***The Official MSI GT80S Titan (w/desktop 980 GPU's) Owner's Lounge***

Those scores are fine. They are on the same level of a heavy overclock 980m SLI. The main score is meaningless on its own, you need to see individual scores to get a proper idea.

Your GPU score is close to 23k which is the same as an overclocked 980m in SLI.

Your CPU score is inline with the 3.5-3.6ghz speeds reported At such speeds, you only get 10k physics scores or around that. at 4ghz or more, you get 12-13k or so, which does bump the main score quite a bit.

In the games you mentioned that you have issues, are you monitoring CPU/GPU clocks and % usage? This will help to get an idea of what's causing issues.

Any game aside from hitman, that you have issues? I don't have hitman to try it out.

 

% usage not monitoring, only temperature. Will try it. At all games new games not good result(GTA 5, Hitman). Good result at Metal Gear Solid, there are stable 60FPS with sometime throttling. Euro truck simulator 2 lagged too but I think this game not compatible with SLI. I think problem in processor cuz I play not in clean system(firefox+other apps) but usage of processor at task manager is not more then 50% while gaming.

 

Monitor usage while gaming with a program like intel XTU. Sometimes games push higher usage on some instances. For example, The Division runs on average at 60% load, but it has peaks of 90% usage.

Are you running full screen or borderless window?

What throttling are you experiencing? What component is throttling?

 

I don't know what component is throttling(I think processor) but sometimes in game I have regular throttling(lag for 1 sec with low FPS). I play fullscreen and sometimes I see that TrueColor use 15-20% of processor. I will try with intel XTU

 

I try stress test in XTU but I didn't find where is XTU save logs and benchmark XTU.

 

How are the scores of before and after?

 

This is first test of CPU, so this is first result. I don't overclock my CPU, this test in stock.

 

Hi, can you tell me what you mean by "EC limitation"?

 

He means EC Limitation.

The EC limits the amount of power drawn through the 330 watt power supply, and add's power through the stored battery power for more performance, draining the battery while plugged in.

After the battery reaches 30% the power draw from the battery is stopped and performance drops.

You also cannot benefit from 2 x 330w power supplies, as the EC limits the maximum power drawn from AC to under 1 single 330w power supply.

For the Fangbook version, beware.

The provided power adapter is only 150 watts. And, you can't fit a larger power adapter because the Fangbook uses a different power connector than the MSI stock GT80(S) 4 prong power plug.

FANGBOOK 4 XTREME SX-L 500 Gaming Laptop
http://www.cyberpowerpc.com/system/Fangbook_4_XTREME_SX-L_500_Gaming_Laptop
"Click on Expand All" and scroll through the options to see the 150w power supply listing.

Spoiler

And, the same goes for the rest of the SLI "GT80" Fangbooks, and 6700k using CyperPowerPC laptops.

IDK what they think they are accomplishing by doing this, but none of those 150w powered laptops are going to run anywhere near their potential. The 6700k models need 2 x 330w for the 980m SLI.

And, that's the crux of the problem with the GT80S, not enough power to fully utilize the SLI 980 to full potential.

Even so, the GT80S SLI 980 outperforms the GT80 SLI 980m.

 

Thanks for the info. I just saved enough money for this beast and I cannot believe what I'm seeing. That's a pretty serious problem. Does it mean I cannot even play AAA games for over three or four hours?

 

I think the reports here are gaming at stock settings for 5-6 hours on AC before reaching the 30% battery level.

For most people, they won't even notice this. It's not going to be a problem that stops it from running, but it does limit the top end OC and heavy usage.

If the battery were removeable, and you could swap another one in when the installed battery hit 30%, it would be a bit more manageable.

MSI was supposed to be working on an EC/Bios update that would moderate that limit and remove the problem, but I haven't seen any updates here.

Maybe one or more of the owners that filed reports / complaints with MSI have more info?

Update: I hadn't looked for a while, and there is a newer BIOS for the GT80S SLI 980 dated 3/2/2016, has anyone tried it? E1814IMS.110
https://www.msi.com/Notebook/support/GT80S-6QF-TITAN-SLI-29TH-ANNIVERSARY-EDITION.html#down-bios

The notes don't suggest a fix...
Modify watchdog timer to 15 sec.

