*** The Official 2019 MSI GS65 Stealth with RTX GPUs Owners and Discussions Lounge ***

I have a turbo disabled power plan (setting max processor to 99%) inherited from the balance plan with slider.

have not changed any speed shift/EPP settings.

Core parking is enabled.

With the same above settings, everything used to work just fine. 80FPS across.
Just today, everything went for a toss.
I figured it might be a driver issue, so I upgraded to the nvidia drivers to 430, but the problem still exists. FPS is still all over the place.

 

This is the VBIOS I apologise for the confusion.

This was taken from an Asus Strix with a 90w rtx 2060. (Our GS65 is 80W)

It has nothing to do with official MSI drivers.

There is a regular BIOS to the MSI gs65 that was released this past week, that is something else entirely.

Sent from my BLA-L09 using Tapatalk

 

I had a mess with the max processor setting in power plan recently.
Maybe something updated for you and is conflicting?
I thought % would be %, so on my GF's Lenovo730 I set it at 80% on battery since its not got a great battery life, thinking 80% is 80%... but on battery it would fluctuate every 5 seconds from 3600mhz to 399mhz! 399 is not 80% of 3600.

On my GS65 as well, 99% is more like 80%, 98% like 70%, 97% like 60% etc..

So instead of using that method I leave it at 100% and stick with lowering the turbo levels in throttlestop.

I suggest trying the same.

For performance I leave 6 cores at 38 but set the Turbo Time Limit in TPL to 8. Allowing for higher spiked usage when opening apps etc but throttling power usage down to 45w before the temp can reach its throttle temp of 91~. When summer comes I'll probably have to lower it to 37.
Non repasted but using a cooling pad (keeps the cpu 3-6C cooler)

 

You should see if the fluctuation is caused by having the frequency going past 2200 MHz.

Leaving it at 99% to avoid the Turbo from kicking in is probably not something that most of our members do. I believe the limiting factor by Windows is pretty lose here and is easily over written by other things, and usually once it is over written Windows doesn't reapply again unless you do something like manually reapply again or put to laptop to sleep and start again. I'd suggest you try out ThrottleStop and disable Turbo boost using that. That way the Turbo boost is disabled for good.

You should also check the number of cores allowed to parked, this sometimes can cause fluctuation in the FPS when the core is being parked or unparked, to solve this, you can simply disable core parking for stable FPS.

By the way, the behavior when using the Balanced Plan with the slider can sometimes seem strange to most of us. I suggest you stop using it and use High performance Plan (Not the high performance in the slider) to eliminate all strange behavior caused by the slider, by strange I mean something like the MHz is forced to run at the highest, or the MHz is unable to reach the highest and always leaves a few hundred MHz not being used. Or EPP isn't working as intended after setting it.

 

Thanks @hackness for all your sharing.

If temps can be kept under control:
Is it safe in the GS65 8SF - 2070 rtx to set the TDP in throttlestop to 50w instead of 45w? or 55w?
Will it overstrain the cpu or battery or power supply when GPU and CPU are running at full power?
Affecting its max lifespan?

I'm guessing it also depends a bit how much the screen brightness is set at, if there are many things plugged in using power from usb/thunderbolt?
Using external monitor and having screen off would probably negate a decent amount of draw? Any idea how many watts?
Thanks!

 

Hey guys, I have a weird issue. It seems that my timer resolutions on battery always drops to 0.997ms (and this only happen when the power slider is at the middle 2 bar i.e. better battery and better performance). When on AC (regardless of the slider position) or if on battery when the slider is all the way to the right (Max performance), the timer resolution is back to 15.621ms.

I have included the energy report and clockres64 printscreen. I looked at the report and couldnt find anything conclusive.

Would you guys have any idea what is going on or how to solve this? Thanks!

 

I disabled stuff in XTU, disabled core parking and used throttlestop to lock everything to 2.2GHz. Something is up. All my games are running with 20-25% lower FPS on an average with 1% lows going for an absolutely toss. Everything used to work fine at the same frequencies until before yesterday

PS: Another thing that I have noticed is that the CPU usage has also shot up to 80-90% during games. It used to be around 50-60% before.

