MSI GS70 Stealth Pro Theard

Can Xtoic swap the CPU out with a 4712 to address potential heat issues? Or is most of the heat coming from the GPU regardless?

 

Unfortunately the CPU's in these models are not removeable.

 

You can just change the TDP yourself of course. I doubt you will get any warranty disputes over running a lower TDP than stock lol.

 

I'm tossing up between this and the gs60 3k pro... Can I ask are the keyboards identical between the models? Because it looks like a lot of space a long the sides on the gs70?

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I'm excited after seeing your comment. I would buy it to be exactly my power PC and weekend gaming machine... My problem with the GT70 was that it's too bulky to carry around with two more books in the backpack, though it's a incredible laptop... Anyone knows if there is a size difference between the keyboard of GS60 and GS70?

 

See this video for your best choice :

MSI GS60 Ghost and GS70 Stealth Pro Gaming Laptops - YouTube

I have MSI GS70 Stealth pro , so satisfied after 1 week play games with it.

 

You will love the GS70. If I was a student or someone that had to carry my notebook around then I would definitely chose if over the GT70. I will say though I am very impressed with this GT70.

 

Thanks guys... Just a couple of weeks til I have my GS70. Does it make any difference between the 3gb and 6gb 870m versions? Like, when using 3 monitors?

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Can any GS70 owner (preferably the latest with 860m) tell me if the hard drives are divided into partitions? And which components can be replaced?

 

I got it replaced. Picked up my new GS70 Stealth Pro today. Ran some benchmarks as well, it seems to be doing well.

3dmark 11:
http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/8316370

Score: P6814

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 870M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-4700HQ,Micro-Star International Co., Ltd. MS-1772

FIRE STRIKE 1.1
4126 with NVIDIA GeForce GTX 870M(1x) and Intel Core i7-4700HQ
Graphics Score 4510
Physics Score 8485
Combined Score 1713

CLOUD GATE 1.1
15715 with NVIDIA GeForce GTX 870M(1x) and Intel Core i7-4700HQ
Graphics Score 30643
Physics Score 5810

ICE STORM 1.2
92120 with NVIDIA GeForce GTX 870M(1x) and Intel Core i7-4700HQ
Graphics Score 144390

 

Well, lowish compared to Mobile Graphics Cards - Benchmark List - NotebookCheck.net Tech

 

Er what?

FIRE STRIKE 1.1
Sneld's benchmark: 4510
Notebook benchmark: 4682

CLOUD GATE 1.1
Sneld's benchmark: 30643
Notebook benchmark: 29248

ICE STORM 1.2
Sneld benchmark: 144390
Notebook benchmark: 110152


So firestrike and cloud gate are basically the same... Ice Storm sneld's benchmark smashes notebooks.

 

Some benchmarks of StealthPro-212







Unboxing review video will be up soon.

 

Great, I'm looking forward to this one.
Even more appreciated would be a review of the Gigabyte P35G and especially P35W.

 

Ken, was the Fire Strike benchmark of 1175 using the Intel graphics card instead of the 870M? If so, do you have the 870M score? Thanks!

 

It was with GTX870M. I just forgot to click the drop down menu on GPUz when I took the screensot.

 

Thanks Ken. So that's strange... shouldn't the Fire Strike score be over 4000 or so? Isn't a score of 1000ish beyond awful? Or am I misunderstanding something?

A few posts back Sneld reported a score of 4126:
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 870M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-4700HQ,Micro-Star International Co., Ltd. MS-1772

Sneld's score seems consistent with what I'm seeing for the 870m card in general.

 

edited: nothing to see here

 

ModRQC: it would be brill if you could post a guide here to installing Win7 on this laptop at some point as you mentioned several pages back, I for one would really appreciate it.
MSI does appear to provide all the relevant drivers etc here:
MSI Global GS70 2PE Stealth Pro
But then on the same page says:" If the notebook you purchased has Win7 Bios installed, please DON'T attempt to update using Windows 8 bios (or vice versa). Failure to abide may result in bricking your system."
Doesn't mention a clean install, but it still scares me. Any help/info greatly appreciated as once I know Win7 can be installed on this hassle free I'll be buying one for deff.

 

You are right, an average gpu score should be around 4.5 - 4.7k. But could that have been the Fire Strike Extreme in contrast to the normally benched Standard setting...?

