- Nov 21, 2005
- 5,204
- 21
- 81
For laptops,
Also depends on the cooling system. Copper modding helps dissipate heat more quickly, but not without making sure the fan is set to high gear and the hardware-based performance settings is/are maxed out, which will greatly reduce battery life but better ensure the software operating environment doesn't crash/slow-down, or even crashes less frequently. Of course, none of this will help as dramatically if the laptop's cooling system is ineffective in the first place, even with copper modding and greased fans or upgraded thermal paste, thus, just making the decision to prevent throttle - by absolutely not running the laptop in high stress software environments.
Specific, broad examples, include the Lenovo Yoga series (not necessarily ThinkPads), Ultrabooks from any vendor, Microsoft Surface Pro/Book series, gaming laptops that are built more extremely thin compared to the rest of the bunch, and etc., in some cases.
Remember, the Microsoft Surface 3, not the Pro, but just the MS3 base-line model? S3, it was absolute junk, a lot of times, it got really hot and crashed a lot, often times, rendering the hardware useless for further testing or usability.
Processors of Intel HQ/MQ/U-series.
Assumptions are made that these laptops have SSD's, battery mode is set to "MAX" performance.
Some laptops with i5-u processors will perform better/much-quieter (smoother without stutting/lag) under heavy software loads than compared to i7-u processor because of temperature issues/throttling, same laptop models, similar SSD's (nvme or not).
How does one find out which laptops to avoid? Allow the laptop to sit out in the market for several months, and do your research, looking at end-user complaints and reviews from every possible source available on the web.
Based on hundreds upon hundreds of laptops I've seen and tweaked, customers get way better support from the upper-tier business laptops, and don't seem to have as many CPU-throttling issues as consumer ones, not always true, but usually the case. Also, doesn't mean business laptops perform better than consumer ones for gaming or data crunching, it's all in exactly in the quality of the unit and how it's being used.
Stress test it and and let run video for several hours, if that's the intention. No one wants to be doing a presentation, and after 30 minutes, watch the computer start glitching. Or doing a business assessment/simulator calculation on a consumer laptop for a client, and their computer just shuts off for no reason?
What I do, is set the processor on Windows, to HIGH PERFORMANCE ACTIVE, restart the computer, and if you have to run a lot of tabs on a web browser, and a lot of other apps, and need maximum battery life, remote into another computer(s) with Remote Desktop Connection or other remote-software so that the outside PC is consuming resources and battery life and saving your CPU from crunching data it absolutely doesn't need to. Those in support roles won't always have much time to walk every client/manager through the CPU architecture talk, assuming they didn't tweak the BIOS, if they're complaining about laggy performance on the OS, restart the PC and set the power performance MAX, and on Windows 10, if they need to save juice, enable battery-saver-mode in the action center.
I had a laptop that can downgrade to Windows 8.1, and went that route, because every couple of seasons, when W10 wanted to upgrade again, after doing so, it can easily reset/modify important settings and run other apps in the background, or even wreck the OS rendering more precious time spent trying to tweak and configure the software environment from running junk-software it doesn't need to, forcing the CPU to not perform at its maximum because it's sharing resources with new "Creators" features.
For most consumers on laptops, BIOS settings should not necessarily have to be tweaked at all, as Windows/OS settings give users the ability to authorize performance/battery saver modes directly from GUI apps available either from Microsoft directly in Windows or from the manufacturer/3rd party, and most of the time users don't have access to power/performance Gx,Sx,Dx,Cx configurations unless on more advanced/enterprise configurations.
Certain models of laptops will outperform others with the exact-baseline CPU configuration/SSD/RAM because of performance-based hardware-software engineering in motherboard design and OS functionality, native to how the components are designed and implemented as a final whole. Realistically, it might be hard to tell sometimes without using the laptop for a few days, or even a few weeks under whatever processor performance one is really in need of with their OS environment.
When making recommendations to colleagues, don't risk telling too many people they can turn speed-step off in the BIOS, because it's different for every laptop, and often times, if the person asking about how fast their processor will really run, speculative based on "how long can the processor sustain itself" with the rest of the connected components before it/parts forces itself to shut off certain architecture to stay cool, or even if the hardware becomes unstable and/or their software-up-stacking starts glitching in performance, then we don't take accountability for the wrong/misinterpreted misconceptions.
So my recommendation because laptop consumers that don't get the advanced desktop-motherboard tweaks (unless of course it's a gaming/higher-end workstation laptops/3rd party/enterprise tweaks);
If you can help it, hardware mod it first.
