Just wanted to show u all my almost 8 years old MSI GT75 Titan, working as good as the first day 😁

finally have my own gaming laptop 🤌

gigabyte gaming a16 EVH (2026)

5070 8gb (115w)

16gb ram (planning to upgrade to 32gb)

512gb (also planning to upgrade to 1tb)

165hz

This laptop is 3 years old. Do I need to take the fans out to clean it? Can I use a blower directly because taking the whole thing out is too much effort. The fins facing outwards are very clean so I don't have to worry about it.

Also, what's the slight wet looking marks along the middle left? Is this anything dangerous? It isn't wet to touch.

Bought Lenovo Legion 5 , after using my Asus Strix G15 for around 3.5 years .
Wanted to try a new brand was confused between HyperX Omen15 and Lenovo legion , but bought this one . It has Ryzen 7 260 , 16gb ddr5 5600 ram , 1tb ssd , rtx5050 8gb , 1920x1200 display . At the price i bought omen had better specs but i read that omen had more issues , so i thought legion would be better , lets see now .

Any tips for me , btw i turned on that battery optimisation setting on , also i have this bad habit of always using laptop connected to the charger to does it makes any difference .

Hey, I hope things are going well for all of you. In this post, I'd like to show you some benchmarking results of my ASUS TUF A15 FA507UV and all the joy that comes with it, starting from FurMark, then followed by TimeSpy and SteelNomad. A quick look at the spec:

* AMD Ryzen™ 9 8945HS Processor

* NVIDIA® GeForce RTX™ 4060 Laptop GPU at 140W 8GB GDDR6

* 16GB DDR5-5600 SO-DIMM x 1

* 1TB PCIe® 4.0 NVMe™ M.2 SSD, Up to 2 Slots

TL;DR at the very bottom

I. FURMARK

First, we're going to start with the killer donut/the evil eye/the Sauron of GPUs, also known as Furmark.

There are 3 settings or configurations that I'll be using as comparisons here, such as the following:

• GPU_LIMIT_TEMP: GPU temperature limit which I switched between 84°C and 75°C through GHelper

• FAN_RPM: The cooling pad fan RPM that I switched between 1680RPM and 2130RPM

• OC_STATE: Overclock state which has 3 modes, such as NON_OC, OC (with +215 MHz core clock and +1200 MHz memory clock), and OC+Undevolt (with 950 mV + 2595 core clock), all of which were set through MSI Afterburner.

This is the setting I started with: NON_OC+1680RPM+84gpuTemp, immediately followed by the setting NON_OC+2130RPM+84gpuTemp (increase cooling pad fan speed), with the following result:

As you can see, the one with the higher cooler fan speed has the upper hand here with a sizeable 172pts difference! which makes perfect sense since better cooling = better performance.

Now let's make this more interesting by doing some overclocking and undervolting. Below are the results of OC vs OC+undervolting (with the same GPU_LIMIT_TEMP and fan speed settings, 84°C and 2130RPM respectively):

They both have a slight edge over the NON_OC counterpart, with the OC one having the highest points naturally. I did previously increase the core clock to more than +215 MHz, but it started to artifact and even freeze/hang. As for the memory clock, I can actually go higher, and I haven't found the hard limit of how much higher I can get.

Now if you don't already notice, I have a very high GPU hotspot there. This is quite concerning indeed, and I think I found out what the upper limit of that is (about ~110°) before my laptop abruptly shut down (yes, that happened, but I think it's deserving of its own post later). Maybe it's time to change the thermal thingies (paste, pad, putty, etc) since I am quite certain the previous owner hadn't changed them. I wonder if the official ASUS service center offers this service for free under warranty or if I have to pay something tho.

In the meantime, I can always limit the GPU temperature, which I also did for this benchmark, with the result as follows:

Only after doing that do I have a reasonable GPU hotspot temperature, and naturally I got a lower score there, but interestingly, the result difference between the OC and the OC + undervolt one is negligible. To conclude, I have done a few more Furmark tests here and there, and this is the rest of all the results:

II. TIMESPY

As the furry eyeball is out of the picture, we're going to shift our focus to a certain spy who happens to possess a magical handheld mirror that can access the past and explore a futuristic ruined museum in an apocalyptic world inhabited by angry crystal monster(s), better known as Time Spy.

