Ryzeki's MSI 17626 Barebone with GTX680m Review

Well for anyone like me deciding whether you want the 675m or 680m look at this article: nVidia GTX 680M Performance Review
I don't know how accurate it is, but it shows that a single 680m is sometimes close to 580m's in sli, and a 680m overclocked can actually beat them.
With that in mind its no wonder it costs so much more. I don't overclock but maybe in 2-3 years(after the warranty is dead) if I need more performance it seems like these 680s overclock pretty well.

 

yeah, don't waste money on branded useless stuff xD. i am still noob compared to you and people like meaker or cloudfire and the others. i am learning a lot from you guys. repaste should be good idea. will you use IC diamond? how often should a repaste be?i haven't repaste since i purchased my gt 60.

i see, are you using the software meaker mentioned?
out of curiosity, how much do you think a 680M MXM would cost now?and is it possible to get its original heatsink?
thanks ryzeki

 

Well don't worry about being "noob" at these things. It is more important to be open minded and willing to learn. I have messed with computers for a long while now, which is why I don't feel worried about opening, modding, hell even breaking holes into the machine haha. But it just depends on how willing you are to self repair and debug if necessary. Warranties are nice but sometimes we want more!

I overclock with MSI Afterburner personally. I have used nvidia inspector and others but I am liking MSI afterburner for around a year or so to date. I changed my vbios to allow overclocking of the GPU Core, as the memory was overclockeable right out of the box.

Current 680m can retail around 700dlrs if not more... It's a hefty cost for an upgrade. I would try to make you reconsider if possible, unless you have the money to drop for a new GPU. You an also upgrade to the HD7970m which has similar performance.

I think the heatsink is the same for the msi nvidia machines. There should be two main heatsinks, one for AMD and other for nVidia machines. Those are compatible almost 100%, often requiring small changes like dremel some bits off etc.

As for temps, I think paste and even small heatsinks applied to the pipesink will work better for now. I haven't had time yet, but it looks like this weekend will be the one to mess with my machine!

 

Going to be a 16F3 owner in about two days. Huzzah.

I think this is the first time I've owned a laptop with a top-tier GPU. The closest I got was the GX660R, but by the time I actually bought it I think the Radeon 6xxx series were rolling out.

 

Luckily the 780m and HD8970m won't be rolling out yet!

Welcome to top tier Forge!

 

the reason i call myself noob is, unlike you guys, i am still schooling, in final year of electrical and electronics engineering. so budget is tight coz up till now i've been using my pocket money to switch between laptops (sell and buy a new one) and even the upgrades. while about the tweaking stuff, smartly my campus is insufficient in providing things related to laptop's stuff and my field is kinda distance as well
luckily i never broke my laptop 100%. just once happen to break because of me playing xmp profile but i fixed it with guidances from Xonar.

i've been reading and it seems like 7970m won't work in msi gt 60 or its barebones version, msi 16F3 . so 680M is only option. i looked once in 675MX but i am afraid i will blame myself after buying it, though the price 210 USD less. i am afraid of modding the heatsink xD, don't have the right tools

haha, seems like you love your machines man. my gf has been complaining to me a lot coz of this msi gt60, she even asked, who's actually the real gf, her or msi gt60. anyway, goodluck with the tweakings

 

Well, now I feel somehow old! haha.

It sucks that the HD7970m won't worl on 16f3, consideirng it works in 16f1 I thought it would also work upwards.

And I do love my machines! I love tweaking and tunning them for the best experience possible. When I first got my new laptop, my gf was asking just the same question haha, but she knows she is my lady, and machines are just tools!

Besides it's no use fighting against a hobby. I am a hardware fan, reading, immersing and learning as much as I can. I simply can't stop it. I have followed the graphic cards wars since over 12 years now, and it's quite an experience. CPU wise too!

Anyways sorry for the low updates, I have been stuck with a lot of work lately, but this weekend... is THE weekend to try things!

 

But my laptops will always be holeyer than yours.

And just got my 16F3 in the mail (though the UPS guy apparently signed off his own name and just left it on the porch in front of the door without even ringing the doorbell; I'm letting Ken know so he can yell at them or something) though it'll be a bit before I actually use it. I'm backing up all my files and moving them over to the HDD before I install onto the SSD.

