Gaming laptop feels underpowered

[Blingy]

I've recently bought a customized gaming laptop from ibuypower.com. Everything operates fine but when it comes to gaming, I feel as if it's not as strong as it should be. I tried borderlands 2 earlier today and the fps I got when playing was around 20-25 with everything maxed on 1920 x 1080. I've also tried a couple other games such as BF3 and Need for Speed: Most Wanted but the results are similar, the fps is not as high as it should be.

I've tried a couple solutions such as updating all my drivers and making sure the games used the gtx 670m as the primary card but to no avail. I looked around a bit on my laptop and it says that its using the Intel HD 4000 as the card that's displaying the monitor right now. I tried finding a way to disable it in the BIOS but there was no option too.

I made sure I checked the performance settings on the battery whenever I would start a game. If anyone has any idea on why my laptop is so underpowered, please feel free to leave any suggestions.

My laptop specs:

1 x Case: Battalion 101 P151EM1 15.6" Full HD 1920x1080 LED-Backlit Display Laptop w/HDMI Port, DisplayPort, USB 3.0, fingerprint Reader, Li-Ion Battery, Universal AC Power Adapter - Original Metallic Black

1 x Processor: Intel® Core™ i7-3630QM Mobile Processor (4x 2.4GHz/6MB L3 Cache)
1 x Memory: [8GB x 2] DDR3-1600 G.Skill**
1 x Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670M 1.5GB GDDR5 Video w/ NVIDIA Optimus [P151EM1]
0 x Intel Smart Response Technology: None
1 x Primary Hard Drive: 750 GB 7200rpm Serial-ATA Super Slim Laptop Hard Drive
1 x Optical Drive: 8x Dual Format DVD±R/±RW + 16x CD-R/RW Combo Drive [P151EM1]
1 x Flash Media Reader / Writer: Built-in 9-in-1 Media Card Reader/Writer [Laptop]
1 x Sound Card: 3D Premium Surround Sound Onboard
1 x Network Card: Built-in 10/100/1000 Mbps LAN [Laptop]
1 x Internal Wireless Network Adapter: 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi + Bluetooth Combo
1 x Operating System: Windows 8
1 x USB Ports: Built-in 1x USB 2.0 + 2x USB 3.0 + 1x USB 3.0 / eSATA Combo Ports [Laptop]
1 x Video Camera: Built-in 2.0 Mega Pixels Digital Web Video Camera

 

[wiggbot]

Based on those specs, you should see a lot better than 20-25 fps. Did you try reinstalling video drivers?

edit: derp. reading comprehension fail

 

[blacknemesist]

Thats because it is a laptop,as in,no room for cooling.As soon as the cpu and gpu reach high temps which they easily do on such a small case they downclock themselves.The result is a 2.4ghz running at 1ghz and 670m behaving like an IGPU.
Laptops are bad for gaming.
You have a few options though:reduce game res and reduce gaming effects.
If you want a gaming machine buy a desktop.

 

[Blingy]

Thats because it is a laptop,as in,no room for cooling.As soon as the cpu and gpu reach high temps which they easily do on such a small case they downclock themselves.The result is a 2.4ghz running at 1ghz and 670m behaving like an IGPU.
Laptops are bad for gaming.
You have a few options though:reduce game res and reduce gaming effects.
If you want a gaming machine buy a desktop.

I just downloaded speedfan to check the temperatures and I think you're right. The GPU is hitting around 60-65C when I'm just playing league of legends which isn't a high demanding game. It's too late to switch to a desktop now, so do you have any suggestions on how I would cool the GPU enough so it can play without lag?

I'm planning to buy a cooling pad to see if it helps, if anyone has any recommendations on a high quality one, please leave a post.

 

[MuWaMaN]

oops I posted in the wrong thread

 

[doubletake]

GPU temps in the 60s is not bad at all. Check your CPU temps for possible throttling there. One thing to mention though, your GTX 670M isn't as powerful as you might think it is. It's NOT an actual 600 series card, it's just a rebadged GTX 570M, which is about as powerful as a desktop GTX 460, a card that is certainly not enough to max out many of the latest titles. That being said, your performance is still lower than it should be.

-Edit-
If you have PhysX enabled, you should definitely disable that; it's a large performance hog. Here are some benchmarks of what to expect from your GPU.

 

[Guest]

looking at this:
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670M

the benchmarks lower on the page are simular to what you are experiencing aside from BL2; which could be related to having PhysX maxed out in your settings. as suggested above/before, try disabling or lowering your physX and see if that makes a difference.


good luck.

 

[wdmfiber]

+1 doubletake
But, ouch...!

Looking up the specs on a 670m, indeed it's rated at 803.6 gigaflops of graphical processing power. A desktop GTX 670 is rated at 2460 gflops; so your mobile GPU is ~3 times weaker.

And to make matters worse you have a good screen. But that 1920x1080 resolution is just asking too much of the 670m. Try 1600x900.

Also when gaming you won't be on the HD4000, your laptop just switches to intergrated graphics to save power when the 670m isn't needed.

 

[k1114]

Both cpu and gpu won't be throttling til the 90C's. 60C is pretty good for a laptop.

In the nvidia control panel you could try to change the power management to prefer max performance to see if that helps. Optimus doesn't like to play nice sometimes. Your fps are high enough to see it is in fact switching but there is also a manual override in there too.

As you can see from the benchmarks you won't be maxing high end games at 1080p. But you shouldn't have issues playing on high.

 

[Blingy]

Best answer selected by Blingy.