1. This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this site, you are agreeing to our use of cookies. Learn More.

Hardware MSI GT60 2PE Dominator Pro Review

Discussion in 'Article Discussion' started by Meanmotion, 12 Mar 2014.

  1. Meanmotion

    Meanmotion bleh Moderator

    Joined:
    16 Nov 2003
    Posts:
    1,652
    Likes Received:
    19
  2. Hustler

    Hustler Minimodder

    Joined:
    8 Aug 2005
    Posts:
    1,039
    Likes Received:
    41
    I suppose it has it's niche...hooked up to a 1080p monitor with USB KB and mouse, it's a nice little mid-high range PC, with the ability to take it with you and play games at non-native 'blur vision' resolutions.

    but £2000, ouch!!...you can get so much more for your money buying dedicated stuff for each thing this can do.

    I'd far rather have a £1200 gaming PC and £800 laptop...much better value for money.
     
  3. bawjaws

    bawjaws Multimodder

    Joined:
    5 Dec 2010
    Posts:
    4,268
    Likes Received:
    875
    What's the point of paying through the nose for a 3K screen on a gaming laptop if it doesn't have enough grunt to provide playable framerates at native resolution? I'd rather buy a decent gaming laptop that could produce the goods at 1080p and save myself hundreds of pounds.
     
  4. Shirty

    Shirty W*nker! Super Moderator

    Joined:
    18 Apr 1982
    Posts:
    12,936
    Likes Received:
    2,058
    Somebody explain something to me. If you take a 4k screen and increase the pixel size fourfold (i.e. four actual pixels make up a single "virtual" pixel), whilst effectively quartering the resolution, would it not just be perfectly mapped to 1080p? Or am I missing something?

    If I'm correct then you could switch on 1080 mode when gaming and back to 4k mode for everything else. I'd lust after a laptop that could do that. Of course, I'd lust after a laptop or even desktop that was natively able to power through games at 4k, but that's still a few generations off.

    Before anyone says anything, I know this isn't a 4k laptop. It just seemed as good a place as any for my theorising :p
     
  5. Hustler

    Hustler Minimodder

    Joined:
    8 Aug 2005
    Posts:
    1,039
    Likes Received:
    41
    Lol..i learnt this lesson in 2001 when I bought a Dell laptop with the then state of the art Geforce 2go mobile GPU, the screen had a resolution of 1600x1200, this was when 1600x1200 was a big deal...

    It also had funky changeable coloured palm rest inserts...yellow was my favourite..:)

    I really enjoyed playing games on it though....at 1024x768.
     
  6. rollo

    rollo Modder

    Joined:
    16 May 2008
    Posts:
    7,887
    Likes Received:
    131
    Great it has a 3k screen, Problem it can not game at that resolution which makes it entirely pointless. Next.
     
  7. Gusseteer

    Gusseteer What's a Dremel?

    Joined:
    22 Mar 2012
    Posts:
    25
    Likes Received:
    0
    The Apple retina MacBook pro has the same issues with the screen and gpu combination. However, if you lay o!der games like Left 4 Dead 2 or Dishonored, you get a really good mobile gaming experience. When someone releases a 3k laptop with SLi 880m gtx then you should be able to play current games with enough GPU grunt to power the display.
     
  8. Mighty Yoshimi

    Mighty Yoshimi Motormouth

    Joined:
    4 Sep 2006
    Posts:
    761
    Likes Received:
    3
    I found a higher resolution to not be that useful. I made the mistake of getting a 1080p screen on my acer laptop. It was a desktop replacement laptop so the screen is massive but the 9600m gt struggled a bit to power it. I'd rather have 720p and half the pixels
     
  9. xaser04

    xaser04 Ba Ba Ba BANANA!

    Joined:
    27 Jun 2008
    Posts:
    2,542
    Likes Received:
    466
    The gaming performance here is interesting. Based on the 880M specs and the rated clock speed it should perform better than what is being shown here. Heck a ~950Mhz 1536SP Kepler GPU coupled with a fast (enough) CPU should perform closer to the GTX670 rather than the much slower 660...

    The CPU will be a slight bottleneck, but in something like Crysis 3 the 8 threads at 3.2Ghz should be more than enough for the single GPU.

    Did you notice the 880M throttling at any point? Anandtech had issues with a 780M throttling in the GT70 chassis thanks to the single fan cooling setup them employ.

    I am tempted to run the Crysis 3 benchmark on my 780M equipped laptop tonight to get a comparison (well as close as possible). From what I remember when completing it I was hitting a rock solid 60FPS at "high" settings with textures set to "Very high". Very high is obviously more demanding but to basically halve the framerate?!

    Out of interest what 3DMark11 score does it achieve?
     
  10. Meanmotion

    Meanmotion bleh Moderator

    Joined:
    16 Nov 2003
    Posts:
    1,652
    Likes Received:
    19
    It's an 870M, not an 880M. Will get back to you on 3DMark11.

    Edit: Sorry, ignore me, it is an 880M. I'll ask Ant to look into the performance issues.
     
  11. xaser04

    xaser04 Ba Ba Ba BANANA!

    Joined:
    27 Jun 2008
    Posts:
    2,542
    Likes Received:
    466
    EDIT: Just seen your edit, sorry for any confusion.

    As I say though the performance appears low for the underlying specs of the 880M. I am happy to provide some comparisons with my 780M equiped laptop tonight (I don't have BF4 though).