I am now officially a bareboner.


By the way Ry, you should use my sig picture. We could start the Cult Of Ken.

 

thanks to optimus MSI has recently put, and enduro amd put, that's why it won't work

omg, 12 years is more than half of my age. i remember i used to play with my dad's pentium III 1.0ghz with 384 MB of RAM. (that's all i knew when i was eight lol)

yes, i am waiting for the games benchmark
btw, just wondering. do you have problem about the SATA connection in your gt 70 barebones?coz mine reads the ocz vertex in SATA II, speed cut to half

 

Huh interesting! The cult of Ken rocks. Do the mods shun down such banners? Like showing favoritism?

Let's see how your machine performs!

Haha I am not THAT old, I just started young. I am not even 30 yet! I just like fiddling with machines. I grew with 286 machines and onwards, had my first computer with a 486 cpu, then pentium 2 at 233mhz which was a beast. Then saw the raise both of AMD, ATi vs Intel and nVidia (nVidia trounced poor voodoo, maxtor pharelia, and many others). My first actual laptop was an AMD Duron 800mhz CPU paired with an ATi Rage 8MBs. It was a beast!

As for the SATA connector, more than a problem, the machine has 1 SATA III and 1 SATA II so you probably have your SSD connected to the SATA II connector?

As for the games... I haven't been able to legally aquire them, but I am looking for particular promotions. You want new games haha the newest one I have is borderlands 2! which I am downloading right now.

 

nah, i am not saying you are old. what i meant was 12 years is really a quite of experience. hehe.
i have never sided with AMD nor ATI, (both CPU and GPU). not because i am a fanboy, it's just that i am afraid to jump to the other side

i always smile remembering how tech was in the old times. my first GPU was a geforce fx 5600 AGP 8x (on desktop) 32mb and it could play any game in 2003, paired with pentium 4 HT 3.0ghz with 512 MB RAM. it was more than a beast.

i can run it on SATA III now after lots of research. didn't know it was on gt 60/70 lounge. but still has problem as it is not stable (in reading), the speed is less than 400mb/s. while writing is normal, always above 500mb/s (both sequential).
but i kinda get the point why MSI did this, they want us to buy their latest so called super RAID,still they should differ the motherboard between normal raid/non raid and super raid.

game is expensive in malaysia, so i rarely buy original except for fifa and dota. haha. i kinda not really like borderlands 2 as the graphic is more to the side of cartoon.

 

Well, I repasted (though I had already ICD24 by Gentech applied) so nothing changed much, max temps are still the same (gaming ranges between 60 to 80 depending on how taxing is the game) and furmark still reaches 90C without any external cooling, but it takes a while to get there. This is all, of course, while overclocked to 810/2200.

Temps don't seem that bad, and I bet I can improve upon them if I use extra heatsinks.

I gotta say Gentech had already done a great job at repasting, so I am glad I didn't repaste in a worse way. I will next consider the extra heatsinks to see if those help reduce temps a bit. Already having max temps of 80 while gaming overclocked is not bad in my opinion. Specially if at 93C is the throttle point, 13 degrees is still a lot of room.

Plus I generally use a cooler so I get even better temps.

Oh I will probably add this soon but Borderlands 2 maxed, including physics and vsync, so far had 60fps locked. Great stuff.

 

HTWingNut posted this hehe, the exact ones I have, enjoy ryzeki

 

Dammit, I was checking them out today and they are currently unavailable. I guess I will check them later haha.

Sorry for no updates, just got back from field operations. I haven't had much chance to use my machine.

 

How dare you have a real life, you must work to our every whim! Mwahaha! *cough* *cough*.

The area that most concerns me will be the CPU area, what success have people had adding copper ramsinks on the CPU area in this design?

 

Try with near impossible. There isn't much space to do good with... not a Clevo nor a Alienware.

I made it work though... needed to paste some on the heatpipe itself though, but it worked out great in the end...

 

Yeah the CPU area is nealry impossible add copper sinks or many mods in general. The whole underside of the machine leaves very little space to work with. We would need to change the back cover as well as rising the laptop a bit, just for the sake of slightly reducing temps.

