Lenovo IdeaPad Y410p - GT 750M Overclock Test in Evolve Big Alpha (High)
12Evolve is a fun game. It mixes up first-person and third-person gameplay in a forest-y arena for an addictive cat-and-mouse chase. However, what avid followers got for registering to the Big Alpha was a pretty unoptimized experience -- which could be closer to the final product than we want to believe, I don't know (welcome to "next gen"). My single GT 750M got around high 20s most of the time on Medium, with tessellation enabled and SMAA 1TX, in 768p. So, what better game to test a GPU overclock, right?
Since I'm doing a GPU overclock (my first time), anyway, I thought I'd kick the graphics up a notch to make things interesting. The High setting demands more GPU memory, leading to severe framerate hiccups (or stuttering, or lag spikes, or whatever) during gameplay. The biggest noticeable difference between Medium and High, aside from higher quality textures, is ambient occlusion. Not sure if AO is totally absent on Medium, but if it isn't then it's surely lacking. With AO, everything has more depth and becomes more life-like. In this test, the restraints have all been taken off (no CPU performance and GPU temp limiters), but I decreased the memory clock by a huge amount (-290 MHz) to greatly reduce freezes/crashes.
Without further ado, here are the results...
Setting - High, with tessellation enabled and SMAA 1TX
GPU Memory (VRAM) Use - 2498 MB
Overclock Amount (core clock, max allowable) - +135 MHz
No overclock:
Min - 0 fps (due to framerate hiccup)
Ave - 24.79 fps
Max - 45 fps
With overclock:
Min - 0 fps (due to framerate hiccup)
Ave - 27.32 fps
Max - 46 fps
If we look at this from a mathematical viewpoint, the numbers are quite sound:
No overclock (max) - ~1050 MHz
With overclock (max) - ~ 1188 MHz
24.79 fps / 1050 MHz = 0.0236 fps/MHz
0.0236 fps/MHz * 1188 MHz = 28.04 MHz (possibly with a standard error of ± 1 fps)
More samples are needed to make this statistically plausible.
Maximum Operating Temperatures (1 gaming session):
CPU - 92 to 95 °C
GPU - 84 °C
Apparently, indicated by the temps above, the system activates Turbo Boost on the CPU when no limiter is placed. But since Evolve is a more GPU-bound game (meaning you need a beefier GPU than you do for the CPU), it would be fine to place a limiter on the CPU to keep temps under control without having any noticeable performance impact.
Note: I also tried this on Shadow of Mordor and got the same ~3 fps increase.
## Model Configuration ##
Lenovo IdeaPad Y410p-20216
Windows 8, 64-bit
1366 x 768 Native Resolution
Intel Core i7-4700MQ "Haswell" @ 2.4 GHz (3.4 GHz turbo)
GeForce GT 750M GDDR5 2 GB VRAM, SLI ready
8 GB DDR3 Samsung RAM @ 1600 MHz (single channel)
1 TB Seagate HDD @ 5400 RPM
JBL Dolby-certified Home Theater v4
Notes:
OS Version - Windows 8.1 Single Language
Nvidia Driver - 344.48 WHQL
GPU - Dedicated, Single
CPU Tweaks - None
GPU Tweaks - +135 MHz core clock speed; -290 MHz memory clock speed
Recording Utility - Nvidia Shadowplay
Input Device - DualShock 3 gamepad
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