GE76 CPU 12th Gen Temperatures

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pacheco.phili151502d4

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Hey Everyone I recently received my GE76 with the 12700H, 3070TI, 32Gb config. love the rig! I'm new to MSI & the Raider series Chassis so i'm not to familiar with the normal temperature operating ranges while under heavy workloads. I have run with Alienware for years but have jumped to the GE76 because of the 12th gen & the great reviews. It's a generational leap.

That being said, when i run AAA games (cyberpunk on ultra), with the stock config and coolerboost on; my CPU temps fluctuate between 79-96 but occaisionally hit 100C!. I get no frame drop, I see the CPU throttle by 500mhz max. with absolutely no frames lost.

Is it normal for the rig to run at these temps & occasionally flirt with the 100C (2 cores flicked at 100C after 45min of gaming). I'd love to limit the power / set a CPU throttle threshold from the current 95C to 90C if possible to tame the beast.
 
You're assuming that new phase changing Thermal paste requires a repaste. Also, why would a laptop that costs this much require a re-paste shortly after purchase; does not make sense...

Ran CinebenchR23 and this Rig is a monster... 1,765pts in single core (Max temp 83C) and multi Core 16,310pts (Max 98C). That beats the previous Generation including the Ryzens. And it's only the 12700H! and that was on balanced mode!

Seems to be only touching briefly the very high 99C-100C when playing CyberPunk for some reason. No other game tried to date including Star Citizen at Very High settings. Otherwise, it's stable around 80C-96C during all games at max settings. GPU is having a laugh at max 65C under full load.
 
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All, i found a workaround compromise! For those of you who want to lower the temps with the 12th gen. control panel> edit power plan> processor management > processor maximum state.

I reduced this value to 80% and the CPU was only able to draw about 87watts instead of 100+watts. Clock speed remained the same and constant at 4090mhz throughout CyberPunk. Maximum temperature it touched was 90C which is beautiful. I think I lost about 5fps doing this move but my temp went down from maximum 100C to 90C, average of 90C to like 80C.

I tried 85% and the max temp jumps to like 95C so, adjust it to what you feel comfortable with, I will continue to use 80% and see how that goes in different games and bump it up slowly.
 
pacheco.phili151502d4 said:
Hey Everyone I recently received my GE76 with the 12700H, 3070TI, 32Gb config. love the rig! I'm new to MSI & the Raider series Chassis so i'm not to familiar with the normal temperature operating ranges while under heavy workloads. I have run with Alienware for years but have jumped to the GE76 because of the 12th gen & the great reviews. It's a generational leap.

That being said, when i run AAA games (cyberpunk on ultra), with the stock config and coolerboost on; my CPU temps fluctuate between 79-96 but occaisionally hit 100C!. I get no frame drop, I see the CPU throttle by 500mhz max. with absolutely no frames lost.

Is it normal for the rig to run at these temps & occasionally flirt with the 100C (2 cores flicked at 100C after 45min of gaming). I'd love to limit the power / set a CPU throttle threshold from the current 95C to 90C if possible to tame the beast.
Click to expand...

from where did you manage to buy the GE76 with 12th gen processor? I want to order one asap but cant find it anywhere :/
 
100C on a Laptop occasionally and upto 96C are very typical and have been since the laptops have been getting thinner and thinner as there is no room for a Big cooler to keep there temps down.

go into your OS and on the max power in the power plan for the CPU drop it to 98% - 99% and see how it goes from there (even a tiny drop in max power usually cuts off alot of heat by preventing it from hitting max boost.).
 
SOLVED!!! So to close this thread off. Here is my conclusion:

I stopped playing with the Power Plans in windows and turned to TDP values. I was adjusting my TDP limits to tame the beast as i don’t need the stock high power limits and the heat it brings. i adjusted my 12700h tdp PL1 to 75w and PL2 to 80w to keep my spiked temp spike in low 90s compared to 98C when running the stock PL1: 110w and PL2: 135w GE76 setup. I left tau at the stock value of 56s. Cinebench multiscore with that still hits an amazing ~15, 923. Max power i get 16,320. I can only speak for the 12700h GE76 cooling solution. But i noticed i start getting less larger (incremental) improved performance above these TDP values. Starts to flatten a little. At full power i was throttling 46% of the time; while at my reduced tdps i was throttling 1% of the time ;)

Now, i ran some more tests using AAA games that were making me spike to 98-100C under Stock heavy load like CyberPunk. My tuning objective is to reduce my spiked temp. Here are my findings & my final settings for this chassis. I will only show the noteworthy TDP settings & results. Conclusion & my final settings are below.

