Curious: P870 vs X170

[anassa]

Sorry if this has been talked about before. But - is the x170 actually better than the P870 at all?

 

Screen:

• Both 17.3 panels that seem to support the same type of panels up to even 4k 144hz? 

 

CPU:

• 10 core (10900k) or higher IPC 8 core (11900k) vs older 8 core (9900k)
  • The 9900k btw has been shown to undervolt pretty darn efficiently, even get it down to 65w while performing better than regular 9900
• In any type of games the GPU will be enough of a bottleneck that the difference between the 10900k/11900k/9900k will be negligible, maybe IF you do something that would require the 10 core it might be worth it? 

 

GPU :

• Both max out at a 3080 16GB

 

RAM:

• P870 seems to have better RAM and XTU / overclocking support for faster speeds
• Both can do 128GB?

 

Storage:

• If I understand correctly neither has hardware RAID controller, both are software controlled, so it is a wash
• X170km can have 4 x m.2 drives but no 2.5 mSATA drives
• P870 can have 2 x m.2 and 2 x 2.5 mSATA drives - but with the extra GPU slot there have been cards that add another 4 x m.2 drives.
• Maybe the x170 can do faster drive speeds? But is it big enough of a difference?
• Seems like P870 has the ability to have more drives and a wider range of types

 

Cooling:

• CPU:
  • P870 seems to be able to keep 9900k usable with TM heatsink and can add second CPU fan
    • Someone also did the vapor chamber mod to the heatsink - on NBR somewhere
  • x170 is also limited by thermal ability, but with higher power requirements for 10900k and 11900k it seems more severe?
• GPU:
  • P870 takes the cake with dual vapor chamber heatsink
  • X170 does a good job too, but not sure it can match the P870
  • I think if both had the 3080 the P870 could take more before it becomes thermally throttled
• Overall:
  • X170 is unified heatsink while P870 isn't 
  • Both can go on water with aftermarket cooling via aliexpress
  • Both can de-lid, and both can do direct die - with varying results
  • Both can use the same thermal paste/pad/liquid

 

Other:

• wifi? could the NIC card from a x170 just plug into a P870? So it is a wash?
• chipset - only real gain is x170km with PCI-E 4.0 - with the only real benefit is the 4th m.2 nvme slot? 
• x170 has better built in speakers
• x170 is marginally smaller dimensions than P870
• x170 has the kind of annoying two PSU solution
• P870 has better 1080p webcam
• P870 has more bios / mods support (It has been around longer..)
• P870 seems to be more stable / reliable system
• x170km seems to have the ability to use iGPU from CPU for longer battery use

 

 

 

At the end of the day . . .  it really seems like a case by case use? With one outshining the other in certain aspects but not others, and considering lets say the 4 year gap between the P870TM (2017) and the X170KM (2021) it just seems a little underwhelming. Especially since within the last few years with the regular BGA laptops that have the Nvidia 40XX series and new AMD's CPU's blow away any configuration these old beasts can be built to - except maybe RAM and storage. 

 

Just a random brain wandering to share. 

 

What do you all think? 

[aldarxt]

Excellent Post! I needed this cause there is so much talk about the X170 and rarely about the P870DM, but mine is running great and have no need to search for solutions.

Thanks!!!

[Reciever]

If the P870DM is mpcie then thats usually resolved with an adapter. 

 

That being said I believe someone just installed WiFi7 into the P870 in the official thread

 

 

[1610ftw]

17 hours ago, anassa said:

Sorry if this has been talked about before. But - is the x170 actually better than the P870 at all?

 

Screen:

• Both 17.3 panels that seem to support the same type of panels up to even 4k 144hz? 

 

CPU:

• 10 core (10900k) or higher IPC 8 core (11900k) vs older 8 core (9900k)
  • The 9900k btw has been shown to undervolt pretty darn efficiently, even get it down to 65w while performing better than regular 9900
• In any type of games the GPU will be enough of a bottleneck that the difference between the 10900k/11900k/9900k will be negligible, maybe IF you do something that would require the 10 core it might be worth it? 

 

GPU :

• Both max out at a 3080 16GB

 

RAM:

• P870 seems to have better RAM and XTU / overclocking support for faster speeds
• Both can do 128GB?

