GT60 3K Edition First Impressions

I took a leap of faith and picked up the new GT60 3K edition from Ken at GenTech...just received it today. The new job I'm under consideration for would involve some real pro level digital/photo editing, so figured this would be a great tool for that...but also planned to use it for gaming obviously. Here are some first impressions:

1. I have had MacBook Pro with Retina displays and in my opinion this screen blows them away. Great color saturation...deep blacks. Couldn't be happier. Note that many of the websites list this as a matte display. To my eyes, that does not seem to be true. You can see reflections...not terrible and frankly I prefer a glossy screen, so it's a plus for me...but could be a deal killer for someone else. Also of note, my screen does have some light bleed around the edges. It's only visible when screen is totally dark...but for screen perfectionists, take note. Perhaps mine is an anomaly. Regardless, I love this screen. My wife has also had MacBooks and she also thinks this is the best screen she's seen.
2. The build quality is typical GT60. I'm not aware of any real chassis changes from recent models (other than the screen obviously).
3. The specification listed a 750GB 7200rpm hard drive along with a 128GB SSD. Mine came with a 1TB 7200rpm drive and 128GB SSD...so no complaints from me on the bonus storage.
4. Native res gaming: 2880 by 1620 experiences. First of all, it's going to depend on what you consider playable frame rates, but the few I've tried so far can do native at high detail levels. You can tell the 780m is pushing it's limits and I ended up dialing down most of my games to 1920 by 1080 and then turned up anti-aliasing...and couldn't really tell it wasn't native res. The big surprise for me was Battlefield 4. It auto-detected native res and then set all settings to high. Now granted, I haven't done multi-player yet...but single player played awesome. Played through the first full mission and had no slowdown...at all. I know multi-player is a different animal...but boy does this thing look beautiful at 2880 by 1620.

I may do some video this weekend of some Battlefield 4 at native just as a point of reference for the curious. I don't tend to mess with FRAPS or synthetics, but if you have questions, post them here and I'll do my best to answer.

 

How much was it?

 

Congrats on your new purchase!

For those of you that are interested in this panel used in the GT60 3K IPS Edition.
This notebook uses Panasonic VVX16T029D00.
Top polarizer type: AG Coat (w/o Retardation Film)
Number of Colors: 16,777,216
Contrast Ratio: 1000 (typical)
Response Time (Rise + Fall): 30ms
Brightness: 350 cd/m2 (typical)
View Angle: 80/80/80/80 (Right/Left/Top/Bottom)

 

The big question we all have is... Is the panel able to swap into the GT60s we have? I'm still no entirely sold on this panel though. I need to see some hard numbers with its full HD in games like BF4. I'm not so sure the 780m will be able to push it, and I think sticking with 1080p for now seems best. Maybe I'll upgrade to this panel in a few generations when there is a better card driving it. I just don't want to mess around with using less than native. You can usually always tell the difference.

 

The panel uses the same connector therefore it is bolt in replacement, but the main point is supply since it's not really readily available elsewhere.
BF4 for sure can run 1080P on high quality with 780M but possibly medium quality on 3K.
We will test it tomorrow and then let you know.

 

holliday777, can you press the console key (`) and type this command below to get fps if you get to it first? Thank you.

 

Excellent. Thank you for this info! As always I look forward to a GentechPC review of this system!

 

Hi Kevin,

I'll gladly do this tonight. I ran Battlefield 4 last night at 2880 by 1620 (high settings) and it was smooth as could be. I'll try to get some actual numbers when I have game time tonight.

Thanks. Price from GenTech by the way was $2099...and as always, Ken shipped when he said he would and quality of system is exemplary.

 

Here are some pics for everyone that's interested to check out:

 

What a beauty! I prefer them with less reflections on the screen though. Anyway, all in all it looks superb

 

The problem with going with a heavy grain matte coating is it could distort such a high pixel density.

 

I've not had a chance to look yet but that would surprise me greatly since they need to step up to 50 pin to manage 1920x1080 120hz and 2880x1620 60hz requires 50% more bandwidth than that even.

 

I will apologize ahead of time cause the only way I could record video was with an iPad...and the angle isn't great to see the FPS overlay inside of BF4...but maybe this will give everyone a rough estimate of what single player is like at native res and also 1080p:

 

Thanks for spending the time and effort to record the video and upload it

 

Actually you are the first person over the internet who made the video with gt60 3k in action! Thanks very much

 

Sorry the quality wasn't better. I was a one-man video team (and not a very talented one at that)

 

Looks good and frame rate was surprisely great at 60+, thanks for the video holliday777.

 

Does Optimus work properly with the 3k screen? Reason I ask is that the Dell M4800 with similar spec screen only works with discrete graphics, the onboard Intel graphics are completely disabled. I'll be doing a lot of travelling with my laptop - gaming is just for home - and don't want the battery to give out after a couple of hours.

Also how rugged does it feel? Will it cope with being dragged in and out of work in a rucksack every day for three years without falling apart. In theory the dell should, Precisions are fairly bullet proof and it comes with a 3y rather than MSI's 2y warranty, but the dead Optimus is a real let-down?