I7 12700H on a GE76 chassis (TCC at 6 so throttle at 94C rather than 95C stock)
@PL1: 110w / PL2:135w (stock)
Cinebench Multi: ~16,320
Single: ~1,773
Cyberpunk & Star Citizen temp spike: 98C
Cyberpunk & Star Citizen Avg temp: 80-88C
avg FPS CyberPunk Ultra & 1% lows: 78 & 56
Takeaway: XTU showed it was TCC throttling 50% of the time... what a waste

@PL1: 75 / PL2: 80
Multi: 15, 980
Single: 1,761
Cyberpunk & SC temp spike: 94C <-- XTU showed it was TCC throttling 14% of the time... better
CyberPunk & SC Avg temp: 77-85C
avg FPS CyberPunk Ultra & 1% lows: 77 &55
Takeaway: XTU showed it was TCC throttling 14% of the time. Not bad! the clock speed stays at 4099mhz (max boost PL1) 86% of the time

@PL1: 65 / PL2: 70
Multi: 15, 150
Single: 1,796
Cyberpunk & SC temp spike: 90C
Cyberpunk & SC avg temp: 70-82C
avg FPS CyberPunk Ultra & 1% lows: 75 & 54
Takeaway: XTU showed it was TCC throttling 1-2% of the time. Excellent! the clock speed hovers at 3.98Ghz - 4.1Ghz 99% of the time. down by 100mhz i suspect because of the lower power not thermals. So we're in the G spot here where clock speed is just about affected by the power you give and we're not thermally throttling. (this is the pivot point you want to play in)

Conclusion

As you can see the graph from Jarrod & my testing above (although for the i9, i observed the i7 to behave similarly from a perf vs wattage perspective). It looks like the perfect sweet spot for all of us GE76 12700H owners is running the CPU PL1 anywhere between 65-75w and PL2 70-80. You get the most gains as after that it flattens out more and the CPU needs more wattage for proportionate performance gains. I ultimately chose 65W PL1 and 70 PL2 and my temps and fans on idle barely are noticable. Any lower than this, and you will be power throttling the CPU and it won't maintain the 4.1Ghz boost during heavy workloads / games due to power limit throttling. If the i7 12700h had the same liquid phase changing compound that the i9 gets, or bigger heat pipes then we can increase these power limits and not keep getting knocked down by thermal throttling but alas! this is the chassis we have to work with.

So even with my 65W and 70W TDP settings, the 12th gen is so efficient with power usage compared to 11th Gen. It still crushes the top spec from 11th gen. That, is truly amazing.
 

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pacheco.phili151502d4 said:
SOLVED!!! So to close this thread off. Here is my conclusion:

I stopped playing with the Power Plans in windows and turned to TDP values. I was adjusting my TDP limits to tame the beast as i don’t need the stock high power limits and the heat it brings. i adjusted my 12700h tdp PL1 to 75w and PL2 to 80w to keep my spiked temp spike in low 90s compared to 98C when running the stock PL1: 110w and PL2: 135w GE76 setup. I left tau at the stock value of 56s. Cinebench multiscore with that still hits an amazing ~15, 923. Max power i get 16,320. I can only speak for the 12700h GE76 cooling solution. But i noticed i start getting less larger (incremental) improved performance above these TDP values. Starts to flatten a little. At full power i was throttling 46% of the time; while at my reduced tdps i was throttling 1% of the time ;)

Now, i ran some more tests using AAA games that were making me spike to 98-100C under Stock heavy load like CyberPunk. My tuning objective is to reduce my spiked temp. Here are my findings & my final settings for this chassis. I will only show the noteworthy TDP settings & results. Conclusion & my final settings are below.

