Performance checks after clean install

[AndIB]

Hi all, really enjoying the new Recoil 17" - I did a clean install and hoping it's still performing the same as if it were untouched post shipping. Hope you can help as I see some figures are lower than others compared. For example, see the Samung 990 PRO with lower values than others, the fact that novabench came back with a result into the 5.2k+ region, now under that. And Cinebench, reporting a "Good" result, as opposed to a "Great" result prior.

I have done a clean install. Nothing tinkered with yet. See specs and attachments for info, and thank you in advance.

Chassis & Display
Recoil Series: 17" Matte QHD 240Hz sRGB 100% LED Widescreen (2560x1600)
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™ i9 24 Core Processor 14900HX (5.8GHz Turbo)
Memory (RAM)
64GB Corsair 4800MHz SODIMM DDR5 (2 x 32GB)
Graphics Card
NVIDIA® GeForce® RTX 4070 - 8.0GB GDDR6 Video RAM - DirectX® 12.1
1st M.2 SSD Drive
2TB SAMSUNG 990 PRO M.2, PCIe 4.0 NVMe (up to 7450MB/R, 6900MB/W)
Memory Card Reader
Integrated SD Memory Card Reader
Battery
Recoil Series Integrated 99WH Lithium Ion Battery
Thermal Paste
LIQUID METAL PERFORMANCE COOLING
Sound Card
Nahimic by SteelSeries 2 Channel HD Audio
Bluetooth & Wireless
GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS INTEL® Wi-Fi 6E AX211 (2.4 Gbps) + BT 5.3
USB/Thunderbolt Options
1 x THUNDERBOLT 4 PORT + 3 x USB 3.2 PORTS
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Browser
Firefox™

 

[SpyderTracks]

When you say a clean install, what process did you take? How did you install drivers?

 

[SpyderTracks]

You need to delete your windows key before it's stolen, be very careful what you post publicly

 

[AndIB]

When you say a clean install, what process did you take? How did you install drivers?

Media creation from Microsoft. Installed chipset from PCS, followed by LAN and WIFI. Everything else via windows updates.

 

[SpyderTracks]

Media creation from Microsoft. Installed chipset from PCS, followed by LAN and WIFI. Everything else via windows updates.

You need to delete your windows key before it's stolen, be very careful what you post publicly

Can you post a screenshot of your optional updates page?

Have you installed control center?

 

[AndIB]

Can you post a screenshot of your optional updates page?

Have you installed control center?

Sure, see attached. And no, I have not installed control center. Is it necessary for performance?

 

[SpyderTracks]

Sure, see attached. And no, I have not installed control center. Is it necessary for performance?
View attachment 40762

Optional updates are your drivers, those are there because the ones you've installed from your account are outdated.

The only driver you should install from your PCS downloads is control center which is the master driver.

Every chassis has a master driver, this ties into all components and drivers on the system, it optimises cooling and does power adjustments on the CPU and GPU.

Without it installed, the system isn't configured.

 

[AndIB]

Ok thank you for the info, I'll install the optional drivers and control center and report back. Thank you for the speedy responses!

 

[SpyderTracks]

Ok thank you for the info, I'll install the optional drivers and control center and report back. Thank you for the speedy responses!

No problem

It may not solve the issue but we can't begin troubleshooting until windows is correctly configured.

 

[AndIB]

Ok here are the updated benches.. some better some same, some lesser.. confused at the SSD being low on the random reads compared to others. Other than that, are these reads ok do you think?

 

[SpyderTracks]

confused at the SSD being low on the random reads compared to others

That's not slow, that's fine. Random reads will never hit anywhere near peak mbs, Those speeds are in line with expectations. You will find peaks vary test to test depending on background tasks. If you've just reinstalled, windows will be indexing which will take up a lot of read cycles.

Source: https://semiconductor.samsung.com/consumer-storage/internal-ssd/990-pro/#:~:text=Secure%20victory%20with%20990%20PRO's,up%20to%201%2C600K%20IOPS.

You may find installing Samsung Magician gives you a boost on the drive performance also.

The way to optimise CPU and GPU is to undervolt where possible which is basically a necessity on modern intel chips. Without an undervolt the CPU will thermal throttle, nothing you can do to stop that, there's no chassis on the planet that can stop that chip from thermal throttling.

Going by your posted specs, you haven't got the water cooler? That's basically a required component of this chassis if you want peak GPU performance (and will greatly help CPU thermals too). Without that the system will be throttling under load.

 

[SpyderTracks]

That's not slow, that's fine. Random reads will never hit anywhere near peak mbs, Those speeds are in line with expectations. You will find peaks vary test to test depending on background tasks. If you've just reinstalled, windows will be indexing which will take up a lot of read cycles.
View attachment 40767
Source: https://semiconductor.samsung.com/consumer-storage/internal-ssd/990-pro/#:~:text=Secure%20victory%20with%20990%20PRO's,up%20to%201%2C600K%20IOPS.

You may find installing Samsung Magician gives you a boost on the drive performance also.