 

Was the game bar stuff that came with the 1803 disabled too?

 

Wow this vBIOS is the truth.. Just after flashing improved everything a lot.. 1000+ pts more in Firestrike and games gained a lot of frames.. Thanks so much.. The trade off is slightly warmer temps but it's worth it!

 

If I were you i'd just start from scratch again.. Fresh Windows install and do it all over.. Hopefully you didn't invest too much time in system setup but it's almost not worth trying to figure it out... I had some BIOS settings screwing with my setup and I did the Optimize Bios defaults and everything was fixed for me.. Decided to stick with Throttlestop only as my tuning method.. End result is the same as what I got in the bios but easier to manage in Windows.

 

Not pushing or rushing anyone. Just bumping this with hopes it does not get lost.

If anyone have similar experience or have an idea how to resolve it do let me know. I tried reading the thread and googling so far no luck

 

What about best battery mode? Is it back to 15.621ms or higher?

 

Specifically disabled the game bar now. FPS is much better. CPU is still at around 80% utilization but I'm getting 75-80FPS avg in all the titles with my previous settings. Thank you so much @hackness !

 

You could also try disabling the Geforce Experience Overlay (Or uninstall Geforce Experience altogether).

Slimming down your Nvidia drivers could also help, getting rid of all the telemetrie and other junk it comes with. (DDU current Driver in Windows Safe Mode, and install new drivers in safe mode with NVSlimmer)

You could also try to find out what process exactly is causing the high cpu utilisation while gaming. If it's the game itself, a recent update/patch might be the cause for it, in which case there's not much you can do.

A more agressive fan curve could also help keeping the GPU/CPU clock high.

 

You have a 230W adapter, shouldn't be a problem.

I believe that setting the TDP using ThrottleStop doesn't work even after you have set it.

What most of us did was adding an offset to the reported TDP so the CPU thinks it is still not reaching the 45W limit.

To find the unlock combination scroll down to the warning part in this link:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...trol-of-the-i7-8750h-advanced-version.823065/
Make sure you understand the possible risks written in the warning part.

Go to this link to add an offset of -31.99W to the reported wattage:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...-advanced-version.823065/page-4#post-10810657

The real bad thing about the type of the battery used inside the GS series is that if you are often draining the battery at a wattage of 40W+, you might face the fact it gets swollen by a really high chance few months after. So the GS series really isn't meant for any type of CPU + GPU app when not plugged in.

It should be fine as long you only run those app in AC power mode.

Not sure about this, maybe someone can provide an answer.

 

Yup on best battery mode its back to 15.621ms. So it only happens in the better battery or better performance mode.

 

Are there versions of this laptop that have a 2060 but also a NVMe drive larger than 256GB? Pretty much everything I'm finding is 256GB, which is kind of ridiculous when a 500GB drive is only $150.

 

The best buy version is a 512GB, but slower drive and Intel wifi. I'm not sure if there's a 9gen CPU coming out for that version

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/msi-15...with-gold-diamond-cut/6321439.p?skuId=6321439


Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk

 

It’s still an NVME drive though. Sorry for the blurry picture.



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@xLima Does the 90W bios for the 2060 show noticeable performance? Also is the 180 watt power supply enough for this. Thanks!

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk

 

Yes and yes. Very noticeable improvement in benchmarks. I maintain charge (%) while running benchmarks, it would be good if someone could back up this claim with real world use scenario. I haven't tested games yet as I haven't had time.

Sent from my BLA-L09 using Tapatalk

 

My laptop loses about 5% every 2 hours or so when gaming even on the stock 80w bios. It's not a big deal for me but it does discharge.

 

So, this is a new GS65 bought from Best buy and it is bowed. Is this normal for these GS65's? It just doesn't seem like a new $2k laptop should be bowing like this.

 

Thanks for this, will try longer test, maybe just loop FFXV or Tomb Raider benchmarks. Over and over and watch for deletion.

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Mine is bowed in the other direction. It also creeks near the power button. Meh.

 

Edit: Also Nahimic settings actually work great when connected to Bluetooth speakers, however it does nothing for headphones plugged in? Any idea how to make it work for them?


