Looking into MSI GT laptops (noob questions please help me out!)

So, I've been looking around for a gaming laptop a while and right now I'm kind of interested in the MSI GT70

here are my questions:

1. I live in Thailand and gaming notebooks are expensive, ordering in from places like GenTech would give me a much better price (no tax)-- any recommended resellers I should go for?

2. I'm looking to make this laptop last at least 3-4 years of gaming (high graphic games, frequently like 2-3 hours average per day I would guess since some days I won't play at all and somedays hardcore)... which version of the GT should I go for??

Whats the difference between the GT70 and the dragon edition?? (Should i go for 001 or 039??)
Which one should I go for?
Can the looks be customized? ( i want it to look simple nothing too much, if not then oh well i can DIY stuff I guess)
If I order from GenTech what customizations should I pick? (which specs, and customizations)
the i7-4700mq vs i74930mx??

Thanks in advance everyone
PS. my budget is around 3000usd the cheaper the better obviously, but if it does not exceed this too much I'll look into it

 

Hi I'm Singapore, I been to Thailand early this month and what i can say is, Wow MSI in your place is far cheaper than in my place. Just liaise with Ken from GentechPC, for my country i need to pay the 7% Tax upon collecting the notebook.

Currently GT version if you want GT70 it only come with 3 model
GT70-2OC = Nvidia GTX770M
GT70-2OD = Nvidia GTX780M
GT70-2OD Dragon Edition. = Same 780M just this one with 3x 128GB SSD for Super Raid 2 (MSI Feature).

=) you can compare your selected model at MSI Notebook Official Website | G Series Gaming Notebook / Laptop

 

What can the super raid 2 do? is it worth it for going for the dragon edition?

I guess I should go through GenTechPC too, what customizations do you think I should get if I want to to last 3-4 years of use as mentioned above?

Thanks for replying I really appreciate it

If anyone have anymore inputs or suggestions please post it, that will be very much appreciated

 

You can refer here.
Super RAID 2 how does it works? .

I'm thinking of getting GX70, but i'm waiting for AMD to come out the new driver for A10 to fix the previous GX60-1AC CPU issue. If they can't fix it i think i will go for GT70-2OD $1999 (Spend more little for the quality of CPU) SSD i can get it later...

 

thanks for the link, so this means that the dragon edition could give a faster speed than the normal g70 right ?

does anyone has suggestions on how I should customize it if I buy from gentech, referring t the information above

Thank you

 

Have you looked at Clevo's



I don't know what's cheaper/better just throwing in the Clevo brand, I've had a couple, both were cheap, and both are amazing and much loved, quiet in operation, cool temps and stunning performance, I do wish I'd got the upgraded 95% gamut screen, but I can always retrofit one from my supplier as it's only £80 GBP inc. postage

 

Yes, I've certainly looked into those before. From the reviews and feed back of others around the forum, I decided to go with the MSI instead. However, can you point something about clevo that would be better than MSI for me? That might change my mind again Thanks for replying.


Anyways, does anyone have anymore inputs regarding the customizations I should get if I buy the GT70 dragon from gentech?

 

Hey ertdertd! Glad to see you're looking at MSI I'm looking at GenTechPC right now, and it looks like if you go for the 001, you can customize it to get the 384gb (128gb x3) in raid 0. The 001 will then have the GTX 780m gpu, 16gb RAM (which is plenty! I have 24gb ram in my gt60, but its kind of over kill ), and 384gb (128gb ssd x3) + 750gb hdd. That config sounds perfect! Its $200usd cheaper than the Dragon 2, and the only difference is that it has 16gb RAM instead of 32gb, but that wont even be noticeable. Also, I have the 4700mq and I'm perfectly happy with it. I'm not an expert, but I'm pretty sure most games are more dependent on the GPU than the CPU (but even the more CPU intensive ones will be fine I'm sure, I haven't run into a single problem). For me, at least, the upgrade price is not woth the performance gains.

Just remember to get the IC Diamond 24 Carat Thermal Compound on both CPU/GPU - Free upgrade for thermal compound. GenTechPC will repaste for you, which you want because of MSI's bad factory paste job!

 

Thanks for the input man this is going to be very useful for me!!!
Please clear this up for me though,, you mean that I should get the GT70 which these specifications right and then the only difference with dragon would be the RAM only which won't much of a difference AND it will still be $200 cheaper!? I'll go for this choice for sure then XD if no one suggests anything better.

