UPDATE: Do NOT install bios 1.07. It throttles the RTX 3070 to 70w instead of 80w. I sent detailed video to MSI showcasing this as well as the MIC squeal. Their suggestions for fan noise reduction at idle is to run the system in Silent Mode so that is about as far as we’ll get with that. I’ll update this once I have solutions or answers. It’s the Chinese new year right now so getting these things handled is going to take a few weeks.
also updating to the new bios removes the ability to undervolt the device any more if one chooses to. im currently using the new 2021 gs66 without the update and after a decent undervolt everything runs at the perfect settings id want. im just afraid some how msi would force an update on me to update my bios
Weird to see a reviewer that doesn't claim every new incremental spec bump is A TOTAL GAME CHANGER. Value and thermal/ acoustic livability are incredibly important with laptops and so rarely covered.
This review covers everything, amazing work Bob. The cinematography looks great too, major progress there! Also who designs a gaming laptop with headphone jack on the right? Lmao
The GS66 is definitely the dream upgrade. That triple fan cooler is sweet and it's just a really well designed rig. Looks super is to upgrade or maintain too.
@@tuffany6392 I'm definitively mad at the ASUS for taking out the webcam, but then I realised that I barely ever use it, and that videochat on my smartphone is way better since the camera and microphone are above the quality of any laptop in existence. Plus, the G15 has way better specs and a better price than the GS66.
Agreed, at least you get something for the premium price you pay - 6 speaker set up (compared to 2 up firing speakers here). qhd 165hz 100% dci-p3 display (much better than 300hz fhd), larger trackpad (this has useless wide trackpad), efficient ryzen chips, 200g lighter, better battery life ,and 100w type c charging
I have a MSI laptop GE75 (8759H/GTX1070). I'd like to thank you personally that you helped me with your videos to successfully repaste, undervolting my CPU and GPU and fine tuning this. I have now the best performance of my laptop thanks to you, your hard work and the detailed explanation straight upto the point. Your voice makes me relaxing, your knowledge is outstanding. I really surprised why this channel have not as many subs as it deserves and hope that you keep up the hard work, knowing that having a family and a job it is much more difficult to spend many times making research and preparing your videos. Your channel is one of the best tech channels in YT. I wish you all the best.
@@lavs8696 not sure how it compares to other gaming laptops, but they are noisy (but I'm comparing it to Surface Book which was totally silent). Also compared it to my older Entroware linux laptop, and GS is way less noisy than it for example ;) Until you're not enabling cooler boost (max fans speed) it's not that annoying imho.
@@lavs8696 just to let you know, like, it's not something that will wake up your kid or something, but it's definitely not 100% silent like fanless slim laptops
@@lukaszkups ya i figured as much, but I'm going to be bringing this to school and public places so I'd prefer a quieter laptop don't want to be the guy bringing a jet engine to class 😂 was just looking at finding best value and nicest screen (60hz can get annoying even when you're not gaming) and gaming laptops can be decent at that, but honestly these GPUs are just overkill for what games I would play. I'm looking at the P or T series in thinkpad instead I think those will fit my needs.
Started listening to the Web Cam/Mic section..... Ears started wondering what that sound was... Sound wasn't stopping... I go to my trackpad as fast as i can and literally skip ahead and literally the next words are... " I know, you probably already fast forwarded by now..." LOL You clearly knew what we were in for haha.
I cannot believe these issues remain in a 2021 laptop. When we are going to see decent audio, brighter screens (with at least 100% sRGB) and my god the webcam noise... i thought i was in an industrial line for a moment. This laptop or at least this unit has to deal with better quality testing before it leaves the factory. Anyway... great review as always Bob!
New subscriber due to this video. I really appreciate all of the extra technical details. I follow some reviewers who put more focus on aesthetics, so it was nice to find someone who went into greater detail on performance.
I didn't know you existed, but RU-vid recommended you and I watched a few videos. I like what you do, subscribed and added a thumb! Thanks for your content!
zPC tek nice job a quality build Gs66 its gonna be tuff without the MaX Q labels to know what is and is not a full version mobile GPU and not a gimped version..Thank God for this channel Bob of of all trades that can tell you the real performance thermals wattage and price to the dollar value..Bob knows laptops. Great video and impressive numbers ..the Dynamic boost seems to be a move by nvidia to move gpus in all variants without having the average consumer or sales person knowing which is the less powerful gpu..Thanks for keeping us informed brother God Bless. PS Mux is as must people listen to Bob the best way to switch graphics on the fly and save battery or get performance.
The Ryzen CPUs in these laptops are just overhyped. Clearly you don't own one. Got rid of a Ryzen 9 for an i7-10875H. Best decision I ever made. Ryzen is where it's at for desktops... not mobile CPUs or GPUs.
Glad to see that the trackpad is made of glass! I think (being a TOTAL noob) glass trackpads provide a MUCH better performance than plastic. Am I wrong? All can answer....