The EC firmware from around release time: 2015-11-11 1814EMS1.103
vbios has a newish date: 2016-02-15 84.04.88.00.4C
Thunderbolt has a newish date: 2016-02-24 no version number given.
https://www.msi.com/Notebook/support/GT80S-6QF-TITAN-SLI-29TH-ANNIVERSARY-EDITION.html#down-firmware

 

But when it's draining from battery before it hits 30%, is the performance affected? Cuz on my gt80 with two 980ms, when the battery hits 70%, the performance will definitely be lower

 

I'll let the GT80S SLI owners on here speak up as to the details, I am only passing on what has already been posted.

If you are seeing battery drain from using GT80(S) SLI 980m model, why are you surprised it is also happening to the GT80S SLI 980?

You are the first person I have seen report battery drain while on AC for a GT80(S) model other than the GT80S SLI 980 version. Which model do you have?

My GT80 980m SLI model SLI-263 doesn't drain the battery while running 100% CPU and 100% GPU x 2 jobs for days.

And, no one else has reported battery drain while on AC, until the GT80S SLI 980 came out.

 

No no no the previous model does not have this problem. I mean if I unplug it and use it on battery till it hits 70% and then plug back in, then the performance will be slower than when it's fully charged

 

Do we speak of it regarding overclocking or do they just don't have enough Juice even under stock clocks?

 

The posts about it are all in this thread and here,:
[Official] Questions for the MSI Rep!
http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/official-questions-for-the-msi-rep.761676/
check them out for the details.

As I recall it was happening at stock clocks during heavy gaming use. The "Battery Boost" was used and battery was depleted down to 30%, and then power was reduced as well as performance.

@Porter @Katiecat and others(?) tested at stock settings so they could make a case to MSI to change the behavior.

 

If you are saying that your performance drops while the battery is charging, that's different.

If there isn't enough power for performance and charging at the same time, that's not that unusual. It's not great, but not unusual.

The question is, is the battery charge increasing while you are gaming / benchmarking?

Does the battery level stay at 70%, or does it increase?

The GT80S 980 SLI owners see their battery charge decrease over time while gaming. It's not only not recharging, it's draining the battery.

What kind of performance differences do you see between a fully charged - not currently charging - test run and one where the battery is low enough to need charging - like at 70%?

Also, we should move this discussion to the GT80 thread, and out of this GT80S 980 SLI thread, as we are now talking at length about behavior with a different model GT80

If you want to continue 2 discussions, one here about the 980 SLI battery depletion under load, and one there about your GT80 AC performance with/without charging load, that would be fine, I will look for your posts in both places:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...t80-titan-owners-lounge.769092/#post-10225806

 

So you mean the p

What I meant was that when the battery was charging from somewhere between 50% to 100%, it won't perform as it should till it hits around 70% or 80%, and of course the battery level is increasing. But for the new model, are you saying that the performance will stay the same before battery hits 30%? If so then it's a different case

 

you said "battery was depleted down to 30%, and then power was reduced as well as performance." So I assume the performance won't be affected before 30%?

 

What makes your observation different from the GT80S 980 SLI, is that your laptop is charging the battery while under load, while the GT80S SLI is continually discharging.

The GT80S 980 SLI battery level continues to go down, until it reaches 30%, and then performance drops because the Battery Boost can't be sustained, and only AC power is available.

What you are seeing is that the AC power is being used for charging and performance at same the time. You get different performance results if the battery is being charged vs when the battery is charged and all the AC power can be put toward performance, but on your GT80 the battery isn't being used to boost performance.

The GT80S SLI 980 while plugged in to AC and under heavy load is continually applying all power toward performance, including drawing additional power from the battery.

The GT80S SLI 980 might charge the battery while under light load, but their tests were all under heavy load showing constant battery discharge while on AC. Typical gaming load is what they were using to test the continual battery discharge while plugged in to AC.

It's not a fine point. It's clearly different. Your laptop is using some power for charging at any time the battery needs charging, which decreases performance slightly. Once your battery is charged, your performance remains constant, as does your battery level, it's not being discharged.

