Dspr_02's MSI GX640-098US Review

So here goes in no particular order...

THIS WILL BE UPDATED REGULARLY!

Unboxing

A simple brown box with MSI tape around it and the laptops model number.
Inside I found the MSI G Series box with the laptop on top of the accessories box.



The box was double boxed.








If you are wondering, the pink bubble wrap thingy is from the battery, which I already put in the laptop.





Re-Unboxing Video Soon

A word about the stickers all over the laptop: I am a person who HATES and I mean HATES! stickers on my laptops. I want the laptop to be nice and shiny and plain like god intended it to be. This laptop's stickers are relatively easy to remove, however, they leave behind a very big "pain-in-the-donkey" to remove residue. The worst of them is the Silver GX640 sticker on the palmrest with all the specs as it leaves a thick gooey glue on the palmrest that is hard as (reader imagination here) to remove.

Specs



CPU: Intel Core i5-430M 2.26Ghz 1066Mhz 3MB cache
Display: 15.4" WSXGA+ (1680 x 1050) Glossy
System Memory: 4GB (2x 2GB) DDR3 1333 SODIMM - 0 open slot MAX. 8GB
Video: ATi Radeon HD5850 Broadway Pro 1GB GDDR5
HDD: 500GB, 7200PRM SATA
Optical drive: Supermulti DVD Drive
Battery: 9-cell li-ion battery: up to 3.5 hours life depending usage
Network: 56Kbps,10/100/1000, 802.11AGN wireless LAN
Interface ports: DC-in, RJ-45 LAN, VGA, 4-in-1 Card Reader
headphones/speakers/line-out, microphone-in, eSata, ,HDMI
four USB 2.0, IEEE 1394, BUILT-IN 2.0MP WEBCAM.Buetooth
Pointing Device:Touch Pad with onboard numeric keypad
OS Preload: Microsoft® 7 Home Premium Bilingual


Size and Weight

Dimension 14.1” (L) x 10.24” (W) x 1.22” (H)
Weight 5.94 lbs with (9-cell battery)

I would have to say that it is heavier than what I am used to, but that is due to the fact that I went from an Asus G50VT-X5 (~ 6.2 lbs with 9 cell battery) to an Asus UL80VT-A2 (~ 4.8 lbs with 8 cell battery). Though it is light enough to take around with you while traveling.

Screen

15.4" WSXGA+ (1680 x 1050) Glossy CCFL.


Software and Bloatware Pre-installed

There was a lot of bloatware installed, not as bad as I have seen but surely more than anyone wants.

Most of the bloat ware was the software that comes with the camera but uninstalling one program (forgot which one) uninstalls the whole suite minus the camera software and effects software.

Worst of the bloatware is Norton Antivirus. Ew. . They at least include WinRar pre-installed.

Keyboard and Touchpad





The Fn Control switching is not nearly as bad as I thought it would be and I only made the mistake a few times.


The only place where I do screw up in typing (less and less now) is on the right side of the keyboard, namely the Right Shift, Enter, Backspace and \ as they were all shrunk down in size to accomodate the full sized number pad.


This just looks kick-!


The touchpad's buttons, while looking nice, are very, very loud. They are loud enough to easily annoy someone (besides the user) after extended and repeated use.

Keyboard is nice and has good travel, the touchpad is smooth and non glossy. Not a multi-touch touchpad unfortunately. The Buttons are also really loud.

Battery and Battery Life

Came with 50% out of the box, Windows says that it has 50 min, so a 1:1 ratio on their default power plan.



*UPDATE*
After a week of running the battery down to 0% and recharging it to 100%, rinsing and repeating, the battery, today, officially lasted for longer than 2 and a half hours!

I did run into a snag at one point where I was charging it and it gave me an error saying "Plugged in, Not Charging". This was remedied by removing the battery and turning the laptop off for ~ 30 min. I had the battery on a dryer (which had been off, but the metal was cold). Since then, I have had no problems.

Couch Surf-ability

Not as light as the Asus UL80VT-A2 but it is easily usable on a couch for regular web browsing/hard core gaming.

The heat is only bothersome if you put the vent right up against your bare skin.

Noise and Heat

Not too noisy. About the median for gaming laptops now-a-days. The fan however has been cycling between medium low and medium high. If anyone knows a fix, please comment below. It isn't driving me crazy, but I am not to crazy about it either.

The fan as of now still cycles between medium high and low, on a new OS.

