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

It would seem from everything I have read and researched hat the 200w GPU in the P870DM is far superior to the 130W GPU in the GT80S. That is what I have gathered from the benchmarks and gaming data.

In addition to that even if it was dead even, I would still choose the P870DM because of the socketed CPU, the additional cooling, desktop class CPU, and PREMA bios which are just icing on the cake. Just as my previous determination, I would only ever choose SLI in the case of the highest single GPU(gaming ability) possible, which the GT80 is not in any sense.

This allows conventional troubleshooting and replaceable components that I value far more than a flat out (30 second) benchmark that some BGA systems appear to excel in. Overclocking appears to be much better as well both power wise and temperature wise in the P870DM.

MSI had a chance to respond to and answer to my concerns and did nothing to help. I choose to show my support with my wallet. The best competitor is the P870DM, even at worst case I would give up a few FPS in the best comparison, is better to not have to worry about power concerns, battery drain, or SLI in future video drivers which has gotten worse over the years and I figure will continue to get worse each iteration in such a niche market.

 

The Sager has the best version of the 980 desktop. The GT80S can only get close but it can't be argued that the Sager has the upper hand in general. The only way this could change is if nvidia stopped making SLI a hassle from time to time and for new games. There has to be a better way to properly utilize dual GPUs.

As for the rest, I'd say those are good reasons going for it. There is little use for socketed CPU when you already have a 6700K, but it is always best to have a choice to begin with. Personally, I would wish that these laptops, the big 17 and 18 inch laptops, used desktop CPUs.

That being said, we are discussing top of the line machines that stomp over the vast majority of options available. There are very few options left on this realm. I prefer my GT80 as is, and I don't consider getting a sager any time soon. That does not mean it doesn't offer excellent value and performance, and one of the only options for highest end gaming.

 

Dual GPU support is only going to get better from hereon. Developers have the responsibility now (DX12/Vulkan), so there will be less relying on "AMD's 1 year late CFX profile" or "NVIDIA's game ready driver".

By the time we have Volta, I'd imagine there will already be more games (that people want to play) that support agnostic multi-GPU setups like AoTS.

A funny thing is the 65W CPU. i7-6785R should be used in these GT80s. I guess the wattage cannot be spared though at this point.

 

That's the way I see it too, SLI is recommitted to for VR and multi-gpu support moving forward for Vulkan / DX12, it's not going away and will continue to improve.

The 6920HQ CPU was the task appropriate choice at the time the GT80S 980 SLI was being built, the 6785R is just now being released, Q2 '16.

http://ark.intel.com/compare/88972,93339

The GT80 980 SLI power requirement was so close to the 330w psu limit, and the redesign of the power section + producing a larger PSU would have taken too long. MSI did the best they could with what they had in the brief Window of opportunity they had to get the GT80S 980 SLI shipping.

It's still the fastest 980 laptop for GPU performance, gaming, but it's short coming of power by a 10's of watts trims the top off of it's potential performance.

The 1080 180w TDP at 15w greater TDP requirement than the 980 165w shows that to make the next GT80S 1080/m SLI will require a move to a larger power brick and beefed up power to support the higher power requirements.

And, if MSI put a 7700k in the top end GT80, it's going to push the power requirement even higher, along with the price.

The GT80S 1080 SLI could cost close to the same as the current GT80S 980 SLI.

 

Hi all,

Do you think it's possible with a GT80 SLI 980 desktop use a dual power supply with Dual Converter Box (660w)
power supply block and connectors it's exactly the same of Eurocom/Clevo, I'm sure ! but there is a risk of grilling motherboard
or not.... ?

Thanks for your advice

 

You can connect two PSU's, but it won't help you because the Titan's EC is restricted to 330W consumption regardless how many watts you are pumping into it.

 

Thanks CaerCadarn, so it will not change...

 

Yep, the machine has a software limit. Unless you can get someone with experience in BIOS and EC to modify it, you will most likely be stuck with it.

 

This is why I am thinking when the 1080 comes out for this notebook as it is supposed to be up-gradable, and they take less power than the 980 they might remove the limitation that is crippling this pc. If not I will sell and go a different direction.

 

Yes the GPU is completely upgradeable from original designed. All you need is GPUs + Heatsink.

