Increase Apollo Lake/Gemini Lake TDP & Boost Intel HD Graphics Performance by up to 80%!

Chris G 44 Comments featured, News, Notebooks
Chuwi lapbook heatsink mod

This is a game changer (literally). Something I have been trying to get on all the Apollo Lakes after testing the Tbook Air/ Civiltop air with no power limits. It has a huge difference in Intel HD 500 GPU performance. I discovered it was like the Core M’s when the power limits are increased or even disabled the Intel 500 / 505 integrated GPU it can finally stretch its legs so to speak and hit its maximum 700Mhz/750Mhz GPU boost speed and keep holding it without power limits or higher limits. In turn increasing performance dramatically, for example, it’s the difference between running Counter Strike Global Offensive 800 x 600 low settings from 30-35 FPS with a stock TDP of 6Watts to 60-70Fps  with a tweaked TDP 10W limit.

The whole reason the Civiltop Air and Tbook Air were so much faster is in the bios the power limit in CPU advanced settings was off. No limit means it can use all the power it wants, it also means it will use more power and generate more heat. As a result of this, I only recommend this tweak to those laptops and tablets that have copper heatsinks. And better yet have full metal builds to better dissipate heat. This is a must! Otherwise, you will hit thermal throttling triggering Tjunction max so clocks will drop and worse case scenario the tablet/laptop could power off or go into sleep mod to stop any damage.

The following laptops, tablets I have opened & confirmed to have copper heatsinks.

  • Chuwi Lapbook SE
  • Jumper EZbook X4
  • Jumper EZbook 3 Pro series
  • Jumper EZPad 6S
  • Onda Xiaoma 21/31
  • Tbook4
  • Tbook Air
  • Civiltop Air
  • Cube iwork5X

This mod is not recommended on the:

  • Chuwi Lapbook 14.1 first batches (No copper heatsink)
  • Lapbook 12.3 (No copper heatsink, just tin shielding)

Borderline:

  • EZPad 6S  – It has a copper heatsink, but plastic housing results in less heat dissipation
  • EZbook 3S – It has a copper heatsink, but plastic housing results in less heat dissipation

To further improve thermals, you can also add a thermal pad between the copper heatsink and rear metal housing.

So here is the tweak: It involves running RW – Read write everything and editing the memory to change the TDP Limit set in the bios. Unfortunately, there is no bios level tweak for this yet, that would require editing the bios and flashing it with an unlocked power limit setting. Something that is beyond me and bios editors I’ve tried doesn’t seem to allow it. It’s also high risk.

DOWNLOAD/LINK: This method is just editing the memory. Many thanks to Joe, the Apollo TDP unlocking/tweak thread is here.

I will have a video soon with how to do it and the result it can achieve which is well worth it, the performance boost is mostly for the GPU as the CPU is already running at top speeds. But now it will hold those speeds. So it will improve the CPU performance a little. I also expect the N4200 to have the greatest result with this mod as it has the 300Mhz higher CPU clocks and 50Mhz higher GPU turbo clock with 6 more EU’s.

>WARNING< Apply this tweak at your own risk. I’m not responsible for bricked devices, burnt out CPU’s, thermal meltdown, burning your house down or increased headshots in CSGO from better FPS.

Watch your GPU and CPU temps closely with HWinfo, if it gets too hot, stop gaming, use sleep or reboot to put the stock TDP back into place.

So there we go, now all Apollo Lakes can performance equally!

Chris G
Video tech reviewer and tech blogger. I have a huge interest in the latest tech, tablets, laptops, mobiles, drones, and even e-scooters. Active in the tech community since 2008 days of the Omnia i900 Windows phone. Samsungi8910omnia.com, Samsunggalaxysforums.com founder from way back.

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44 Comments

  1. sir please help me to download i m unable to download the software [email protected]

  2. Hello guys…i know its late to coment on this but i have just bought an Asus notebokk with the Pentium4200. In HWinfo64 apears the tdp changed to 10w…but when i game o push the cpu it always stays taking around 6.5Watts and my GPU at 400MHz 🙁 what im i doing wrong? My actual full load temps are at 65C. Thanks.

  3. Is it use this one with YEPO 737a intel 3450 ?

  4. N4200/HD505 has 750MHz vs 700MHz N3450/HD500. The real difference are 18EU vs 12EU.
    Probably is also possible to set HD500@750MHz like J3455,depends if offset is editable(ratio powermanagement).
    For now i have builded a tool to edit tdp directly from taskbar using this tweak and works great

  5. Hi Chris
    I have few questions :
    – after increase power limit on celeron n3450 plus all cooling stuff, how I’d that compare with m3-7y30 ? I mean games like BF4 and WoT (pc).
    What is differences (fps) example cube mix plus Vs Jumper ezbook 3 pro – after tunning 🙂

    – I read forum and can’t finds about increase power limits on m3-7y30 with effect ( increase fps ). Is that possible like on celeron n3450 ?

