MSI GS60 Ghost Pro with GTX 970m 6GB Review by HTWingNut

MSI GS60 Ghost Pro 064 with 970m Review

INTRODUCTION

SYSTEM SPECIFICATIONS
- Specs
- Dimensions
- Weight

APPEARANCE AND STYLING
- Exterior
- Ports

COMPONENTS
- Inside the laptop
- Touchpad
- Keyboard
- LCD
- Networking
- Storage
- RAM

CPU Intel i7-4710HQ
- Benchmarks
- CPU Speed Evaluation

GPU Nvidia GeForce GTX 970m with 6GB GDDR5 5000MHz
- Artificial Benchmarks
- Game Benchmarks

POWER AND COOLING
- Power Consumption
- System Temperature
- Surface Temperature
- Fan Noise
- Battery Life

CONCLUSION




intro INTRODUCTION

MSI entered the thin and light gaming laptop market with their thin and light GS70 17" notebook a couple years ago hosting the GTX 765m. Since then they've added the 15.6" GS60 Ghost with the 860m and followed up with the GS60 Ghost Pro including Nvidia's latest 192-bit Maxwell GPU, the GTX 970m. Where early attempts at thin and light gaming laptops resulted in a hot steamy mess in most cases, this time around, the cool running and low power consuming 970m helps keep temperatures in check, as well as drawing less power.

PowerNotebooks gracefully provided a GS60 Ghost Pro for review to share performance results with NBR members.


systemspecs SYSTEM SPECIFICATIONS

The laptop provided came with the following specifications:

15.6" Samsung LTN156HL01 1080p Matte LCD
Intel i7-4710HQ CPU
Nvidia GeForce GTX 970m 6GB GDDR5 GPU
2x8GB DDR3 1600
128GB mSATA SSD
1TB 7200RPM HDD
Killer 1525 802.11AC wireless adapter
Windows 8.1 64-bit

Laptop Dimensions:
Measured Dimensions: 15.4" x 10.5" x 0.8" (390x265x20mm)
Measured Weight: 4.4 lbs (2.0kg)

Power Supply Dimensions:
19.5V x 7.7A = 150W
Measured Dimensions: 6.5" x 3.1" x 1.0" (165 x 80 x 25mm)
Measured Weight: 1.5 lbs (0.7kg)


apprnc APPEARANCE AND STYLING

The MSI GS60 Ghost Pro is a sleek and sexy looking laptop right out of the box. It is noticeably lightweight, but solid feel with a brushed black aluminum lid and body. An MSI logo and their dragon "G" series emblem adorn the lid of the laptop. The dragon logo lights up by the LCD backlight. Simple stealth facet styling cues run from the outside front towards inboard rear of the lid, breaking up the flat surface for a more technical look. Opening the lid requires some firm pressure, but easily able to do so with one hand without the laptop lifting up.

Like the lid, the chassis is all black brushed aluminum alloy. Subtle use of chrome trim adorns the touchpad and power button. About an inch wide black aluminum bezel surrounds the LCD, with the webcam nestled above it in its expected spot. The clear and powerful DynAudio speakers sit beneath a perforated portion of the chassis above the keyboard with the DynAudio logo proudly pad printed to the upper left.

The power button is lit and acts as an indicator as well as to which GPU is active, blue for integrated Intel and red for Nvidia.

Underneath the laptop, a matte black finish magnesium alloy bottom panel is secured with 15 screws, with one of them covered by a "Warranty Void" sticker. There is some sort of cloth covering the bottom rear edge of the laptop, assuming to separate the hot laptop from one's legs or other body part when the laptop is being taxed heavily. There are few vent holes on the bottom, with the CPU and GPU fan vent slots being the most prominent at the rear edge.



Ports
Even though this is a thin and light laptop, it comes fully equipped with necessary ports for easy attachment of peripherals. The left side houses the CPU vent, power port, two USB 3.0 ports, headphone and microphone 3.5mm jacks. The front includes a multitude of blue lit status lights. Over on the right side contains another USB 3.0 port, card reader, HDMI 1.4, mini DisplayPort, and ethernet jack. There are no ports on the back, just the CPU and GPU fan vents.




components COMPONENTS

Inside the Laptop
Removing the bottom panel requires removing 15 screws, and detaching it rearward so as not to damage the clips on the back. Once you remove the bottom panel, the bottom of the mainboard is exposed along with the 2.5" SATA drive (hard drive in this case) and battery which are easy to access and remove or disconnect. However, the CPU, GPU, RAM, and mSATA slot are located on the opposite side of the motherboard and requires complete disassembly of the system to swap the RAM, mSATA drive or change thermal paste of the CPU and GPU. Normally I would disassemble the laptop and try but even with all screws removed, it was still tightly retained, and was not going to risk damaging the machine. I suppose this is the price you pay for a slim laptop. So if you're ordering this laptop, I'd consider opting for the thermal paste, RAM, and mSATA drive you intend to stay with because replacement can be a bit tricky and laborious.

