MSI GE73 Raider RGB

[MSI GE73]

Having some weird problems. Before I say more this is what I have done to this laptop so far:
1. Max upgrade for Ram from 16-32GB
2.from 512GB to 1TB NVME m2.
3. Tested deep through with few different best Thermal paste on CPU and GPU and ended up with Thermal pads from graphite on CPU and GPU. Replaced original silicon pads with much better one and added few more heatsinks, heatpipes.
4. Bought and modified Laptop cooling pad COOLER MASTER, took out original set of coolers and bought Noctuas 2x and connected all via extern adapter.
5. Tested that everything and got like 30c drop, I mean seriously tested like all new games on ultra and nightmare graphic details, played games many hours temperature without ThrottleStop max 87c. and with ThrottleStop max temp is 70c. So Doom Eternal on Ultra is 65-70c.
6. Now here comes interesting facts.....When I do video editing, processing my temp is 60c but I keep getting on ThrottleStop so many red lights that is really bothering me. When i start TS Bench I get first Red warning and after test at idle yellow warning on Core and Ring PL2 and EDP OTHER. If I start heavier tasks these two get red and often I see other warnings but the temps are 60c.....so wtf is wrong here? Also I unlocked full access to bios with following: R-CTRL+R-SHIFT+L-ALT+F2....When you enter bios with Del just press these buttons and you will unlock whole a lot of other hidden functions: R-CTRL+R-SHIFT+L-ALT+F2. So here I see I can enable ProcHot which is by default Disabled. I can control PL1 and PL2, I can manually overclock and underclock and much more but the thing is I dont want overclock I want stable 3,9GHz without throttling at 60-75c so I didn´t dare to change anything in bios. So any idea tips? Here comes Screenshoots.

 

[Caring1]

Try increasing Turbo boost power limits to 45 Long and 60 Short.
The warnings are indicating Power Limits are holding your system back, not Temps.

 

[MSI GE73]

Thank you for a reply. Tried that and now it's without warnings good job thank you again. I will try do more optimisation so I can utilise it's max power on minimal overheating.

 

[unclewebb]

@MSI GE73 - Use Cinebench R20 when setting your voltages and power limits. Most 8750H CPUs will only maintain full speed during Cinebench R20 when both of the power limits are set to 60W or higher. Also try increasing your CPU voltage. Keep the cache at -125 mV. You might find better performance while still being stable with the core at -200 mV.

 

[MSI GE73]

@MSI GE73 - Use Cinebench R20 when setting your voltages and power limits. Most 8750H CPUs will only maintain full speed during Cinebench R20 when both of the power limits are set to 60W or higher. Also try increasing your CPU voltage. Keep the cache at -125 mV. You might find better performance while still being stable with the core at -200 mV.

Well here I am not sure what you meant with: "Also try increasing your CPU voltage." So I will give you a screenshoot before I try to do anything.

 

[unclewebb]

Run Cinebench R20 with the CPU core and CPU cache both set to -125 mV.

Leave the cache at -125 mV and run Cinebench R20 again with the core at -150 mV. Do another test at -175 mV and another test with the core at -200 mV. Leave the cache at -125 mV for each test.

You will need to increase the Range to the 250 mV setting so the offset slider can go beyond 125 mV. When you press Apply, you should see the CPU Core voltage increase in the monitoring table. Cinebench R20 is the best way to test if this setting improves your scores or temperatures.

 

[MSI GE73]

Here I come again. Now What I noticed is the temp are decreasing and the CPU can take quite a lot of load before it start warming up. Though the best undervolts results temp+performance was at -170 I scored best score on R15 benchmark. Thank you guys so much for help. If you have any more ideas feel free to say.

 

[unclewebb]

I scored best score on R15 benchmark.

Run Cinebench R20

For testing and setting voltages you need to use R20. It uses the newer AVX instructions. R15 is obsolete.

Your temps look great compared to the majority of laptops with 6 core CPUs. Make sure your laptop can maintain full speed during R20. It is a longer and more demanding test. You should be over 3000 points.

 

[MSI GE73]

Hello again and thank you guys again....here comes results. Frankly I am bit dissapointed with higher frequency but the temps are great no complain. I put lots of time, money and efforts into this laptop duuh finally I see some nice results thx to you guys. Gotta admit made many mistakes but learned a lot about MSI laptops and generally slim laptops with power hungry processors and graphic cards.

I used -1000 Undervolt on Core the temps were ok and frequency stayed at 3500-3600MHz constant no matter how much stress it gets but thats it. The warnings are back as expected. The score is below 3000 on CR20. The best combo that I got so far was this one: undervolt Core to -150 or -170 and the cache -125. change on TPL clocks to 3.4GHz and thats it. Best temperatures, very quiet laptop, solid performance. No warnings, no lags. Though could set it on -1000 and freq on 3400MHz and I think that his coolers wouldn´t even spin at all . Ok again I am open for tips, advices. I would like to make one more power profile so I can switch between Power and medium gaming profile. Wanna preserve this laptop as long as possible because later on I might try few more tweaks inside the chasis. I will be waiting for your comments Cheers

 

[unclewebb]

Most 8750H CPUs will only maintain full speed during Cinebench R20 when both of the power limits are set to 60W or higher.

Your 8750H is not reaching maximum performance. PL1 lighting up in red and showing up in the log file means your laptop is power limit throttling. In the TPL window, you have the long term turbo power limit set to 45W. That is not enough.

