i5-8265u HP vs i5-8250u Lenovo

[Darkbound]

Hey guys, I just acquired HP Probook 450 G6 with i5-8265u and MX130. I also have a Thinkpad E480 with i5-8250u and no dedicated graphics card.

Naturally, I decided to test the two CPUs and see the difference and I was surprised.

I used Cinebench R15 to do the testing, and the Thinkpad consistently outperformed or was equal to the HP. HP had scores in the 450-530 range, while the thinkpad stayed in the 480-530 range.

I was surprised by the results and I was expecting at least equal results, so I used hwinfo on both laptops to track CPU frequency and Temperature and to my surprise, the Lenovo was allowing its CPU to go to 70C and sustained a 2.2-2.3GHz clock throughout the test, after the turbo "died", while the HP did not allow its CPU to get hotter than 60-62C and it sustained a 2.1-2.2 GHz clock throughout the test and this is where the difference comes from.

What I cant understand is why the HP is limiting the CPU when it reaches 60C, 60C is not that hot and is far from the Tj of 100C.

Of course, both laptops were on AC while being tested and both were set to "Best Performance"

[5x5]

This isn't thermal limits. It's power throttling. The ProBook has a 15W TDP limit whereas the ThinkPad allows the CPU to run at 18W

[Darkbound]

3 minutes ago, 5x5 said:

This isn't thermal limits. It's power throttling. The ProBook has a 15W TDP limit whereas the ThinkPad allows the CPU to run at 18W

Oh I see, is there a way to change this setting? The HP is obviously capable of handling another 10C or so

[5x5]

1 minute ago, Darkbound said:

Oh I see, is there a way to change this setting? The HP is obviously capable of handling another 10C or so

Nit without flashing a hacked or modded BIOS

[EPPHO]

19 minutes ago, Darkbound said:

Oh I see, is there a way to change this setting? The HP is obviously capable of handling another 10C or so

You can try with Intel Extreme Tuning Utility

[5x5]

1 minute ago, EPPHO said:

You can try with Intel Extreme Tuning Utility

That only extends PL2 to 180 seconds and then the PL1 limit kicks in again

[Darkbound]

Yeah I just found out about Intel Extreme Tuning Utility and I tried with it. I Increased the TDP to 25W (its just a slider), the CPU got to 70C and managed to sustain 3-3.1GHz throughout the test. Now I want to figure out if there is a way to create automated profiles for wether I am on AC or Battery.

[EPPHO]

1 minute ago, Darkbound said:

Yeah I just found out about Intel Extreme Tuning Utility and I tried with it. I Increased the TDP to 25W (its just a slider), the CPU got to 70C and managed to sustain 3-3.1GHz throughout the test. Now I want to figure out if there is a way to create automated profiles for wether I am on AC or Battery.

When you are on battery it's already "throttled" down so don't worry about that.

[Darkbound]

1 hour ago, EPPHO said:

When you are on battery it's already "throttled" down so don't worry about that.

In that case, how high can I go with the power limit? As high as the thermals allow me to?

[5x5]

Just now, Darkbound said:

In that case, how high can I go with the power limit? As high as the thermals allow me to?

No, you can only raise power limit temporarily from XTU. Look in the power plan settings and enable cTDP up to 25W which is the max the ULV power delivery can sustain

[Darkbound]

4 minutes ago, 5x5 said:

No, you can only raise power limit temporarily from XTU. Look in the power plan settings and enable cTDP up to 25W which is the max the ULV power delivery can sustain

Should I look for that setting in the bios? I dont find it in the power plan settings

[5x5]

Just now, Darkbound said:

Should I look for that setting in the bios? I dont find it in the power plan settings

In the advanced power options, most Whiskey Lake CPUs have a CPU power profile. You can select between cTDP up (25W), TDP normal (15W) and cTDP down (10W). The BIOS is likely locked so you won't be able to touch settings there. Ian Cutress from Anandtech has some details about TDP in a tweet from last month

[Darkbound]

3 minutes ago, 5x5 said:

In the advanced power options, most Whiskey Lake CPUs have a CPU power profile. You can select between cTDP up (25W), TDP normal (15W) and cTDP down (10W). The BIOS is likely locked so you won't be able to touch settings there. Ian Cutress from Anandtech has some details about TDP in a tweet from last month

http://prntscr.com/p77ett

I cant find any setting related to that, but the 25W limit set from the tuning tool seems to last even after I've turned the tool off. What bothers me now is, obviously the CPU can handle that amount of heat with no problems, is it possible that some other component might not and thats why they limited it to 15W? Or is it safe to run the 25W?

[5x5]

7 minutes ago, Darkbound said:

http://prntscr.com/p77ett

I cant find any setting related to that, but the 25W limit set from the tuning tool seems to last even after I've turned the tool off. What bothers me now is, obviously the CPU can handle that amount of heat with no problems, is it possible that some other component might not and thats why they limited it to 15W? Or is it safe to run the 25W?