15 screws to remove the bottom panel


Panel removed, internal exposed


Touchpad
The Elan touchpad is good size and a single panel with hard mouse click buttons at the lower corners. The provided drivers support two figner zoom, scroll, rotate and three finger swipe as well as multi finger taps for controls. The pad itself has a matte finish that is easy to slide your finger across. There seems to be some sensitivity issues however where I frequently overshoot my target. I couldn't find any mouse acceleration settings that would circumvent that, but it may just be a matter of getting used to this specific touchpad.

Keyboard
A full multi-color backlit keyboard with numberpad sits cleanly in the center of the laptop with some form of technical font. The Steelseries keyboard supports multi color three zone lighting as is commonly used with MSI laptops, and comes with the Steelseries engine app for easy programming.



Key travel is average with quiet keystrokes and very little flex. The chassis flexes a little bit with some added pressure but with typing is very structurally sound. I am fickle about my keyboards and had no issues typing on the GS60 keyboard. Numberpad keys are about 3/4 width, so it can take a bit to get used to, but otherwise, it's nice to have the numberpad. The windows key is located to the right of the space bar instead of the typical left side, but this is to avoid accidental press during gameplay.

LCD
Unbelieveable is all I can say. This LCD is the absolute best 1080p LCD I have seen in a laptop. Very high viewing angles, crisp, bright color correct images, and no noticeable ghosting while gaming. Any laptop worth a salt should come with an LCD at least this nice. It is a Samsung LTN156HL01 1920x1080 matte LCD (Windows Device ID SDC324C). MSI did well choosing this LCD.





Networking
Killer networking components are standard fare with most MSI laptops and the GS60 Ghost Pro is no exception. The Killer NIC and 1525 Wireless AC adapter allow for fast and lag free gaming. When compared with the Intel 7260 or 7265 AC wireless adapters, the Killer wireless maintains a higher throughput and no noticeable lag spikes or interruptions. When compared with the Intel the Killer maintains a consistent 50-55 MB/sec transfer of large file sizes where the Intel varies between 35-45 MB/sec. The Intel is plagued with occasional lag spikes while gaming as well, where the Killer NIC exhibited no lag spikes during long gaming sessions of Battlefield 4.

Storage
There are three storage slots available, two mSATA and one 2.5" SATA drive bay. The mSATA slots can support RAID 0 or RAID 1. This machine came equipped with a 128GB Kingston mSATA drive and 1TB 7200RPM hard drive. The Kinston SSD is respectable although not quite the fastest, but works great for a boot drive over any mobile hard drive.

CrystalDiskMark of 128GB mSATA SSD


CrystalDiskInfo of 128GB Kingston mSATA SSD


RAM
Nothing special other than there are two RAM slots that support up to 2x8GB RAM and 1600MHz speed, which this laptop is equipped with.

CPU-Z of RAM




Speakers and Audio
DynaAudio stereo speakers have great clarity and loudness. They have been great for gaming, movie viewing, and just enjoying music. The headphone jack provided ample volume with no hiss, crackle, squeal or other interference sounds.


cpu CPU Intel i7-4710HQ
Embedded components are the inevitable result of a thin and light laptop and the Intel i7-4710HQ is the soldered CPU in the GS60, comparable to the socketed version i7-4710MQ. The i7-4710HQ is a quad core CPU with 2.5GHz base clock speed with boost up to 3.5GHz with one core, 3.4GHz with two cores, and 3.2GHz with 3 or 4 cores taxed. During gaming, the CPU did not throttle, but during CPU specific benchmarking like X264 and Cinebench, the CPU would throttle some, and drop speeds down to 3.0GHz, which resulted in lower scores when compared with the laptops with better cooling components like the MSI GT72 and Clevo P650SE.