As far as software settings, I think if anyone needs max CPU software-performance for their laptop, clean-slate OS, update/upgrade/downgrade software & firmware as necessary, avoid OS installations on HDD/s, and adjust background OS settings/apps, and keep your power cord with you and make sure outlets are available to recharge your laptop. Maybe carry a spare battery if allowed to? Or just offsite the workload to a remote computer or over to cloud services.
Often times, if running a lot of apps, just double the amount of RAM if it can be doubled on the laptop, and that alone can fix major performance glitches that are not even really CPU related without having to buy a new laptop, or switch to SSD-NVME if your SSD socket allows full support for it.
Weigh it against immediate efficiency and overall effectiveness. Screen brightness, data crunching, and longevity, etc. of how long the unit needs to remain active before it can sleep/hib/shutdown/enter low-perf states.
I've heard of individuals killing the Win10 store app completely to stop the CPU resource-hogs in the OS, but doing so some can't use the calculator app, but who cares, download a 3rd party one instead.
Tried also setting the power performance on a laptop to MAXIMUM battery life, for i7's/i5's, but when set to BALANCE, the system either is too slow or consumes too much battery. And then, HIGH performance, the fan is loud, or the unit just sucks horribly on battery life while allowing the laptop to operate "normally" in a normal OS environment with a lot of work going on, which is the case for most in an office/work setting that need to multitask heavily to get work done.
The results are extravagantly random on different laptops, sometimes the command queues are backed up and the system lags on U-processors on battery-saver-mode like madness similar to a Pentium processor, or the OS apps become unresponsive completely and system restart is necessary with a new power-saver mode, and depending on the cooling system of the laptop the fan is still in high-gear anyway.
For those out there that have found the perfect medium, congrats, but even after a few years, most consumers will be forced to upgrade to a newer model or have to replace parts after expected wear and tear.
If it's mission critical and you don't like interruptions, spend the extra cash on a reliability & value, not on just price tag and looks, alone.
Don't just get an i7/Xeon on a laptop because it's going to "perform faster," also upgrade to a faster drive-storage interface technology or double the RAM, and get a system with better/quieter cooling, and then tweak it so it does exactly what it needs to do, nothing truly default has ever been as amazing as it should always be.
Also depends on the cooling system. Copper modding helps dissipate heat more quickly, but not without making sure the fan is set to high gear and the hardware-based performance settings is/are maxed out, which will greatly reduce battery life but better ensure the software operating environment doesn't crash/slow-down, or even crashes less frequently. Of course, none of this will help as dramatically if the laptop's cooling system is ineffective in the first place, even with copper modding and greased fans or upgraded thermal paste, thus, just making the decision to prevent throttle - by absolutely not running the laptop in high stress software environments.
Specific, broad examples, include the Lenovo Yoga series (not necessarily ThinkPads), Ultrabooks from any vendor, Microsoft Surface Pro/Book series, gaming laptops that are built more extremely thin compared to the rest of the bunch, and etc., in some cases.
Remember, the Microsoft Surface 3, not the Pro, but just the MS3 base-line model? S3, it was absolute junk, a lot of times, it got really hot and crashed a lot, often times, rendering the hardware useless for further testing or usability.
Processors of Intel HQ/MQ/U-series.
Assumptions are made that these laptops have SSD's, battery mode is set to "MAX" performance.
Some laptops with i5-u processors will perform better/much-quieter (smoother without stutting/lag) under heavy software loads than compared to i7-u processor because of temperature issues/throttling, same laptop models, similar SSD's (nvme or not).
How does one find out which laptops to avoid? Allow the laptop to sit out in the market for several months, and do your research, looking at end-user complaints and reviews from every possible source available on the web.
Based on hundreds upon hundreds of laptops I've seen and tweaked, customers get way better support from the upper-tier business laptops, and don't seem to have as many CPU-throttling issues as consumer ones, not always true, but usually the case. Also, doesn't mean business laptops perform better than consumer ones for gaming or data crunching, it's all in exactly in the quality of the unit and how it's being used.
Stress test it and and let run video for several hours, if that's the intention. No one wants to be doing a presentation, and after 30 minutes, watch the computer start glitching. Or doing a business assessment/simulator calculation on a consumer laptop for a client, and their computer just shuts off for no reason?