The GT80S SLI 980 is continually discharging the battery by drawing power from it to boost performance, until the battery level reaches 30%, and then it stops using the battery for performance boost - but it also doesn't charge it - the AC power is all used for performance.

So you can't ask the same question about the two different laptops. You can't ask if the performance is the same all the way down to 30% because it never charges the battery and only discharges it. That is completely different behavior than your laptop.

Your laptop is constantly allowing some power to be drawn from AC to charge the laptop battery, it doesn't discharge the battery for additional performance, and once your battery is fully charged the laptop will use only / all AC power toward performance.

Do you see the difference now?

 

GT80S with SLI 980 desktop GPUs drain the battery when pushing the system. The battery drains to 30% and then starts charging. To allow chargning, GPUs are limited in performance, so the desktop 980 SLI performs roughtly similar to a pair of 980m's.

GT80S with 980 SLI can inform better but they have already performed tests with battery drain, performance with and without battery etc. I believe even overclocking works when battery is drained, so you get higher performance than 980m, but lower than full 980 stock.

 

I took one for the team and tried these out.

Vbios: even though the date was long after I bought mine, I already had the same vbios so I didn't update.

BIOS: I was on .102 and the latest is .110. I noticed no changes after the update with respect to stock or overclocked performance.

EC: I neglected to look what version I had before the update so I don't know if it was newer or not. It was dated 11/11/15 but I noticed in the bios the EC date says 12/29/15 so I have no idea if it was newer than what I had. I noticed no changes in performance stock or overclocked here either.

I will try to watch the battery run down in games and see if it's any different but that is very hard to get a good clean measurement. If it's +/- 100% of the original drain could easily be within the error of margin since I don't have a standard test. Basically unless it's noticeably less drain or zero drain I would not even notice the difference.

 

2015/11/25 - 1814EMS1.102 - Adjusted setting for GTX980.
2015/12/29 - 1814EMS1.103 - Modified several things including fan speeds. Nothing performance-related on this release.

 

I thought you and @Katiecat opened tickets with MSI to get this worked on, and MSI responded positively, and you were waiting for an update - can you follow up with MSI and see if they are still working on a fix?

 

I believe they did made some adjustments to increase more power flow

@Q937 got the beta firmware.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/firmware-info-for-gt80s-users.789730/

 

Wow!, that's great news (haven't read it yet)... maybe @Q937 can post here and in here:

[Official] Questions for the MSI Rep!
http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/official-questions-for-the-msi-rep.761676/

...so everyone can see it - I missed his new thread...

Update: So not great news. MSI modded firmware that allowed a slightly higher limit, but the battery was still draining during heavy usage. MSI has refused to mod further according to @Q937 - and the test firmware wasn't uploaded.

 

I did follow up and they only sent me this:
https://service.msicomputer.com/msi_user/support/TechFAQdetail.aspx?formid=3442

They would not send me the updated BIOS/EC to test.

It is very unfortunate, but if emailing me a picture is really all they are going to do to fix the issue, which they already admitted was an issue, I have lost all faith in MSI and can no longer recommend them to anyone.

 

That image only repeats what you told them? Maybe they were trying to confirm that was the problem. I would have replied so to them, and then ask them how are you going to remedy that problem?

Did you ask to escalate to an engineer?

It's dated March 24th, I would continue the interaction. What was your response?

You have to remember you are getting a translation, they may not be conversing in English as a native tongue, or someone else they are talking with isn't getting it.

Is there a phone number you can call to talk interactively?

I wouldn't give up quite yet.

 

Have you checked with Q937 directly?

 

I'm not sure if that is directed to me, but I will answer anyway. Yes I contacted him and he did not want to give it out unfortunately and I respect his choice to do so.

I will make one more attempt to contact MSI and resolve this but I will not waste any more time past that, my time is extremely valuable. If unresolved I will just move on to another brand without these crazy made up power limits, and battery drain issues.

 

The power limits are on all brands and manufacturers, but the battery drain is the main issue and I do wonder why make it this way...

Reminds me of my crusade along with other users vs intel, for their CPUs being also power limited. We lost the war vs intel, but thanks to very talented and smart users, we overcame the power issue. Infact, I believe it can be solved in a similar matter.

