Core i7 notebooks and pcsx2: SLOW
#31
Then I sincerely do not understand what the problem is. But there is certainly something with 1. either the new mobile i7, or 2. the dell notepad. I would like this to be further investigated somehow, maybe on other laptop with the new i7 part.
i7 @ 3.2Ghz /w Noctua
6GB Dominator 1600Mhz
5770 Vapor-X
1.5 TB Raid 5 /w 3ware 9650SE

Reply

Sponsored links

#32
(11-15-2009, 07:35 PM)mantasuk Wrote: Then I sincerely do not understand what the problem is. But there is certainly something with 1. either the new mobile i7, or 2. the dell notepad. I would like this to be further investigated somehow, maybe on other laptop with the new i7 part.

According to Jake in his earlier post, most likely it's the new mobile i7 (Clarksfield) processor. It certainly sounds like Intel really messed up this time. Everything was fine with my c2d (again, the exact same platform - even the same model of Dell notebook and video card is the same).

I suppose it could also be Win7 x64, since the c2d system was Vista x64, but I'd be more inclined to blame a Vista box. Besides, the Vista c2d machine is loaded down with all kinds of stuff running in the background - and the new Win7 system is a totally clean reinstall with none of the Dell bloatware running, and almost no other software running at all except pcsx2, f@h and a few tools that don't run as TSR apps. Following Jake's logic it may make some sense to deliberately load the new system down with bloatware to get Turbo Boost to somehow kick in, but given my experience with f@h it seems there's no clear cause-and-effect relationship going on there.

Another theory is the amount of L2 cache is lower on the new system - 1mb vs. 6mb on the c2d system. The core i7 system is supposed to make up for it by adding 6mb of cache (the c2d has no L3 cache). Not sure if it makes any difference at all there.

It also *could* be Dell's Studio XPS 1645 notebook as you suggested. In case it is, and since I'll be getting rid of this machine in the near future, if anyone else wants to bench pcsx2 against this notebook, they should know I'm using BIOS revision A01 - the most current and probably ONLY revision as of the time I'm posting this. It's possible future BIOS revisions may correct some kind of stupid quirk with CPU cores, though again, I'm more inclined to believe Jake's explanation that it's just a really bad Intel design flaw.
Reply
#33
It's not really a design flaw, it is just that the base clock rate is too low so when you aren't getting turbo boosted speeds you get a cpu that is severally disadvantaged compared to others in terms of clock rate. 1.7GHz is very low. Also you aren't guaranteed 2.8GHz in all situations that two cores are used. There are many different variables based on how many different areas of the cpu are being used and how much they are being used, if the floating point unit, cache etc. are being heavily used it cuts down on how high your cpu can clock upwards. You are only guaranteed a clock rate of 1.7GHz everything else is just a maybe based on what program you are running and how much it uses the cpu. A program can make turbo boost activate, but sometimes turbo boost will only boost you up to 2.2GHz that is still an overclock and it is still turbo boost doing it's job, but at 2.2GHz the performance will still be very low compared to other cpus. So the mobile i7s are like a double edged sword. depending on what type of programs you run they may deliver amazing performance, in other situations you'll get lack luster performance.
Reply
#34
(11-15-2009, 08:21 PM)bkwegoharder Wrote: It's not really a design flaw, it is just that the base clock rate is too low so when you aren't getting turbo boosted speeds you get a cpu that is severally disadvantaged compared to others in terms of clock rate. 1.7GHz is very low. Also you aren't guaranteed 2.8GHz in all situations that two cores are used. There are many different variables based on how many different areas of the cpu are being used and how much they are being used, if the floating point unit, cache etc. are being heavily used it cuts down on how high your cpu can clock upwards. You are only guaranteed a clock rate of 1.7GHz everything else is just a maybe based on what program you are running and how much it uses the cpu. A program can make turbo boost activate, but sometimes turbo boost will only boost you up to 2.2GHz that is still an overclock and it is still turbo boost doing it's job, but at 2.2GHz the performance will still be very low compared to other cpus. So the mobile i7s are like a double edged sword. depending on what type of programs you run they may deliver amazing performance, in other situations you'll get lack luster performance.

That's a fair assessment. Clearly I had originally applied over-simplified logic to this issue; i.e. if pcsx2 (and others, such as Dolphin and MAME) are using only two threads, I should get 2.8ghz. This was predicated on the notion that Intel was handling threads in an acceptable way. A giant, sweeping assumption on my part, and as I've found in practice, incorrect.

Intel's mobile CPU roadmap appears to be concentrated on much lower base clock speeds, and it looks like it will be a LONG time before those speeds come up to anything around what we saw with c2d before Intel discontinued its development. So yes, the future certainly doesn't look too bright for those of us with notebooks. We're probably going to be waiting for a very long time.
Reply
#35
This thread is making me sad. So that new i7 kept jumping in speed all over the place and never had a constant clock speed. And you can't turn off other cores Sad

Is this a problem with other applications as well (such as 3d's max or pc game)?

