Interesting, what did you do with that?
Things that need extra attention:
- SpeedShift to 0 means I’m more interested in cpu-power than battery-life. It is editable, although that’s not clear in the interface
- Click on the ‘+’ to add the ‘High Performance’ power plan to Windows. After that you tick the box to use that one.
This added some magic. You might want to change the power plan back to the original, once you’re going to use your laptop for other nice things than GigPerformer (What?? Is there life besides music and GP? Well, there is, but it’s just recently been discovered
)
First I tried QuickCpu, but that has a zillion options, and I do not intend to become a boss on the subject :-). ThrottleStop has also a zillion options, but I didn’t need those and it actually worked, much to my surprise I may add. I never succeeded till this far to use a buffer < than 192 samples.
BEWARE/Disclamer: Both tools ThrottleStop and QuickCpu are capable of damaging your system, especially when it comes to over- or undervolting and overclocking!
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I have been using ParkControl Pro by Bitsum for years. When I bought my new laptop (Lenovo P17), I found out that the power profile is locked. The previous Lenovo model (P70) was known to suffer from occasional overheating problems. The P17 fixed that, but I can no longer change the power profile. Makes sense to me. The app consumes almost no resources, so I still run it, mostly for informational purposes. The new version I just downloaded (v3) has something called power overlays. I’ll have to look into that to see what they add to the mix, given the locked profile.
I assume that other power management apps also lost their ability to manage the power profile on newer laptops with locked power profiles.
ThrottleStop, QuickCPU, ParkControl… we will soon need a @npudar blog article to decide what really helps in which condition for helping GP… 
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By the way, I happen to find an article that may shed a bit more light on the base frequency v turbo issue:
A small word on power (see this article for more info) – rather than giving a simple ‘TDP’ value as in previous generations, which only specified the power at a base frequency, Intel is expanding to providing both a Base power and a Turbo power this time around. On top of that, Intel is also making these processors have ‘infinite Turbo time’, meaning that with the right cooling, users should expect these processors to run up to the Turbo power indefinitely during heavy workloads. Intel giving both numbers is a welcome change, although some users have criticized the decreasing turbo power for Core i7 and Core i5.
[Could be different for 12900hx, which is intended for laptops…]
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I found this too:
“With the said feature, Intel CPUs to improve the performance of single-threaded applications by moving these single-threaded workloads to the faster, favored/best core. This technology works by using a driver and information store on the CPU to select workloads that fit the needed specifications to be able to be moved to favored cores. Intel themselves state that you can the new Boost 3.0 algorithm can improve performance by as much as 15% for single-threaded applications.”
“Microsoft’s Windows OS natively supports this feature and is enabled by default so there is no need to activate in the BIOS. You’ll need Windows 10 x65 - RS5 distribution or later to be able to take full advantage of the Turbo Boost Max Technology 3.0 feature.”
“This newer technology doesn’t replace Intel Turbo Boost Technology 2.0, which indicated the highest possible frequency achievable across all the cores rather than just a single core or two cores. Intel Turbo Boost Max Technology 3.0 enhances the Boost Technology 2.0 by having one or two favored cores, which increases the frequency of these cores even more.”
So, in theory at least, it looks like Intel is trying to make its newest chips work optimally in a wide variety of environments, including where most of the work is done in a single core (except for the issue of graphics, I would think gaming would have similar needs to Gig Performer (emphasis on single thread and need for immediate real-time responsiveness)).
I guess time will tell whether it will live up to the hype and whether the concern with base frequency is no longer relevant for new processors.
We need to see A/B tests in practice 
Any information will be useful (and indexed in one place for future readers).
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This will be very useful indeed for people searching for a new system.
I on purpose didn’t want to pay much for a laptop as this whole adverture (VST, GP) started as a kind of experiment, but so far I’m happy.
So I probably in some years will find my laptop is too slow (especially using some CPU hungry VSTs like Massive X), and a good idea what I can expect from a new laptop or mini case PC would be very useful.
I used to use a laptop before, which worked well with most plugins, so computing power was not actually an issue, but this laptop had to work almost permanently at “full throttle” which caused it to seriously heat up.
So my main concern was not only the fan which made quite a lot of noise, it was the heat itself… when i played and worked at home the laptop was put with the lid closed in a narrow shelf… then one day i noticed that my laptop started to look like balloon since the battery began to blow up…
That was the point when i decided to not use a laptop anymore.
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Schamass, did you overclock it?
No, i didn’t. But it seemed that an open lid was part of the general cooling concept.
Having it running at full throttle for a long period while sitting with a closed lid in a narrow compartment maybe wasn’t the best idea. 
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Got it!
Sorry to insist on a matter that is always source of hard discussions, but I want to report my experience.
If you build a NUC or a tower PC, Windows is a good system to host music production software.
If you need a notebook, situation gets incredibly hard. New energy management bios are a deadly danger for a serious DAW setup.
I switched to MacBookPro one year ago with M1 processor. Here operating system is intrinsically designed to host multi-client audio apps, core audio is part of OS, there are no driver clashes, there are no energy or thermal issues, there is no latency issue.
Everything works immediately and you can get incredible audio performance without any tweaking.
I know, it’s expensive and time consuming to switch on another platform.
But I bless the day I decided to do it.
Now my free time is for playing, not for tuning drivers.
