The Official MSI GT73VR Owners and Discussions Lounge

Got mine (GT 73 VR) from GentechPC a couple of days ago. Here are some comments.

Previous machine is/was a GT60 upgraded to a 970M.

As to the question of heat here are some thoughts. I think they figured it out. The ratio of heat to GPU burden is VERY good. So If you want MAX settings, you will drop to a lower frame rate before heat becomes an issue. I.e. the frame rates are an issue before heat.
I got the 1070M, because the price was an issue. The machine handles the 1070 heat easily, so much so, I would suggest a 1080 for those who want to spend the money and they should not worry about the heat difference between a 1070 and 1080.

When I say handles it, I mean the fan noise is not loud enough to be an issue. No more hair dryer references. And certainly the Turbo, Max Fan, will probably never get used unless I am in tournament mode and playing a long session. My GT60 at idle 30% fan, is louder than the new GT73 VR playing games.

Furthermore, the Dragon center bundled has a fan controller interface that is customizable on the fans speed ramp up, for both GPU and CPU, separately. No more 3rd party solutions.

Lastly I think the overall chassis is much better. It seems a lot more solid and the places where my GT60 plastic sheered off are not really possible now.

Cheer!

 

I believe MSI is using IPS-LEVEL to mean you get similar color reproduction as IPS screens but the viewing angles aren't as good.

The screen is gorgeous though and once calibrated its even better.

Here's my ICM profile if you're interested, made using colormunki: https://mega.nz/#!mYJjxLjA!XnpJfDCSXFe5jsz7E1joXjTzG-F2yKDClgTqshucL6Q

It may not be perfect for your screen, and neither is True Color because that's just a generic one, since every screen is slightly different but it'll most likely be better than MSI's true color which has way too much blue.

If you're using MSI dragon center you will have to exit it and prevent it from starting when you login. Btw since MSI's software engineers are a bit weird you'll notice that dragon center isn't listed in the startup tab in task manager. To prevent it from starting up go to task scheduler -> double click on task library -> disable all the MSI stuff.

Alternatively if you can use something like Color Profile Keeper or Guru3d color sustainer. But with g-sync enable the colors may flicker as the screen refresh rate changes and MSI's dragon center applies it owns profile.

After playing with a calibrated screen I can just never go back to an uncalibrated screen....the colors are just too washed out.

The 1080 GPU will get to 70-80C during gaming with fans set to auto unless you ramp up the RPM (13-15C is the difference I noted with the cooler boost on) or use liquid metal but even then you're looking at maybe 4-5C difference.

You can thank NVidia GPU Boost for that haha. The base clocks for the GTX 1080 is 1556mhz but if the card detects that you have enough thermal headroom it will automatically overclock it until it can maintain 80-82C (on the MSI GT73 its about 1900mhz core when boosted) which I believe is the thermal threshold. Above that GPU boost will turn off and the clocks drop back down.

If you disable GPU boost then the card sits at about 65C when gaming which is fantastic. And really 70-80C for a desktop class GPU in a relatively light laptop really isn't all that bad. Its working exactly like NVidia designed it to work.

 

Oh I know why they use the thermal paste that they do, its just that I've never ever seen one that was so tough to remove. That was the biggest surprise to me, never seen any other stock laptop from Dell, Alienware, Asus and HP have thermal paste that was that tough lol.

And yeah I know that eventually I will have to repaste and while this is the first time I've used thermal grizzly my old alienware 17R1 laptop held Prolimatech's PK-3 for 2 years without an increase in temperatures.

For this laptop repasting it takes under 15mins and that's including the 10mins spent rubbing away and cursing at the heatsink for still having the original TIM on it. 15mins every year or two really is no big deal. That said if thermal grizzly starts showing an increase in like a month then it's back to PK-3 and I'll deal with the 1C higher temperatures haha.

And yes before anyone mentions its I know I can get slightly better temps and longer life with ICD7 but I absolutely refuse to use any of that companies products. Their customer service is absolutely awful and their CEO is a giant tool.

 

Have you remembered to warmup the screen for 35 minutes before calibration?

Also, make sure the ICM profile is not loaded through the OS, but through DisplayCAL.

