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

We will have to just agree to disagree then about a power limit being needed.

I would also MUCH rather have that same caveat to disable the EC limit at my own risk than the battery boost one, although both options would be better yet. I can already fry my own system a dozen different ways without that limit, and I have yet to EVER kill a laptop AC adapter and that is after many years of overclocking and gaming for ungodly amounts of hours at a time and the bricks getting scorching hot (with no EC limits mind you).

There better not be any damage from battery boost when it's disabled, because it's disabled automatically when the battery gets to a certain level. If you play for more than a few hours it will always end up disabled, and when your battery dies after a year or two after being ran down so often it will permanently be disabled. All it does when disabled is reduce performance so it can't hurt anything (except your gaming performance ).

 

What I've been telling you is that there IS no EC limit when your battery is charged. At least not one that I bumped into when benching. All that happens is that at some power draw X, it starts using battery, then at around X+15, it will go back to pulling more from the adapter again. If battery boost were disabled without enabling the throttling or adding an actual limit, then you would be able to use dual adapters.

 

How about ThrottleStop with PowerCut? Have you tried this new feature yet?

 

I honestly don't think that we should have to use a program to try and work around a design flaw. AND YES IT IS A DESIGN FLAW. MSI should fix the problem,.

 

True, but it's not going anywhere per Q937.
So this is possibly the remaining option.

 

Thus why I might sell my gt80s and go with a different company :/

 

I understand that you are disappointed.
But check and compare reviews on products from other companies, especially performance and value before making the next purchase.

 

Has anyone tried this with the GT80S 980 SLI?

Pull the battery internal power connection, and run with AC power only?

I know some people do this to "save" battery wear when the battery isn't externally removeable; they pull the internal battery connection when the battery is "fully" charged - when the indicator shows 93% or more full and says "plugged in but not charging",and run on AC power only.

 

I don't believe that, since it limited to well below the 330w output that the brick can do. Mine never pulls more than 330w from the wall, even overclocked. The 980m SLI systems can pull a lot more power, which is ironic since they are mobile chips designed to be more efficient and use less power than desktop chip counterparts.

That's what I may end up doing. I bet I've spent 100+ hours messing with tech support, emails, chats, and troubleshooting these "undocumented/unadvertised features". My time is extremely valuable, cheaper just to buy a different model and move on, especially if it's been months and no action.

What would this accomplish? I would think the performance will be stuck at the non-battery boost limit and it would be extremely inconvenient to reconnect the battery.

I asked support for an ability to enable and disable the battery boost through software. They ignored my requests even when I pointed out that battery boost was never advertised or mentioned in any documentation on their own site. Hopefully they added it by now so future purchasers don't make the same mistake I did.

 

It's an unknown, which is why I suggested trying it, since you've already invested so much time, it's a short test to see what happens when controlling the one physical element that contributes to the problem.

Who knows how the code will react to removing the battery sense data from the equation.

You were worried about the battery wear, this would stop it.

The performance limits may or may not apply without the feedback from the battery - it's not going to be telling the code if the battery drops below 30%, or if battery current is being drawn, the sense feedback data would end.

It's possible there would be no way for the code to function without the battery sense data feedback. It's possible the GT80S won't even function without the battery, which would also be nice to know.

It's odd that MSI won't correct the situation, either by removing the limits & battery boost by supplying a larger PSU, or by declaring info about battery boost in their marketing info.

In the past the MSI Battery Boost was considered a feature / benefit.

And, actually the Battery Boost is a feature and a benefit with only the single 330w power adapter, at 30% the battery boost stops, and without it your performance drops.

You can rationalize that the single 330w power adapter isn't being put into submission to provide the last drop of performance, but MSI needs to be the arbitrator deciding what is safe, and what isn't.

The previous models without limits were able to draw more power when OC'ing, but under stock conditions the 330w power was enough. With the GT80S 980 SLI even at stock conditions the power draw could go past what MSI considers safe, so they had to limit it. That's the difference.

The solution is an MSI sanctioned 2 x 330w solution, or a new larger power source, which would allow MSI to remove the power limits as it all would now be "safe".