 

Storage:

• If I understand correctly neither has hardware RAID controller, both are software controlled, so it is a wash
• X170km can have 4 x m.2 drives but no 2.5 mSATA drives
• P870 can have 2 x m.2 and 2 x 2.5 mSATA drives - but with the extra GPU slot there have been cards that add another 4 x m.2 drives.
• Maybe the x170 can do faster drive speeds? But is it big enough of a difference?
• Seems like P870 has the ability to have more drives and a wider range of types

 

Cooling:

• CPU:
  • P870 seems to be able to keep 9900k usable with TM heatsink and can add second CPU fan
    • Someone also did the vapor chamber mod to the heatsink - on NBR somewhere
  • x170 is also limited by thermal ability, but with higher power requirements for 10900k and 11900k it seems more severe?
• GPU:
  • P870 takes the cake with dual vapor chamber heatsink
  • X170 does a good job too, but not sure it can match the P870
  • I think if both had the 3080 the P870 could take more before it becomes thermally throttled
• Overall:
  • X170 is unified heatsink while P870 isn't 
  • Both can go on water with aftermarket cooling via aliexpress
  • Both can de-lid, and both can do direct die - with varying results
  • Both can use the same thermal paste/pad/liquid

 

Other:

• wifi? could the NIC card from a x170 just plug into a P870? So it is a wash?
• chipset - only real gain is x170km with PCI-E 4.0 - with the only real benefit is the 4th m.2 nvme slot? 
• x170 has better built in speakers
• x170 is marginally smaller dimensions than P870
• x170 has the kind of annoying two PSU solution
• P870 has better 1080p webcam
• P870 has more bios / mods support (It has been around longer..)
• P870 seems to be more stable / reliable system
• x170km seems to have the ability to use iGPU from CPU for longer battery use

 

 

 

At the end of the day . . .  it really seems like a case by case use? With one outshining the other in certain aspects but not others, and considering lets say the 4 year gap between the P870TM (2017) and the X170KM (2021) it just seems a little underwhelming. Especially since within the last few years with the regular BGA laptops that have the Nvidia 40XX series and new AMD's CPU's blow away any configuration these old beasts can be built to - except maybe RAM and storage. 

 

Just a random brain wandering to share. 

 

What do you all think? 

 

Nice write-up!

 

Unless you want to do a lot of CPU-heavy stuff with a bit more portability the P870 will be fine.

 

Imo the X170 has a number of advantages for heavy CPU-use / memory intensive / mobile workstation use:

 

- works better and with faster memory at 128GB

- 10 cores run roughly as quiet as 8 cores in the P870

- color coding via RGB keys is possible on the X170, keyboard is also better overall

- not a lightweight but weighs about 1 to 1.5 lbs less than a P870DM(3)

- on the go it is also nice to have better speakers

 

Also I checked out a youtube video of somebody comparing gaming with the 9900K / 10900K and 12900K and I believe a 4090. There was quite a jump in performance going from the 9900K to the 10900K which surprised me.

 

The biggest downsides imo:

- The most stupid ever power supply solution - it boggles the mind how Clevo could ever have come up with that

- pretty crappy firmware that did not really work well with 11th gen Intel in the KM-G

- 4th SSD slot in the KM-G is not working when a 10th gen CPU is used

 

 

 

[anassa]

8 hours ago, 1610ftw said:

 

Nice write-up!

 

Unless you want to do a lot of CPU-heavy stuff with a bit more portability the P870 will be fine.

 

Imo the X170 has a number of advantages for heavy CPU-use / memory intensive / mobile workstation use:

 

- works better and with faster memory at 128GB

- 10 cores run roughly as quiet as 8 cores in the P870

- color coding via RGB keys is possible on the X170, keyboard is also better overall

- not a lightweight but weighs about 1 to 1.5 lbs less than a P870DM(3)

- on the go it is also nice to have better speakers

 

Also I checked out a youtube video of somebody comparing gaming with the 9900K / 10900K and 12900K and I believe a 4090. There was quite a jump in performance going from the 9900K to the 10900K which surprised me.

 

The biggest downsides imo:

- The most stupid ever power supply solution - it boggles the mind how Clevo could ever have come up with that

- pretty crappy firmware that did not really work well with 11th gen Intel in the KM-G

- 4th SSD slot in the KM-G is not working when a 10th gen CPU is used

 

 

 

 

Curious again but:

- how does it work better/faster with 128? I have not tried 128 yet, but is P870 limited in speed more than X170?