To be honest i wondered more about the 3dmark 11 score, which is often reported at about these 6.8k out of the box, BUT because of minimal throttling.
But as we can see, the maximum temperature on the gpu was 88 °C, which is a bit beyond nvidia's threshold for throttling. So there shouldn't have been any throttling that affected this benchmark?
With the undervolting mod and therefore eliminating any throttling, there are normally scores of ~7.3k (overall score) repored by most users...?

 

@ All owners of the MSI GS70 Stealth Pro (870m):
Are here some guys, who have already flashed their vBios (with Sen7inel's mod) and tested undervolting on the gpu (and maybe additionally on the cpu as well using XTU) so far?

Would be very appreciated to see some results regarding temperatures of course but as well as performance (fps) comparison between stock voltage vs undervolt. :thumbsup:
Fps should be a bit better with undervolting because of eliminated throttling...
Best for comparison would be integrated scripted game benchmarks, like can be found in titles like Metro LL, Tomb Raider, Bioshock, Hitman and so on and because of their listing min, max and average fps for best possible comparison.

 

I can try run the test again.

Also our video review is up:

 

Thanks! You skipped over the screen though. Is it still a TN panel? How does it look? That's the only thing that changed my mind about the GS70. The GS60 Pro's PLS panel sounds so much better.

 

Thanks Ken for the video review. Very informative!

I would like to ask the question again regarding the 3DMark 11, because it's kind of strange to me.

Anyone an idea, why the scores are slightly under undervolt levels, as it shouldn't have been throttling here because of the max temp of 89°C...?

 

Just got mine and have the same issue when loading Nvidia control pane/experience. Did you resolve?

 

Msi released a new bios today for the gs70. You guys might want to look in to it

 

Also, has anyone with a gs70 used Sen7inel's modified vbios? It seems to have worked wonders for the GS60 users so it would be good information if anyone with a GS70 has tried it.

 

Which MSI notebooks with 860m or 870m has a IPS screen?

 

I think the gs60 ghost pro might with it's 3k display... Not sure about the 1080p (non pro version). Pretty disappointing there are no good displays for 17" notebooks.

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This has to do with nvidia's boost logic, keeping gpu speed constant instead of 941~967 helps performance

 

Hey Sen7tinel,

I have a question about your undervolted vbios.

I assume you tested it with the gs60 870m with 3gb vram. The GS70 I have has the 870m with the 6gb vram. Does this mean that the chips are different so that your linked vbios will not work?

 

So the 870m doesn't hold it's max clock constantly and throttles minimal although the temps are under the thermal threshold?

 

No it just means that the manufacturer, in this case MSI, decided to double the VRAM. About Sen7inel vbios, well your card ID will match of course, but the BIOS version I have for my GS70 Pro (3GB version) doesn't match. sadly... Just open up GPU-Z to have a look at your ID, which will be the same, and at your BIOS version, which may not be the same. Refer yourself to the screen picture provided with Sen7inel guide, you can see the BIOS version of his vbios there. He says that both should be the exact same, so I'm guessing no vbios for me.

 

I've decided against it as some issues crept up with some of the utilities like SoundBlaster and SSE, even using those drivers MSI finally provided for Win 7. But if you don't care about SB and SSE and can manage to be happy with KLM to change your kb's lighting scheme (but no remap/macro), then all crucial drivers work fine. Even most of those for Win 8.1 do the job. So installing the OS is a very simple procedure.

All you have to do is make sure to turn OpRom to Legacy mode instead of UEFI in BIOS before installing.

The message you saw is about updating the BIOS. No need to do that if you don't encounter issues. Still if you want to do it, as I did, just use the utility and driver provided for Win 8.1 as your original BIOS is Win 8 version. Then afterwards you'll still be able to switch to legacy mode and install Windows 7.

But really, if you make sure that you've got the Update 1 following Win 8.1, and tweak some settings as to make it more appealing, it is as easy to use as Win 7, but a far more potent OS. I wouldn't advise Win 7 over Win 8.1 for this laptop.

Look into this - MSI does provide the choice of using Apps view instead of Start, and booting to Desktop. This guide will help you configure the rest so it's much more non-touch, desktop, win 7 friendly, so to speak. What I hated about the older Win 8 was how badly integrated the desktop and graphical layout were. That's gone in Win 8.1.

http://www.computershopper.com/feature/windows-8.1-guide-25-tips-and-tricks/(page)/3#review-section

 

Ah, yes, and I would have a question for you about the vbios...

There's a third file (on top of the two modded vbios) in the archive you posted for the GS70, not there in the original GS60 archive you first posted in the Ghost thread. It's called GK104UP.rom, and I'm wondering what it is about...?