MSi's paste is the thickest I've ever seen in a laptop.

Not even Apple, Dell/AW, and ASUS have paste that thick.

Also to note, liquid metal would never need a repaste within a notebook's life cycle.

 

Not so sure about that, I have heard that CLU does degrade over time when exposed to air and heat, just like any thermal compound.

It's hard to find someone that documents the degradation, but here is one laptop user that shows CLU in a dull grey dried out state after 9 months - and after re-pasting with CLU temps are back down to normal.

You can skip a large portion of this video as the guy tries to use another compound instead of CLU, but that fails

Watch from 1:45 to 2:25, and from 2:56 to 3:56, and start again at 5:40 till the end.



In sealed environment CLU for delidding for example, seems to be fine:



So, if you can keep things sealed, with no air getting to the CLU it will be long lasting, but just like any other compound once it's exposed to air and heat it will degrade over time.

 

Ah yes I remember that first video. My first thought was that there was a gap between the IHS and die which caused it to burn out / oxidation? That's the only thing I can think of unless there are some other unknown variables that we're not aware of....

 

The display was on for two hours before the calibration was made in a 70lux environment.

It doesn't matter what software you use if the dragon center is running in the background. Since it has no option to disable it's calibration everytime the screen profile changes it will load it's own calibration in first. Sure if you use displaycal, cpk, or color sustainer it will auto load your profile too but you'll still see the screen colors change twice.

It's annoying and really the only way I've found to fix it is just disable dragon center from running on startup or uninstall it.

And yeah the MSI paste is incredibly thick, especially on the gpu. The cpu one was significantly easier to clean and remove.

 

You should've taken a picture first before cleaning it lol. Show us that gunk.

 

Haha I wish I had.

But imagine an Intel IHS, it was a tiny bit thinner than that stuck on the heat sink.

Guess they just have square pieces of it that they stick onto the heatsink and run a burn-in cycle. The one on the CPU looked more like applied paste.

 

Thank you. I was wondering why I didn't get it to work, icc profile. But, if I disable the dragon center, how do I switch OC, turbo and fan profiles?

 

You can't. So you either set a profile you like or keep it running and just deal with the switching colors. You can get around that by disabling G-SYNC but that defeats the purpose of the G-SYNC panel haha.

 

You can uninstall the MSI Gaming Center and install Intel Extreme Tuning Utility (XTU) for CPU tuning and MSI Afterburner + RivaTuner for GPU tuning. Uninstall the MSI TrueColor, and install your ICC profile.

It's easy

 

I've noticed something quite interesting.

Looking through my 3d mark scores from when I had MSI's dragon center installed to those with it uninstalled (clean windows installations in both cases), my graphics scores do not change. The change is all down to physics scores because of the CPU overclock. I've also verified the clock, boost clock, memory clocks of the 1080 gtx and they're all identical (maybe like 5mhz difference which is irrelevant).

There is a 10-15 degree difference in temperature of the GPU. As far as I can tell, and this is verified with afterburner and HWINFO, the clock speeds are identical. In both cases the GPU boosts upto 1900mhz. Yet with MSI dragon center not installed/uninstalled, I can play wow at 65C. With MSI center installed but no overclocks, wow runs at 75-80C. Same story with 3DMark. My graphics scores are virtually identical in both cases, clock rate is the same, and yet there's a difference in temperatures.

Edit 1: Only thing I've noticed is that when MSI dragon center is installed and sport or turbo mode is selected the GPU stays at its boost clock in 3d mode and doesn't change (the clocks only change when the GPU switches back to 2d or temperatures go above 80). Even if its a super simple scene that's hitting the 120 fps lock, it will stay stuck at 1900mhz and then the GPU hits 78C when I'm looking at a wall and not really rendering anything. Whereas when I uninstall dragon center (or test it on a clean install) the clock will fluctuate and drop the temperature into the low 60s with no real noticeable loss of performance.

