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Ask Slashdot: High-Performance Laptop That Doesn't Overheat?
AqD writes: Last year we started to replace business/multimedia-grade laptops with gaming laptops at work, after several years of frustration with overheating and throttling issues that plagued our laptops from Acer, ASUS, Dell, Lenovo, and basically every brand you can find on market, making it impossible to write code and run db/test environment all on the same laptop.
The first new batch comes from Clevo because their gaming laptops don't look like gaming laptops, and they offer 3-6 disk slots which we badly need. The result is acceptable, however, not quite as good as I had expected. Mine has i7-4700mq CPU which is more or less equivalent to an older i7 on the desktop, but its temperature is raised to 70-80C while turbo boost is on, even with the best thermal paste. My friend's i7-4801mq is worse — it could never stay at the advertised 3.6GHz for more than a few seconds before it burns up over 90 and starts to throttle. Its benchmark result is nearly identical to the 4700mq because of heat problems. And it's only 3.6GHz! The best i7 CPU on a desktop could easily run closer to 5GHz with 6 cores / 12 threads running!
So what should we choose next time? We're not looking for something cool or slim or light. We need real laptops which can at least run prime calculation at advertised turbo boost speed, full cores/threads for an entire day. A nice bonus would be manual fan control plus easy access to the fan for cleaning.
The first new batch comes from Clevo because their gaming laptops don't look like gaming laptops, and they offer 3-6 disk slots which we badly need. The result is acceptable, however, not quite as good as I had expected. Mine has i7-4700mq CPU which is more or less equivalent to an older i7 on the desktop, but its temperature is raised to 70-80C while turbo boost is on, even with the best thermal paste. My friend's i7-4801mq is worse — it could never stay at the advertised 3.6GHz for more than a few seconds before it burns up over 90 and starts to throttle. Its benchmark result is nearly identical to the 4700mq because of heat problems. And it's only 3.6GHz! The best i7 CPU on a desktop could easily run closer to 5GHz with 6 cores / 12 threads running!
So what should we choose next time? We're not looking for something cool or slim or light. We need real laptops which can at least run prime calculation at advertised turbo boost speed, full cores/threads for an entire day. A nice bonus would be manual fan control plus easy access to the fan for cleaning.
I have the last gen laptop that utilizes a mobile processor and I love it. It takes everything I can throw at it.
Definitely check out their new lineup, seems like it would be a perfect fit for what you are trying to accomplish.
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They call it "turbo boost speed" precisely because you can't run at that speed for an entire day. Otherwise they would just call it "speed".
> We need real laptops which can at least run prime calculation at advertised turbo boost speed, full cores/threads for an entire day.
Intel says:
Intel Turbo Boost Technology 2.0 allows the processor to operate at a power level that is higher than its TDP configuration and data sheet specified power for short durations to maximize performance.
Turbo Boost is designed to kick in for one to two seconds while rendering some enormously complex page or something. The CPUs are not designed to run at Turbo Boost speeds all day; so says Intel, and I suppose they know something about Intel processors.
Non-obligatory car analogy: Nitrous Boost would have been a more analogous name. It's used for seconds, like nitrous oxide, not all day, like a turbo can be.
I have this kind of laptop (an old Clevo D900F with a desktop Core I7 950). And those are the normal temperatures of the current gen (even old gen) under load. The new Clevo series (P650/670 SE/SG) are said to run cooler, maybe in the 60-70 range. But this comes at the cost of having both CPU and GPU soldered to the MB. Do not expect ANYTHING lower, even over the next year in the laptop market.
Consider elevating your laptop, or even using a cooler. It might help reducing from a couple of degrees to about 5.
You will benefit from the reviews at Notebookcheck.net.
For every machine they test precisely the thing that you are talking about. They run the laptop at maximum load and keep an eye on temperatures and CPU/GPU operating frequencies.
