win32asmguy

On 6/13/2025 at 12:45 AM, electrosoft said:

So I've been putting my Macbook Pro 16 M4 Max (Full fat 16 core CPU, 40 core GPU) through the ringer tonight with World of Warcraft 4k Ultra.

 

It's......playable. In my benchmark spots it is about as powerful as a 9070xt with both having RT off since WoW doesn't support RT in MacOS 9070xt is clocking in around 140fps while the M4 is clocking in around 130fps.

 

Another case of theoretical vs actual once that CPU gets sauced....

 

Problem is in raids the M4 tanks to the 50s and 40s in many spots while the 9070xt consistently keeps it in the 80+ range so once you introduce that player data M4 Max starts to take a pounding.

 

That is now the M4, 5080 and 5090 not handling the lows as well as the 9070xt but I will say the M4 stays pretty smooth even at those low fps...

 

Don't let anyone ever tell you the Macbook fans don't have some punch to them....  😁

Interesting to hear about the M4 Max in WoW. What kind of TDP does it pull in those situations? I see that it is supposed to be up to 70W but unsure if that is sustained or just short bursts.

The 275HX + 5090M does pretty good with WoW at QHD with a few things tuned, SA and D2D at 30x and 6400 at CL38 tREFI 16k 1.25v gear2. The Premamod BIOS is still being finalized so once that is available I hope it helps a little too, along with being able to ditch XTU to set a few things. I am not sure if it can compete on efficiency to the M4 Max, but maybe the Ryzen AI Max 395 is a closer type of product to what Apple is offering, just with access to the much bigger Windows x86 game library.

4 hours ago, br2 said:

Well, 275Hx is a fraction of a second slower than 13980Hx in compiling a system. Moore's law ain't what it used to be...

What happened to Sac Bomber and his Titan thread?

To me its more about the feature set than performance for this generation. It is the first where I can have a professional looking chassis and build quality, iGPU video outputs, but still have max wattage CPU and GPU.

Often I find that one model offers great CPU performance, another offers great GPU performance, another has nice build quality and aesthetics, but rarely does any have it all, especially with tuning possible and acceptable fan noise.

Not sure about SAC Bomber, but maybe if he no longer has an account then the associated threads he started get removed as well.

On 6/2/2025 at 11:15 PM, electrosoft said:

I think I said it during my first round of ownership with the 9070xt when AMD fixed their drivers (understatement) and while the 9070xt was getting overall lower fps, the gameplay was just "smoother" than with the 5090 or 5080FE in WoW. Having run numerous Tier 11 delves solo, the gameplay, smoothness and responsiveness of the 9070xt is >=5090 even when it is getting ~160-170fps vs the 5090 clocking in at 238fps capped to monitor 240. This is with all the cards running 4k Ultra RT max.

I am surprised it is that good after having tried a 7800X3D + 7900GRE combo last generation. Lots of strange driver bugs paired with lots of strange bios bugs with fingers pointing to "its an AGESA issue, so it will be fixed when its fixed". I think after the second time my M.2 boot drive just randomly disappeared I gave up on it.

15 hours ago, Clamibot said:

Intel's server class Xeon CPUs have all P-cores and they perform great due to not being shackled by E-cores. No weird scheduling shenanigans.

Oh, the Xeons can also have scheduling issues. I have had trouble with CPPC, so processes on the 2495X do not automatically run on the highest clocked core or the favored cores. Also with hyperthreading enabled it can cause issues with the scheduler similar to what you would see on the 7950X and 9950X. In latency sensitive applications some cores are also more mesh hops away from a given DDR5 or PCIe5 block so depending on which slot you have a GPU in some cores may be better to use than further away favored cores.

It will get more interesting if we end up getting a Granite Rapids WS Xeon at some point, with Redwood Cove P-cores. Maybe a LCC or MCC monolithic variant could be tuned to give a 285K or 9950X a run for its money. It would be great if it could also not require registered memory (as was the case on the 3175X) and the latency penalties associated with it.

4 hours ago, the jg89 said:

Dumb question but how do you undervolt this laptop? I know you're supposed to use the control centre program for that but I want to ask first before touching anything ^_^'

On the X580 I purchased from Sager undervolting protection was enabled and the efi setup variables were write-locked.