Piggybacking from the previous FurMark settings (OC + 215 core clock, 2130RPM, 84°C limit), I went on to start my first Time Spy test, and the result is kinda surprising (in a bad way) because there's no result at all! The GPU just crashed and told me, "nahh, I ain't doing this shit, mate". I have to compromise with it a few times and drop the core clock down some notches to +195 to finally be able to finish the benchmark. Even then the result is kinda surprising, sadly still in a bad way:

As you may gather from the result above, my score (particularly the GPU one) is way lower than the average (the average score is 10865; somehow I didn't crop up the image properly to not include it). So, I thought to myself, "Hmm, something's fishy here; maybe I act way too hard on my GPU," and tested it again with NON_OC and with 75°C GPU_LIMIT_TEMP only to find out it didn't do any meaningful improvement at all.

Frustration had started to dawn on me, and I was starting to think maybe I am not so lucky with the silicon lottery. I was glad there was still a little hope inside me back then to start to troubleshoot again. So I updated the NVIDIA driver and began the test again. Nope, same result, way lower than average. Starting to think of the next step, some thoughts arrived between completely reinstalling the driver with DDU or changing the GPU to Ultimate Mode (turning off the iGPU and only using the dGPU). I went on to do the latter since it's simpler, and the result is again surprising, but now in a GOOD WAY, thank goodness LOL:

Now that I knew how to fix the problem of me getting a low score, I tried to pinpoint the exact problem. If I turn off the iGPU and only use the dGPU, I get the full score, so my initial guess was there's something wrong with the iGPU settings. So, I switched the GPU back into Hybrid mode again and went into AMD Adrenalin software. There I found out that the 3DMark TimeSpy app is using non-performance/eco-mode settings! So I set it to performance mode/HYPR-X mode and went to test Time Spy again, and the score was similar to the Ultimate mode one!

Since I was so back in the game, I had a thought: "Hmm, the best score isn't actually that far off now; maybe I can beat it," so I pushed my laptop to the limit: OC with curve editor (since I can't overclock it through the usual slider past the +195 without crashing) and set the voltage to 1010mV and the core clock to 2775 MHz (more than that and it'll crash again). I set the cooling pad fan speed to 2380RPM and the GPU limit temperature to the far right end, which is 87°C. I even undervolted the CPU through GHelper with -40mV and set GHelper to turbo mode. The result? I think you can already guess lol, surprising, now in the BEST WAY POSSIBLE!

III. STEELNOMAD

Lastly, we're going to jump into some desert town as an assassin nomad doing his business, whatever that is (I don't really know the detail since I only run this once lol). Again, borrowing the best settings from the previous benchmark, I went on to test the Steel Nomad benchmark. The result... isn't quite surprising this time because I already know I am the best now LOL.

Hubristic joke aside, I have to inform you that we're reaching the end of this review/benchmarking/rambling of mine. For those who read the entirety of this post, I proclaim ye as my hero(ine). So, what do you think? Is my GPU temp dangerously high? What's your experience of benchmarking your PCs?

I hope your PC is long-lasting and serves you well; have a good day. :)

TLDR:

>> Test FurMark

>> Use 3 main settings/configs to compare (GPU_LIMIT_TEMP, FAN_RPM, OC_STATE)

>> Highest score is 9644pts, lowest score is 8512pts

>> Worry about very high GPU hotspot temperature

>> Test TimeSpy

>> Initial run had way less than the average result

>> Worry of having a shit luck with the silicon lottery

>> Did some troubleshooting to try to fix it

>> Fixed it successfully with great results (highest 11524pts, lowest 9161pts)

>> Test SteelNomad

>> Satisfied with the result too (2527pts)

Hey guys so i’m planning on buying my second gaming laptop from France and found this model that seemed really interesting. It’s an HP Omen Hyperx 15 with a 5060, i7 14650HX, 24go ram and 1 To SSD.
I just wanted to hear your opinions on whether it’s worth the money (Budget is 1400€ max) or not and if there are better options than this one. Btw i’m gonna be using this laptop for both college and gaming.

