ViciousXUSMC's Ultimate MSI GT70 Unboxing & Review

Introduction:

What is the GT70?

The GT70 is MSI’s newest 17” high profile gaming laptop featuring the 3rd Generation Intel Ivy Bridge CPU and 600 series Nvidia GPU.

It fills a very strategic marketing spot making it competitive against similar spec machines from other manufactures. Compared to say the Asus G70 series that has a great price/performance ratio the MSI unit uses a standard MXM 3.0 slot allowing for user upgrades to better GPU’s and also easy access to the CPU for upgrades. If you compare it to say the Alienware M17X the price/performance ratio of the MSI just blows it out of the water.

So I feel the MSI unit offers both great value and great versatility, this makes it balanced and an all around great pick for those looking for a high performance gaming laptop.

There are already numerous variations on the model of GT70 available at the time of launch and I assume even more may come up over time. This review is going to be based on the North American version model: GT70-ONC-011US that can be purchased from authorized MSI resellers.


Specs as configured:

• Operating System – Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit
• CPU – Intel Core i7 3610QM (2.3Ghz – 3.3Ghz 6MB Cache 22nm 45w and Onboard Intel HD4000 Graphics)
• GPU – Nvidia GTX 670M w/ 3GB GDDR5 RAM DX11
• Chipset – Intel HM77 Express
• System RAM – 16GB DDR3 1600Mhz
• Display 17.3” 1920x1080P FHD Matte Type (Matte <3)
• Hard Disks – 750GB Hitachi 7200RPM Sata III 2.5”
• +Super Raid – 2x64GB Sandisk MSata SSD in Raid 0
• Optical Drive – 6x Blu-Ray Writer 8x DVDR/W Super Multi
• Webcam – 720P HD
• Fax/Modem/Lan/WLan – Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR, Wireless ABGN, Killer Game Networking Gigabit LAN
• Interface – 2x USB 2.0, 3x USB 3.0, eSATA, HDMI 1.4, VGA, LAN, Microphone In, Headphone Out, Line In, SPDIF Out.
• Audio – Realtek HD Audio w/ Dynaudio Premium Sound System
• Keyboard – 103 Key Chiclet w/ Software Changeable LED Color Backlight
• Battery – 9 Cell
• AC Adapter -19v 9.5A, 180W
• Dimension & Weight – 8.6lbs 16.85” x 11.34” x 2.17”
• Security – BIOS Booting / HDD User Password Protection, Kensington Lock Hole
• Warranty – 2 Year Limited w/ 1 Year Accidental Coverage

View Full Specs, Stock Photography, Pricing & More @ GenTech PC - Systems


Where Purchased:

I got my unit from GentechPC based out of California. I have been a multi time customer with them and the service and support from their team has never let me down. Ken represents them here on the forums and he has always gone out of his way to help me or answer questions even long after I have purchased something.

I can tell this is no salesmanship front in where the service is only there to get your business and make money, rather they care about customers and go out of the way to support them and thus as a result end up with good business. This is why as long as they carry laptop models that I am interested in they will continue to have me as a customer.


First Impressions:

I knew full well what the unit would look like just from the online images, and in person it looks just like I imagined it would. It was a bit heavier and beefier than I expected. I own a Asus G73 and since it’s also a high end 17” gaming laptop I expected similar size & weight but the GT70 is definitely more thick and feels heavier.

It looks nice, I have always been a fan of the brushed aluminum design and this laptop has it for both the lid and the palm rest area. Picking it up is a bit awkward due to the shape of the body, it has a “lip” under the lid you can grab, and the back side where I usually hold my laptop to pick it up has the secondary feet I guess to give the laptop more center support when sitting on a desk. Small nit picking but I pay attention to pretty much everything.

The unit came double boxed for protection; this is pretty standard these days. One thing I missed is no included bag again first impressions being based on your last laptop and Asus always came with a bag. I knew this going into the purchase so I already ordered and received a cheap bag from Amazon to get me started.

Case Logic 17” - Amazon.com: Case Logic 17" Laptop Backpack: Computers & Accessories

This bag fits perfect and since its just over $25 you get the free shipping on it as well so it was a really good buy.

MSI GT70 Unboxing Pictures Web Album - https://picasaweb.google.com/112313031674047768952/MSIGT70Unboxing?authuser=0&feat=directlink

(Would embed but HTML disabled on this forum)


View Unboxing Pictures Here:

Spoiler

Pictures:

Here are some of the pictures I took when I first got the unit. I may take a 2nd photoshoot at a later time if there is any picture in particular requested.

