You can always use eGPU with the Thunderbolt 3 if you you're going to go with the X1C6 or X1 Yoga. Depends on if you will need those CUDA cores when you aren't at home.
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Lenovo X1 Extreme
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You can always use eGPU with the Thunderbolt 3 if you you're going to go with the X1C6 or X1 Yoga. Depends on if you will need those CUDA cores when you aren't at home.
I considered this option but some of you mentioned that setting up eGPU to work under Linux is troublesoome and might not work.
I guess you will have to start with what your basic requirements are? For the work that you do, do you need a dual core, quad core or hexacore? If you feel that you need a hexacore machine, then options like the Yoga are out. I guess even the T series (and Carbon) use the 15W 8th gen processors and not the 45W processors that Apple uses (even in their 13" models). So watch out for that.
For e.,g using the dual core T470 is a solid downgrade in terms of performance when compared to the MBP 2015 quad core I had. I thought I might not feel the downgrade as much but it is very evident in everyday tasks that I do...for e.g., compiling source code.
I had a rMBP 2014 15" with 16GB RAM. It was powerful enough to get projects related to Matlab&Simulink and 3D CAD done satisfactory. At school, I mainly use the laptop for office productivity, youtube video watching and web surfing. At home, I would like to connect the latop to a 49" 4K display to do the above work. If I need to do research work using CUDA, I will need a powerful machine with Nvidia GPU. If I have a powerful desktop, the laptop just serve as a remote terminal or as a machine to do prototyping while away from home. Long term jobs will run on the powerful machine. If Apple were to sell that rMBP 2014 15" again, I would have bought it right away. Too bad they changed the keyboard and gave up Nvidia.
Is your desire to return the laptop due to the fan noise or another issue? From what I gathered in this thread and other threads you're quite content with windows, and how the laptop works.
I'll be honest I don't think you'll be happy with any modern day computer. I think you are holding all of them up to an unrealistic expectation that no computer can live up too. If the fans in Linux are making a racket, can you use Linux in a virtual environment and configure windows to be more passively cooled? Do you have be in the library and running linux? You may be just overly sensitive and others are not really being bothered by the laptop (and if they are, tell them to pound sand
)It seems the X1E gives you everything you need, in one solution, but you're now thinking of getting a desktop, and light laptop, That does have the potential of over-complicating your workflow and of course the cost is much higher, i.e., buying two machines.
I get how the fan noise can be an issue, the Razer had aggressive fans as well, but think about it on the flip side, those fans are cooling the laptop, without them, the laptop will overheat.
Is your desire to return the laptop due to the fan noise or another issue? From what I gathered in this thread and other threads you're quite content with windows, and how the laptop works.
I'll be honest I don't think you'll be happy with any modern day computer. I think you are holding all of them up to an unrealistic expectation that no computer can live up too. If the fans in Linux are making a racket, can you use Linux in a virtual environment and configure windows to be more passively cooled? Do you have be in the library and running linux? You may be just overly sensitive and others are not really being bothered by the laptop (and if they are, tell them to pound sand
It seems the X1E gives you everything you need, in one solution, but you're now thinking of getting a desktop, and light laptop, That does have the potential of over-complicating your workflow and of course the cost is much higher, i.e., buying two machines.
I get how the fan noise can be an issue, the Razer had aggressive fans as well, but think about it on the flip side, those fans are cooling the laptop, without them, the laptop will overheat.
I am not sure if my X1E has thermal paste issue. For example, before I went to bed, the machine was idling under Windows but the fans spinned up twice for no reason.
If I recall correctly, most of those who go the MBP 2018 bought the base CPU model as the thin case does not cool high end CPUs well. So I wonder if this also applies well to the X1E.
What were the temps while it was idling? Odds are your laptop doesn't have thermal paste problems. Could the temperature be improved with a re-application of thermal paste? Absolutely, both from using a higher end, higher quality thermal paste and a more judicious application (not globbed on). With that said, I'm betting that you don't have a laptop with a defective application of thermal paste. If you did, the symptoms would be more pronounced. Measuring the temps and seeing how they are with your usage, will go a long way at confirming the quality of the thermal past application.
