4K Screen question on G703VI

Hello guys,

I found a very nice refurbished G703VI with a 4K screen. As it claims, it works with 144HZ if I use my screen at 1080p. Otherwise at 4K it is 60HZ. Can it be correct?

Has anyone experienced that screen? How is it? Can I use as 1080p as good as native?

Thanks

 

I know they offer a model with a 1080p 144Hz screen, and a 4K screen. I have no idea if one screen can be both. Pretty much every review has been of the 1080p 144Hz model, so it's hard to know unless the seller can provide proof, or somebody with that model can confirm. Good luck, it's an amazing notebook.

 

Thanks for the answer. The refurbished unit has been sold unfortunately :/ I can't find G703VI with a reasonable price. It seems I need to buy MSI GT75VR. Hope all will be ok with that.

 

A 4k screen with a 60hz refresh would also be a 60hz refresh when run at 1080p. There isn't any complementary scaling of refresh rate based on reducing the resolution.

If your 4k screen did 144hz native, then yeah, you could reduce resolution to 1080p and run at 144hz, native. AFAIK there aren't any 4k 144hz laptop screens out yet, nor any desktop monitors that will do 4k 144hz ( one?) for real.

The GT75 8950HK cooling has been less optimal than I would have liked to see. IDK if I would jump on a GT75 right now.

The Acer Helios 8950HK is cooled nicely and performing well, but it only has a 1070, no 1080 model.

It's a tough time to recommend anything in the high end right now.

Can you hold out for a while, or do you need something right now?

 

Hi,

I will buy GT75VR 7RF with 7820HK. The price is around 2000€. (2344€ normal price, with tax free it is 1990€) Also backpack, headset, etc. is included. I surely can wait for the new generation, but wouldn't you go for GT75VR 7RF if it would cost 2000€?
It has 32GB ram, 256x2=512 SDD, GTX1080, and so on.

 

Sure, why not? That is a great set up.

 

So MSI it is if I cant find any Asus G703 with a nice price last minute. I am pretty sure new gen Gpu Cpu together would cost here min. 3700€

 

I bought my G703VI for $2,600 from refurb4less. I got lucky it was sealed & graded in an official Asus refurbished box.

 

Okay, I found G703VI,

The price is 2285€. Configuration: 7820HK, GTX1080, 32gb ram 2800mhz, 512x2 = 1TB SSD + 2 TB 5400 HDD, 1920x1080 144mhz screen

MSI GT75 VR is 1975€. Configuration: 7820HK, GTX1080, 32gb ram 2400mhz, 256x2= 512GB SSD + 1 TB 7200 HDD, 1920x1080 120mhz screen.

MSI has a bundle gift together. Backpack and headset. I have a headset. I can buy Asus backpack for 50€.

@hmscott what would you choose?

@Phoenix If you can also comment on this, I will be glad.

I need to decide today, latest tomorrow morning.

Thanks

 

You've already had the Asus, so get the MSI GT75 and see how you like it in comparison.

 

Meh. If some of the PCH and NVMe SSD temps in the GT75 thread are to be believed, then I would go the G703 every time. Neither my SSD, nor my PCH break 50c under max load. Every component is properly cooled, not just the CPU and GPU.

When I was looking at notebooks, the one huge plus the GT75 had was an MXM GPU. But Nvidia seem to be moving away from MXM so I'm almost sure there is no upgrade path, and the prices for replacements are an absolute joke.

edit: I see you're talking about the GT75VR. I'm not sure if the bad PCH and SSD temps apply to that model.

 

Well, I bought Asus. I am waiting the shipment now. The one reason I bought Asus is that most likely I couldn't get the shipment for MSI in time. I give Asus one more try. I am sure it won't let me down.

@sniffin how much do you undervolt? What is your small modification and tips for the device. I am sure there are only a few users of G703VI so I pray there won't be any problem with the unit and we can share our experiences to improve the experience.

 

The GT75's that come out of HID with "holes blown in the bottom cover" are stealing cooling air from over the SSD's and PCH's by diverting / short-circuiting vacuum from the exhaust fans.

There have been stock chassis PCH and SSD reporting of temperatures that are normal, that aren't bad.

Get M.2 SATA drives instead of M.2 NVME drives to reduce thermals, and save 50% in cost - or double your storage size for the same price.

 

Enjoy! I have my 7820HK at -70mV so far. I’ve been slowly lowering it over time, and will keep doing so until I see a WHEA error. My 1080 isn’t undervolted yet, it sits between 55-69c depending on the game so I haven’t worried about it.

Just an FYI, the ASUS Gaming Center locks the 7820HK at 4.3GHz out of the box, but also sets a +20mV overclock. This makes the CPU run hot and the CPU fan loud. Uninstall it and use XTU or use Throttlestop to set whatever clocks, but also an under volt. I was able to hit 4.5Ghz with -40mV. I didn’t try push the voltage lower but I’m sure I could have. I ended up clocking the CPU lower for silence in the end.

The stock HDD was super loud in mine also. I replaced with a 2.5” SSD and idle was much quieter.

My G703 came with bios 301 (the very first one). I haven’t tried the newer ones and there’s not much info on the others, but I did see on the ROG forums that 305 contains Spectre fixes (new CPU microcode). No other info related to temps or fan profiles etc though. Not too many people post about this laptop like you said.

 

Aah that explains it. Pretty silly mod for what is probably only a few degrees on the CPU/GPU side.

 

I had G701VIK and I was successful to undervolt -104mV. Back then I also unistalles ROG Gaming Center. I am not a hardcore gamer and do not tire my computer so much so my cores were set at 3.9 and I had a dead silent notebook while doing easy stuff.