I didn’t bring my lights with me and had to combat sunlight coming in vs the in room lights so I had 2 different color temperatures, also I forgot to fix my ISO from my last photoshoot :/

MSI GT70 Photoshop Web Album - https://picasaweb.google.com/112313031674047768952/MSIGT70Review?authuser=0&feat=directlink


View Photoshoot Images Here:

Spoiler

Build & Design:

Build and design seem pretty good here. It has a robust cooling system that also has manual override for max cooling. It has touch buttons that I felt a bit gimmicky on a past laptop but they never actually gave me any problems so I have no problems with those.

The laptop is interfaced pretty well, a full 5 USB ports to use, ESATA for fast external drives, HDMI for HDTV use, and way better audio setup than any laptop I have seen, both in the built in speakers and the interfacing.

It’s a semi flashy laptop as it is trying to conform to “gaming laptop standards” but its not over the top. Nothing on the outside is putting on a laser light show or sporting neon reflective material so that you can use it to signal for rescue on a deserted island. It stays looking calm cool and professional.

Really the flashy factor comes down to the keyboard and you can choose to sport that in rave mode with a variety of colors and animated patterns via software but you can turn it off to keep that low profile if desired. That design decision gets my thumbs up.

I can’t flaw the design other than I wish it was a bit lower profile physically, I assume the size is needed to accommodate the hardware and cooling also it’s a bit higher off the desk than my last laptop. If I had any other wish I would have liked to see a thunderbolt port. I do a lot of video editing and other media tasks and there is some nice hardware out there that uses thunderbolt. For now USB 3.0 gets the job done though. One last mention is that it comes with a Matte Screen! This is sooo great for me.

Why do laptops use glossy screens? I Hate them, there is nothing good about them. Mirrors are so you can see yourself; screens are so you can see something else. Whoever decided to put the two together should be shot, twice.

The last really notable design feature is the new “super raid” it uses. By using MSATA they can fit two small SSD drives in a single 2.5” drive bay. Then these two SSD are run together on a hardware raid controller in Raid 0 to double the raw bandwidth they can deliver.

SSD’s are already super fast, and to double that up in Raid 0 is just borderline insane. I look forward to upgrading the Sandisk SSD included into the even faster M4’s one day to really see what “super raid” can be like. I’ll call it “Vicious Raid” Muahaha.


Screen/Monitor:

Ok, so we were just talking about this.
The screen is a 17.3” size, 1920x1080 full HD LED backlight panel.
That means it uses a now standard 16:9 aspect ratio good for movies & games.

It uses an anti-glare matte coating. So in short this means no reflections. You do not have to try to maneuver your laptop and screen angle around to avoid reflections of light from above or behind you. Now when your gaming or web browsing you don’t have to see your face looking at you.

Matte is much more versatile and universal. If you have not used one in a long time or never used one at all you may be a bit taken back by the colors & contrast at first, they could seem dull compared to a glossy screen. That is due to how glossy screens artificially enhance colors and contrast. Infact that is why they use them, to help make super cheap lcd panels seem less cheap by using a reflective coating.

A good screen does not need it and you will be much happier with a matte display I think unless you always play in the dark with your laptop.
I read a lot of concerns about the viewing angles of this screen, so I promised to do a full test on that. My testing shows that the view angles for this screen are spot on what they should be. Remember that we have two main types of LCD tech out there TN and IPS. I won’t go into detail just know pretty much all laptop use TN and more expensive desktop monitors use IPS and IPS has better viewing angles. So for a TN panel this monitor performs just fine, nothing falls short of my (high) expectations.

I did a good all around view angles testing and took pictures for you to see for yourself. Left & Right angles even at the super extreme hold up great. So does the above view, the only weakness it has is the from below angle it darkens out rather fast. Of all the angles though if you had to pick one to have light fall off that is the angle to use as almost never would you look at the screen from below.

Other screen characteristics like color, contrast, and brightness. They score above the norm. It’s so bright that I don’t use the screen on full brightness. To my well trained photoshopers eye the other colors gradients and white balance all seem proper and better than what I normally see on a laptop.

I did run the monitor through a full calibration and color testing but didn’t take pictures of it since the reality is that your monitor won’t show you the colors I see nor is even the camera good at capturing them accurately when it comes to things like gradient tests and white/black contrast.

Look at the viewing angles photos to see for yourself how things look.