I7 12700H on a GE76 chassis (TCC at 6 so throttle at 94C rather than 95C stock)
@PL1: 110w / PL2:135w (stock)
Cinebench Multi: ~16,320
Single: ~1,773
Cyberpunk & Star Citizen temp spike: 98C
Cyberpunk & Star Citizen Avg temp: 80-88C
avg FPS CyberPunk Ultra & 1% lows: 78 & 56
Takeaway: XTU showed it was TCC throttling 50% of the time... what a waste

@PL1: 75 / PL2: 80
Multi: 15, 980
Single: 1,761
Cyberpunk & SC temp spike: 94C <-- XTU showed it was TCC throttling 14% of the time... better
CyberPunk & SC Avg temp: 77-85C
avg FPS CyberPunk Ultra & 1% lows: 77 &55
Takeaway: XTU showed it was TCC throttling 14% of the time. Not bad! the clock speed stays at 4099mhz (max boost PL1) 86% of the time

@PL1: 65 / PL2: 70
Multi: 15, 150
Single: 1,796
Cyberpunk & SC temp spike: 90C
Cyberpunk & SC avg temp: 70-82C
avg FPS CyberPunk Ultra & 1% lows: 75 & 54
Takeaway: XTU showed it was TCC throttling 1-2% of the time. Excellent! the clock speed hovers at 3.98Ghz - 4.1Ghz 99% of the time. down by 100mhz i suspect because of the lower power not thermals. So we're in the G spot here where clock speed is just about affected by the power you give and we're not thermally throttling. (this is the pivot point you want to play in)

Conclusion

As you can see the graph from Jarrod & my testing above (although for the i9, i observed the i7 to behave similarly from a perf vs wattage perspective). It looks like the perfect sweet spot for all of us GE76 12700H owners is running the CPU PL1 anywhere between 65-75w and PL2 70-80. You get the most gains as after that it flattens out more and the CPU needs more wattage for proportionate performance gains. I ultimately chose 65W PL1 and 70 PL2 and my temps and fans on idle barely are noticable. Any lower than this, and you will be power throttling the CPU and it won't maintain the 4.1Ghz boost during heavy workloads / games due to power limit throttling. If the i7 12700h had the same liquid phase changing compound that the i9 gets, or bigger heat pipes then we can increase these power limits and not keep getting knocked down by thermal throttling but alas! this is the chassis we have to work with.

So even with my 65W and 70W TDP settings, the 12th gen is so efficient with power usage compared to 11th Gen. It still crushes the top spec from 11th gen. That, is truly amazing.
Click to expand...

great that you share your experience. I have the same issue but i dont know how to set everything up in the bios.Actually i tried it already, but my laptop is still loud for just surfing on the web. Also when i am litterally not using it, it has its fans almost at high setting… can you help? Maybe a guide and pictures would help a lot. Thanks in advance!

its a GP 66 12UGS
 
ahm3e126a02a3 said:
great that you share your experience. I have the same issue but i dont know how to set everything up in the bios.Actually i tried it already, but my laptop is still loud for just surfing on the web. Also when i am litterally not using it, it has its fans almost at high setting… can you help? Maybe a guide and pictures would help a lot. Thanks in advance!

its a GP 66 12UGS
Click to expand...
What’s you’re processor and can you undervolt it?
 
ok so first a bit of context before the guide. PART 1 - The "What & Why" CONTEXT & METHODOLOGY

There are a few ways we can tune a laptop to get the most performance while keeping temps in check (to name a few):
1. Power Throttling: Undervolting (works if your processor allows it. My GE76 12th Gen doesn't allow it). This has always worked well for me in the past, a nice 70-90mV undervolt goes a long way.

2. Thermal Throttling: Lowering the Thermal Control Circuit (TCC) Offset (@ 5 this will thermal throttle at 95C, @10 it will throttle at 90C). The default is usually set to a value of 5 on most laptops. i generally leave this as is, or increase it by 1-2 so the thermal TCC kicks in earlier than 95C so it doesn't get to 98-100C! but it generally won't get to this TCC point if you tune your system properly.

3. Power Throttling: Lowering the Thermal Design Power (TDP) which is basically how much watts the CPU gets to maintain it's boost clock speeds. These values vary based on laptop/CPU combo since each laptop has different cooling capabilities some manufacturers lower it because they can't cool the laptop enough and some give max power because they beefed up the laptop cooling.
Two values are important here, PL1 is the "long term turbo" and the other is PL2 "short term turbo" power limits. PL2 is there for snappy fast performance, like when your laptop boots up it's on PL2 to boot up super fast. PL1 is the long term boost, like when you're playing games, it will generally try to stay at the PL1 boost power & associated clock speeds that is if your laptop can keep cool for it to sustain the heat from that wattage. Capiche?

4. Power Throttling: Using Windows Power Plan CPU Processor Power Management & lowering the power to the CPU using Maximum processor State (less than 100%). This works, but i find it's broad acting and you may skip the sweet spot if you play with this. I have not had great success with this one.

Turbo Boost time window, or "Tau" usually is set at 56s and it's basically how long the CPU will stay at PL2 boost before going down to long term PL1 boost.