 

I had the GT80 2QE for a year, loved it. 5
it was huge and recently I bought a p770DM with the 6700k processor. It does make a huge difference for me.

With only one 980m, moderately overclocked (no voltage adjustment) I get 9880 on firestrike. That's only about 24% lower score than I had with the GT80. Of course, I have the prema vbios for the clevo 980m and with the power limit removed the chip is much faster.

I was expecting a much worse situation when I (downgraded) to a clevo. the 6700k is beast and I notice mostly that the dip in fps don't happen the same as they did with the 4720hq with 980m in sli. Overclocked on this laptop I'm near a desktop 980 performance. Also, I can upgrade to 1080m easier because there will, no doubt, be clevo mxm upgrade kits coming at some point ..
gt80
Do I miss the GT80? yes, but the gsync screen and only a average 25% loss in performance is worth it to me.
Clevo puts great screens in these things. I wasn't expecting that. The Dynaudio sound on the titan was very nice as you guys know, but the Onyko is a close second.

Point of post.... 6700k makes a significant difference in gaming fps drops

 

glad u like it. any chance of msi putting a desktop cpu in their laptop is slim as getting intel to release a 6c consumer cpu none HEDT.

 

Ken @GenTechPC any idea on a price for the GPU upgrade for the gt80s? Are they going to change the power limit on the power supply? (I know you might not know this but never hurts to ask ) I just thinking with the power supply limit is worth even keeping this machine when the other 1080m sli systems come out with out this limitation.

 

I have a problem with MSI soft. Nahimic block some games(Hitman) and some soft. I think problem is in ports. And another problem is in performance mode. When I change mode without restart windows, I have a video card artifacts.

 

even with 1080m, there likely wont be any changes to power draw limit thats because MSI like other OEM wont bother with it, very unlikely for it to happen.

 

And there is the problem. It was not disclosed before I bought this pc there was a power draw limit less than the power supply. It was not disclosed that it would use the battery to give it extra power. For a system that is $5000 it should have had everything disclosed.

 

the things thats discussed here including power limit due to bios/mobo isn't something anyone at msi would know. we are looking at the very decision they made which involves multiple department that worked together to come up with this solution, as to why we will probably never know but its gotta be something along the line "consumer standards".

you would bet on it that no matter which laptop manufacturer you purchase from, it'll result in the same, if they dont limit it means they didn't bother. theres nothing for them to disclose as who you bought it from would never know about this. if a computer works as intel and OEM intended (by all means purposely limited/ crippled in some way), its working just fine in their eyes.

desktop on the other hand its a bit different, the practice of overclocking and standard high end performance we see are common practice and its so well known to most enthusiast that if mobo maker/intel try to do something stupid, would result in their revenue loss. few examples would be, intel attempted to rid of PCIE devices all together back in the days, provide broadwell crappy overclocked silicon etc. it'll take a lot for them to control high end desktop standard as it has being around far longer. but if things keep going down the way AMD can't be competitive no matter what well soon see crappy silicon chip everywhere even for desktop parts.

 

MSI needs to be listening, or they won't sell many GT80's of the next generation:

A Giant Photo of the New 450w+ PSU needs to lead the "Hero" (overview) page for the next GT80's MSI product web pages, with glowing copy about how the battery power *isn't* used for improved performance.

 

I totally disagree. They have MSI reps on these forums and they have been asked this same question. Having owned this system and several other high power using notebook computers, I can not for the life of see why you would stop the power usage of the a 330w power supply at 300w. The battery usage this I can see why they did that with no issue with two 135w video cards and 45w processor you are almost at the power limit as it is. But at the same time there are the dual 330w power supplies available and I'm sure even thought it would be a bit bigger they could have used a 450w version also.

I also disagree here. Not disclosing using the battery to give the computer extra power is misleading. (On MSI's part.) You are correct in thinking that maybe the vendors of the laptop did not know of the power issues.

With this I feel that this a apples to oranges argument. This laptop is designed for the same purpose as you described above with the overclocking but I agree that that things will always try to be made cheaper and cheaper as we go. But that does not mean as consumers that purchase the product we have to look at for less and less quality.

I agree but what we will see is anyone's guess.