If you want your CPU to run at full speed during Cinebench R20 then try increasing your long term limit from 45W to at least 60W. It looks like 70W would be even better. You also need to check the FIVR - Disable and Lock Turbo Power Limits option. On some laptops, this will give you a big boost in full load performance. Your temperatures are great so your laptop is capable of running at a higher power limit.

Many laptops are locked down by the manufacturer. If you increase the power limits and you are still being throttled at 45W long term then there is nothing you can do. The only way to find out what your laptop is capable of is to make adjustments and test again.

 

[yotano211]

I've had the ge73 for a few years, you won't get passed 3.53ghz. I put coollaboratory liquid ultra for thermal paste, that only dropped the temps instead of increasing the ghz speed.

 

[MSI GE73]

Here is the thing. I tried the last two suggestions and it went 20% better with freq but still not 100% performance. I can enter into advanced bios and change the values for CPU throttling. See what I noticed is that the moment CPU hit the 70c the system start throttling CPU performance down to 3.6GHz and earlier it was 3.4GHz. So I can move the limit to 80c though I would have to make few more changes in bios because there are few different setups for temperatures and they are programmed like a pyramid, so at 70c it throttles CPU, at 80c it few more actions and at 90c few more and finally at 100c turn off or reset laptop to prevent damage. So what you say guys?

Here are few more screenshoots.

 

[unclewebb]

it went 20% better

Open Limit Reasons so you can watch what is causing throttling while Cinebench is running. Does it show PL1 power limit throttling in red? Does ThrottleStop show power consumption at 45W when this happens? No need to adjust the temperatures in the BIOS. You can set the core voltage offset to -250 mV. There is no advantage increasing the offset between -250 mV and -1000 mV. The CPU is going to ignore anything beyond -250 mV. It is not possible to undervolt the CPU by -1000 mV. The CPU would crash at this setting if it was actually being applied.

You can also set your turbo ratios back to their default values, 41, 41, 40, 40, 39, 39. The 8750H cannot be overclocked so any higher values than this are ignored by the CPU.

Your laptop is likely locked to 45W long term. That is what @yotano211 seems to be saying.

 

[MSI GE73]

Here are the results. Tbh I am ok with these freq gonna decrease to 3.4GHz and leave it like that.....Less heat and longer life. Simple as that. Thank you guys for help. If I ever decide to buy gaming laptop again it´s gonna be Ryzen CPU and prolly AMD GPU Intel has hot CPU´s could roast eggs when I just bought it. Tested Wolfenstein and this furnace unleashed quite a lot of heat .....

 

[unclewebb]

When the MSI 45W power limit kicks in, your CPU temp is held to only 60°C. MSI used a great heatsink and fan but then got all cowardly when they decided to force the long term turbo power limit to only 45W. When an 8750H is properly cooled and the power limits are left unlocked, it can run steady at 3.9 GHz for the entire run of Cinebench R20 without a hint of throttling. Reduced power limits reduce full load performance.

Thanks for doing lots of testing and posting lots of pics and log files.

 

[MSI GE73]

You welcome. Here is my best set of tweaks for MSI GE73 Raider RGB 8rf. I am leaving for everyone who might need it. So the CPU is i7 8750H and GPU is it´s not QMax it´s full powered GTX 1070 8GB.
Screenshoots under. This is the best I could get on benchmark. No way to make it better at 64c it returns CPU to 3.6GHz. Core is at -250 and cache at -125.

Tried both and the difference that I noticed is if you change core to -250 than the cache max undervolt is -160 and max CPU frequency is 3.3GHz and the temperatures are really low and coolers are totally sillent. So I guess that is for you guys who dont need more than 3.3GHz and want it to be as sillent as possible without coolers to spin.

League of Legends holding temps at 45-55c. Most of the games are at 60c-65c.

There you have it. No way to make it better without touching bios which I am not recommending.

 

[yotano211]

When the MSI 45W power limit kicks in, your CPU temp is held to only 60°C. MSI used a great heatsink and fan but then got all cowardly when they decided to force the long term turbo power limit to only 45W. When an 8750H is properly cooled and the power limits are left unlocked, it can run steady at 3.9 GHz for the entire run of Cinebench R20 without a hint of throttling. Reduced power limits reduce full load performance.

Thanks for doing lots of testing and posting lots of pics and log files.

I've had the aero 15 for a month, that small laptop would hit 3.9ghz, the 8750h model 1070 max-q. The ge73 with 1070 and 8750h that I had did 3.53ghz max, even with liquid metal.
The ge75 with i7 10750h will max out on 6 cores of 4.3ghz with liquid metal. The ge75 I have now, with i9 9880h with do 3.9ghz on 8 cores. I rather have the 8 cores at lower speeds than 6 cores at 4.3ghz. I do more production work than gaming.
All of these speeds are under-volted with intel XTU.

 

[MSI GE73]

Well the thing is I can increase TDP in my hidden bios but then again it's not worth the risk. I can have stable 3.6GHz under heavy load without overheating or powerthrottling but then again I am fine with 3.4-3.5GHz because the laptop is quiet and has much lower the temp. Later on I will make few more changes to the chassi of the laptop and then I will be able to increase TDP to much higher value but for now I will leave it as it is. So how good and bad are Alienware gaming laptops? I know they have quality (chassi, lcd and etc) but how about thermals and performance under heavy loads? Are there any laptop gaming brands with excellent thermals or they all have this issue?