 

Yup! MSI GT70 2OD-001US with those specs will have identical performance as a base Dragon 2, but for $200 less. Sure, you don't get the cool looking dragon design, but you said you wanted simple and this is more simple looking

And yeah, if anyone else has suggestions, I'd be interested in hearing them too!

 

I do recommend strongly to go with GentechPC I also do recommend the GT70 too. The dragon edition looks nice and it's a powerful package but I think all the extras it offers are too much money that I prefer the great value the GT70 offers! Ken will help you out for what you need!

If you have any game in minds you want to play, us GT60 users can emulate the performance for you

 

what is your youtube account, I will certainly check it out AND yes I'm in love with the GT70 now, don't like the dragon edition quite much-- I like it simple stupid hehe

found your battlefield vid, pretty much makes me want the laptop soooo muchhhh. Also, though I don't know how to play battlefield, your vid kinda make me want too lol

PS. how do I contact Ken from GenTechPC, is he always around, I might have to wait a bit

 

The GT 70 is totally incapable of running the GTX 780m at it's reference clocks and even throttles the 4700MQ......... it scorches over 90° and clocks the 780m under 600mhz.......... it's not much of machine if you ask me. I hear people bang on about how much quieter MSI cooling is, but it's running 2/3rd's of the speed of the Clevo and Alienwares (which push the 780m towards the 1000mhz when OC'd and it doesn't throttle it! ** yes the alienware is MORE expensive, but the Clevo is actually cheaper, so there is no excuise),

The GT70 comes out slower in every benchmark going because it throttles like a b!tch....... save yourself the hassle and expense and a buy a proper laptop if you want a 780m don't bother getting the GT70, you'll get 10 or 15 minutes in to your game, the temperatures will get out of hand and the clocks will start dropping. MSI need to make their cooler from copper, and use a bigger fan, yes that means more noise but at least you'll get what you paid for and have some headroom for over-clocking.

Roll on the fan boy abuse, but HEED THIS WARNING

you'll see plenty of benchmarks saying it's great, but you need to find the ones that highlight it's ability to maintain temperature and also the turbo frequency (of the CPU and GPU, which is directly linked to the temperature, lower the temps, the faster this thing will run)

heed this warning

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-MSI-GT70H-80M4811B-Notebook.93889.0.html - under "gaming performance" the GT70 scores lower than any other machine due to it's inability to maintain turbo frequencies, yes it doesnt make alot of noise, but there is clearly a reason for this!!!!!!

"We were surprised that the GT70 scored a bit lower than the One K56-3N2 and Schenker XMG P703 GTX 780M contenders in CPU-heavy games, such as F1 2012, Dirt: Showdown, Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, Assassin's Creed III and Skyrim. Both the processor's and graphic's Turbo were inconspicuous in "normal" 3D operation. Perhaps the Clevo laptops have a superior driver although the version number actually indicates the opposite (ForceWare 311.27 rather than 311.48)."

 

um what? I disagree with you, and I'm sure most of this forum will disagree with you too. No one even gets close to 90°, no one has throttling issues, actually, pretty much no one has any major issues like that. Get your facts straight, mate. Maybe try using the laptop in person before you sh!t on it

I have about 15 fps higher on all those games in that list that I own (i own 1/3 of them) using ultra settings. Clearly something is wrong there. I've played for hours on maxed out settings and haven't gone above 80°, so no, this does not throttle like a b!tch, the temperatures do not get out of hand, and the clocks are steady.

 

have you done a 1 hour long benchmark with prime95 and OCCT running simultaneously and can you please post up here your recorded GPU and CPU frequencies and temperatures as well as how far through prime you got, and how many fps your GPU rendered in that hour and I'll be happy to do the same. - also your ambient temperature and what your laptop was stood on (wood, glass, steel, cooling board etc)

fantastic, + rep coming your way - lets put a final nail in this and get it ruled out.

I will be using the P150SM, with 3.6Ghz OC on the cpu, and a small but effective +135Mhz/+500mhz on the GPU - to push these cooling systems further.

We can say run on a glass surface, and then retest running with a cooling board??

We can use HWinfo to recored CPU core temps and gpu temps - and we can sort this out properly without making silly claims or calling anything "lame", ego's aside, a direct comparison - I believe from experience and *seeing one first hand* (re your "see it in person" quote) that the GT60 uses the same cooling setup as the GT70 so this will be a good shoot out.

