AVADirect Clevo P170EM Part 2: GTX 680M Grudge Match
by Jarred Walton on October 15, 2012 6:50 PM ESTClevo P170EM Battery Life Revisited
I noted in the first P170EM review that battery life was rather poor, even for a high-end notebook. I felt at the time that the BIOS/firmware was to blame, but without an official download location from Clevo I was hesitant to update either notebook. I still feel Clevo is really making a mistake by not providing official BIOS updates—they would rather you contact your notebook vendor and ask for a BIOS—but I decided to go ahead and snag the latest BIOS for the P170EM from the Notebook Review forums’ Clevo BIOS thread. (That you’re able to get better BIOS support via NBR forums than from Clevo is beyond ludicrous.)
Updating the EC/KBC firmware to version 1.00.09 and the BIOS to version 1.00.10 wasn’t quite as simple and painless as I’d like. Specifically, the EC updates (I tried all of them before taking the next step) are for ROM ID P170EMx whereas the AVADirect notebooks both have ROM IDs of P170EM (no “x” suffix), so I had to use the “ignore ROM ID” option. I don’t if that’s something related to the notebook vendor or just par for the course, but by default I couldn’t just run the flash utilities. The BIOS on the other hand updated without any issues. When all was said and done, I then retested battery life, and sure enough things have improved quite a bit—though oddly, where the GTX 680M and HD 7970M were quite close before, the GTX 680M now does quite a bit better. Both dGPUs should be off during our battery life testing, so I’m not sure what’s going on here; perhaps the BIOS/firmware still isn’t fully optimized for the AMD GPU.
We’re including the before/after results for both the HD 7970M and GTX 680M after applying the BIOS/firmware updates. The original BIOS was 1.00.05 while the updated BIOS is 1.00.10.
Oh what a difference a BIOS makes. We’re still nowhere near matching the prowess of designs like the Samsung Series 7 or Razer Blade, but we’re dealing with a substantially larger chassis that has the ability to support three spindles plus an mSATA drive—not to mention FireWire and several other seldom-seen features. I still feel like both the Alienware M17x and the P170EM could do better with further optimizations, but at least with the updated BIOS/firmware Clevo is able to surpass the normalized battery life of Alienware in most cases.
While the battery life improves on both laptops with the updated BIOS, it’s perplexing that the HD 7970M version is using substantially more power—idle power draw is ~15.1W for the GTX 680M compared to ~17.3W for the HD 7970M. We’re not using the same physical notebook of course (so there’s a different LCD, motherboard, battery, etc.), but even so that particular result is more than a minor deviation. Power draw during our Internet test is ~16.7W for the 680M vs. ~18.3W for the 7970M, so it’s a bit closer, and for H.264 playback the 7970M draws ~21.7W vs. ~20.6W for the 680M. Basically, the higher the loads on the system as a whole, the closer the two notebooks are in battery life and power use.
But despite the above concerns regarding AMD vs. NVIDIA, the fact is the P170EM is a large gaming notebook and battery life is only a secondary (or tertiary) concern. It’s good to see close that we’re able to hit around 4.5 hours of moderate use on battery power, and that should be enough for most people. Sure, if you fire up a game (or happen to come unplugged), your battery isn’t going to last that long, but if you’re trying to bulk up by carrying around a 10+ pound notebook + accessories at school you could conceivably get through four hour long classes before you need to plug in. I should also note that charging times are quite reasonable for the battery, taking under two hours to reach 100% even when you’re putting a significant load on the system; that’s where having a large enough power adapter is beneficial: under full load, the P170EM still doesn’t come near the 220W rating of the power brick.
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TrantaLocked - Tuesday, October 16, 2012 - link
Jarred you messed up with performance vs price on this one. On powetnotebooks.com and most resellers, the 7970m adds $300 to the price, while the 680m adds $495. That is a 66% increase in cost for a 20% gain in performance.JarredWalton - Wednesday, October 17, 2012 - link
If you want to talk GPU pricing, technically the MXM 7970M can be found for around $600 typically, which the GTX 680M goes for $900. But you can't buy a P170EM without any GPU, so it's still a strange discussion to have.TokamakH3 - Wednesday, October 17, 2012 - link
Oh? I bet if you contacted XoticPC or one of the other resellers, they'd probably be willing to sell you a P170EM without a GPU. Clevo systems are a lot more like desktops in that they're very configurable, esp if you include all the reseller options. The above post does make a good point, if you look at it from a purely upgrade price, the difference is an exaggerated 66%, if you look at it as a total system price, it's a very understated 15%. Clearly someone can choose whichever value they want to either emphasize the AMD price advantage or marginalize it.Seems like the fair thing to do would be to compare the OEM price.
