***The MSI GS60 Ghost Pro 970M Owner's Lounge***

If you're talking about what I said, it wasn't from lack of vram. It was from lack of gpu processing power. The only way I can conceive of running out of vram is if you modify your games. Older games like Skyrim, I've been able to heavily modify and stay under the 3GB cap and still push 60fps at 3k. Newer games like Shadow of Mordor actually recommend 6GB of vram but there's no way you're going to push 60fps @ 1080p on Ultra, let alone 3k. So in that case, what's the point in having 6GB unless you either 1) heavily modify your games or b) can tolerate 30fps gaming in order to play ultra textures. In my case, I like high framerates so I'll stick with lowering the details, in which case 6GB of vram is pretty much worthless. Maybe I'm wrong, only time will tell. Wish they would have just done 4GB for all of them so it wouldn't be even an issue.

If anyone has already run into running out of 3GB of vram with current or older games, please share - I'd like to test out what difference it really makes.

 

what is the use of getting 3k, if it still uses PLS?
Are these problems of 1080p screen ( eg bleeding and blur) valid for every screen? or they are just occasional flaws with the screens?
I cant make my mind, whether to choose this one, or to go for cheaper Sager Np8651, if screen still sucks, there is not that much of a point in buying msi

 

3K Screen is not PLS ... it's IPS...
FHD is PLS but these "problems" are just occasional and you can still RMA your machine so they can fix the problem

 

So I've been looking on YouTube of benchmarks of the GS60 with the 6GB 970M card and came across one made by Prostar. They didn't put up any temperature readings so I asked the following question:

"What kind of temperatures did the machine reach under load? I've been hearing that the 6GB GPU heats up 'significantly' more than the 3GB version. Any comments on this?"

Their response was:

"The amount of VRAM shouldn't affect the temperature "significantly." We haven't received or noticed any glaring contrast between the 3 GB and 6 GB models, at least. Under the benchmark, the laptop hovered right around the mid 80s Celsius. The new 900M chips run noticeably cooler than previous generations!"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFpmrfwNWhc

 

Can you even play new games at ultra max settings with a 970M?

I figure it's a little too much to ask for when you don't even have the best mobile card on the market. If you want ultra max settings, get a 980M.

 

you can easily play every game on ultra 35 fps+, cant see the reason for getting 980, which is thousand times hotter, and not that much more powerful

 

If you really want to exploit the potential of the 970m, get the GT72. Much more room for overclocking due to its excellent cooling system, with out paying the hefty premium for the 980m.
But all of us here have considered portability over performance, that's why we choose GS60. There's always a trade off.

 

A thousand times hotter ?
Apparently on the p35x v3 the GPU is not that hot, though that has to be confirmed (the last measure, by a owner on Youtube it 78°C after 2 hours of Battlefield).

And it's about 30% more powerful, which is a significant bump ! (it's even a bit more if I recall correctly).

The only drawback seems to be the price in my opinion.

 

I picked up my GS60 2QE on Friday, have been loving it so far. Temperatures, performance and screen have been amazing so far. Runs Star Citizen at native res very high details at 30fps which I am seriously impressed with. My only concern is the battery, in HWInfo it is saying the wear level is already 11%. Anyone else with a GS60 noticed anything similar or should I expect a calibration period for the battery? Also what does the battery reset button on the right side of the laptop actually do?

 

Battery wear level is 11% which might be normal since some were reserved for any sudden disconnection of AC adapter.
The reset button is for clearing the EC firmware after EC firmware update.

 

What screen does your machine have? fhd or 3K?

 

cheers, so it is normal? my 5 year old laptop battery has a wear level of about 15%
anyone else with a new GS60 with similar battery wear levels?

I have the 3K version with 3GB VRAM

 

People with the 3K screen and 3GB vRAM seem to run all games fine and on Ultra. I wonder where this 3GB vRAM insufficient rumor started.
I am going to buy the 1080p version, I reckon if you guys dont need 6GB vRAM, why would I need it

 

Same ... 1080p + 3GB vRam = enough for next 3years minimum

 

hey Charlie, you also have the FHD version.
What's your say on screen quality? Backlight bleed or blurs ?

Did you get the ICD repaste?
What temps you get? Max temp on Furmark ?

 

Yeah WHO ?? Who told you this ? Who told you they had to lower their settings because of 3VRAM ?? I want an answer... now.




Just in case, I'm kidding.. but sure wanna know if that rumor is correct.

