How quiet can the MSI GT75 8RG can it get at base frequencies?

Since, I do not wish to hijack the original thread, I am taking over the discussion here from:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...eview-by-phoenix.816385/page-11#post-10723992

@heliada @Phoenix

Firstly, I would like to address the comment on whether it is possible to have a laptop that runs quite well without being too loud.

My current computer is about 6 years old, but I am keeping it up-to-date with tweaks and upgrades (such as @Mr. Fox AW PSU mod for the GTX 980M). Trying to resist the effects of aging as much as I can, I am regularly cleaning my laptop's ventilation and repasting the CPU with IC diamond (maybe there are better ones these days, but that's what I have been using for 6 years now).

The performance I can achieve is not remarkable or ground breaking, but feels comfortable. CPU is slightly overclocked @3.2GHz and the GTX 980M is running at stock clocks. Under full load the CPU and GPU remain within ~65degC, while noise levels feel fairly quiet (~30-35dB). I should say here, that I am also using a laptop cooler stand, which positions my laptop nearly vertically to enhance natural convection.

However, it's still a 6 year old laptop that has been heavily used, its CPU (i7-3940XM) is notorious for it poor thermal performance (@55W TDP) and lastly Dellwares are not exactly famous for their cooling system and thermal performance.

When I compare my AW laptop with how the MSI Titan GT75 8RG looks on paper, I have reasons to believe that the MSI should outperform my system not only in terms of raw performance, but also quietness (under certain conditions, please read below).

1. After 6 years the CPU technology has advanced. Intel now claims a 14nm lithography vs. 22nm of my 3rd generation CPU, which means that CPU can now run at higher clocks with better cooling efficiency. Indeed the i9-8950HK has a 45W TDP CPU comparing to the 55W TDP of the i7-3940XM.
2. The MSI cooling system is far superior to the AW, because of 1. unified heatsink system that links CPU and GPU, 2. more heat pipes and 3. better quality fans with more blades.
3. The MSI may be using a 180W TDP GPU (GTX 1080M), while my system a 95W TDP GPU (GTX 980M), but NVIDIA claimed that the heat efficiency has been significantly improved going down from 28nm lithography to 16nm. In addition in most sites I read that the thermal performance of the cards is more or less equivalent even if the GTX 1080M consumes double power.
4. NVIDIA can now use a "Whisper" mode, which basically down-clocks the GPU to maintain reasonable performance and reduce noise, if needed. This means that the GTX 1080M should definitely be superior to the GTX 980M, when downclocked in terms of thermal performance and noise.
5. The heat conduction and efficiency should be significantly improved with HDevolution quality paste ( IC diamond has about 5W/mK while the Thermal Grizzly Conductonaut is about 12 W/mK), thermal pads for VRAM and extra ventilation at the bottom of the case.
6. Lastly @Falkentyne 's IA AC/DC loadline settings have improved CPU temperature according to Phoenix and HIDevolution.

For these reasons, I think that the MSI GT75 at base frequencies should deliver quieter performance than my current system and probably any of the other systems in the market right now. @Phoenix has already partly reconfirmed my thoughts. He mentioned already that he cannot even hear the system under normal load.

Regarding the comment that is a waste to underclock a laptop, and why don't I consider an ultra/stealth/slim/thin/book/whatever that can actually be quiter. Maybe it can be more silent, but probably with toasted GPUs and CPUs and far inferior performance. The MSI cooling system feels superior than any of all the aforementioned junk (ups, sorry). Underclocking is a reversible option, you can always go back to stock or over clock speeds when you have a tough job to finish and you don't need to be in the room.

The noise levels that @Phoenix reported (50dB) are at full load with heavily overclocked CPU at ~4.9GHz and the GTX 1080M running at all at turbo frequency. Therefore, I still do not think that Phoenix's tests were representative (at least not for what I was looking for), as his system has been running at full throttle, while I was asking for noise levels and benchmarking at base frequencies (eg. 3GHz for the CPU, which Intel report's as the base frequency for the i9: https://ark.intel.com/products/134903/Intel-Core-i9-8950HK-Processor-12M-Cache-up-to-4_60-GHz).