Edit 2: The only real advantage I've noticed is that since the GTX 1080 is a relatively new card the drivers for it aren't perfect. So I could be in some area with lower than expected FPS with my GPU sitting at 55C at 900mhz for some odd reason (I originally suspected that this may have something to do with G-SYNC locking it at a lower fps to prevent tearing but other people with the desktop GTX 1080 have mentioned similar oddities too). Forcing it to stay at a constant 1900mhz fixes that but I expect stuff like that to be fixed with driver updates so I'm not sure if the 5-15C difference in temperature is really worth it at the end of the day. Well I mean unless you like looking at a wall while wondering why your GPU is hitting the thermal threshold for the boost clock then by all means haha.

Oh yeah you can do it that way too. Really all the dragon center does is use XTU to set the values anyways haha.

Only thing you'll miss out on is the function key for MSI shift won't work.

 

Go to 18:45. Did it look like that?

 

tbh, I'm having a hard time seeing the differense between the profiles, true color, yours, and the review profile. I'm doing something wrong?

How to change profiles, I found a youtube guide on it!

Edit:

I noticed msi had XTU installed:
My goal is to let the cpu idle at 2,7 ghz while I kinda do nothing but browse the internet, and ramp up to about 3,6 ghz while gaming. Just can't figure it out.

Dunno why, but I managed to fix that on my 6700k

Edit2:
Might have been that I used Throttlestop.
Think there was an option to mark, that clocked to cpu down when not in a 3d mode.

Here my cpu constant runs on 3,2ghz on all 4 cores, and idle temp is around 60-65c.
While I'm gaming, the temp is about the same. At that heat, the fans tend to spin up sligthly, while I don't mind that while gaming, I do care about it when browsing the internet.

When I run fire strike tests, my GPU never goes over 75c.
Guess I don't have to repaste it?
So far cpu is the first repaste job I will do.

Edit3:
So I downloaded Color Profile Keeper, and I used yours. I liked it, rly liked it!

 

The thermal paste quantity MSI used on one laptop, can be used on 3 laptops and thermal pads are also not right thickness in video they looks like barely contact with chips or heatsink, MSI used 0.5mm but better if they use 1.0mm thickness and better quality like Arctic thermals pads

 

Click the battery icon in the taskbar -> power options -> select balanced power plan.

With balanced the CPU clock will fluctuate based on demand. With high performance it'll hold the max clock rate regardless. If you use Dragon center everytime it loads it will auto set the power plan to high performance and there's no way to change that without disabling the program.

No you don't have to repaste it to be honest. I just like keeping the temperatures a little cooler. 65 with the fans set to auto is pretty good so don't worry about it.

Great! Now you're spoiled and you'll never be able to use an uncalibrated screen again haha

 

Oh dam it, that's so true! This screen will now spoil me hard time!

 

I Iike that one better than the one from Notebookcheck's review. Maybe a hair too much saturation for me but it is vivid!

 

Yeah they will all be slightly different because mine is calibrated to my screen, notebookchecks is calibrated to their review model's screen. Plus mine was adjusted to take into account the ambient light conditions in the room.

Only way to get it perfect would be to use your own colorimeter. Everyone else's calibrations can only come close haha.

 

OK.

So now I only have 2 minor issues and one tiny left in windows.
To who it may concern:

1:
Everytime I start opp Windows, touch pad is by default on. I have to turn it off.
How can I force it off? Tried to uninstall the drivers, results = always on!

2: I use g-sync(ofc), and like the new feature: fast sync.
Everytime I turn Windows on, I have to go to the Nvidia Panel and sett vsync from: ON to Fast.
How can I lock it to be Fast when I start up Windows? (g-sync is enabled)

3:
Minor minor. When I want to restart the laptop, Origin always pops up: please close this program, or save it. Then I need to hit: Restart anyway. Be gone! How?

Thank you!

 

Hi guys , i have question but i dont know where to post so i leave it here and hope you guys can help me.
My brother is going to Miami and he will buy a GT73VR in there for me, the problem is i dont know anything about local stores in the area, is there any trustworthy sites or stores you guys can recommend for me?