MST GT70 Monitor Angles Web Album - https://picasaweb.google.com/112313031674047768952/MSIGT70MonitorAngles?authuser=0&feat=directlink


View the Monitor Angle Images Here:

Spoiler

Keyboard & Touchpad:

This is such an important part of a laptop, no matter how great your hardware is if you don’t have a good interface to use it the user experience takes a crap.

It’s no secret that MSI is very proudly boasting this keyboard. Branded by Steelseries, multi-color led, tactile response, relocated keys for gamers, hardware button to disable the touchpad…

They really pulled out all the stops to advertise this as the ultimate gaming keyboard. No doubt its very pretty, similar to the Alienware MX17 but probably a cool 1K$ cheaper on your wallet.

But let’s cut the marketing fluff and talk business… How does the keyboard actually feel & type?

Well, I hate to say that for me out of the box I didn’t type so well on it. They wanted this tactile mechanical keyboard feel and whatever they changed to accomplish this causes these keys to be a bit more raised and have more leverage than the normal low profile scissor switches. So they can be tilted sideways when you press them at an off center location.

I touch type not peck and I often hit keys right on the edge and not dead center. On the low profile chiclet keys of my G73 this is not a problem and on my numerous mechanical keyboards this is not a problem. On the GT70 it is a problem though. You can push a key till it “clicks” and not have it activate because you activated the clicking mechanism and pressed the switch to its limit at a sideways angle but you did not trigger the actual input. On a true mech keyboard the activation point and tactile point are one in the same it’s practically impossible to do one and not the other.

I feel they should not have tried to rip off mechanical keyboards and put a half breed child of a keyboard on this laptop. Even if they put authentic Cherry MX Blue mech switches on here why would I want clicky key presses on my laptop when I may be in the library trying to quietly type away to do a report? Yeah this is a gaming laptop right, not a school laptop. So my friends over voip with me like to hear clicks as well? I only use my clicky keyboard for data entry at work for anything else I much prefer a silent key press.

The other half the problem is the new key locations, they moved the space bar to the left and I use my right thumb to use space, so now that puts my space bar press right on the edge of the key right where it is prone to messing up. In fairness I have not had many space key presses missed only other keys but why did they do this???

If they think having the windows key in its default location is a big problem for gamers then give us a windows key disable switch instead of moving the key to a new place and messing up the entire freakin keyboard.

Rant aside, the keyboard actually works really well. If I properly press the keys it never misses a single letter or press, and it has a feel of quality and no keyboard flex.

So I am not trying to take a crap on the keyboard and say it’s horrible, I am just saying beware bad typing posture as this keyboard may be a bit unforgiving. If you peck type or if you touch type and hit center key better than me then you won’t have any problems.

This is brand new to me, given that I use it for a week or so I will get adjusted to the new layout and start to type better on it. You can adjust to the keyboard. If it had a problem like some other laptops where it just plain misses key presses or gives you double letters due to software/hardware problems there is no adjusting to that, so potential is here for a great typing experience but be weary that there could be a learning curve before you get maximum efficiency on it.

Ninja Edit – I had the light bulb of common sense come on for me. I was quick to assume that the keyboard failed me due to a poor design not a defect, I would have continued to think this had I not realized that this keyboard is not new it’s been around for a while on many other MSI laptops. The GT780/GT783 owners thread is over 700 pages long and I spent 30 minutes going through it looking for people having problems with the keyboard and found not even one. So I contacted Ken to ask if other owners have had issues and he told me that when the GT780 came out there were a few people with problems and then they just went away (the reported problems not the people lol MSI assassin squad). So he strongly thinks this is a isolated issue, aka defect in my keyboard not a design flaw.

Perhaps a bad batch of keyboards has made it out. So maybe my calling the keyboard a half breed (profanity filter) child of a mechanical keyboard was not totally fair… still though there is no excuse for the new key layout when I get a replacement keyboard I will still have to deal with that issue.

Ninja Edit #2 - Multiple owners now of the GT70 and GT60 none of them reporting any keyboard problems. Only myself and the other first owner had them, so this confirms we just had bad luck. I have not gotten my replacement yet but rest easy knowing that there is no defect here and the keyboard is great just I was an unlucky reviewer

Update - New Keyboard Installed (Video Guide How To Do It Here - http://youtu.be/pY58vyBVXyg) No problems so far with new keyboard.


The touchpad, ah yes the touchpad. It works brilliantly it comes out of the box with multi-touch gestures and its very sensitive. I had no problems doing things like 2 finger scrolling, one finger side scrolling, moving my cursor around. It feels super responsive throughout.