Speakers and Ports

Left
From the front of the notebook to the back:
Mic, Line In, Speakers Out 1, Speakers Out 2, DVD, Modem, Kensington Lock

Right
From the front of the notebook to the back
Express Card 54, 4 in 1 Card Reader, USB, eSata USB COMBO, Vent, RJ45 Network

Back
From left to right
HDMI, VGA, DC In, Battery


2 MPX Camera




The speakers are astounding! I love them to pieces! Ports are what you would expect, including an eSata USB combo port, 1394 firewire and 5.1 surround sound analog out.

1080p HD Playback + HDMI Playback

Tried 720p with no problem. Will update later, going to try on tv
Tried a 1920x1080p movie in MKV format, worked beautifully!

Innards

Pictures coming soon as I still have not yet cracked open this bad-boy...which is rather odd since I usually remove the bottom panel within 5 min!






In the pic above, you can clearly see the third antenna for WiFi.


Above is a pic of what I am assuming to be the BlueTooth module.


Sexy Mad-Stylin' pic of the inside...

The bottom panel takes 2 screws to remove! I
currently love MSI!



Photography from all angles

Pictures coming soon but for now.....







== GAME BENCHMARKS ==
Teamfortress 2

50-60 FPS, drops to low 40's.





CSS







Left4Dead 2

50 FPS Maxed Out

Portal





BATTLEFIELD BAD COMPANY 2



Call of Duty 4 Modern Warfare





MODERN WARFARE 2

60 FPS Maxed Out

DIRT 2

60 FPS Maxed Out

Metro 2033

Average of around 20 FPS on maximum settings, 25 FPS on High on DX10.



== PERFORMANCE BENCHIES ==


3D M06
3D M Vantage
wPrime32

SuperPI

W.E.I. (Windows Experience Index)

== Final Thoughts ==
Honestly, so far? GO OUT AND BUY THIS NOTEBOOK!!!!!

It is a great notebook so far, no problems with it.

 

Excellent, i look forward to the upcoming editions (Y).

 

i will wait!!!

 

Looking forward to the Dirt 2 and Dragon Age bench, as those are the two games i plan to play as soon i get mines.

 

*waiting also*

 

Looking forward to ur review (even though I already have the machine lol). I would review it myself but I feel it would be irrelevent seeing as I upgraded the processor dramatically.

 

More reviews the better, everyones opinion counts.

 

Camping here for your review

 

As I am waiting, any games that anyone wants me to test?

 

SC2 if ur in the beta

 

I'm sure i could "acquire it" ..."yarrr matey"

 

I'm in the beta,

though I have the lappy in my sig.

If you need my help or benchmarking SC2, PM me.

 

How does L4D2 look on it? Also what make is the HDD *crosses fingers for hitachi*

 

Kk I will add L4D2 and SC2 to the list and from some pictures that I have seen, the HDD is a Samsung SpinPoint 500GB 7200RPM...I will confirm.

 

If its possible, could you do a benchmark for just cause 2 and metro 2033.

Thanks alot!

 

I 2nd that ! wanna see how the 5850 handles metro

 

L4D2 will be easy toast,

Now metro, supposedly requires decent hardware

 

I indeed will add Metro 2033 and Just Cause 2. Been meaning to try Just Cause 2 for a while now......

 

The HDD for mine was a Seagate ST9500420AS.

 

Give the demo a go , it's a fun game

 

If any of you guys care, I could tell you how the games run on a 5850 right now...mind you, it is a desktop version of the card XD...

just keeping busy waiting to get it...rrrrgh

 

Stop by gamestop and reserve the game and get yer beta. Then you can benchmark and record some videos for us of you playing online

Thankssss bud

 

One of my friends got into the beta and I am more than sure that he is willing to lend me his account for a day or so....

 

It's probably going to run SC2 without a hitch in normal games at High, and maybe Extremely High settings. UMS is another issue.

My 8800M GTS can handle most of the shaders and post processing. This computer just falls behind with the T5550, but the i5 will be totally fine.

 

thank you thank you boss. how about ULTRA settings? will there be much of a diff? Cuz my old notebook can produce the "ULTRA" graphics, but thats all it really is -- an image, cuz its SO laggy with the sh*tty cpu (AMD x2 turion tl-58) or something. lolz.

 

I think desktop dual cores + 5770 can run the game on Ultra, so theoretically there shouldn't be a problem. In battles that might change, though.

And I don't know if that includes AA either. My guess is probably not.

 

So, does that mean the i5-430m will handle it well on ULTRA? Also, what does "AA" mean, and do you mean it wont be ABLE to do "AA" ?