CPU-Z of i7-4710HQ




The i7-4710HQ can be tuned slightly using Intel XTU to boost clock speeds by 200MHz, as well as undervolt and increase TDP output, although boost time is not adjustable. Tuning the CPU can result in higher clock speeds for longer periods which results in improved performance for the CPU specific tasks like video encoding or video rendering. But the difference typicall results in 5% or less time improvements.

Available XTU options


Below are the results of the i7-4710HQ at stock speeds compared with another i7-4710HQ in the MSI GT72 and the i7-4810HQ in the Clevo W230SS. Notice the performance of the i7-4710HQ in the GT72 is slightly better, that is due to the CPU dropping core speed due to TDP limitations and temperatures.

Cinebench 11.5




wPrime 2.10




x264 5.0






gpu GPU NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 970m 6GB GDDR5
The GTX 970m is based on the Maxwell GM204 architecture used in the desktop 970 and 980 as well as mobile 980m, resulting in excellent gaming performance is great and running at very cool temperatures, especially for a 20mm thick, 4.5lbs laptop. The GPU and vRAM is soldered directly to the motherboard so it is not possible to replace or upgrade the GPU should one desire to do so.

Details of the GTX 970m are as follows:

Nvidia GeForce GTX 970m
Core Clock: 924MHz boost to 1038MHz
CUDA Cores: 1280
6GB GDDR5 @ 5000MHz on a 192-bit bus with 120GB/sec bandwidth
Supports DirectX 12 and earlier, OpenGL 4.4, OpenCL 1.1

The GTX 970m in the review laptop is configured with 6GB of GDDR5 at 5000MHz. There is an alternate GS60 laptop version that comes with 3GB of GDDR5 RAM if you want to save approximately $100, depending on vendor. Current games shouldn't suffer with the lower vRAM amount, but future games is still unknown but as the new game console games port to PC, they are trending towards using larger amounts of vRAM. Whether this results in performance degredation or not is yet to be seen.

GPU-z for the 970m:


gpubench BENCHMARKS
Game and artificial benchmarks were run and compared with the 980m in the MSI GT72 and 860m in Clevo W230SS. The 970m was able to overclock with nVidia Inspector with core at +125MHz (to 1049MHz and boost at xxxxMHz), with vRAM +400MHz (to 5800MHz) for stable overclock. This was also benchmarked for comparison sake.

The benchmarks tested were the following:

860m Stock: 1029MHz Boost to 1097MHz / vRAM 2GB GDDR5 @ 5000MHz
860m OC (Prema Mod): 1309MHz Boost to 1377MHz / vRAM 2GB GDDR5 @ 5800MHz
970m Stock: 924MHz Boost to 1038MHz / vRAM 6GB GDDR5 @ 5000MHz
970m OC: 1049MHz Boost to 1163MHz / vRAM 6GB GDDR5 @ 5800MHz
980m Stock: 1038MHz Boost to 1127MHz / vRAM 8GB GDDR5 @ 5000MHz

Drivers used were 344.65. LCD brightness was 100%, and speaker volume at 50% with backlight keyboard on at full brightness. The GPU maintained boost speed throughout the tests with no indicated drop in speeds noticeable during gaming or as measured by HWInfo64. CPU and GPU clock speeds are shown for a few of the tests below.

artgpu Artificial Benchmarks

3DMark 11






3DMark Fire Strike







Catzilla 1.3



Heaven



gamegpu Game Benchmarks

Battlefield 4 64-Player Multiplayer FireStorm Ultra 1080p

BF4 MP is a tough one to measure because of so many variables. Clearly the 970m did well in this benchmark, but if you compared run after run between 970m and 980m the 980m would surely run 20% faster in general than the 970m.

Bioshock Infinite Ultra + DDOF 1080p





Crysis 3 Very High 1080p





Final Fantasy XIV High Desktop 1080p





Grid 2 Ultra 1080p





Metro Last Light Very High 1080p Tesselation Normal





Middle Earth Shadow of Mordor









Resident Evil 6 High (Highest) 1080p







Sleeping Dogs Extreme 1080p



Thief Very High 1080p



Tomb Raider Ultra 1080p (no hair tesselation)



powercool POWER AND COOLING

Power Consumption
A 150W power supply is provided with this laptop, and is almost adequate for heavy gaming loads. When power draw exceeded 155W or so, the battery showed some slow decline. This was marketed as a feature by MSI with earlier versions of their laptops, so that extra power could be used when taxed beyond the PSU, but honestly, it really just shows they provided an underpowered PSU for their laptops. That doesn't leave much room for overclocking, but with such a machine that is likely not the intent of the user.