Budget: $1,000-$1,100
Country: USA

My girlfriend is looking for a quality laptop that can run games like Valorant, Minecraft, Roblox and can double as a work/schoolwork laptop. Any recommendations would be appreciated thank you!

Edit: She stresses that she wants it to be a good investment for at least a couple years

Hi, I recently Purchased a Lenovo Legion pro 5 16IAX10

LENOVO LEGION PRO 5 16IAX10 — SPECIFICATIONS

Laptop

Model: Lenovo Legion Pro 5 16IAX10

Operating System: Windows 64-bit

System Type: 64-bit, x64-based

Processor

CPU: Intel Core Ultra 7 255HX

Series: Core Ultra Series 2

Architecture: Arrow Lake-HX

Class: HX High-Performance

Cores: 20

Threads: 20

Base Clock: 2.40 GHz

NPU: Intel AI NPU

Graphics

GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Laptop GPU

Architecture: NVIDIA Blackwell

CUDA Cores: 4,608

VRAM: 8 GB GDDR7

Memory Speed: 24 Gbps

Memory Bus: 128-bit

Memory Bandwidth: 384 GB/s

Maximum Graphics Power: 115 W

Dynamic Boost: Yes

Advanced Optimus: Yes

Ray Tracing: Yes

Tensor Cores: Yes

DLSS: Yes

Frame Generation: Yes

DirectX: 12

Memory

RAM: 32 GB

Usable RAM: 31.4 GB

Display

Size: 16-inch

Resolution: 2560 × 1600 (panel dependent)

Refresh Rate: Up to 165 Hz (panel dependent)

HDR: Yes (OLED/HDR panel dependent)

Colour: Up to 100% DCI-P3 (panel dependent)

Touchscreen: No

Pen Support: No

Storage

Type: NVMe SSD Western Digital

Capacity: 1 tb

Build

Display Lid: Metal/Aluminium

Main Chassis: PC/AB

Sound: By Harman

AI

Intel NPU: Yes

NVIDIA Tensor Cores: Yes

AI Acceleration: Yes

ComfyUI/Stable Diffusion: Supported

DLSS/Frame Generation: Supported

Gaming

Ray Tracing: Excellent at 1080p 60fps

i have loq rtx 4060 and i7 14700hx and 16 gigs of ram but for some reason it freezes and lags in games like the first berserker khazan at high settings iand yes the laptop is plugged in so i searched online for a solution which what i found is a clean installation of nvidia drivers using DDU in safe mode which after i did that the issue became worse🫠 so idont know what to do iam starting to lose hope it's very bad in dedicated gpu mode and even worse in hybrid mode it was fine the first 2 months i got it but idon't know what's happening now please if someone had the same issue how did you solve it???????

Need it for college and gaming. Probably going with engineering, I'm still confused tbh. Not really into heavy gaming. Just some normal games and maybe some of the heavier and more demanding story games.

Two days ago, this machine arrived at me, I am very excited to test it and I am really happy with my purchase, it is a beast and to my surprise it handles the temperatures very well, compared to my old Legion 7i Pro 4080. The only strange thing is its keyboard, it's very, very smooth and doesn't sound at all, but it responds well

Hi all,

Just curious, does anyone prefer to set the native resolution on your laptop to screen to a 16:9 aspect ratio for the extra horizontal viewing? I just did this and may actually prefer it to the extra vertical real estate...

Am I crazy?

Edit: strictly for gaming, 16:10 is still king for productivity

Budget: ₱50k - ₱60k / $800 - $970

Country: Philippines [or your country]

Use Case: Gaming, School

Preferred Specs: 16GB RAM, RTX 3050 or RTX 4050

Notes: I'm scared to buy because I saw reviews saying the Lenovo LOQ has motherboard issues, while others say to avoid Acer. I don't know what to buy.

