ArnPiz
Member
Hello all,
I’ve had the 16” ionico for six months now and I’d like to give an update on how it is performing as well as some notes of keeping temps under control.
Chassis.
The casing is holding up very well and still feels as strong as the day it was purchased, the hinges are still rock-solid. The rear power socket still feels firmly anchored with no wobble. The ventilation slots on the underside are showing early signs of dust buildup consistent with my use case (used on lap)
Screen.
The screen is showing no sign of wear, with the display bright and clear as the day it was purchased.
Keyboard -still working well.
Performance.
I have the RTX4070/i9-13900H combo. The 13900 CPU is notorious as being difficult to cool and I can confirm that even in its TDP-limited mobile form, this has proved to be the case; if left unfettered, the CPU will idle at around 5GHz and boost to its full 5.4GHz even under the lightest of loads. When used for gaming the CPU will constantly attempt to run at its highest speed until it thermal throttles and the CPU fan is forced to run at 100%.
Likewise, under heavy graphical loads, the 4070 GPU power-limits at around 120 Watts and requires full 100% fan.
The combination of both fans running flat-out means that this is a machine that is hot and noisy under load and if you were planning to use an unfettered ionico in a domestic environment, you might find yourself drawing disapproving looks from others.
The CPU behaviour is the biggest problem; there is literally no need for the CPU to run on full boost under most gaming loads, for example, Halo Infinite at 2560x1600 pegs the GPU at 100% usage whilst the CPU is only being used around 12% (but still boosts to 5.4GHz)
Noise mitigation.
GPU
I’ve tried many combinations of GPU undervolting/underclocking (via MSI Afterburner) and I’m unable to make any significant difference to the temperature or power limiting so, with the GPU you get what you get. If any others have had success, I’d be grateful to hear from them.
CPU
Under Windows 11 there is a normally- hidden feature in the power plan menu called ‘Performance Boost Mode’ that allows you to disable CPU boost and, limiting the CPU in this way has almost no effect on game performance as even with the processor boost disabled, the CPU easily keeps the GPU supplied with draw calls in all games I have tested. With the processor boost disabled, the CPU temperature can drop by more than 20’C resulting in the CPU fan running much quieter.
A quick Google for ‘enabling processor boost mode in windows 11’ should explain how to enable this mode.
Control Centre.
The machine comes with Control centre (CC) installed as standard; this provides the user with the ability to reprogram the Keyboard RGB as well as a few other options such as defining Fn-key lock, number-key lock and selection of hybrid/discreet GPU. Most importantly CC allows the user to define CPU/GPU fan profiles -this works as expected but does not allow the fans to run any slower than 30% which means that, even under no-load conditions the fans are fairly intrusive.
Third-party fan control.
Caveat: Taking the control of cooling away from CC may be risky and could conceivably void the warranty on the machine so I cannot take responsibility if you set your laptop on fire.
I’ve experimented with a free, third-party software package which allows the fans to be virtually silent under no-load conditions but will spin the fans up as the CPU/GPU comes under stress, this works very well however, setting this up requires that the user is comfortable with task scheduler and knows how to set application priority. Also, be aware that enthusiast-produced software will not have passed any quality-control checks and will not have been accredited by Microsoft as being safe to use.
For this reason, I will not name the software I used but if anyone would like to PM me I’ll provide more details (with the above caveat)
Arn
I’ve had the 16” ionico for six months now and I’d like to give an update on how it is performing as well as some notes of keeping temps under control.
Chassis.
The casing is holding up very well and still feels as strong as the day it was purchased, the hinges are still rock-solid. The rear power socket still feels firmly anchored with no wobble. The ventilation slots on the underside are showing early signs of dust buildup consistent with my use case (used on lap)
Screen.
The screen is showing no sign of wear, with the display bright and clear as the day it was purchased.
Keyboard -still working well.
Performance.
I have the RTX4070/i9-13900H combo. The 13900 CPU is notorious as being difficult to cool and I can confirm that even in its TDP-limited mobile form, this has proved to be the case; if left unfettered, the CPU will idle at around 5GHz and boost to its full 5.4GHz even under the lightest of loads. When used for gaming the CPU will constantly attempt to run at its highest speed until it thermal throttles and the CPU fan is forced to run at 100%.
Likewise, under heavy graphical loads, the 4070 GPU power-limits at around 120 Watts and requires full 100% fan.
The combination of both fans running flat-out means that this is a machine that is hot and noisy under load and if you were planning to use an unfettered ionico in a domestic environment, you might find yourself drawing disapproving looks from others.
The CPU behaviour is the biggest problem; there is literally no need for the CPU to run on full boost under most gaming loads, for example, Halo Infinite at 2560x1600 pegs the GPU at 100% usage whilst the CPU is only being used around 12% (but still boosts to 5.4GHz)
Noise mitigation.
GPU
I’ve tried many combinations of GPU undervolting/underclocking (via MSI Afterburner) and I’m unable to make any significant difference to the temperature or power limiting so, with the GPU you get what you get. If any others have had success, I’d be grateful to hear from them.
CPU
Under Windows 11 there is a normally- hidden feature in the power plan menu called ‘Performance Boost Mode’ that allows you to disable CPU boost and, limiting the CPU in this way has almost no effect on game performance as even with the processor boost disabled, the CPU easily keeps the GPU supplied with draw calls in all games I have tested. With the processor boost disabled, the CPU temperature can drop by more than 20’C resulting in the CPU fan running much quieter.
A quick Google for ‘enabling processor boost mode in windows 11’ should explain how to enable this mode.
Control Centre.
The machine comes with Control centre (CC) installed as standard; this provides the user with the ability to reprogram the Keyboard RGB as well as a few other options such as defining Fn-key lock, number-key lock and selection of hybrid/discreet GPU. Most importantly CC allows the user to define CPU/GPU fan profiles -this works as expected but does not allow the fans to run any slower than 30% which means that, even under no-load conditions the fans are fairly intrusive.
Third-party fan control.
Caveat: Taking the control of cooling away from CC may be risky and could conceivably void the warranty on the machine so I cannot take responsibility if you set your laptop on fire.
I’ve experimented with a free, third-party software package which allows the fans to be virtually silent under no-load conditions but will spin the fans up as the CPU/GPU comes under stress, this works very well however, setting this up requires that the user is comfortable with task scheduler and knows how to set application priority. Also, be aware that enthusiast-produced software will not have passed any quality-control checks and will not have been accredited by Microsoft as being safe to use.
For this reason, I will not name the software I used but if anyone would like to PM me I’ll provide more details (with the above caveat)
Arn
