New laptop seems held back by something.

[thomasd221]

Hi! I've just purchased a refurbished Alienware 15 R3 laptop with the following specifications:

- Intel Core i7 7700HQ
- 16GB DDR4
- GTX1060 6GB
- 256GB nVME SSD + 1TB HDD
- FHD Display

When running games on the laptop, I've noticed my framerates are not very good. On Battlefield 4, at 1080p ultra settings, it seems to run at around 50FPS, often dipping to 45 or below. Considering the benchmarks of the 1060 online show a minimum FPS of 80+ at these same settings/resolution, this is odd. The GPU never goes above 65c, the CPU is around 70c - Neither are throttling.

The laptop is plugged in while I do these tests. In addition, this is with a 150MHz overclock on the GPU, so something must be wrong.

Unigine Heaven Score: 1491 (At 1080p, extreme settings) - Identical GPU's achieve 1900+ with the same settings.

This seems very odd. Drivers are fully updated.

Any Ideas?
Thanks.

 

[JackNaylorPE]

In past years, there were some pretty significant differences between the performance of mobile and desktop GPUs... today that difference is small but it's still there. here's what you should be getting

https/www.notebookcheck.net/Computer-Games-on-Laptop-Graphics-Cards.13849.0.html

Call Dell and have them walk you thru the troubleshooting procedure ... send them the link / pic if they tell you that's normal. .. (They will)

 

[thomasd221]

check gpu usage. if its at less than 90% usage while in bf1 its likely you have a cpu bottleneck...
or you might have the default porwer plan selected. try putting it on performance rather than powersaving.

Hi, thank you for your reply. During the Heaven benchmark, GPU usage stays at 99%.

How can there be a CPU bottleneck with an i7 7700HQ, surely not?!

Switching to high performance mode makes no difference, which is a shame.

 

[thomasd221]

In past years, there were some pretty significant differences between the performance of mobile and desktop GPUs... today that difference is small but it's still there. here's what you should be getting

https/www.notebookcheck.net/Computer-Games-on-Laptop-Graphics-Cards.13849.0.html

Hi there. I'm afraid I'm not getting anything like those frame rates. I should be getting 90+, as the picture shows. However, I'm barely reaching 50.

Thanks.

 

[thomasd221]

In past years, there were some pretty significant differences between the performance of mobile and desktop GPUs... today that difference is small but it's still there. here's what you should be getting

https/www.notebookcheck.net/Computer-Games-on-Laptop-Graphics-Cards.13849.0.html

Call Dell and have them walk you thru the troubleshooting procedure ... send them the link / pic if they tell you that's normal. .. (They will)

I will try and contact Dell tomorrow. However, they may not be of an assistance, since the laptop was purchased from an online store and not directly off of them. We'll have to see.

 

[cryoburner]

How can there be a CPU bottleneck with an i7 7700HQ, surely not?!

It might not be a CPU bottleneck, but a 7700HQ laptop processor is not as fast as a 7700K, or even a 7700 desktop part, due to the thermal and power limitations of a laptop...

http/cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Core-i7-7700K-vs-Intel-Core-i7-7700HQ/3647vsm211019

Going by their numbers, the CPU used for most desktop graphics card reviews might be around 40% faster than the laptop part. And as was mentioned, the mobile 1060 won't be quite as fast as a desktop part as well. You're trading a small amount of performance for portability.

It might be worth monitoring the clock rates of these components during these benchmarks as well, since it could be possible that the laptop may be set up to reduce them to keep temperatures or power use to a lower level, even if the hardware could potentially handle more before throttling.

 

[thomasd221]

How can there be a CPU bottleneck with an i7 7700HQ, surely not?!

It might not be a CPU bottleneck, but a 7700HQ laptop processor is not as fast as a 7700K, or even a 7700 desktop part, due to the thermal and power limitations of a laptop...

http/cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Core-i7-7700K-vs-Intel-Core-i7-7700HQ/3647vsm211019

Going by their numbers, the CPU might be around 40% slower than what's used for most desktop graphics card reviews. And as was mentioned, the mobile 1060 won't be quite as fast as a desktop art as well. You're trading a small amount of performance for portability.

It might be worth monitoring the clock rates of these components during these benchmarks as well, since it could be possible that the laptop may be set up to reduce them to keep temperatures or power use to a lower level, even if the hardware could potentially handle more before throttling.

I get that the mobile parts are slightly slower than the full-fat components found in desktops. However, there are other benchmarks of this exact laptop online where the frame rates are so much higher in the same scenarios.

During a heavy GPU load, the core clock stays at around 1825MHz the entire time, no throttling takes place. The CPU stays at it's 3.4GHz turbo boost speed across all 4 cores. Again, no throttling takes place.

It's such a frustrating issue, as it just seems like it's held back by something. I can't even ask Dell to look at it, because it wasn't purchased from them. It did come with a 6 month warranty from the seller, which is luckily a registered VAT UK business.

I really don't want the hassle of sending it back, because it's awesome apart from this one problem.

Thanks.

 

[thomasd221]

How can there be a CPU bottleneck with an i7 7700HQ, surely not?!

It might not be a CPU bottleneck, but a 7700HQ laptop processor is not as fast as a 7700K, or even a 7700 desktop part, due to the thermal and power limitations of a laptop...

http/cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Core-i7-7700K-vs-Intel-Core-i7-7700HQ/3647vsm211019

Going by their numbers, the CPU used for most desktop graphics card reviews might be around 40% faster than the laptop part. And as was mentioned, the mobile 1060 won't be quite as fast as a desktop part as well. You're trading a small amount of performance for portability.

It might be worth monitoring the clock rates of these components during these benchmarks as well, since it could be possible that the laptop may be set up to reduce them to keep temperatures or power use to a lower level, even if the hardware could potentially handle more before throttling.

I've just made some observations while gaming on BF4/BF1.

While in game, on a highly populated conquest large map. CPU usage hovers around 50%, and GPU usage fluctuates between 55-65%. This is so weird, as neither component is a bottleneck. It seems like nothing in the laptop is being pushed even slightly during loads, which is really frustrating.

Any ideas?

 

[cryoburner]

Do you have v-sync or some other type of frame limiter enabled in the game or graphics card settings?

 

[thomasd221]

Do you have v-sync or some other type of frame limiter enabled in the game or graphics card settings?

VSync and other frame limiters are all disabled. This is so strange.

Thanks.

 

[HEXiT]

any thermal issues?