The way to optimise CPU and GPU is to undervolt where possible which is basically a necessity on modern intel chips. Without an undervolt the CPU will thermal throttle, nothing you can do to stop that, there's no chassis on the planet that can stop that chip from thermal throttling.

Going by your posted specs, you haven't got the water cooler? That's basically a required component of this chassis if you want peak GPU performance (and will greatly help CPU thermals too). Without that the system will be throttling under load.

This is also why it's best practice to have separate SSD's, one for the OS and another for games / storage. That way the OS isn't stealing w/r processes and the drive is free for the task at hand.

 

[AndIB]

That's not slow, that's fine. Random reads will never hit anywhere near peak mbs, Those speeds are in line with expectations. You will find peaks vary test to test depending on background tasks. If you've just reinstalled, windows will be indexing which will take up a lot of read cycles.
View attachment 40767
Source: https://semiconductor.samsung.com/consumer-storage/internal-ssd/990-pro/#:~:text=Secure%20victory%20with%20990%20PRO's,up%20to%201%2C600K%20IOPS.

You may find installing Samsung Magician gives you a boost on the drive performance also.

The way to optimise CPU and GPU is to undervolt where possible which is basically a necessity on modern intel chips. Without an undervolt the CPU will thermal throttle, nothing you can do to stop that, there's no chassis on the planet that can stop that chip from thermal throttling.

Going by your posted specs, you haven't got the water cooler? That's basically a required component of this chassis if you want peak GPU performance (and will greatly help CPU thermals too). Without that the system will be throttling under load.

Ok I'll get that installed. The sequential seems all good, it's the random reads that don't seem to be inline with others. Though I am comparing with desktop benchmarks so perhaps they will perform better?

How would I go about undervolting?

According to the parts selection for this build, the water cooling is only available to the 4080 and 4090 configs.

 

[AndIB]

This is also why it's best practice to have separate SSD's, one for the OS and another for games / storage. That way the OS isn't stealing w/r processes and the drive is free for the task at hand.

That's good to know, I was pondering this during parts selection, wish I'd have asked prior, never mind.

 

[SpyderTracks]

That's good to know, I was pondering this during parts selection, wish I'd have asked prior, never mind.

You can still fit one yourself, it's extremely easy and SSD's are fairly cheap.

PCS have an open chassis policy so you can add or upgrade most components without affecting warranty so long as you don't damage anything in the process.

 

[ubuysa]

Ok I'll get that installed. The sequential seems all good, it's the random reads that don't seem to be inline with others. Though I am comparing with desktop benchmarks so perhaps they will perform better?

The thing about random read when you have only one drive is I/O queuing within Windows. With a sequential read or write it's one I/O as far as Windows is concerned so once it starts you have the drive to yourself. With random reads each read is a separate I/O operation and they each have to sit on the I/O queue for that drive along with every other I/O to the drive. Queueing time almost certainly affects the response time measurements too.

 

[AndIB]

You can still fit one yourself, it's extremely easy and SSD's are fairly cheap.

PCS have an open chassis policy so you can add or upgrade most components without affecting warranty so long as you don't damage anything in the process.

That's good to know, I'll look into this, thanks again.

So to conclude, is there anything I can do to make sure I'm getting the best out of the laptop? Assuming I may have hindered the performance a little by fresh install.

 

[AndIB]

The thing about random read when you have only one drive is I/O queuing within Windows. With a sequential read or write it's one I/O as far as Windows is concerned so once it starts you have the drive to yourself. With random reads each read is a separate I/O operation and they each have to sit on the I/O queue for that drive along with every other I/O to the drive. Queueing time almost certainly affects the response time measurements too.

Thanks for that information, I'll keep that in mind, will definitely look at a 2nd SSD.

 

[SpyderTracks]

So to conclude, is there anything I can do to make sure I'm getting the best out of the laptop? Assuming I may have hindered the performance a little by fresh install.

I think you're misunderstanding, you haven't hindered anything, it's just there are processes going on in the background stealing some of that bandwidth. When you clean install, windows will spend a few days indexing which takes up resources. So the benchmarks you're seeing now are not what you will see once the OS has fully settled.

But yes, getting a secondary drive for storage / games whatever you're using it for is wise. And as already mentioned, installing Samsung Magician may give you a slight boost in RW. Plus undervolting where possible.

 

[AndIB]

I think you're misunderstanding, you haven't hindered anything, it's just there are processes going on in the background stealing some of that bandwidth. When you clean install, windows will spend a few days indexing which takes up resources. So the benchmarks you're seeing now are not what you will see once the OS has fully settled.

But yes, getting a secondary drive for storage / games whatever you're using it for is wise. And as already mentioned, installing Samsung Magician may give you a slight boost in RW. Plus undervolting where possible.

Oh I just meant in general going forward. I'll look into those things you mentioned. I do music production so my DAW will be on the main and I'm thinking I'll store all my projects and resources, on a 2nd. And I'll look into undervolting as I have never done that before.

Thank you very much for your info and time. Oh, and the heads up about the windows key, silly me!