 

- how quiet it runs depends on tuning of the cpu and I would agrue that P870 has more stable/extensive bios support to dial that in? 

 

- for the youtube video I also looked up a few but it seems to depend, because in a way you are right with a 4090 there seems to have a reliable gap forming, but with a mobile 3080 as our bottleneck, we won't have the gpu strength to even have that difference show

 

Yes on the other aspects you mentioned 👍

 

[anassa]

12 hours ago, Reciever said:

If the P870DM is mpcie then thats usually resolved with an adapter. 

 

That being said I believe someone just installed WiFi7 into the P870 in the official thread

 

 

 

Nice! Now I want to try that too... one less reason for the X170 

[Developer79]

Hi,
I don't think there are huge differences between the two laptops! There are a few things that can be emphasized. On the whole, there is not a huge leap.
I think from a technical point of view, the P870xx is much more interesting.
Especially when you look at the trend of the latest laptops. Everything is soldered. It basically prevents upgradability. The 2 laptops are the last flagships with real upgradeability. Especially the P870xx is ingenious in this respect. I have checked the requirements for CPU expansion. It would actually be possible to upgrade to 13th/14th gen mobile, of course you would have to design a board! You would then have PCie 5.0 on the GPU. With my GPU expansion this would be the ideal addition. On the other hand, the question is. My tests with the RTX4070ti have shown that the P870xx is at least gigantically fast in terms of gaming. But I still want to do tests with the RTX4080, because RTX4090 was too big too much:-)

Greetz

 

[1610ftw]

On 12/29/2023 at 8:29 AM, anassa said:

 

Curious again but:

- how does it work better/faster with 128? I have not tried 128 yet, but is P870 limited in speed more than X170?

 

- how quiet it runs depends on tuning of the cpu and I would agrue that P870 has more stable/extensive bios support to dial that in? 

 

- for the youtube video I also looked up a few but it seems to depend, because in a way you are right with a 4090 there seems to have a reliable gap forming, but with a mobile 3080 as our bottleneck, we won't have the gpu strength to even have that difference show

 

Yes on the other aspects you mentioned 👍

 

 

128GB supposedly causes issues with Thunderbolt on the P870 chassis, even the latest ones. I have not tried it but that is a serious limitations when using a Thunderbolt docking station to for example support 10G.

 

Bios support for the X170 has matured and they can be dialed in very well, certainly enough to in my experience handle a bit more heat in CPU only loads which is also needed with two more cores. The unified heatsink design is a bit better suited to that. Obviously fully maxed out and running on all cylinders the DM3 will allow for significantly higher single GPU heat dissipation due to having been built to handle two GPUs.

 

I fully agree that the difference in gaming will probably be very little with stock cards.

 

Also it seems that the P870DM3 weighs over 2 lbs more than the X170 - truly a monster 🙂

 

 

As I am mostly interested in CPU power and drive support apart from memory I was not that fond of the P870 chassis as it does not do that much for the CPU especially on the power delivery side but then with that crazy add-on MXM card even early models could be extended to take 6" NVME SSDs albeit at a price. That is pretty cool!

 

I still have an early DM here and I may play around with it a little to see if I can get it to accept 128GB and then I will see how well the Thunderbolt still works after that while also using a 9900K 🙂

 

In any case I love the P870 and I wish it would have had a true successor in a proper X370 with a socketed CPU that can take up to the 13900K and an MXM GPU but lacking that the X170 ticks a few boxes for me that the P870 doesn't - love them both.

[matyee]

On 12/28/2023 at 8:31 AM, anassa said:

Sorry if this has been talked about before. But - is the x170 actually better than the P870 at all?

 

Screen:

• Both 17.3 panels that seem to support the same type of panels up to even 4k 144hz? 

 

CPU:

• 10 core (10900k) or higher IPC 8 core (11900k) vs older 8 core (9900k)
  • The 9900k btw has been shown to undervolt pretty darn efficiently, even get it down to 65w while performing better than regular 9900
• In any type of games the GPU will be enough of a bottleneck that the difference between the 10900k/11900k/9900k will be negligible, maybe IF you do something that would require the 10 core it might be worth it? 

 

GPU :

• Both max out at a 3080 16GB

 

RAM:

• P870 seems to have better RAM and XTU / overclocking support for faster speeds
• Both can do 128GB?