The easy way would be to just build the underside like a shoebox with proper huge fans hahaha But that would look awful and wouldn't be as practical to carry around.

I got a new Corsair M60 mouse on sale, 40 bucks with coupons etc, and so far, so good! I am really liking it.

And Meaker, believe me... it sucks that I finally have the income to get myself this powerful machine etc, but now I hardly have the time haha to use, barely mod anything Hell, I had to flash the vbios late around 3 am because otherwise I would be putting it off for later.

Good think my girlfriend is not jealous of my laptop yet. I think

 

Hey, not to steal the thread but. how are you guys with the bios and Firmware (EC)? I have flashed my 1762 barebone with the 680m to the E1762IMS.10R Bios (MSI gt 70 ONE bios/updated today) and it seems to be working great. but im using the old 1762EG62.401 EC firmware. (i tried to flash it with the GT 70 ONE but it says wrong mobo) has anyone gotten their hands on a barebone EC firmware update?
(with the bios update my WIE scores for graphics is 7.7.) idle temp of cpu with firefox open is 40-44 C)

 

I haven't flashed the mobo bios at all, and the one released for the stock GT70 is supposed to be only for those models right? I hope they do release one for barebones to prevent the CPU throttling but so far I haven't had issues. I think. Well I haven't noticed.

 

Got Sleeping Dogs and FarCry 3 off steam today. Downloading as I type this! I will post impressions and performance on both, updating my review in the process.

If Hitman goes to 50% off, I will bite the bullet on that one too.

 

Quick overdo update because of the holidays and steam sales lol.
Received my 1762 on 12/21. So Far I REALLY like it.

Specs:
Intel Core i7-3630QM Processor @2.4 ghz
16gb corsair vengeance ram
680m
750gb 7200rps hd (much faster then the old 250gb 5400rpm drive)
win 8 pro
price $1659
Bought from cycberpowerpc Xplorer_X7-8100_Gaming_Notebook/ on their black friday sale.
Got assassins creed 3 free.

So far it plays every game maxed vs my old machine:
gateway p-6831 fx
core 2 duo @ 1.67
3gb ram
8800m gts.
250gb 5400rpm drive
vista 32 bit

Even the integrated hd 4000 graphics plays skyrim at a higher frame rate at the same settings as my old machine. Old: about 14-20fps new 25-35 fps on the high preset with aa/af off shadows set to low. Just to give you an idea of how far behind I was.
Obviously the 680m plays it maxed out with the high res. texture pack @60fps with v sync on.

Other games worth mentioning that I tried and are playing maxed out:
Witcher 2, Oblivion(used to stutter terribly on my old machine), Deus Ex Human Rev., Civ 5, Natural Selection 2, Legend of Grimrock, GTA4 and many others. lol

I havnt tested too many games that are more cpu bound like Dragon Age which although ran at decent settings on the old machine because of its slow cpu the fps was low, I'd also like to try NWN2, and Rome Total war(dont have any newer total wars yet lol steam sales might change that)

Very Happy with the performance.
I love the backlit keyboard. Its no louder then my gateway when gaming. Ive gotten used to the matte screen which I was worried about. The size isnt bad either starts out smaller then the gateway and as you go towards the back it gets bigger, but not bad.


Some cons:
I have 1 stuck pxel, but not very noticeable only on black screens.
the touch pad deletes my text when i type lol.

3dmark 11 score on windows 8 with everything stock: 6027 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-3630QM Processor, MS-1762 score: P6027 3DMarks
I took a chance with win 8 and Ive gotten used to it. Its not that bad, although it suffers a bit from tabletitis. on pre win 8 systems I never used the start menu all that much other then to get to my web browser and my computer. So I find windows 8 start screen to be more maintainable(?) and have some potential. But at the moment Ive strictly used the desktop.
Games play so much better

 

Have you tried massaging the screen around the pixel?

 

I tried for a second with a piece of cloth in between my finger and the screen, but was worried I might damage the screen lol. I can try again. I also tried PixRepair which just flashes the screen very quickly with different colors.
It didn't seem to work

But its not terrible and you can only notice it when that pixel is supposed to be black.