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Using a modern windows laptop does seem to be problematic depending how the laptop builder handles the heat being generated - and any subsequent throttling. Manufacturers take different approaches, but the one most recommended is Clevo - they manufacture laptops dedicated to audio production which are then re-badged by various resellers. They are big and clunky, as they have sufficient cooling…
Having being burned before with a consumer laptop that on paper looked good, but turned out to be useless for audio, I took an alternative approach. I put a dedicated SFF PC in my rack, which is run headless (i.e. no monitor or keyboard / mouse connected) and which runs GP. I then connect to it via remote desktop from a laptop (which is just used to display the SFF PC screen, and provide mouse/keyboard duties - so can be any old laptop as no audio is being processed on it). The SFF uses desktop components and has sufficient cooling to avoid any throttling. As well as working great, and being more cost effective than a mac, it also provides a dedicated unit for live performance - which I value highly. It doesn’t get subjected to updates and other software installs not related to performing, like a daily driver laptop would do - which gives piece of mind when on stage that it will work the same as the last gig.
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Yep, these new generation of chips with 16 cores (12th Generation Intel® Core™ i9-12900HX Processor) run even hotter. They (in the Lenovo Thinkpad P.16) attempt to compensate by improved cooling capabilities. (Making them a bigger and heavier).
I guess I may be better off because I doubt I will be using most of these cores in most cases.
On the other hand, if I am doing at outdoor gig on a hot day. . . . .
We’ll see.
I know I’m late to the party, but I thought I’d add my 2 cents in case it helps anyone.
I’m one who is running GP on a Dell Inspiron - 17 inch touch-screen model so I can see it
Here’s the specs:
|Processor|11th Gen Intel(R) Core™ i7-1165G7 @ 2.80GHz - 4 Cores, 8 Threads - Max Turbo 4.70 GHz (I do not overclock my CPU)|
|Installed RAM|32.0 GB (31.7 GB usable)|
|System type|64-bit operating system, x64-based processor|
|Pen and touch|Touch support with 10 touch points|
It has an internal 1TB SSD drive, and I have two Samsung 2TB SSD drives for all my music VSTs, etc, connected via USB C cable.
I’m now running three (3) instances of GP: Main has 47 rackspaces, and almost an equal amount of songs in a set list; one instance to manage my Behringer X-Air 18 (with a nanoKONTROL 2), and one instance to process my vocal with some effects. I also added MobileSheets for the last gig, and it worked great in conjunction with GP! (Before MobileSheets, I used an Excel workbook, where the names of the songs were hyperlinked to PDF files, so I had to run Excel and Adobe along with three instances of GP.)
For the most part, GP works FLAWLESSLY! 
I had only one instance at a gig where GP was crashing on startup, and I couldn’t figure it out before the show, so I did the performance old school (no GP). After the show I learned that my Dell laptop re-labeled my two SSD drives, swapping the letters of the drives (D: to E:), which was NOT GP’s fault.
Recent gig using Dell Inspiron, MobileSheets, and new nanoKONTROL 2 with Gig Performer.
Hopes this helps any who are considering the laptop route.
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This problem often occurs after inserting a device that already has the letter D assigned, which shifts the other letters even when that device has been removed or is hidden.
To increase the chances of keeping the letters of the devices, it is better to assign them a letter away from the first ones, i.e. X, Y, Z
However, programs or shortcuts pointing to these new device letters will no longer find them. If there are many of them, rather than changing the device letter, it is better to reassign the original letter by freeing it.
CAUTION: Use caution when using the Registry Editor. Incorrect modification can lead to malfunctions and data loss. Make a backup of the registry before making any changes.
To release the letter D, open the Registry Editor, expand the entries in the left pane to access the following path:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices
Right-click on the device whose drive letter is D, select Rename and assign an unused letter (away from the beginning or end of the alphabet in case the chosen letter is already assigned to an unplugged device) to free the current letter.
Close the Registry Editor, reboot the computer then reassign the letters D and E to the devices concerned.
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Thank you, @Hermon, those are some awesome tips for us Windows users. I’m going to give that a try.
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I figure I would follow up on this
I can’t give you an A/B test (Note: I am not too computer savvy). All I can say is I have been happy with the Lenovo Thinkpad P16 (Gen 2), enough that I decided to get another (back up) and retire my Dell XPS 13, which was struggling. (I am splurging, but I hope I will be set for a decade).
I like that is has capacity for an enormous amount of ram (it looks like 192GB now). (I only have/ordered 64GB, but I like that I have the option of adding more in the future).
It seems to (pretty easily) handle what I throw at it (B-3X, etc). From what I read it handles thermal issue better than other comparable laptops (Dell Precision). (But, although my older Dell XPS was struggling, I may push my laptops less than other people. For example, I am okay with 256 buffer size, and feel no need to change that).
One downside is it is bigger and heavier than my Dell XPS 13. But, if I just throw it in its own backpack on its own, it seems ok.
Once nice thing, is I am getting this new Thinkpad for about 1/3 less than what I paid not quite one year ago for a slightly more powerful CPU (in the new one). The CPU I got a little less than a year ago was a Gen 12 i9-12900HX.
The one that is getting delivered from Lenovo is Gen 13 i7-13850HX. Everything I am reading indicates the new one is slightly better overall (but close). (How I see it, the improvements in Gen 13 more than outweigh I-9 vs I-7).
One weird thing (David knows about) there was one plug in that I could not get to through the plug in manager (SM-BP synth, which sort of sounds like a synth bagpipe). But use a fair number of plugins and I have not had an issue with any others.
I try to follow the GP guide to optimize, but I avoid things the make me nervous. (I am not using Throttle Stop, etc.)
Anyway, npudar suggested I follow up after using the Thinkpad. So, I don’t think I could do a real A/B comparison, I figured I would report back.
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