How is the fan noise at idle or while browsing etc after undervolting? Reviews shows the stock is louder at idle than my old G701vik.

 

Yeah that’s how I’ve been using mine. Idle noise is ok (once I got rid of the HDD). I think that perhaps the fans could be a little slower at idle, but you’d only ever hear them at night time when it’s quiet.

If you undervolt the CPU you won’t hear the fans kick in under load unless you push past 4GHz. The GPU fan profile is aggressive - it steps up at 58c, again in the mid 60s, and gets quite noisy at about 69c. It stays cool because of it, but it’s noisy without headphones on.

I think I’ll start undervolting my 1080 tomorrow. It’s about time I did it, and summer will be here soon. I’ll report back with fan noise again once I start messing around with it. Ideally I’d like to keep it below 58c so noise is the same as idle. I’m sure I could do that at 900mV or so. Stock voltage is 1.06V I think?

 

I will see what outcome I will take. Is your Bios up to date? It sometimes changes the fan profile quite a lot.

In addition to that Asus has stopped giving new drivers for VI model but they release for GI. I am curious if GI gpu driver would work without any problem.

 

My bios is still 301 (which is the first BIOS and the one it came with). I haven't experimented with newer ones, and there's no info on the others out there. Aside from 305 including Spectre microcode fixes.

 

Hello @sniffin ,

My laptop has arrived. All is good but it seems that my laptop work hot. Hotter than my old G701VIK although there is a better cooling system at G703VI. I played Mirror's Edge Catalyst for about 10-15 minutes and not overclocked, with -100 undervolt, I have seen 92-95 degrees. not continuously but It is not normal. What are your temperatures ?

as a small note, at XTU, I do not see any throttling at stress test if it is undervolted.

Far Cry 5 ultra settings without AA and low shadows, GPU is okay with 60-65 degrees but CPU is around 80-88

 

At stock with -100mV I get a max of 73c in GTA 5 (ambients are good here as well though). What voltage is your CPU running at with that 100mV undervolt? Use HWMonitor or something similar to find out. I only ever saw 92c when ASUS Gaming Center enforced the 4.3GHz with +20mV. Have you verified that profile isn't being used? For example, it's generally recommended you use the "Standard" profile (which is stock) before uninstalling it, as it apparently saves the settings to the BIOs just like XTU does.

 

Hi,

I choose stock at ROG gaming center before uninstalling. I only decreased voltage off set -100 (-115 gave a blue screen after 30 min.), I dont know if anything else is necessary.

Core speeds are 3.9, 3.8, 3.7, 3,6

At xtu stress test, average temp is 75-76, For gaming it is kinda different scenario I have.

 

That's bizarre. I would have expected stress tests to give you much higher temps than games, but your stress test temps are pretty great. I'm not entirely sure what's going on to be honest. Are the fans speeding up when you hit 90c+ in those games? If not it could be an inaccurate reading.

 

I try some more stuff at the upcoming hour and will let you know.

 

Have a look at the Picture. The average of the temperature at stock (-100mhz) is around 70-72 at stress test. Also it has a pleasant and not loud fan noise. Do you think I need to worry?

@hmscott ?

at Mirror's Edge Catalyst you can see the temp average at the other Picture. 2 cpu is hotter than other 2. between 75-82 degrees. Hyper graphic settings.

 

Your temperatures look good, as long as you aren't thermal throttling during gameplay - and even then I'd run 100% fans or reset the initial thermal data in hwinfo64 to clear the initial high temps while the fans ramp up. Or run 100% fans. Turn on logging in hwinfo64 while testing / gaming you can see how often the temps actually hit or hang in the thermal throttling range, which hopefully you find isn't often.

Usually the problem with games is they are rendering more FPS than display HZ, so using G-sycn/V-sync reduces the FPS to the display (refresh - 1), but I usually use RTSS Frame Limiter instead of V-sync which has less lag but also caps FPS at display (refresh - 1), and that limiting of FPS is key to not letting the game load rendering generate runaway load / thermals on the CPU / GPU.

XTU stress test isn't as hard hitting as other stress tests or games.

For final undervolt 100% CPU load testing I use prime95 with AVX / FMA disabled running "small fft" for 5 min to 15 min max, usually it passes but if not it fails with threads exiting with math errors rather than BSOD - this usually gives me a stable 100% load + idle setting.

How to disable AVX / FMA:

Exit prime95 and add these lines to the top of local.txt:
CPUSupportsAVX=0
CpuSupportsAVX2=0
CpuSupportsAVX512F = 0
CPUSupportsFMA3=0
CpuSupportsFMA4 = 0

Then reset the readings in hwinfo64 and restart prime95 small FFT's.

Sometimes I need to back off +5mV or +10mV to the undervolt to get Idle stable - and I test that by exiting all applications and systray apps and disable background functions that pop up and add load to the CPU - stopping idle.

You then let the laptop sit for 30 minutes, and sometimes longer, the voltage ratchets down the longer it is idle till it hits minimum and if you aren't voltage stable with the current undervolt the laptop will reboot (or just BSOD if you have auto-reboot on crash disabled).

The RTSS (bundled with MSI Afterburner) Frame limiter setting of display refresh to limit FPS to display refresh is 120hz / 144hz with accompanying high FPS on newer laptops - you may need to drop down the FPS further than display refresh rate - remember these laptops not too long ago were overheating at 60 FPS, so drop FPS down accordingly - from 144hz try 130fps, 120fps, 100fps, 80fps, etc.

Please let us know what settings you find work for you.