One of the recent topics permeating through the custom PC space recently has been about power draw. Intel’s latest eight-core processors are still rated at a TDP of 95W, and yet users are seeing power consumption north of 150-180W, which doesn’t make much sense. In this guide, we want to give you a proper understanding why this is the case, and why it gives us reviewers such a headache.
A detailed look at this nebulous topic by AnandTech.
Machines build with thermal solutions that can only handle the TDP will be constantly overheating, sounds familiar for anyone with a laptop with a modern Intel processor?
I put my i5 5500u through its paces plenty of times, when the fan does eventually come on its not for long and you could certainly sit the metal case on your legs. only just warm, so you must be buying or using really badly designed laptops…
I’d love some recommendations for a laptop.
project_2501,
When friends and family ask me this question, I have to turn around and ask them a lot of questions about how they expect to use it, haha. What matters to you, performance, portability, value, resolution? It all depends what you want to do with it. If you’re just browsing the web, then you don’t need much, even a dirt cheap restricted chromebook could work. If you are doing graphics or development, you’ll need more muscle and resolution.
I just purchased a new high end desktop pc and spent a lot more than I wanted to. I was going to wait till black friday or even next year, but I got pressured into doing it sooner as I was witnessing more and more stores going out of stock and raising retail prices due to whitehouse tariffs affecting the US supply chains. With trump’s 25% tariff tax looming in december, I didn’t want to risk not being able to buy what I needed.
https://www.extremetech.com/computing/280356-if-youre-planning-to-bu…
Edited 2018-11-13 16:21 UTC
well…
I’ve owned 3 Apple MacBook Pro laptops in recent years and all of them seem to overheat with what I thought would be basic tasks:
* watching 1080p youtube on an external 4K display over DisplayPort
* same with Netflix
* compiling code
* using webgl elements in a web page
* running simple python scripts to crunch through text data
* .. even scrolling up and down on a web page seems to increase tenp
The temperatures I’ve seen from these “basic” tasks get to and can breach 100C, with fans going full airline-engine mode.
The overheating has caused adhesive that holds the display panel in place to start to fail in clamshell mode (a support use case by the manufacturer).
What really bothers me is that we’re paying huge sums for powerful CPUs which can only operate at that level for a few seconds or less, before they are throttled.
My old 5+ yr old thinkpad didn’t have these issues. My ancient Dell 8600 didn’t overheat. Yes, they’re slower but perhaps they’re within engineering limits imposed by .. well.. physics.
more (much more) detail here on the Apple MacBook Pro issues if you’re interested –
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/2017-macbook-pro-13-non-tb-revi…
What OSes are there on your new desktop / did you give in and finally got Win10?
zima,
You are going to keep bugging me about that that aren’t you, haha…
Nope, the laptop runs windows 7, and the desktop I ordered without an OS. I’ll be running linux on it. Maybe I’ll try windows in a VM. Technically I bought it to develop neural networks, so I went big and ordered a very expensive RTX 2080 TI GPU. It’s the first time I’ve ever bought a serious GPU since I don’t really do gaming. I’m hoping to put it towards business applications.
I’m curious, what small business uses for neural networks there can be / you came up with?
zima,
In the scope of clients I currently work with, I think there’s a lot of opportunity to optimize problems that are traditionally accomplished with handwritten algorithms. Website “search” functions are a good example. Matching up ads to users is another. Recommending products, etc.
However I’m trying to grow new business in the field of AI & computer learning. We’ll see how that goes as I get more experience.
BTW, I got here an ad for IBM AI resources, you might find it useful: https://developer.ibm.com/ai/
(from there I saved for later reading…
https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/opensource/library/cc-get-started…
https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/library/cc-artificial-neural-netw…
https://developer.ibm.com/code/2018/02/19/getting-started-artificial… Read the O’Reilly book on getting started with AI
https://developer.ibm.com/blogs/2018/10/30/two-famous-deep-learning-…
)
Just bought a fully specced out Dell XPS 13 with a 4K display and Core i7. Amazing machine.
thanks – lots of people have pointed to Dell’s XPS range especially for running linux too
do you find it’s fans turn on or the CPU throttles excessively?
I suspect laptop makers are putting overpowered CPUs inside cases that can’t get the best out of them .. for marketing purposes.
project_2501,
You are right to be suspicious, the macbook pros are available with some great processors, but if you can’t run them without serious throttling issues, then what’s the point?
I have a Dell too, mine’s a precision workstation with an intel i7-2960XM quad-core cpu. Note that I’ve been buying laptops used because I can afford better models that way, obviously I end up with tech that’s a few years older and heavier… Nevertheless, no complaints about about performance or fans, they’re not loud even when they’re on, which doesn’t happen if I’m just browsing the web.
I ran a couple tests just now…
I should have tested this in the summer, but alas room temperature is 16.6C, so keep that in mind. The CPUs idle at 800Mhz / 40C, I ran a stress test (8 threads) all 4 cores sustained 3000Mhz at 87C. On a single threaded load for several minutes the highest temperature is about 80C running at 3400Ghz with sporadic bumps to 3600Ghz. It never reaches the official turbo frequency of 3.70GHz, grr.
If you are used to apple laptops, the size could put you off, but if you want a solution to the MBP’s overheating/throttling issues, then you’ll need to go bigger that’s for sure. It helps.
Edit: the i7-2960XM in my laptop has TDP = 55Watts, whereas all of apple’s MBP’s use better lower energy CPUs with TDP = 45Watts and so do all of Dell’s new products in the same series as mine. So that suggests their new laptops should reach lower temperatures that what I show above with no risk of throttling. I would ask for Thom to test his new laptop, but I doubt he will, haha.
Edited 2018-11-14 00:32 UTC
It’ll only get worse if Intel tries to be competitive in cores to AMD. Least till they find a way past the black hole their facing in the next few years. Time will tell…