Msi GS30 review

Here is my setup - installed in the dock is a msi gtx970.
I went with the msi version of the gtx970 for reasons of superior cooling. (great choice btw).
I purchased the gs30 for 1899.00 and the gpu for 349.00.

Initial impressions/ fit finish:
I'm a student and work full time of course- so i was looking for a good solution that allowed me to get school work done and still be a powerful at home gaming rig. This Msi Gs30 is the best computer I've ever purchased. I couldn't believe how solid, light and small the laptop is. This is my first Msi computer - and i must say - great quality! (the only tiny gripe would be screen has the slightest wobble if you were really hammering the keys while holding on your lap. It's sleek, portable and i was genuinely surprised that the dock isn't really that giant or ugly. I really don't mind it - initially was going to put it under desk - but once I received the computer i realized it would fit just fine on the desk.
The laptop screen is nice and I've found using the msi scaling/zoom application great for making my school tasks more readable. The screen itself gets plenty bright and the keyboard is very comfortable to use and adjust to considering its only a 13 inch notebook.
I like that it's very subtle about being a gaming notebook - the dragon emblem on back doesn't light up and the lights in front aren't too over the top(though id just as soon not have them) the dragon emblem on the dock - you cant even see unless the lighting is very bright in your house( i didn't even know it was there until i took that picture with the flash).
Fit/ finish / design - 9 out of 10





Performance:
This computer is insanely fast - I've seen benchmark videos including xoticpcs showing the boot time to be 10 seconds. Well mine boots from dead cold in 5-6 seconds.
Multitasking as expected is no problem - and without docked desktop gpu was able to run league of legends on medium high 60fps locked butter smooth.
Monitoring cpu temps during workload or light gaming - the cpu would get up to around 76-77° and then the fan really kicks on and cools to around 73ish. The fan is honestly a little loud but i got used to it very quickly (this was a concern of mine before receiving the laptop). I've found on battery use and especially on power save mode - for most work/schoolwork scenarios the fan rarely even kicks on. At my desk in the dock - if a fan really bothers you i'd suggest just putting the dock on a base down at the floor - this would be enough distance that you would likely hardly hear the fan.
(note that you can also easily within windows create a power plan that throttles back max cpu load even just a percentage point and that alone has kept cpu under 75° even while playing ultra bf4 with gaming dock).
Performance- 10/10 (from an ultrabook standpoint)

Docked performance:
What an amazing computer MSI has put together. I was going back and forth between this and the alienware ( hated the thought of cpu bottleneck as well as pcie bottleneck with alienware)- then i kept reading about fit and finish issues with alienware - and the final blow to alienware was all of the docking issues it was having - having to delete drivers and reinstall and so on.
My gpu arrived at the house - i took the side of the dock off- installed the gpu - installed the latest driver for it - done. It seamlessly recognizes when its docked and has the gtx970 and undocked iris pro. No messing around - period. The gpu barely ever has to turn its fans on - except when i cranked battlefield 4 up to ultra at 1080p - which has zero stutter or framerate issues btw- and gpu temps monitored using msis afterburner showed 64° after an hour - even when the gpu fans came on i couldn't hear them!
Docked performance- 10 out of 10 (no troubleshooting needed - it just works - and it is an absolute beast)

A couple of things to add - I'm getting about 4.5-5 hours on battery with light office use - brightness at a bit over half (i did adjust max processor to 99% and so far have seen no performance difference but much better power and heat profile.

I understand this is a bit of a niche computer and the price is a little prohibitive - but this computer was worth every cent - even though it did cost a couple hundred more than just getting a comparable ultrabook and a comparable desktop. I justify it by knowing that for the most part i have a good amount of longevity with the upgradeable desktop gpu and the strong cpu in the laptop.

Final note: if you are on the fence - and you like the concept of ultraportable where you really don't game much on the go (except light games like mobas) then seriously just bite the bullet and buy this - its an amazing well built machine. Obviously if you need to game on the go then there are better options - but i came to the realization that never one time in my life of owning laptops did i ever game on them outside of home. When vacationing I'm too busy vacationing - if i were to travel for work id be fine with some light gaming (lol or wow).
For me - this is the perfect solution. Hope you enjoyed the review and thanks for reading!