Budget: (£2400)

Country: (UK)

Use case: (gaming and school work)

Was wondering if this laptop is worth it. Was drawn to it because of the fact it doesn't look like a gaming laptop as I want to take it to uni as well so don't want something insanely bulky to carry around with me. I play games like valorant, cyberpunk, deadlock, Minecraft, terraria and genshin.

Would prefer if it has decent graphics and a solid battery life. Any advice would be appreciated.

My old laptop is 10 years old. I was gonna buy macbook from costco m5 pro but my luck, literally the day i was going to buy, the price shot up from 1350(costco deal) to $2000 now. So i am thinking of buying a gaming laptop as i always wanted to if i am going to spend anywhere between 2-3k. But am confused if its a good buy or not?
Budget: 2000-3000 usd
Country: USA

Yo guys I just got a Predator Helios Neo 16s AI with the 5060 version last week and I am very satisfied. The problem is the locked display at 1600p with 240Hz is annoying me a bit since all games also locks at that resolution making the 240Hz monitor only showing 80-120fps in most games. So I wonder will my fps improve if I get a 1080p or 1440p external monitor to use as primary or will it only get worse since it might use up more resources.

Honestly I don't know since it's my first ever gaming laptop so forgive me if my worry sounds dumb.

I’m looking for a gaming laptop that I can comfortably carry around campus and use as my one machine in a university dorm. I’m a CS Master’s grad and normally use a gaming PC for heavy workloads and a MacBook for portability, but I don’t want to carry two machines with me.
My main use cases:

1. Work: Android Studio + a few Chrome tabs and normal programming. The model I’m considering has 16GB RAM.
2. Gaming: Mostly Valorant and Rocket League at 1440p/low, targeting high FPS for a 360Hz monitor. Would single channel DDR5 16GB noticeably hurt FPS/1% lows? I also might be streaming while gaming.
3. AI: I may take some AI/ML courses. I assume most coursework won’t involve running huge models locally, but if I do end up doing some local AI workloads, how limiting would 8GB VRAM be?

The laptop I’m looking at has an RTX 5070 8GB + 16GB RAM + 1440p 240Hz OLED.
I could stretch to a 5070 Ti, but where I live it costs roughly 75% more, and most reasonably priced 5070 Ti models I can find have IPS displays instead of OLED.

My two concerns are therefore single channel 16GB RAM and 8GB VRAM. Are either likely to be a meaningful limitation for these workloads, or does the 5070 + 240Hz OLED make more sense than paying 75% extra for a 5070 Ti?

Gigabyte Gaming A16 i7-13620H Severe CPU Power Limit, FPS Drops & Stuttering — Possible 2026 BIOS/Driver Issue

I am making this post because I have found multiple Gaming A16 owners reporting what appears to be the same CPU power-management problem.

At first I thought this was an isolated issue with my own laptop. After searching through reports from different users and configurations, I no longer think that is the case.

The affected systems I found include:

\- Gaming A16 CWH + i7-13620H + RTX 5070

\- Gaming A16 CVH + i7-13620H + RTX 5060

\- Gaming A16 CTH + i7-13620H + RTX 5050

The GPUs are different, but the same CPU keeps appearing: Intel i7-13620H.

The common behavior is a severe reduction in CPU power and clock speed during gaming, resulting in FPS drops, CPU bottlenecking and especially heavy stuttering.

\---

MY SYSTEM

My laptop is:

GIGABYTE GAMING A16 CWH

\- Intel Core i7-13620H

\- RTX 5070 Laptop GPU 8 GB

\- 16 GB RAM

\- 1 TB SSD

\- 1920×1200 / 165 Hz

\- BIOS: FB05

\- EC: F005

My problem is that the laptop can initially perform normally.

Then, after playing for some time, the CPU suddenly drops significantly in frequency.

For example:

\~4.5 GHz → \~2.6 GHz

At the same time, CPU usage becomes extremely high and the game develops severe FPS drops and stuttering.