Note that the power draw measurements shown are from the wall, meaning there is some inefficiency lost at the PSU, 10-15% typically, so actual power draw should be 10-15% less than those listed.

Peak Power Draw during Artificial Benchmarks:


Peak Power Draw during Game Benchmarks:



System Temperature
Temperature measurements were taken during testing for the CPU and GPU and compared with the Clevo W230SS with 860m and GT72 with 980m. For the most part, the 970m remained under 80C at stock speeds, and stayed below 85C with the mild overclock. Fans were not running full speed while gaming, so likely there is room for a little improvement in temps if the fan ramp can be adjusted slightly, granted at the cost of increased fan noise.

CPU Temps CPU Benchmarks


CPU Temps Artificial Benchmarks


CPU Temps Game Benchmarks


GPU Temps Artificial Benchmarks


GPU Temps Game Benchmarks



Surface Temperatures
One concern with thin and light laptops, especially with a metal chassis, is how hot the surface can get. Surface temperature measurements on both top and bottom were taken with a laser thermometer both at idle and at load (After 30 minutes loop of Grid 2 "Attract Mode"). There is some cloth added to the bottom rear edge of the laptop, assuming to help keep temps down a bit if it is sitting on your lap. But temps are still quite hot and a bit uncomfortable for resting on your legs if you decide to game with it in that position. Otherewise temps everywhere else are quite cool and reasonable.

Surface Temperature Measurements (CPU @ 85C, GPU @ 85C)





Fan Noise
There is one fan each to cool the CPU and GPU and are located at opposite ends of the laptop. This clearly helps keep temperatures from one component affecting the other. Thinner fans can result in higher pitch sounds at higher speeds, but overall the tone isn't too bad or distracting when at load. However, at idle the fans were constantly spinning at low RPM even with CPU and GPU at less than 45C, and no way to manually change this.


batterylife Battery Life
The GS60 Ghost Pro is an Optimus enabled laptop, which means the GPU integrated in the Intel CPU is used in non 3D intensive applications (i.e. desktop work, we browsing, etc), and in turn should result in improved battery life over using the dedicated Nvidia GPU. There is a 55WHr battery included, but note that this laptop came with 13% loss of battery capacity, running at 48W maximum capacity.

Nvidia offers a feature in their drivers called "battery boost" which is supposed to extend the life of the battery while gaming. Essentially it limits the FPS of the game to a pre-configured FPS, which is user selectable. It defaults to 30FPS.

Four battery life tests were conducted:
(1) Idle: power saver mode, wireless off, backlit keyboard off, LCD at 30% brightness
(2) Movie Loop: power saver mode, wireless off, backlit keyboard off, LCD at 40% brightness
(3) Light Browsing: power saver mode, wireless on, backlit keyboard off, LCD at 30% brightness, 4 web flash based web browser tabs refreshed every 1-3 minutes
(4) Gaming: BF4 Multiplayer with Nvidia Battery Boost at 35FPS, gaming mode, wireless on, backlit keyboard off, LCD at 50% brightness

The browsing, movie, idle tests were run to system self shutdown at 5% battery life left. The gaming test was run through 1.5 rounds of Battlefield 4 (started mid round on one and thorugh a full of another) and calculating the power draw over that time. 48346 mWh maximum charge was drained down to 14372 mWh in 34 minutes. So total time to 10% battery life left would be about 43 minutes. The gaming experience was actually not bad at 35FPS.

Battery Life Results



cclsn CONCLUSION
The MSI GS60 Ghost Pro is an awesome gaming laptop that provides a great very thin and portable PC gaming solution without all the bulk. The LCD is absolute top notch in all respects, as is the all aluminum and magnesium alloy construction of the chassis. A quality backlit keyboard, sound system, solid networking hardware, and most importantly, gaming performance round out an overall excellent package. There are some minor negatives, but really nitpicks, and mostly due to compromises from making it such a thin and light laptop. Namely short battery life, slightly underpowered PSU, constantly spinning fans, uncomfortable hot spots if gaming while playing with it on your legs, and limited user upgrades due to full laptop disassembly required with potential for voiding warranty. In general though, the laptop was a pleasure to use on a daily basis, easy to handle with one hand, and play games without sacrifice to visual quality and still maintaining high FPS, typically over 60FPS easily.