Thanks.

 

Yes, Optimus works fine with 3K screen.
MSI laptops are pretty solid, and you can definitely drag them around on a daily basis without the worry that the machine can break apart.

 

Thanks. Wonder why dell can't get Optimus to work with their higher resolution screens then? Oh well, Dell's loss & MSI's gain.

 

I can verify what Kevin said is true. When untethered, I can get around 4 1/2 hours battery life running off the intel 4600. The build quality is extremely solid.

 

The dell panel is an even higher resolution which may start to take it's toll on the PCI-Express bus.

 

FYI - There is now an official review of the GT60 3K out in the wild now with a more complete suite of benchmarks:

MSI GT60 20D (3K Screen) Gaming Laptop Review - Introduction

 

They only ran a single gaming benchmark (F1 2013) at 2880x1620. What a strange decision. Makes the review lose a lot of value, in my eyes.

 

I agree. The fact that this laptop can run BF4 at native (on relatively high settings) would have been more compelling. It was also a bit odd the laptops they chose to compare it to. But...that being said...was just glad to start seeing some sites taking a look at this machine now that it's available.

 

Any chance you've been able to do design work on your laptop? I really want to order one of these high res display laptops, but Adobe and Microsoft do not have APIs in place to allow for UI up-scaling in Photoshop, Premiere, and After Effects. Several designers have noted that the UIs are extremely small and difficult to work with.

Also, when you drop the native res down to 1920 x 1080 (1200?) to play games, does the display become noticeably fuzzy? Likewise - does Windows, web browsing, etc look good at the lower resolution?

Thanks so much for your help!

 

The upgrade to Windows 8.1 is key with this laptop due to the MUCH improved DPI scaling. It's a night and day difference from how this laptop is with "regular" Windows 8. Frankly, I haven't had hardly any game time yet....but when I have...playing at 1920 by 1080, I really can't tell it's not native res...especially since I can crank up anti-aliasing settings.

I've only done rudimentary photo editing so far...but the experience is epic. Super clear screen...much better than the MacBook with Retina display I've worked with previously.

 

holliday777 your model has 2xmini DP and 1x HDMI right? I think MSI have done a copy paste error which has lead to all the shop listings having an error where they give 1xVGA/1xHDMI/1xDP.

 

Yes, that's correct. 2xmini DP and 1 HDMI. Plus, there's a 1TB 7200 rpm storage drive and not the 750gb that some sites had listed.

 

Here's a quick follow up to my initial impressions of the 3K. First of all, after living with the laptop for a week, the screen is just epic. Never get tired of how this looks. And, the 780m really has the chops to push this res. I play almost all of my games at native at high or ultra settings. BF4 (when it works) is best at 1920 on ultra IMHO. But, for everything else, I play native and have a great experience.

There are some major issues though. And, I do mean major....to the point that I came THIS close to returning it. (Thanks to Ken at GenTech for his typical great help in answering questions I've had trying to get this dialed in) First of all, if you want the most out of this screen, you have to upgrade to Windows 8.1. The DPI scaling improvements make a mammoth difference in how text looks on this. And, when you upgrade to 8.1, you will have issues if you're not careful. Check out the FAQ page for this laptop:

MSI Global GT60 2OD 3K IPS Edition

And, I've encountered practically all of these issues at one point in time. First and foremost, after upgrading to 8.1, you must reboot into safe mode and uninstall the Intel and Nvidia video drivers....then reinstall the compatible ones from the MSI product page that are specifically for 8.1. You also must uninstall and reinstall the KLM and SCM utilities (I actually have left SCM uninstalled as I prefer my own power saving plans with specific settings and the SCM always seems to override that). I also turned off the system protection on the SSD drive as it kept making restore points and nearly ate all of my boot drive storage.

Now that I have all of these things set up....it's a dream. Love this laptop...best I've ever had. Photo editing is amazing on this thing and it's a gaming beast to boot. And, for the many that have asked the question, games that I run at 1920 by 1080 look great on this screen. I'm normally a real stickler for screens not doing native stuff as far as fuzziness goes....you don't see that with this screen. It scales everything beautifully.

Thanks again to Ken and Kevin for their interaction in getting this laptop to the state it's in. Nothing against the other retailers on this forum, but the GenTech guys have always been great to me.

FYI...I may try to do another YouTube vid of native res gaming on this laptop if I get time....if anyone's interested. Thanks.

 

How about using windows 7 instead of 8? Is there any chance that w7 is better in DPI scaling? I really don't like the idea of the newest Microsoft's system so I was considering only w7...Thanks for answers

btw I can't wait to see your next videos holliday777

 

I've never been on a native Windows machine with a screen this high of a res. I did have a MacBook Pro with Retina that was bootcamped and I know text scaling on Windows 7 on that screen was not acceptable. I can't emphasize enough how big a difference there is between Windows 8 and 8.1 on this laptop....to my eyes, the improvement is huge.

 

Thanks so much for the continued flow of information regarding your laptop! Yes, any and all full-res footage you would be willing to capture and post to YouTube would be awesome. Gaming at native res and 1080p would be great. I would also really like to see general Windows navigation, web browsing, and Adobe application footage at native and 1080p as well, if you'd be kind enough to do that. Thanks.

