titus78 :
also if I were to get a cooling vacuum (that attaches the heat exhaust vent to suck more heat out of the cpu) and was able to get my cpu to run say 5 to 10 c cooler would I be able to see significant improvement in my fps?
First off, after more research, this IS a Max-Q laptop as I expected, which you did not mention. Your performance is also going to be worse if you game on battery vs wall outlet. You also haven't mentioned the ambient temp of the area you play in, and whether you set it on a flat surface, or your lap, the latter of which is not advised for gaming, as it can't block the vents and pick up heat from your body.
The reviews I've read are generally good on this laptop, nothing bad to say about temps or performance. NotebookCheck even said the temps were no worse than yours, even with 1 hour plus stress tests that run the CPU and GPU at 100% continually, which is way more stress than games would put on it.
The only negative reviews I've read are like 3 out of the 9 customers that reviewed it on Amazon, but none were related to bad performance or temps. It's really hard to say if yours is running too hot or slow without knowing the ambient temp and use scenarios I pointed out above, and what games you're playing, for how long, and whether on battery or adapter cord. Keep in mind Max-Qs on average are clocked 10% lower than a normal laptop 1060, and all normal 1060 laptop GPUs are clocked lower than their desktop counterparts. For all I know, performance wise you could just be having unreal expectations on your first laptop if comparing to a desktop.
It's interesting to note the first paragraph below I quoted from the Ultrabook review though, which proves temps can lead to better performance in some games, which was the whole point behind the Max-Q design. Overall Dells have above average cooling compared to other budget laptops though. They also have a fairly solid defect rate, though you wouldn't know it by the Amazon reviews, which may or may not involve some software incompatibility issues or user error.
NotebookCheck.net
"We stress the notebook with synthetic benchmarks to identify for any throttling or stability issues. When subjected to Prime95 loads, we can observe a steady CPU clock rate and temperature of 3.2 GHz and 67 C, respectively. Running both Prime95 and FurMark will impressively result in a steady CPU temperature of 83 C without affecting clock rate. Core CPU and GPU temperatures are quite low at under 70 C when gaming for extended periods."
https://www.notebookcheck.net/Dell-Inspiron-15-7000-7577-i7-7700HQ-GTX-1060-Max-Q-4K-UHD-Laptop-Review.282650.0.html
LaptopMedia.com
(Scroll near bottom of page for temp test)
https://laptopmedia.com/review/dell-inspiron-15-7577-gtx-1060-max-q-review-improved-but-still-flawed/
UltrabookReview.com
"This guy on the forums mentions here that : “I turned on my undervolt (-.165v) and overclocked the GPU by 200mhz on the core and 250mhz on the ram. Max fan speed was 4800 rpm (na: from the 5400 rpm out of the box). The highest ambient temp was 74C. The GPU and CPU stayed at max clocks and I had no throttling”. This allowed him to run Witcher 3 at 50-60 fps with Ultra settings, with the CPU and GPU averaging around 65C (on the base i5 configuration). In other words, with this kind of tweaks you can expect nearly full-size 1060 performance, but from a chip that runs cooler due to its lower TDP.
In the end, choosing between the i5 and i7 is entirely up to you. At list prices, the i7 configuration is not worth the extra $300 imo, but with all the available discounts you might get it for much less. You should also keep in mind the i7 is going to run a little hotter than the i5, but given what we know so far, temperatures and performance should not be a concern on this laptop. In fact, with the CPU/GPU averaging mid 70s out of the box without any tweaks, we could argue that Dell could have put a proper GTX 1060 chip inside this laptop and not the snipped Max-Q version, although there are some benefits of going for this option, as mentioned earlier.
As for the outercase temperatures, I’m seeing high 40s with gaming, with the area on top of the keyboard getting the hottest, while the WASD keys hit mid 30s. I couldn’t’ find anything about the bottom temperatures, but I’d expect high 40s down there as well. In other words, expect the Inspiron 7577 to run hot with games, but not hotter than most other gaming laptops on the market."
https://www.ultrabookreview.com/18534-dell-inspiron-7577-reviewed/