 

Good looking review thanks for that! This generation of GS60 laptops with the Maxwell GPU look like a much more appealing option.

 

Thanks HTWingNut, for another incredibly thorough review.

My only slight correction is the bottom panel is Magnesium Alloy while the rest of the case is Aluminum.

 

Corrected. Thanks!

 

The 970m was really the perfect partner this machine was waiting for. Crazy power density from this little beast

 

Yes, the 970m is a good power/thermal envelope/performance match for this machine.

 

Can you please upload the vBIOS from the GTX970M 6GB from MSI ? Many thx.

 

It will be tricky as it's embedded into the system bios, I don't think it will be that easy to extract.

 

@HTWingNut I see you tried also 4K (I presume with external monitor via either DisplayPort or HDMI). Did it manage to output 60 Hz at 4K?

Also now that you had in your hands both Clevo P650SE and MSI GS60, which one did you subjectively liked more?

 

Here it is.
MSI 970M 3GB/6GB VBIOS 84.04.26.00.13.

 

Here's the shipping version which is the same as the one in the review.
MSI 970M 3GB/6GB VBIOS 84.04.20.00.0A.

 

Sorry, I should have clarified. Shadow of Mordor allows you to "upscale" the internal resolution but displayed on the native LCD resolution, effectively giving you the results of playing at 4k. So sorry, no I do not have a 4K external monitor.

 

wow, these temps are much better than Razer Blade with GTX870M. Can wait to see what the Blade 2015 can offer with Maxwell and Broadwell upgrade.

 

Why wait for razer?

 

Hi Kevin,

How can I reach you regarding a build time for a MSI GS60 GhostPro-064?

Thanks

 

Great Review! very informative. :thumbsup:

 

I love the laptop. It is awesome really. Am tempted to buy this over the Clevo P650SE. Just wish it were a bit cheaper, better battery life, and easier to access the swappable components (RAM, mSATA, re-paste). Battery life isn't horrible, but this particular unit came with 13% battery degradation already. But thank you MSI for putting together an awesome package.

I agree. I had some time with a Razer Blade 14 and it is a nice laptop, but it really doesn't compare to this. It's hard to describe but in general the entire system just felt ... better. Plus I'm sure MSI will sell and let you swap out your battery without forcing you to send it in (I hope).

 

Another great and thorough review HT! Thanks for your efforts! Tempted to step up from my 860m (Kepler) model, as we knew all along Maxwell is what this chassis needed. Impressed with performance!

 

Please refer to my signature for contact info, thank you.

 

Have you had the chance to compare this laptop with the Clevo 650SE? I mean comparing them side by side or so?
What about keyboard? screen? temps? wireless?

Probably what I am asking is MSI is a bit more expensive, can you justify the price difference or are the components on par with Clevo?

I am actually more looking at GS70 for the added real estate of the screen as I can live with that size and I do not intend to get a separate monitor, but I would assume that the build quality and the components listed above should be on the same level. Still debating on other makers as Gygabyte and Clevo, but then would have to switch to 15inch as there are no other slim 17inch books with similar specs, except Aorus which more expensive and I do not want the SLI hassel.

 

My P650SE review is here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/sag...clevo-p650se-gtx-970m-htwingnut-s-review.html

LCD on the P650SE is TN and horrible viewing angles and color with poor contrast and brightness, but they just added an IPS 1080p option. The LCD in the MSI GS60 is awesome.

Keyboards are about same as far as feel, flex (basically none), just the MSI has multi-color Steelseries, P650SE has white backlight.

Killer Wireless 1525 AC is excellent compared with Intel 7260/7265 AC. Intel still has come connectivity issues with ping spikes and maintaining consistent throughput.

The GPU temps are about 10-15C cooler in the P650SE, and CPU about 5-10C cooler. The GS60 tends to throttle, or at least not maintain boost for as long.

Both have 970m and i7-4710HQ, the P650SE only comes with 3GB version, GS60 you can get 3GB or 6GB.

P650SE is set up with M.2 configuration (newest standard, less common), where GS60 uses mSATA/PCI-e configs (more common)

Battery life is about 4 hours usable with the P650SE and less than 3 with the GS60

But with that, it really comes down to weight and thickness and battery life. The GS60 is about 1.5lbs lighter and 5mm thinner than the P650SE, at the expense of higher temps and battery life basically. Otherwise the general desktop and gaming experience was similar. The GS60 weighs about the same as my 13.3" Clevo with 860m, and runs temps similarly granted at about twice the gaming performance, lol.

