MSI GX740 questions from a total n00b

Hello everyone!
I was directed here by a kind soul from the "what laptop should I buy" forum because I have a couple of points I would like to clarify in this mad world of laptops (which we love and worship anyway)...

I find myself in the position of needing very soon a nice and powerful laptop, without spending too much... the MSI GX740 looked like a perfect match but since he laptop will be used mainly for playing Final Fantasy XIV (and other lovely games that I missed in these years I didn't have a nice graphic card)
I was worried because looks like that the ATI cards are having a lot of problems with Final Fantasy XIV and so I was advised to look for a top Nvidia mobile card.
which is even more difficult to find on a not-too-expensive laptop
;__;

Hence the problem... will it be fixed in future driver updates? that is possible indeed and I'll wait until I hear something about this but... well I seems a bit lost in this search for the perfect laptop because I really have no clue on what's best or not for that game.

I saw in a kinda of well respected forum that this list should be used as a simple chart for the purchase of a new system and it seems to me that the game requests are pretty high.
Do you honestly think that MSI GX740 will be good to play this game at a decent resolution (if the problems will be fixed of course)? or should I look for a nVidia graphic card?

Also, incidentally, has any of you any idea where to approach a nice reseller of MSI laptops? they might be able to help me and customize eventually the system, I hope I live in the UK (london to be precise) and I'm not from here so I really have no clue ; ; ( I already checked the resellers though from the MSI website )

(I hereby include the game system requirements as a reference to make my dream true hehe)

CPU:
* Intel' Core"2 Duo (2.0GHz)
* AMD Athlon' X2 (2.0GHz)

Graphic Cards:
* 512 mb NVIDIA Geforce 9600 or higher
* 512 mb ATI Radeon HD 2900 or higher

 

To start with the game has not been released as of now. Its only "alpha" and "beta" stages. Secondly its the game developer's fault and not ATi, so you should pray that SE gets some sense into itself to fix it before release.

MSi GX740 is definately a good gaming laptop otherwise and is above all specs anyways.

 

The GX740 topples this game's system requirements, no doubt about it. I agree with Silicon, this game is still in development and part of this initial "hardware test" demo by Square Enix is to capture interest. Because of this, I wouldn't put much faith into ATI benchmarks, as they are VERY likely to be negligible when the game is more polished and closer to release.

From personal experience (I own an E7405, a GX740 with an i5 instead of i7), I can say that I enjoy highest settings and resolution with great framerates on all modern games. MMOs can be tricky, not least because they can be rather CPU and RAM intensive, but with the GX's i7 and at least 4GB of RAM I see no problem for you.

Great laptop

 

1. ATi releases driver updates every month, so even in case of the game having issues with ATi hardware at the time of release, these issues are very likely to be fixed in next driver release.
2. Some resellers of MSI laptops worth mentioning are: Frostycomputers - Computers so cool they are frosty , Gaming Laptops - XOTIC PC - Gaming Notebooks - Custom Laptops - Custom Notebooks . You will be able to fully customise the configuration of Your laptop there.

 

yes, I am fully aware that it's just in the early stages of beta but the release date is in september so I just wanted to understand what I've lost in this years of technological advance that I've completely missed

if that's the case, then the MSi GX740 might be perfect... it's very well equipped and it will give me the possibility to enjoy also other great games that I've missed due to my technological withdrawal years eheheheh


thank you to everyone though for the quick reply... the matter is yet to be solved but at least I have some more opinions to evaluate ^__^

 

What games in particular are you interested in playing? I would say it's far more than a possibility of enjoying new games, it's a certainty. Considering that the Radeon HD 5870 is arguably the best single-card laptop GPU on the market (taking into account heat and power consumption as well).

See my overview thread for a bit more detailed information:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/msi/499344-one-users-experience-msi-e7405.html

 

I just read your overview and I'm pretty enthusiast now
I am merely speaking of games I couldn't try in any way because of my old laptop, a nice toshiba that is like 3 years old now or even more...
I'm saying something like Mass Effect, Bioshock, Fallout 3, Arkham Asylum, Uncharted, Dragon Age... just to name a few, but my mean interest is in being able to play FFXIV with high details (something that might be just tried on the release I'm afraid)
consider that it's almost 3 years I don't have a computer able to support proper gaming lol with this one I even had problems with Spore! ;__;

 

Say what? Uncharted? As far as I know, there are no release plans for a PC Uncharted, but I could be wrong. I'd like to be wrong, in fact.

Anyways, yep to all of the above. The ONLY game I've found that the E7405 or GX740 can't run at 30+ fps with maxed-out settings and highest resolution is Crysis and Crysis Warhead, which just require a little resolution/settings tinkering to boost up a little.

EDIT: XoticPC is perhaps the cheapest reseller that still offers a wealth of customization options. I bought mine for a bit less money (with pre-configured options) from jr.com (J & R Electronics), a reseller out of Manhattan.

 

You haven't heard of the PC version of Uncharted? It's on sale for $9.99 on Steam this week. It came out like 3 years ago!

 

Steampowered.com tells me I'm being duped...

 

uhm... I have it on my list of games to play but I must have missed the fact is for ps3 LOL
Paaaaardon! ^_^

 

So here I am
14 days to the opening of the servers and I still don't have a laptop worth it ahahah

I'm starting to panic although I am considering to wait a little bit more to see a drop in price because of the arrival of lovely new shiny msi thingies

the main problem though still remain the fact that I'm not sure about what graphic card a laptop should have to run decently FFXIV ; ;

 

you'll be fine with a 5870m I promise...

 

Ah yes yes, I've been told I would be fine indeed.
I'm just trying to see if I can save some more money
otherwise I'll have to wait a bit more than what I was thinking... and at that point I will go for our lovely gx740

 

at the end I bought the msi gx740 and it's working great so far ahah