Performance differences of Apollo/Gemini Lake devices

[Chris G]

This is why I still rate the Teclast F7 as the best budget laptop and higher than my EZBook X4. But I’m not getting lag like that with my unit in Edge. I even use it with an external monitor with @ 4k60hz.

My guess is your unit is throttling or has high temps like mine did. Now I did the heatsink fix/mod it has been performing faster than my Teclast F7. It also has 2GB less RAM which is another factor.

Chris | Admin
Please support us and help keep TechTablets online. Affiliate revenue is used to pay for the server, studio apartment (Techtablets HQ) and buy new tech to review. Without it, this site would be dead.
Next up for review:
Ordered and waiting for my: BMAX S15 & Teclast F6 Plus
Currently testing: LG G8X & Redmi K30

[Markus]

Hi Chris,

which device are you refering to? I am unsatisfied with the edge performance of both the Chuwi Surbook Mini and the Knote 5.

I made some more tests yesterday and the result is somehow weird:

• Temperature is not a problem on both devices. When browsing the web in Edge I hardly get temperatures above 50-70°C
• The Surbook Mini behaves extremely strange: When the device is in idle with no applications running, the package power is reported to be around 5W! Throttlestop and HWinfo64 both show this value. But I’m pretty sure the value is reported wrong, because the battery drain is only about 3,5W at the same time. The Teclast and the Knote 5 show around 2W Package Power in the same situation, which I think is the normal value.
• When I open a heavy website in edge, the package power goes to 9W on the Chuwi and TDP throttling kicks in. And I suppose this is also the reason for the stuttering when scrolling. Again I don’t think that the reported 9W are correct. The temperatures stays below 50°C.
• The TDP limit in the Surbook Mini is obviously set to 9W, this can clearly be seen in throttlestop. However, for some reason it cannot be overwritten with throttlestop. I can enter a different limit in throttlestop, and HWinfo also shows the changed value, but the throttling alway kicks in at 9W (which I think is no real 9W). In Comparison, in the Knote 5 I can overwrite the limits with throttlestop and the effect can clearly be seen.
• Disabling turbo completely in throttlestop makes the scrolling in edge much smoother, no stuttering anymore. The core speed does not get above 1,1GHz then. Obviously the variable clock speed is a big problem.

My conclusion: Either I have a faulty device or there is some really serious problem with the Firmaware/Bios or drivers of the Chuwi Surbook Mini. I am wondering why noone else has reported this before. Could anybody please test if the behaviour is the same with his Surbook Mini? Are there any driver/Bios updates available that I am missing?

 

Thanks

[Author]

Posts