It should be fine if it's sticking.

[Darkbound]

11 minutes ago, 5x5 said:

It should be fine if it's sticking.

I decided to load both the CPU and GPU at the same time and see how the thermals behave, both reached about 80-85% during the tests, cinebench + furmark. Then I decided to throw in the SSD in the test too and everything throttled down, the cpu went down to 2ghz, the gpu went down to 875 mhz, I did a restart and both of them are still downclocking like this, I reapplied the settings in the Tuning tool, no difference, its set to 25W but it locks to 12-13W during the test. Also my battery is now stuck at 98% and doesnt show XX minutes until fully charged

[5x5]

1 minute ago, Darkbound said:

I decided to load both the CPU and GPU at the same time and see how the thermals behave, both reached about 80-85% during the tests, cinebench + furmark. Then I decided to throw in the SSD in the test too and everything throttled down, the cpu went down to 2ghz, the gpu went down to 875 mhz, I did a restart and both of them are still downclocking like this, I reapplied the settings in the Tuning tool, no difference, its set to 25W but it locks to 12-13W during the test. Also my battery is now stuck at 98% and doesnt show XX minutes until fully charged

You're probably power throttling from the adapter - I imagine the system is exceeding what the adapter can supply.

[Darkbound]

Just now, 5x5 said:

You're probably power throttling from the adapter - I imagine the system is exceeding what the adapter can supply.

With the SSD, probably yes, but now I am running Cinebench alone again or Furmark alone and the issue persists, it boosts to 30W and then goes down to 12-13W, its like it entered some kind of a safety mode

[5x5]

1 minute ago, Darkbound said:

With the SSD, probably yes, but now I am running Cinebench alone again or Furmark alone and the issue persists, it boosts to 30W and then goes down to 12-13W, its like it entered some kind of a safety mode

Possible - try restoring windows to last week and reset the BIOS

 

EDIT: Laptops are usually built with extremely tight tolerances so I wouldn't be surprised. You'd have better luck with the ThinkPad since business laptops are far better at handling heavy load and usually have overhead

[Darkbound]

40 minutes ago, 5x5 said:

Possible - try restoring windows to last week and reset the BIOS

 

EDIT: Laptops are usually built with extremely tight tolerances so I wouldn't be surprised. You'd have better luck with the ThinkPad since business laptops are far better at handling heavy load and usually have overhead

The battery is not charging at all now  I tried system restore to earlier, before installing the tuning tool, but no change, its still not charging.

Edit: I used it on battery until it dropped bellow 90% I thought that it may not want to charge it if its almost charged because it was sitting at 98%, so I plugged it back in at 88% and now it is charging and showing time left until fully charged.

[5x5]

23 minutes ago, Darkbound said:

The battery is not charging at all now  I tried system restore to earlier, before installing the tuning tool, but no change, its still not charging.

Edit: I used it on battery until it dropped bellow 90% I thought that it may not want to charge it if its almost charged because it was sitting at 98%, so I plugged it back in at 88% and now it is charging and showing time left until fully charged.

That's the battery profile, it's normal behaviour. Charging on modern laptops only happens once it drops to 94% or lower

[Darkbound]

13 minutes ago, 5x5 said:

That's the battery profile, it's normal behaviour. Charging on modern laptops only happens once it drops to 94% or lower

Duh, I was concerned there for a bit that I damaged the charger. Anyway, it still doesnt want to go to higher TDP, I dialed it back to 20W, but it still sticks to 12-13W

[5x5]

Just now, Darkbound said:

Duh, I was concerned there for a bit that I damaged the charger. Anyway, it still doesnt want to go to higher TDP, I dialed it back to 20W, but it still sticks to 12-13W

Try reinstalling XTU and the chipset drivers

[Darkbound]

8 minutes ago, 5x5 said:

Try reinstalling XTU and the chipset drivers

Could it be because my battery is not 100% charged yet and some of the power goes to charge the battery and thats why it limits itself regardless of what I do? It does turbo to its boost clock frequency on bursts, but on Cinebench after that it drops to ~2ghz

[5x5]

Just now, Darkbound said:

Could it be because my battery is not 100% charged yet and some of the power goes to charge the battery and thats why it limits itself regardless of what I do?

Doubtful but worth testing

[Darkbound]

1 hour ago, 5x5 said:

Doubtful but worth testing

Well I left it to sit for 15-20 minutes and fully charge the battery, and now it runs at 3ghz again when loaded with cinebench

Edit: So my theory is that what maybe happened when I loaded it with cinebench, furmark and crystal disk mark is that it exceeded the 65W supplied by the AC adapter (cpu was set to 30W, gpu is also 30W and 970 evo plus is 10W), so maybe it sucked a bit of additional power from the battery?! but then that reduced its capacity bellow 100% and then it tried to charge it, that needed additional power, so it throttled everything else while trying to do that. Just a theory.