I am sorry for the long post, I hope it clarifies my position and explains better what I was asking.

Many thanks.

 

Not sure how helpful this will be but in this below review, noise levels are shown at idle, load, and Max cooler boost around the 6:10 mark.
Im still waiting on my unit so don't have any IRL experience just yet

 

Keep in mind you can manually adjust the fan curve on MSI laptops, so the amount of noise really depends on you (and temperatures of course).

Just to give you an example, the fans on my GT73 do not spin at all when CPU & GPU temperatures are +- <50°C (web browsing, working, watching movies, ...).
I set the curve to 50% maximum (+- 3000 RPM) under load. With CPU & GPU overclocked and undervolted, temperatures sit at 70°C average, with scarce peaks to 73°C on the GPU.
Therefore in games, noise level is 41 - 42 dB right above the keyboard, 39 dB at ear level. I do play without headset most of the time, exception made of "competitive" games like CS:GO. It is the quietest gaming laptop I've owned so far.

However I must point out that my unit (like @Phoenix's) is repasted with Grizzly Conductonaut (liquid metal) on both CPU & GPU, so that helps a lot.

At stock frequencies, the 8950HK should be on par with an O/C 6820HK in terms of power consumption, so I expect this even thicker GT75 to be even quieter than my GT73

 

This is a very helpful post. Thank you for sharing your noise levels with me.

I do not have any experience with liquid metal. Can it cope with traveling? I will expose the laptop to some limited traveling 1-2 per year. I would also like to position it nearly vertically for better heat flow.

Is Grizzly OK with that? If yes, how often do you have to repaste? Is repasting with metal liquid difficult?

 

Yeah you can manually adjust the fan curve if you keep the dragon center app. People like @Falkentyne would tell you not to keep it ^^
Anyway if you look at identical setup of gt73vr & gt75vr with 7820HK and gtx 1080:
https://www.notebookcheck.net/MSI-GT73VR-7RF-Titan-Pro-Notebook-Review.189710.0.html#toc-emissions
https://www.notebookcheck.net/MSI-G...080-Laptop-Review.240904.0.html#toc-emissions
You will notice that not only was the gt75vr a little louder, it also ran hotter. It might be due to the specific laptop, maybe the factory paste went wrong... but there is a chance it will NOT be quieter than the gt73vr.
Considering the gt75 will generate more heat than the gt75vr and has the same chassis, you can just wonder about the rest. Thus any comparison to gt73vr is questionable.
If you game in area that needs to be quiet, you can obviously underclock temporarily. The heat and noise should both go down a lot. But eh... I still don't like the idea of doing that often.
As for liquid metal, I don't think vertical position is a good thing at all. And if you apply it wrong (trust me you will if you need to ask about it), there is a good chance it will kill something (worst case the motherboard). Also not sure where you come from, but in my country it voids warranty especially if you do it yourself (damn EU) - since it leaves physical marks on the chip/hs and is dangerous to work with. If any of it comes into contact with anything else than the chip/hs, even just a little, it can totally fry/shortcircuit the laptop.
That said, if you do in fact learn how to apply it correctly, I would still not store it in vertical position and be extremely careful when traveling. It is liquid after all and any extra tiny drop could work its way to the outside and fry the thing. Yeah, it may be unlikely but any time it's vertical it increases the chances greatly imo.
Question is: do you really need the i9? Maybe an i7 would be a better choice? And yes they sell gt75 with i7-8850H or i7-8750H too. Both chips have 6 cores/12 threads, the 8750H will run at 3.9GHz on all cores (no overclock possible), the 8850H will run at over 4GHz on all cores and can be overclocked by up to +400MHz. I take it that it could be underclocked too? Either way both should output less heat and might even run acceptably with normal paste. Sad thing is there are still so few reviews out there.

 

@heliada
Thanks for the reply. You opened my eyes in regard to liquid cooling.

Sure, I do not necessarily need the i9. i7s are all valid options. What setup would you recommend? Isn't the i7 a badly binned i9?

