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How do laptops cool so well with today's high TDP Processors?

GeezerMan

GeezerMan

Platinum Member
OK, it’s not on fire, but why don’t they just burn up?.

I fiddled with a laptop with a i7-2670QM CPU inside the other day. I have not kept up with much in laptop tech, so when I got home I looked at the passmark scores on the i7-2670QM . The passmark score on the i7-2670QM is 6790, and the desktop CPU AMD 1090t is 6060. Yeah, I know. They are just benchmark scores. It’s amazing these laptops don’t catch fire. When I built my AMD 965 X4, I put a decent HSF on the CPU, and a fan on the hard drives, and a decent exhaust fan, and of course the video card comes with a fan too.

Yet, something like a Dell Alienware gaming laptop can come with twin video cards, a much faster CPU than my AMD 965 , two hard drives, and very little ventilation when compared to my 300 PC case. I’ve seen the heatpipe cooling they have inside, and the newer mobile CPUs are 32nm, yet I still wonder, why don’t they catch fire?

Please don't use misleading titles in the future
-ViRGE
 
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wirednuts said:
i came in here to read about a near death experience
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Oh, that's easy. I can tell you about my personal heart attack and emergency triple bypass surgery two years ago. Doc said I was an hour away from death. That's what I call a near death experience for sure...I had another near death situation when the hospital bill was 260,000.00
 
Mostly it is all lies. Well, kind of.

Laptops use "mobile" versions of CPUs and GPUs which are designed with lower power consumption in mind. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Core_i7#Core_i7

So, you're looking at more like 25 to 45W for a laptop CPU rather than the 95 or 125W for the "same" desktop CPU.

The same is true of graphics, only they are even worse for misleading names. For instance, the top-end Radeon 6990M only has 1120 shader processors . . . so it's only really comparable to a desktop 6870. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compar...rocessing_units#Comparison_table:_mobile_GPUs
 
Yeah, pretty smart of Intel to have almost the same names on their desktop and mobile CPUs. Many people will assume they are exactly the same.

Still, It is impressive that a mobile i7-2670QM scores better than a AMD desktop 1090t CPU
 
I can't speak for all of them, but at work I do have a new precision m4600 with that exact same i7 cpu. The laptop is very fast and it's a nice processor. I will give dell props also for keeping it cool and not very loud. My wife's hp with a older x2 amd in it is WAY louder and hotter. With all that being said, I noticed that one way they manage it is a pretty agressive throttling. I mean compared to my 2500k desktop rig, the thing will just not stay in turbo like a desktop cpu will. Still I'd much rather have a quad core at a lower mhz myself.
 
86waterpumper said:
I can't speak for all of them, but at work I do have a new precision m4600 with that exact same i7 cpu. The laptop is very fast and it's a nice processor. I will give dell props also for keeping it cool and not very loud. My wife's hp with a older x2 amd in it is WAY louder and hotter. With all that being said, I noticed that one way they manage it is a pretty agressive throttling. I mean compared to my 2500k desktop rig, the thing will just not stay in turbo like a desktop cpu will. Still I'd much rather have a quad core at a lower mhz myself.
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Those precision Dell laptops are very well made. I have a 3.5 year old M6300 with the 17" WUXGA 1920 X 1200 screen. Yeah, it's slow, but the quality is so nice. Weighs a ton.
 
Yeah we have ran our old precision M900s on a dock for at least the last six years at work and they have been rock solid except for on some the nvidia quadros went out. This was covered under warranty though, for some reason mine never went out. Dell has come a long way though with their screen quality, but the thing with the m4600 is that you can't get the best (ips) screen and have the nvidia optimus technology work. I opted for the disply right under the ips, but still a notch up from stock, and it still looks great. I am most impressed with how cool the thing runs, and how quiet it is. It's pretty speedy too with a ssd. The only thing I don't care for is the offset keyboard, I'd rather have it centered and do away with the number pad myself. That, and the charge / power lights are on the side, which is plain weird. That is being super nitpicky though. The lid latch kills me, the thing feels like shutting a car door, it is built that sturdy.

I think one thing is for sure though, it takes alot of chassis to run a quad core very well at least above 2ghz. LIke you said the thing weighs like a truck...Maybe the cpus that are released next year will run alot cooler.
 
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GeezerMan said:
OK, it’s not on fire, but why don’t they just burn up?.

I fiddled with a laptop with a i7-2670QM CPU inside the other day.
Click to expand...


A 2670QM is nothing. It's only got a 45W TDP. I've got an old HP with a Newcastle 3200+ in it. That old beast has an 89W TDP, and it gets HOT. The laptop's an inch and a half thick, and it has two heatsinks on the processor, each with it's own fan. One vents out the side and the other out the back, and the thing will STILL hit 72*C and start to throttle while playing WoW.
 
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