I would prefer it to be larger than what it is so that it would not be quite so sensitive to how fast it moves in conjunction to your movement. I turned down the speed and scroll amount and that helped a little bit but it’s not perfect. Also it’s textured; I do not really get this. I never had my fingers accidentally slide around on a smooth touchpad nor do I feel I get any improved accuracy due to it being textured. To me honestly it just makes it harder and less comfortable to use.

No fast and furious gamer is with sweat building up all over the place and adrenaline in the veins is going to be using the touchpad for gaming. So let us web browsers and easy taskers have a nice big smooth touchpad to work with. It makes life better.

Still the touchpad works great, I want to explore it more to see if I can enable things like 3 finger forward/back gestures and others. The left & right clicks are very clear and feel good. It’s easy to press and makes for a good click. Last note on the touchpad is the dedicated disable touchpad button just above it. If you’re in “gamer mode” and want to not accidentally activate the touchpad and ruin your game winning headshot, you can turn it off with one click of that button.


Speakers:

Holy portable DJ Batman!

The GT70 is rockin’ with the best speakers I have ever seen or heard on a laptop. The multi-speaker system really works here! It has some software that lets you do some creative enhancements (no pun intended, or was it lol)

The front facing speakers are very loud and clear with a full range of sound, but the hidden star of the show is the under body subwoofer. The G73 had one too but this one performs like 3x better, it really puts out quite a bit of bass. Enough to actually vibrate the laptop. It does not sound like a 12” powered sub but it lets you hear lows that normally you would never get out of a laptop and it does so without making the music distorted.

I listen to mostly rock music and I find this a blessing, I can only imagine what you rap & electronic guys are going to think. You’re going to be in heaven with the sound system of this laptop. Same goes for movie buffs too.

I did find the speakers to be a bit directional, sitting in front of the laptop gives the loudest and clearest sound, while off to the side it falls off some. My last laptop was a bit more omni-directional in sound output but even given that the GT70 easily beats out in quality of sound and volume of sound. Plus the G73 was already about 3x better than any laptop I had heard before so that really is saying a lot about the sound system on this laptop.

I right away turned off all the surround sound stuff and set my speakers to 2.1 for max compatibility with software and games. I am not a fan of virtual surround sound and unlike say my Logitech G930 that does not function properly or sound good at all once you turn off the artificial enhancements the speakers in the GT70 still sound great and perform like they are supposed to.

I spend 4 or 5 hours a night listening to music on my laptop while I work so this is a big +++ for the GT70 and makes me really happy.


Heat & Noise:

I have at the time of writing only done 3Dmark Vantage benchmarks and it did fully load the GPU and CPU so I should have got a good taste of the heat & noise but I will be adding more details in the benchmark section as I get down to benchmarking over the next few weeks.

So as of now I have to say the cooling system is extremely good, the fan did not have to work hard at all to keep everything cool. I liked the dual fan system in my last laptop but a single larger fan may just be the way to go. The GT70 apparently has the room to grow with a cpu & gpu upgrade so the cooling has to be up to the task and I think that they made it all big, beefy, and high performing to make sure people can get away with upgrading to high end components without problems.

MSI also has a turbo fan mode where you pretty much force the fan to 100% speed for max cooling, in this mode you definitely hear the fans. Not sure why you would use it honestly as the fans should go to the needed speed to keep the system temps proper on their own, but should the day come that you need more cooling than the system wants to give you for some reason you have an easy option to do that.


Ports & Features:

As mentioned in the intro there is quite a lot of interface connections here.
A full count of 5 USB ports total, in where 3 are USB 3.0 and 2 are USB 2.0
It still has the old school VGA connection that some new laptops are starting to leave out but has the newest HDMI 1.4 connection for easy connection to new age displays.

The Audio connections really stand out as unique from most others. 4 of them as compared to the normal 2. Headphone output and Microphone input are the standard. The extra two are a Line-In (very useful for me!) and a digital spdif output (very useful for audiophiles)

Then on top of that we have e-sata and this is also very nice so you can have full speed transfers to external hard drives for easy backups or workstation type stuff. As this laptop is more than powerful enough to be up to the task of desktop duties connecting it via e-sata to a hdd array can make it a portable desktop workstation easily.

Another very note worthy feature is the standard affair RJ45 Ethernet port is not using the everyday gigabit LAN anymore. It has been outfitted with the brand name Killer Game Networking LAN card. There are a lot of articles on the net that show the Killer stuff to be a step above the rest in quality and performance, targeted directly at gamers it promises lower latencies for better gaming performance and a in game advantage over your competition.
Shame that they upgraded the wired LAN and not the Wireless since I think most of us use wireless far more on laptops than we do wired.