Hmmm... the whole liquid cooling thing is questionable. By positioning nearly verically the laptop with exhausts facing up I can save about 10degC. Then liquid cooling will cancel this effect, as it has to be positioned horizontally and on top, I may have issues when I travel. Let alone it makes it hard to repaste and maintain.

May have to go with IC diamond then.

 

I traveled a LOT last year with my GT73VR (by car and plane), I've never had a problem ! Repasting is a bit more difficult than with other TIMs, you have to be very patient and careful while applying it. I used electrical tape around the die to prevent any damage. I repasted it after 1 year, but didn't have to (I did it along with changing the thermal pads).

Unless you put too much, it doesn't wander in the laptop. However if you plan to use your laptop vertically, I guess it could leak over time. So Grizzly Kryonaut may be a better alternative in your case.

You can also control the fans using Silent Option, thus avoiding this Dragon Center crapware

The GT75 is basically a thicker GT73 with nearly identical heatsink (and maybe bigger fans ? I don't know). So it should be marginally better than the GT73 regarding cooling ! Maybe @Falkentyne and @Phoenix can confirm or refute this ?

I agree with you regarding vertical position & liquid metal, it is probably a bad idea !

 

GT75 heatsink is only very marginally better than GT75VR / GT73VR. Heat transfer is almost identical because the heatpipes and heat plate on the CPU is exactly the same (it's the EXACT SAME heatpipe plate used in GT72S/GT72VR/GT75VR etc!), but it has to cool 6 cores instead of 4 so temps will be hotter. Only difference is the fans are slightly more effective because one heatpipe has been extended to a second, small radiator. But what's the point of having more efficient fans if the ability for heat to transfer from the core to the heatplate is completely unchanged???

 

ditto

 

@UncleMysh well I think that the i9 is actually more like an overclockable i7... there literally does not seem to be the need to call it anything else as it still only has 6 cores and 12 threads. The only difference is that it is clocked a bit higher and it's unlocked. The rest just seems like marketing and making it seem more awesome than it is. If you do not really need to overclock beyond 4.4GHz or so, the i7-8850H seems like a great choice. And for gaming with the 1080 I do not see a scenario where you would ever need anything more. I think even rendering videos or streaming will go just well with it - it still has 12 threads to spread all the load and is plenty fast. Yeah sure, i9 is slightly faster and can be overclocked a little bit more but tbh, I don't think it will make any difference in normal use.
The only good thing I see with the i9 version is the fact that it uses double power bricks, thus might be less power limited. But it will be more difficult to transport it, last time I checked planes had weight limits on what you can take on board and the extra power brick is not gonna make it any easier to fit in those limits. Depending on air line it's like 7-10kg and just the laptop itself is about 4.6kg - I think the power brick each must be like another kg. Then you might want to take some other stuff, the huge bag for it will be heavy too... Good luck man, even single power adapter will be a pain.
And well anyway, if you don't want that much noise I don't really see you overclock the i9 anyway so why buy an unlocked chip if you probably don't need one?

As for having the laptop vertically: I don't think it's needed at all. Buy sth like the notepal u3+ from coolermaster, remove the fans on the bottom side, make sure there is at least like 30cm behind and next to the sides free and you are good to go. That worked wonders on my gt72vr, plenty breathing space. Plus - the gt75 has a great mechanical keyboard, how the hell would you use it if the laptop is vertically?

 

@heliada Yes, you made a great point about CPU (being overinflated by marketing etc). Temp wise it seems to be the bottleneck.

For the power bricks I was thinking to order the single PSU anyway that HIDevolution offers... It's rated to deliver 780W.

I have a great external mechanical keyboard and the only chance to use the laptop keyboard is when I will be on holidays. Sweet -10degC is too nice to pass anyway. So I am pretty adamant on placing the laptop on a high steep angle.

