Why is Predator Helios 300 G3-571 GTX 1060 artifically weakened by vbios

Hello everyone,

I just noticed that whenever the GPU on this laptop reaches anywhere between 97-99% GPU load, the GPU would downclock back to stock clocks (nvidia GPU boost goes off) and it shows that the GPU has hit the power limit. I was wondering why did Acer intentionally weaken the GPU by setting up a way too conservative power draw limit in the bios? I am experiencing great GPU temperatures on full load ( max 75c after long hours of gaming) so I do not see why shouldn't the GPU be given more room to boost the core clock further. This artificial barrier makes me under-utilize my laptop, and it will hurt its performance in the long run when more demanding titles start coming out.

If you take a look at laptops with the exact CPU and exact GPU from other manufacturers you could clearly see that they have roughly 700 more points in benchmarks such as firestrike, which I am sure is due to the GPUs not hitting their power limit as early as the helios 300 does.

Any clarification on this would be great. Thank you.

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ven98

75C is a low temperature for a laptop, but is a high temperature for GTX 1060, considering that it starts throttling at 82-83C. When the GPU heats up it draws more power. Lets assume your GPU draws 150W when still cool. When it heats up it will require more power to maintain the same clock speeds. If Acer sets the power limit higher the temperature of your GPU will go up to 80C just for some 50-100Mhz, which is not much.

What was the room temperature when you recorded these 75C?

Siloh751

I understand the concept of heat vs power and wouldnt care if it was 50 to 100 mhz. But it is actually more like 300 mhz difference (drops from 1860 which is the boost clock to 1557 which is in range of stock clock) also not sure about room temp didnt measure.

ven98

In some countries the environment is hotter +30C. So Acer should make sure that the laptop works without overheating in any place.

The desktop version of gtx 1060's boost clock is 1708MHz and on laptop's version it is slightly lower. The 1860Hz frequency you get is because of GPU boost 3.0. What it does, it overclocks your GPU automatcially when there is enough room for overclocking, in other words when the temperatures of the chip are lower. When you load the GPU the temperatures get higher, and the GPU's frequency should be turned down to maintain a reasonable temperature.

Siloh751

Well that is exactly the point i am trying to make. The boost should be limited by TEMPERATURE not POWER output. I can get the same boost at 40c and 75c. The clocks drop by 12 mhz for each few degrees the temerature increases. Thats how pascal works. But my problem is that when the gpu hits 98 to 99% load the gpu doesnt have enough power to maintain the clocks and completely shuts off the boost.

ven98

The cooling system of Helios 300 is not good compared to other laptops(not that efficient). The helios 300 with metal fans(g3-571 has plastic fans) has overclocking enabled from predator sense and the power limit is set to higher. The reason for the power limit on your model is the plastic fans.

Siloh751

ven98 said:

The cooling system of Helios 300 is not good compared to other laptops(not that efficient). The helios 300 with metal fans(g3-571 has plastic fans) has overclocking enabled from predator sense and the power limit is set to higher. The reason for the power limit on your model is the plastic fans.

Im still not convinced why they chose to control this by limiting the power limit rather than letting the gpu downclock based on temperature. Also, If the laptop cant handle the card then it shouldnt be there in the first place. Whats the point of having a 1060 if its going to run only at 85% of its capabilities? There should be more flexibility on this rather than limiting ALL users.

I understand some people have thermal issues but I do not, and many users out there do not have thermal issues as well. Therefore, I should be able to utilize the hardware that i bought to maximum potential. After all, this model is marketed as a gaming laptop.

ven98

Limiting power is much easier to program rather than limiting it based on temperature. And this laptop is much cheaper compared to other laptops with the same hardware, so some sacrifices like a bit of less performance are to be expected. Also GPU's have some differences even if they are same model, so probably there are other helioses 300, which perform better than your one. You just happened to have the one that stays at lower clock speed.

There is a review of g3-571 on notebookcheck and you can go and check out how the GPU performs compared to other laptops. And it even scores more than some of the other laptops. The laptops, which beat helios 300 feature overclocking. The base frequency of the GTX 1060 for laptop is 1408Mhz, so at 75C it is just normal to reach 1550Mhz under full load. It performes 1-16% worse than the desktop one. The boost clock of the desktop 1060 is 1708Mhz, so you can see that there is nothing wrong with the frequency that you get.

Siloh751

First of all your point regarding the laptop being cheaper as a reason to expect the laptop to under perform compared to the other ones is invalid since they all have the same hardware.

Secondly, while gpus do vary, they dont vary by 300 mhz on a core clock, maybe 25 to 50 mhz.

Thirdly, a desktop 1060 can boost up to 2200 mhz. I have seen that myself, and the reason it can because obviously there isnt a harsh power limit like in laptops.

And finally, limiting the power is like them telling me you cannot overclock the machine at all, which is something nobody does when it comes to gaming laptops. Pascal gpus are made to overclock.

Skelomorph

Well, figuring that Acer does not support overclocking on the G3-571, it isn't a surprise that they have it locked down. And it is likely due to the fact that they did not put the necessary cooling into them to be capable of withstanding the heat generated from overclocking.

Likely a marketing strategy that their more expensive laptops can overclock, and their cheaper alternatives are locked down.

Skelo

ven98

Kudos Skelo! Morad, desktop 1060 isn't boosting to 2200Mhz, it is self-overclocking, because the temperatures on a PC are much lower on a laptop. Desktop and laptop(mxm) chips are not completely the same. Nvidia didn't take the GPU out of the 1060 card and put it in a laptop. They had to recreate it, design it for a laptop, like the 'M' cards, but this time they are equal in terms of performance to their desktop brothers.

Siloh751

ven98 said:

Kudos Skelo! Morad, desktop 1060 isn't boosting to 2200Mhz, it is self-overclocking, because the temperatures on a PC are much lower on a laptop. Desktop and laptop(mxm) chips are not completely the same. Nvidia didn't take the GPU out of the 1060 card and put it in a laptop. They had to recreate it, design it for a laptop, like the 'M' cards, but this time they are equal in terms of performance to their desktop brothers.

I am not debating laptop vs desktop. I am debating laptop vs laptop. I would post screenshots showing how the laptop is downclocking itself as soon as the GPU load hits 99% even on temperatures in the low 60s because of the set power limit, but I do not have permission to do that. I don't think this is going nowhere since no actual solutions are coming out of this by the end of day so I guess will stop posting about this.

Thanks everyone for your contributions.

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