 

Very nice review the GS30 definitely looks like a promising machine, and personally I was seriously considering it. It was pretty much a fight between GT80 and GS30 for me.

Im glad you are enjoying it, and it is good to hear there are zero issues when gaming with the dock! Temps seem excellent and battery life seems good enough to me, though I am sure some will find it low.

How about running some benches in general? so people can see that your mobile CPU definitely keeps up in gaming with such a powerful GPU!

 

Thanks for the review! I've been seriously thinking about getting this setup so I can finally have just one computer instead of a laptop and desktop. This review made me go from seriously considering it to knowing it's what I'm going to get.

I've been using both a laptop and desktop for a while and this thing is the solution to having two computers. I won't have to try and remember which one has which document or try and decide which one to install applications like adobe and such on. I've been waiting years for something like this!

I'll be going back to school next semester as well so I was wondering if you've tried dropping the brightness more to see what impact it has on battery life? And have you used the hard drive bay on the docking station?

 

Yes that's exactly the place where it fits well, sweet looking setup

 

Thanks for the excellent review, great commentary on it. Two questions, though:

Is that sleeve included with the laptop? Is it cheap a good quality sleeve?

And I saw your post on a separate thread where you said this:

Could you clarify what you meant here? Do you mean that if you have the laptop docked, but you plug your external monitor into the LAPTOP'S HDMI port, the laptop's screen works? But if you plug the external into the graphics card's port, the laptop screen won't work? I'm not sure if I'm misinterpreting you here.

 

This site did tons of benchmarking way back in early january - its what i based my purchase decision on - see for yourself it even beats out the reference desktop with gtx980 in all but one test. My only main question that needed answering was if the cpu would get less hot once docked as the gpu would take some load off plus not needing to use iris pro.
The cpu does in fact run cooler when docked with desktop gpu by about 5-7 °. So when you look at hexus benchmarks - realize he is showing cpu heat under full load undocked. Also i highly recommend adjusting cpu down to 99% it really kept the heat down and the fan hardly seems to kick on as much. (i check the cpu heat like a madman cause i want this thing to last.)
http://m.hexus.net/tech/reviews/laptop/79397-msi-gs30-shadow-gamingdock/

 

You will love it! Its perfect for class - taking notes, doing homework, (im taking some online classes too so its great) itll run adobe and such with no problem - the iris pro really is the best nondiscrete graphics ive seen so far (not saying alot but lol)

I can give it a test tomorrow with dropping screen brightness im sure it will help but how much im not sure. Also be aware when i get 4-5 hours im doing very light work - if you were to be doing photoshop etc it may suck down more battery.
I have not out a hard drive in dock yet. For me 256gb is enough for now - though down the line i may add a 7200rpm hdd for media storage. My main focus was school and gaming when i have time - and 256gb is plenty for me atm.

 

Yes! The sleeve came included with laptop! - i had no idea it was included and it is nice quality. It has a foamy inside and fits the computer pretty well (maybe could have been a little smaller. Use it every day though and seems like it will hold up.

At the time i didnt have the gpu yet- was waiting for it from newegg. So i had the hdmi plugged into the laptop and was able to use laptop screen and external display simultaneously. (while docked) Now that i have the gpu i havent actually tried to plug in to laptop hdmi - i will test that for you tomorrow and let you know!

 

Edited

 

Okay that sounds great from a productivity standpoint, like doing homework at home or something like that. While gaming however, with the monitor connected to the graphics card, am I correct in saying that the laptop screen is now not functional? I think I read that MSI is working on a BIOS update to fix that, hopefully they deliver!

 

From what i hear - the screen is unusable if plugged into gpu hdmi - i will verify tomorrow and let you know seriously though if you are on the fence and need some verificafion of how well this thing performs - just take a good look at benchmarks here:
http://m.hexus.net/tech/reviews/laptop/79397-msi-gs30-shadow-gamingdock/

 

Just read over benchmarks again - no wonder this thing boots so fast. With msis ssd raid setup this reads at almost 1100mb/s and writes at over 600mb/s. Crazy!

