Tests of system behavior and bottleneck
AC
Power versus battery performance
Unplugging the power cord on the GX60 leads
to a 50% reduction in performance from the GPU while the CPU still remains
nearly unchanged. Although it seems like a big failure, remember that the
GX60’s Radeon HD 7970M is still faster when using battery than Nvidia’s GeForce
GTX 660m using AC power in full turbo mode. Games will mainly still be
playable, even when you are on the street.
AC
Power versus battery performance
System
throttling
Running Prime95 and MSI Kombustor at the
same time puts a huge load on any other system, with both of the CPU and GPU
drawing maximum power while creating maximum heat. In the case of GX60, this
means that 35 W is for the APU and 100 W is for the GPU. If the system is
unlikely to draw 135W of heat (with the power needed other hardware), or is
unable to eliminate more than 135W of heat, it will throttle the performance of
the CPU, GPU or both to remain in its thermal and electrical specifications.
In
the picture above, the CPU is running at full load on all four cores with a
variety of speeds, while the GPU works at 850MHz. The fan was set at the
highest speed setting. Surprisingly, it uses 170W from the socket.
In the picture above, the CPU is running at
full load on all four cores with a variety of speeds, while the GPU works at
850MHz. The fan was set at the highest speed setting. Surprisingly, it uses
170W from the socket.
Unplugging the AC power causes a
significant decrease in GPU speed, although plugging the GX60 back quickly
restores full speeds.
The behavior of the APU is slightly
embarrassing. In the graph above, we fully loaded all of the A10-4600M’s four
cores for 60 seconds. From 20 to 30 seconds, the separate cores start declining
from the Turbo Core maximum speed of 2.7GHz and start changing between 2.7GHz
and 2.0GHz, sometimes slower. The APU is only running at about 60 degrees Celsius.
If 60 degrees is the ceiling level that AMD defines for this chip, then it is
not surprising that the cooling solution of MSI is designed in such a large
way. It is necessary to keep as cool as possible in order to maintain the
highest frequencies.
As the graph shows, as soon as the load is
reduced, the A10 gets back to 2.7GHz at once. During this entire process, the
GPU is still under full load when running MSI Kombuster, placing the APU at 50%
use. However, the A10 behaves similarly when the GPU is not being used.
MSI’s system does not fare so well in our
throttling tests. Getting rid of AC power does not cause any problems when
playing games, except for slowing down. The GPU and APU can draw enough power
without causing strain on the cooling system or power adapter. AMD's A10 drops
out of its highest Turbo Core state quite often, mostly when it becomes too
hot.
Synthetic thermal test
We
run the GX60 for 45 minutes with a full load on the CPU and GPU so as to see
how hot the components of the system turn into. In the graph above, there is a
drop in GPU temperature at the 15- minute mark, where we turn off anti-aliasing
to make the GPU run warmer.
We run the GX60 for 45 minutes with a full
load on the CPU and GPU so as to see how hot the components of the system turn
into. In the graph above, there is a drop in GPU temperature at the 15- minute
mark, where we turn off anti-aliasing to make the GPU run warmer.
The GPU gradually increases heat to 84
degrees Celsius and maintains between 83 and 84 degrees in most of the tests.
Whereas, the CPU is still close to 60 degrees Celsius, with that the highest
index recorded is 62.1 C.
During the test run, the cores of the A10
jump between the frequencies to avoid exceeding 60 degrees. As the line graph
above shows, the speed mainly maintains between 2.0 to 2.3 GHz, with a few
times jumping to the full 2.7GHz Turbo Core mode.
Normally, this area also includes
before-and-after heat measurements from the top of the machine, but this is a
waste of time with the GX60. After three hours of running at full load, the
upper part of the GX60 is as cool when touching as before testing began. In
fact, the only areas being heated are the discharge vents. The bottom of the
GX60 is cool as long as these vents are not blocked.
The thermal characteristics of GX60 are
great. As long as you make the A10 remain under 60 degrees, it will run at its
peak performance level. While we are expecting the APU to withstand higher
temperatures, at least its behavior can be predicted.
