Zephyrus GX501 w\ i7-8750H

I’ve just purchased a GX501 with i7-8750 / 1080GTX Max-Q and have immediately noticed that the CPU temperature hits ridiculous levels of around 96/97 degrees Celsius when gaming. Overwatch appears to be the worst offender probably due to the 144hz refresh rate. I am a total newbie when it comes to under-volting etc, however I downloaded Intel XTU and with a bit of fiddling around I have found a stable profile: -140mv for both core/cache & a drop from 45W Turbo Boost Power Max to 20W with the same wattage for Short Power Max. This knocks around 15% off the performance with the XTU bench coming in at 1275 rather than 1460 however drops temperatures to the acceptable level of 89 degrees Celsius for the hottest core.

The issue is that I am constantly Power Unit Throttling as a result. I haven’t noticed any performance issue due to this. I have no experience when messing around with power levels and I’d just like to know if Power Unit Throttling is something I’d be able to continue indefinitely without damaging the CPU?

 

I’ve sorted everything out with the above tweaks. I have also capped my games to 60FPS to achieve CPU temps of sub 90 degrees. The super high hz panel is incredibly stressful on the CPU and I don’t believe it should be used on a laptop as thin & as light as this one. Overwatch at ultra settings on a 60hz cap does not exceed 84 degrees Celsius, and PUBG at 60hz maxes out at around 90 degrees Celsius.

 

No damage to the CPU as a result of Power Limit Throttle. It's just telling you it can perform higher, but you've purposefully enabled the 20W cap to keep thermals down.

If you can either repaste the CPU with a better paste, or increase the fan speed/profile, you may be able to get closer to the 45W max. You're right in a thin-and-light it's tricky to cool a 45W chip combined with any higher performance graphics card.