 

hi guys
first sry my english is little bad i think. I am from europe and i was so lazy in school

ok my question is i really want this msi gt73 but i dont know is 4k screen worth it i read a lot and some people say 4k on 17'3 is not worth extra money. Have here someone 4k type of gt73. that is my biggest problem 4k or that sweet 120hz 5ms.

and second question have someone from europe order from gentechpc i really want know about that. Because my local store in my country (i am from slovakia) dont have what i exactly want and gentechpc have it. shiping and order is not problem but what if something happend i need to send it back to gentech and that can cost some money but more important more time.

ok thats all.
this forum is awesome so much info about something what i really like.
i hope soon i have my own gt73

 

I can't speak for the 4K screen but I love my 120hz Gsync, it's beautiful and I really enjoy gaming on it. As far as Gentech goes I would try to talk to them before ordering. If you get more then 5 posts on this forum you could start a conservation with them as well.

Good luck shopping whatever screen you will love this laptop.

 

Hello
I am having doubts about getting the gt73vr.
How are the viewing angles on the panel compared to an IPS? My current panel is TN and I am not very happy about them.

Thanks

 

Hi! I'm thinking about buying this beast but I would like to know how good are the viewing angles, as it looks like it has a TN panel. Could someone post some pictures of the viewing angles? How good are they?

Thank you very much

 

If I move my head right or left about 30-45 degrees, the image fades out somewhat on the opposite end. Sitting and using it in a normal situation I have no problem. The display is sharp and vivid. It also has zero light bleed. I would have preferred true IPS, but I love this laptop. It runs cool and nearly silent under gaming load.

 

Thank you!
Is it a strong fade out? Would it be annoying while watching a movie and not sitting in front of the screen?
And what about the vertical viewing angles?

 

I just watched a movie trailer to test it out. Sitting with my head maybe 2 feet from the screen and looking at a 45 degree angle. It's not that noticeable. It may be slightly dimmer on the opposite end. I really only easily notice it on a white background like this forum. The vertical angle is about the same to me. It is fine with me but I think it is a subjective thing. Your taste may vary.

 

I get tearing in a couple of games, even with g-sync on. Assassin's Creed Unity especially, and also Shadow of Mordor. When I turn V-Sync on it gets better. Thought g-sync would remove this issue, but I guess it's not perfect.

Another issue I have is that I want to open the computer up to install my old 250 gig Samsung 840 EVO SSD. The only question is where? Heard something about there being an additional slot in there, or would I need to replace the 1TB HDD? It's a SATA III drive.

 

From what I've seen, there is only one slot for a 2.5 inch drive in the GT73VR, so you would have to replace the 1 TB HDD.

 

That's because you have to enable V-Sync to get working G-Sync.

 

Cheers, I actually didn't know that.

Also thanks to neohopper. That kind of sucks since 250+250 gb probably won't be enough for me.

 

I have another issue, an error that I've seen two times now.. Sometimes I get a "connected but not charging" message. Wonder if my battery might be bad? I would disconnect the battery, but since the sticker is still intact saying I'd void the warranty I suppose I should probably get that checked with the retailer? Bit silly if you ask me.. Still though, don't want a ****ty battery on a brand new machine..

 

If the battery is at 95-100% when it displays the message, then it's fine. The charging deliberately stops to ensure the battery doesn't wear down too soon.

 

I have had a week to use the laptop and I have run into two problems.

The first problem is with the wireless connections, twice earlier today the wireless just stopped. First I noticed that I could no longer had internet access then the wireless just disappeared. No Icon in the system tray or in the killer application. I had to reboot the machine to get it to work. I then tried to uninstall all the killer software and have windows install a driver. That worked for a bit then later when I went online I noticed that my connection was slow and discovered A killer icon in the system tray. Did windows install a killer drive? I thought that maybe it was Firefox cause the slow behavior so I fired up Microsoft Edge and I'm getting CPUspikes that are coming from MS Edge, according to task manager anyway. Any suggestions?

The second issue could just be lack of knowledge the MSI software as I'm most familiar with EVGA software. I wanted to be able to get in game information on CPU/GPU temps so I'm using MSI afterburner for that, I'm unable to make a fan profile in MSI Afterburner, I assume that it's because this feature is disabled for laptops but I'm not sure, so I use Dragon center to create a custom profile that keeps the temps around 70 DegC with a relatively low fan noise. I was playing DOOM and BF4 with no issues but when I fired up Witcher 3 the game bogged down and froze. I had to close it with task manager. Shutting down Dragon center allowed W3 to work perfectly but the temps were a bit higher. So do these two programs conflict with each other and what does the laptop use for a fan profile in the absence of the Dragon Center.

