The Best All-Rounder Laptop: MSI GS66 10SF Review
MSI GS66 10SF 2020 Review
Yesterday I had received the MSI GS66 from MSI themselves. They sent over a unit with an i7-10750H, 16GB's of DDR4-2666Mhz Ram, a 1TB NVMe SSD, with a Nvidia RTX 2070 (Max-Q). The Laptop features a 240Hz display, a SteelSeries Per-Key RGB Keyboard and a 99.9 WHr Battery. The GS66 does also include WiFi 6, Bluetooth 5.0 and a 720p Webcam. I'm very happy MSI chose to keep the webcam, especially when it's incredibly important during these times. This laptop is the updated variant of the MSI GS65, which I did in fact review back in November. Few revisions that were made in the GS66 include redesigned and sturdier hinges. The hinges were a huge problem with the GS65, I had encountered hinge problems twice with the GS65, which led me to try out the new GS66. Another revision that MSI made with the GS66 was flipping the motherboard. This might not seem like a big revision, but in reality, it truly is. Especially for enthusiasts who would like to upgrade their laptop, this is a big thing. The GS65 had the motherboard inverted, meaning that if you would like to upgrade storage or ram, entire disassembly would be required. The GS66 now allows you to upgrade storage and ram by only removing the back panel of the laptop, which is much better. My GS66 unit came with a 230w "Slim" Charging adapter, which in my opinion is extremely heavy and thick, but what would you expect when your laptop is packing a 2070.
Left Side I/O ( Power Jack, TB3, HDMI, Right Side I/O ( Headphone/Mic Combo Jack,
(x1) USB3, Battery Charging Indicator) TB3, (x2) USB3, and RJ45)
Booting up the laptop led to the usual Windows setup. The fans had already ramped up by then, and the laptop chassis was getting quite warm. However, this really didn't bother me as it quite typical for laptops to do that. When I reached the Windows desktop, the fans were extremely loud, the chassis was even hotter and battery life was reporting 2 hours at 85% left. I immediately downloaded ThrottleStop and MSI Silent Control to begin lowering temperatures on the laptop. After starting ThrottleStop, the undervolting region was grayed out, which was very unusual. After some digging on the web, Intel had disabled the undervolting feature due to a vulnerability Intel Processors are faced with, known as Plundervolt. However, after scrolling through the MSILaptops subreddit, I found out that this could easily be bypassed by enabling Undervolting in the BIOS. I then proceeded to restart the laptop, click the 'Del' key to access the BIOS, then I entered the following keystroke "RIGHT SHIFT, RIGHT CTRL, LEFT ALT AND F2". This then would open up the hidden "Advanced" section where I could enable undervolting. After doing that, I applied the following undervolts in ThrottleStop
My Undervolts for the Battery Profile on the CPU Core and Cache
I also set the Intel iGPU and iGPU Unslice to -90.8mv on "Offset Voltage"
Undervolts for the Performance Profile on CPU Core and Cache
After applying those undervolts, I setup a fan curve on MSI Silent Option to keep the laptop completely quiet whenever possible.
Fan Curves on the CPU and GPU
I then followed that with setting the power limits to 45w and 65w (in the BIOS) to keep the Laptop cool and quiet. This would ultimately restrict the laptop from drawing more wattage, which would increase temps by a lot. After doing those two, I completely uninstalled any MSI bloatware (unfortunately) like MSI Dragon Center, Nahimic Audio, Norton Anti-Virus and Killer Control Panel**. I then also adjusted my Battery profile settings:
Conclusion
After doing all of these tweaks, I was able to achieve 32-37c on both CPU and GPU while using Chrome and Microsoft Word. On top of that, I was able to get 9-10 Hours of Battery Life which made me very happy. While Gaming, I was hitting 78c max on both CPU and GPU in Call of Duty: Warzone at High Settings while achieving 100+ FPS. I would definitely recommend this Laptop to those who are looking the best portable gaming laptop. Especially those who are going to college or those who travel very frequently. I would definitely recommend the GS66 with the RTX 2060 as the price tag is much lower, about $500 cheaper (at the time of writing) for the 144Hz Model and $200 cheaper for the 240Hz model.
**: I asterisked Killer Control Panel due to the fact that it was limiting bandwidth to certain applications. For example, while gaming I would experience with no latency or jitter. However when I would do web browsing on Google Chrome, my bandwidth would be limited to 11mbps. After uninstalling Killer Control Panel, I had to reinstall the Ethernet Driver and opted out of the installation of the control panel. I ran a speed test afterwards on Google Chrome and got my expected internet speeds.
Very interesting ‘dir
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