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45W performance from 15W Kaby Lake-R
…or How I learned to stop worrying and love the X1 Carbon
by: George Kushnir (http://n4ru.it)

Preface
It’s time for another deep dive into laptop CPU performance, and as usual the subject of my testing will be a ThinkPad — the X1 Carbon 6th Gen — with an 8650U processor. After a month of fiddling around, and loads of testing and tweaking, I’m more familiar with the quirks surrounding the glorious Kaby Lake-R line — the series of Quad Core ULV chips that ship with a TDP of 15W. In this article we’ll be going over what Kaby Lake-R laptop CPUs are — really well binned 45W Kaby Lake chips in an UltraBook package!

Turning the U into HQ
The goal here is to extract near full and constant quad core performance out of our Kaby Lake-R chips. For that, we’re going to need a couple of tools. While normally, you would need just ThrottleStop for this, for some reason Power Limit Long/Short settings simply don’t want to work on Kaby Lake-R despite being supported. Using Intel XTU, we’ll be able to set the Turbo Boost Power Short and Max settings, as well as undervolt the CPU.

Power Limits
The simplest way to disable power throttling is through Intel XTU. Going to the Core settings and upping the “Turbo Boost Power Max” and “Turbo Boost Short Power Max” to something higher than stock settings will result in significant performance increases. Despite settings in XTU, some actions such as plugging in the charger or changing Windows power settings will “reset” the power limit, so you need to reapply XTU settings when you notice this occurring.

Undervolting
Next up we have undervolting. The settings in the screenshot above are specifically for my X1 Carbon 6th Gen, so your results may vary. Undervolting reduces overall power consumption without affecting performance, which reduces heat and wattage. You definitely want to find a stable undervolt and utilize it to get the best performance from your TDP limit increases.

Configurable TDP
Lucky for Kaby Lake-R (or at least for ThinkPad users), the configurable TDP setting is easily accessible through ThrottleStop. Selecting the TPL menu will allow you to quickly change your TDP limits without XTU. The configurable TDP Down and Up power limits are set to 10 W and 25W respectively. One feature of configurable TDP is that it allows you to modify the base clock to one of two non-default values — for the 8650U, that default value is 1.9GHz.

If you want a big boost in battery life in exchange for non-boost clocks being lowered to 800MHz, enable TDP Level Control and change the value to 1. Likewise, setting the TDP Level to 2 will up the power limit to 25W and set the non-boost ratio to 2.1GHz, and 25W should sustain the full 3.9GHz boost on most medium loads. Enabling “Lock” will keep this setting until a reboot.

Stock Results
I used PassMark’s PerformanceTest 9.0 for synthetic benchmarks. Stock benchmarks from the X1 Carbon are awful. Without changing any of the settings, we get well below the average rating, which is to be expected given the Carbon’s incredibly aggressive stock throttling. Running multiple tests gave scores that varied wildly, with one as low as 7751, nearly 16% below the average, with the upper end being 8544.

When unlocking the ridiculous 15W stock TDP limit, you get amazing results. I previously benchmarked using CPU-Z as well, and the results favor the 8650U against the 7700HQ across the board, surpassing even the 7820HQ in multithreading tests but averaging somewhere in between across the two benchmarks. The takeaway here is that these are really HQ chips that are aggressively throttled, but thankfully that throttling is user controllable.

Automating TDP Limits
Lucky for us, Intel XTU has a command line client that will allow us to automatically set these limits on boot. First, you have to enable script execution. All this requires is a one-liner to be run in the power shell console:



Once that’s done, save the following code as a power shell script, and set it to run on boot, wake, etc. Change the italicized numbers to your desired values. If you have a different installation path for Intel XTU, change $xtu_path.



With Intel XTU you don’t need ThrottleStop unless you want to lock your clocks above the base. With ThrottleStop you can set your clocks to always turbo (3.9GHz all cores) and set your cTDP to 25W. With this configuration you can get full performance out of your Kaby Lake-R chips, despite most laptop manufacturers (or at least Lenovo) aggressively power throttling by default. One thing to note is that you need to enable XTU settings before opening ThrottleStop, otherwise XTU will fail to apply settings for some reason (it asks you to reboot, but settings won’t take affect if ThrottleStop is ever the first to start and enable its own settings.)

Hi guys! I hope this is the right place, if it isn't please remove it or let me know ya.

I'm a student looking to get a second hand laptop below 1k. My budget is unfortunately very low but regardless, I don't need to high spec because I won't be gaming and only be doing my work on my laptop.

I've seen many recommendations for ThinkPads and I must say I'm very inclined to them! I would like to know from owners of ThinkPads, what are some things that prospective buyers have to look for and usually what's the ballpark figure like and if possible, what are the models to go for? So have I've seen the T430S very well recommended.