 

@lichensoul i can see your point and like i mentioned, people have their different opinion and standards. what i said simply goes for my past experience and based on how corporations are and their goal to make money, i make educated guess and assumptions what i think will likely be most correct, and im definitely not always right, there are times im in the wrong too and blame the wrong party for it. (ie no more than two sata 6gbps ports with new intel chipset, it was not because msi didn't want to give it but because intel had limited them.)

actually this is an interesting topic related to my previous guesses and statements, if MSI really wanted to, they can have more than two sata 6gbps in their laptop but they don't. if intel doesn't support it with their chipset, MSI as a mobo maker can easily incorporate an additional sata controller off pcie lanes to provide more sata 6gbps ports.

so why didn't they do it? heres come my assumption, that it would cost them too much to provide additional controller and pay 3rd party company, troubleshooting on this additional sata controller would mean more complication and additional cost also the fact that intel's 6gbps port is likely faster than other 3rd party controller sata 6gbps port due to additional overhead/driver etc and then finally which is likely one of the bigger factor that ties to your original statement of disclosing it to consumers that some of their 6gbps will be slower than other 6gbps, would cause unnecessary confusion, taking unnecessary blames for the company etc, which is the last thing they want to do and the first to avoid.

it is simple fact that in the world that we live in, things are getting more and more complicated, however its opposite for majority of people who simply want to enjoy their life and not care about these little details, things get dumbed down. they would likely not disclose any information which would put minority people at ease, they would simply not care about u or me, and go after the biggest part of bell curve, which are the consumers thats after exterior looks, beautify words and benchmark numbers while not understanding anything else.

what good would it do them if they explained power limit and battery thing to the public? i can already see people making dumb comments such as having 2 psu is stupid, or this machine is power limited and those statement spread like wildfire because people don't understand u can have hardware that will still be ok with only 1 PSU. it'll only hurt their sales, of course they dont talk about it lol

 

@unityole I agree that the small portion of people that look at the actual performance is a dwindling number and OEM are taking advantage of that at every turn. We saw the same thing happen to Alienware. (Hence why I decided to with this system)

It is really almost a dead horse at this point. I'm just curious what it is going forward. If there will be a notebook worthy of spending money on in the future for gaming.

 

bth i think laptop with its customized build from the start unlike desktop, its already a dead end, its only a matter of time. even the standard parts like MXM GPU and PGA CPUs are turned into bios/vbios power restriction and BGA soldered CPU. not only nvidia and intel trying to not allow us much room to overclock in notebooks so they can continue to sell garbage to us, even the OEMs are limiting their bios/vbios because consumer standards like smaller power draw, less heat less fan noise and smaller PSU to carry with lighter and thinner notebooks etc.

clevo right now the only OEM making laptop out of a desktop CPU which is 6700k, too bad its only 17", no more glorious 18 inch laptop its such a shame. back in the days there were multiple 20" laptops but all died due to majority of consumer standards.

 

I agree I had high hoped for this system and have been underwhelmed. Granted it can hold its own but could have been SO much better.

 

yes i agree. if they remove power restriction and replace soldered mobile CPU with desktop 6700k and rework heatsink a bit, this machine will be bada**.

its rare nowadays to see a laptop truely improve over it's older generation. GT80s actually is an improvement over GT80 tbh but most of it didn't come from MSI's side. MSI added another audio device to gt80s and thunderbolt port thats about it.

the last time i have seen a great improvement was M18x R1 to M18x R2. chassis almost identical but its capable of fitting 1 more 2.5" sata drive, 1 more msata SSD drive, more usb 3.0 ports, an upgraded CPU heatsink from 2 pipes to 3 pipes, upgraded GPU heatsinks to accommodate of lack of VRAM heat dissipation. all of these are additional cost that Dell had to fork out and make parts for them with exception of usb 3.0 performance increase which came from intel's chipset.

 

So, what you're telling me is that you are willing to KILL a 5000 dollar laptop for the sake of getting only 20-25% extra performance from it? As I've tried to explain to folks in the past, fast is fast. If you been going 100MPH for 2 years and then went 120MPH would it make difference if the road never changed?

I'm beginning to think many of you guys are taking this laptop for granted.

I own it because all I do is travel... Simply put, if you don't travel why do you need this laptop ?