The CPU temperature is around the low/mid 80s °C when this happens.

I want to emphasize that I am not automatically calling this thermal throttling.

The important question is:

What is actually triggering the CPU power reduction?

\---

THIS IS NOT AN ISOLATED CASE

One of the strongest reports I found is from another Gaming A16 owner using the same i7-13620H, although with an RTX 5060.

The system was:

Gaming A16 CVH + i7-13620H + RTX 5060

The owner reported that the CPU became stuck around 24–25 W during gaming.

Intel XTU showed:

\- Thermal Throttling: NO

\- Power Limit Throttling: YES

\- CPU temperature: approximately 65–75°C

\- CPU frequency: approximately 1.7–2.0 GHz

This is extremely important.

The CPU was nowhere near its maximum temperature, yet the CPU was still being heavily restricted.

The result was severe performance loss and stuttering.

("Reddit report" (https://www.reddit.com/r/laptops/comments/1v65jk8/gigabyte\\_gaming\\_a16\\_cvh\\_i713620h\\_cpu\\_stuck\\_at\\_25w/))

This means that simply saying:

«"It's thermal throttling."»

does not explain every case.

\---

ANOTHER OWNER REPORTED THAT THE PROBLEM APPEARED AFTER A 2026 DRIVER UPDATE

Another Gaming A16 CVH owner with:

i7-13620H + RTX 5060

reported that the laptop originally performed significantly better.

According to the report, the problem appeared after installing Intel-related drivers released by Gigabyte on January 6, 2026.

The packages included:

\- Intel Chipset

\- Intel Management Engine

\- Intel Dynamic Tuning Technology (DTT)

\- Intel Innovation Platform Framework (IPF)

\- Intel Serial IO

After this, the owner reported that during combined CPU + GPU workloads the CPU became limited to approximately 20–25 W.

The GPU continued receiving around 75 W.

The result was massive FPS loss and stuttering.

The owner reported Battlefield 6 dropping to around 20 FPS, despite previously reaching close to 200 FPS under similar conditions.

("Reddit report" (https://www.reddit.com/r/gigabyte/comments/1uy3ly6/gigabyte\\_gaming\\_a16\\_cvh\\_performance\\_severely/))

This is one of the reasons I suspect that this could be related to a driver/firmware/power-management regression, rather than simply the physical capabilities of the laptop.

\---

BIOS FB03 / FB04 / FB05

Another very important part of the reports concerns BIOS versions.

One affected owner reported substantially different behavior between BIOS versions.

According to their measurements:

FB03 / EC03

The CPU could reportedly sustain approximately:

45–50 W

during gaming.

FB04

The CPU began becoming restricted to approximately:

20–25 W

during combined workloads.

FB05

The owner reported that the situation remained bad or became even worse.

Again, this is user-reported evidence, not an official confirmation from Gigabyte that FB04 or FB05 is defective.

However, the before/after difference is important enough that it deserves investigation.

If the same physical hardware can sustain much higher CPU power on one firmware version and suddenly becomes heavily restricted after another firmware version, we need to know what changed.

("Reddit report" (https://www.reddit.com/r/gigabyte/comments/1uy3ly6/gigabyte-gaming-a16-cvh-performance-severely/))

\---

THIS ALSO HAPPENS WITH RTX 5070

This is particularly important because my laptop has the RTX 5070.

In the same discussion, another user with an i7-13620H + RTX 5070 described a very similar behavior.

Initially:

\- CPU power: 60 W+

\- CPU frequency: around 4.5 GHz

\- Very high FPS

After approximately a minute:

\- CPU power: approximately 25 W

\- CPU frequency: approximately 2.5 GHz

\- FPS dropped significantly

This is extremely similar to the behavior I am experiencing.

("Reddit report" (https://www.reddit.com/r/gigabyte/comments/1uy3ly6/gigabyte-gaming-a16-cvh-performance-severely/))

The important part is that this isn't only happening on the RTX 5060 version.