You're getting a Dell. I know you mentioned you already tried this brand and they overheated however I think I can direct you in the correct direction. Disclaimer though I am a huge fan of Dell and pretty much use all their products (enterprise line) at home. The trick is to not get the consumer models. Insprin: Consumer Latitude: Business (Sales, Marketing etc) Precision: Developers / enterprise grade. We had an issue for over a year with Latitudes that would spike in their CPU usage, pinned at 100% and wouldn't release. If we shut the computer down it would be ok for a minute or two when we power it back up then it would go back into the same pattern. I obviously thought it was a virus or inefficient program running in the background. Here is what happened, it was overeating and as a "feature" the CPU would step down it's clock automatically to reduce the heat output. It was just confusing. The fix for this situation is to run the laptop with the case open, top up so the heat vents upwards. having the top closed creates a blanket effect. I have an Asus G73SW and the same thing happens when I crunch data. This particular model though I have had for a while and it only started doing it after a year or two so it just needs to be de-dusted. Same issue though. There are some great comments about desktop models though. I personally use desktop and server models for work now. Right now I'm on a Precision T7500 tower that I got on eBay a year ago for like $290. The specs are very similar to an R600 / R700 server which starts at around ~$3k. The mobo supports up to 196GB of ram, has plenty of drive space, onboard raid (get a raid card though for performance), plenty of space for adding dedicated video cards and extra fans, also supports dual procs. Not bad for the price before I upgrade the parts. Altogether I'm at 24GB ram, 16x logical cores and some other goodies for under $1k. You should also make sure your developers have access to servers. Instead of trying to run everything on their laptops I would advise setting up some dedicated dev / sandbox servers. Perhaps provision a DB server that can be shared and a web server for staging / testing or sandbox purposes.This just helps offload some of the infrastructure load their laptop would normally have to shoulder. In the end some stuff will be run locally and some will be on dev servers (if you have them). So remember, don't get the shitty lines, go for the Precision. If you have a laptop that is docked, make sure the lid is open and get them a company issue tiny-fan. Laptop: Dell Precision M6700 or M6800 or whatever the current model is. Desktop: Dell Precision T7500 or T7600 or the next model up (recommended, tons of room). Oh yeah these workstations are also BIG. It's like the size of a small person and people always chuckle if I have to pick one up and move it around because it looks so absurdly big compared to other models. It's fun for sure.
A properly equipped workstation laptop (read: Lenovo W series Thinkpads, or Dell Precision) would have to be configured deliberately low for that to happen.
If one were to consider something on the order of a larger W series Thinkpad (W540, for example), there would be plenty of room to not only outdo that buildbox, but to also have room for a long service contract, a feature that OP's company may want.
Yes, these kind of laptops do get hot, but it's not as if manufacturers haven't paid attention to getting it right.
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Check the Intel documentation, if you have access to it (much of it is NDA protected). They state clearly what the cooling requirements are. Because everyone wants super thin and quiet laptops their newer CPUs are designed to run hot. Yeah, it does reduce their lifespan, but since the other parts of the laptop usually die long before the CPU does they make that trade-off.
Look at how they have designed the CPUs to throttle. They go full tilt under load right up to the point where they hit that 90C thermal limit, then throttle just enough to remain there indefinitely. Intel chose 90C deliberately, it's not arbitrary. Their chips are designed to work safely at that temperature. If they were not they would have set the limit lower.
You are right, lower temperatures are better. That's not what most people want though, they don't wonder around the shop checking CPU temperatures. They look for laptops that are thin, light and quiet.
One tip though, for Intel CPUs to work well you need to install Intel's drivers on Windows. Otherwise the CPU will tend to run close to the thermal limit all the time. The driver helps it throttle back when CPU load is low. I don't know what you need to do for Linux I'm afraid, maybe the kernel already does it. This issue is particularly common with corporate Windows images, where the IT guy thinks that the Intel driver is just bloatware or because there are no red crosses in Device Manager it isn't needed.
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