Battery Life and Power Consumption

I also use a kill-a-watt meter to measure power consumption during various tests, including idle, video playback, Cinebench R20, and Battlefield V. This is only really relevant in scenarios where the laptop is plugged in, however.

With the power cable removed, the MSI GP76 Leopard runs the onboard NVIDIA GPU at reduced clocks in order to save on battery power. This extends battery life at the expense of performance.


Once free of its wires, the battery on the MSI GP76 Leopard shows to be of middling value; it is small, which means it doesn't add too much weight to the GP76 Leopard. However, its relatively limited 65 Wh nature leaves us wanting more for a full day of use without reaching for the power plug. Gaming is out of the question without being tethered to the wall.


There are several ways you can extend the laptop's battery life; use the software to institute lower power use via power plans, run hybrid mode so that the Intel CPU's IGP takes over most tasks, disable RGB lighting on the keyboard, and lower the screen brightness. All of these can be set with just a few button clicks within Dragon Center, thereby extending the GP76 Leopard's battery life.

Dragon Center also provides an option to run two battery-crushing profiles: "Extreme Performance" and "User." Both modes allow you to enable the Cooler Boost 5 mode, which has the laptop's fans running full blast.