So your laptop when running an intensive task or game like Cinebench will usually start off at PL2 Wattage, stay there for Tau then lower to the clock speed that PL1 permits. Now the key here is to find a PL1 & PL2 combination that allows you to go through the cycle i just described above on intense applications and stay at PL1 sustainably without throttling or power limiting the CPU to the point where it lowers the boost clock speed too much. So you need to find that sweet spot. Every chassis is different so experiment, usually i start my tuning by setting the PL1 to 60 and PL2 to 65 and work my way up from there by testing in Cinebench or your favourite AAA game.

So set your PL1, and Pl2, then HWmonitor and use MSI afterburner to see your on screen display clock speed of CPU, GPU, to see if you're mainting the boost speed and it's not dropping and FPS is good. If it's not good, and your not mainting the Boost clock speed you want, then either your thermally throttling or you're not thermally throttling and you've limited too much power to your CPU. If your not thermally throttling and your clock speed is not maintaining a high boost then you need to increase your PL1, Pl2 a little; test again until you find your sweet spot. Doing this you will reach a sweet spot, where you're mainting a certain boost clock speed but you start to thermally throttle (meaning you hit your TCC temp above).

Then you decide, a little thermal throttling may be acceptable if it's only a little and you get maintaining a high boost clock speed. Or you don't want to thermally throttle and lower your TDP settings just a smudge to get under the TCC spikes.

Apps commonly used for tweaking:

HWMonitor (This you leave in the background, and it will monitor your temps. I like this because it highlights in red when i spike at TCC)
MSI Afterburner (This is good to have an on screen display while gaming, you need to setup your OSD before using it. Guides on youtube)
Intel XTU: Intels Extreme Tuning Utility, this can be used to undervolt, adjust turbo clock speeds, and of course modify PL1, PL2, and tau. it also can run stress tests and provides some useful monitoring
ThrottleStop: Popular tuning utility, no frills, just basics used for undervolting, turbo boost clock speed modifying and stress testing
 

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Part 2 - The "How" to tune TDP values if you can't undervolt

Before you do anything, take note of the stock PL1, PL2 values whichever method you use.

Two methods (there may be more but I use these two):

Using MSI Bios advanced settings (You access by holding at the bios screen the following keys Rshift+RCtrl+Lalt+F2) Then you go into into Power & Performance and then you'll see CPU TDP somewhere there. Adjust PL1 and PL2 from there, remember Pl2 is the higher one, and it will be in milliwatts so for 68Watts you need to put 68000 in Bios.

Using XTU you simply go to advanced settings and lower your PL1 (A), and PL2 (B) values. I don't touch tau (C). Refer to my image for A-B-C lettering.

The typical methodology when tuning to find the sweet spot between temp and performance is using XTU with Windows open, i adjust TDP values using XTU then I go and run a benchmark. if i need more tweaking, i go back to XTU and adjust PL1, PL2, then go and benchmark. rinse and repeat until your satisfied. Once you have your Pl1 and Pl2 values your comfortable with. Then go into Bios and set them formally. When you boot you will now always have your tuned settings. Capiche?

Hope this helps, let me know if it worked for you in lowering your temps while keeping a similar performance.
 

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Feel free to share your TDP values and C23 scores and temps. I think if we all share, we will get a better feel for what honest TDP values these stock Ge76 chassis’ are capable of holding because sure they set the TDPs stock at 110 and 135w but it’s just to hit those high cinebench scores and brochure appeal.

sustainable high clock speed while not constantly hitting thermal throttle and 98-100C spikes is what most of us want.

After a year and the warranty is over i plan on re-pasting; until then i bought a powerful laptop cooler IETS GT500 that another member here recommended (which ifit holds up to the hype will reduce temps by 5-10C)

Increase TDPs proportionally to the amount of cooling headroom you create and you’ll unlock more and more of 12th gen performance while staying comfortably cool.
 
Here is some data i ran for the 12700h using Cinebench as the means to tune the power levels. We can't undervolt on the 12700h so we have to tackle the heat issue from the TDP side (PL1 and PL2) The trick is finding the right performance spot. Attached image you will see what i consider a sweet spot window, all 3 graphs are aligned vertically for PL1 / PL2 / Temps associated to those respective settings. If you tuned your 12700h CPU using TDP values, i'd be curious to see what you used and the temps you've been getting. This data is all without re-pasting, using only an elevated mesh cooler running C23 as a benchmarking tool. I will update once i try out that pressurized cooler IETS GT500; and after a year if i feel the need to increase TDP values , i may re paste to go get more power!
 