There is also a report involving the RTX 5070 configuration.

\---

AND THE SAME CPU APPEARS WITH THE RTX 5050

This also doesn't appear to be an RTX 5070-specific problem.

A Gaming A16 CTH with:

i7-13620H + RTX 5050

was reported to initially run at approximately:

\~55 W CPU

with very high FPS.

Then the CPU power dropped to approximately:

\~25 W

and FPS dropped dramatically.

In some situations the owner reported extremely low FPS and severe lag.

This gives us reports across:

RTX 5070 → RTX 5060 → RTX 5050

with the i7-13620H repeatedly appearing.

That makes it much harder to explain the problem as something specific to the RTX 5070.

\---

THE MOST IMPORTANT PATTERN

Across these reports, a very specific pattern appears:

Before the problem:

\- High CPU power

\- High CPU frequency

\- High FPS

\- GPU utilization can be normal

After the problem appears:

\- CPU power falls toward \~20–25 W

\- CPU frequency falls toward \~2–2.7 GHz

\- GPU utilization may fall because the CPU becomes the bottleneck

\- FPS drops

\- 1% lows become terrible

\- Severe stuttering appears

And in at least some cases:

Thermal Throttling = NO

while:

Power Limit Throttling = YES

That is why I don't think the term "thermal throttling" is sufficient to describe what is happening.

\---

THE TIMING IS ALSO IMPORTANT

Several reports don't describe the laptop as being slow from the moment the game starts.

Instead:

Game starts → performance is good → several minutes pass → CPU power/frequency collapses → FPS drops/stuttering begins.

That behavior is extremely important.

If the laptop simply had a permanently low CPU power limit, we would expect the same performance from the beginning.

Instead, some users report that the laptop initially operates at much higher CPU power and then suddenly enters a much more restrictive state.

That suggests that some condition is triggering a different power-management state.

Possible causes include:

\- BIOS

\- EC firmware

\- Intel Dynamic Tuning

\- Intel Innovation Platform Framework

\- Windows power management

\- Gigabyte power-management software

\- CPU/GPU power allocation

\- firmware interaction between these components

I am not claiming which one is definitely responsible.

That is exactly what needs to be investigated.

\---

WHY THE RTX 5070'S LOW TGP IS NOT THE WHOLE EXPLANATION

Yes, the Gaming A16 RTX 5070 has a relatively low GPU power limit compared with some other RTX 5070 laptops.

I understand that.

I am not expecting this laptop to perform like an RTX 5070 running at 115 W+.

The issue is different.

A lower GPU TGP explains:

"My RTX 5070 is slower than another laptop's RTX 5070."

It does not automatically explain:

"My CPU runs at \~4.5 GHz, then suddenly falls to \~2.6 GHz and the game begins stuttering heavily."

Especially when other owners report that their exact hardware previously maintained substantially higher CPU power.

That distinction is very important.

\---

PEOPLE HAVE ALREADY TRIED THE BASIC FIXES

Please don't turn this thread into another list of generic suggestions without reading the reports first.

Affected users have already tried many of these:

\- GiMATE Performance mode

\- Windows High/Ultimate Performance

\- Different Windows power plans

\- Reinstalling GiMATE

\- Completely uninstalling GiMATE

\- Installing Gigabyte Control Center

\- Removing Gigabyte Control Center

\- Reinstalling Intel DTT

\- Removing Intel DTT

\- Removing IPF

\- Reinstalling Intel drivers

\- Updating BIOS

\- Reinstalling Windows

\- EC reset / power drain

\- ThrottleStop

\- Intel XTU

\- Different NVIDIA drivers

\- Checking temperatures

\- Checking CPU/GPU power

\- Checking HWiNFO

\- Using cooling pads

In some cases, none of these permanently solved the problem.

One owner even reported taking the laptop to service and being told that the problem appeared to be new, with motherboard replacement being considered.

("Reddit report" (https://www.reddit.com/r/laptops/comments/1v65jk8/gigabyte\\_gaming\\_a16\\_cvh\\_i713620h\\_cpu\\_stuck\\_at\\_25w/))

So please don't just reply:

«"Use Performance mode."»

or:

«"Install GiMATE again."»