Thanks @hackness

Very good to know about the battery!

Your right I wasn't testing it long enough, the TDP change in TPL does work but there is still a hard throttle at around the default 28 second or so mark so it is only an illusion. Thanks for the advice how to do it right.

I seem to not need it because the temps get up to 90 anywhere above 37 turbo, so unless I do repaste one day I'll stay happy with the 6 core 36 turbo and the rest at 41.

I did some testing with my Kill-A-Watt meter (very useful device by the way!) and connecting 2nd monitor and turning screen off shows (whether bright windows or dark open)
10w at full brightness
7w at mid brightness
5w at lowest brightness
~deviation of +/- 1 watt

For the keyboard lighting from max brightness to no brightness is hard to track but it seems to be around 0.4w

At idle sitting here with a browser, 10 tabs, mid screen brightness, and nothing else except taskbar programs, its drawing around a meager 18 watts!

In Warframe with max settings and an intensive battle (cpu/gpu temps near max so not much more room to go above without repasting).. it runs around 160 watts. Don't have any newer games to test with.


Regarding cooling pads:
Hopefully helps someone out there.
These units really need some extra cooling when your gaming/rendering, or at MINIMUM raising the back a bit to allow extra air draw.
I plugged in a few pads at a store.. thermaltake and coolermaster but for the price and reviews they didn't seem a good value. Read many online and amazon reviews, all pointing to the lack of quality/durability...
I ordered a decently reviewed $25 one and it was okay except one rear fan (where its needed the most) made a noise that was really irritating.. so I ended up landing on going for a quality fan and separate portable stand combo. Go for aluminum stand not plastic. For fans AC infinity stands behind their fans, which have a 7.5 year rated lifespan. Vs many cooling pad reviews giving 3-12 month lifespans..

A bonus of running external fans is that you can set your first two cpu fan curve settings at 0. The fans linked below stood up facing the bottom of my device while its raised on the stand keeps it cool enough during non-intensive use that the fan's never come on and it is more silent than the internal fans are on low.

Stand: https://www.amazon.com/Adjustable-Universal-Ergonomic-Aluminium-Ventilated/dp/B07MSDNGNL/
Fans: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00JLV4BWC/

 

Yeah return it ASAP. Is that rtx model?

 

Yes, its the RTX 2060 model.

 

Alright, here's another newbee question from me: I see that F1/4/5/8/9/11 keys are "blank" on the keyboard--I assume I can assign these to trigger custom functions that I define. ...however, I can't seem to find the tool to do this on this laptop in dragon center/steel series engine/etc. . . searching the user manual and this forum hasn't helped--some posts mention a system control manager but this doesn't seem to be on this laptop . . . how do I assign user-defined functions to the blank function keys on the GS65?

Thanks,
N123

 

Nevermind your right I don't see it.. would be nice if they added it to the steelseries app.
FN-1 to 0 are available though.

 

yeah, maybe someone else on this forum knows how to do this . . . I would really like to customize the blank function keys to control media playback (play/pause, skip ahead, skip back, etc) . . . not having those keys as options is odd IMHO...

 

Could be the system just doing the battery health cycling? Mine seems to hold its charge but I’ve noticed it never really reaching 100% at times based on the battery health options you can set..

 

Thought I'd look through these forums as I've been testing the GS65 2060 model for the retail store I work at. In order to gain enough data for video coverage we're doing on different models, I came across an issue that could not be solved speaking with MSI directly. As it is for retail purposes, we need to keep the system as close to stock as possible, with only the allowance of the updated BIOS and firmware to try and alleviate any concerns.

In my testing (nearly two full weeks of back and forth before I found a result I was satisfied with) I discovered that stock configurations were yielding extremely poor results. Not to say the system wasn't up to snuff, as it was getting the job done, but it seemed like it never mattered what detail setting a game was set to - the performance variation was basically within margin of error. I wasn't even able to achieve better than 130fps in Overwatch on Low settings throughout multiple OS reloads, different power plan options, and with the new BIOS/firmware.