Edit: laptop keyboard not laptop

 

@UncleMysh wait... you will only use it on holiday...? Man you are too rich, I am outta here. My savings and inheritance were just enough to get me a 2200 euro laptop and a 2250 euro car (yes they were the same price almost lol) after dreaming of them for about 7 years of walking and starving myself to save up. And then it turned out the laptop was not what I expected it to be, now I am in heaven being upgraded to gt75 8rg after having been through lots of hardships with the gt72vr 6re.... Sigh do whatever as long as you can afford it, no amount of advice from me will help - just buy the most expensive thing and have fun. Man I thought that the asus k55vj I bought for 600 euro in 2013 was seriously expensive already. And I never owned a pc or anything else! I did have an hp compaq laptop for 300 euro bought in 2010 or so which overheated and shut down all the time, that was my first computer ever... I worked so hard and you will... only use it for holiday End of frustration rant.
No really, I am out of advice. The decision is up to you.

 

I meant the keyboard not the laptop.

 

@UncleMysh still out of advice though ^^ Hope that whatever you decide to do you will be happy with it. And for the price these things cost you totally should be anyway!

 

@heliada Well, I will take your advice to start with for the CPU. The other thing that you helped me realize is that I don't want liquid metal cooling.

Changing laptop once per six years is OK, but I take you already have an GT75, right?

 

@UncleMysh I will have it next week ^^ http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...z-and-stuttering.813644/page-50#post-10723038

It was sent Wednesday and should arrive soon I hope. I will be reviewing it so maybe wait a bit till I do as the 8750H is the lowest of the cpu's but maybe it's something you would also like. I don't think the i9 will really work for you without liquid metal to be honest, it's way too hot. My MSI will come with factory paste on it which is worst case scenario for cooling and should give you a good idea of what to expect I will try to figure out how to calibrate the dB readings on the phone if you are interested. But keep in mind it's very warm here now and my room temp is like 25 to 26 degrees or more (no AC) which will mean the temps and noise readouts will totally be the worst possible ones. Just give it a few days and I will keep you posted (I noticed there are no reviews on the i7 versions so mine will be first haha).

PS. I will try to see if I can find specs of the hairdryer I have laying around, that would do for precise calibration. - nope they don't say. Too bad ><

 

Thank you!

 

Correction: I just noticed the gt75vr was tested with ambient temp of 24, while gt73vr had ambient temp of 20. That perfectly explains why the gt75vr did worse.
My laptop still hasn't arrived, so nerve-wrecking.

 

Thank you for being so thoughtful!

 

Kitguru wrote:
The idle fan noise on this laptop is there but barely noticeable at 36.5dBa making this laptop quite stealthy while doing less demanding tasks.

When the fan boost is enabled things get a bit out of hand. The fans in this laptop are powerful and the noise they make reflects that with levels reaching 64dBa. There also seems to be a noticeable buzzing or humming noise – perhaps coil whine – coming from this laptop no matter the fan speed, which is definitely a bit irritating. It’s not a deal breaker but we think it’s definitely worth mentioning.

So, a little like GT73VR - on easy tasks almost silent. With full boost one of the laudest. On default settings when gaming I think the noise is no big problem. Btw, even the difference on GT70 0NE and GT73VR 7RF turbo fan noise/blow effect is impressive - MSI really has developed the ability to move air...

 

I actually tried playing with the phone app for measuring sound... no matter what I do I get at least 25 dB in the quietest room at night or up to 40dB during the day with windows open (I calibrated it against my voice when talking being 50-60dB)... @UncleMysh you said your current laptop was in 30's under full load? I find that hard to believe. I measured about 45 dB at the old PC's fans I am using right now just when playing wow... I mean it is loud but not disturbingly loud (traffic outside still a lot louder) and I think my gt72vr was mostly quieter unless using coolerbooster. I can't imagine the gt75 being way too louder under load, especially when you limit the performance a bit as you said you would do sometimes. The gt72vr also was on factory paste and with my custom fan profile the hottest I saw it was 70 degrees celsius even with ambient temp of 27 degrees!!!
PS. The gt72vr also had coil whine, I got used to it as it was nearly inaudible, but so high pitched that it was annoying. I think most of these laptops do that.

I agree, with the gt72vr when I put my hand behind it, I could clearly feel the hot air being pushed out at an amazing rate, a lot more powerful than my bf's nzxt h440 case which has 3 fans in front and 1 in the back including a huge cpu air cooler inside and dual fan 1060....

