Can Apple Detect Overclocks - GT750M 15" Retina

[GaryLiao]

So... Basically, I discovered that under windows you can overclock the GT750M in the late 2013 15" Retina pros. That's cool, being able to achieve almost 20% increase in performance in games.

I was however under the impression that as long as your overclocks are safe, stable, and within thermal limits without damaging any components, you could simply revert them back to default settings if you needed service under warranty from apple. Kind of like Jailbreaking and then restoring to a clean iOS if you need Apple's service.

But now... I'm scared that I might have voided my warranty with an overclock. I researched it a bit and found ONE case where someone with a 17" Macbook pro was denied service because he had overclocked his CPU in order to speed up a rendering task. He said that they must have some sort of "trip" in the EFI (like liquid sensors) for system parameters such a clock speed and temperature, that tell whether or not the chips have experienced overheating or overclocking.

So yeah, this is rather concerning to me, so I'm looking for any confirmation or experience from other users here.

And if I've definitely voided my warranty, maybe I'll just go ahead and change the thermal paste now so that I can drop the temperature a couple degrees for the CPU+GPU.

Thanks guys!

 

[dusk007]

No they don't detect it. That guy probably just admitted to the service personal that he overclocked the chip. As soon as you do that they will just say it is your fault and deny service if they are d**s even though in 99% of the cases issues will be unrelated.

Generally mobile chips have no issue with over clocking because they run at much lower clocks than they could anyway to preserve power, unlike desktop chips which tend to run closer to the clock they are capable of. As long as the heat stays in check it is fine. Heat is usually not too troubling because the 47W Quad Core makes up such a huge portion and that chip just reduces turbo or starts throtteling before the GPU (about 25-30W) ever reaches its max temp. Basically the non over clock CPU will run into trouble first and correct power usage by itself to compensate.

BTW the 750M in any normal Windows gddr5 version over clocks itself per default to 1158Mhz. Apple disabled the Nvidia Turbo and under clocked the chip by a couple Mhz. Even with max over clock you will just reach the standard clocks a normal 750M chip would have anyway. Technically it isn't really much of a over clock anyway.
The Dell XPS 15 750M runs at 967/1158Mhz (base/turbo)
Apple runs at 925/925Mhz (base/turbo)
GDDR5 runs at the same speed but the 750M isn't memory limited only the 760M (twice the chip at lower clocks) benefits from higher memory clocks a little.

 

[maflynn]

There's no setting that apple could read to state you over clocked your GPU. You should be all set. It doesn't sound like you're pushing it beyond what it can handle.

Keep in mind the laptop is quite confined and heat build up will occur faster then a desktop so be conservative with the over clocking.

 

[happyfrappy]

Part of the problem with 17" MacBook Pros were the Radeon 6xxx had a known flaw with some batches so OCing compounded an already failure prone GPU, if the owner admitted to OCing that would be his/her own fault for removing responsibility of Apple. Generally mobile GPUs shouldn't be pushed beyond their stated specs, if Apple scaled it back it may have been for reliability/stability for Boot Camp.

If you OC, yet later need an AppleCare claim remove your "modified" Boot Camp OS as such utilities do leave registry entries behind and nVidia control panel usually lists the OC-ed speed until you downclock it... I know on my desktop it does it under system info.

 

[GaryLiao]

Well, thanks guys, that makes me feel a bit better. Hopefully even if they happen to have something that manifests somewhere in the EFI, if I need service I hope that they just don't care.

Thanks again!