Why is my brand new i7-4860HQ underperforming so badly?

[brendanhill]

Can someone help me rebuild my confidence in a recent high end laptop purchase?

My brand new Aorus X7v2 has:

- i7 4860HQ @ 2.4Ghz (Average benchmark of 9382 @ cpubenchmark.net)
- 32GB DDRAM @ 1866Mhz
- 768GB SSD

I'm running Windows 8.1 with latest updates & drivers, full performance mode, plugged into power.

It is performing unexpectedly poorly on CPU benchmarks in Cinebench 15 - only 305 points:

http/postimg.org/image/vesqdlvod/

This review ran the same test on the same laptop with slightly slower i7-4710HQ which got 659 points!!

Using Intel Turbo Boost Monitor I can see that the CPU during the entire test is running nowhere near to full capacity:

http/postimg.org/image/myp30ifft/

This poor performance has been confirmed with QwikMark, other non-benchmark software and confirmed against colleague's laptops which have significantly lower specs but easily outperform it.

Very occasionally noticed the Turbo Boost Monitor going much higher into the 2.4Ghz and 3.6Ghz range - I quickly run the benchmarks during this time and I get WAY better results. But I can't work out when that mode is enabled or how I can force it.

Therefore it seems I am losing a lot of performance because the full CPU & turbo boosting is not always "available".

How can I force it to be available at all times?

 

[okcnaline]

Click your PC's performance/green, and High Performance/Energy Saver Battery settings.

 

[brendanhill]

Click your PC's performance/green, and High Performance/Energy Saver Battery settings.

As mentioned, I am running High Performance mode:

http/postimg.org/image/asvmq3pab/

I am not aware of any "green" settings I can change - what do you mean?


BTW THis is another review of my same laptop also giving a high benchmark for CINEBENCH, so I'm not imagining it:

http/xsreviews.co.uk/reviews/aorus-x7-v2-sli-gaming-laptop-review/

 

[okcnaline]

I meant the Gigabyte crapware. One of them is a control panel, and their latest AORUS laptops have a green/normal/high performance setting.

 

[brendanhill]

Holy moley. You sort of answered it. Under the Aorus "COMMAND & CONTROL" program I had set the "FAN TWEAK" to "STEALTH" mode. So the fan was silent, CPU couldn't be cooled so it got throttled down.

I set it back to "AUTO" mode and now it works a treat on all benchmarks, full 3.6Ghz kicks in and I get all my precious Gigaflops.

Thanks for the pointer.

 

[okcnaline]

AHA!!! Good job. And you're welcome.