7 hours ago, the jg89 said:

Hey @win32asmguy

 

I noticed that the ssd area has writing like pcie 4.0 pad = pink on the motherboard

I got a bunch of thermal pads to use for the ssds that look like they fit there, if I use them there

will it affect the motherboard?

 

also how are the temps on the ssd? just wondering

also I'm confused on which thermal pads to use since the metal plates on the bottom cover are different heights.

There are different height pads depending on the slot. Always check for contact pressure on the pad in case the z-height of your SSD is different than the OEM drive.

I did not really test drive temperatures in mine. It would not have been relevant data as I only use one drive which is not going to generate as much radiant heat as using four drives would.

9 hours ago, the jg89 said:

hey @win32asmguy is it possible to give me a full gpu spec of the rtx 5090m with info like number of teraflops? there's one in techpowerup but it's inaccurate.

 

also is the cooling worse or better than the p775 tm1g?

Here is GPU-Z from the Hydroc G2:

I am guessing the X580 cooling is on par with the P775TM1-G as they are both designed for around 250W combined loads IIRC.

2 hours ago, Maro97 said:

That’s absolutely true, and the P870TM has indeed been tested with dual RTX 3080 in SLI, and the results were higher than a single RTX 4090 mobile (175W). However, it’s absolutely impossible to solder and install an RTX 4090 GPU chipset onto an RTX 3090 MXM board, as this has already been tested and the chip does not work on that board. This is because the circuit designs of the 3080 and 4090 are different. The 30 series graphics cards operate at 1.8V, whereas the 4090 operates at 1.2V.

Well, the new Uniwill IDY now has a modular, full wattage 5070ti - 5090 mobile. Probably the first I have seen since the X170 as a full wattage modular part. No guarantees of upgrades but I am sure someone with a 5070ti + Intel could switch to 5090 if desired.

Its kind of funny that Uniwill is now producing more modular products than Clevo. I am not interested in their watercooling addons but I do appreciate everything else they are doing engineering-wise.

I preordered one of these back in late February and it was delivered last week. Specs / options:

• Intel Arrow Lake 275HX with CPU tuning
• RTX 5090 Mobile 175W / 5080 Mobile
• 2x16GB Kingston Fury 6400 CL38 XMP kit / CSODIMM also supported with memory tuning
• 1x Gen5 M.2 + 1x Gen4 M.2 SSD
• 16 inch miniLED 300hz QHD+ panel with local dimming switch / 300hz IPS

Initial impressions:

This model has very good build quality. It is much more solid feeling than the Clevo X580 and even some mobile workstations. The fan noise does not have any high pitched whine. It has fully customizable RGB lighting including the ability to override cold boot settings. The shipping bios has limited tuning but Premamod will be available when ready. Local dimming on the miniLED makes me like this type of panel. Unfortunately it is not the boot default but atleast it can be controlled via software.

I have tried many different memory kits so far in it. The best performing has been the Kingston Fury 2x16GB 6400 CL38 XMP kit however it has to use a custom profile with 1.25v due to shipping bios limitations. That results in ~98ns latency in Gear 2.

I will try to post a full review soon.

2 hours ago, electrosoft said:

As for pricing, yeah they've come down a bit. On launch, they had a "special" price of $3999.99 for the Raider 285/5090 then it went back up to its "regular" price of $4899 but was then almost immediately discounted to $4499 and now it's at a regular price of $4099. 6400 speed ram and 2tb SSD isn't terrible but still....

 

Even the normal Titan dropped below $5k almost at launch.

 

9950HX3D models are all I would be interested in on the top end atm for gaming for 5090s though as the overall uplift versus the previous generation is mediocre.

It sounds like there may be a temporary tariff pause so over the summer pricing may be less volatile. The addon RAM and SSD has always inflated their prices. All of the good deals last year were models that shipped with 32GB and 1TB. Their QHD+ also seems to be much cheaper than the miniLED panel too.

The 275HX is actually pretty good. Runs great with WoW and any other games, much cooler temperatures overall than 14900HX. Best of all I can finally get something with ability to tune the CPU, control the fans, max GPU TDP, and with an iGPU TB4 port just like the Precision series. Memory latency is higher but luckily it can atleast be tuned to get closer to what I have heard with the 285K.

