***The Official MSI GT72 Dominator Pro (GTX-980M) Owner?s Lounge***

Hi folks,

I'm looking for a GT72 GTX-970M with 2x128 GB SSD. However, I seem to be able to find only a 1x128 SKU in my neighborhood. What steps (in HW & SW) would I need to follow if I would buy this stock model and would like to add another 128 GB module myself and have it run in RAID 0?

 

GT72 have 4 RAM slots, 2 under keyboard (occupied) which you'll need to remove the motherboard to gain access to; the other 2 can be access by remove base panel (same as to remove/upgrade HDD and/or SSDs).

As far as I know from reading posts from Striker et al, only m.2 SSDs are using SATA3 (6GB), all other ports are SATA2 (3GB).

Correct me if I'm wrong.

Regards

 

Buy the SSD, remove the base panel, install the SSD, boot into BIOS, set SSDs in RAID, done.

Regards

 

Shadow of Mordor is actually asking for 8GB system RAM not vRAM. 4GB of vRAM is plenty and should last you well into the future. Having 8GB vRAM wont hurt though

 

I believe 8GB of vRAM would be most useful when running multi-monitors, right?

Regards

 

Wow, thanks. Sounds really easy. But what about the pre-loaded OS? Right from the start it lives on SSD 1, so does this mean I won't have the RAID 0 advantage, or will the volume be optimized automatically by the controller after adding the second SSD?

 

I would always make a drive backup prior to any modifications on the system drive.

As to your specific question, I only know that it MIGHT adjust itself when move from RAID 0 to RAID 5, but I don't have much experience on RAID, anyhow.

Regards

 

nazdrovje --- if you add a second ssd, but do not reinstall OS from scratch onto raid, you will not get all performance benefits of the raid. to get all the benefits of a raid you have to install multiple drives, then in bios set mode to raid, then boot from OS media, load raid drivers and install os onto that raid. if done correctly the os installer will see the multi-drive raid as 1 drive during install. this may require having to get an additional driver disk onto a usb key, if needed during os install. this is a slightly more complex than a non-raid install. if this is your first time doing an OS install of any kind, i recommend you get some help or at least make sure you have a second machine available- this way if you get stuck you can use second pc to get help on forums. also consider not raiding and just putting your games or apps on the new ssd. by splitting the workload like that you get some of the benefits of raid0 without the complex install.

as far as 4gb/6gb/8gb gpu ram here are the numbers per game. note how some games tend to use more vram as you play them. the below data was gathered after playing each game about 5 minutes.

this is at 1920*1200. max settings.
for 1080p , reduce below gpu ram usage 10%:

ryse max no ss (3gb+)



bf4 ultra, 4xAA, hbao. 42 man multiplayer lumphni (2GB+):




titanfall max settings 4xAA multiplayer (3gb+):



mordor ultra preset (5gb+):




EDIT 3: FOR GAMING LAPTOPS ----so it seems 3gb is not enough already, 4gb is about right for most games,,, but really 6gb is where its at today and 8gb should offer some nice headroom for the next couple of years. so unless you plan to upgrade gpu in 6 months, look for 6gb or 8g on the the high end cards. Low end cards ram quantity it doesnt matter a much because they dont have the muscle to render those pretty textures fast enough, and you will run medium settings anyway.

EDIT: if you have multiple monitors, add about ~200mb VRAM per additional 1080p monitor. If you like to watch stuff on 2nd screen while gaming (netflix, amazon, hbo, or vlc player) add another ~300mb vram . it adds up.

EDIT 2: the VRAM usage i showed here is not representative of all video cards from all manufacturers, and i would not make any conclusions for desktop cards based on my tests/screenshots. ATI cards in the past used less vram than NVIDIA cards ( my last ati gpu was a desktop 5870 and it used a couple of hundred megabyte less vram than my friends nvidia card of that generation). i do not have a current ati card, but current ati cards may need slightly less vram than current nvidia cards. also note that high vram clocks of desktop cards can "mask" vram limits, by rapidly swapping textures to system ram and back to vram. this is usually why the ram requirement is so high-- if developer cant have enough VRAM, they'll use system ram instead. since laptop vram is usually clocked much lower (even my 980m has 40% slower vram clocks than the desktop 970/980) its better to have lots of Vram to avoid texture swap which uses precious memory bandwidth.