So there are more than enough connections here to make me happy. If they wanted to make me happier a ThuderBolt port would have been brilliant, also a Display Port connection would have been great as well, but I feel with USB 3.0 and HDMI 1.4 they can both fill the role that those two have in most cases without a problem.


Battery:

It’s a 9 cell 87WH Battery

Power Draw Testing: Done with a Kill A Watt Meter and Battery Removed.

Lowest Brightness Screen, No Wifi, No Blutooth - 19w

Highest Brightness - 24w

Add Music 50% Volume Winamp - 27w

Add Wifi - 28w

Add Browsing NBR - 30w

YouTube Full Screen Video - 35w

Wprime 100% CPU Load - 65w

Furmark 100% GPU Load - 132w

Batman Arkham City Benchmark Load - 130w

Net Wattage Costs: Use above readings and reverse the math to find wattage cost of each laptop feature.

Cost for max brightness - 5w

Cost for music 50% volume - 3w

Cost for Wifi On - 1w

Cost for general browsing - 3w

Cost for YouTube - 7w

Cost for Max CPU Load - 37w

Cost for Max GPU Load - 104w

Cost for Gaming - 102w

Battery Life Summary: I ran a 30w avg test for battery life.


Starting at 95% I ran for over 3 Hours to 8%
With the laptop easily under 20W full load in a power save mode this means you can extend this tests results by 50% and get over 4.5 Hours to 5 Hours+ out of the battery for basic stuff. Keep the brightness down and make sure you use the integrated GPU.


Performance & Benchmarking:

This section takes a long time to do in detail, I have a ton of games to download & install and benchmarks to run. Rather than make you wait weeks for the review I will just publish new benchmarks as I complete them.

Feel free to mention a game you would like tested or a benchmark to run.
For accuracy I prefer games with built in benchmarks as they can compare to other computers directly without user error on fps readings.

I have for now 3DMark Vantage scores for you in both normal and turbo mode. The GT70 spanked my G73 in Vantage. I knew the CPU would win easily as its much faster and can use the Nvidia CUDA to “cheat” the CPU score, but I am very surprised to see the GTX670 beat out the AMD 5870 so handedly in the GPU scores section.

Vantage Stock


Vantage Turbo Mode


Benchmarking Charts:








Full MST GT70 Benchmarks Web Album - https://picasaweb.google.com/112313031674047768952/MSIGT70Benchmarks?authuser=0&feat=directlink



Conclusions:

A worthy upgrade from my G73. That was my favorite laptop by far and I kept it much longer than I normally do before an upgrade.

It took something special to make me want to upgrade and I saw something special in the new MSI GT70 and GT60 laptops.

• New 3rd Generation Intel 22NM CPU
• New 600 Series Nvidia GPU
• Matte Screen Standard
• Promise of awesome keyboard
• Promise of awesome sound system
• Promise of fast disk systems
• User Upgradable Components

That’s a lot of cool stuff and a lot of cutting edge tech.

I say that I am impressed with the new CPU its right where I thought it would be, the GPU actually performs better than I thought it would and makes me very happy. Hopefully both of them can be over clocked for even more performance: P (GPU easy, CPU may require some tinkering)

The Matte screen was a must and it looks so good, it lives up to my photoshop on the go standards.

The Sound System just blew me away, I get a new life out of my music now and I use my laptop for media more than anything so this was the single largest new gain I got out of the upgrade.

The faster disk systems via “super raid” are nice, though I did upgrade my last laptop to a higher performance SSD so it’s not a performance difference I can really feel. Once I up those Sandisk to Crucial M4’s though I bet I will.

I say the only place the laptop did not live up to its expectations for me was the keyboard, but as mentioned in the keyboard section I have strong reason to believe that myself and the other user I know of with problems we either lucked out and rolled snake eyes and got a defective keyboard or that there is a bad batch of them out there.

So I will wait till I get a replaced keyboard and see where that takes me, unfortunately the new keyboard won’t do anything about the odd key placement. I feel that was a horrible design idea. Just disable the windows key don’t move VERY important keys around that everybody uses every time they type to accommodate a niche gaming need.

One thing I have going for me is I almost never use the laptops keyboard nor touchpad. I pack an external keyboard & mouse in my bag. I use a KBC Poker w/ Cherry MX Reds for typing and a Razer Orochi as my mouse, so while the keyboard and touchpad were not my favorite things on the laptop I easily bypass them making it not such a big deal.