Its very possible you had background tasks suddenly eat up some cpu, whether its antivirus doing a scan or windows update doing something. Its hard to say.
After the second supplemental update, my MBP is running cooler, but in one sense you cannot compare MBPs and PCs partly because of how the operating system handles tasks differently. PCs tend to do a better job at cooling especially under load, where as the MBP will let the temps creep up until the fans have to start. From an end user perspective that means the MBP seems to run quieter but its actually running hotter. Personally, I'd rather have a cooler machine because heat can damage electronics, and while the CPU and GPU are hardened (so to speak) against high temps, up to 100c, other components are more sensitive so I want my temps to be cool, even if that means the fans are set more aggressively.
In HWMonitor, there is a Temperature field under GPU. It is 44c.
Some users including me are making all sorts of changes in the settings to lower the performance in order to make the machine quiet. In this case, what is the point of buying a high performance laptop then? Is it to lower the performance to make it quiet in daily use but when we need the power, we change the settings to higher performance and when we do that, we just ignore the fan noise?
Windows does things to your computer when it finds that you are not using it anymore. I had the same happen to my Yoga (when I had it). I think there is a tool called ShutUp10 for Windows that you can install and fine tune all this stuff.
That's normal for GPU, but what you need to do is determine the CPU temperature(s), scroll down in that utility and monitor the cpu temps.
I'd say the same reason someone who drives 20MPH in a sports car. Sometimes its better to drive slow, when on the surface streets, and faster on the highway.
If you're needing the raw horsepower for some intense computations or interactions you have to expect the fans will spin up and cause more noise. I don't care if you're using a Mac, or PC. Coffee Lake processors run hotter and you have more cores, so there's more heating generating components and if you're pushing the computer those fans will ramp up. Actually, I'd be more nervous if they didn't ramp up, i.e., cooking your computer.
Again its your money and your decision, you seem to have already made your mind up about returning it, and are looking to justify that decision. I could be wrong, and I apologize if I'm jumping to conclusions. You don't have to justify the return here in the forum, because you alone have to live with your decision. Many of us are trying to help and I think in all honesty you'll be back to square one about obsessing at which machine you should get and you'll only be worse off as you try to live with your old MBP.
I guess you need to decide does the X1E tick off your major needs, i.e., does it perform the tasks that you need it to do, and it sounds like it does. Its not perfect and the fans are bothering you, I get it. What other laptop out there allows you to run the same things, has the same performance but doesn't have sound from the fans? I'll step out in faith and say there isn't any.
That leaves a desktop/laptop combination, and desktops can have even more fan noise, and I've had some desktops that were outright noisy heat pumps, i.e., making my home office very toasty. That's nice in the winter, not so nice in the summer. You will also have to deal with working on two different machines, because you said you still need a mobile solution and that can complicate things a bit. Plenty of people do it, so its not impossible, so its doable.
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Thanks. Do you think getting a X1E or P1 with i5 CPU would be a good next step? It will have Nvidia GPU for CUDA if I need, 4K 15" screen and a nice keyboard.
I think you'll get even more fan noise with a P1 since its a mobile workstation.
The I5 has 4 cores as opposed to 6 and in theory it should run cooler, but I will go out on a limb and say you still will incur fan noise. I don't think you will get away with a completely quiet machine. Won't you have to deal with a FHD screen because you can only get 4k with the top level CPU? Will you have issues with external monitors with the the FHD model?
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A completely, or at least a nearly completely quiet machine option would be one of the 15W or 20W processor options such as those found in the Surface Book 2. The i5 is fanless, the i7 has a fan, but makes nothing more than a whoosh rather than the high pitched fan noise of the MBP or X1E. You do lose some processing power with that option, but you do get all day battery life and with the 15" a nVidia GTX1060 6gb video card.
I agree with your above comments. The ideal @hajime has set through various posts is an almost impossible ideal to reach...
- Not have the hated butterfly keyboard
- Have a powerful processor
- Have a powerful video card
- Have all day battery life
- Be silent or nearly silent at all times
I don't know if there is a machine out there that will tick all of those buttons equally. Every machine is a compromise of one or more of the above. My Experience with the 2018 MBP's is that they can get awfully loud themselves when they wind up and it doesn't take much to get the i9 wound up. I am not as sure about the base model.