 

I have had a week to use the laptop and I have run into two problems.

The first problem is with the wireless connections, twice earlier today the wireless just stopped. First I noticed that I could no longer had internet access then the wireless just disappeared. No Icon in the system tray or in the killer application. I had to reboot the machine to get it to work. I then tried to uninstall all the killer software and have windows install a driver. That worked for a bit then later when I went online I noticed that my connection was slow and discovered A killer icon in the system tray. Did windows install a killer drive? I thought that maybe it was Firefox cause the slow behavior so I fired up Microsoft Edge and I'm getting CPUspikes that are coming from MS Edge, according to task manager anyway. Any suggestions?

The second issue could just be lack of knowledge the MSI software as I'm most familiar with EVGA software. I wanted to be able to get in game information on CPU/GPU temps so I'm using MSI afterburner for that, I'm unable to make a fan profile in MSI Afterburner, I assume that it's because this feature is disabled for laptops but I'm not sure, so I use Dragon center to create a custom profile that keeps the temps around 70 DegC with a relatively low fan noise. I was playing DOOM and BF4 with no issues but when I fired up Witcher 3 the game bogged down and froze. I had to close it with task manager. Shutting down Dragon center allowed W3 to work perfectly but the temps were a bit higher. So do these two programs conflict with each other and what does the laptop use for a fan profile in the absence of the Dragon Center.

 

If the issue is related to the Killer software suite, maybe you can try just installing the "standard drivers" without the Killer features in the link below (from Killer website):
http://www.killernetworking.com/product-support/driver-downloads

You may then need to install the bluetooth drivers from the above link as well.

 

You could exchange V-sync for a frame limiter, like Rivatuner + MSI Afterburner, but uninstall MSI Game Center first... install XTU for CPU tuning too.

With G-sync on at 60hz, for example, you would limit FPS to 59 or 60 - try both - and that would stop the tearing and not add lag as V-sync would.

Don't forget to disable V-sync in game, and in the Nvidia 3D settings.

If you try it, let us know how it works out

 

Technically you just need to limit the frame rate to at or under refresh rate for G-sync to work.

 

Yeah, everyone gets freaked out by that the first time.

Plugged in but not charging is ok, it's part of MSI's power charging profile to keep the battery fresh.

MSI runs a series of battery level cycling from about 93% to 100%, never keeping the battery overcharged, to preserve the battery life.

It's normal

 

There's a guy on here, another thread maybe, that found an older Killer driver release version that's working without disconnects or lag. He posted this 2x without saying what version it is he is now running, so I asked him to post it, hopefully he responds soon.

The fan profiles built in would take over.

I would try uninstalling Dragon Gaming Center and install MSI Afterburner + Rivatuner, and see if you can set the Fan speeds through AB - it might even let you do profiles as well, at least you can set Auto or fixed speeds from the GUI.

Also install the Intel Extreme Tuning Utility (XTU) to tune the CPU - since uninstalling Dragon Gaming Center loses that feature too.

BTW, W3 = www, and The Witcher 3 = TW3

 

The Specification changed here https://us.msi.com/Laptop/GT73VR-TITAN-Pro-6th-Gen-GTX-1080.html#hero-specification

Next Generation VR Ready graphics with Dual NVIDIA GeForce® GTX1080 [SLI]

is that another misleading advertisement from MISI or GT73VR TITAN Pro is coming with Dual GTX1080 and if it does, what will happen to GT83VR

 

Yeah, that's gotta be a typo, those 3 models are all single 1080 models.

 

May be it's typo and may be not, I'm following this laptop since it's release, read almost very review and watched every video, if you check gentechpc video, there is another MXM slot, where in video the guy try to inset the GPU, it's next to the HDD,SDD bay, so may be there will be Dual 1080 SLI edition, all they need is another 1080 with redesigned cooling system, but that's just me and may be I'm wrong.

Edit: Forget to mention that Dual SLI need additional power, which MSI already have 660watt adopter.

I'm just waiting to get my hand on this baby, MSI doesn't have any official representation in my county so have to buy from USA and pay for shipment and additional custom taxes, so this laptop will cost me around 4k at the end and can have it in middle of October.