I feel for the money this laptop is hard to beat. One key thing that it beats my former brand Asus with is upgradability. It uses standard MXM 3.0 connections and lets users get to the CPU without breaking the laptop down to a thousand pieces. If 2 given laptops were about equal (and the G75 is close in a lot of ways) the one that can be upgraded for more performance and longer life span wins.

I plan to maybe put a AMD 7970 in this baby and man, after that this thing will mop the floor with laptops running in at almost 2x the cost (looking at you Alien Head).

In addition to that MSI offers these in barebones configs to let users even further customize the load out and save money.

Plus in closing its all protected with an outstanding warranty 2 years standard with 1 year of accidental coverage (this may vary if you get a different model like a brick and mortar store version)

It is a winning product for sure and worth checking out if you want a new laptop with a ton of performance and a lot of flexibility.

 

Damn, I knew I should have waited for Ivy Bridge to come before getting a new notebook, great impressions Vicious

 

NICE review Vicious! I look forward to reading more of your thoughts on this notebook series. As always, thanks for another great NBR contribution!



EDIT: As related to fan noise, some GT780/783 owners have reported this a bit excessive when the system is at 'idle'. What are your thoughts on this as related to the GT70? If anyone finds idle fan noise an annoyance, THIS may be helpful.

 

Oh vicious, you're so funny. ^^

 

GJ! Now just waiting on some game's bench marks.

BTW did you get the IC Dimond thermal paste from gentech? Or you're planing to do it yourself...or just straight up not getting it.

EDIT: Also, from the GT60/70 owners thread there was another person with keyboard problem..I guess the first batch got some keyboard problems =\

 

Wow, so there are two slots for mSATA SSDs? If you didn't get that option, could you set up RAID0 with two of your own drives easily (or if you wanted to upgrade your two units)? I assume from the configurator that in order to have two 2.5" HDDs, you need to replace the ODD, is this correct? Also, what is there standard wifi/BT card and is it integrated together (ie. if you upgrade to your own wifi card, will you lose BT)?

 

thats what i was just looking at, noticed when i went to configue you had to choose card with bluetooth didnt look to be seperate to me.

 

Thank you for the Great review Viscious

 

Thorough review Vicious! I've got mixed feelings about you running into the keyboard issue as well, though I'm glad you were able to track it down a little further.

Not sure where to go from here. Are you getting a replacement keyboard sent to swap out? I don't think I've got that option or I would go with it. MSI told me just to return it for an exchange, but I don't think exchanging is an option (since they're showing as out of stock now).

Edit:

Ya know, you've got the GT70, and I've got the GT60. Same issue across two separate models? I don't know, odds aren't really in favor of it just being a bad batch.

 

So guys feel free to start posting game benchmarks you want to see. I'll do my best to accommodate. Thursday I do not work so other than a live stream I do mid day I'll be dedicating most of my time to downloading/installing games to bench.

 

I'm torn between the GT 60 and Clevo P150EM (consider every components the same -CPU,GPU,screen,ram,etc.-). The Clevo seems almost a 1lb lighter than the MSI.

ViciousXUSMC, can you do a BF3 benchmark ? Thanks

 

Yep that is on Origin for me so I will get BF3 and Batman Arkham City

 

First, excellent review as always Vicious. Funny how the first batch of Steelseries for the GT780 had issues as well. Coincidence? I hope not.

Welcome to the MSI group. I came from a popular gaming series as well back then (Gateway P-7811FX) and I can't even look at brand names anymore. You really get versatility out of your notebook and top-of-the line specs for a more than reasonable price. If you think the retail versions are priced appropriately, the barebones are steals.

MSI has really gotten things rolling recently. I feel like it has to do with moving away from those flamboyant designs they had earlier. My short wishlist: slimmer design, but keep the internal layout, its convenient and the 7970M!

Thanks for sharing your experiences.

 

Thanks for this Vicious! I'm now happier about my yesterday's purchase of a GT60. I just hope I won't have much issues on the keyboard though, as Syrch advised his spacebar is really faulty...

May I request for Skyrim and BF3 benchmarks please? Thanks man!

 

Yeah I would not like flashy designs. The Asus G50V was the flashiest one I have had with that neon orange body, and it was also the laptop I owned for the shortest period

The GT70 is quite thick, side by side to the G73 its almost 2x thicker in some parts, but if it holds the AMD 7970 all shall be forgiven.

I'll put Skyrim on my list to test.

 

Neon is kewl. You just have bad taste, that's all.

