Hi everyone,
Can people report what their sustained wattage is during stress testing (e.g. Prime95 or Heavy). In games like iracing I get a sustained wattage of 12W. No more. I use the laptop docked, but with the screen open.

I have noticed that if you play around with the Dell Power Management software, you can alter the PL1 (dynamic power limit) between 28W (Ultra performance), 25W (Balanced) and 15W (Quiet) and 10W (cool).
Then when you play around with the windows power setting (between power saving and performance), the CPU frequencies spend more time boosted or not. However, this increases fan speed and causes heating. The result int he PL1 limit dynamically adjusts downwards.

Also, you can add registry setting to alter the max frequency of the CPU. I have found that limiting the frequency (2 to 2.8Ghz) reduces drastic throttling when CPU is under heavy load.

So, for light work where there can be at times spikes in CPU load, dynamic PL1 is fine. However, playing games where settings have to be tuned to ensure you do not bottle neck your CPU and GPU for constant performance, requires that CPU be limited to a max thermal load of about 12W. This means reducing the CPU max frequency and maximising the Fan speed.

Quote from: Nope on October 28, 2020, 12:06:14
Dell XPS = low Quality Control = a lot of problems. It's powerful and beautiful but... no, thanks.

Quality control is OK regarding finish, panel brigthness distribution etc. The problem is that Dell make a trivial faults during design process so overall usability does not correspond to the premium price and as a premium price I mean that Dell XPS 13 is more expensive in Europe than MBP 13" 2020 (Ice Lake) what is a total absurd. Simple example of design fault: microphones in the front where the front is sharp so when you want to use your laptop lying on the couch microphone holes are blocked. In Apple MBP microphones are behind top speaker grilles so you cannot block it. So to conclude Dell has a lot of potential but it is wasted by Dell project managers who decide about a product and it is wasted because possibly they do not use this laptop for a daily work in office and at home.

Quote from: PepsiCo on November 03, 2020, 19:10:16
Now for the the bad part... This behavior is also seen even when the charger is connected. Its not as bad but it still is clearly present at lower battery levels. This I don't understand.. So if you battery is low and you connect the charge. You not getting the best performance until the battery gets to a certain level.

I can only imagine they prioritize charging so that it actually recharges even if you happen to do something taxing. When you load a system, charging can often practically grind to a halt. It could be a very unpleasant surprise. Not to mention that it's not a good idea to recharge a system when it's running hot.

**On Battery**
Charge LVL -5% Peak -9W Mid -8W Min -8W  = CB R20 Score: 775 Bad!
Charge LVL -9% Peak -9W Mid -8W Min -8W  = CB R20 Score: 773 Bad!
Charge LVL -14% Peak -15W Mid -12W Min -10W  = CB R20 Score: 1121 Not Good!
Charge LVL -19% Peak -15W Mid -15W Min -15W  = CB R20 Score: 1350 Low
Charge LVL -25% Peak -20W Mid -20W Min -20W  = CB R20 Score: 1750 Better
Charge LVL -35% Peak -25W Mid -23W Min -23W  = CB R20 Score: 1895 Good
Charge LVL -50% Peak -30W Mid -23W Min -23W  = CB R20 Score: 1955 Best.

**On Charger**
Charge LVL -5% Peak -15W Mid -15W Min -15W  = CB R20 Score: 1450 Low
Charge LVL -10% Peak -15W Mid -15W Min -15W  = CB R20 Score: 1464 Low
Charge LVL -14% Peak -15W Mid -15W Min -15W  = CB R20 Score: 1460 Low
Charge LVL -20% Peak -25W Mid -15W Min -15W  = CB R20 Score: 1475 Low
Charge LVL -26% Peak -45W Mid -28W Min -21W  = CB R20 Score: 1970 Good
Charge LVL -31% Peak -52W Mid -28W Min -25W  = CB R20 Score: 2149 Best

What I found is that during battery in order to get max performance the battery needs to be over 50% charge. And as the battery drops the performance lowers. And when you get low the performance becomes horrible!
**On Battery**
100-50% lvl = Full Performance
50-25% lvl = Small Performance Hit.
25-20% lvl = Med Performance Hit
20-15% lvl = Big Performance Hit
15-0% lvl = Massive Performance Hit.