 

I have to admit that after reading the Hexus review I'm rather disappointed. They put a fast CPU in there and then don't cool it well enough to keep it from throttling! So we're paying for performance we can't use due to what I can only call poor design choices. I have to say I'd rather have a CPU that won't throttle and would lower the cost than something I can't fully use.

They could have at least added bigger or second fan since it doesn't have a GPU on board. Or given us a ducting system with a fan on the docking station so we could get better cooling and full power when docked.

Definitely not cool for someone who does a fair bit of non gaming high CPU usage work.

May have to wait and see what they do with the next gen or if the die shrink will lower thermals enough to fix the situation. I guess the moral of the story is read more reviews before getting too excited! lol

 

I doubt there is actual throttling due to temperature. This is actually a design... situation. It is most likely limited by TDP, as are all HQ processors. My 4720hq has a max turbo to 3.6ghz quad core, but it can only maintain it for about 30 seconds on stock, before dropping down, all due to TDP. When undervolting and reducing the uncore speed and voltage, I managed to get full stable 3.5ghz all day wuth the 47W TDP limit.

Even with the TDP limit, the laptop performed on par to desktop chips of considerable more power. If these CPUs were not limited by TDP, we could adjust the setting and ensure even higher performance. But they were designed this way.

 

Meh they were testing it udnder extreme load like video encoding for extended periods. Your point still stands and i agree - however by dropping your max cpu to 99% youll find thr exact solution you are looking for. It wont get that hot thus wont throttle ( though ive never seen any throttling so far without this) but i understand your concern

 

I wish they had put two fans in there as well but it really hasnt been an issue under intense gaming whatsoever. Admittedly i dont do tons of video encoding and such so maybe it will throttle at that point

 

Makes sense - as like i said - thus far experienced no throttling - i even cranked up bf4 to 3k res and cpu was holding at around 75-76 butter smooth. I believe it is by design limited with the hq processor as you said (this is a laptop - so mobile cpus will generally be subpar to desktop) but as you stated correctly it was neck and neck with desktop cpu in cpu benchmarks and in actual gaming tests it outperformed the refernce 980 on a desktop rig. To me that says enough.

 

Awesome review! Great that you are enjoying it and loving the setup

 

Well said, and it makes me happy we have new types of solutions like GS30, for the ultrabook+desktop crowd

 

I do understand the clock speed based on TDP. However the Hexus review states: "Digging deeper into our logs shows that the CPU is throttling in these demanding scenarios, with the all-core speed falling as low as 2.9GHz on occasion."

For gaming, I'll agree that it likely wouldn't happen. And I suppose that is the target user group. But it's still a shame that they couldn't at least do a simple ducting system on the docking station to improve thermals when docked.

That said, if the most CPU demanding task I was going to be doing was gaming... I'd buy one for sure!

I'll certainly admit that my usage isn't the norm for really any laptop, but you can't blame me for dreaming! lol

 

From the factory, the 4870HQ turbo's up to 3.7GHz, as others have said, but the base frequency is actually 2.5GHz. That alone will account for the "throttling" experienced, which I personally would agree is by design, and thus not REALLY throttling. The 2.9GHz Hexus cited is still higher than the base frequency.

http://ark.intel.com/products/83504/Intel-Core-i7-4870HQ-Processor-6M-Cache-up-to-3_70-GHz

 

Inversion, I had just looked that up before I came back to the site here and was going to post that the review is somewhat misusing words. And I hadn't paid enough attention to catch it when I read it.

They should say it's not boosting as high due to thermals not that it's being throttled as it's still above stock clocks. I had forgotten how low the stock clocks on laptops were and thought that it was in fact thermal throttling.

While I may have been wrong about the throttling, I still think that the next version could really use at least some ducting on the docking station

 

Again, the throttling is most likely due to TDP not thermals the cpu is power limited so it cant boost to max speeds. Thermals are fine. My cpu boosts to 3.6ghz but due to power it goes down to 3.2 or so. After undervolting and changing power settings i managed to raise speeds to 3.5ghz at the same 47watts.