 

It is obvious a lot of care was put into writing this review and you did a very good job. As another proud ASUS G73 owner, I've also been looking at a possible replacement for my favorite machine. I would most definitely install my current Crucial M4 SSD, so I'm curious to know if removing the back cover results in automatic voiding of the warranty, or is the sticker there as a warring not to tamper with the actual sensitive components (CPU and GPU)?

 

I have no idea honestly but it looks like opening the cover would break warranty as it covers the cover itself.

The question is do they enforce it or is it there just as a general precaution.

 

Too bad. I guess one would have to buy a fully configured version of the laptop to last the 2 years before needing to void the warranty to modify anything. It's either this or the Samsung Series 7 Gamer NP700G7C. I like MSi for its ability to easily upgrade GPU and CPU, so will have to wait and see if the Samsung is also upgradable.

 

That's what I call a review +rep of course.

The 7970M mystery in MSI laptops should be sorted tonight ! New thread coming soon.

 

Great review!
+rep

 

Ken from GentechPC mentioned that broken seal will not void your warranty, if you have no physically damaged parts inside. Will be glad to see you among happy MSI Gaming laptop owners.

 

Amazing review. Can you tell me how much battery live you get while web surfing?

 

Yeah most definitely its on the to do list.

I like to drain the battery 2 or 3 times before I do that test to make sure the battery has sort of hit its normal cycle.

I also include power draw figures with wattage meter.

 

EXCELLENT review. Good job!

 

Well done review, as always !
Thank you!

 

BF3 almost done downloading, should start getting those benchmarks rolling in here soon.

 

What about furmark and temps?

 

Thats part of benchmarking

 

Dude could you try out the battery even without draining it 2-3 times? Cuz im planning to get the gt60 depending on how its battery works..
I would really appreciate it

 

Could you look to see what lcd panel model it has?

 

GT60 will be a bit different, but battery tests are not something i can do quickly they take a full day of dedicated activity. Right now I am downloading and installing games so I cant do the testing.

 

Do you think I could get 60fps in BF3 with 1600x900 Res and most settings on high with maybe textures on ultra? Same with Skyrim. If so maybe I won't bother waiting for the 680m and save some money. Oh and get the lower end model with only a 750 hard drive now now Now!!

I was happily surprised with the pricing on all 3 gt70 models.

Great review Vicious!

 

Yes it will run BF3 1600x900 on high with no problems ~50-60FPS.

 

Excellent review as always ViciousXUSMC!

What about Windows Experience Index Rating?

 

LOL

I never bother with that one but since its a request, adding it to the list.

 

Thanks for the great review Vicious!

I would love if you kept us posted on temps and fan noise (both in idle and while gaming)

thanks much

 

While running some games so far the fan noise in some games is very much there in a quiet room. So playing with no sound or low sound your going to hear it.

Its not overly loud or annoying though, with headphones on or having the sound turned up to "gamer" level you wont hear the fans.

I'll probably do a sound recording of the noise and force the fans to 100% for a worst case situation. I have all the stuff to do this, I even have a IR thermometer so I can scan external temps. I just need the time to get it all done, I am staying super busy with work & family pretty much constantly of the late.

 

I'm curious about the bag you got. I'll be taking my GT70 overseas for a while, and was just wondering if that bag is roomy besides the laptop compartment. I've got an old Targus messenger style bag that is pretty much completely filled by this beast and its power adapter. Thanks!

 

Its not a hiking bag to hold a ton of gear, but it holds more than it looks. I have the laptop in the main compartment, then in the center I have a external keyboard, external hard drive, and then the outer compartment I have the big power brick and external mouse. With those things nothing is packed tight and there is room for more.

I do not see the bag as a "gear heavy" type though as it does not have say external pouches and things of that nature.

 

Did you get the IC Diamond thermal paste from gentech? Or you're planing to do it yourself...or just straight up not getting it.

 

I do not have the ICD yet, I will order it when I source a GPU.

That said temps done for GPU & CPU stress testing, initial battery life testing done, and batman arkham city benchmarking done.

I just need to graph it out once I get my software installed to do that and I'll publish them.

 

Just registered and I'd like to thank you for the time and the effort put into the review. However as I am soon deciding on a new laptop that would serve as a DTR and I have some questions in regards to the MSI GT70:

1. What are the temperatures for the CPU/GPU under Idle and Load

2. The Side Mounted Ventilation does it prevent usage on a lap ?

3. Does the side mounded ventilation interfere with a mouse due to the ventilation exhaust or does the hand feel the ventilation ?