 

Another misconception I had: It seems even the 8750H is partially unlocked. I did not know that! This guy got some awesome results with the dell g7 laptop, I mean wow. I hope msi also allows the 8750H to be locked at 4.1GHz at all cores :X Man, tomorrow I should have the laptop home and I will be trying this!

 

Post your results when you do, I'd love to see them.

 

Crossed checked my phone's mic with another two phones today our measurements all read the same.

Yes, it seems my rig operates at 40db at partial load (eg gaming). Full load is at 50dB.

Interesting post...

Is there any difference in the binning between the 8700K, 8950HK, 8850H and 8750H?

Is the MaxQ concept worth it, or can I achieve the same by undeclocking it?

 

Wow this laptop has exactly the noise levels I was looking for...

 

Thats not bad at all with the hardware involved!

 

Yeah but the dell g7 also only packs a 1060 max-q. Not the best performance, even lower than a 1060... should still be either on par or slight improvement over a classic 980 (not-m version).

 

What about the AWs with vapor cooling chamber? Does anyone have experience?

I guess it doesn't work again... Like their previous model?

 

I'm sure they've improved it.

 

I just upgraded from a 8 year old laptop. The Asus NX90JQ-A1. Was awesome and still is but I can't find the battery to replace it. Not even China has them. I upgraded to the msi GT75 8RG-056 around the same time as phoenix. If you'e bnot gaming anf just surfing the internet or watching movies or doing a little multitasking it' ddead quiet to where you don't even know it's on. I went with the thermal grizzly paste and fuji polly pads. It can get a little noise gaming but the speakers drown that out and you won't even here it if you have gaming headphones. Im going to get a laptop cooler which will be noisy. The cooler booster is extremely noisy. Sounds like 2 turbines winding up. Iv been gaming on high graphics settings and the fans never bother me. Also no lag.

 

@Justin96

Part number for the NX90JQ battery: 07G016EF1875

One of many stores selling with stock:

http://www.battery-store.eu/batteries.php/asus-07g016ef1875/100109/1002649/197035

Search for the part number of the battery and you will get more hits.

 

This is why I downplay noise in most cases, the experience is best with a headset regardless of noise (cheap headset > amazing laptop speakers IMO), and if you're using a headset anyway, it's hard to hear noise in the first place.

 

Thanks for the info. I'll buy the battery later this summer. I'm having to buy more ram and ssd drives for my Titan. I want 2 more sticks of ram and 2 more ssd at 1tb a piece. After that a ultrawide monitor and the vive pro Vr. So like $2000 more.

 

@UncleMysh I just can't make the dB readings work on my phone. But I guarantee it gets loud ^^ But omg, so smooth and amazing performance, better than my bf's desktop. Performance-wise: a f---ing beast. Seriously. But I will be wearing a headset since it's just so loud, even compared to the gt72vr 6re.
PS. I confirmed the 8750H can be overclocked to 4.1GHz on all cores using throttlestop.

 

@heliada You scare me now. Was just a breath away from confirming.

Can someone help me suggest a quieter laptop?

 

Well to be fair the phone reads 40 dB at the fans when gaming, but it's not legit I think. Seems the noise cancelling of the phone is interfering. I have the galaxy s7. Subjectively it feels pretty loud but then again, still need to do the bios changes for voltage etc, it should get better. Also stock paste is horrible. ^^ I can totaly live with it.

 

Heliada isn't your name after some kind of book to start with?

Well, I don't know, you confuse me. Last thing I want is to get stuck with a Ferrari laptop, that I can't live with because is hell noisy...

 

I know it's confusing, that is because the noise is subjective in my opinion. I think it's loud, another one will think it's not too bad since the fans only spin at about 3500-4000 rpms when I game, other laptops go jet mode to 6000. But even with the lower rpm's you can clearly hear it, it's kinda like a little vacuum. ^^ I expect that once the temps go a bit down and I adjust the voltages and maybe repaste, it will be a lot better. I don't have time to experiment now though so it will have to wait a bit. Have a deadline for first part of bachelor thesis in like 6 days.