For the enthusiast, MSI has a separate "Silent Option" program for download. It gives the option to bring the fan speed to zero rpm at low temperatures (such as below 50C). I use it on my GS73vr and just delete the dragon center bloatware and the customized clean experience is much better. Out of the box, the MSI experience is pretty terrible (it took me 4 years to get the CPU C-states to properly go down to C8 from being stuck on C3).
GS66 now comes with a 240hz QHD G-Sync model. Would be great if you got your hands on that. To my knowledge this is an MSI and Razer exclusive and isn’t available on other OEMs
Cooling pads are key for gaming laptops. Especially the compact ones like zephyrus g14. I just ordered the 3070 aorus 15g, hopefully it suits me well so I can sell that g14....I’ll miss that sexy build though.
MuxTheWorld that little switch os more important than ever now with the RTX 3000 series... Bob thanks for the pearls of wisdom priceless insight for laptop enthusiasts like me who wanna get the most mileage out of a gaming laptop. I will try to make sure a Mux is in my next laptop. That 3070 mobile gpu is looking good but the whole shady Nvdia Dynamic boost rtx mobile gpu is def marketing shenanigans to not have buyers pass on less powerful variants no more MaX Q gripes. The Gs66 is very nice laptop when properly cooled and loaded to the hilt. Great teardown/ breakdown and no one does them better than Bob of all trades this guy tears em down and tweaks em up plus hes a gamer too so he knows how we expect games to run on our laptops take notes. Informative video awesome presentation brother God Bless.
Hey Bob! For the Aida64 test at the start, that is a huge difference in CPU clock speed and temps between yours and zTecpc. Do you know if both of the laptops were running the same power limits? That could the cause of the differences there.
There’s definitely something going on. The software wasn’t really doing much to control anything but now I’ve installed the latest bios, wiped the machine, and reinstalled everything. I’ll retest this weekend. MSI contacted me about the fan noise so I’ll be working on this as well.
The 2020 GS's have a prominent tone problem @ 1kHz, when fan speeds are near their slowest SpL output. In blower mode, that 'peak' gets masked or drown out. Like your reviews but just following the 'usual' sound meter trap used by most doesn't get to the sound quality aspects, important to users who content create & game on laptops. I'd suggest that you do some spectrum captures, with a phone app at the very least. Those spectrum plots give a visual reference of the 'sound profile' and helps to define areas of annoyance in the audible range of hearing.
It’s not like I just glossed over the fan acoustics. In fact, not only did I talk about the weird noise, demonstrated it, but also contact MSI about it and sent them separate video footage explaining the issue so it could be addressed.
Oh yeah msi paste job can be random like a lot of manufacturers, after repeating the ge66 3070 laptop I had the cpu stopped reaching 91 c on 2 cores and now sits around 80 max on all if the cpu pulls 50 with the gpu at 130. Huge difference.
How does the backslash key work above the return enter? I can see there another one next to the ALT GR! Being from the UK, I'm used to an ISO style keyboard and was wondering if the backslash key above the enter could be combined to create a single large return key!!?
Hi Bob, great video as always! Have you tried undervolting this machine? I have the GE66/3070/i7-10750H and am unable to undervolt despite unlocking the overclocking menu in the MSI advanced BIOS (R-CTRL+R-Shift+L-Alt+F2 and then enabling overclocking and XTU interface). No matter what I do, editing the core voltage offset remains unavailable in XTU. I wonder if I'm doing something wrong, or if it's been purposely locked down on these new 3000 series machines, or in latest versions of XTU?
Hey Bob! Great review as always. I had a question regarding the RTX 3070. Can we undervolt the GPU to get more clock speed at the same stock power limit of 80 to 95 watts? I'm considering to getting an Zephyrus G15 3070. Waiting for your review!
I haven’t had much luck yet. Dynamic boost still wants to do its thing. I haven’t tried since the day I talked about Dynamic Boost within its own video.
@@BobOfAllTrades Thank you for the quick reply man! Looks like this GPU generation is gonna bring a lot of trial n error for people who wanna do this stuff. Lets hope theres some way to do it.
So I have a question, I have a 3060 (gs66) and I noticed the cpu temps do run in the 90s is that something to be worried about? Also what fan mode should I be using for best temps and performance?
I'm so conflicted on the 30 series. Hard pass on MSI for me, 10th gen intel at a premium, no thank you. I might have talked myself into a Max 15 3080 16gb if it hits amazon for 2500, which theyd configure it with 5800H, we'll see where it's at when the legion 5 pro comes out and if that uses a full wattage 3070.
Great review! Congrats on the new channel logo-icon. Love how unbiased your reviews are unlike some other channels that are most often sponsored. You just speak exactly what you feel about it, respect! Also you helped me make the decision to buy hp omen 17 with 2080super two months ago and i have no regrets. Just wish i could switch the intel cpu with amd, but with a bit of undervolting and some other tweaks (again from your video guides) it runs great! So thank you!