4. In comparison to the Asus G75 which one has the better build quality and audio system ?

5. Is there any issues when using Optimus with the HD 4000 and the GTX 670M ?

6. Engadget commented on MSI GT70 Screen viewing angles:

MSI GT70 gaming laptop review -- Engadget

Would the shallow viewing angles be accurate to verify ?

7. What Hard Drive manufacturer is used for the 750GB Hard-Drive secondary drive ?

8. Will the Targus 17 Sport II Backpack For Laptops TSB19904US Retractable Workstation Padded Back Panel backpack be compatible with the GT70 ?

9. What is the Idle and Load noise levels when using the laptop ?

10. Does the GT70 require usage of the eject button to eject the ODD or can it be done by pressing on the side of the GT70 ?

11. In comparison to the G75VW is a side-mounted ventilation inferior or preferred to a rear-mounted ventilation


I will be purchasing the laptop following further discussion and evaluation sometime in May or June and I need to compare/constrast the GT70 Flagship to the G75VW-DS72 flagship. Any comments and help are appreciated in response to those questions listed above.

 

Idon't own the GT70, but from I understand it's built very similarly to my current GX660R.

No more than any other laptop.

The fan is located in the upper left of the laptop, and exhausts out the left side and the rear. It should not cause any problems for your moues hand (provided you're not left handed or something).

From what I remember, the dual-fan G7x series had better cooling for the CPU, but the MSI has better GPU cooling. Remember, even though it's only one fan, it has two radiators.

 

Huge List....

1. What are the temperatures for the CPU/GPU under Idle and Load
Max Load GPU (Furmark) 80C w/ 78C average
Cooling Boost On - 76C

2. The Side Mounted Ventilation does it prevent usage on a lap ?
Prevent it? No but it's still not ideal. Get a lap desk.

3. Does the side mounded ventilation interfere with a mouse due to the ventilation exhaust or does the hand feel the ventilation ?
Its on the left so not for me, if it was on the right it still really would not be in my mouse area as its in the far back side. At worst you would feel some warm air.

4. In comparison to the Asus G75 which one has the better build quality and audio system ?
I have a G73 so cant say G75 is the same, but the G73 is more slim and built like a tank. However in exchange even the most mundane of tasks is hard to do, you cant get to the cpu, gpu, keyboard, touchpad or anything else without a full breakdown. The MSI is more accessible so its a decent trade off for its larger bulk. Build quality is probably about the same overall.

5. Is there any issues when using Optimus with the HD 4000 and the GTX 670M ?
Not for me so far, and you can manually disable the HD4000 in the windows control panel I think should you need to.

6. Engadget commented on MSI GT70 Screen viewing angles:
Did you read the review at all???? I have a section about the screen and took pictures.


7. What Hard Drive manufacturer is used for the 750GB Hard-Drive secondary drive ?
Ok I guess you didn't read the review, this is in the pictures too.

8. Will the Targus 17 Sport II Backpack For Laptops TSB19904US Retractable Workstation Padded Back Panel backpack be compatible with the GT70 ?
Don't own this bag, best thing to do is read up the size it fits and determine it that way.

9. What is the Idle and Load noise levels when using the laptop ?
Normal levels, nothing major.

10. Does the GT70 require usage of the eject button to eject the ODD or can it be done by pressing on the side of the GT70 ?
Yes you must use a software eject normally but you can always use a paperclip for the manual eject.

11. In comparison to the G75VW is a side-mounted ventilation inferior or preferred to a rear-mounted ventilation
Different designs, orientation does not change cooling capability. Personal preference as to what is preferred.

 

Thank you for taking the time to respond to the above questions. In regards to #6 and #7 I did indeed read the review and view the viewing angles.

It's hard to clarify what Engadget meant by the viewing angles fall off. From the pictures the viewing angles are still great but perhaps you could eloborate on what Engadget was specifically referring to (perhaps the downside viewing angle -90 looking up?)

The reason for asking about the HDD is because I noticed certain GT70's with Scorpio Black's and others with different HDD Manufacturers. I was asking to clarify whether or not the production models come default with Hitachi Deathstars.

I was specifically looking for Acoustic DB measurements. If you could measure or provide those I would appreciate it.

 

But without a comparison to another device under the same conditions it would be pointless information.

 

That old trope hasn't been true for the better part of a decade now. The company's current notebook drives are some of the best on the market for performance, acoustics, and value for the money.

 

Great review, thank you Vicious. Did you get your replacement keyboard?

 

Not yet, still waiting for it.

Till then still benching slowly but surely.