The system monitors the power draw right? I assume it does it based on a number and that's how it decides to draw from the battery. If we trick the system to incorrectly read the number, it should draw more from the AC adapter right?

I suppose such a reading might be on the EC?

 

I'm getting ready to replace my M18X and this MSI GT80S titan with SLI seems to be the best choice. Is there anything else I should consider or is this simply the best gaming laptop money can buy?

 

Recommended platform to buy is single GPU version since the power supply is limited to 330W.

 

Hey Kevin, what the heck are you talking about???

The GT80 and GT80S 980m/970m/965m SLI models work just fine with 1 330w power supply, even OC'd. Check my signature for benchmarks. I get 100fps+ in SLI games.

The new GT80S 980 SLI model could benefit from more than one 330w power supply to reach full OC, but even that model squeezes out more performance than the GT80(S) SLI 980m stock vs stock settings on one 330w power adapter.

The laptops that need more than 1 330w power supply for SLI 980m's are the Clevo laptops, like the P870DM.

The MSI GT80(S) use a 45w CPU, while the P870DM uses a 91w CPU, leaving much less headroom for the 980m's, that's why it needs 2 x 330w power supplies to reach full potential.

Please don't start posting GT80(S) FUD here, OK?

 

Unless I'm misunderstanding you need 2 x 330 power supplies for the laptop to get full performance? It comes with two of these?

 

There's a special EC firmware for MS-1814, 1814EMS1.F01_1A00 that increased the power draw for the system itself. Seems like you don't have the Skylake version to try this EC.
324W

 

@Kevin@GenTechPC see what I mean, what was that, 35 seconds after you posted?

You posted a recommendation that's only valid for a Clevo laptop, in a non-Clevo thread, and confused @sticky

The GT80S 980 SLI model does fine with 1 330w power supply + battery boost. It won't support 2 x 330w power supplies, so no need to get 2.

If you want a SLI 980 laptop that supports 2 x 330w power supplies for extreme overclocking, ask Clevo.

Oh, wait, Clevo doesn't make an SLI 980 model...

 

That EC isn't a released firmware, you can't give it out to anyone, so why are you talking about it like it's an available "fix", it isn't, unfortunately.

It also doesn't offer any perceptible boost in performance. Which is why MSI isn't releasing it, or continuing development on EC updates for the GT80S 980 SLI model. The battery boost feature is remaining to help boost performance.

Unless something has changed and there is a new publicly available EC to download? Link?

 

Scott, yes you are right, but sticky was talking about GT80S Titan which comes with 980 SLI which has capped performance and this is why MSI provided the revised EC per customer's request recently. If this system employs the same design as Clevo's dual power supply system then it will gain more performance than the single power supply version. Ideally, it's desired not to use the battery for additional power because of frequent wear and tear, plus the limited amount of time of high performance gameplay once the battery hits 30% of battery capacity.

Hopefully, this will improve in the near future on next generation.
Feel free to correct me, thanks.

 

That above info is true, but not what I responded to originally:

There is no GT80S single GPU version to recommend.

That was the error I was pointing out.

 

Sorry, I replied it too short, thanks for pointing it out.

 

"Best" is subjective, but the GT80's are Awesome

You won't find another 980 SLI model, this is the only one.

It's got limitations, but all laptops have limitations.

The GT80S 980 SLI model will outperform the GT80(S) 980m SLI model, even OC'd the GT80(S) 980m SLI will be close, but not surpass a similarly tuned 980 SLI GT80S.

 

Somehow I feel like you're speaking to me like I'm a child

I understand your point though. For overclocking dual 980's I'll need more power.

I don't need to overclock so I'm cool. Pun intended.

 

Quite often posters here have English as a second language, or even 3rd / 4th, so I try to keep the wording simple and make points broken out in separate straight forward statements.

I also write for other readers now and in the future. Even if you catch on quickly, someone else might not be able to follow if I shorten things up and slang it locale.

That's a good point, with 2 x 980 SLI, who needs to OC?

As it turns out, just about everyone likes free performance.

Once people see how easy and safe it is to tune for more performance; by seeing others do it and get better results, they want to do it too.