I have heard rumors that 9945HX3D has seen some AGESA bug fixes and does have higher TDP than 7945HX3D. Its a shame MSI has decided to only pair the new chip with UHD+ panels at the moment. Maybe Micro Center has enough pull with them to get a 9945HX3D config with QHD+ at a good price as they seem to have done that with the 285HX variant this year.

6 hours ago, electrosoft said:

MSI 18 9950X3D/5090 Raider getting trashed for several reasons (display, price, trackpad, other) but remember, this is LTT:

Not a bad review. I never realized the trackpad being centered like that with the Raider 18. I guess I did not use it enough on the go without a mouse.

For price the Micro Center deals on the Intel model are better, $3000 for the 5080 and $4100 for the 5090. I cannot say they are enticing though as the included memory and storage would just be chucked and replaced with better performing options from known good brands instead of the lottery system of OEM components.

MiniLED panels should always have a switch to disable local dimming. Having now used the panel on the Hydroc G2 it is finally an experience that can be the same as you would get on the IPS variant.

2 hours ago, tps3443 said:

I don’t understand why laptop manufacturers haven’t done this years ago. We can easily put desktop power in a laptop.

There was the Asus laptop a while ago with the Quadro equivalent of a 2080Ti - complete with 24GB of memory on a 384-bit bus. It had a 200W power limit but did show that a TU102 chip could fit and function in a laptop.

Personally I think we need properly sized DTR 5090m laptops at 300W+ before bigger more expensive silicon. That is not happening soon as all the OEMs have declared anything thick cannot possible sell well. Nvidia does not help with this either as they clearly want to keep their entire mobile product line in a close range of trickled performance.

2 hours ago, electrosoft said:

What z690 board and memory is it? I would suspect a decently tuned 12900ks system (5.5 all core, turn off e-cores if needed to achieve) and some halfway tuned DDR4 or DDR5 will outperform your HEDT. Even pure stock it might too.

It's a MSI pro z690-a wifi with a 2x16gb 6400 cl32 kit. The 12900ks has also been delidded and has the rockitcool copper ihs.

I know that the other sapphire rapids users hit a wall with their chips too. Even the refresh chips are only reaching 5.2 on the starred cores, maybe 5.3 with hyper threading disabled. I guess those cores do have 2mb l2 just like raptor cove. I think I have mentioned before that cppc seems to be broken on the w790-sage so process lasso to keep those threads on the higher clocked cores is very helpful. I wonder if using the third and fourth gen5x16 slots for my GPU and SSD makes it need a couple extra mesh hops from the preferred cores compared to the top two Gen5 slots. The preferred cores are definitely the best ones though as they need under 100mv less at the same clock compared to the non preferred cores.

On 4/30/2025 at 1:41 PM, electrosoft said:

Ran some raids in my fixed D2D OC profile with GPU Tweak III and just smooth.....even when fps dipped into the 70s still smooth.....The problem with the WoW engine will always be when all that player data hits in certain moments, your 5090 will perform like a 4070 Super or 9070xt. Same with the 5080FE. There's just nothing you can do about it. The engine CPU physics need to be overhauled badly.

I am tempted to try and move my 5090 into my Intel 12900ks + z690 system this weekend and see if it does better with wow than the HEDT setup. I could even potentially try a 14900k or ks if it's supported via a bios update. That 12900ks seemed like it was pretty leaky in the raptor x15 but it might do perfectly fine even with good air cooling.

1 hour ago, 1610ftw said:

Do you have a link where we can see the inside of the X560? 3 drives is above average for sure and it is still puzzling that Clevo does not go for a vapor chamber in their top model.

I dont have a picture of one but from the exterior it looks very much like the PE60.

It seems like the X580 does OK with a heatpipe system. Would a vapor chamber have helped slightly? Maybe but only Clevo engineering would know at this point.

On 4/28/2025 at 3:57 PM, 1610ftw said:

Surprise surprise: Medion announced its ERAZER Beast 18 X1 and I thought it was another X580 vendor but instead it looks like a TongFang!

I think that one is not a Tongfang, instead a different company as it was called "Thunderobot Zero 18" at CES. Supposedly same vendor Eluktronics used on a 16 inch model a few years ago which ended up having worse build quality.

