I am using this laptop as my main device and have messed with it quite a bit. The noise depends on CPU / GPU combo used as well as on the heatsink. I bought my device used and am unsure whether my heatsink is in pristine condition...
My experience:
The laptop is able to handle a 1080GTX at 150W continuously in 22°C rooms. A 6700K and a 7700K (have hands-on experience with bith in this device) might run hot, as they always do. However, some users in Notebookreview's owner thread were able to run a 8700K and overclock it, although I am not sure how they managed to do so. My F5 is now sporting a 9700F, which is limited by power and thermals on my device. With 1.2V (unstable below that) I am able to run it at 45x45x45x45x45x44x43x42, with IMON Offset of -25W (to go above Intel's mandated 65W power limit). With this setup (daily driver), the CPU will reach high 80s to low 90s on average when playing CPU+GPU intense games. This is just shy of throttling which is why I have set it up like that. Depending on your needs, you can keep the 65W default power limit and get away with lower temps.
Fan noise is fully dependent on the fans used. There were some discussions on that in the previous forum as well. The stock fans (N322) tended to die like flies, needing a replacement within 1y. The updated N395 you could get from some websites lasts much longer and is a bit faster, at slightly increased noise. There seems to be a newer version N408 which is supposed provide a reliable / lasting (similar to N395) fan at a lower noise level (vs. N395) but I have not tried those. You can also take a completely different fan and mod it to fit this device. My GPU is currently being cooled by a fan used in Asus laptops (would need to check the label to know which fan it is). Unless you push for the limit (= what I am doing to this device), the noise level is actually quite low.
Last but not least, the device is based upon a MSI barebone so you can use Svet's VBIOS Tuner to modify the fan table in the EC (included in that tool, you still can not modify VBIOS for Pascal GPUs).