the scenario that comes to mind is the BF4 numbers in my screenshot. my screenshot shows bf4 a bit over 2GB used- 2342mb on my nvidia 980m. based on my previous experiencewith ati, an ati card running same scenario may come in at around 2100mb vram used, which would almost fit a 2gb vram frame buffer. effectively since there is only ~242 megs that dont fit into vram (on that map, other bf4 maps may have even more ram usage) at 1080p, it's not alot of data to swap in and out of vram. consequently desktop cards with high memory clocks can "suck-up" (perform the swapping task using un-utilised memory bandwidth, creating appearance that no additional resources are used) the additional overhead of swapping textures to/from vram and system memory and dont take performance hit-- you never notice that you are out of VRAM since fps stays high. i bet video cards with lower memory clocks and narrower memory busses would be hit much harder by the swap, and produce much lower fps in some situations. since game makers need to recommend 1 thing to ALL gamers no matter the hardware they use, 3gb is that recomendation for bf4. it works for all cards from nvidia and ati, and insures consistent performance, since 3gb cards wont have to texture swap to main memory.

this is also why laptops usually come with more gpu vram than desktops. laptop vram is set slower than desktop vram, so might as well put more in and prevent texture swap to system memory, reducing the need for high vram clocks. the reason for the downclocking vram in a laptop is because VRAM is where most power usage of a gpu-card comes from (the vram may use more power than the gpu chip itself). this is also why next gen memory is specifically targeting very wide bandwidth so you can clock vram lower, save a ton in power and still get incredible performance. http://techreport.com/news/27129/hy...ally-stacked-memory-with-256gb-s-of-bandwidth . supposedly ati will have a desktop card with that memory next year (15) ...that should truly enable 4k gaming at high fps. nvidia should have something in desktop/laptop the following year(16) with this kind of memory as well.

 

the ram slots are a weak argument imho. i understand it would be "nice" not to have to disassemble so much to get to those slots, but in reality i dont think anyone has a NEED to get to those slots when they purchase the laptop. Repairs aside (if those 2 hard to reach ram sticks break and stop working, yes it will be pain in the a** to get to them to replace them) i can only think of one scenario when it actually makes sense to disassemble to get to those hard-to-reach-slots:

scenarios:

1) you bought the 16gb sku want want to get to 32 gb the cheapest way-- buy 2 sticks of the kingston ram i noted on page 19 of the thread, and put it into the easy- to-reach slots under the cover. a reseller can confirm if i found the right ram to match.

2) you bought the 32gb sku-- processor cannot handle more ram. cannot upgrade quantity. 32gb is max mobile corei7 can handle today.

3) you bought a 32/16gb sku and want to swap out the ram for faster ram (upgrade to cas9 instead of stock cas11) --- this is the only scenario where i can think of why you would have a need to get to those slots right away as soon as you bring home the machine. If you are in this scenario i would probably buy the notebook from one of the resellers here and pay them to install all the ram. xotic/gentech/powernotebooks all offer this type of upgrade.

 

Hmmm... thanks for the advice. I've done quite a few installs but never on RAID configurations. This all sounds a bit too complicated to my taste. Perhaps not then.

 

@DelFang

Thanks for your reply mate, seems abit weird to have a PCIE SSD controller only then to cripple the rest of the system with SATAII.

MS-16F2 2 ports are SATA III, the Rom Drive SATA is a SATA II. I might just save up the £1,600 then wait and see what comes out then. I have currently a 1TB for games on SATAIII and SSD for OS and games are slow to load as it is without the SATAII bottleneck adding to that. I am fine with the Junk drive being on SATAII but when its a Drive dedicated to games i need fast loading times to follow.

Although i really like the looks of the GT72, i am now classed as stuck between a rock and a sexy case.

 

afaik 16f2 has only 1 sata3 6gb/sec port, which is next to the optical drive, right side of the machine when machine is in regular use with display open.

the other 2 ports (caddy in the optical bay, and sata port underneath mousepad) are both sata2.

so i think you may have bottleneck already dude.

there is no pcie SSD controller on either machine's motherboard not 16f2 and not gt72.

the m.2 connectors in the gt72 are sata compatible and not pcie compatible afaik from what i have read a pcie interface ssd in m.2 format like samsung xp941 would NOT work in gt72 m.2 slots.

EDIT: this is the caddy i bought for the gt72 which runs sata2 speed as expected. electrically/performance the caddy is running perfect. aesthetically the faceplay is a bit sunk-in after you put it into the chassis. this is easily fixable by swapping optical drive faceplate with the caddy faceplate, but it doesnt bother me so i will leave it as is. http://www.amazon.com/Universal-9-5...F8&qid=1413399289&sr=8-2&keywords=9.5mm+caddy

EDIT 2: i went back and ammended/edited my post on page 9 of the thread. that answer of mine, was to PawGan's question on page 8 about plextor M6E being compatible with gt72. as i was looking at various drives i realized today that particular plextor drive needs PCIE M.2 port and wont work in gt72 SATA m.2 port. sorry for the mistake! when i was researching i confused the plextor m6e with m6m which is how i made that mistake.

 

Multiple monitors or higher resolutions like 4K.

