The MSI GE63 Raider RGB 8RF is a pretty powerful gaming laptop, but higher end hardware usually
means higher temperatures and throttling, so let’s take a close look at performance,
see if there are any problems and what can be done to improve gaming performance.
In my configuration here I’ve got the Intel i7-8750H CPU with Nvidia 1070 graphics, and
that’s the full 1070, no Max-Q here, so we’ve got a pretty well specced gaming laptop.
Thermal testing was completed with an ambient room temperature of 18 degrees celcius, so
expect warmer temperatures in a warmer environment.
Starting at the bottom of the graph, at idle the temperatures are a little warm shown by
the light blue bars, even though the fan was still audible, as you’ll hear soon.
Moving up to the green bar I was testing gaming by playing Watch Dogs 2 as it uses a good
combination of CPU and GPU, and this gave us the highest temperatures while gaming.
By maxing out the fan in the yellow bar we’re able to drop down a few degrees, and by applying
a -0.150v undervolt to the CPU shown in orange even with the fans at default speeds we’re
seeing a nice drop in temperatures.
By maxing out the fans with the same undervolt applied together, shown in the lighter red,
we’re seeing the coolest temperatures while gaming.
The stress tests were done by running Aida64 and the Heaven benchmark at the same time
in order to attempt to fully utilize both the processor and graphics.
Moving up in the graph and starting with the dark red bar there was a combination of thermal
throttling and power limit throttling on the CPU.
This continued regardless of undervolting and maxing out the fan, the temperature on
the CPU does drop back a little with undervolting applied, but there was still intermittent
power limit and thermal throttling in all CPU and GPU combined stress tests, even in
the best case of the fans maxed out with the undervolt applied together, and keep in mind
I’m testing in an 18 degree celsius room too.
These are the average clock speeds for the same temperature tests just shown.
Starting down the bottom with the green bar shows the results of playing Watch Dogs 2
at stock settings, which ran quite hot as we just saw.
By maxing out the fan the CPU clock speed rises a little as there’s slightly less
thermal throttling, but applying the -0.150v undervolt in orange made the largest difference,
almost getting us the full 3.9GHz all core turbo speed of the 8750H.
Moving up into the stress test results the clock speeds in the dark red bar are the lowest
due to a combination of power limit and thermal throttling, and this didn’t really change
with the fans maxed out.
Again the -0.150v undervolt to the CPU made the largest difference as this helped reduce
the power limit throttling taking place, shown in purple and dark blue, almost getting that
full 3.9GHz speed.
These are the clock speeds I got while just running CPU only stress tests without any
GPU load, and power limit throttling was still taking place at stock, although no thermal
throttling unless we also add on the GPU load.
With the -0.150v undervolt applied though we’re able to reach the full 3.9GHz all
core turbo speed of the i7-8750H CPU, and I’ll also note that it wasn’t possible
to change the power limit from the 45W TDP with Intel XTU.
To demonstrate how this translates into performance I’ve got some Cinebench CPU benchmarks here,
with the older 7th gen 7700HQ just there for comparison.
We’re able to improve the score by over 100 points by applying the CPU undervolt,
and no real difference between either in terms of single core performance, as single core
alone isn’t enough to trigger power limit throttling.
Here are the GPU only clock speeds while under a graphical only stress test both at stock
and with a 220MHz GPU core overclock applied, but it’s worth noting that your CPU undervolting
and GPU overclocking results will vary between chips based on the silicon lottery.
So how does this performance boost actually translate in games?
In the games tested the exact same Windows updates, game updates and Nvidia drivers were
installed so there shouldn’t be any changes other than the CPU undervolting and graphics
overclocking.
The same -0.150v undervolt to the CPU was applied as before, along with a 220MHz GPU
core overclock and 400MHz GPU memory overclock.
Far Cry 5 was tested using the built in benchmark, the average frame rates were only just slightly
better, no real difference though, in fact the 1% lows were actually lower with these
changes in place.
CS:GO was tested with the Ulletical benchmark, and no real difference was observed, the biggest
change was at max settings where there was a 3% improvement to average frame rate, although
1% lows are up at all settings.
There wasn’t really much difference in games with the undervolt and GPU overclocks applied,
to be honest it doesn’t really seem worth bothering with in terms of increasing performance,
I guess it’s already fairly tapped out.
As for the external temperatures where you’ll actually be putting your hands, at idle the
body of the laptop is sitting in the mid 30s.
While gaming this increases to the high 40s towards the center and up the back, and then
there’s little change with the CPU and GPU stress tests running.
As for the fan noise produced by the laptop, I’ll let you have a listen to some of these
tests.
At idle it was a little louder than most other laptops with the fans still audible.
While gaming and under stress test it was about the same, not too different from most
other gaming laptops I’ve looked at, and then with the fan maxed out it was fairly
loud.
Overall the performance wasn’t as great as I was hoping for.
The 8750H almost always has these power limit throttling issues, that’s definitely not
something unique to this MSI laptop, however the thermal throttling was unexpected, generally
MSI laptops have pretty good cooling.
Thermal throttling out of the box even with the fans maxed out and the CPU undervolted
is a bit of an issue though, however as we’ve seen this could be improved although wasn’t
removed entirely.
Especially when you consider that my testing was done with an ambient room temperature
of 18 degrees celsius, so I’d expect even worse in summer.
At this point I’m not sure if there was just an issue with my unit or if this is simply
how they perform.
These differences in performance shown aren’t hard and fast rules, there are different factors
which will vary results, primarily the temperature you’re running in, application of thermal
paste, and even the specific hardware which comes down to the silicon lottery.
You may not be able to undervolt or overclock your hardware the same as me, it depends on
the chip and its specific power requirements, so don’t just blindly copy my settings and
do some testing to find out where your stable point is for best results.
While you could probably improve the temperatures by swapping out the thermal paste, that’s
not something I can test in a review unit.
If I go ahead and remove the stock thermal paste and replace my own, I can't put the
old paste back, so the next reviewer would experience something different from what you'd
actually see with the product and unknowingly report incorrect information due to what I’ve
done.
Undervolting and raising the fan speed on the other hand aren’t physically intrusive,
and as we've seen it did improve the performance and temperatures in this particular unit with
no downside once you’ve got a stable undervolt, and although this helped with temperatures
and improved our CPU performance it didn’t seem to make much difference in games.
Let me know how much of a performance boost you’ve found by undervolting your hardware
and what you thought of the improvements here, and don’t forget to subscribe for the full
review of the MSI GE63 Raider RGB 8RF gaming laptop, as well as future tech videos like
this one.