Noob with a new gaming laptop

jorge_medion

Honorable
Jan 20, 2018
139
1
10,595
Hi, this thread is quite embarrassing as I recently purchased a new gaming laptop and I have very very basic questions.

I got the laptop yesterday and I am installing the necessary software and games to use it. Now I am speaking from my older laptop as I have to work in it and still there are lots of documents and programs I am missing in the new laptop.

The new laptop is a MSI GE75 Raider 2020 so here we go with the questions:

1) How can I know which GPU card the computer actually has? The specs mention RTX 2070 but I would like to know the details in the computer itself.

2) The computer has a main hard drive with 500 GB SSD and a second hard drive with 1 TB but not SSD. I am now installing things on the main hard drive but is just 500 GB, which programs should I install in the SSD hard drive and which ones in the 1 TB hard drive? How can I install things in the "secondary" hard drive?
 

Lutfij

Titan
Moderator
You will need to install and open up CPU-Z>GPU tab or GPU-Z and then you should be able to see what GPU you own. You will also have an SKU under the laptop to help identify the laptop's specs. To make it even more easier, if you yet have the box for the laptop, it should have a white sticker/label specifying what the contents of the laptop are/is.

The HDD should be used for storage, meaning all of the things that you can't afford to loose. The SSD should have all the apps that you use on a daily basis, much like the OS, so it's fast. You can also have your games installed on it. Might want to keep the SSD half full to help keep it running optimally.
 
CPU-Z will tell you what graphics you have.
You can also go into device manager and under display adapters you should see your graphics devices.
Also note that RTX2080 implemented in a laptop chip is not the same performance as a discrete graphics card.
No matter, either is plenty strong.

SSD devices are much faster than hard drives.
So long as your needs are well under 500gb, I would put everything on the ssd.
If you will be storing large sequential files, they go well on a HDD.
That said, I would consider replacing the HDD with a ssd when you need the space.
Repurpose the hdd to be a usb connected backup device.

FWIW,
I see many complaints about gaming laptops not performing well.
Usually gaming while plugged in.
One common cause is thermal throttling.
Laptop coolers must, of necessity be small and light.
They are also relatively underpowered.
If you run an app such as HWMonitor or HWinfo, you will get the current, minimum, and maximum cpu temperatures.
For intel processors, if you see a max of 100c. it means you have throttled.
The cpu will lower it's multiplier and power draw to protect itself
until the situation reverses.
At a lower multiplier, your cpu usage may well be at 100%
What can you do?
First, see that your cooler airways are clear and that the cooler fan is spinning.

It is counter-intuitive, but, try changing the windows power profile advanced functions to a max of 90% instead of the default of 100%
You may not notice the reduced cpu performance.
 

jorge_medion

Honorable
Jan 20, 2018
139
1
10,595
I ran GPU-Z. These are the results:

GPUz.gif


Amazon specs mentioned Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070, what does "Super" mean? looks interesting...