 

Thank You for the answers!
How about the fan noise? and does the kick-in from the fans happen earlier on the MSI? Kind of question is the MSI lauder when not gaming or no? Did you get a custom pasted version of MSI or no?
Seems that you know the Clevo line-up quite good is there anything similar to GS70 in there in terms of weight and thickness or are there rumors that something is coming soon?
I am still debating with myself if I want the 17inch or not...

 

Razer blade is very tempting but expensive

 

GS60 fan runs constantly, even at idle, albeit low speed. The fans ramp up quite loud at loud on the MSI primarily because it gets a lot hotter than the Clevo. As far as Clevo, there will be a 17" version of the P650SE and SG coming soon.

 

I think the refresh rate is 48Hz and standard is 60 Hz, it does create any problem.

 

Do you find MSI fans intrusive while in low load scenarios? or are they ok?
On load (gaming) Clevo and MSI are comparable or is MSI here also louder more intrusive. I mean I game at home with earphones, but my wife is usually in the same room... so do not want to start that fight
Are the graphics in the P650 or P670 upgradeable or also soldered in like in MSI?
I do like the design on MSI more and most things speak for it rather than Clevo, but on a close to 2k Eur buy want to do my homework.

Really appreciate you answers.

 

Clevo fans get less loud, and you can control when the CPU fan kicks in on the Clevo, that's usually the loudest so you can take a little more heat over fan noise. The GS60 does get loud at load, but if you limit FPS like I tend to do with most games, the fans don't spin as much. As far as idle, it's personal preference. If you can take a slight low hum, only audible in a fairly quiet environment, then it will be OK.

 

Hello everyone, I'm new to this forum, and have finally decided to go for the GS60 Ghost Pro 064 model, the one with 1080p screen and 6GB VRAM. I am based in the USA. What would be the best way to go about ordering this system? I can see multiple options such as XoticPC/GentechPC/Excalibur/HIDevolution, etc. or Amazon or Newegg. All of them have it for 1899$, though Xotic and Gentech have a 3% cashback ootion if I pay via Check, Money Order, Cashiers Check or Bank Wire Transfer. So which way would be the best way to go when it comes to after sales support and warranty? I am considering the aftermarket IC Diamond repaste, so I guess Xotic or Gentech is the way to go. Any inputs or experiences? Thank you!

P.S. The other laptop I had under consideration was the Gigabyte P35W v3 CF2, that is 100$ cheaper (at 1799$) but has only 8GB RAM and 3GB VRAM. The optional ODD swappable bay and 5.5+ hour battery life are plusses over the GS60's 3 hour battery life, but the weight, slightly worse build quality and troublesome Intel AC7260 wireless card are minuses. Moreover, I dont think its quite available yet and hence have hardly seen any reviews of it, and the people in the P35X forum have been having a ton of issues related to CPU throttling and BIOS crashes, amongst many other issues. 3 people have even returned it. That's why I'm choosing the GS60 over it. Hope I'm making the right choice!! What do u guys think?

 

Regarding the 3 hours battery life on the GS60, is that under high load or even whilst browsing?
Trying to decide on a low weight, high performance laptop which is still mobile. Stuck between P34W V3 (Don't wanna wait till 2015), GS60, or P35W V3.

 

The 3 hour battery life is for regular browsing, not even high workloads. Its not going to last for more than an hour while gaming on the go. If battery life is a concern, the P35W or X is a better choice IMHO, though there are many other things to be considered too. The GS60 weighs 4.2 lbs, while the P35W weighs 5.1 lbs. The battery life for the P35 W/X is about 5.5 hours while browsing/light loads.

 

Well the idea was that it was going to be the laptop I would have for a university course, so I'd imagine a longer battery life would be pretty useful. Not sure if I should maybe be looking at ultrabooks, but I wan't to be able to game.

 

I agree, battery life is the only major gripe I have with the GS60, along with the idle fan noise. However, the P35W seems to have multiple software/BIOS/latency/wireless issues and relatively worse build quality, hence I've decided to opt for the GS60.

 

Anyone ??? Gamers

 

I posted the battery test method and results here:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/msi...tx-970m-6gb-review-htwingnut.html#batterylife



Just note that the battery in the review laptop had 13% wear, so you may be able to add 10-13% to those numbers for a new machine without any wear.

