Dell XPS Speed Shift

Ok question so what is the difference between enabling speedshift(via bios) and using high performance power plan? Seems like the both have cpu running at the highest clock rate. Kinda confused. Which one should I go with to get the cpu running at its the highest? Should I disable speedshift in throttlestop? What happens if I'm on balanced power plan and set the slider to best performance while speedtest enabled in BIOS? Incase i enabled it in bios,should i disable it in throttlestop?
Mine is xps 9560 7700hq btw

 

Different schemes. SpeedShift is CPU level control and Windows Power Plan is operating system level control. SpeedShift should take precedence overriding most/all Windows Power Plan settings as a general matter. I always have SpeedShift enabled.

@unclewebb generally recommends leaving Windows Power Plan at "high performance" and adjusting SpeedShift EPP. I use:

EPP 255 for max battery life, '
EPP 0 for max performance,
EPP ~78 for a good balance with access to max turbo speeds (you will have to test your system out as your number might be slightly different

ThrottleStop is nice because it is easy to change EPP on the fly.

 

You can see a lot of what is going on under the hood. Go into Windows PowerShell and look at EPP differences. Use the following command:

powercfg -qh

 

What I'm trying to do is enable speedshift via BIOS which I've already done and dont want throttlestop to interfere with the speedshift. So now how do I set epp in windows 10 without throttlestop ? Should I stay on the balanced plan ? And of course I want the cpu running at its highest

 

Well, one thing you can try is via Windows Power Options as summarized by @unclewebb below:

Before dropping commands, you should print out your power addresses and compare using the command powercfg -qh

On my XPS 9550, I had to slightly tweak the format of the commands. For example (AC, High-Performance, Processor power management, Processor energy performance preference policy-EPP):

POWERCFG /SETACVALUEINDEX 8c5e7fda-e8bf-4a96-9a85-a6e23a8c635c 54533251-82be-4824-96c1-47b60b740d00 36687f9e-e3a5-4dbf-b1dc-15eb381c6863 50

Regardless, I never got these dropdown boxes to enable SpeedShift or change EPP for the old Dell XPS 9550. Dell enabled SpeedShift via BIOS for later models so those dropdown boxes may work fine for you.

 

BIOS just enables speedshift feature but it is the OS that controls EPP value based on your power plan. So, its same as setting TS. I use Balanced power plan and change EPP value to 0/80/200 to get max performance/performance mode/ power savings. My PC BIOS doesn't have Speedshift option in BIOS. So, I use TS. On Linux, I allow TLP to control my HWP states the same way as TS.

 

Yeah got em dropdown options and set the power policy to 0 on plugged-in and minimum performance to 100% on plugged in as well but it is based on balanced plan. Seems like there is no difference between the balanced and high performance plan on my 9560 right now. Good thing is that if it's based on balanced you retain the power slider which overrides the TS epp so there is no need to mess with TS epp anymore other than undervolting. Now, should I keep the c1e on TS? What does it really do?

 

What is the difference between activating speedshift via bios vs TS? I mean probable none, but why would one prefer one option over another?

I thought I had speedshift activated, but unfortunately had to check it TPL window also. Damn, it feels like windows are opening faster now

 

Well, BIOS activation means you don't need to launch ThrottleStop every startup

ThrottleStop allows a real easy way to set EPP, which is the best way to change from energy savings to high performance. ThrottleStop is also where I run CPU undervolt and shut off power limits.

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You can add EPP dropdowns in Windows Power Options; however I have not gotten them to actually change the registers of two Dell laptops so this is a windows bug, Dell lockout/bug, or user error.

You can see if SpeedShift is activated in ThrottleStop's main window (see green "SST" to indicate SpeedShift is on). You can also use HWiNFO64.

 

How do you shut off power limits in TS? It seems to be the only throttle I have and I haven't seen a explanation that I can understand.