MSI GT60 2OD Review

The Xotic PC variant of the MSI GT60 offers cutting edge specs and premium performance at a premium price. Is this a good value for gamers?

Read the full content of this Article: http://www.notebookreview.com/notebookreview/msi-gt60-2od-review/

 

Great review, great point about pointing out the crazy expensive i7-4930MX, everyone would love to have one but runs away when they see the price, anyway it really is overkill when it comes to gaming a i7-4700QM as the base CPU is plenty for most games and help temps with a lower TDP and more importantly save a bundle of money.
Is this they barebones XPC GT60 2OD from exotic? It looks like the factory MSI GT60. Can you clarify.
Is this the stock screen or upgraded? Did you try the NOS feature?
Definetly looking at this hard for my next gaming laptop.

 

The one thing I cant get over is just the one cooling fan which some reviews describe as a hair dryer under load. I have the m17x and the m18x. Since all of these are huge laptops anyways I prefer the bigger and better cooling. Since the m18x is the only one offering Sli standard and overclocking I have to imagine it has the best cooling setup. I would love to be able to just buy one gpu in the m18x and overclock it and have a cool running bad laptop but you must go sli on this case. I have the m18x with sli 580m right now have had it a year and no problems, still I want one Gpu. Most likely I will stay with Alienware if I need another gaming laptop. Clevo, and Msi are similarily equipped but feel and look cheap in comparison. If you buy from Falcon Northwest or Origen you may even end up paying more for just a clevo case then a spectacular, quality and unique Alienware. I am dissappointed that Alienware did not bring out a 15.6 inch case with a 780m in it. Really the only way you can have desktop power in a laptop is go Alienware 18 in 780 sli. That should be stronger then a desktop 780 and can play multi monitors or ultra high Res on 30 inch monitors. Any thing else is only good for 1080 and if you can drop 5k on loaded Alienware laptop you better also be willing to spend 1k on your monitor ( I did)

 

Browsing through the MSI forums and looking at user reviews the one fan set up is enough to keep cool and quiet with a re-paste job, the factory paste job is messy and not very well done.

 

am interested in sustained full load temps of GPU + that extreme CPU with the fan in Cooler Boost mode so I can see how it handles the extreme processor. My guess it's fine

 

I picked up what is essentially a clone of this MSI with what I think are even better specs (e.g., a second USB2.0 for a total of 5 ports) at a better price, at Cyberpower UK - the Fangbook 200. It's an awesome laptop.

 

One is a 15" laptop one is 17". Hardware wise pretty much mirror images but size is the difference.

 

Notebookcheck has a review with that included, but it's for the early ivy bridge version. I expect the temps to be similar given that these appear to be built on the same chasis. It would be nice if Notebook Review posted this kind of information too.
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-MSI-GT60-i789W7H-Notebook.75615.0.html

Other than that, great review! Also, don't put a high end cpu in a notebook for gaming. As can be seen from this review (scroll to bottom, just before the comments), the $1k cpu upgrade doesn't even gain you a one frame per second.
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-One-K56-3N2-Clevo-P157SM-Notebook.93275.0.html

 

I fear that I must adopt a Zoidberg voice for this: "Again, with the TN display" (runs away)

 

I just bought a similar machine. It's a FORCE / MSI 16F4 (54-018) 780M (MSI GT60 Barebones) from xoticpc.com

- Wireless Network: Intel® Dual Band AC 7260 802.11 A/AC/B/G/N 2.4/5.0GHz + Bluetooth 4.0 / WiDi | Up to 300/867Mbps (2x2) (SKU - X8X052)
- Optical Drive Bay: Combo Dual Layer SuperMulti DVDRW/CDRW Drive w/ Software (SKU - X7R451)
- Second Hard Drive: ON SALE! - 1,000GB (1TB) 5400RPM (Serial-ATA II 3GB/s) (SKU - X5R351)
- Primary Hard Drive: 256GB Samsung 840 Pro Series Solid State Drive (Up to Sequential Read 540MB/s - Write 520MB/s Serial-ATA III - 6GB/s) (SKU – X5X005)
- Ram: 16GB DDR3 1600MHz [SKU-824P] (Dual Channel Memory (2x8GB SODIMMS))
- Graphics Video Card: NVIDIA® GeForce™ GTX 780M 4,096MB PCI-Express GDDR5 DX11 w/ Optimus™ Technology
- Thermal Compound: FREE!!! - IC Diamond Thermal Compound - CPU + GPU (Cools better than all Compounds) (XPC Service)
- Processor: 4th Generation Intel® Haswell Core™ i7-4700MQ (2.4GHz - 3.4GHz, 6MB Intel® Smart Cache) - IN STOCK! (SKU – X2X913)

Looks similar to the 2OC or 2OD that I was also considering. When I get it, I'll try to post a review. I plan on running Win 7 64 Ultimate (I HATE WINDOWS 8). It looks like a fast machine on paper, but then again, it'll be fast because it's replacing an OLD HP dv9200us from 2007