    I really interesting how is the winner

    –

  6. Where can I download it?

  7. No need to do this tweak if you have v.4 version as you can change the TDP limit directly in the (unlocked) BIOS. It’s actually already set to 9W by default in the BIOS (from the standard 6W).

  8. Do you think it is possible for the Chuwi Lapbook 12.3 AFTER doing the thermal mod?

  9. I think you just gave me a reason to finally upgrade my Chuwi Hi12. So which laptop is best for this mod Chris? Onda Xiaoma 31 or the EZBook 3 Pro. What about that EZBook 3L Pro the 14.1 inch model, will you review it?

    • EZbook 3 Pro & the Cube iwork5X seems a safe bet. Nice larger copper heatsinks in them. And you can add a thermal pad to in between the rear metal case and copper heatsink to help lower temps even more as thermal throttling can come into play after extended gaming periods.

    • Ezbook 3L Pro, someone asked a question about the screen on Gearbest, they said its TN, if true it kills it!

      http://www.gearbest.com/laptops/pp_671109.html

      • Crap hope not. I have one ordered. Waiting to ship. I think the EZBook 3L Pro like the Tbook4 I have, but in silver and with wireless AC. I hope the keyboard is better.

  10. I need help please. My old Lenovo G500 with a third generation core i3 died on me and I need a cheap replacement. I’m a web developer I was wondering if this Apollo lake laptops could handle IDEs like Intellij Ide, Visual Studio or Android Studio that are resources hungry. I’m looking at the Jumper EZ Book Series 3 Pro or the iWork5x. I’d appreciate all the help I can get.

    • I find the N3450 processor faster than my 3rd gen i5-3317u, seems to handle graphics much better, don’t know if that helps.

      • Yes it does my core i3 was the 3110M 2.4ghz processor

      • 9th gen GPU that is why. And if you do that TDP tweak it will be even better.

        • Any programmer in the house to really answer the first question tho….???

          • Sorry, I don’t run those applications. But maybe a Core M3 would suit you better? I highly recommend the Xiaomi Mi Notebook 12.5 if you can. Core M3 is much faster overall than the Apollo Lake.

  11. Very nice tweak! Gonna try it out on my lapbook 14.1 with propper copper heatsink this evening!

    Thank you!

  12. Would you be able to play GTA V after the boost on the Cube iWork X5 (N3450)?

    • Nope. It’s still an Apollo Lake, doesn’t work miracles.

  13. will patiently wait for the video. hopeful to boost my Chuwi Hi13 a bit.

  14. Seems from some messages there is a bit of confusion. This tweak doesn’t mean you can now play GTA V & Battlefield 1. The increase will depend on the game. The less demanding the game the more benefit you’ll see. And then it all depends on temps & if thermal throttling takes place. So some systems the results might not be good at all if it has a poor heatsink.

  15. Will this decrease battery life for day-to-day use (ie – when not pushing the CPU/GPU to the limit)?

    • Depends it will be the same if it’s not power limiting in the first place. Then again since it has a higher limit it might hold the turbos longer resulting in some loss. So far looking at internet use in Chrome it seems like it will use a little more

      • That makes sense.

        As this ‘feature’ falls off on restarting the laptop, it might be a good tool to use only when planning to play games or do something GPU intensive.

  16. Just to confirm, this file does for laptops what the power limit setting in civitop air does right? Cause my teclast x3 plus doesnt have that option in Bios, but this file will enable it nonetheless?

    Sounds great! thanks for the find!

    • It doesn’t enable it in the bios. It just overwrites the TDP when windows is running. So rebooting or putting it into sleep it reverts back to the bios default 6W.

  17. Can this be done on a Hi13?
    Thanks

    • Yes, it can, but beware. That Hi13 doesn’t have a copper heatsink in it but a shield and thermal pads only. If you do the tweak, watch the thermals very,very closely or copper shim mod it.

  18. Very interesting post. Thanks!!

  19. That’s pretty sick, engineering-grade BIOS information and modification on Techtablets.com!?

    It actually shows how capable the guts of Apollo Lake devices really are and how power saving takes it influence on the performance.

    Once again confirms this is THE site to go for Chinese Laptops and Tablets 🙂

    • Well, I try to post and find the cool stuff we all like, mods and such. With this tweak now all the Apollo Lakes are so much better! Just have to watch those thermals, but on my Cube iwork 5X It still stays under 80 degrees C with a 10W tweak.

  20. Great info, thank you, just to be sure; so I don’t need to apply RW with Tbook Air and Civiltop Air, just disable power limit in the BIOS would be the same right?

    • Yes, the Tbook Air/Civiltop Air and Xiaomi 21 have this setting so you can just disable the power limits. (Under CPU advance settings)

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