Windows "power saving settings" High performance or Balance?

[RiseFall]

Hi everybody,

I have a secondary GPU on my laptop, the model is GTX950M.

I have a question: when I play, my power saving settings (Windows) must be set to High or to Balance?

I know that in High the cpu is 100% while in Balance the cpu increase its power depending on the software needs.

[Omega]

Set it to balanced unless you always have your laptop plugged in then set it to high preformance. Also set the settings in both the integrated and GPU control pannels to high preformance.

[Sandman]

You want balance with a 5% minimum processor state.

[Overson]

High performance. Not much of a difference in battery usage, but a MUCH bigger difference is game performance.

[Sandman]

High performance doesn't allow C-state to work and keeps your voltage at full and clock at full the entire time. Unnecessarily heats up your room, puts unneeded strain on system, and runs up the electric bill. You need 100% processing power when reading a web page? Really?

[Bad 💀 Motha]

Originally posted by Sandman:

High performance doesn't allow C-state to work and keeps your voltage at full and clock at full the entire time. Unnecessarily heats up your room, puts unneeded strain on system, and runs up the electric bill. You need 100% processing power when reading a web page? Really?

non sense; If Intel SpeedStep and C States are not disabled in the BIOS; they CPU will still downclock under low/idle loads.

Your statement is however true when it comes to using AMD based CPUs on Desktops.

[Sandman]

Originally posted by Bad-Motha:

Originally posted by Sandman:

High performance doesn't allow C-state to work and keeps your voltage at full and clock at full the entire time. Unnecessarily heats up your room, puts unneeded strain on system, and runs up the electric bill. You need 100% processing power when reading a web page? Really?

non sense; If Intel SpeedStep and C States are not disabled in the BIOS; they CPU will still downclock under low/idle loads.

Your statement is however true when it comes to using AMD based CPUs on Desktops.

Negative. In performance a lot of times the minimum processor load is at 100% and it prevents the chip from using a lower multiplier when idle.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

I'm doing it right now on 3 Intel Laptops; the CPU downclocks just fine.

one is 3rd gen i5 w/ Win7 64bit
one is 6th gen i5 w/ Win 10 64bit
one is 7th gen i7 w/ Win10 64bit

Running High Performance has no effect on the clocks here.
If it does, that generally is because you don't have the proper drivers installed, like official Intel Chipset INF, or having something like SpeedStep disabled in BIOS; which would force full clocks regardless of which Power Profile you applied.

NVIDIA GPU too? Go set this to Prefer Max Performance in NVIDIA CP

[Big Boom Boom]

If you enable speed shift and if your​ OS support it, OS power plan won't matter.

[Sandman]

Originally posted by Bad-Motha:

I'm doing it right now on 3 Intel Laptops; the CPU downclocks just fine.

one is 3rd gen i5 w/ Win7 64bit
one is 6th gen i5 w/ Win 10 64bit
one is 7th gen i7 w/ Win10 64bit

Running High Performance has no effect on the clocks here.
If it does, that generally is because you don't have the proper drivers installed, like official Intel Chipset INF, or having something like SpeedStep disabled in BIOS; which would force full clocks regardless of which Power Profile you applied.

NVIDIA GPU too? Go set this to Prefer Max Performance in NVIDIA CP

Maybe it was not having the official chip set. Besides having a setting for the minimum processor state, what other settings does high performance impact?

And I always have it set to adaptive I think in Nvidia CP. Either that or that other setting I forgot the name. Doesn't the performance force it into higher clock?

[Bad 💀 Motha]

Prefer Max Performance in NVIDIA CP is for Games (or other apps like 3D Rendering; apps that that use DirectX/OpenGL/Vulkan) this ensure the full 3D Clocks are used.
If for some reason you have a normal windows app pushing those clocks (like Google Chrome or Steam Client) then go to into NVIDIA CP in the Program Setting and force that non-gaming app to Adaptive.

Adaptive is not good on global cause on alot of games, it will jump back and forth between 2d and 3d clocks and that is why so many folks report performance issues; which general will not happen if you just put it on Prefer Max Performance instead.

[MrMcSwifty]

Max performance in OS and graphics CP, and I disable all the power saving crap in BIOS as well.

Yes, you might be paying more in electricity but it doesn't harm the CPU or "heat up the room."

Definitely might help you avoid some weird stuttering and otherwise inexplicable performance issues though.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

There is a huge misunderstanding about this as well.
Just because a CPU for example is perhaps being forced to run at its max clocks; does not in-turn mean it is then outputting that max TDP. The TDP still remains dynamic, regardless of clocks. As clocks are just a frequency for data throughput, TDP is the actual power draws.

[Sandman]

Originally posted by Bad-Motha:

There is a huge misunderstanding about this as well.
Just because a CPU for example is perhaps being forced to run at its max clocks; does not in-turn mean it is then outputting that max TDP. The TDP still remains dynamic, regardless of clocks. As clocks are just a frequency for data throughput, TDP is the actual power draws.

I'm more concerned with the multiplier being able to clock down and the voltage clocking down when not not under load.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

Originally posted by Sandman:

Originally posted by Bad-Motha:

There is a huge misunderstanding about this as well.
Just because a CPU for example is perhaps being forced to run at its max clocks; does not in-turn mean it is then outputting that max TDP. The TDP still remains dynamic, regardless of clocks. As clocks are just a frequency for data throughput, TDP is the actual power draws.

I'm more concerned with the multiplier being able to clock down and the voltage clocking down when not not under load.

It does..... I explained that already many times.
If it's not occurring, you have something on the system setup wrong, lacking a driver, etc.

On that 3rd Gen i5 Laptop for example, It's always been on High Performance; it clocks down to 800Mhz on idle; even has NVIDIA GPU set to Max Performance as well.