What I do, is set the processor on Windows, to HIGH PERFORMANCE ACTIVE, restart the computer, and if you have to run a lot of tabs on a web browser, and a lot of other apps, and need maximum battery life, remote into another computer(s) with Remote Desktop Connection or other remote-software so that the outside PC is consuming resources and battery life and saving your CPU from crunching data it absolutely doesn't need to. Those in support roles won't always have much time to walk every client/manager through the CPU architecture talk, assuming they didn't tweak the BIOS, if they're complaining about laggy performance on the OS, restart the PC and set the power performance MAX, and on Windows 10, if they need to save juice, enable battery-saver-mode in the action center.
I had a laptop that can downgrade to Windows 8.1, and went that route, because every couple of seasons, when W10 wanted to upgrade again, after doing so, it can easily reset/modify important settings and run other apps in the background, or even wreck the OS rendering more precious time spent trying to tweak and configure the software environment from running junk-software it doesn't need to, forcing the CPU to not perform at its maximum because it's sharing resources with new "Creators" features.
For most consumers on laptops, BIOS settings should not necessarily have to be tweaked at all, as Windows/OS settings give users the ability to authorize performance/battery saver modes directly from GUI apps available either from Microsoft directly in Windows or from the manufacturer/3rd party, and most of the time users don't have access to power/performance Gx,Sx,Dx,Cx configurations unless on more advanced/enterprise configurations.
Certain models of laptops will outperform others with the exact-baseline CPU configuration/SSD/RAM because of performance-based hardware-software engineering in motherboard design and OS functionality, native to how the components are designed and implemented as a final whole. Realistically, it might be hard to tell sometimes without using the laptop for a few days, or even a few weeks under whatever processor performance one is really in need of with their OS environment.
When making recommendations to colleagues, don't risk telling too many people they can turn speed-step off in the BIOS, because it's different for every laptop, and often times, if the person asking about how fast their processor will really run, speculative based on "how long can the processor sustain itself" with the rest of the connected components before it/parts forces itself to shut off certain architecture to stay cool, or even if the hardware becomes unstable and/or their software-up-stacking starts glitching in performance, then we don't take accountability for the wrong/misinterpreted misconceptions.
So my recommendation because laptop consumers that don't get the advanced desktop-motherboard tweaks (unless of course it's a gaming/higher-end workstation laptops/3rd party/enterprise tweaks);
If you can help it, hardware mod it first.
As far as software settings, I think if anyone needs max CPU software-performance for their laptop, clean-slate OS, update/upgrade/downgrade software & firmware as necessary, avoid OS installations on HDD/s, and adjust background OS settings/apps, and keep your power cord with you and make sure outlets are available to recharge your laptop. Maybe carry a spare battery if allowed to? Or just offsite the workload to a remote computer or over to cloud services.
Often times, if running a lot of apps, just double the amount of RAM if it can be doubled on the laptop, and that alone can fix major performance glitches that are not even really CPU related without having to buy a new laptop, or switch to SSD-NVME if your SSD socket allows full support for it.
Weigh it against immediate efficiency and overall effectiveness. Screen brightness, data crunching, and longevity, etc. of how long the unit needs to remain active before it can sleep/hib/shutdown/enter low-perf states.
I've heard of individuals killing the Win10 store app completely to stop the CPU resource-hogs in the OS, but doing so some can't use the calculator app, but who cares, download a 3rd party one instead.
Tried also setting the power performance on a laptop to MAXIMUM battery life, for i7's/i5's, but when set to BALANCE, the system either is too slow or consumes too much battery. And then, HIGH performance, the fan is loud, or the unit just sucks horribly on battery life while allowing the laptop to operate "normally" in a normal OS environment with a lot of work going on, which is the case for most in an office/work setting that need to multitask heavily to get work done.
The results are extravagantly random on different laptops, sometimes the command queues are backed up and the system lags on U-processors on battery-saver-mode like madness similar to a Pentium processor, or the OS apps become unresponsive completely and system restart is necessary with a new power-saver mode, and depending on the cooling system of the laptop the fan is still in high-gear anyway.
For those out there that have found the perfect medium, congrats, but even after a few years, most consumers will be forced to upgrade to a newer model or have to replace parts after expected wear and tear.
If it's mission critical and you don't like interruptions, spend the extra cash on a reliability & value, not on just price tag and looks, alone.
Don't just get an i7/Xeon on a laptop because it's going to "perform faster," also upgrade to a faster drive-storage interface technology or double the RAM, and get a system with better/quieter cooling, and then tweak it so it does exactly what it needs to do, nothing truly default has ever been as amazing as it should always be.
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