trying to bash the artical, but whats the point of testing products if the actual market niche for such products is sooooo freaking small!?
$2000, on a laptop is a lot of money. adding in the fact it needs to play games, do that many people really spend past 3k on one? let alone 4k+?
If 10-20total fps in DX9 games is worth $2000, then someone let me know...
Dell inspiron E1705 with a C2D T7200, 7900GS vid card, gig of ram, 9cell + 6cell battery, DVDRW, vista home pre., 17 inch UltraSharp Wide Screen UXGA Display, wireless N card,and a few other odds and ends can be had for $1875. Toss in one of the coupons available online, like the $500 off and its just shy of $1400 for a decently effective gaming laptop. is it the best buy? idont know, but the best well rounded one. also, the XPS 17inch laptop on dells site, with the same parts, retails for around $2500....wtf? yes, no coupon...but still.... I like dell, yet dislike them equaly as much.
Thus, review a 7900gs dell offering so us poor people can see what an additional $1200+, really can do...Thanks... I would buy tommorow if i knew what all these machines did in terms of gpu power
JarredWalton - Friday, May 11, 2007 - link
Part of the point of the article was to show that the added CPU speed did little to nothing for gaming, so if you're interested in a gaming laptop I'd recommend getting something like the XPS M1710 but sticking with a T7200 and just maxing out the GPU. You can do that for under $3000. Also remember that the configuration as tested has a $500 Blu-ray drive thrown in that many won't care about. So, cut down the CPU ($700) and the BRD ($500) and it's a lot more reasonable.ziddey - Wednesday, May 9, 2007 - link
Hi, this is definitely an interesting article, but I was a little disappointed in how it was presented and the testing done on it. I hope to not offend, but if you still have the ability to retest further, here's some ideas.So we're talking about throttling. If that's the case, how hot is it getting? You can track coretemps of meroms. The popular rmclock can also show any form of throttling in log form as well, and also shows it in graphical format as well. It also features ability to manipulate some finer features of it, although of course, at your own risk.
Further, I'm assuming this is only possible on upwards unlocked cpu's. In that event, could you just use something like crystal cpuid to change the multiplier?
Most significantly, how about this: If temperatures are still in line (and based on the track record of conroes, I see no reason they shouldn't, as long as vcore is as low as merom's are), can you set to maximum overclock in bios, and then use rmclock to force maximum multiplier while on AC
Deusfaux - Wednesday, May 9, 2007 - link
either you're homeless or you have an excessive amount of money and a butler or i dont know whatbut for all the reasons that make a laptop advantageous over a desktop, you strip them all away by attempting to make it one of the gaming variety.
ridiculous cost
battery life
size
weight
hardly upgradeable
I feel bad for the continual string of people who are convinced they can get all the benefits of a powerful desktop in a portable package (and not end up being inferior in every aspect)
Get a laptop that has good portability, get a powerful desktop for gaming. dont try to do both in one.
araczynski - Tuesday, May 8, 2007 - link
sounds like its a nice laptop for 1280x800 gaming. curious what the screen looks like at that resolution, in comparison to the native resolution 'sharpness'. Does it scale very well or look as crappy as you'd expect the desktop to look at that resolution?suryad - Thursday, May 10, 2007 - link
More like 1920 x 1200 gaming all except for Stalker which I dont care for much anyway. I am getting this bad boy tomorrow or next week Monday. Can't wait. Worst part is the wait to receive it in your hands...hope i can last the weekend. Also the 3dmark scores area bit low...ntoebooforums people are reporting slightly higher scores...but anywho...super speed here I come!kalrith - Tuesday, May 8, 2007 - link
The spec page on page 2 shows *q* every place that quotation marks should be.Gary Key - Tuesday, May 8, 2007 - link
Fixed, sorry about that, we are on a new engine now, bugs still seem to pop up. ;)JarredWalton - Tuesday, May 8, 2007 - link
Heh... Gary's being nice to me. I screwed up my own table by reusing parts of an old article and forgetting to properly "convert" the generated HTML file into a clean format. That's what sleep deprivation will get you.redfirebird15 - Tuesday, May 8, 2007 - link
Is it really possible to get thousands of FPS on Supreme Commander? I've never actually played it, but that looks like a typo. If that is correct, what is the difference between getting 500 FPS and 1000 FPS? I thought it was and RTS anyway.It must be a typo.