 

Check the specs on each of the 3 models listed in the specs, they all have 1 1080 and 1 330w power supply, they are all single 1080's.

The 2nd MXM slot is for the 2 x 1070 model

The reviews out for the GT83VR 1080 SLI / GT73VR 1080 single, show massive differences in cooling, that wouldn't fit in the GT73VR.

And, the GT83VR 1080 SLI runs hot, even with that massive improvement in cooling - including adding a 3rd fan for the CPU.

Check out the dis-assembly for both laptops at the ends of these videos for comparison.

 

I'm not talking about GT73VR vs GT83VR, only talking about GT73VR lineup

My speculations about GT73VR & GT83VR,

1. nvidia GTX1080 Titan (which already announced) will be available to upgrade , so who ever buy GT73VR and GT83VR lineup will have more future proof laptop.
2. GT83VR Series upgrade with Single or Dual SLI GTX1080 Titan and GT73VR Series upgrade with Single GTX1080 Titan MXM card (may be Dual SLI if MSI redesign Cooler Boost Titan)

Now my Theory about GT73VR Titan Pro with Dual GTX 1080 SLI

GT73VR Daul GTX 1070 SLI has same height, width, length, chipset, ram upgrade, HDD & SDD upgrade,, screen size and same from inside out, only difference is Daul SLI card, Power Adopter and Cooler Boost Titan cooling,

So lets say if we replace Daul GTX 1070 SLI with Daul GTX 1080 SLI, it has the Power it needs, it has the slots only thing with theoretically can not be proved is how Cooler Boost Titan cooling will handle the heat and keep the laptop cool, may be MSI will redesign and add one or 2 more pipes to Cooler Boost Titan to handle the heat,

check the following videos and see that both laptop chassis is same and one has Dual GTX 1070 cards where other has only GTX 1080 card with 2nd empty MXM slot.

GT73VR with Single GTX 1080


GT73VR with Dual GTX 1070

 

Thanks for finding that GT73VR 1070 SLI video, I had been waiting for one to show up

I hate to keep disagreeing with you, but with the GT80 series there were single GPU models that guys bought hoping for an upgrade option to add the 2nd GPU later to make it SLI, and MSI said "nope".

There won't be upgrade kits for the GT73VR either, neither will there be upgrade kits to next generation GPU's, MSI isn't even hinting at promising next generation GPU upgrades this time, won't happen.

And, although I see and appreciate the boosted cooling for the GT73VR 1070 SLI, it's not enough for a 1080 SLI, and MSI already has their hands full getting the GT83VR 1080 SLI to cool down.

Sorry, but if you want a 1080 SLI you're better off with the "bird in the hand", get the GT83VR 1080 SLI

Update: After looking at the GPU-Z temperature showing 85c-90c+ with 1070 SLI, there's no way that a GT73VR 1080 SLI would run cool enough to ship.

Also, after looking at the FPS in games @4k, the 1070 SLI isn't quite up to Ultra settings in all games @60 FPS... even a 1080 SLI would have trouble, add on 30% to those scores to see what it would run on a 1080 SLI. - just about enough to push those under 60 FPS games @4K Ultra over 60 FPS.

 

Didn't know that. Thanks.

 

You are welcome.

Not buying GT73VR 1080 laptop hoping for an upgrade, I just love it. I'm not hardcore gamer, but yes I do love Halflife, Thief, Dishonored, Medal of Honor, Call of duty but I don't play Doom, Resident Evil, gives me mini heart attacks......hahahahahahaha

I'm a software developer and buying GT73VR because of surround mode (3 External display support) helps me in work and also it's processor can be OC on good temp and less fan noise and yeah I can play games on it occasionally and as not hardcore gamer so not buying 4K happy with IPS level display 1920x1080 resolution and will be happy even if I can play games on adjusted GPU settings.

Yeah I just check GTX 1080 Titan and it's more power hungry so agree with you there will not be GPU upgrade for GT73VR and may be GT83VR too.

Not gona buy GT83VR(single or dual 1080 SLI), too heavy, don't like that clicky clicky keyboard and It will cost me $5000++ with shipment, custom duty and taxes.