MSI's only available remedy is to provide more power to the GT80S 980 SLI, remove the safeties, or stop shipping the GT80S 980 SLI - and refund all current GT80S 980 SLI owners.

There is just no way to make it all work without providing more power safely, to satisfy the potential it's not reaching now.

This was clear before it shipped:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...80s-6qf-titan-sli.783205/page-4#post-10121801

"Also note that the scaling from single 980 to SLI 980 is lower than I would expect, and they don't mention overclocking the 980 SLI... not enough power to feed the beast?"

This was discussed at length, and that thread abandoned as it became a tense situation - noone wanted to see the truth of the situation, they just wanted an SLI 980 - and this current thread was started on a positive note to move forward...

I would petition MSI to accept returns of the GT80S SLI 980 for full refund, or provide firmware and a power uograde solution free of charge to all owners.

 

Have you tried running a CPU stress test and a benchmark together? I guarantee you'll start seeing bigger power draws. They'll go up even more if you edit your VBIOS to allow more than 137W.

Again, modified VBIOS.

This. I've wasted far too much time repeating myself to MSI. On the plus side, my CC company just wrapped up the dispute.

 

What was the resolution / remedy?

 

Hm, I look at your FireStrike result and compared with my and I began to cry This 980 Sli model is really sucks.

 

I believe Porter already tested this and found that it behaves identically to a battery present below 30%.

I fully agree with you that it's MSI's prerogative to decide what they consider acceptable risks. But it's also their responsibility to disclose this information to the purchaser.

Here's the thing. It's not even a hard limit, and their firmware will eventually start using more power from the adapter, so why wouldn't it be an option to have the same power draw from the adapter without using the battery when using 15W less? The throttling profile is also outrageously conservative. 105W per GPU and 45W on the CPU leaves a huge amount of headroom even if you accept their absurd 306W limit on the adapter.

MSI advertises overclocking as a feature on their specs page. Not specifically of the GPUs, but it's still incredibly dishonest to say this when it's not even designed to run at stock for extended periods of time.

Nobody was expecting twice the performance of a fully unlocked 980. We knew that the cards were going to be limited to 130W. But I think more than identical performance to a pair of 980Ms isn't too much to ask for.

 

With the full battery boost, and some tuning, you should be able to surpass my scores easily

My GPU's are vbios limited, and the 980 desktop MXM is supposed to be unlocked.

You do have power limitations, which will keep you from full 2 x 980 performance potential, but the 980 SLI should be still be able to reach past my limited +135 OC for the 980m Core.

 

I read your conversation about power limit and it impossible to lift it now on 980 sli, right? I compare all score and problem in physics, so my processor work lower of your.

 

Yeah I'm guessing he was comparing his stock scores (15.5-16k) to your overclocked scores.

I'm only one point of reference, but for me, what I would call an average overclocker I got overall scores 18k+ overclocked on FS and 21k+ on 3dmark11 IIRC. I think the clocks I ended up with are +160 core and +275 mem. I could go higher but it started making the scores lower.

I say mine are average because I didn't mess with vbios, GPU voltages, no external cooling, or any special OS tweaks or tricks. I only overclocked with afterburner, and intel XTU with undervolt, nothing beyond that. I'm even on stock paste.

 

I had very good luck with using Intel XTU to undervolt the processor, then you can overclock it if you want. I think my benchmark settings I settled on were -80mv and 4Ghz on all four cores. This was stable for benchmarking and I've even gamed a few times that way.

However my "normal" gaming settings for CPU are stock frequencies and -60mv undervolt. I don't play any CPU limited games.

 

My scores are after OCing as high as I can while stable. Those scores are CPU OC @ 4.0ghz-4.1ghz, with 980m's tuned at +135 core +400 vram.

For the FutureMark tests, the Graphics score is the one of interest, since most games will need GPU power, not CPU power.

Your 980 SLI GPU score should be higher, and OC will make it even higher, so work on tuning that first.