 

Storage:

• If I understand correctly neither has hardware RAID controller, both are software controlled, so it is a wash
• X170km can have 4 x m.2 drives but no 2.5 mSATA drives
• P870 can have 2 x m.2 and 2 x 2.5 mSATA drives - but with the extra GPU slot there have been cards that add another 4 x m.2 drives.
• Maybe the x170 can do faster drive speeds? But is it big enough of a difference?
• Seems like P870 has the ability to have more drives and a wider range of types

 

Cooling:

• CPU:
  • P870 seems to be able to keep 9900k usable with TM heatsink and can add second CPU fan
    • Someone also did the vapor chamber mod to the heatsink - on NBR somewhere
  • x170 is also limited by thermal ability, but with higher power requirements for 10900k and 11900k it seems more severe?
• GPU:
  • P870 takes the cake with dual vapor chamber heatsink
  • X170 does a good job too, but not sure it can match the P870
  • I think if both had the 3080 the P870 could take more before it becomes thermally throttled
• Overall:
  • X170 is unified heatsink while P870 isn't 
  • Both can go on water with aftermarket cooling via aliexpress
  • Both can de-lid, and both can do direct die - with varying results
  • Both can use the same thermal paste/pad/liquid

 

Other:

• wifi? could the NIC card from a x170 just plug into a P870? So it is a wash?
• chipset - only real gain is x170km with PCI-E 4.0 - with the only real benefit is the 4th m.2 nvme slot? 
• x170 has better built in speakers
• x170 is marginally smaller dimensions than P870
• x170 has the kind of annoying two PSU solution
• P870 has better 1080p webcam
• P870 has more bios / mods support (It has been around longer..)
• P870 seems to be more stable / reliable system
• x170km seems to have the ability to use iGPU from CPU for longer battery use

 

 

 

At the end of the day . . .  it really seems like a case by case use? With one outshining the other in certain aspects but not others, and considering lets say the 4 year gap between the P870TM (2017) and the X170KM (2021) it just seems a little underwhelming. Especially since within the last few years with the regular BGA laptops that have the Nvidia 40XX series and new AMD's CPU's blow away any configuration these old beasts can be built to - except maybe RAM and storage. 

 

Just a random brain wandering to share. 

 

What do you all think? 

I have prepared the vapor chamber mod on NBR 🙂 The P870 is still a beast, 9900k can max out the 3080. However the cpu side of the 870 is very weak compared to the x170. Also the keyboard of it is terrible... I had many of them with broken cable, resulted in few broken keys or broken backlight. What I do not like in the x170 are the 2 chargers... one 330W is fine for 9900k and 3080... 

 

My opinion if you can find a cheap x170 then go for it, otherwise a cheap p870 is still rockin'!

[Snowleopard]

On 12/29/2023 at 1:03 PM, matyee said:

I have prepared the vapor chamber mod on NBR 🙂 The P870 is still a beast, 9900k can max out the 3080. However the cpu side of the 870 is very weak compared to the x170. Also the keyboard of it is terrible... I had many of them with broken cable, resulted in few broken keys or broken backlight. What I do not like in the x170 are the 2 chargers... one 330W is fine for 9900k and 3080... 

 

My opinion if you can find a cheap x170 then go for it, otherwise a cheap p870 is still rockin'!

When I bought my x170 I got the single 780watt charger, it is a beast its almost like a miniature rack server power supply with fans, etc.

 

[1610ftw]

23 hours ago, Snowleopard said:

When I bought my x170 I got the single 780watt charger, it is a beast its almost like a miniature rack server power supply with fans, etc.

 

 

How is the noise level of those power supply fans?

I read somewhere that they are always on regardless of the temperature of the power supply.

[Snowleopard]

3 hours ago, 1610ftw said:

 

How is the noise level of those power supply fans?

I read somewhere that they are always on regardless of the temperature of the power supply.

 

To be completely honest, I never hear them kick on for example, if I am playing Diablo 4 or something and the fans in the X170 kick up, you can hear that , compared to that, I I cannot remember the last time I heard the fans in the power brick kick on. I know they are working because I put my hand behind it and air is flowing.

But I am really glad I went that route over 2 power bricks.

[aldarxt]

4 hours ago, 1610ftw said:

 

How is the noise level of those power supply fans?

I read somewhere that they are always on regardless of the temperature of the power supply.

