GX60 questions for current owners - from a prospective buyer

Hey all, in the market to get a GX60. I have a few questions on it, I have already bought 16GB G.SKILL DDR3 1600 10-10-10 RAM, and a 240GB Mushkin Atlas Deluxe mSATA drive for it, but I have *not* bought the laptop yet (ordering friday... stupid holiday messing with paycheck schedules)

How is the heatsink, does it stay cool under load?

Does it have one or two mSATA slots, and if so would I really benefit (aside from storage space) to buy a second 240GB Mushkin Atlas Deluxe and raid them together? I also plan on picking up a 480GB Mushkin Chronos Deluxe for the full size SATA bay for storage.

blu ray - is it a burner or just reader? I have seen mixed statements on this, newegg (where I am buying from) says reader, and at that price I am inclined to agree.

Anyone tried 32GB RAM? It says system limit is 16GB, so that's what I ordered - but I would *LOVE* to have more than 12GB of usable RAM.

overclocking - Processor and video card - what are some good numbers? I heard the A10 is difficult/impossible to overclock. The 7970M I have heard if you have the card active (in game so it is not running off the integrated 7660G) you can overclock it with MSI Afterburner, and I have also heard you can overclock with older Catalyst drivers.

BIOS... friendly? Am I going to be able to go in and overclock my RAM, drop timings, play with voltages, etc etc? I bought G.SKILL because they are notorious for being overclockable, I've had 2133 sticks running at 2400+ for years 24/7 in my old desktops. 1600 was the fastest i could find with a good CAS.

Anything else I should be aware of? I know the A10 is "weak" but I want gaming performance, and I can't find an intel system capable of this performance for this price. Also, I am a long time AMD/ATi guy. Anyway, thanks in advance!

Andrew~

 

Cooling is good, even for ocing.

The super raid version has 2 msata, the standard version does not have any. It has 2 standard slots instead.

All slots are Gen3.

Readers are the only included bluray drives.

Only 2 memory slots.

Video card can reach over 1ghz core. CPU is locked.

No, the bios even unlocked is mostly sparse, max memory speed is 1600mhz and timings have to be manually programmed in using thaiphoon burner.

Gaming performance is still good, and gains are seen ocing the GPU at 1080p.

EDIT: Edited for accuracy.

 

How does one determine the super-raid version? I called MSI and asked specifically about the GX60 1AC-021US - and the tech said it had either one or two mSATA slots, but he said there was only one version of the laptop and "another was coming sometime soon" (I am in the USA). Is there an easy way to tell based on model numbers? This is why I love ThinkPads, I type in a 7 digit model number on lenovo's site, and get an exact spec sheet, teardown and maintenance manual with exploded parts diagrams haha

I'm looking at buying from Newegg: Newegg.com - MSI GT Series GX60 1AC-021US Notebook AMD A-Series A10-4600M(2.30GHz) 15.6" 8GB Memory DDR3 1600 750GB HDD 7200rpm BD-ROM AMD Radeon HD 7970M

Followup question, the super-raid, still has (one?) full size SATA bay, yes?

I already bought the mSATA based on what the guy from MSI tech support said... I swear, if it arrives without an mSATA slot to stick that $240 non-returnable SSD into... I am starting to doubt the tech support person I talked to.

 

Im sorry but they were mistaken, the us has only got the standard bay versions at the moment. However you can buy msata to sata adaptors off ebay for a few bucks that lets you use one of the bays for your ssd and then that still leaves you one more free.

 

True, I suppose that will work, I didn't put two and two together. Is there any kind of speed loss using the adapter or is it like a mini-hdmi to hdmi where it's more of a "wiring adapter" so to speak?

My original intent was to keep the 750GB drive it comes with and use the 240GB SSD for boot and virtual machines, and current games. As long as it has two bays, it makes little difference to me.

I might try to see if I can find an overseas model with the super-raid and see what kind of cost that is, but I think if I have to choose between two mSATA or two SATA, I'll just go with the adapter. Going from a 7200RPM 100GB in a 6 year old ThinkPad to a 560MB/s read 530MB/s write SSD in this is going to be more than enough speed for me for a while.

 

Ive not used the adaptors before so could not say.

The uk has them but the price is very high (1200 pouds or roughly 1800-1900 dollars)

 

A few points about the Super Raid (raid zero) in the gx60

1. MSI has only recommend using SanDisk U100 SSD mSATA mini. ( Typically about half the size as a normal mSata, only available through with a new system, cant buy publicly yet)

2. MSI raid zero is done through hardware not software. (A special daughter board is required through MSI)

3.The Australian released GX60 supports the super raid

 

Unless they changed the module it can take standard height modules too and crucial m4s will simply outclass the stock modules.