When you have stable 980 SLI OC that increases GPU scores greatly, then take the time to tune the CPU - it won't increase game FPS, but there are elements that will benefit by a tuned CPU score too.

Have fun

 

The funny thing about GPU OC, the VRAM memory OC is the problematic one, and that is the one that starts showing negative benefits when it's tuned too high.

The GPU Core should have OC'd a bit further, at least +200 - but of course every GPU tunes differently and SLI is even harder because both GPU's need to be tuned to the lowest performing card - if one card won't tune higher, then you can't increase the better tuning card past that weaker cards settings.

Try tuning GPU core with memory at stock speed, +0, then after you hit the unstable point on GPU core, tune down 10 or so, and start increasing VRAM slowly - that's the one that will show "lower scores" as it increases past the point of benefit. Then bring that one down 10.

Your CPU OC is about right. 4ghz @ 45w/47w for Haswell / Broadwell / Skylake HQ CPU's is good for every day use. Benchmarking I can get the 5950 to run as high as 4.2ghz, but I need to add too much +mV to run it like that all the time.

As I mentioned, the CPU score's don't translate into game FPS, and since you have a limited power budget, I wouldn't OC the CPU, I would save the power budget for OC'ing the GPU's.

 

I defiantly will it is just just disappointing to pay almost 5K for a laptop to that is not even performing as well as it should. And with MSI acknowledging the problem but not correcting it, is really making me feel that this company does not care for the consumer but only for the bottom line. Not to mention I still have not seen a update for the flaw in the Intel Processor that is in the laptop either. Intel put out a fix months ago but nothing from MSI.

Also I feel as if there is some false advertisement going on in the fact that it is not stated that there is a power draw max also that the running battery feature is not even mentioned. The performance that they say is possible is not with the power restrictions. I would not be suprised to them sued of this issue if it is not corrected.

I know that for me if I could dispute the purchase of this laptop with my credit card company I would. But since I paid cash for it I can not. I also would not want to hinder Ken or Kevin@GenTechPC, you all have been excellent as far as customer service and support for my system. Kudos to you guys.

 

MSI definitely needs to add that their old NOS hybrid power thing is on this model (I believe it might be on my titan too, as I have seen battery drain when gaming overclocked). But it should be known. The reality is that the hardware will be power limited (CPU and GPU) and it should be known from the start to avoid the unpleasant finding of a power limit.

The GT60/70 with 780m was infamous for this. In my case, It really didn't bother me because not all games drained the battery, and when they did, you could play for hours without issues. But it should be possible to simply use a higher rated PSU to avoid this.

Just as I was/am disappointed with intel CPUs being soldered and locked, and GPUs from the get go have power limits, it is always sad to find out that your machine can only run at max performance under specific conditions.

We have power limits, thermal limits... limits everywhere heh. What I am sure though, is that with capable hands we can fix this. The problem is that the GT80S is a very niche product, so we have few users and exposure with very capable users. We will need to find and enlist the help people experienced with BIOS etc to work it, and come up with something different.

That being said, I was always skeptical about the whole 980 desktop SLI to begin with, considering a pair of 980m of SLI can consume tremendously more than the 330w limit, and all machines with 980m are already power limited. Removing my limits has only make me accidentally kill power in my machine a couple of times haha, sowhen I heard that they came up with the full 980 in laptop size, I new there had to be a catch if they were using the same PSU.

 

The huge power consumption of Maxwell is why I didn't bother with anything more than a 4710MQ lol.

 

I agree with you there will always be limits when dealing with a laptop. However I feel that the limit should be with in the hardware not a set limit through the software. By gimping the power they are limiting what I can do with my system. With the power limits I feel that I will not be able to run 3d or VR on the system with out massive power draining.

I agree totally that the system is a Beast well designed and very powerful. BUT CAN BE SO MUCH BETTER.

 

Mine is finally being built!


I am trusting that yin and yang will be balanced in time

 

this should be the common business practice nowadays, it applies to not just laptop makers but most other business as well, a lot of the things has being around for quite sometime, gettingn power from battery is one of them. look back all the way from ivy bridge/sandy bridge generation thats 4 to almost 5yrs ago, MSI laptops has being taking power from battery.