TrantaLocked - Tuesday, October 16, 2012 - link
Performance decreased heavily in Diablo 3, unless you had Vsync on for the 7970m for Diabo 3 Jarred? http://www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-Radeon-HD-7970M.7...The 7970m should be getting over 80FPS at ultra, with or without Enduro.
JarredWalton - Wednesday, October 17, 2012 - link
I tested a section of the game that was likely more demanding than the results elsewhere. It's something of a "worst-case", but that's where you notice problems the most.TrantaLocked - Tuesday, October 16, 2012 - link
Jarred could you test an Alienware with a 7970m with Enduro off and compare to the Clevo with 7970m and hotfix? I think that i more important to 7970m owners than 7970m vs 680m.JarredWalton - Wednesday, October 17, 2012 - link
We don't have one (yet? AMD said they'd try to get me one), but if I can get an M17x with 7970M, I'll definitely test both with and without Enduro.Hrel - Tuesday, October 16, 2012 - link
Performance advantage aside, those battery life results are why I go Nvidia lately; and Intel as a matter of fact. Not to mention the generally better/more stable driver support, CUDA and PhysX which both hold value. No, the value they add wouldn't be enough to make me buy Nvidia if AMD had a 50% performance lead at the same price, but they do not.Also last time I used AMD gpu's, HD4000 series, I ran into hiccups in running my PC. Audio stuff, some video stuff with certain video files, proper fitting to my HDTV screen, other random inconsistencies that aren't necessarily a deal breaker; but are most definitely annoying.
Laptops though, Optimus being more mature and the better battery life at any given price range gives them the win in my book; all day.
Bytales - Wednesday, October 17, 2012 - link
I own a p370em with dual 7970m. I play borderlands 2, diablo 3, star war the old repulbic. Other games, i havent tested.On notebookcheck, the 7970mCF is listed between 34491 and 35926 P GPU Vantage score.
I have managed to install a 12.9 beta desktop driver on the laptop.
Score is now 37200 P Gpu Vantage.
Also note, that as of now, there still is NO DRIVER with OFFICIAL SUPPORT for the 7970m.
Bugs that i encountered are a few with crossfire on, in swtor, like minimap flickering, and in single gpu stuttering with shadows, But i believe later on when we will have a driver with official support for the 7970m, we will get more performance, or at least not so many bugs.
i gotta ask yah, what driver did you use for the 7970m tests ? Is that the driver supplied with the cd ? Cause if that is the case, then using the driver that i have, will bring more performance.
The problem is, i think the dekstop driver cant be used on the laptop with integrated graphics.
THe p370em's design is so that is bypasses the iGPU, there are no enduro problems, and no under utilization problems.
I do think driver will fix a few more problems in the future and bring performance up a bit.
Besides, i play games on a single cpu, and mine bit coins with the second :) and since i am home only 6 hours a day, i do profit from letting the GPUs mine coins, which is way better on the AMD gpus.
whatthehey - Wednesday, October 17, 2012 - link
Wow! Just wow. Mining BTC on a CrossFire laptop might help offset the cost a bit but that's going to take a long time to come anywhere near paying off the notebook. Assuming current rates, I assume your P370EM gets around 650Mh/s. That would mean around 0.19BTC per day, while drawing around 260W, so profit at $12/BTC could work out to ~$1.66 per day, or almost $50 per month. But in another six weeks or so, the block reward gets cut in half and you're then down to earning $0.60 per day. Sure, that's still $18 per month, but....How much wear and tear does it cost to run a GPU at 100% load 24/7? On a desktop, I could see it potentially being a viable tactic to earn some money, especially since you can buy a 7970 for $410 and mine at 650Mh/s on a single GPU. But on the P370EM you've invested how much? $2300? I think you'll end up killing hardware (fans or other elements could fail) long before you've recovered the initial cost. But best of luck!