Intro
Processors work by very quickly cycling electrical current which generates a lot of heat. Computers manage heat using heatsinks: metal plates that conduct heat away from the processors while fans (or pumps in the case of a liquid system) cool the heatsinks in an exchange of thermal energy. Thermal bottlenecking occurs when a processor gets too hot, and the computer must stop using one of the cores very briefly. Some games are more demanding than others, but no one wants to turn their settings down to avoid thermal bottlenecking.
Due to the modular nature of desktops, desktop owners have advanced cooling solutions available to them, much of which is being driven by overclocking enthusiasts. Most laptops are internally air-cooled, and these systems are not meant to be upgraded or modified. My laptop has 6700k, and a 970m (the 6gb version) and heat has been a concern since day one. Running a CPU/GPU at the high end of the temperature threshold will shorten the life of the computer, so laptop owners should be particularly concerned about their machine's ability to properly vent heat.
Fortunately, there are several relatively easy and inexpensive ways to reduce heat on your gaming laptop. This guide is going to go over each of them starting with the cheapest and easiest. Please be aware that while most of these are relatively safe, you assume any risk when you modify your settings or adjust an internal component. I've marked items with a "*" if they carry minimal risk and "!" if they are inherently risky.
A USB Cooling Pad
This first one is pretty easy - even a cheap cooling pad will drastically improve airflow by raising the laptop off of a flat surface, and some are height adjustable (the more height, the better). The fans increase airflow and make sure that hot air generated by the laptop gets moved away from the computer which ensures that the laptop's internal system has access to fresh air. Make this purchase with your laptop, even if it is a cheap pad.
Laptop Placement
Do not attempt to put your laptop in a confined space. On the other hand, setting it between two tables so that there is nothing below the middle of it is also probably a bad idea. Ideally, place the laptop on a surface that does not retain too much heat. It should probably have ventilation on as many sides as possible; for example, the side of a table where air can travel around the corner of the table - be sure you can't accidentally knock it off the edge (i.e., have it in a corner).
Intel Performance Utility
Intel makes a performance utility that is critical for tracking CPU temperature and performance as well as adjusting CPU settings. Be sure to run a benchmark before you make any adjustments so that you can measure the difference.
Turn off Intel Boost
I don't know why Intel has this boost feature or precisely what it does, other than it generates a lot of extra heat and when I turned it off it didn't reduce my performance at all. Specifically, I found that BATTLETECH (its Unity engine is notoriously inefficient) ran much cooler (about 5 degrees Celsius) with this turned off.
Undervolting*
Most CPU's can run stable below their default voltage setting. What you do is you adjust the voltage offset as much as possible without making the computer unstable. It's a little tricky and requires some testing, but undervolting reduced my temperatures by about 7 C. My 6700k is undervolted exactly -.135 and has been running stable on BATTLETECH and Overwatch (two pretty demanding games). There's no telling what your exact setting is, so keep testing to find the sweet spot, but the great thing is that this doesn't affect performance!
Liquid Metal!
If you've ever built a PC, you probably remember applying thermal compound to the CPU/GPU between the chip and the heatsink (at least, I hope you didn't forget!). Thermal compound conducts heat to the heat sink which draws heat away from the chip. Typically, the best heat conducting substances are also electrically conductive, but since using electrically conductive liquid inside a computer is a recipe for disaster, most people don't do it. On desktops, the GPU/CPU also have a lid, which would need to be removed to realize the benefits of liquid metal, but laptop components typically do not have lids.
Applying liquid metal reduced my CPU and GPU temperatures by about 10 C. So if you're desperate to improve your laptop cooling, Linus Tech Tips has a video about how to correctly and safely use a liquid metal thermal compound. It involves using silicone conformal coating and a physical barrier, so in all, it's about $30 from Amazon. I suggest getting sticky tack and carefully making a physical barrier around each chip under the heatsink to avoid any leakage. If spreading the compound doesn't work for your (it didn't work for me), just place a small amount in the middle of the chips and reapply the heat sinks carefully, watching that nothing leaks out.
Conclusion
BATTLETECH is a heck of a game, but geese, Unity is inefficient. That's not the only inefficient engine out there (PUBG anyone?), so I hope these adjustments will come in handy because c'mon, who really wants to play a game on it's lowest settings because the computer is overheating? I didn't even overclock, and I'm probably not going to, I simply want to take great care of my computer, and I hope this helps you do the same. (Or overclock the s*t out of it, YOLO!)
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