I'm the type of guy that's willing to brick a 2000$ laptop to try out things, really... but things must be clearly explained, and odd things particularly rise my eyebrow... Is it for updating the original vbios BEFORE flashing the modded version? Is it a mistake? An option?

 

Kepler version of the 860M might give a little less performance than the 770M, depending on the gameload. But nothing really noticeable, we're talking about 1-2fps probably. It will certainly be cooler, with about -35W TDP compared to the 100W 870M.

Throttling issues ARE real as for the Pro versions, but if you reduce settings a little bit it might help alleviate the problem... but it's sad, given that the 870M should usually max out many games, that instead see it throttling with the GS...

Hence why I'm dangerously interested in the modded vbios... but first I'll try the good old hard way about things... that is, to disassemble this thing, and replace stock compound with CoolLaboratory Pro. I've seen it work wonders on some old DV7 I had at some point that was having heavy overheating issues of the CPU, GPU, and chipset. GS70's cooling system is much more efficient than the DV7 single fan was, though, so I suspect it won't yield as much of a lower temp there... but I only need a couple of degrees to have the GPU running full clocks in pretty much all situations. I still find this less invasive than flashing a custom bios, and would have done it over a period of time anyway, so why not right now.

Or more specifically, when I'll receive that second X110 I just ordered...

Gamers looking at this should know... this is NOT a desktop replacement, it won't play nicely with maxed out games over a LONG period of time. BUT if a portable use is intended, if throttle is minimal, as in my case (I do see 93C, and the dreaded 437MHz throttling, but only for 1-2 seconds at a time mostly, I would say 90% of my gaming so far was full clocks), and if gaming sessions are rarely over an hour in your typical use and available time to play, as in my case, then it's really not so BAD an issue... and I'm sure something along the road will work to lower temps a little bit and help me recover full performance... repaste or modded vbios or whatever, I'll find a way that doesn't force me to use a cooling mat... which doesn't seem to do much good from what I've read, anyway.

My two cents about this...

 

I noticed that third file as well and I assumed it was the default vbios he was given to modify and create his undervolted ones.

It seems like the vbios flash is the best way to optimize the performance for this laptop because it also holds a steady max boost speed unlike the default bios, while also reducing temps. But I would also like some clarification on your question about the bios version compatibilities before daring to perform the flash.

 

A very good assumption indeed; I went with less likely options as those are what's worrying me.

I'm not too much bothered by the "erratic" core clock, in my case it's pretty much stable, I start seeing 875MHz when going over 90C, and half clock when going up to 93C, but even there it's not erratic, just scaling according to temp and power draw at the time. Clocks are MUCH more erratic on my desktop GTX 780.

Ideally I would like it to top at 85C . In a real world strategy I'm just hoping a repaste will keep temps level to 90C more or less, and avoid the 93C heavy throttling point. That's what MSI should have ensured in the first place when building this. Would we really care if the Pro versions were a full inch thick (that's a big 4mm thicker...) and a couple ounces heavier at worst? Leave it to the non Pro versions to enforce the "most thinnest, lightest gaming notebook" part, and have that 870M breathe a little more fresh air in the Pro versions, seems to me like a good balance of products. Anyway...

Also looking at Svet's option over MSI HQ Users to Users forums... his vbios flash tool just gave full support for the 860M... The 870M is likely to follow anytime soon. It will allow for many more options to try keep things tidy without loosing real world performance.

 

Trying to play CS:GO, but after a while when the laptop gets hot, it keeps freezing. Not sure what happened as it was running fine before. Can anyone help me out? GPU temps were up towards 92C if that matters.

 

I agree with this, I've had my GS70 Pro (870M 3Gb version) for about a month now, and I don't think it performs as well as a similarly configured desktop replacement. BUT it does still offer great performance for the form factor.

After accepting that the machine will throttle sometimes, I started playing with different setting, and have decided on the following setup that I find works well for me and I am very happy with what I get.

Using MSI Afterburner I have...

Set max GPU Temp to 85 degrees - I know the GPU is rated for higher temp, but still can't help in thinking that running constantly at 93 degrees can't be good for long term reliability
Set max FPS to 50fps - For me setting a limit to the fps and still running games at max settings gives me the best experience (But know others may prefer lower settings and higher fps)

My question would be, after applying the above settings would the 860M version given me the same performance ?