I appreciate your "something is clearly wrong" but just because as an MSI owner you don't like the results, doesn't mean its wrong ? anyway, lets just cut the crap, and put our systems through some paces - it would be cool if some of us live local to get together and make a thread out of it - say get the 15" & 17" machines from Clevo, MSI & Alienware and have a balls to wall shoot out, side by side comparisons of temperature and long term ability to blast through Prime95 (for example) and OCCT, as temperature and therefore clock will vary from one machine to another, from 15" to 17" models etc... It would be a great definitive comparison, same RAM, CPU, GPU same table, same room, same ambient temperature, same benchmark - same time side by side - what a a great review this would be

 

I'll figure out how to do those benchmarks when I get home from work haha. And the "something is clearly wrong" statement should be like "something is weird, why would I be getting 15 fps higher than what they got".

 

and my facts are straight, and backup up by testing in a controlled environment, I don't see any weight behind the biased opinions of the owners who fair enough - will probably never reach those levels of stress but still my point remains FIRM and STRONGLY backed up by unbiased opinions.

 

Figure out those benchmarks??? hypocrisy at its finest....... "get your facts straight" LMFAO

 

hypocrisy? just because I don't do benchmarks doesnt mean anything haha. you said in your first post that temps would get out of control after 15 minutes (i know its an exaggeration), and I was said my temps stay below 80° even after a few hours of maxed out gaming. afterall, the temperature problem was your main point in your argument against the gt70. I was just giving you some user experience.

 

I do appreciate your experience just as much as anyone, but statements are hollow with out fact or results. To my knowlege there are only 2 proper reviews about the MSI 780m - both have the same issue - your essensially telling NoteBookCheck and Anandtech who have done a hands on review, to get their facts straight and use your dream machine numbers.......


Review MSI GT70H-80M4811B Notebook - NotebookCheck.net Reviews

AnandTech | MSI GT70 Dragon Edition Notebook Review: Haswell and the GTX 780M

15 minutes is not an exaggeration, I expect (from a considereble number of years experiance stress testing and repairing cards for ATI before AMD took over) that after 15 minutes of hard synthetic bench marks that a system will have achieved 98% or more of its maximum temperature, and any raise in temperature after that is mostly down to an increase in ambient temperature as the room warms up.

 

In the first post you said 15 minutes while gaming, which would be absurd haha, but I can understand 15 minutes of hard benchmarks.
I'm clearly no expert about proper reviews, but what about some other reviews just from a google search? Laptopmag ( MSI GT70) seemed to have no troubles.

Usually with the new gt60/70's, if someone has overheating/throttling problems, it appears that a simple thermal paste repaste on CPU/GPU solves it. MSI does do a horrible job with factory pastes, and many people in the MSI forum here think that the unit AnandTech used had a poor paste job. I actually even emailed the guy who wrote it asking how the paste job was, and he said it was terrible. Some people said that their temps have dropped 15-20 degrees with a repaste in some machines, which would solve most of the gt70's issues I think..

I will definitely do a benchmark like you suggested, now you have me curious haha

 

that is the most unprofessional and un-comparative review I have ever seen - they compare it to a 2012 M17X - but dont say what the specs are (could be a 1.7Ghz pentium with a GTX 260 for all we know!?)

they also don't measure anything related to core temperature or frequency clock?

I would imaging my granddad could do an equally relevant review - and's probably never used a laptop

Where do PCMAG say this thing runs at X °C on the core for X amount of time while running this benchmark, and it didnt throttle or anything

fact is, they didn't even look, and clearly aren't qualified to be reviewing a high end laptop - that kind of review is great for midrange laptops and notebooks - buts in not a hardcore review.

Sounds like you say, a re-paste could be all it takes, I think the reviewers should do this, mandatory! so we all know how well the manufacturers do it, and how well and upgraded paste performs.

15-20°C seems a bit extreme ?

for reference I sub-contracted for AVNET and hands on tested and reviewed just about every single ATI card that had issues through-out Europe including detailed assessments for the cause of failure and also repairing cards along the way (not for return to the customer but to better understand & confirm the mode of failure)

Also from the reviews, seems the 780m isn't the first to push the limits of the GT70 design! - if cards continue to go up in TDP I imagine MSI will improve the cooling system next year, although power consumption is supposed to be dropping not going up

"The fact remains: the MSI GT70 Dragon Edition's thermal design simply isn't enough. I've heard stories of this chassis having thermal issues in earlier models, but at least now I can decisively pin it down."

 

I see what you mean. and from looking at their other laptop reviews, they just try and make every laptop look good by comparing it to older/worse laptops.

15-20C does seem extreme, but thats some of the stories I heard. MSI puts wayyy too much on in factory. AnandTech got 98C on one of their benchmarks I think, and someone here ran the same benchmark and got in the low 80's I believe. I'll try and find where I saw that. I asked AnandTech in the email if they would consider doing a repaste and then update their review, and well this was his response

"I am not re-doing the review. I don't have that kind of time.