You can make the best cooling solution and it will still throttle. Thermal throttling occurs well over 90 degrees celsius and that is not happening here.

 

I agree some playing in XTU could really help the machine if you like to tweak your setup.

 

I completely agree, more emphasis could have been placed on cooling. That would probably, however, lead to some sacrifices in the light weight and thin body that seems to be such a huge draw. This is probably what MSI decided would be the best balance.

 

This! I was really hoping the dock had some sort of ducting/fan setup to help with cooling - could have easily gone on base where laptop sits and help blow ait through laptop.

 

Ah i see - i was assuming you wanted this for a gaming setup as well - so when you were unhappy with benchmarks that showed it outperforming a desktop reference - i was thinking to myself "whatdoes thisguy want - a unicorn?" but i understand your issues with the cpu itself for your uses.

 

Unfortunately didnt get a chance to really play with battery life at work today so no resolution on extending the battery life yet. Busy day.

 

I still don't understand what you want to gain with better cooling. Performance won't increase because it is power limited. Thermals are fine and I am sure MSI designed only to cool what the expected TPD was already.

You can easily tweak your CPU with intel XTU and extend its 24/7 performance if you need extra speed, but again, we are working with a set power limit, not thermals. This is hardly on MSI, but rather on intel by design. It would be cool if we could unlock the TDP setpoint though.

 

My only "concern" with heat is that i like components running as cool as possible to maximize lifespan. Ive had gaming laptops in the past that the components burn out too soon imo. But i believe it was mostly due to gpu heat causing excess heat in the chassis - or the gpu itself being shog from heat. But all in all this pc runs at completely stable heat profile so i agree - i should let it go haha

 

I can understand wanting to have a cool running laptop, sorry if I came like too aggressive haha. Maybe I will recommend the GS30 to my father... he has an ultrabook and a desktop at home, both a bit out of date already. This might be a good compromise and he can reuse his current GPU while he gets another.

 

So here my benchmark with just a mild gpu overclock.
FIRE STRIKE
Add to compare
VALID RESULT
SCORE 10345 with NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970(1x) and Intel Core i7-4870HQ Processor
Graphics Score
12756
Physics Score
9128
Combined Score
4667
SHOW RESULT DETAILS
RUN DETAILS
View benchmark run
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970
Vendor
Micro-Star International Co ., Ltd.
# of cards
1
SLI / CrossFire
Off
Memory
4,096 MB
Core clock
1,285 MHz
Memory bus clock
1,810 MHz
Driver name
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970
Driver version
9.18.13.4725

[paste:font size='4']Intel Core i7-4870HQ Processor
Reported stock core clock
2,500 MHz
Maximum turbo core clock
3,591 MHz
Physical / logical processors
1 / 8
# of cores
4
Package
BGA1364
Manufacturing process
22 nm
TDP
47 W
[paste:font size='4']GENERAL
Operating system
64-bit Windows 8.1 (6.3.9600)
Motherboard
Micro-Star International Co., Ltd. MS-13F1
Memory
16,384 MB
Module 1
8,192 MB Hyundai Electronics DDR3 @ 800 MHz
Module 2
8,192 MB Hyundai Electronics DDR3 @ 800 MHz
Hard drive model
256 GB Intel Raid 0 Volume

 

It's hard to make a dock actually improve the cooling of the machine without impacting its design on the move.