More FPS really isn't a problem with the GT80S 980 SLI, or even the GT80(S) 980m SLI, but with the awesome GT80(S) cooling systems, either way it's cool

 

I don't want to confuse the conversation any more, but I wanted to say the GT80S does work with dual 330W adapters, it doesn't split the load evenly though (to be fair I don't think any laptop can do that) so on mine one gets warmer than the other.

That is not the issue at all for me. The issue is that the EC limits the total draw to about 1 power supply so it doesn't buy you anything except maybe extending the life of a supply, and keeping them cooler. Nothing else.

I did get a "trial" update but honestly it made zero difference in anything. If it's drawing more power you sure can't tell because it performs the same, and in benchmarks it made no difference at all. Stock or overclocked.

I didn't expect any huge gains, but something measurable was expected.

 

SO still nothing on the power draw issue. I think I am getting a bit disappointed in this laptop. I love it and hate it at the same time. I love the performance. I hate the power draw issue. It is almost like MSI added the power draw part to have you destroy your battery faster with all the charge and recharging of it. So you have to replace it more often. :/

 

I really am more of an optimist, but this is going to sound very pessimistic. I honestly think they limited it to such an extreme* limit in order to keep the performance only slightly above the 980m SLI and 980(200W) model notebooks. If they truly unleashed this thing, allowing us to utilize well past 330w (even 660w for us dual power supply folks) then this notebook would set the bar "too" high. It doesn't pay well for them to allow large bumps where we won't upgrade for many years. It pays much better for them to only have 10% or 20% speed bumps each revision and have some of us upgrade more often.

*What I call extreme limit, is about 10% below the rated adapter output, while many other notebook don't set ANY limit at all, you can pull 400w from a 330w for periods of time with no problems. They don't need to fully support dual adapters, but they sure should not block it by limiting overall power to less than one adapters worth!

 

I tested it and it doesn't solve the problem. MSI refused to increase the limit further. I'm also fairly convinced from my testing that the battery drain happens well under 324W, but without more accurate testing equipment I can't say for certain.

The 400W numbers cited are from the wall, which is 340W to the machine at 85% efficiency. That said, the EC doesn't even allow that. A limit is necessary if they don't want to support dual adapters, but the number they use is far too conservative.

 

I will argue a limit is not needed, or put it this way, I've never seen a limit used on any other laptop, other than my old MSI GT70 which I sold because of the battery boost, and power limit. I bought the GT80S because it did NOT have battery boost and I assumed they fixed the EC power limit issue since none of my other laptops suffer from this problem. After I talked to tech support I kindly informed them that it is not a feature ever mentioned anywhere, and if they indeed are saying it's normal operation they need to mention it like they used to for the older models. Otherwise people will assume they fixed it in newer revisions.

Many times SLI GPUs and high end CPUs plus overclocking will take a system way past what the power bricks are rated for (and dual adapter setups have been around forever too, which works fine BTW for even the GT80S, unfortunately with the 300w limit you can't really get any good out of it). None of that could have been possible if they limited it before, so obviously they are not limited, why the sudden need for this extra "limit". Not sure why MSI chose to do that on a couple of their models, since there are plenty of other ways users can screw up their system, no need to put additional, and such tight constraints that really only affect the enthusiast crowd which these machines are designed for.

There are plenty of built in power limitations inside the CPU already, and the GPUs already, no need for yet ANOTHER limiting factor, especially when its well below the factory output of the adapter.

 

A power limit of some sort is necessary because there are no restrictions on CPU power whatsoever besides what the cooling is capable of dissipating. The only time there is a power limit is when the battery is below 30% or absent. With 2x130W on the GPUs, that leaves around 70W for the CPU and remaining components, and I assure you that they are capable of exceeding that if pushed. That said, it's incredibly stupid how MSI doesn't offer an option to disable battery boost with the caveat that any damage resulting from a fried PSU is entirely your responsibility. What makes it even more absurd is that when the GPUs are running at max, you can make still the CPU pull >70W, and it'll happily start sucking 350 from the adapter on top of the 15 it's using from the battery, and this is with the stock EC. So why can't it just use 335 from the wall under normal load conditions?