 

Just got my GT72 980m today!! Coming from my first "gaming laptop" Y500 (650m SLI)

 

My 210 shipped this morning from XoticPC. Not for nothing but their people have been awesome so far. Hopefully it will get here by the weekend or early next week so I can post some thoughts and reviews. So excited!

 

So is it true that G72 is nosier than the new asus G751? dunno why MSI went with a louder laptop when both are about the same size ?

 

The 16F2 had two SATA III ports, one for each 2.5" bay, the 16F3 had them both routed to a single bay for the super raid adapter board.

 

Excellent if you USA Peoples are getting yours and seeing them shipping out hopefully that will mean us Aussies will not be too far behind.

 

i stand corrected..totally forgot about that adapter thing!

on a similar topic , if you look inside the gt72, there is room for another 2.5" drive (there is a space which looks like perfect 2.5" fit). but that open space has no connector of any kind. the layout suggests the connector would come from sacrificing all/part of the m.2 adapter bracket.

 

My 211 shipped from GentechPC. Will be here right on time to be opened up on my birthday. Can't wait!

 

I will be doing a video review of the G751 tomorrow and will see how it sounds compared to the GT72.

 

No, MSI seem noisier because of Turbo Fan which you don't have to turn it on.

With Turbo fan off it's quieter than Asus:

MSI GT72 with GTX980M Turbo Fan off:




MSI GT72 with GTX980M Turbo Fan on:





Asus G751JY with GTX980M:




Turbo Fan on GT72 is a extra feature and it will help if you want to overclock the GPU. it only shows the worse case scenario but you don't have to use it and it's not required to turn it on.


I still like MIS's easy acces to clean the fan and vent and even repaste thermal compound. the dusts built up kills a gaming laptop.

 

Since we are comparing laptops, how's GT72 against Gigabyte P35x? I know one's 17" and the other is 15", but right now GT72 is out of my affordability.

Unless GT72 is overwhelmingly better, I might end up getting a P35x instead.

Regards

 

Depends on how you want to compare it and what features you are looking for. We all know they both have GTX970M.

 

Got my GT72 yesterday and it is fantastic! (first in Sweden? =))
Super quiet next to my old Asus G73JH (fans exchanged 9months ago)

 

I know that GT72 have 4 m.2 SSD ports, while P35x have 2 mSATA ports, and both have 980m while P35W have 970m.

I did my research.

Regards

 

Yeah I know...the thing is what are yo looking for? what is your requirement besides the GPU?

Strikers for example, he will never get a 15.6" gaming laptop, he wants a 17.3" and 15.6" will never be in his list. Also P35X uses soldered GPU which Striker never wants it.

Also the same GPU and CPU on different sizes the noise level and temperature will be different.

People just have different requirements such as keyboard, screens, speakers, weight and size all the rests of stuff.

The questions is still: what are you looking for? If it's just the GPU then there are plenty of choices.

 

Besides GPU, I mostly concerned about the noise and heat level when gaming. I searched on google and youtube, come up with nothing. And P25 doesn't have a good reputation in that regards either.

But for £300 less, as long as they are sufferable, I would go with P35x. (Unless my uncle generously give the money, then I'll happily get the GT72)

Regards

 

If noise level is what you are worry about when gaming then skip 15.6" or P35X. You just can't have a quiet gaming laptop with slim design like P35X. The same amount of heat the GPU and CPU generates from the smaller chassis will have higher heat and noise since the fan will kick in according to the temperature in real world physics.

So now we know you want a quite and powerful gaming laptop, I assume you don't travel a lot and required and slim chassis on a airplane. Get a GT72.

 

Well, unless GT72 come with a cheaper 980m SKU, it's really just out of my affordability.

Please someone give me money so I can buy GT72 and play games all-day and not going to lectures.

Regards

 

Save up for the GT72. Maybe a cheaper SKU will come out in a few months as well.
It is worth it.

 

True, that's an option, but if GT72 with 880m is any indication, any 980m SKU will be out of stock the moment it became available, then I'll have to settle for a 970m, one which I could have "settle" with now.

If I were to "settle" I might as well just settle with the Alienware M11x I own right now, one which runs half of my games fluently.

Real life sucks, I wish I can CheatEngine RL.

Regards

 

LOL....well.. MSI is going to provide GPU upgrade later on. if GTX980M is not required then get something cheaper for now and upgrade it later.

You know what my requirement for a laptop? I do Adobe After Effects projects, it's got higher requirement for hardware than just play games. so what I need is:

- 4x RAM slot, I need at least 32GB (not even enough) of RAM. any laptop that can only go up to 16GB is not for me.
- Larger screen, 15.6" is just too small for me to view all the details.
- A lot of storage space which means more slots for hard drives or mSATA/ M.2 SSDs.

Without all these specs it will take just about triple or quatriple times to render a 15 seconds video like this:

 

All I wish right now is to have a capable machine to run Witcher 3 smoothly (schedule to release on February), that give me some months for saving.