After using the X1E for awhile, I have some changes of requirements mentioned before my purchase.
After taking X1E to school for two days, it’s current battery life is sufficient. If I need more battery life, I just bring an Ac adapter. So battery life issue is checked. Powerful CPU is not important. CPU of 2014 rMBP 15" is good enough. Powerful GPU is more important than powerful CPU for doing CUDA but if I don’t work on CUDA projects, GPU of rMBP 2014 is also good enough as long as it can handle 4K TV at 60Hz. Being silent or nearly silent is important for me as I am very sensitive to noise and one of the reasons I bought a new laptop to replace the noisy mbp 2010 17".
When I tested the 13" mbp 2017, I didn’t hear any fan noise when watching 4K videos on an external 4K screen. That impressed me but since I didn’t feel comfortable using that keyboard, I did not install other software to test further. I did not have it long enough to comment further. So even mbp 2018 with i5 also get noisy fan?
BIOS: If you limit the power scheme in BIOS it will in all likelihood override any software setting and would probably have to be changed back in BIOS.
Intelligent Cooling should detect what you are doing and use whichever scheme Lenovo feels will provide the best mixture of cooling and fan noise. But sometimes you may wish to override this and choose the cool and quiet mode manually. See what works best for you.
Undervolting: There is always some inherent risk in changing OEM parameters, thus the warning. But a small undervolt is a minimal thing and when I was playing around with it to see how low I could go, I eventually crashed the machine. Which caused it to reboot and over-ride the settings I had chosen. But again, tweaker beware. What works for most, may not work for you. No guarantees in life or in modding.
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I have not seen the 1080 display on the X1E, only on the carbons at Costco. They looked fine to me, but I personally prefer the 4K displays. But they come at a cost, monetarily, weight and I guess refresh rate. So what I prefer isn't best for everyone.
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Here is the setting that Notebookcheck felt were optimized for XTU if that helps any.
i7-8850H is not listed as compatible product.
https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/24075/Intel-Extreme-Tuning-Utility-Intel-XTU-
Likely compatibility just hasn't been updated yet. But regardless of whether or not it is listed as compatible, it does of course work just fine.
Correct. It will propose some settings. I also set the voltage offset to 0.100v, but you can experiment with that. Start small. If you go too far, the machine will reboot and will reset those settings. I found that out experimenting. I forget what voltage that happened. If it does that then make more minimal adjustments.
You can do the same and maybe more with Throttlestop. But the one thing you definitely don’t want to do is use both.
Edit: Keep in mind that there are actually 3 screens to that post. What shows in the post as a screenshot is only 1/3 and is the default. They used an offset of 0.128v and that is maybe where I had the instability and reduced it to 0.100v
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Second screen of the link in post 282 is Throttlestop settings. That’s an alternative.
Notebook check found the following to be optimal, but I have not set the offset as high as they did. I double checked and I used -0.115
Dunno what to make of that. I am far from an expert on XTU. I just followed Notebook checks recommendation
Question: I remember reading on AnandTech that when buying laptops, you should generally buy right when they first release, or right when a hardware revision is released. The machines around these releases tend to have tighter quality controls, since they go out to reviewers. QC gets lax afterwards, as time passes. My question: how do you know when Lenovo releases a hardware revision in the first place? Looks like there's a sale going on at Lenovo right now, but I'm gun-shy about it because of the above.
I can’t say that I have ever heard that theory before. I am not sure that there is really any truth to it either. In the case of the Lenovo X1 Extreme, there were users that had their machines for weeks and wondering why there was no professional reviews. If appeared that users where getting theirs prior to reviewers.
With mass manufacturing being what it is, and many companies sourcing multiple vendors, my guess is that you have as much a chance of getting a perfect one in week 1 as you do later in the cycle. If anything you might see a slight revision to address an issue.
I know from experience that buying in the first shipment doesn’t work for autos and I am guessing it doesn’t for computers either.
Now if you told me that units sent to reviewers have been inspected and hand picked I would find that more believable. But I have also seen and read reviews where reviewers have received faulty units.
I think it’s mostly hit/miss luck of the draw type stuff.