In other news, the X560 is starting to show up. It looks like it caps out at a 155W 5090m, and has three SSD slots along with support for up to 128GB RAM. It still has a vapor chamber just like the PE60 which is nice.

1 hour ago, SACbomber said:

Rick from the MSi board here, hope you don't mind me intruding...

 

Have you got any benchmarks of your X580 @win32asmguy? CineBench 2024, 3DMark, the usual. Really want to compare with my TItan. Expecting you to have a 10-15% graphics performance advantage over me while maybe slightly behind on CPU/RAM.

I need to rerun some benchmarks. After running some further testing on the Kingston Fury memory I determined it was not stable at 5600 CL40 in the X580 in combined loads. The stock Crucial kit was not as well at 5600 CL46. I now have tested Hynix OEM 2x24GB CSODIMM modules at 5600 CL46 which is stable. This change will effect Timespy CPU test but should not effect Cinebench R23. I think traditionally games usually are effected by higher memory latencies with 1% lows.

28 minutes ago, ssj92 said:

I got confirmation it has boot guard from the Clevo guru 😁 

 

now I’m leaning towards the AW although I did get a really good deal on a x580 so I’m not sure yet 

Yeah Prema helped me figure out a few things on the X580 already.

Im not really interested in the AW due to its RGB/aesthetics and reliance on AWCC along with the hassle of removing their LM paste. I also like having some side ports for USB.

I do have a pre-order for the Hydroc G2. Its going to have the Prema bios so its likely going to exceed what the X580 or any other 18 inch can do.

3 hours ago, ssj92 said:

I've heard the BIOS has boot guard so we can't do anything. Not sure if I wanna spend an extra $1800 on the Clevo after selling my AW. 

 

I get 37k CB score and the 5090 seems to not be that much faster than 4090. 

 

I'm mainly interested due to the better screen (4K) and much better sound system. 

 

You've had X170. How much better are we talking sound wise? I think the X170 sounded really good. 

 

Could you upload some pics of the BIOS? I am curious what options we have available. 

It is supposed to have boot guard but I have not confirmed it yet.

The price is indeed very high. I guess it makes the most sense for someone who wants to load it up with 256GB of RAM and 32TB of storage. For me I dont really care about that and just want 2x16GB and a single drive with as close to desktop speeds while keeping the fan noise from being annoying.

I think the sound should be on par with the X170. At least its vastly superior to the X370 which had 2x1W speakers and no subwoofer. I don't really know how to tweak the EQ to make it the best but atleast the hardware side of it is better.

https://imgur.com/ADNYf2d

https://imgur.com/mLfYJk2

https://imgur.com/yvYHybF

6 hours ago, 1610ftw said:

I thought that like MSI all Clevo bios were unlockeable so that undervolting would be supported but apparently not.

 

That also means more heat than necessary which makes better fan control a must for me. Does Clevo have a useable fan control implementation in the X580 or do you control them by other means?

 

In the X170 and P775 I am very happy with Clevo Fan Control

https://github.com/djsubtronic/ClevoFanControl/releases

but I somehow doubt that it will work with the X580! 

 

Good luck with those CSODIMMS - they seem to be the way to go for Arrow Lake laptops and I am currently waiting for 48GB modules as I do not really need 256GB but 128GB is not enough either. 

They appear to have EFI variable write protection enabled in the stock bios now so those hidden settings cannot be modified like I could on the X170KM or NH55JNNQ.

Clevo does have fan control implemented via the control center. I am not sure if the EC registers have changed but it has 10 curve points per fan. All of the 3rdparty control tools seem to rely on a "ClevoEcInfo.dll" library which does not have source code from what I have searched.

The only issue with the current CSODIMM modules available is they all have the looser JEDEC timings unlike the Kingston Fury modules which have tighter timings but are limited to 5600 and up to 32GB per module.

On 4/17/2025 at 7:02 AM, ssj92 said:

Getting tempted to sell my m18 r1 and buy one of these. 👀 

 

what’s the cheapest 5090 model? 
 

I see a 200hz 3840x2400 panel, is that one mini led? 

The bios is write locked so tuning is somewhat limited compared to other models. There will be an unlocked variant from System76 but modifications to that bios need basic programming knowledge.

