after continually having throttling problems in games, building a 5 fan cooler for the laptop to sit on, upgrading from the 7800gtx to the 7950gtx, changing arctic silver 5 a couple times, underclocking/undervolting, flashing a modified bios altering the throttling temps (doesnt work), and sacrificing small animals i found a solution.

the problem isnt the gpu or the cooling it's the way the heatsink and fan assembly sit on the video card. no matter how tight you screw the card in, the heatsink doesnt make very good contact with the gpu heat spreader. i'm pretty sure it isnt due to the thermal pads either...it seems to be spacing of the 4 screws that tighten down on the motherboard dont apply equal force across the gpu face.

easiest way to test is just load up Rivatuner and monitor the temps of the gpu...take the cover off the video card housing and push down on the area of the fan housing where the gpu is. (right above the high temperature letters.)

the 7950 temps dropped 7 degrees instantly...the 7800 dropped 15!!

i redid a clean application of arctic silver and made sure all the thermal pads are in place and c-clamped the damn thing down. no more throttling...temps under heavy load (bioshock, oblivion) average 18 degrees cooler now!!!!!

it may be something weird with my notebook...