 

lol. I remember reading it somewhere in this thread. I am not going through more than 500 msgs just to find out who wrote that

 

Nah I'll be getting it by the start of December There should be a 50-75€ price drop because of Christmas ...
Well, I am not from USA so I won't get ICD repaste ... and if the temps will not go over 88°C i will not repaste ... but maybe I'll repaste with Arctic MX-4

About screen... well my friend has a 2PC version and it looks like this:



But he is going to RMA it and hopefully it will come fixed

 

GS60 GTX970M 6GB version 3DMark11 and temerature with stock thermal paste:

 

Thanks Ken for the benchmark results and temps.
The temps are quite awesome. I dont know who brought up "significant" heat by 6GB vRAM.
Now I can order a new unit in Peace

 

Interesting, thanks. I assume that was 1080p screen version?

Wouldn't you also have some 3K or 4K screen MSI GS60 versions at hand to do the same testing in equal conditions?

I'm really curious about the effect of the screen resolution on temperatures. According to Xentar712's tests on his 3K 3GB VRAM version he was getting much higher temps, both on CPU and GPU (max CPU 86°C and max GPU 85°C).

Yours if I see well was max GPU 72°C and max CPU 76°C.

Though it was in 3dmark 13, not 3dmark 11, which is maybe more stressing? Also room ambient temperature could be different.

MSI GS60 Ghost Pro 3K review - Nvidia GTX 970M & 870M versions

That came from Gigabyte P34W v3 thread. That notebook was advertised everywhere as coming with 6 GB VRAM GTX 970M version. Then two people got mails from their sellers that it was actually downgraded to just 3 GB VRAM, with the provided reason that it was because it was much cooler.

Bear in mind, we still don't have anything official on that change, but if it's true, there must have been a pretty solid reason for that. It would make quite bad P.R. for Gigabyte otherwise (whole web is full of announcements of 6 GB VRAM P34W v3).

Now even if true, it may or may not have any effect on MSI GS60 which has much larger chassis than Gigabyte P34W v3. It may have been just a trouble with components layout there, who knows.

These temperatures from Ken look great. I do wonder though if it's not 1080p display that made a difference. For old MSI GS60 models with GTX 870M the hottest temperatures also come from reviews of 3K screen variants.

 

Oh really?
There was such a large difference in temps ? b/w Xentar and Gentech ?
Let's wait for Xentar to confirm if he used 3D mark. Didn't he use furmark?

 

Check the full review (I put a link in the post above), Xentar posted temperatures for several benchmarks and also Skyrim and Crysis 3. They looked pretty good until those new temps from Gentech

 

Here's benchmarks and temps from a Gigabyte P35X v3-CF1 with a 980m 8GB. P35X and P35W share the same case I believe but could be wrong.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/gigabyte/764645-gigabyte-p35x-v3-owner-s-lounge.html

 

Yup, those are amazing temperatures, at least for GPU. I wonder what's going on there - its GPU is apparently even cooler than in those large 17" notebooks with GTX 980M (Asus G751 and MSI GT72 had 67-76 C on GPU after benchmarks).

Though Gigabyte I mentioned above with supposed temperature-based VRAM downgrade was a smaller 14" model - P34W v3.

Edit: and the mystery of Gigabyte P35X v3 temperatures is solved - those tests were run with external cooler, meh

 

Ah, gotcha, my bad, thought you meant the 35W v3.

 

I already tested the GS60 3K 3GB version at: 8:44 :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7q_TkfCGWf0&list=UUVMsHAlc0vpnMfIdtViYHXQ

It maxed at 75C and I don't remember seeing different temperatures between 3DMark11 and 3DMark.

I can test 4K version but it will be later this week.

 

Thanks.

So looks like both CPU and GPU were hotter with 3K 3GB version vs 1080p 6 GB version, though there seem to be quite big differences between different tests (or maybe between different notebook units):

3K 3GB version - GPU 85 C, CPU 86 C (Xentar)
3K 3GB version - GPU 75 C, CPU 84 C (GenTech)
1080p 6 GB version - GPU 72 C, CPU 76 C (GenTech)

 

So it's not because the amount of VRAM.

 

This we still haven't excluded. It's still possible that both high-DPI screens *and* extra VRAM add some heat, it may just be that the screen is much worse in that .

If that's true - the coldest model should be 1080p 3 GB and the hottest one should be 4K 6 GB.

BTW I think I may have an idea why models with high-DPI screens get hotter (we know higher-DPI screens themselves use more power, but that shouldn't contribute to chassis heat).