My P870DM3-G is where the fan noise comes from, when I hit FN-1 my wife thought I was vacuuming my room LOL

[1610ftw]

12 minutes ago, aldarxt said:

My P870DM3-G is where the fan noise comes from, when I hit FN-1 my wife thought I was vacuuming my room LOL

 

Women can be so cruel 😄

[aldarxt]

OK here is a scenario for 2 GPU's. Running Topaz Video AI. I set it to use the 2nd GPU to upscale video's and that leaves the 1st GPU just being used by the system and I can still brows the web and whatever. A 2 min video can take 20 or 30 min's  to process. Here see the board drawing on peak of course 240W

It is truly a BEAST!

[1610ftw]

16 hours ago, aldarxt said:

OK here is a scenario for 2 GPU's. Running Topaz Video AI. I set it to use the 2nd GPU to upscale video's and that leaves the 1st GPU just being used by the system and I can still brows the web and whatever. A 2 min video can take 20 or 30 min's  to process. Here see the board drawing on peak of course 240W

It is truly a BEAST!

 

Damn ! My board in the 870TM1 only draws 200W! Is there a readily available vbios that I could use to go higher? 

[aldarxt]

On 1/6/2024 at 5:04 AM, 1610ftw said:

 

Damn ! My board in the 870TM1 only draws 200W! Is there a readily available vbios that I could use to go higher? 

I am using vBios 86.04.80.00.23

It came in 1 of my GTX 1080's and after flashing a few others I settled on this cause it gave the highest performance but doesn't like SLI. I had to use @ssj92's DifferentSLIAuto but that only works with older Nvidia drivers and raytracing is lost. This vBios claims 190W but I was surprised to see 240W

1080 86.04.80.00.23.bin

[Sniffy]

On 1/6/2024 at 3:48 AM, aldarxt said:

OK here is a scenario for 2 GPU's. Running Topaz Video AI. I set it to use the 2nd GPU to upscale video's and that leaves the 1st GPU just being used by the system and I can still brows the web and whatever. A 2 min video can take 20 or 30 min's  to process. Here see the board drawing on peak of course 240W

It is truly a BEAST!

 

There's definitely some cool use cases with multiple GPUs. I often need to use my GPU for work (offloading tasks in Matlab which are too slow on a CPU) and it completely ties up the GPU and uses most of its VRAM. I'd love a second to do other things on at the same time.

 

Would also be quite cool to use the host OS on one and virtualize the other and pass it to a VM.

[aldarxt]

@anassa posted x170km seems to have the ability to use iGPU from CPU for longer battery use, is this on all the time? Or does it take a restart to set it? I ask because on my m18x r2 is in SG mode, (my P870DM3-G doesn't have this) I can run Topaz Video AI on the Nvidia GPU and use intel graphics 4000 for basic browsing. Sure the CPU was at 23% but allowed plenty of use. That's why the 2nd GPU on the 870 is needed but maybe not on the X170

[1610ftw]

1 hour ago, aldarxt said:

@anassa posted x170km seems to have the ability to use iGPU from CPU for longer battery use, is this on all the time? Or does it take a restart to set it? I ask because on my m18x r2 is in SG mode, (my P870DM3-G doesn't have this) I can run Topaz Video AI on the Nvidia GPU and use intel graphics 4000 for basic browsing. Sure the CPU was at 23% but allowed plenty of use. That's why the 2nd GPU on the 870 is needed but maybe not on the X170

 

The X170KM-G has these bios options for internal graphics:

 

Auto

Disabled

Enabled

 

Auto does not really seem to make a difference and maybe would work when there is no Nvidia GPU present but Enabled shows the Intel GPU in device manager.

So what you want to do could work quite well, just don't expect much longer battery life.

 

 

[aldarxt]

5 hours ago, 1610ftw said:

 

The X170KM-G has these bios options for internal graphics:

 

Auto

Disabled

Enabled

 

Auto does not really seem to make a difference and maybe would work when there is no Nvidia GPU present but Enabled shows the Intel GPU in device manager.

So what you want to do could work quite well, just don't expect much longer battery life.

 

 

At 240 Watts I would expect my battery to smoke!

[1610ftw]

9 hours ago, aldarxt said:

At 240 Watts I would expect my battery to smoke!

 

Indeed battery life is rather disappointing but using it for 2 to 3 hours is possible with lighter workloads.

Or you can game for about 30 minutes 😄