 

I believe so, but don't quote me on that. I know the desktop i5s and i7s handle it well, but I'm not sure how they compare to the mobile versions. One thing of note is that I think I read it only uses 2 cores, so you're better off sticking with an i5 instead of going up to an i7 720.

At the very least, we know the video card should handle Ultra at this resolution.

 

SC2 isn't meant to be too heavy actually, the mobile versions should be good,

 

The desktop 5850 is quite a bit stronger than the 5850m. I like to think of the 5850m as a "desktop 5760". Not a real card, but if it was, that's where it would fall in the line-up. Maybe you already knew that...

Anyways, in regards to the i5 430m 2.23ghz, I'm willing to bet that it will overclock a ton. With a cooling pad and mayb even interior cooling mods, I bet you could easily get into the 3.x's

 

The Mobility HD 5850 has the same 800 shaders as the desktop HD 5770, but it's clocked much slower, even slower than the HD 5750. Compared to the HD 5750, we're looking at 11% more shaders and 11% lower clock speed, so it's probably approximately equal overall.

On the other hand, the Mobility HD 5870 falls in between the desktop HD 5750 and 5770, but it's closer to the 5750 overall. As such, the Mobility HD 5870 is more of a "desktop 5760".

 

I was actually thinking of the 5870m when I wrote that, a lot of time was spent talking about the same thing on the Asus g73 thread. Good catch

 

5870 mb is very close to the desktop 5770/4870. 5850mb is like a desktop 4850

im gonna pull the gun and buy a gx640 tomorrow, its going to be fun moving from qx9650 and 5870 to a laptop owell i dont game much anymore.

 

The 4870 and 4850 are more difficult to compare because of the different architecture. However, the Mobility 5870 is quite a ways off the desktop 5770 because although they have the same architecture, the difference in clock speeds is quite large - 700/1000 vs 850/1200.

The desktop 5750 has less shaders, but it's closer to the Mobility 5870 than the desktop 5770 is because its clock speeds are much closer at 700/1150.

 

What are shaders? More better or are less better?

 

Moar! Moar!

 

More? K.

Also, when is OP going to do some gaming videos/tests for us?

 

+1 on videos

 

Comparing the 4850 and 4870 pretty much is the same as comparing the 5850 and 5870

Its just the core revisions that count,

 

Sorry, I meant comparing the 5k series to the 4k series is trickier (at least without benchmarks).

 

Ahh right, my bad , i was actually quite unhappy to find that the 4850 was based off its desktop counterpart, but they slipped gun with the 5870 (Basing it off te 57**) Seems a shame to me.

 

ya i think they reason they are no longer able to base topend MB gpu off desktop (with downclock) is the amount of power it needs/heat is produces.

and comparing last gen and current gen is not very complicated. fps speak for themselves.

 

I thought that the 5850 used a peak of like 250 or 350w in the desktop, compared to the 4850's 275w idle, 350w load...then again, I may just be full of horse manure

 

i know that the desktop 4870 idles at 170w ish which is much higher than the desktop 5870 idle. but underload its a different story. the 5870 was also much much louder with fan speeds turned up.

 

...odd i thought it wold draw more power

 

Thank you thank you OP. I really like the touchpad buttons, it's quite unique. I also like the shape of the notebook overall, its squarish looking from far away, but up close, its really rounded and friendly looking, unlike Lenovos or Asuses.

So I was reading a Laptop magazine today at CVS drug store. They had top 15 notebook manufacturers rated. Of course apple was at the top, followed by Asus. Our beloved MSI came in at like #13 hahaha. Mostly cuz of sucky customer service, small market share, and uneasily accessable tech support. Not a fair review/rating IMO.

 

You already have it? start gaming!

 

No, I don't think he does.

 

Waa that laptop mags fail, and MSI's customer service is much better then the majority of peoples, thats a well known fact,

I can 100% tell you that manufacturer review was 100% based off market shares...

And i think its aload of junk that manufacturers claim that newer, smaller tech runs cooler (The die shrinks and all of that rubbish.) when it quite clearly runs hotter, and requires a much heavier, beefier HS/Fan.

 

hhaha No i dont. I meant after looking at the OP's pictures of the touchpad buttons, I'm really impressed hahahaha. But yes, gonna get this beast soon. Cata noted that the m11x could play IT on high well, and that it should play IT on ultra "fine." He, lack, and NotEnoughMins have stuck by my side through this journey of knowledge, and I trust their suggestions.