The 5090 QHD+ model I got from Sager was $4150 including a three year warranty before tax.

Both panels are IPS.

The best memory performance I have tested so far is 4x16 Kingston Fury 5600 CL40, but its still pretty far in latency from other models. 2x16 6400 CL52 CSODIMMs may be better if it is stable.

2 hours ago, electrosoft said:

$4900 for the 285k 5090 Raider?

$5100 for the 9950HX3D 5090 Raider?

Last year some of the Raider 18 configurations only came with 32GB of RAM, 1TB Gen4 SSD and QHD+ displays which made them much cheaper. Now they are forcing 64GB of RAM, 2TB Gen5 SSD and UHD+ and add the tariffs on top its obvious why they are in Razer / Titan territory.

The X580 is surprisingly cheaper despite having support for 256GB RAM and 4x8TB SSD's. It does lack almost all tuning but at the same time its design and build quality are much nicer along with the ability to configure the RGB with its profile stored to onboard memory. The performance of the 275HX is very good in WoW - easily as good as the 7945HX3D if not better even with the very high 130ns measured memory latency. It can handle heavy fights like outdoor raids while staying around 60fps at QHD Ultra 10, even with just 200W combined load in entertainment mode.

4 hours ago, 1610ftw said:

Great to hear that you solved your bluescreen issue!

Across multiple devices I have noticed that unless you put 4 of the same memory sticks in all slots those 4 slot designs are often lacking documentation about how to populate those slots. Luckily we can test everything with programs like AIDA64 but it should not be so difficult to give the customer instructions which slots to use in which order and/or what best to do with a given number of memory sticks.

 

That SSD cooling solution does not seem to be well thought out at all. I wonder if anybody even tested it as I have a hard time believing that after some testing they would have come up with this.

 

• Why isn't it unified to improve cooling and share the load?
• How does it even differ from a user supplied NVME heat sink?
• How is it even much of a benefit in the first place when the SSDs seem to have zero airflow over these heatsinks - that surely can't be a good idea? 

 

Makes me want to get a spare bottom cover and do my own SSD cooling solution in case that I get the X580.

 

In any case this is not that big of a deal really and I share your sentiment that this is a good one and for me it is the first Clevo that I consider since the X170 chassis.

We will probably never get something like the X170 again but at least this is their first flagship BGA book design that gets the basics right.

We have to give credit to Tom at XMG for finding out the optimal memory options:

https://download.schenker-tech.de/media/products/schenker-key-18-pro_e25/key-18-pro-e25_memory-guide_2025-04-11.pdf

As far as the SSD heatsinks I cannot comment how well they work as I have not paid attention to the SSD temperatures closely. The plates attached to the bottom cover appear to be somewhat thick and heavy, hopefully they are powdercoated copper. I have not swapped in a higher performance drive yet from the stock Crucial P3 1TB which likely does not generate much heat under sustained transfers. I will try to test those things out when I can.

2 hours ago, wqwave said:

Great testing! I thought they would run at 4400mhz max based on intel's cpu specs for 2x 2r slots. Do you think 128gb/192gb/256gb would be able to achieve this speed as well? Also it's unclear if csodimm is supported. Do you have any idea? 

Based on research from Tom's posting CSODIMM should benefit. I don't have 4x matched dual rank modules so I cannot comment on my own testing but it looks like they might run a few bins over the stock speeds.

Update, using two sticks in dual channel does work fine, I just missed the correct slot combination with my initial testing. Use slots 2 & 3 in this case for the best performance which is pretty close to using four sticks at the same 5600 CL40. It has the benefit of reduced memory temperatures under sustained combined loads.

With two Kingston Fury 5600 CL40 kits:

https://www.3dmark.com/3dm/130810731?

19 hours ago, the jg89 said:

What does the bottom cover look like? can I see a pic?

These are the heatsinks on the bottom cover for the SSDs.

The freezing issue was the mixed RAM modules. With only 2x Crucial it did not freeze. Now I am testing 4x Kingston Fury so hopefully it will not freeze and also work at higher speeds.

I have not had a bluescreen yet with Clevo's drivers. They did post updated drivers the other day so I can test them out once I have the RAM stability ironed out.