 

Currently trying to get my machine working with Windows 8.1.

I've updated most of the drivers, but having a problem with installing the trackpad driver. The trackpad appeared to work fine, but thinking the newer 8.1 drivers would be better, I uninstalled the old driver and reinstalled the latest ones (touchpad_synaptics_17.0.9.1_0xe56019ca_818700.zip) from the MSI website. The trackpad only works until I login, then it stops working. Plugging in an external USB mouse works fine and when I unplug it the trackpad works fine again until the net time I sleep/hibernate/reboot. Still need to try and update the BIOS (assume this is the 70J BIOS rather than the 50J since I have the 3 SSD RAID 0 set-up) and that might improve things, also I could drive reinstalling the old Windows 8 drivers.

holliday777, did you have a problem with your trackpad drivers?

 

I have not had any trackpad troubles...but I did notice that there is a firmware update that specifically mentions trackpad support for 8.1:

MSI Global GT60 2OD 3K IPS Edition

Hope this helps solve the issue you're having..

 

Thanks. Already tried downloading the generic v16.3.15.1 drivers from the Synaptics site and that managed to fix things. Must have missed the firmware update. Perhaps that would have helped, though there was no indication on the MSI site that the firmware needs to be updated before the touchpad. Did you update your touchpad/keyboard firmware and was everything OK afterwards?

 

I honestly rarely ever use a touchpad on a laptop, so I frankly wasn't paying much attention to it...but the few times I've used it, it's been fine on my machine. I have not messed with the firmware update as everything is working as planned now. Glad the driver update worked for your situations.

 

Out of curiosity, are you using any Logitech devices? Can you re-enable the trackpad via Fn+F3?

 

No other devices. Had to plug in a cheap USB mouse when it stopped working to do anything. As I said, reinstalling the old v16 generic drivers fixed it, so don't know if Fn+F3 would make any difference now. What's Fn+F3 meant to do by the way?

 

I know some drivers can cause MSI's SCM to falsely detect a device and auto-disable the trackpad.

Fn+F3 should be the the shortcut keystroke to enable/disable the trackpad.

 

Hi, I'm going to buy this particular laptop in the 3K edition, all the time wondering whether it is worth the $ 500 to pay extra (in terms of buys in Europe) for the screen ....

I have a few questions:

1) Is better scaling I reach ,as previously written, only in windows 8? and actually what it really means?

2) This particular screen has a response time of 30ms (Response Time (Rise + Fall): 30ms) Have you noticed on your laptops any ghosting effect?

Please answer to my questions, it will help me of making my decision

 

The money question is going to come down to individual preference and priority. For me, I do quite a bit of photo/editing work at my job...so I have some added value for that extra screen res real estate.

Windows 8.1 introduced improved DPI scaling and yes, it makes a big difference:

Windows 8.1 DPI Scaling Enhancements

I have gamed quite a bit on this laptop and have never picked up on any ghosting issues...but then again, I have a low attention span

This is a great laptop. Highly recommended if you value a gorgeous screen.

 

In previous post you mention bad text scalling on rough windows 8 (before upgrade to 8.1), could you tell me more details how really bad it was and is it comparable with windows 7 scalling?

A little offtop: Have anyone of you guys ever used or use Classic Shell and other enhancements for W8.1 to make it work/look like old 7? If yes -is there any major difference between enchaced Windows 8 and old good 7 version?
What's the impression and functionallity? Is it stable?

Thanks

 

As for me, I couldn't tell any difference between text scaling from Windows 7 and Windows 8. It wasn't until they added an additional level of support for 200% scaling in 8.1 that I noticed a big jump in text clarity at this resolution.

 

If you could be so kind holliday777, It might help me to make a final decision (still not sure about the text/windows and icons etc scalling quality). Just couple of screen-shots in native and scaled down to 1080p res will be enough. Thanks in advance.

 

I'm not sure exactly what you're asking for. I never have to scale this screen res down for anything...games or work. Will be glad to help if I can...but if you're thinking about scaling desktop res down to 1920 by 1080...I'm not sure why you'd want to do that. If you would clarify what you're looking for, I'll try to help if I can.

 

Here's a screenshot of the forum at native...hopefully you can see the clarity of the text. Thanks.

 

That is exactly what I asked for, thank you very much Holliday777 and sorry if I my request was cofusing to you -I still learn english (in my twisted way) and I'm aware that my comments aren't always understandable. Thanks again

 

No problem. Don't worry about your English. It's my native tongue, yet my wife still can't understand me

 

I asked for 1080p footage earlier. The reason why I requested this is because Adobe programs in Windows are not optimized for resolutions above 1920 x 1080. Photoshop, After Effects, Premiere, etc - all of the UI elements and menus are tiny on the high res 3k screen. There is no fix right now, so folks who own these 3k laptops have to drop down their screen res to 1920 x 1080 to view the programs correctly. I was just curious what the screen looked like at 1920 x 1080. Thanks!