It could be that damn Optimus again. I just remembered with Optimus the screen is always driven by Intel GPU. Even if you are benchmarking or gaming with Nvidia GPU, Intel GPU stills hums in the background, more pixels it has to push, harder it works. And we already know how hot those Haswells are, it sure doesn't help to have more parts of silicon on chip being active.

 

So i assume that 3k ver has hotter temp with 3gb of vram and ips screen meanwhile the 1080p with 6gb of vram run cooler but waste some vram and non ips screen + light bleeding issue. Is that right?

 

I've yet to see any GS60 with GTX970M reaches 85C regardless 3K or 6GB VRAM. If the amount of VRAM is the cause then the 6GB should run hotter but it does not.

I also curious if it was because 3DMark 11 vs 3Dmark FireStrike makes difference in temperature, so I ran 3 testes again earlier with GS60 GTX970M 3K 3GB version again and here are the results, the room temperature is at 70F in beautiful sunny Southern California :

3DMark FireStrike:





3DMark FireStrike Extreme, the Extreme mode uses more VRAM and at higher resolution:




3DMark 11:



So I've tested the GS60 with GTX970M with multiple laptops with all similar results. non reaches 85C on GPU.

Xentar's review was great and professional. Love it.

But I think it's possible the unit just got a bad paste job from the factory.

 

Hmmm... Bad pasting job. Might be it.

I hope that's the reason for those high temps.
Pirwls will also upload his results in coming days. But with all these tests by Gentech, I think the laptop handles the 970m pretty well (with or with out the 6GB vRAM )

 

At least I found no evidence that the amount of VRAM or the screen resolution causing GPU to run hot. I've tested with multiple units not just one and the results are similar. If the GPU/GPU temperature runs hotter than other units with same specs, same tests then it could be:

- bad paste job
- screws are not tighten enough on the heatsink.
- Ambient temperature

 

Hmmm, aren't you getting lower scores than expected?

In 3dmark firestrike Xentar got 6,541 points total, you got 5,492 points total. These Thai guys got 6,526 points in "sport" mode but 5,327 points in "comfort" mode.

In 3dmark 11 you got 8,476 points total, Thai folks for 9,388 points in "sport" mode, 8,497 in "comfort" mode.

MSI GS60 Ghost Pro 3K Review

Also your first video review had 9,129 points in 3dmark 11, with GPU temperature of 75 C.

Are you sure you didn't run at least some of your tests in those lower power modes?

I assume "sport" is real full performance, as those numbers are more in line with other notebooks with GTX 970M, then "comfort" and "green" modes are some sort of throttled states.

BTW it doesn't mean GS60 temperatures are bad, quite the contrary (especially CPU temperatures seem more in control compared to other thin notebooks with GTX 900 series GPUs), just that we should be careful with methodology when doing comparisons

 

I agree with this 100%. There's no telling the variations in pasting that they performed. I've already seen the variations in screen mounting that causes certain types of backlight bleed(possible fix coming later today or tomorrow). While Gentech is in 70° California, I am in hot and humid Florida. That almost certainly will make a difference. I did my testing at 75°F if I remember right but the humidity makes a difference too.

One thing I want to mention. There's been a lot of talk of this vram heat issue and now we're digging into screen resolutions possibly causing heat as well. I think there are some misconceptions so I wanted to throw some things out there.

-Simply adding vram and adding a higher res screen shouldn't and dare I say won't cause temperature increases by itself. 3Dmark is going to use the same vram and same res as it did before so that program isn't going to cause any heat. For most applications, you will never tell the difference.

-Now for running games in high res, yes, that will add more heat. It's because you're pushing the graphics card more though since it's driving 2-4 times more pixels that it was in FHD. If you want better temps, switch to FHD resolution. A 4k screen in FHD res should run the same temps as a native FHD screen. Maybe a degree difference for scaling, but there's no reasonable way to cross-test that.

-I'd be willing to bet utilizing more vram will add more heat, but nobody has tested that yet. We probably won't see that for a while and the fix would be to simply not use that much vram. Gentech showed that simply having it still maintains nice temps, so that should be good enough for most people. Realistically, if you are worried about temps, just turn your settings down. Otherwise, just run your laptop the way it was designed and let it throttle if things get too hot. You'll turn things down then. Either way, this is a massive improvement over the 870M and I haven't worried about temps at all.

It's a nice cool day this morning so I'll rerun my benchmarks and see if that makes a difference.