 

Ryzeki -- Just wanted to say amazing review. I've been looking at getting one of the MSI barebones for the past few weeks, and I have to say I'm sold based upon your review. If you ever wanted to work for a gaming website/magazine, I say you have the chops for it! :thumbsup:

Just one quick question -- I'm trying to save as much as possible on this upgrade, and I'm wondering if you can use 2nd gen (Sandy Bridge) processors in the 176262. I've seen a few conflicting places say that the laptop supports 2nd/3rd gen processors, but then I've seen other places say it supports only Ivy Bridge (3rd Gen) chips. I dont want to buy a cheap, last-gen processor just to have it not be compatible/not work. Any advice/info on this?

(Edit: Also, have you had any success (Or heard about anyone) using the 3rd Gen Ivy Bridge i5 processors? Thanks for the help!)

 

It supports last gen 2920XM and so on... but Ivy Bridge is so strong that it's almost a waste buying a Sandy Bridge CPU tbh

 

johnmr531 , I am sorry to hear about your screen, I know what it is like to have a single pixel. To be honest, I could live with it no problem, but I can understand the pain when you receive your machine.

Hope everything else is working as intended!

Yes, what jaug says is correct. Current Ivy bridge CPUs are very strong, and it would be a good investment to get a 36XXQM CPU, as they are powerful enough for most needs. It beats out my now old super overclocked Core i7 920xm at 3+ ghz.

Thanks for reading! I am glad I was helpful in your decision!

As it was mentioned by jaug, you can use 2/3rd gen CPUs on this barebone (Socketwise it should be compatible, but I dunno if firmware is updated to do so). I recommend going for a 36xxQM cpu as they are the best bang/buck in performance for OEM(unless you dish out for QS cpus which are not exactly OEMs but can be found on the cheapside for the higher end CPUs).

As for working for a gaming website/magazine, I was actually approached before, and as far as I remember, at least one of my reviews is hosted at a review site haha. The problem is I rarely have the time to write it completely in deadlines, so it's more like a hobby. I don't want to publish lacking or useless content so I try to at least make a coherent, complete writeup before posting. Then I add the extras/pics etc. This takes time.

As for a small update: Hitman Absolution ultra settings at 45fps. Works smooth and looks amazing so far! FarCry 3 was a bit odd with the newer drivers, at 30fps maxed, but fps didn't seem to improve by changing settings.

 

Excellent review, but where are you guys purchasing processors for the msi barebones? if it's not possible, you mean to tell me that eveyone's buying 1600-1800$ notebooks?

Also, if I can't get the processor, i'm looking at the Sager 9150 upgradeable to the 680m...where do i buy a 680m video card outside of ebay? and are these ebay listing wrong? there's both a 2gb and 4g 680m?

 

Thanks for the review! I did save up and payed big bucks for my machine. Including for 1TB of SSD goodness.

680m can only be bought by certain resallers, including Ebay. It is not a component you buy normally at a store. 2GB variants are for Dell/Alienware machines as far as I know. Not sure they are compatible with Sager/MSI so you probably need the 4GB variants plus vbios in case you need to flash them.

Resellers like GentechPC sell the CPUs for the barebones, as well as Ebay and other vendors (I have bought from LaptopMonkey and the CPU worked fine). Original CPUs cost a lot, QS samples are cheaper but also not... legal?

Considering Intel CPUs are on the 300dlrs++ range for quad cores, and the 680m carries a nearly 800dlrs pricetag, you should expect to pay big bucks for something of this caliber. Most components are on the cheap side, but the main things, CPU, GPU are expensive as heck.

Sager is a good option, but if you are going to go that route for cost etc, you should aim for an HD7970m. Personally I wouldn't go Sager after using my current machine. Tho I do love AMD GPUs. If MSI offered an Intel/AMDGPU combo with an HD7970m, I would go for it!

 

eeehhh the 1 pixel is not bad, I dont notice it most of the time

 

I know the Dell Vbios on the MSI card was giving me issues with booting, though IIRC nvidia vbioses can be GPU vram amount agnostic as it is scanned on boot. Thus devices with faulty chips can actually boot but show less ram.