If MSI released a notebook that has a bad TIM job on the CPU and GPU, that's *their* problem and *their* fault. It's not my job to fix it. I maintain their cooling system is inadequate compared to systems from ASUS and Alienware and even Clevo. There's no reason to re-do the review because even if it didn't have ridiculous thermal problems, I *still* wouldn't recommend it over the competing notebooks."

He seems pretty against MSI in general haha. Him saying that even if it didnt have thermal problems (which was his, and everyone elses, main argument against MSI), he would recommend it, just seems way too biased. he blamed everything on the thermal problems, and without the thermal problem it would be a beast of a laptop but he still says hes against it. just my opinion

 

Well, he attacked Alienware a few months ago for making the m17x r4 almost identical to the r3, and he liked the MSI chassis a few months ago. I wouldn't say that he has an agenda against MSI, just that he writes a lot of vitriol when something disappoints him.

Jarred Walton on Anandtech says that he will try to get another GT70.

 

check out this thread: http://forum.notebookreview.com/msi/723020-calling-all-gt70-od-owners.html
not the same benchmarks you're talking about (the one matthecat did), but I guess it gives an idea of the temps without cooler boost.

and MatTheCat had many issues with overheating/throttling a week or two ago and he hated his laptop, but then he repasted and now hes loves it!
"Hey, if you went into the MSI forum and said that the member were a little too fanboyish, you would be risking a ban. The members there a not fnaboyish you see, it is just that MSI make so damn good products that there unwavering enthuse and support comes naturally."
about 2 weeks ago, he was raging about how terrible MSI is and was about to refund his laptop. I guess a simple repaste makes all the difference

 

Awesome! Can't wait for that. I hope they repaste it this time

 

Yeah this would be really good to see!

From a design point, you can see by comparison the MSI obviously has just 1 fan so will be much quieter! but also the fan has double the relief (2 exhausts) so will be quieter again.

I really like their design, it makes sense and maximises the potential of one fan, and makes the most of acoustics, but I think a larger diameter fan is needed, and also an ALL copper fin design, they have the potential to offer a balance of lower temperatures and low noise that no other manufacturer has !! it's just a few tweaks away!

great design, but questionable results....... I really look forward to that review - no need to fully review the machine just concentrate on the heat/power/throttling and do a little mini review!

 

Calibre41 does not see what actually auzzi is trying to say.

I am an Alienware fan and I have owned / owning most of them out there (exept the current generation).

In my opinion, MSI GT 60/70 is good if not perfect for gaming and you will not face any issues if you do / have a good thermal paste done on your cooling system;

Are you planing to do benchmarking on it??? NO WAY!!! Stay away from this overclocking as you will end up with a burned CPU / GPU / Motherboard.

Don't get me wrong, but as a normal user games and multimedia / word processing etc. you will do fine and you will have games running very well for years to come.

 

I'm not saying the machine is bad for gaming, it is a gaming laptop and it does have the GTX 780m gpu and is the fastest machine MSI have, but it does run hotter than other brands, based on the facts we have (see last para).

And this does lead to lower or less frequent turbo clocks - again fact. This has been documented on previous gen GT60/70 hardware, not just the new 780m.

Overall I fully agree, benchmarks and overclocking is not normal use, and (my opinion) in normal use, these machines will be similar, but not on par with the Alienware or Clevo performance and considering they are all a similar price (Alienware being a premium) I would prefer to have the machine that has the ability to run cooler, and thus hit Turbo frequencies for longer.


hopefully Cloudfires thread asking all GT60/GT70 780m owners to bench and post results including temperature, and clock frequencty will iron this debate out, and we can do some direct comparisons of the GT60 & GT70's ability to maintain turbo frequencies and temperatures. who know's they might outperform the Clevo or Alienware and then I'm here with egg on my face - & I'm happy for this to happen, but until then I stand by this statement, based the facts and figures already available. - what else can do, I appriciate the comments everyone is making to discredit my opinions and I hope you prove me wrong, but I'd like to see some hard evidence - and until the temp/clock results are directly compared with other machines all we're doing is throwing one opinion against another - at least I'm basing mine on an interpretation of hard recorded results.

 

=) i wonder any Clevo/Alienware brand that with the same spec but the price is lower than GT70-2OD(or barebone). Not offend anyone here, i just want to put it in my list, as GT70-2OD is a bit over budget for me but insist want it to be a GTX780M equipped machine