The only solution I found that actually "unlocked" the potential of this system (without vbios mods, etc.) was simply - adding another stick of RAM to the system. @Diversion you mentioned that you attempted an additional stick, and noticed no real performance benefits. Unless the test unit I have in my hands is just completely defective, then there is no way that is possible. I've linked my results from all tests, averaged over 3-5 runs per quality settings (aside from the synthetics) to outline what adding another 16GB DDR4 2666Mhz stick did for this machine. On top of that, I was testing this alongside a 17" ASUS Scar II with the "same" configuration, seeing the same types of results across both machines.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ktCIRlXXgqyQvJTze6T8zyj-C5v5HjY-sCoeyYqVdz0/edit?usp=sharing

If anyone else has experienced this, please speak up!

 

Could be that, not sure, I would have to see if it'll go any lower than 90-95%

I did get a HUGE boost by going to dual channel and a decent additional boost by overclocking RAM. Another thing I noticed recently as well is that disabling geforce experience overlays/highlights, will give you a 5-10 fps boost in some cases (as well as better benchmarks)

 

Like I said, the goal of the video overview would be to provide viewers detailed metrics of the system at stock, or with nominal upgrades (16GB DIMMs have dropped considerably). Unfortunately that means overclocking and BIOS tweaking need to be left out of the equation, as it would not reflect the majority of the consumer base. My issue with the results before going dual channel, is that there is little performance variance to substantiate the quality changes across the board. Tough to make a video when the FPS spread between Low and Ultra is only 7fps

I was already aware of the performance bottleneck with single vs. dual channel - but I was not prepared for those kind of results. $160 (CAD) basically gets you an entirely new system compared to stock.

 

for those wondering if its worth it to go dual channel my FPS in PUBG went from 70-80 to 120-140 with the addition of a second stick of ram.

other games saw 30-40 fps improvements. This is with the 2060.

Should have done a bit more research before buying this laptop :/

 

What exactly do the new(ish) EC and BIOS do?

 

From my testing, they did offer a 2-4fps gain in most titles after updating, but outside of "Improve System Stability" as mentioned in the notes, I really couldn't see a difference. When I spoke with MSI directly about my performance concerns pre-dual channel, they suggested this may be the root cause of why their system "at stock" was able to achieve 200fps on Low in Overwatch, and I could barely keep a steady 130fps. I noted that at stock, the "Balanced" power plan (default) knee-capped the processor every time I would run a full screen application, forcing it to lock itself below 2950Mhz core speed, regardless of temperatures. Changing it to High Performance instead did unlock the processor, so to speak, as it was now able to maintain 3.2-3.9Ghz throughout testing. The BIOS/EC were MSI's answer to this question - but it effectively did nothing for me, as my results were still far below their quoted performance. Balanced settings still locked the processor to an abysmal speed, under utilized and well below thermal threshold after the updates as well.

I will give MSI props, however, as they actually had a technician sit down and run through Overwatch to compare my results, though I now suspect they were using a different model/configuration, or they were running around in the practice range with nothing going on.

 

Is this machine sensitive to ram speed? I figured since it had a dGPU, that wasn't the case but all this talk about ram is making me wonder. I took out the stock 16gb 2666 stick and put in matching sticks @ 32gb of 2400 cas 15 ram. Now ya'll are creating an itch to swap the ram back to the 2666 stick since I just bought a matching pair that was going to go into a NUC. Those who OC'd the stock 2666 ram, what did you get it to?

 

I didn't try to OC the stock RAM, but I'm currently running 2x8 Gb HyperX 2666 CL15 @ 3000 17-19-19-37 1.25v and it's super stable. Tried 3200 but I had to increase voltage to 1.4v, which was too high imo. I'd say performance increase from that OC is around 5%

 

Yeah, dual channel RAM makes a massive difference.

Regarding the BIOS/EC, I'm wondering how exactly they boost performance. Do they just increase the fan speeds? Anyone know?

 

Hello all, been lurking for a while researching possible laptops to replace my old one and will be placing an order for a 2080MQ from HID (LM+Fujipoly, 32GB RAM, 500GB + 1TB NVMe) soon. Just wanted to say thanks for all the information in this thread and the review comparisons to the previous gen GS65 because they've been incredibly helpful.