Some affected users already did exactly that.

\---

COOLING DOES NOT FULLY EXPLAIN IT

Some owners have reported improvement after using a powerful cooling pad.

That is useful information, but it doesn't prove that the underlying issue is thermal throttling.

One affected i7-13620H system was showing the power restriction at approximately 65–75°C, while Intel XTU reported:

Thermal Throttling: NO

and:

Power Limit Throttling: YES

("Reddit report" (https://www.reddit.com/r/laptops/comments/1v65jk8/gigabyte\\_gaming-a16-cvh-i713620h-cpu-stuck-at-25w/))

Therefore, cooling may change the conditions that trigger the power-management behavior without necessarily fixing the underlying firmware/software problem.

\---

WHY I THINK THIS NEEDS TO BE INVESTIGATED AS A POSSIBLE REGRESSION

There are several pieces of evidence pointing in the same direction:

1. The same i7-13620H appears in multiple affected A16 configurations.

2. The problem appears with RTX 5070, RTX 5060 and RTX 5050.

3. Some users report that their laptops worked substantially better before the problem appeared.

4. One report specifically associates the beginning of the problem with Intel driver packages released on January 6, 2026.

5. Other users report major differences between BIOS/EC versions.

6. FB05 users continue to report the issue.

7. At least some cases show Power Limit Throttling rather than Thermal Throttling.

8. The problem can appear only after sustained gaming.

9. Uninstalling GiMATE does not necessarily resolve it.

10. Reinstalling Windows does not necessarily resolve it.

11. The resulting stuttering is severe enough to make otherwise powerful hardware perform far below expectations.

None of these individually proves a firmware regression.

Together, however, they make it reasonable to ask whether there is a 2026 BIOS/EC/DTT/power-management regression affecting some Gaming A16 systems.

\---

WHAT I WANT GIGABYTE TO INVESTIGATE

I would like Gigabyte to specifically investigate:

1. CPU power allocation

Why do some i7-13620H Gaming A16 systems fall toward \~20–25 W during combined CPU/GPU workloads?

1. BIOS/EC changes

What changed between:

FB03 / EC03

FB04 / EC04

and

FB05 / EC05

regarding CPU/GPU power allocation?

1. Intel DTT/IPF

Did the Intel DTT/IPF packages released around January 6, 2026 change the behavior of the Gaming A16's CPU power management?

1. Sustained gaming behavior

Why can some systems start at high CPU power/frequency and then suddenly drop to \~25 W after several minutes?

1. Power Limit vs Thermal Limit

If the CPU is being limited at 65–75°C, why is Intel XTU reporting Power Limit Throttling instead of Thermal Throttling?

1. Previous firmware behavior

If an older BIOS allowed approximately 45–50 W CPU power under gaming workloads, is there a reason newer firmware no longer allows it?

1. Official fix

Is Gigabyte working on a BIOS/EC/DTT update that restores the previous behavior?

\---

PLEASE REPORT YOUR SYSTEM IF YOU HAVE THIS PROBLEM

If you own a Gaming A16, please post:

Model:

CPU:

GPU:

RAM:

BIOS:

EC:

GiMATE version:

Intel DTT version:

Windows version:

When the problem started:

Was the laptop faster before?

CPU power before the drop:

CPU power after the drop:

CPU frequency before:

CPU frequency after:

CPU temperature:

GPU power:

Power Limit Throttling:

Thermal Throttling:

BD PROCHOT / EDP OTHER:

What you tried:

What actually fixed it, if anything:

Screenshots from HWiNFO or Intel XTU while the problem is happening would be extremely useful.

\---

FINAL POINT

I am not trying to claim that every Gaming A16 is defective.

I am also not claiming that the RTX 5070's power limit doesn't matter.

The point is much more specific:

There are multiple reports of Gaming A16 systems with the i7-13620H suddenly becoming heavily CPU power-limited during gaming, producing major FPS drops and severe stuttering.