Regards

 

The better GPU the better performance it plays. If you want the best get GTX980M however, the GTX970M will play just fine.

 

Nice to know the GT72 is actually quieter than the G751 without the Turbo Fan.
Now my question to you is when you were doing your excellent review of the GT72 during benchmarks were those temps done with the Turbo Fan feature on or off?
Would love to see some temps and hear fan noise levels under heavy load/intense gaming without Turbo Fan feature to see how good the new cooling really is.
One thing I really want in my next new laptop is relatively quiet fans.
Is the IPS panel on the G751 much better than the TN panel of the GT72, it's sort of hard to tell unless you have them side by side.
Thanks !
You guys are the best and will be ordering from you soon, just have to decide which way to go.

 

I don't want the G751, but I would like to have an IPS panel so I think I'm gonna get the GT72 with the i7 4980 and the IPS panel!

 

Both are great laptops with pluses and minuses and either way you go you make a good choice.

 

The 211 modelo with the i7 4710hq its ok for you? Or you will need the 445 modelo with the 4980hq?

 

Do u have any idea where can I get a gt72 with 980m in Canada?
And also anoter thing:

"Upgradeable GPU. without having an upgradeable CPU as well, what's the point? The newer/more powerful the GPU, the more CPU power it needs to compensate for it so without an upgradeable CPU I don't see the point. Unless the GPU fails, of course..."

So actually it doesnt worse to upgrade the gou after some years in the gt72 coz the CPU is goin to bottleneck it?

 

There are many resellers that are more than happy to ship to Canada. Best to reach out directly and see who you are most comfortable doing business with.

At a certain point you'd be correct, the more powerful the GPU the more CPU power you need. In modern systems the CPU is nowhere near the bottleneck in single GPU setups. The 980m will still be the bottleneck in the system, not the CPU. The upgradability isn't offered from the 900 series to the next gen cards we know nothing about, it's from those systems bought with the 800 series upgrading to the 900 series that its offered.

 

It is important to notice that the bottleneck is most likely a single digit % and usually in high frames per second, so it is not really a bottleneck.

 

Ok, I just triple-checked, the GT72 SKU I can realistically afford is GT72 2QD-233UK (with GTX 970m, no SSD, DVD-RW, £1299), and I found no information regarding the m.2 adapter. The next SKU is 228UK (with 128GB SSD and Blu-ray) which I can upgrade to with £100.

Seem as 233UK might be what I eventually end up with, I would really like to know whether or not it has the m.2 adapter.

I'll ask the retailers of course, but mean while, what does the lads from Gentech and Xoticpc say?

Regards

 

Since it is a SKU that we do not offer we are not able to say for sure. All the GT72 models we offer come with at least 1x m.2 installed so they all have the adapter. I am not sure if models that do not come with a m.2 pre installed will just use 2x SATA ports or still have the adapter preinstalled.

 

It's the first GT72 not to come with an SSD so it's hard to say since its not sold in the US. I would assume it would be the first to come with the second 2.5" bay instead but we will have to wait and see.

 

Well, I should have replies from retailers by monday at latest, then we shall decide whether I can get it before November or after January...

We shall see.

Edit [18/10/2014]:
Overclockers.co.uk has this in the description:

Guess this model does come with m.2 adapter afterall.

Edit [21/10/2014]: Ebuyer just inform me that it does NOT come with adaptor. Scan is still waiting for confirmation from their MSI rep.

Regards

 

Well this made me worried.

MSI GT72 Dominator Pro-211 (980M) - Review by XOTIC PC - YouTube

Edit [16/10/2014]:

http://youtu.be/m76pVlrUkY0?t=18m12s

 

What made you worried? The reason that part is unused is because the motherboard chipset can use only 6 SATA channels. 4 are used by the m.2 Adapter and 1 for the HDD and 1 for the optical disc drive. The chasis has room for more as a futureproof design I guess, or the possibility to skip the m.2 adapter and use dual 2.5 bays, I don't know.

 

I'm worried because the only model I can afford is 970m without the SSD, but I want to at least add 4 SSDs in RAID 0 (1TB) next year. But I can't if the model doesn't come with m.2 adapter.

Of course I can just use my current 1TB 2.5" SSD as main drive, but then if I cannot take advantages of 4x m.2 SSDs in RAID 0 I might as well just buy other more affordable laptops (at least Gigabyte P35X come with 2 mSATA ports).

Regards

 

I wouldn't worry about it, because the mSATA adapters were included with previous SuperRAID II models..... and it only makes sense they will same here, due to the MB SATA port distribution. If you think about it, the design itself demands an adapter of some sort, otherwise, how else can you plug-in any SATA III device? Besides, users will be verifying this soon, so no worries, you'll know with certainty, soon enough.