MSI GT75 8RG - quality of life questions

I have been lurking on these forums for some time, mainly to get info as I scope out a new gaming laptop. I really appreciate all of your informative posts, and have learned a lot by hanging out here.

I have my eye on the MSI GT75 8RG, as it seems to have great performance and good thermals even with stock paste. I do intend to do an undervolt, but would prefer not to fiddle with the TIM or pay for the same as a service. I would probably buy the i7-8750 version, or at a stretch the i7-8850 version, but not the i9 one.

The GT75 seems like a great machine, but I am a little concerned about the weight, bulk, and fan noise. I use my current, aging gaming laptop (Lenovo Y510p) on my lap on top of a Targus cooling pad as I loaf around on the sofa. The Y510P has a 15'6'' inch screen and weighs about 2,7 kg. The living room tends to be shared by my wife, who is likely to blow a gasket if she has to listen to jet-engine-takeoff levels of fan noise. Hence my questions:

a. Is the GT75 comfortably usable in the described manner? (i.e. considering the size and weight)
b. Can you get decent performance with an undervolt and stock paste without deafening fan noise?
c. Any ideas for mitigating point a.? A man cave is sadly not an option

Thanks in advance!

 

a) Yes
b) Yes, not necessary though, you have control of the fan speeds, for the CPU and GPU
c) Again, Yes, this can be used for gaming next to you wife without the fans causing her to smash the notebook on your head.
However ... You will want to use headphones as the unit can blast the sound out.

It keeps quite cool without 'Cooler Boost', only then does it sound like a vacuum cleaner, I have never used it.
Cooler Boost is 5200RPM x2.
I haven't touched the voltages, running stock configuration, only adjusted the fan settings.
FarCry 5, ULTRA, V-Sync ON, SMAA,
CPU @ 54°C 3200RPM
GPU @ 49°C 3000RPM


I have:
1x M.2 PCIE Samsung 250GB 970 EVO ( Operating System ONLY)
1x M.2 PCIE Samsung 500GB 970 EVO (Games and Video Editing)
1x M.2 SATA III Western Digital 1TB (Storage, Movies/Music/Pictures/Docs/Apps/Exe's/ Downloads)
1x 2.5" SATA III INTEL 480GB 525 SSD (Recovery/Backup/Windows ISO/Nexus Mod Manager Backup)

There is a huge passive heat sink for all 3 M.2's, temp when gaming doesn't go over 38°C.
Upgrade the thermal pad to 2mm high compression pads as it doesn't contact the m.2's evenly.

 

Thanks for the answers and the info - those do indeed sound like pretty awesome temps.

Can you provide a video link or similar for the M.2 heat sink thermal pad upgrade? I have pretty much zero experience of fiddling with laptop hardware, so any advice is appreciated. Furthermore, are the temps on the M.2:s high enough for the modification to be necessary? (i.e. affecting performance or lifetime of components)

Furthermore, can I ask which CPU model you have on your GT 75, and are you happy with it? Still weighing the benefits of 8750 vs 8850; the i9 is a no go for me due to crazy price in Finland and the hassle of dual power sources.

 

Your GT75 should provide good performance on anything you throw at it. There are a lot of tutorial on here that talks about various of mods available that you can use on your system, however some of the mods can be challenging but fun to do, and they may ever offer more performance. However, overclocking itself may cause system to fail to boot and in some cases you will need to reset the BIOS setting to bring it back.

 

You're buying it locally from India right?

If the local shops cannot do any thermal paste upgrades like Thermal Grizzly Conductonaut which is the best, then you can undervolt it by around -70mV and get the same performance while still being stable and not have very loud fans unless you are pushing it. Like in games there is no way around that, even with my -40mV undervolt and Thermal Grizzly Conductonaut TIM and Fujipoly Thermal Pads and bottom panel mod and cooling pad, still, while gaming, you will hear the fans spin up. There is no way around that not only in this laptop but in any high performance laptop. We have to be realistic here, you are using a 6 core CPU in a small laptop chassis so, you get the point.

 

You can use MSI Silent Option to adjust fan curves, without dealing with Dragon Center. Dragon Center causes power limit throttling by adjusting a hidden Bios setting endusers don't usually have access to.

One user actually got his bios CORRUPTED by Dragon Center (either on a GS65 or GP63), which caused "TDC" limit to be set to 640 instead of 0, limiting his CPU speed, even though he uninstalled Dragon Center and set it back to "0", even though he tried a CMOS Clear. He may have to wind up pulling the battery in his GS65.

Stock paste is going to run rather hot and also cause the fans to ramp up. You are better off looking at the GT75 forum section for a full disassembly video (but that author is a complete dumb person---he did NOT disconnect the battery--ALWAYS disconnect the battery AS SOON AS YOU OPEN THE BOTTOM COVER!!!!! ALWAYS!), and then doing a manual repaste with "Coolermaster Gel Maker Nano" thermal paste, which is a very good paste for these laptops--better than Kryonaut, which needs high pressure heatsinks. Also, removing the CPU VRM and CPU "choke" (large grey) thermal pads and replacing them with 0.5mm thermal pads will help reduce core temp differentials (DO NOT remove the thermal pads on the video card however).

 

Thanks for the responses guys!

I reconsidered what I want, and think Im going for a desktop instead. Can get great performance without having to worry about thermal/power constraints, plus more bang for my buck. I’m still holding off on benchmarks for the rtx gpus and maybe the launch of the new intel desktop processors before I buy.

Will return to laptop purchading when the lenovo gives up the ghost, but the desktop will be my main gaming rig.

Ps. Live in Finland, not India