    For frame of refrence, my 780M / 4700HQ config scores just under 8K in 3DMark 11 at stock and around 8.5K at 880M clocks.

    EDIT 2: Just to clarify I am talking about the 1080p results and not the 3K numbers.
     
    Last edited: 13 Mar 2014
  12. Guinevere

    Guinevere Mega Mom

    Joined:
    8 May 2010
    Posts:
    2,484
    Likes Received:
    176
    How does this laptop get 81%?

    It's huge, ugly and expensive.
    It's poorly specced (No top spec WiFi, 3 drive Raid 0 thus reducing MTBF. Rubbish trackpad - which is typical for non Apple really.)
    It's not an absolute beast when it comes to performance and the battery life is awful.

    It's such a poorly thought out configuration. No twitch gamer needs a retina grade screen, but the design and steelseries bling makes it appear that's what it's being aimed at. Anyone after a mobile workstation isn't going to want to risk their life to a three drive raid0, or want all the I'M A GAMER bling.

    So who is it really at? Why would ANYONE consider buying this compared to either a Razer Blade (Pro) or a Retina Macbook Pro?

    But... it's is MSI so what did I expect. Razer are the hip new movers and shakers when it comes to gaming laptops and Apple have been raising the bar when it comes to design, battery life and screen quality.
     
  13. rollo

    rollo Modder

    Joined:
    16 May 2008
    Posts:
    7,887
    Likes Received:
    131
    It has a 3k screen so is the bling word, personally think the performance at native resolution is shocking that alone for a gaming laptop is basically fail there and then.
     
  14. xaser04

    xaser04 Ba Ba Ba BANANA!

    Joined:
    27 Jun 2008
    Posts:
    2,542
    Likes Received:
    466
    Right I have done some benchmarks of the Red Star Rising level and got the following:

    (Note - I have included the Bit numbers from the review as "GT60 880M".)

    [​IMG]


    Bit GT60 880M - 28 / 33
    780M @ 849 - 27 / 37
    780M @ 888 - 31 / 38
    780M @ 941 - 32 / 40
    780M @ 980/6000 (not shown above) - 34/44 (These are the max clocks my vBios will allow)

    My specs are:

    - 4700MQ @ "Stock"
    - 16GB DDR3 1600MT/s
    - GTX 780M @ 849/5000 Stock
    - Nvidia Driver 326.41 (The latest drivers screwed up my Afterburner readings and gave identical results @ stock clockspeeds)

    Eyeballing the results shows my 780M (mimicking a 880M, albeit at a lower core clock) to be 21% faster. I played through the level a bit after completing the 60 second runs and was achieving broadly similar results (around 40FPS average).

    I had no throttling occurring during the run, and my GPU usage was pegged at 99%. My only assumption is the 880M is either throttling or there is a performance issue with the drivers used & the 880M.

    From THIS review my 780M looks to be performing roughly on par with a HD7950 boost / GTX760. This is more in line with the expected performance of the 780/880m GPU.
     
  15. danwat1234

    danwat1234 What's a Dremel?

    Joined:
    31 Oct 2010
    Posts:
    4
    Likes Received:
    0
    I wouldn't call ~7.7 pounds a huge laptop especially for all the power it has.
    I wouldn't call it ugly, I think it looks very nice, a lot better than the Asus or Alienware.
    It won't be expensive used on Ebay a few years from now.

    The battery life awful? Are you a troll? It can easily manage 3 hours in power saver mode, that's pretty good for any laptop much less a gaming laptop. You could always buy more batteries if you are using it all day for work or school or gaming a lot.

    I agree with you on RAID 0, though I think you can make them JBOD or replace that 3-way mSATA card with another SATA slot for a 2.5" drive.

    1 of the great features of this laptop are the awesome speakers and the very powerful 12V fan within and the ability to upgrade to a 4940MX extreme CPU.

    Razer's Blade Pro uses a soldered CPU, you can't upgrade it! I wouldn't call that very beneficial.


    There is one downside to the MSI and I beg MSI to fix this issue!;;


    MSI, PLEASE find a way to ship the GT60 and GT70 2OD and 2PE and other 780m/880m MSI laptops with 240W AC adapters because 180W is not enough. "NOS" is a joke, a crutch. Why does the laptop have to suck power from the battery when the GPU and CPU are fully utilized when a slightly larger AC adapter would stop this?
    Asus uses a 240w AC adapter for good reason in their G750 and MSI should as well. I thought MSI would probably have learned their lesson after the tomshardware review blasting NOS back in July of last year;; http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gt70-dragon-edition-2-core-i7-4930mx-laptop,3545-12.html

    This is especially important if an Extreme CPU is in the laptop. Having that being fully utilized along with the GPU, NOS will engage and whatever you are trying to do cannot be done forever because the battery will eventually drain to 30%!
     
  16. bawjaws

    bawjaws Multimodder

    Joined:
    5 Dec 2010
    Posts:
    4,268
    Likes Received:
    875
    That post has to be satire, surely? I certainly hope it is.
     
  17. danwat1234

    danwat1234 What's a Dremel?

    Joined:
    31 Oct 2010
    Posts:
    4
    Likes Received:
    0
    Nope it's mostly serious. I can accept some bulk for upgradability, good speakers and it would be even better if MSI ditched NOS and gave the ability to use a 240w AC adapter.
     
Tags: Add Tags

Share This Page