I've seen very cheap thinkpads and I've seen expensive ones, even though they are pretty old by laptop standards. Appreciate your kind replies. Thanks all...

Hi boss

I'm interested in T480, T480s and while browsing the threads. Am thinking of evaluating X1 Carbon as well. But there's a video on the issue of glass trackpad

Anyone still using x230?...bought refurbish set and done some updating on the hardware - swap ssd and upgrade 16gb...the temperature quite hot while running heavy load up to 70 celcius...any advise on managing the temperature?

Hi all, I just bought a used Thinkpad T440P that's in pretty good condition for it's age. One of the reasons I chose the P variant of that generation/range is because I was told its more open to upgrades than the rest.

I already have a 256GB SSD as the main drive. I'm now thinking of installing a 120 or 128GB M.2 SSD as the system driver while I use the 256 for storage (I may also add another 256 in place of the DVD unit).

All I know now is that the T440P only accepts 42mm SATA M.2s. Hope someone here may be able to advise me on the other details eg. compatible makes/models and installation procedure. I intend to DIY.

Some links I've looked at so far (but not definitive enough for an amateur like myself):

ThinkPad T440p SSD Upgrade with Transcend MTS400 256GB 2242 M.2 SSD

m.2 SSD in T440p

Thanks in advance.

Yes, it seems the model is the last one of its kind to have upgradeable socket type CPUs but I think I'll stay with the installed Haswell CPU (4th Gen Intel® Core™ i5-4300M (2 cores, Up to 3.30 GHz, 3MB L3) as I'm satisfied with the processing power. Thanks for the link.

Any suggestion for a compatible M.2 SSD would be much appreciated.

why A285 become X395? 

anyone have experience of adding a secondary 2.5inch sata 3 ssd to thinkpad t480? i ordered one with 256 nvme opal ssd, and now i have a 2.5inch sata 3 evo 860 500gb lying around.

If I only select nvme, and none for hdd, will I have the cable /adapter for hdd to motherboard?

-----------
Same for t480,
If I choose hdd, later want change to nvme, I need to find the cable/adapter myself?

-----------
Want get x1e but currently budget Abit tight as my car ICE broken......

Hi Everyone,

Been a long time MBP user and its about time to upgrade. Since apple having issues with their keyboard and price that doesn't make sense, I'm opting for Thinkpad. I was looking at E490/E480 but since they got the cooling/heating issues, I would want to opt for higher spec like T490 which comes with Mil-Grade.

Since T490 is still new, therefore price is on the high side. Can you suggest based on the spec below on where I can reduce it. I would prefer to keep the GPU in but you can only opt for the MX250 if you go for the i7, unlike T480 which can do i5 + MX 150.

I don't mind to reduce the SSD/RAM sizes since its upgradable later on right? Most probably can get education discount 12%. Not sure if you guys have any other hacks to get more discount. Budget is 4k but I can try to push 500 more if its new model and futureproof.

*Usage: Email, Words, Excel, CAD viewing, Youtube/Netflix, Casual Gaming (Cities Skylines)

Thanks guys.

@prasys, @ZM Fong, thanks guys for helping me out at Notebook Recommendation.

I bought x60 but they gave me x61 lol. 3gb ram with 120gb HDD. Quite responsive for a 12 year old laptop! I cant expect more for this kinda price.

Its running on win7, you will be surprised how responsive it is. I think its a brand new HDD.

where to buy....

Hi,

I am using Lenovo Thinkpad x270 with below specs:
- i7 7th gen
- 8GB DDR4 ram
- 12.5” HD (1366 x 768) TN, 200 nits

Seek for help to know if the display is this model able to replace with higher res of monitor? I am thinking to upgrade to 12.5” FHD (1920 x 1080) IPS, 300 nits.

If yes, any idea which shop I can go? Or have to go back to Lenovo Service Center?

Please help.... Thank you sir.

Hmm, interesting. I will try again after 9:00PM later.

So far, the best I've been able to get X390 with these options;
- Core i5-8265U, 16GB RAM 256GB NVMe, 1080p 300Nits Anti-Glare Screen, Backlit Keyboard 65W Adapter
- 3yr Premier support with on-site NBD upgrade from 1Y Depot/CCI (+RM1)
- 3yr Accidental Damage Protection Add-On (Free)
- 3yr Sealed Battery Add-on (+RM1)
- Basic backpack (+RM1)

Total = RM4,241.80 (free standard shipping) after applying the "SCHOOL" coupon code.
For now, I'm keeping that browser tab open and have also saved the Cart ID number. Maybe I can do better later, but the accidental damage protection and free 1-time battery replacement is quite attractive in this package. The backpack is probably useless, but I can give it away to someone.

Lol i just bought x1c7 last month

Then lenovo say the 10th gen cpu, wifi 6 and LTE-A coming for the next batch of thinkpads

!@#$

I also wonder, the T495 does it come with two battery like the old T480, T470?