Laptop cooling ideas for Gigabyte P55k V4? (15.4" GTX 970M/i7 5700HQ)

[greyboxer]

Good afternoon [H];

Been doing alot more mobile gaming on my 2015 Gigabyte P55k laptop due to covid separation from my normal office with the gaming rig. that said, its a great PC but Destiny 2 really heats it up during gaming. I would often get temp throttling on the GPU and CPU until I popped the laptop open and replaced the thermal compound with Arctic Cooling MX4. Brought temps down 10-15c and so far so good, but I want to cool even more.

I watched some reviews, and specifically this one:

They recommend the Havit 5 fan cooler, combined with the most recent iteration of the OPOLAR mounted vacuum cooler for max performance. I think having both is overkill, but if I want to play D2 for several hours at a time, itll preserve the longevity of this really nice laptop.

What do you all prefer running as a cooling solution?

 

[SamuelL421]

I looked up the P55k and it appears to have a decent mount mechanism for both the CPU and GPU (4 screws each). I have had good luck using liquid metal on laptops that have quality heatsinks/mount pressure (this is sadly not a common thing...).

Applying liquid metal can give you the biggest temperature drop, you just need to be very careful. If you do choose to use liquid metal, plan to clean the liquid metal and reapply after 3-6 months as your performance will drop a bit after the first application of it gets absorbed / plated onto the copper of the heatsinks.

The performance difference with various cooling pads is negligible in my experience unless you DIY something and use louder/more powerful fans. The important part of the cooling pad is that it is raising it off of the surface which helps some laptops (a lot) by allowing air to get to the vents in the first place. I did have good luck with one of the OPOLAR coolers - it made a much more noticeable difference (several *C under load) vs any cooling pads: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01NACVLWM/. Be aware that it can get loud.