 

Anything above 2500rpm is unacceptable for me. 4000rpm are you kidding me?

 

I am certainly not. And 2500 is almost nothing.

 

Clearly we have a bit of a diffeence. Mine spins at 3000ish to 3500.on high graphics. I do have the thermal grizzly paste and fuji polly pads. This is a gaming laptop made to cool. So if you don't do a lot of gaming it' s quiet. And if you'e ggaming you'll have the volume up which overcomes the sound of the fans or you'll have headphones on.

Get something that cools and won't throttle your cpu or gpu. And you can always restrict the fan speed.

and from what other owners are telling me to do is undervolt my cpu and gpu and its suppose to make them run cooler and perform better which in turn you get less heat = less noise from the fans spinning at lower rpms. Ill be doing more research on that later on.

Also @Phoenix says he'll help me do the phoenix tweaks which will get rid of a lot of background processes. also making it so you have less heat. He only does these tweaks for the HIDevolution msi gaming team hence the picture in my signature

 

@Phoenix twesks are great for your privacy, but are not going to affect your system temperatures. Most of these applications are annoying, because they sit at background occuying RAM.

The bios loadline settings should help you a lot though.

 

I don't see how it wouldn't affect your temperature. There's less data going through your cpu so it doesn't have to work SD hard. Meaning less temperature. From what iv read there is a couple loads in the background that are quite task intensive. And getting rid of those would be good. Please let me know if I'm wrong.

 

I am not familiar with win10 to give you details, but from what I gathered I wouldn't expect significant temperature changes. I do highly recommend them though for privacy reasons. You will have better control of what your computer is doing at the background. You may also avoid a few spikes.

 

I wouldn't say significant changes either but anything is better nothing.

 

Using the AC/DC loadline of 1, and restricting your clock multipliers will greatly reduce temps and thus noise. the GPU you can probably put a custom curve for low power use, lower clocks and all. I recently made a similar move myself after realizing that adding more performance was costing me a lot in terms of heat.

I currently use my CPU at 37x multiplier with loadline 1, voltage of 1.15v max, and my temps are on the 50s celisous with normal use and 60s when taxed, at 24 celsious ambient. I can reduce them further at lower clocks, like 1.05 at 32x multi with drastically reduced temps.

Of course I don't have a GT75 but if noise was a concern, I would totally reduce the multipliers with a loadline of 1, and tweak with silent fan to ensure max temps are within my desired level, as well as fan speed. You could put a fan curve that always spins slowly to your desired max tolerance of noise, and test how high temps get with torture software. If temps are within your tolerance, then you will enjoy an always silent laptop.

 

You don't need to mention me with the @ sign every freakin' time you wanna say my name! I have enough useless mentions every day you can just say Phoenix without he @ sign unless you want my actual help in that post

 

There was a single statement made about your tweeks in the last five working days, which is my own speculation of the effectiveness of your tweeks. Not sure what you meant as every single freaking time. I understand that is hard for you to be in every thread, but I thought it would be unfair to make statements about your work without making you at least aware. Anyway, I am sorry if I have troubled you.

 

@ryzeki
Thank you for your attention. Would you please be able to support me, if I buy this or a similar laptop? I do not have experience with tweeking these settings.

 

Yeah obviously we have a lot of difference, I am on 100% stock now (including factory paste, pads, bios and voltage settings... I had to up my fans a bit cause auto was letting it get too hot with ambient temp of 25). I like all components to stay below 80 degrees celsius ^^ Actually I think the temps are not too bad in my case, it could have been worse. I was even scared it would thermal throttle but in fact there is no throttling whatsoever. Also I play on ultra and not high and I never cap my fps. I torture the hell out of it actually.
I am just sad that I did not know hidevolution existed before I got my laptop. Now I miss out on all the mods.. but to be fair I would not like the idea of the laptop shipping all the way from US. >.<

PS. fan speed and temps will also differ based on what game you play. I play AC:Origins now and that can get the poor 8750H to 100% load. ^^