 

this is why we love making speculation to figure out before hand if hardware is going to be worth it or not. theres a lot of pros like pcie ssds, 64gb ram and faster cpu and a lot of cons. we learned from past experience with old machines what they are capable and not capable of. another reason of speculation is to make the new hardware seem real bad, so that when it launches and turns out not so bad, theres finally a good reason to buy it.

cannonlake 6c/12t, optane SSDs and polaris/pascal GPU im waiting 2017, lets go clevo!

 

Does anyone have a picture of the GT80S MXM desktop 980 PCB? Wonder how it differs from the Clevo cards.

Nvidia advertised the 980 mxm with "4-8 power phases" I would guess that the MSi mxm only has 4 compared to the Clevo's 8?

 

It will be interesting to see, and maybe resellers have pictures, but as far as I remember, the clevo cards are bigger and support much more power. I could be completely wrong though!

 

Here is a good example why power limits, correctly set, are important.
Alienware 13 R2, 17 R3 and 15 R2 Refresh
http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...d-15-r2-refresh.780681/page-147#post-10237314

Spoiler

Including the photos here in case it disappears...



"hi someone from our alienware page in fb posted this---
Fellow alienware owners be warned our units have an achilles heal in other words weak point i own an aw15 early january 2015 i74710hq gtx 980m i found it out when my unit started suffering from fps drops which is mainly caused by the "DC in wire" getting burnt due to wrong power settings in power options in the intel dynamic platform and thermal framework settings section. If you bought a new unit please refrain from using "High TDP" and setting the power limits to "5" posted pic below is my current setting a month since i replaced my dc in wiring with a higher tension wire will post my burnt dc in wire picture soon. Since then i never had fps drops. And that is why your panel covers are melting probably it is already burnt.

does anyone have d same problem???"

 

Here we go:

https://www.techinferno.com/index.php?/topic/8555-GTX-980---N16E-GXX---ALL-variants

Gesendet von meinem LG-H955 mit Tapatalk

 

So in short, for best single card OC solution, use the P870DM-G

I thought that all of these GPUs can reach 200w lol

 

lets make it clear, thats user error combined with poor quality on dell's part. each and every computer will encounter a percentage that has issues, burnt plastic, pieces, hardware etc, i'd say this doesnt really mean anything, especially in gt80s laptop that 980 are suppose and capable of going towards 200w per card, its msi's side doing things to purposely limit it because they want people to just use 1 PSU. OR if they know their wiring would "burn up" due to wrong power settings that means the premium notebook just turned to trash as it uses trash material compared to p870dm.

so no, that alienware burnt up has nothing to do with GT80s restriction cpu/gpu either via bios or other means.

 

Obviously I have a different opinion, as I posted it

It's what can happen when you push things too far. A graphic view to show what can happen when drawing too much power - higher than the components can handle.

MSI has decided that it wasn't safe to not limit the power, so it did limit the power. To protect against burning out the laptop components.

That's why it's relevant.

 

I think by limiting the power they crippled that machine a bit. I understand if that is why they did it. but then why make the system if you going to cripple it to begin with?

Also if it is a worry about the system burring up why not give it overclocking?

Why not just give a powerful machine with no overclocking ability.

 

hmscott, of course people would have different opinion and unless we figure it out to the finest detail theres no way to tell. however i can say this for certain that, as Lichensoul has mentioned, OEM would simply say, its to protect your computer and it'd be end of that and they would continue to restrict everything and we can say good hello to crippled machine going forward.

actually, at this point i consider all laptops crippled. i mean how would one explain the reason why p870dm and p570wm uses dual PSU and never had burn out problem? heck there are even people using quad PSU with p570wm lol right, exactly lol, im sure there are some didnt pass through quality check and some that did and when they do, we see things burn up. heh i have even seen it burn up in m18x r2 without any overclocking, thats just the material used, design all meet at a bad spot what i'd call tough luck.

or maybe we can just say, clevo uses better material to build laptops than dell alienware, which is likely wrong as Dell is a much larger company and has more money to invest into materials, and of course dell sells a lot more laptop, so a .1% of problem computer coming from dell we'd definitely see it more often than a .1% from clevo. all chance friend!