 

Couldn't agree with you more. :thumbsup:

 

68° and dry out this morning. My results:
3DMark: FS – 6548, SD – 18092, CG – 19684, IS – 96725
3DMark temps: Max CPU 82°C and max GPU 78°C

Previous results at 75° ambient temperature(and probably more humid):
3DMark: FS – 6541, SD – 17907, CG – 19752, IS – 101710
3DMark temps: Max CPU 86°C and max GPU 85°C

I also want to point out that my max temp comes from somewhere in ALL the tests, not necessarily Firestrike. Like in the review, I ran them back to back to back. I'm kind of stuck doing that for comparison sake.



I'll do a standalone Firestrike test too but it will be in an different temp room since I'm at work now.


Edit: Here's my Firestrike standalone results. I'm in a 73°F office now. Not sure why my score is over 1000 points better than what Ken got.



Sorry for the dark edges. I forgot I had WindowsFx on.

 

Ken gets lower score with better temps.
Xentar gets higher score with higher temps.
Is 3DMark using resources differently on different machines?

 

More data points, yay! Thanks.

So that should solve one mystery - now you got much more similar temperatures to first GenTech video review, actually even better ones (max 76 C on both CPU and GPU in 3dmark firestrike vs max 84 C CPU, max 75 C GPU in 3dmark 11).

Which probably means your unit is ok, more likely it was just ambient environment difference and variance between different test runs than bad pasting.

That 1,000 points score difference from Ken's later tests seems to be most likely explained by running in a lower power mode ("comfort" instead of "sport"). At least that's what seems to be ballpark points others were getting there (see my earlier post).

You could verify this by also running 3dmark with that mode.

Sidenote: have to say I like how much better MSI GS60 seems to be cooling its CPU compared to Gigabyte P35X v3. If you follow Cakefish adventures in the other thread, he kept getting 91 C on CPU, which is supposed to be its thermal throttling point. And while it was i7-4860HQ, those tests were run with notebook placed on external cooler.

 

By comfort mode, do you mean the "power saver" power profile? I did the test in High performance, and just again now in "balanced" but nothing changed.

As for the P35X v3 - I haven't looked at it at all but a lot of these machines have their cooling lined up in series. So the air that goes through the GPU is shared wit the CPU, resulting in much higher CPU temps. I experienced this big time with the Aorus X3+

 

I don't have a notebook, but there is apparently some MSI-specific utility called SHIFT that changes between three modes for notebook: sport, comfort and energy. These should vary in power consumption and fan noise.



MSI Global - Computer, Laptop, Notebook, Desktop, Motherboard, Graphics and more

Edit: found this chart about SHIFT for MSI GT72:



While exact numbers may differ, principle should be the same for MSI GS60:

sport - both CPU and GPU run full speed
comfort - limits GPU frequency to level 1, maintains GPU at max 89 C
energy - disables Intel Turbo Boost, limits GPU frequency to level 2, controls CPU and GPU to stay at max 85 C

 

Hi there,

Anyone knows when will the 2QE be available in Europe?

Another question: How can we identify the 970m with 6gb ram?

Thanks in advance!

 

In comfort mode I got a score of 5408, CPU max was 79°C and GPU was 70°C(6° cooler than my earlier test). Also, my fan barely spun up compared to before. That's probably where the difference in our temps was and also partially due to ambient temperature differences.

 

And your prior mode was "sport"?
With high temps and score?

 

yes, sport was the earlier test. Results were on last page: 6627, CPU 75, GPU 76

 

So all mysteries now solved
Bottom line being:
GS60 has good enough cooling to keep temps to an appropriate degree.
Max. temps can go to 85-86 C.
1080p screens have a slight back light bleed issue.
6GB vRAM don't "significantly" heat the system : (Its the Gigabyte crappy cooling that made them downgrade )

 

Slight correction - *some* MSI GS60 units may have light bleeding but definitely not all of them. E.g. I had a look few days ago at brand new MSI GS60 with FHD and GTX 870M and screen there was fine .

 

hmmmm..... according to my info all 1080p screens except for the 850m version, have the Samsung PLS screen panel.
Speaking of which somebody wrote here earlier of some sort of fix for the bleeding issue, Today or Tommorow to be posted here.

 

FYI, all of the screens are prone to BLB, not just the FHD. In general, IPS/PLS screens have at least some back light bleed to some extent. YMMV

Coincidentally, I just finished up a post on how to fix some of it. Not for the faint of heart!

http://forum.notebookreview.com/msi/764708-gs60-screen-glowing-dragon-replacement-blb-repair.html

View attachment 117408

Hopefully resellers like Gentech and XoticPC can make this a service.