Now for the the bad part... This behavior is also seen even when the charger is connected. Its not as bad but it still is clearly present at lower battery levels. This I don't understand.. So if you battery is low and you connect the charge. You not getting the best performance until the battery gets to a certain level.
**On Charger**
100-30% lvl = Full Performance
30-25% lvl = Small Performance Hit
25-0% lvl = Big Performance Hit

Dell has one significant problem - lack attention to details. Persons who design it do not use it! Full of bugs!

Minimum brightness 60.2cd/m^2? Unbelievable :(
60.2cd/m^2 should be way too bright for use at night/dimmed rooms.

Dell should have allowed the users to further lower the brightness, like what Apple/Microsoft/Lenovo have been doing (many macbook/thinkpad/surface has a minimum brightness <10cd/m^2, according to other notebookcheck reviews)

Quote from: Confused on October 28, 2020, 13:36:42

Quote from: gantagavin on October 28, 2020, 10:44:44
I wonder when prominent manufacturers, such as Dell and HP, will release the AMD version of their flagship offerings? Like, a Spectre or XPS with AMD Ryzen 7 4800U sure will be exceptional! (but hey, ofc they won't, at least for now, we can thanks Intel for that :D)

Just buy AMD-powered Lenovo Yoga Slim 7 if you purely seek perfomance, people! Tiger lake ain't worth your bucks

I'd thank Intel for the fact that those laptops even exist considering they're the ones who did a lot of the engineering.

If you want premium AMD devices, AMD needs to do the same.

Anything to back up your claim since not all flagship offerings is Evo-certified and if some of them are, based on what i read from various sites, it is more like a collaboration between Intel and the OEM's engineers (Intel just helped the OEM (how) to optimize their laptop so it can qualified to be Evo-certified)

Howbeit, yeah, ofc they need to, if not for those Intel-exclusive flagships, they will be very much crushed by AMD

Nevertheless, one could see the pattern that at least these OEMs are putting AMD processor for series that sit right below the flagship offering in their portfolio (such as HP Envy and ProBook, Lenovo Thinkpad T and Yoga Slim 7, Asus Zenbook UM series (the lite version of UX series so to speak), etc.), so i think it is not that bad (but broader options won't hurt, no?)

I think it will be just a matter of time before these high-end laptops equipped with AMD processor

Y'all should review the 9310 2-in-1, it doesn't throttle as much due to its upgraded cooling system. It has a vapor chamber, which for this implementation helps noticeably.

Quote from: gantagavin on October 28, 2020, 10:44:44
I wonder when prominent manufacturers, such as Dell and HP, will release the AMD version of their flagship offerings? Like, a Spectre or XPS with AMD Ryzen 7 4800U sure will be exceptional! (but hey, ofc they won't, at least for now, we can thanks Intel for that :D)

Just buy AMD-powered Lenovo Yoga Slim 7 if you purely seek perfomance, people! Tiger lake ain't worth your bucks

I'd thank Intel for the fact that those laptops even exist considering they're the ones who did a lot of the engineering.

If you want premium AMD devices, AMD needs to do the same.

Dell XPS = low Quality Control = a lot of problems. It's powerful and beautiful but... no, thanks.

It's interesting how in the "Processor" section, you chose not to add the Yoga Slim7-14ARE (4800U) on the graph, but you did include it on the other sections.
I recommend everyone to add it just so you can see how far Intel is from AMD on these metrics.

Anyhow, I'm still dreaming for an XPS with AMD in, but that's never going to happen.
I guess a Lenovo flagship with AMD in is also not happening any time soon... (Yoga Slim 7 pro announced in August, still waiting...)

I wonder when prominent manufacturers, such as Dell and HP, will release the AMD version of their flagship offerings? Like, a Spectre or XPS with AMD Ryzen 7 4800U sure will be exceptional! (but hey, ofc they won't, at least for now, we can thanks Intel for that :D)

Just buy AMD-powered Lenovo Yoga Slim 7 if you purely seek perfomance, people! Tiger lake ain't worth your bucks

What a throttling mess during the CB15 loop and also the gameplay, can't it just run at a steady 25w or even 18w for a god damn minute?

To me, performance seems much better by looking at the graph and cinebench single core. More importantly, there's a large variation among tiger lake laptops (check the much worse Asus) which is something I don't like and Intel or manufacturers should be clearer about the TDP they choose.