 

Again, the point of posting that info and photo was to show what can happen when you push too much power through the components.

That's all.

We already debated all the points, this was just a post to point out the effects visually.

 

So with everyone limiting but having the same specification, do you wonder who outshines the rest in terms of best performance/value?

 

As a comment, I believe all titans are power capped with battery drain anyways. I was playing Dark souls 3 yesterday and my battery dropped about 3 percent in about half hour. I was playing all maxed with 4K res and I noticed my GPUs were basically maxed the whole time, so it would explain why I would see battery drain that way.

It just seems that GT80S with 980 drains faster, as it uses understandably more power.

 

we gonna need those polaris/pascal gpu quick. more power efficient so we can run at say 70-80% of power for the same performance as 980m

 

Yep. I am looking very forward to the new Pascal GPUs. Though instead of same performance,I hope I get at least 50% more performance at just lower enough TDP to ensure there is no battery drain.

 

thats a high bar lol. well they did mention it'll be 1.5x more powerful so hope thats true. those graphics card will be perfect for my mod too, since my heatsink connects cpu/gpu and shares the heat uses both fan.

 

i just saw ur sig, youre only on 4710hq and two 980m sli and drained the battery with 30 mins of gaming? thats tough. 980 and overclocked skylake would destroy the battery LOL.

 

Hello, To All.....

What a great discussion forum this place is. Very Informative.

I have a few questions, everyone. Any feedback is greatly appreciated.

1) - I am all set to call and order this very laptop in the middle of next month (May 2016). My question - Is MSI or any custom PC/Laptop builder still selling this laptop, meaning with the two 980 Desktop GPUs still being used instead of the mobiles versions? I mean, should I be concerned that this laptop will not be available by next month? I ask this question because they are calling this a limited edition (the 29th Anniversary) laptop. I'm guessing it's called a 'limited edition' because of the two 980 GPUs. If I am wrong about this, feel free to correct me.

2) - Having asked that question, can anyone confirm that there is something better on the way in the near (this year) future in terms of a more powerful laptop with an 18" screen, possibly with a 4K screen? I mean, is there a laptop looming that is about to be released that will be better even than this one (MSI GT80 SLI w/desktop 980s performance - desktop replacement) that I should just wait for? I'm going all out on this laptop and will be upgrading every possible area on it from system RAM to SSD in all the open slots. If I recall correctly, the laptop I customized on one of the custom builder sites, the price I was given after all my upgrades was about $6500-$7000. Yes, that's expensive, but I can do it and I want to do it and I anticipate this to be my main laptop for some years in to the future. I am also buying a Desktop, but that will be down the road and for different purposes.

Thank you in advance for any feedback and/or advice/help.

 

laptop will be available next month, new cpu/gpu arent out for another couple of months. which answers both ur 1st and 2nd question. polaris and pascal mobile gpu, kabylake due in a few months time, 3-5 months possibly.. i'd say wait until then is my recommendation.

 

Vulcan4, the GT80S 980 SLI is a great laptop, but it's not fully realized. What that means is that MSI couldn't put together a package that gives enough headroom in AC power to deliver the performance that the SLI 980 can give.

It's limited by the single 330w power supply, and even though MSI extended performance by using Battery Boost - using power from the battery as well as AC under heavy load to give an extra kick in performance, that battery boost will exhaust it's effect after hitting 30% battery, and then power limits will cut performance.

That doesn't mean that the GT80S 980 SLI isn't awesome, it's just a revision or two away from being totally awesome

We are hoping that MSI will kick things up a notch with the next GT80, the one with Kabylake / Pascal. Maybe a larger base power station, along with a lighter portable PSU solution, so we can get full power to the SLI cards, and maybe even power a "desktop" CPU.

If you need a laptop now, the GT80S 980 SLI is a great laptop and as long as the battery is above 30% it's the fastest thing out there.