If they could offer a better battery life (add an hour or ~ 25%), ability to turn off fans under temp X, and make it a bit simpler to access the RAM, mSATA, and heatpipes, I would buy this thing in a heartbeat at full price.

I personally wouldn't opt for the Gigabyte P34 or P35. Seems there's some quality issues and it runs hot. Granted feedback I've received is for the 980m version though.

 

Man the temps are crazy good for this machine!

Makes my MSi 1762 w/ 680M looks petty lol

 

There is only one cheaper 4k pannel that has a reported 48Hz, all other options are at 60Hz so just do not take that one as what I have heard it is also sub par.
- fake 4k display using RGBW panel same as Lenovo y50 with only 48 Hz (Samsung LTN156FL02-L01)

 

For what it's worth Anandtech claims 3K Panasonic screen used in MSI GS60 is also just RGBW (it was older GTX 870M model though I believe the screen is the same):

Couldn't find any other source that could confirm this though. But everybody seems to be pretty happy about that display (besides MSI GS60 this one should be also used in MSI GT60, Gigabyte P35X v3 and Clevo P650SE / P650SG).

Any 3K MSI GS60 owner with a magnifying glass for verification?

 

Brilliant review thank you so much!

Your benchmarks were very helpful in comparison.

I just bought this exact model with the HD screen today. When i started using the laptop, it produces a constant clicking sound coming from the rear of the chassis, right beneath where the monitor is. Did you or anyone else experience such an issue?

Would love some help from other GS 60 2QE owners out there!

 

Now that you mentioned it - I do hear clicking noises from time to time. Though for me it's not constant. I assume it's from HDD heads parking when drive is going into power saving idle mode?

For you - right beneath the monitor there are CPU and GPU fans:



In my other notebooks I had dying fans producing all sorts of weird noises. But this was after a lot of heavy use.

With a brand new notebook, it's also possible something got mechanically dislocated in transport or not set up properly in manufacturing assembly. E.g. I had other brand new notebook where display didn't work out-of-box. Finally it was just internal connector not being plugged in properly.

 

I've had two GS60's so far (just the "old" 860m models ) and one of them did have a "clicking" fan, which I had to return as it drove me nuts. There was discussion of this issue a few of us had in the original owners thread back when the GS60 line first came out. The replacement has been rock solid and no clicking for 8+ months.

Great laptops, I'm super jealous of the new 970m's performance but otherwise absolutely love mine. Used daily since April.

 

Appreciate the feedback. I ran the laptop without the bottom cover and the clicking noise stopped. I managed to find the source. One of the screws was screwed on too tight. Once i loosened the screw, the noise stopped.

 

Just curious - how does the GS60's IPS screen compare to the GS70's TN screen?

 

that's a pretty thourough review. I just got a GS60 this afternoon off of craigslist for 1400. Not a bad deal for a brand new laptop that sells for 1800 but not a great one either. it's tough finding something with updated hardware thats powerful, light, has most of the feautures etc etc. can't wait to play with it when i get home.

 

Out of curiosity, does this laptop support windows 7 (Any version)? Has anyone tried?

 

Night and day... literally.

 

Yes, it will work fine with Windows 7. Uses the same drivers.

 

Best review I've ever read of this laptop! I am about to buy it during boxing day but I still have a few question I want to find out! the one that I am gonna buy has 12gb of ram, does that mean dual channel? or is it a good dual channel? it also only has a 128gb ssd, can I disassemble it and put a random m2 128gb sad on it and run raid 0 in the future? does the Samsung screen has light bleed? if it does or doesnt would you mind to show us a picture? people say the killer 1525 disconnects from time to time, how has that card been doing so far? I ve seen a video that a gs60 makes heavy clicking noise without the cover, have you figured it out what was the real problem? Sorry for all these questions, but consider it costs me 2000usd it really is a big investment to me, really appreciate that if the problems could be solved!

 

Finally pulled the trigger and ordered a GS60 064 from GentechPC. My only concerns are poorer battery life than the P35W but I guess thats something I'm going to have to live with. But otherwise, I'm happy to read about fewer reliability/driver issues than the P35W/X, the latter has a ton of them with many people even returning their laptop due to . So for now, I feel I've made the right decision. Can't wait to get my hands on it!!

 

This is a great review. I'm about to pull the trigger on a new Stealth Pro with the 970m. Are the two models basically the same other than the size?

 

If you have any questions, feel free to let us know, thank you.

Pretty much the same except the size.