 

Someone please answer me this. How hot does your GS70 with 870m get during hour gaming?
I am planning to buy the MS GS70 with a 860m or 870m. Ive heard that the 860m (maxwell) gets really hot above 85 degrees. How much more degrees will 870m go beyond that which in case will limit the GS70 lifespan?
I think the GS70 with 860m is the safer buy in the long run.

 

Hi by default mine often hits 93 Degrees, often it coincidences with a high fps hence I've put on the restrictions in previous post (Max temp 85 and max fps 50fps). Not sure why it is but my fps would increase while not doing much (e.g during crafting in eso) adding the restrictions meant that i'd just sit at 50 fps, and instead of the fps rising when I was idle, the fps would stick a 50 and the GPU speed would decrease, giving the GPU a chance to cool down.


Unfortunately I can't compare it to the 860M version, I'd also love to see a comparison in temps.

 

ModRQC: thanks so much for taking the time to post with all the invaluable Win7 info, it really is genuinely appreciated.

 

Seems like reasonable settings to me.. Run it through 3d mark so we can compare

 

Is that a sound logic? I would have thought that the GPU worked less to output high FPS.: the less the GPU needs to draw on screen, the higher the FPS. In return the temps should be going down since the GPU is less taxed when drawing less on screen (at a higher FPS)

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What tool are you using for regulating the fps and temperature of the GPU?

 

Ok, I was going to flash the vbios update but I got to the very end and my versions are different, which scared me. What is wrong? I reallllllyyyy want to flash this update, I'm having so much throttling problems in wow making me stutter step and crap.

EDIT: Ok I read it was ok to flash it so I went ahead. Now I used the -75.rom version for the gs70 and it does take longer to get to 93C but it gets there in about 5 mins and then I'm down clocking again. Is it possible to try a lower voltage one like a -100?

 

Hi,

Still trying to justify(to myself) on getting the 870m version over the 860m version

I've run 3dmark and got similar results to others... Standard settings

Then I ran with my happy running mode of gpu max = 85 degrees and FPS max= 49.9FPS (Set via afterburner) ..... Modified settings.


The first is below what you would be normal for a 870M, but I think in line with what to expect from the GS70 870M

The second is below what you would normally get for a 860M, so I'm a bit on the fence as to the question "if temps are the limiting factor what gives better performance the 860m or 870m". But then having the 870m does still give the option of running at the higher temps with higher performance when needed.

Note by default fire strike runs for only 30 seconds and it can take 15-20 seconds for the laptop to reach max temp during the benchmark.

Not yet got the courage to try changing the vBIOS.

 

Yeah I didn't put too much faith in that vBios to start with - although I had hope. We have a card here that by itself is a power fiend, no matter how much undervoltage it's running stable, what's capping us is insufficient cooling.

I really appreciate that you guys took the time to try out things and report back. You've given me a new focus as to going about it the hard way - disassemble and repaste with liquid metal. I'm not entirely sure it will help neither. But I tried at first to prop the laptop up, and it didn't help a thing. I've read a couple of posts here and there about cooling mats not helping much neither. And now I know that the vbios at best will not make the necessary difference to completely avoid thermal throttling. All these things might delay the throttling point, but we still get there fast in the end.

Only difference I know for sure exists is what it takes, or how much time it takes, for each of us to get there. That comforts me into thinking I must address the problem from the insides - where obviously either build quality or thermal compound application varies greatly enough to create this difference. Nothing I can do for the former, but the latter...

Additionnal X110 I ordered just shipped this morning and should be home this afternoon, giving me a good pretext to get in there again, but I won't have time to deal with it tonight. After which I'll have to work two 12-hours shifts thursday and friday. And then, off saturday, and with a little luck the kids will be out to camping with stepmom, wife will be out to work, and I'll be entirely alone for the whole day. Ideally I'll be able to post back saturday night and give you results. Here's me hoping MSI didn't use some kind of polished aluminum pads underneath the heatsinks... CoolLaboratory Pro is known for eating through aluminum in a matter of weeks, and I know normal high quality paste won't change a single thing, outside of delaying throttling a little further.

 

Good news : had the time to disassemble today. Pics tonight when I get the time - tomorrow night at worst.

Other "good" news : thermal paste application on my unit is sh***y, it's already all dried up and applied in way too much quantity... If other units are like this, there's NO way a repaste will not at least help a little bit, even with normal quality paste. AND the undersides of the heatsinks are bare copper, which allows for metal liquid like the CLP.

Final good news : it's easy and quite straightforward to get there, and you don't need to disassemble the LCD screen at all. A couple points of confusion may appear that I'll clear up in my next posts.