@@whoruslupercal1891 You can speculate but you're not sure. Why would they out a 90w 3070 in the A15 and 80w in G15? The g15 literally has a ton of cooling. It could even go over 90w if they wanted.
Here I am biting my nails scared to see the performance numbers. And looks like I'm safe. For now anyway. Maybe eluktronics will work their magic and push these suckers to 115w like they have in the past to give you the best all around performance. But looks like me and the x170 are safe for a awhile anyway. But, I'll be honest these laptops are so powerful that honestly for the kind of gaming I do I can easily see me moving to a thin and light when it's time to upgrade again.
We're seeing lots of 10870H because of 10875H supply issues due to low yields. My guess is these are just chips that didn't quite make the cut at the slightly higher clock speeds of the 10875H..
@@BobOfAllTrades That's good info. I've been really happy with the 10875H I've got, but it kind of irks me just a bit seeing these used so heavily where the 10875H was used in 2020 models. 100mhz isn't much but can create the perception of a downgrade to the consumer.
Amazing laptopt but I am starting to think MSI has a issue with the IPS panels. First MSI gs66 I got was sent back with 4 dead pixels in the first month. The second laptop (after Amazon refund me completely) another gs66 with 1 dead pixel after 1 week. I mean The story about unfortunate is not enough is not the answer. I have 6 screens where I am working at home considering pc's from me and my partners and at least 10 other screens/pc's in other studios at universtity, plus other dozens I checked and payed attention to dead pixels in other laboratories. There is no one I found with dead pixel and we are at about 20 screen checked. I don't know if it is assembling, or defect components but they have something. Older panels suffer less dead pixel than new generations too as far as I noticed. Don't know why. Any idea?
Hey I have a question this is the first time I’m getting a gaming lab top, I got the RTX 3070, is there anything special I should do right away when I get it?
I like the gs75 with the gold look do you guys think the better graphics card and screen is really that much different? I want to buy the gs75 for how it looks the best one I can get but I wonder how much better these news ones are im a novice when it comes to this stuff
Hi, today i have received my unit, but i noticed that the power button feels harder to press than others, so i though that its intentionally done to avoid pressing by mistake, but i would like to know if your unit have the same.
i wonder why these factories or intel get rid of that stock paste and get the better paste to make thermals better like honestly out of everything they do to build a computer thermal paste cant be that expensive lol
Almost a perfect substitute for razer but damn those mic placements must be near the fans to still pick it up at silent mode. This is just another another MSI laptop and it is such a disappointment.
Looks like a lot of poor performance from stock thermal pastes. My Aero 15 YD 11980HK has a 20 degree differential when running Cinebench R23. As soon as one core hits 90 degree thermal throttling limit, the entire chip will throttle. Thermal throttling caps the frequency at 3600mhz for all cores.
@@BobOfAllTrades It's like what they did with the 10980HK vs the 10885H, a sort of public silicon lottery if you like... a slightly worse quality part becomes a slightly lower tier product
Hey, wanted to ask about the CPU spikes, I have a new HP Omen 17, same chassis you reviewed with the 2080S but I got the 2070S, wanted to ask if those spikes are alright, mine spikes up to 100°C but during stress tests or heavy gaming it averages 80-85°C with those spikes being pretty rare, not sure what I should do
The high “spike” is the short term power limit. That’s how Intel chips are setup so they feel snappy when executing tasks such as opening a website or a file.
@@BobOfAllTrades Thanks for the reply, I changed the PL2 to 45W just to test it and this still happens, in stress tests for instance it hits a high peak temp for a few seconds then it goes back to 80°C for the rest of the run without the laptop heavily throttling, so I'm a bit confused on why this happens, I would be happy if those peaks weren't really hit as the average temperature is really nice and the laptop is very good otherwise
@@BobOfAllTrades I used Hwmonitor to monitor the wattage and it didn't pass 45W and fans wise I'm using the laptop in the default profile in the Omen Hub
So Dynamic boost is more for stable thermal performance but not to get max CPU and GPU performance at same time. Sad Eluktronics doesnt offer Eluktroboost anymore. Only the Ryzen CPUs is an improvement purely looking at gaming performance. Thanks hope AMD can offer something better.
Based on the last few years of information I’ve gathered, I’m wondering if Eluktroboost was just a Dynamic Boost exploit that they figured out how to capitalize on. Because in the early days this was meant to be kept very low-key as they were afraid Nvidia was going to shut them down.
@@BobOfAllTrades but they must have been doing something genius to get that boost hardware wise. I do know in NVIDIA notebook drivers there was an additional boost functionality. I'm happy though that Eluktronics / XMG laptops does seem to pull around 125W without dynamic boost. 80-90W is too low except you prefer lower thermals and dont need more performance.
MSI probably didn't care much about the noise isolation on the built-in mic since they already know most people who are concerned about that stuff probably have RTX voice already enabled, since it works great