 

@Frankzro I think you misunderstood me a bit. I love the laptop have said it over and over. Personally I can not use a desktop as I am disabled and it is near impossible to use a desktop in my situation But that being said all I have been saying from day one is that the restrictions they put on the power output I feel are unnecessary and cripple the potential of the machine.

To this I say 20-25% extra performance is a massive jump. That is from going for being able to play 40fps to 60fps. Or going from not being able to play a VR game to playing one, on this system.

Again I have never bashed this system I feel it is a amazing powerful computer. It is just has more potential and could be better.

 

So guys I am at a loss here. I am hoping someone can help me on these forums as I am at this point stumped. I recently got a MSI Gt80s with the 980 SLIs. When I first got it and turned on Sport mode I got a TON of artifacting and the system video drivers would crash. So I went and upgraded all the drivers, utilities, and the bios. Upon doing so Sport mode no longer shows any artifacting.... BUT when playing Elite Dangerous on the HTC Vive I have two times now had a black screen crash which required a hard reboot. I don't know if I am doing something wrong? The first time I did apply OC settings to the GPU and the crash took place at the 15 min mark the second I reset to defaults and I think I got almost an hour before it crashed. Both times I had the computer only utilizing one GPU (Elite Dangerous does NOT like SLI). I'm stumped and need help please if anyone knows or can help... what could be the culprit?

Thanks,
Adan

 

how would u kill it? and holy sh*t 25% LOL i wish. i'd oc hard to get even 5-10% out of it. my cpu being running at 4.7ghz 24/7 over last 3 yrs, my computer sure is in good health guess that proves something. heh i even clock up bclk for my pcie devices and still work just fine.

and to answer your last question, running my cpu at 4.7ghz compare to 4.2ghz, i can feel a lot of difference. 4.7 makes it so much snappier with the things that i do.

 

Is it crashing on other games or just the one? What kind of temperatures are you getting while playing the game and other games. It could be a few things. Hard drive failure, video card failure, Driver failure, or overheating. Just to name a few.

Also contacting tech support might help also if you just got the system.

 

Ok so it appears to be crashing on any graphically intensive programs (just tried running the Valley test) the system hangs if I turn on sport mode and don't have the MSI afterburner and Intel Extreme Tuning Utility programs installed and running before I turn it on as well as the fans set to full.

If I turn Sport mode on first artifacting shows across the whole screen and the system performance gets worse and worse (I turn off sport mode every time almost immediately so I dont damage the cards). If I turn on sport with just the programs the system gets hot and hangs eventually...

I stress tested the CPU with the Intel Extreme Tuning Program and it appears the CPU is not the cause of the hang as running in stress test mode for 5 min did not cause the system to hang. But then I'm not big into any type of Stress Testing or OCing and havent tried OCing on this system yet due to the current issues I appear to be having so I may not know enough to test this myself.

I did contact support but I am using this laptop for providing gaming during counseling sessions for the kids I work with and really cant having this disappear less then a week after I have received it if this is a problem I could fix myself quickly. Is this typical behavior or is something more going wrong?

 

Seriously, you are having drooling kidz paw up your $5000+ laptop???

I hope you at least put on an external keyboard/mouse, and splash shield over the laptop... seriously.

On the other problem, you have a defective GPU, at least one, return it to the seller immediately before your 14 day return period expires, it's much quicker to get another unit from the seller than deal with MSI RMA - 2 weeks to 2 months.

And, instead of a valuable laptop, spend less and get a desktop built similar specs and with a locking door on the PC to keep prying hands away. Use an external monitor, keyboard, and mouse - keep spares of the things the kids actually touch in case of accidents.

Also, lock that **** down, use steel cables attached to loud alarms

Nice guy giving the kidz some killer hardware to game on, but you have to fit the solution to the environment, and kids are not computer friendly - especially if they are being seen for counseling...

DOA laptops happen, return it quickly, and try another one

 

Agreed, sounds like the GPUs are at fault here, most likely one of them is failing.

 

The price for GPU upgrade depends on which GPU, you can email me for the price.

The power supply still at 330W but I think it was the BIOS limited the power consumption.

 

finally had some time to bench this machine. I haven't had any issues so far and its been running great. See below for my score

http://www.3dmark.com/fs/8497408

 

A score at 97%, very nice. Just feels good seeing a benchmark come up with those high of numbers.