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In South Korea, GE 76 Raider 12th intel i7-12700h 3070ti was released a few weeks ago.
This thread seems very helpful for the current and possible users in near future.
I will let our community know this information, thank you very much for your hard work.

And I will definitely have to test my machine when I get off work.
 
pacheco.phili151502d4 said:
ok so first a bit of context before the guide. PART 1 - The "What & Why" CONTEXT & METHODOLOGY

There are a few ways we can tune a laptop to get the most performance while keeping temps in check (to name a few):
1. Power Throttling: Undervolting (works if your processor allows it. My GE76 12th Gen doesn't allow it). This has always worked well for me in the past, a nice 70-90mV undervolt goes a long way.

2. Thermal Throttling: Lowering the Thermal Control Circuit (TCC) Offset (@ 5 this will thermal throttle at 95C, @10 it will throttle at 90C). The default is usually set to a value of 5 on most laptops. i generally leave this as is, or increase it by 1-2 so the thermal TCC kicks in earlier than 95C so it doesn't get to 98-100C! but it generally won't get to this TCC point if you tune your system properly.

3. Power Throttling: Lowering the Thermal Design Power (TDP) which is basically how much watts the CPU gets to maintain it's boost clock speeds. These values vary based on laptop/CPU combo since each laptop has different cooling capabilities some manufacturers lower it because they can't cool the laptop enough and some give max power because they beefed up the laptop cooling.
Two values are important here, PL1 is the "long term turbo" and the other is PL2 "short term turbo" power limits. PL2 is there for snappy fast performance, like when your laptop boots up it's on PL2 to boot up super fast. PL1 is the long term boost, like when you're playing games, it will generally try to stay at the PL1 boost power & associated clock speeds that is if your laptop can keep cool for it to sustain the heat from that wattage. Capiche?

4. Power Throttling: Using Windows Power Plan CPU Processor Power Management & lowering the power to the CPU using Maximum processor State (less than 100%). This works, but i find it's broad acting and you may skip the sweet spot if you play with this. I have not had great success with this one.

Turbo Boost time window, or "Tau" usually is set at 56s and it's basically how long the CPU will stay at PL2 boost before going down to long term PL1 boost.

So your laptop when running an intensive task or game like Cinebench will usually start off at PL2 Wattage, stay there for Tau then lower to the clock speed that PL1 permits. Now the key here is to find a PL1 & PL2 combination that allows you to go through the cycle i just described above on intense applications and stay at PL1 sustainably without throttling or power limiting the CPU to the point where it lowers the boost clock speed too much. So you need to find that sweet spot. Every chassis is different so experiment, usually i start my tuning by setting the PL1 to 60 and PL2 to 65 and work my way up from there by testing in Cinebench or your favourite AAA game.

So set your PL1, and Pl2, then HWmonitor and use MSI afterburner to see your on screen display clock speed of CPU, GPU, to see if you're mainting the boost speed and it's not dropping and FPS is good. If it's not good, and your not mainting the Boost clock speed you want, then either your thermally throttling or you're not thermally throttling and you've limited too much power to your CPU. If your not thermally throttling and your clock speed is not maintaining a high boost then you need to increase your PL1, Pl2 a little; test again until you find your sweet spot. Doing this you will reach a sweet spot, where you're mainting a certain boost clock speed but you start to thermally throttle (meaning you hit your TCC temp above).

Then you decide, a little thermal throttling may be acceptable if it's only a little and you get maintaining a high boost clock speed. Or you don't want to thermally throttle and lower your TDP settings just a smudge to get under the TCC spikes.

Apps commonly used for tweaking:

HWMonitor (This you leave in the background, and it will monitor your temps. I like this because it highlights in red when i spike at TCC)
MSI Afterburner (This is good to have an on screen display while gaming, you need to setup your OSD before using it. Guides on youtube)
Intel XTU: Intels Extreme Tuning Utility, this can be used to undervolt, adjust turbo clock speeds, and of course modify PL1, PL2, and tau. it also can run stress tests and provides some useful monitoring
ThrottleStop: Popular tuning utility, no frills, just basics used for undervolting, turbo boost clock speed modifying and stress testing
Click to expand...


I just noticed that undervolting in BIOS actually works in GE76.
But you have to be aware that off-set voltage doesn't show on HWmonitor or XTU.
 
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