 

Yeah 1.4v is a bit high for a laptop since there is almost no airflow over the ram sticks. Below 1.33v should be fine though.

 

Hey everyone.

I have been away for a while because I ended up sending in my laptop back to HID to have them check the LM pasting. I was getting throttling and high temps and asked them to look it over again.

After about 3 weeks of them looking at it, and discussions about Thermal Grizzly Conductonaut Liquid Metal vs IC Diamond, they suggested I go to IC Diamond due to me doing a lot of traveling and not having any issues with LM shifting over time.

For those of you interested in performance of LM vs IC Diamond, I have some comparisons that I created and they are quite interesting.

There are two screenshots attached, one with Aida64 in March (Grizzly) and today (IC Diamond).

What you will notice is that LM takes a lot longer for it to start throttling and the clock settles around 3.4GHz. For IC Diamond, throttling and temps are much faster and the clock settles at 3.1GHz. Notice also that the CPU package voltage in the IC Diamond is 40 whereas in Grizzly, it is 44.

In both cases the CPU hits 92C and levels off there.

That said, however, what is very strange is that in a gaming situation (Assassins Creed to be exact), my FPS went up with IC Diamond! With Grizzly, I was getting 42-49 FPS 1920x1080 / Ultra Quality / GForce Optimized, but with the IC Diamond at 1920x1200 / Ultra Quality / GForce Optimized, I am getting 56-62 FPS. (switched monitors between the March tests and today).

I am a bit stumped as to why my FPS is better when everything points to it not being....

Going to play a little more, but thought this was interesting to see between the two different pastes.

 

One other note of interest in Grizzly vs IC Diamond:

I still don't like the idea of the laptop hitting 92C for extended duration. So I tried out my "No Boost" power plan with IC Diamond. I am still getting faster FPS in Assassins Creed (53-58 FPS) than with Grizzly, but my temperatures are now actually cooler (hmmmm...)

In my previous post: http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...cussions-lounge.827160/page-105#post-10881259

I switch to No Boost for Witcher and Assasins Creed and can game all day and keep temps low, with no throttling.
...
Now my GS65 is cool and fast with no throttling! Max temp during intensive gaming...87C...with a nominal temp of 77-79C. Fans are not roaring either.​

I am getting a nominal temps of 74C with IC Diamond.

Perhaps the thermal profile of IC Diamond is better at lower temps??

Anyway, hope this helps anyone who is on the fence with LM vs Composite repaste.

 

Looking forward to a detailed experiment on this! Have your benchmarks improved?

 

woohoo so i just bought this laptop (yay), waiting for it to get delivered.
All my previous laptops only had 1 hole for headphones/speaker/earphones.
I noticed that this one has 2? 1 for headphones and 1 for mic?
Will I need to get an adapter of some sort because my headphones only have 1 plug?
Or can I just use the headphone jack for my headphones.
My headphones has a mic in it.

 

Anything in particular you are looking for? I don't have a lot of saved benchmarks from the Grizzly except for what I posted here, but I do have a few notes.

It seems consistent for the few games I have tried that my FPS is higher; which I find very strange. But I will go through everything and see and then post my findings.

Let me know if you have something specific you would like to see.

 

Yes, you can get adapters. They are basically what is used for desktops because they are typically split on the audio cards.

Haven't tried myself, but something like this might work: https://www.amazon.com/MillSO-3-5mm-Jack-Adapter-CTIA/dp/B071NDLCGC?ref_=fsclp_pl_dp_1

 

I have 32GB of b-die (HyperX 2666) and can't get it to post above 3200 18-20-20-40, regardless of how much voltage its given. 3000 won't post below cl16. Ultimately, the best speed/latency ratio I got was 2933@ 15-16-16-33 memtest stable at only 1.2v.

I'm reasonably confident you should get 2666 out of your sticks of 2400, or 2400 cl13. The main limiting factor is anyone's guess. It's not like there's a huge outcry for extreme performance SODIMMs. If there was, 3200 cl18 wouldn't be the fastest laptop ram available.