 

That's one hell of a score, HaloGod2012. How are you liking the machine so far?

 

I've had many machines, and this one has been flawless for me. I game in 1-2 hour spurts, and power has not been an issue with my battery. I rarely see it go down during games anyways. The 6920HQ @ 4ghz holds it clocks in games, and the 980s stay about 1200mhz also. Ive tested many games including the most intense( crysis 3, division, witcher3). Temps can climb up there, but nothing I'm very worried about. I haven't maxed the overclocks on the GPUs yet, so there is some headroom. Overall this is the best machine I've had, very happy! I'm assuming it will compete with pascal pretty good, and MSI says we should have upgrades....."should".

 

Yep, they are oficial and we will be getting them I definitely look up to upgrading only for the VR improvement, but your desktop 980s seem to have a heck of a punch. I normally game at mild OCs but even my max OC's can't touch your normal performance haha

For me it is among the better machines I have had. It would have been flawless but we had to fight some issues a year ago, and recently fixed, with the display drivers constant crashing. Other than that, it has been perfect, and although I can't game at 4ghz, I can game easily at 3.6ghz

Have you overclocked the display? I recommend it

 

Wait, its official that MSI is giving pascal upgrades to us? I also have not overclocked the screen, whats a good refresh rate? 75? Also, I may skip the first generation of pascal, I dont see a 1080m smashing the desktop 980s.

 

Well, they promised at least two generation cycles. We don't know if that means Pascal being one, and next gen being another, or only pascal. nVidia has the potential to actually deliver a good bump in performance, but that remains to be seen. In theory, we could see slightly slower 980ti performances (by having a downclocked 1070) but knowing nvidia, they might just... get us an even more cut down version. So I expect maybe 15% faster than the "desktop" 980.

" There are a lot of naysayers when it comes to extreme gaming notebooks, and one of the biggest complaints is that you end up with an expensive system that can’t be upgraded. MSI is doing their part to at least partially address this shortcoming, as they are now guaranteeing support for at least the next two GPU cycles through select vendors in the US. So the GT80 ships with support for GTX 980M and should be able to run at some future point the “GTX A80M” and “GTX B80M” (whatever they end up being called). To take advantage of the GPU upgradeability, users in the US will have to ship their notebook to one of MSI’s System Integrator partners – MSI mentioned iBUYPOWER, XoticPC, GentechPC, and PowerNotebook as options right now. The SI will perform the upgrade, including swapping out the GPU as well as the cooling module, install driver and firmware updates, and then ship the updated notebook back to the user along with the old GPU(s) and cooling modules. Note that the GPU upgrade option is available for both the GT80 Titan as well as the GT72 Dominator."

from : http://www.anandtech.com/show/8818/msi-gt80-titan-full-specs-revealed

As for the screen refresh rate, I actually use it at 100hz without problems, and most users have been able to reach similar hz so far. 75 should be easy.

 

so I was able to set the refresh rate to 120hz stable, but to me its just more power and heat in games to work fps to that rate for not much gain in fluidity over 90, 100, 110. I have it at 75 and that seems perfect

 

How did you setup 75hz at gt80s? Special software?

 

Yes, I believe one of the reasons you don't see that much improvement over 75hz is that the response time of the screen is around 16ms.

 

custom resolution in the NVidia control panel

 

Thanks and what soft you use for GPU overclock? I wanna try little for add some FPS in games.

 

for the gpu, msi afterburner. For the cpu, intel XTU

 

Can you link for me your XTU default and overclocked profile? I play with XTU and change my default value, my notebook restart and I lose default setup(

 

send me a PM with your email and I can send you the xtu profiles

 

Done

 

Remember with XTU is that all CPUs are different and won't necessarily tolerate the same settings. My old GT60 has, at the same speeds, over 110mv downvolt, while my current GT80 can only manage -75mv at the same speed.

Also, I believe 100hz being the "sweet spot" for now, mainly because I am not stable at higher, but I can definitely see improvements over 75hz. The thing is though, anything over 60hz feels like a major improvement, while going upwards starts to diminish due to the screen specs.

That being said, 75 is a great refresh rate and goal to maintain games at. Even though I used 100hz, I can't maintain fps on that range for most games, specially new ones. So 75hz might be the better choice for gaming.