You could also do well dropping down to a GT80S 980m SLI, and saving those extra $ to put toward the next series, or the one after that, whichever kicks in the extra AC power to fully realize the potential of a highend SLI.

The 18" display is awesome, but there is only 1 source for it now, and unless someone takes up interest in it, there won't be a 4k 18" made.

IDK if there are 19"/20"/? sources that could be tapped for 4k G-sync 100hz screens, but if there are we might see that instead.

Throwing all your $ into 1 laptop may also not be the best choice. The GT80S is big, a pain to lug around, not so much for me being 6' 2", but maybe save some $ for a nice easy carry 2 in 1 laptop too.

It's also nice to have a desktop to keep everything organized and backed up on, something that you can kick up a notch too, with 3 screens and a nice sound system for when you are home and don't mind being stuck in 1 physical place.

Just so you know, the GT80 SLI-263 of the previous generation, a 980m SLI model, runs most games at 100 fps @ 100hz on the 18" screen - with no tearing - so G-sync isn't missed.

G-sync has been broken for many in the last 5 or so Nvidia driver releases, so everyone is going without G-sync that wants the latest game profiles.

Read up here in this thread, and in the previous GT80 SLI 980 thread:

Be A God of War - The new MSI GT80S 6QF Titan SLI!
http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/be-a-god-of-war-the-new-msi-gt80s-6qf-titan-sli.783205/

And, read up on the GT80's with 980m SLI, they all perform about the same - the CPU differences are small and don't really make much difference in gaming FPS.

***The Official MSI GT80 Titan Owner's Lounge***
http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...t80-titan-owners-lounge.769092/#post-10238834

The GT80 is a great laptop, no matter which model you get, I know you will love it

 

1: The GT80S SLI-072 is a on-going model and it's not limited, it will still be available next month.

2: There will be new nVidia Pascal GPU coming this summer, we think it will perform about 20% faster than the existing GTX980M mobile version which is about the same as the desktop GTX980 on GT80S.

As for the 18.4" with 4K resolution, we don't think there will be one since laptop manufacturers can only buy panels from the screen manufacturers of what they have.

 

20%?

 

Well, they probably are being conservative because they don't want to be blamed by nvidia's failure to deliver our expectations hahaha

 

Well, after reading what I have about the MSI GT80 regarding its powercap due to a 330 PS, i'm a bit disappointed and can no longer justify a purchase. It's disappointing to spend as much as I am willing to and not have the laptop produce what is advertised.

I am not at all worried about how big or small this is. I don't mind how big the laptop is. The main and only reason(s) I am considering this laptop is because I like to sit back in my recliner and enjoy gaming and surfing the web while still being able to watch TV and still being around the house and not stuck at a desk. I have a nice set up where having a 10 pound laptop could still be on my lap and not feel like it's 10 pounds.

In fact, ***IF** I could find a way to game with the power a top of the line desktop or laptop like the MSI GT80 w/desktop like performance 980s while sitting at my couch (which doubleds as a recliner on the ends of the couch), I'd be happy. I would just need a way to have the 27" 4K monitor with keyboard and mouse on my laptop. Something along the lines of a table that can adjust itself over me/my lap area while sitting down would work great because I could have the PC case right beside me. It would look just fine being there because of how my furniture is and looks. The MSI GT80 072 with SLI 980's would work just great because of the awesome keyboard, an awesome 18" 1080 laptop and huge power. If there is anyone here that could convince me or give me an idea how I could set up an amazingly powerful desktop that I can use while on my recliner, I am ALL ears.


It's a shame that this MSI GT80 desktop performance like 980s laptop is capped and really can't do what it could or has the potential to. I have no desire to bring the laptop anywhere out of my home anyway. I just want to be able to have the ability to sit at my most comfortable chair while watching a baseball or football game at the same time im gaming, lol. Im single and have no kids. I do plan on getting married (again), but im not rushing it.

So.......does any of you have an idea of how I can acheive this? What I just explained??!!?? lol
Of should I still go with the MSI GT80 w/SLI 980s?

Thank you all once again. You all have been a great wealth of help.