win32asmguy

I need to list a bunch of laptops as well. Sadly still using laptops as my daily driver, just simply because of travel and able to easily move around the house as needed. The desktop is still very nice to have though. I am guessing a 9950X might be the best chip for handbrake encoding and 9950x3d would likely not be better. I still enjoy tinkering with open firmware on my System76 laptops but the next one needs to be the model that actually has a vapor chamber. The X370 really struggles with cooling and I have not seen any aftermarket heatsink options come out for it yet.

Some updates about the Raider 18 after a month. The Smokeless UMAF tool works with this model and allows access to "AMD Overclocking" bios options for further tuning. The important thing it allows is setting UCLK DIV1 MODE to UCLK=FCLK. It feels weird having to use this where MSI usually has access to everything For memory I have Kingston Fury 64GB (SKHynix A-die) installed running at 6000 CL46-43-43-86 for now, and infinity fabric running at 2000mhz. Swapped the Qualcomm wireless for an AX200 which is working great. I am not sure about the keyboard controller as I had an instance where the system cold booted with it set to static red. Brightness can be controlled but it only effects the keyboard itself, not the light bar in the front or lid logo. The front light bar can easily be unplugged but the lid logo is integrated into the display assembly so it cannot be unplugged without removing the display panel. This model is definitely not compatible with the Intel Raider 18 / Titan 18 heatsink as the CPU and GPU posts are in different locations.

This morning I saw this video talking about an improvement Asus is using to make 4-DIMM DDR5 able to reach higher speeds. I still think that two slots is more appropriate for the majority of systems these days.

I am surprised at how rare 2-DIMM boards are in product lineups. You would expect it to be an easier, less expensive layout to design and should be standard on all Z790 and X670 boards unless its marketed as a "Creator" or "Workstation" board who might need more than 96GB with an understood performance tradeoff.

Intel and AMD would have to stop offering HX laptop BGA chips. Up until mid 2022 it almost looked like it was going to happen. Intel was offering 12th Gen 6P + 8E chips as their top of the line BGA mobile chip, then quickly released 8P + 8e BGA chips again instead of just adopting the already existing LGA chips. All just to save a few millimeters of z-height which they were so excited to mention in the initial launch videos. I like how Intel quickly shifted to "socket height" being the biggest issue with DTR laptops, while ignoring bios bugs, feature support and quality control with thermal paste / heatsinks. Or even just hinting to an OEM that having a basic machine without extra crap tacked on is, in fact a feature to this type of product. I think nobody in their labs actually used a DTR in a proper manner because once you realize you have to haul a 2cm thick cooling pad around to even get close to advertised sustained performance then that few mm slimmed chassis becomes useless.

Its just an example of poor effort from marketing and project managers. These people want to make something that impresses reviewers/influencers, not necessary solve a problem. More battery life and less performance is also less risk as far as their warranty is concerned. No chip is even going to come close to premature failure if clocked low. I have also noticed that many systems throttle the CPU or GPU if the battery is fast charging, without any type of user preference override. Some also draw power from the battery even when on AC with heavy combined loads, which can quickly reduce battery life span if you are using the system within its supposedly designed limits.

Yeah I have been working on memory timings. Bricked it the other day changing memory context restore so has to spend time getting it restored instead of tuning.

I have seen plenty of systems that seem to run fine idling in an outdoor zone but have issues keeping framerates over 30fps during a raid or world boss. Unfortunately getting a character to a place to test those scenarios is much more time investment than a reviewer wants to spend on a single game. It also does not take into account addon performance issues either. The X3D chip does work very well for the WoW engine. Process Lasso is a great tool for managing process affinity and certainly more consistent than using the Game Bar.

This new AMD variant is available from Newegg now, with both a 4080 (2500usd) and 4090 (3000usd) config. The 7945HX3D chip scores about 32,500 in CBR23 with a clean W10 install. There are some CPU configuration options available in the advanced bios but the "AMD Overclocking" page isn't available. Speaking of W10, this model has a Qualcomm Wifi7 chip which does not have any W10 drivers, so swapping the card is needed. Upon initial bootup this model had the keyboard and RGB a solid red - but after updating to the latest bios its a rainbow puke effect just like the Intel variant. These should really have a override boot effect option in the Steelseries software.

The EC can communicate with both the CPU and GPU directly to manipulate power limits and clocks along with other things. Unfortunately the thresholds for these manipulations are not usually discussed or listed by OEMs. At least with Clevo we can still get schematics with design limits listed and an open source BIOS and EC to manipulate things. The cooling capability is behind other competitors now and I have not seen much movement from aftermarket heatsink vendors on Taobao other than potentially improved fans.

I think its entirely possible they could be effected especially if the system can sustain high TDP on the CPU and has recorded high voltages during such use. Luckily most people with these kinds of systems have a three year warranty or longer to cover any issues like this. Its a shame they are like this because even if you were to wear out a USB port from daily use you may very well need a motherboard replacement with a different CPU or GPU. Here is an article XMG made about the issue concerning laptop chips as well. I feel like they are pretty transparent for a vendor compared to most: https://www.xmg.gg/en/news-update-intel-core-cpus-laptops-stability/

It was a refurbished model from Lenovo Outlet: https://www.lenovo.com/us/outletus/en/p/laptops/thinkpad/thinkpadp/thinkpad-p16-gen-2-16-inch-intel/21fbx03500 It was not actively marketed as an option available as I think Lenovo (or Nvidia) wanted to steer purchasers to the Legion series. Same situation as the Precision 7680/7780. If you contact a sales rep they could probably setup a CTO quote with it. Pricing is likely around what they charge for the Ada4000 option.

Another one you might look into is a P16v Gen 1. It is similar to the P16 but has an AMD 7840HS chip which in theory should be more energy efficient / silent than an Intel HX chip especially if you select a model without a dGPU and are willing to repaste with PTM7950.

I have a P16 G2 configured with 13950HX and 4090 mobile. It is pretty quiet running in the default balanced mode under load where the fans max out at 45dB and more importantly have no high pitched whine to them or fan duty pulsing. It can also benefit from replacing the paste on the CPU and GPU with PTM7950. I will also note that with the P16 G2 if you want a heatsink with a CPU side vapor chamber you have to choose atleast an Ada3500 GPU.

Speaking of desktop flexibility what are your thoughts on 7800x3d vs 7950x, primarily for gaming with world of Warcraft. I also run encoding jobs on this machine so I would like to have the 16 core chip if it does not hurt gaming much. This is a choice you pretty much cannot easily change on any laptop these days.