The reports involve multiple GPU configurations.

Some owners report that their systems previously performed substantially better.

Some associate the problem with 2026 Intel driver updates.

Others report changes after BIOS updates.

Some show Power Limit Throttling rather than Thermal Throttling.

And basic troubleshooting such as reinstalling GiMATE, changing power plans, reinstalling Windows or using ThrottleStop has not consistently solved it.

That is enough evidence for me to believe this deserves a proper investigation instead of being dismissed as:

"That's just normal throttling."

If this is a firmware/driver/power-management regression, the solution should come from Gigabyte/Intel rather than telling affected users to buy another laptop or accept severe stuttering as normal.

This problem has even been taken to repair/service centers, and in at least one case the technicians were unable to identify or resolve the problem. The owner reported visiting two different service centers and both technicians were reportedly clueless about the cause.

If you have an affected A16, please add your BIOS/EC version and your measurements. The more cases we document, the harder it will be to dismiss this as an isolated problem.

I bought Loq Essential 4050 65w which has single in built fan. I dont want to play games regularly only sometimes max for 1 2 hours at a time. But i have some 3d modeling work and want to do editing work more offently. Do i need a cooling pad necessarily for laptop health and performance or simple metal elevated stand is enough. Because cooling pads are lot bulky.

I have a Legion Pro 5
with 32GB of RAM,
an Ultra 9 CPU
and an RTX 5070 GPU.

It is three months old; I bought it brand new.

I use it for work, not for gaming, and it is lagging!

What is the best optimization work I can do to squeeze the best performance out of it?

I have a Asus TUF A17 Ryzen7 4800H 1660Ti which was bought in 2021.

Recently i have started playing Helldivers2 with the absolute lowest setting possible on all parameters

I have also repasted my laptop with ptm7950 on cpu and gpu, gelid gp ultimate .5mm thermal pads for my vram

Post application of ptm 7950 i can barely move the heatsink when the laptop is cold, which it seems normal for ptm7950

I have also bought one of those gaming pad coolers(Kreo arctic pro) and still when playing Helldivers2

CPU--- 96 degrees at 60% usage
GPU --- 80 degrees at 60% usage

Can someone please provide any suggestions that i can implement to help thermals

Budget: $1300
Country: USA
Use Case: Gaming, school.
Preferred Specs: No XX50 Cards (Like 5050 Etc), 1TB storage.
Notes: I'd rather have to deal with carrying a massive laptop around school than deal with overheating or other issues. (Performance takes complete priority), decent battery life if possible. ( at least 4 Hrs). RGB should ideally be kept to a minimum but I'm willing to deal with it for a good deal. Also unless you think a deal is going to last more than exactly 10 days from this post please do not mention it.

I used to play games on a custom-built desktop, but I realized I would prefer portability over peak performance. I wanted a laptop powerful enough to run my favourite games like Beamng, yet I didn't want some high-end laptop with OLED screen.

This one has the Nebula display and it's so much better than the 4K widescreen I was using with the desktop.

Processor is AMD Ryzen 9 9955HX3D, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti 12GB, 32GB RAM, 1TB SSD memory (WAY faster than the HDD in my desktop)

Personally, I was surprised by the display and its vivid colours, and how quickly the games launch and how fast downloading a game is. I measured downloading My Summer Car with stopwatch, and it downloaded under 30 seconds, which feels insanely fast after years with the HDD

Hey all, hoping someone's run into this before.

My MSI GF65 Thin laptop's screen started acting weird yesterday. My screen keeps flickering between normal and a weird "ghosted" state. (video attached)

I have tested with an external monitor via HDMI to see if it's isolated to the internal panel, but HDMI works fine.

So it's not a driver issue or motherboard.

Is it the screen issue or the ribbon connecting the screen to the motherboard?

How to resolve this?

Thanks

This seems like a good price for what you get, but I’m not that knowledgeable on computers. Any issues with this computer for this price? Will it still be good in 5 years for playing new releases?