I'd be happy if this thing can get a constant speed since there are stronger i7s for the laptop that can turbo boost to 3.20ghz and probably higher. I do plan on getting the i7-920XM even if it does have an absurd price difference then the others.
Windows 7 - Asus G73jh-a1 - 17-720qm @ 1.6 GHz (2.8 GHz)(2.4ghz)(1.73ghz) - ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5870 @ 700/1000 (sometimes oc to 800/1100) - 8 gig ram
Reply
#36
(11-15-2009, 02:27 AM)diegochiha Wrote: and the graphics cards of those notebooks are pretty bad indeed.

the GeForce GTX 280M is the best card available at the moment and is considerably faster then the 9800M GTX destop version
Windows 7 - Asus G73jh-a1 - 17-720qm @ 1.6 GHz (2.8 GHz)(2.4ghz)(1.73ghz) - ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5870 @ 700/1000 (sometimes oc to 800/1100) - 8 gig ram
Reply
#37
(11-15-2009, 10:43 PM)Xellon Wrote: This thread is making me sad. So that new i7 kept jumping in speed all over the place and never had a constant clock speed. And you can't turn off other cores Sad

Is this a problem with other applications as well (such as 3d's max or pc game)?

I'd be happy if this thing can get a constant speed since there are stronger i7s for the laptop that can turbo boost to 3.20ghz and probably higher. I do plan on getting the i7-920XM even if it does have an absurd price difference then the others.

I doubt you'd experience any issues with most PC games since, as Jake said, most don't really make complex use of threads at the kernel level. That's good from the perspective that PC games will run fine; but bad since more complex applications like PCSX2, Dolphin, MAME (for some arcade games) and probably others will run much slower on anything beyond the old c2d sytems for probably many years. Since i7 will perform fantastically well with more common apps (read: almost anything that isn't an emulator), there's hardly an incentive for Intel to do anything about it in the near future, or perhaps ever, sadly. Probably not worth the investment. Their mobile CPU roadmap certainly bears that out - the core frequencies continue to get lower. Look at the Arrandale CPUs, due out next year - those frequencies are even lower than the Clarksfield platform I've been testing with. MUCH lower in fact.

From what I gather from this thread, your only option is probably going to be to wait until the minimum core frequencies get to a point where they exceed the old c2d frequencies. But don't hold your breath - instead hold on to your c2d system and hope it never breaks down. That is, of course, if you use emulators like PCSX2 on any regular basis. In which case, I would *definitely* stay as far away from the i7-920XM as possible - total waste of your money.

As much as I hate to say it, I may eventually buy one of these new units, pull out my old PS2 and just stop using PCSX2. At least then I'll be running games at full speed without any worries. It's so backwards, but may eventually be the only way around the issue without dishing out tons of money for a new desktop rig.
Reply
#38
The fact that F@H caused your CPU speed to drop even further is very disconcerting. That really shouldn't happen. I would start to suspect some kind of hardware malfunctioning at that point. It's possible -- some of the original dual core Athlon X2s had serious problems with internal speed regulation, and would start running at 66 and 50% speed for no good reason (mainly because the CPU thought it was overheating, even though it was not). The only fix was to junk the processor.

Also, CPU-Z only shows a unified clock speed because that's all there is. That's why these are multi-core CPUs, and not multi-CPU systems. All cores share a lot of things, and one of those things is the FSB and instruction clock multiplier. So it can't change speeds on individual cores.
Jake Stine (Air) - Programmer - PCSX2 Dev Team
Reply
#39
Oh, I got a new idea! Maybe we're looking in the wrong pace. Maybe the problem is the video card going slow, and not the i7. The reason I bring it up is because f@H might be using the video-accelerated folding stuffs, which works a video card quite aggressively, and that would cause PCSX2 to run even slower than before.

Likewise, if PCSX2 is stalling waiting for the video card, it idles, and that allows the CPU to drop clock speed. The more it idles against the video, the lower your i7 clock will drop due to the increased idling.
Jake Stine (Air) - Programmer - PCSX2 Dev Team
Reply
#40
The fact that intel is focusing more on dual cores and are insistent on making processors at lower frequencies is very annoying. Its just going to make more companies to continue focusing their programing for dual cores making the quads completely useless unless the user often multitask using different apps or have background apps running at once. I'm actually one of those people which is why I want a quad core but at the same time, it would be nice if the turbo boost would function properly on this emulator.

The new i7 mobile with turbo boost might still be able to play games like tekken on this emulator but now its a matter of finding what the problem could be. Dell? Malfunctions? Programming?

I'm going for dell cause I never did like them Tongue but thats an unreasonable conclusion and it might not be true.

Either way, shoegazer, Its nice to have someone with the new i7 around for testing purposes. I thank you.

Off topic - Instead of returning it, you can give it to me Biggrin
Windows 7 - Asus G73jh-a1 - 17-720qm @ 1.6 GHz (2.8 GHz)(2.4ghz)(1.73ghz) - ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5870 @ 700/1000 (sometimes oc to 800/1100) - 8 gig ram
Reply




Users browsing this thread: 3 Guest(s)