 

Just in case there are any owners out there - just watched Linus techs review on this and learned some valuable info. He was a little hard about the system noise though he did say overall this unit is "f'en awesome".
He said to go in the dock and adjust fan speed to low (mine was set to medium from factory) - so I went ahead and did that - and now its so quiet comparably I had to put my head up to it to make sure it was still running. He said that internal temps were only a few degrees hotter with fan on low - and the noise reduction as I can attest to - monumental.
here's the review:

 

Awesome review man, MSI is really doing some awesome things this year. They are killing it with deciding to use PCIe v3. My only thing about the gs30 shadow is the lack of dedicated graphics inside. I can't see myself buying laptop without a true gaming graphics card even with the amplifier. I travel and go on vacation etc and when I do I game. I guess you could say I want to have my cake and eat it to. And that's what is keeping me from pulling the trigger on this, I am in the market for a thin and light gaming laptop sub 15.6 inch, I'm actually shooting more towards sub 14 inch, as I'm a student taking anything bigger to class is silly imo. So hopefully msi updates this or implements other laptops with dedicated graphics to work with the dock, I've got time so I'm looking forward to see what they do. Hopefully when they do they won't come with problems like AW is dealing with.

 

I'm in the exact same situation as you. I've been cross shopping this GS30 with Gigabyte P34G and P34W, which are both decently cheaper. Both are 14 inchers under 4 pounds, but have quad core processors and 860m (P34G) or 970m (p34W).

 

Yeah man, I was looking at those two as well. I've even considered the aw13. But hey I just looked up some vids and information about Intel Iris Pro graphics in the gs30...and I was kind of surprised at what I seen. I was thinking the integrated graphics in this laptop was really terrible, and I now think that it's not that bad. I mean it's not as good as say the 860m or similar...but I don't think it's very far off.

 

Yeah I saw that too. I think someone in a different thread equated it to a 650m or a bit better? That's a bit older but still a decent midrange dedicated card.

Honestly, I was expecting more than around 4-5 hrs of just browsing, but I guess this is part of the sacrifice.

 

I believe you are right about it being comparable to a 650. I believe its about half as good as an 860m if that helps. But honestly you arent going to get playable framerates with it on anything 3d intense.

 

Thanks brother - trying to spread the word about this truly awesome machine.

 

Hey ecundiff1, any update on if the laptop screen works while docked and using the external gpu?

 

There was supposed to be a bios update that enabled this though I am not sure if that is still in the works but that is what I was told from MSI @ CES

 

I heard they would be also releasing a way to turn off the light in the front? I guess you can't?

The lack of an owners lounge on this forum kind of worries me. I want this thing to sell well so MSI keeps this tech around lol. I sound hypocritical because I haven't pulled the trigger on it, but I might this summer...especially if we see an update by then.

 

No it doesn't work - which for me is fine. Much prefer my 27inch monitor at home. Although as has been stated - they have mentioned updating bios down the road to allow this.
Also even with gpu connected im pretty sure you could just run hdmi to laptop and still use the screen but again you would be bypassing the gpu - so gaming takes a giant hit.

 

I too would hope that someone that has a GS30 takes the initiative to create a GS30 Owner's Lounge. That I would like to see as well so we have one big repository of GS30 info and whatnot.

 

Geno, any updates on if these two fixes/features will be available in a BIOS update soon?

The lights being able to be turned off would be a fairly nice plus to me, but I would really like to be able to use the laptop screen while gaming. I'm used to a desktop setup at home that uses two monitors, one for the game and one for skype/web browsing/tv/music/anything else. It would be a huge disadvantage vs any other gaming laptop to have to buy TWO monitors for the GS30 dock setup when laptops (the GS30 included) already come with one decent screen.

 

Well, while that is true when it comes to numbers, I think you are overplaying the screen size a bit haha. When used docked, besides the increased height, we are talking about a rather small laptop screen

In the end, you would be much better with two actual external monitors. Or three, why not?

But MSI did say they would add the feature, so maybe they are still working on it. Since it was made, by design, to not use it, maybe they need to change a few things regarding the PCI link.

 

I agree with most of what you say, but in my very specific use case, I just don't have the money nor the real estate for dual/tri setups in my college room. I would be willing to deal with a smaller, taller screen just to use for those non-essentials on the side of gaming, like skype/steam. I would definitely not buy a (second) additional monitor for it, so while its not a deciding factor in my decision, it does have some weight. I would be willing to purchase this laptop even without this feature. However, in comparison to a different gaming notebook, for less money (namely looking at the P34W), I could have the screen of the laptop alongside a monitor, which would not even be required to game like it is in the GS30.

Ah, decisions, decisions.