MSI’s new gaming laptop is no less powerful
than hi-end desktops. Besides, GT70 is equipped with full-HD display and
Dynaudio 2.1 speakers for advanced entertainment.
MSI
GT70
Like laptops (Alienware M14x and Asus G75V)
in the same segment, MSI GT70 shines with size (42.8x28.8x6.2cm) and weight
(3.83kg). The design is quite nice, appearing in black tone. The outside coat
and palm rest are made of brushed aluminum and against scratch with
fingerprint. Big-sized rubber feet stabilize the laptop during shock.
The
model is equipped with Dynaudio sound.
MSI’s new model is also equipped with
Dynaudio stereo featuring THX TruStudio Pro and Surround Sound. Instead of mid-class
sound, GT70 incorporates a 2.1 system (with sub-woofer) to satisfies hi-quality
mobile entertainment.
Above the keyboard lies touch-sensitive
buttons including Turbo Drive for graphic boosting (this mode only works when
powered by AC supply). Boost Cooler will increase fan speed maximally for
better heat elimination. Eco helps to switch the system to power saver mode
while P1 activates THX TruStudio Pro technology and Surrond Sound for movie. Additionally,
GT70 also has some familiar function keys for LED, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth.
GT70
supports full of popular connectors.
To meet most users’ demand, GT70 supports
full of popular connectors. Specifically, the left side includes 3x USB 3.0
contacts, 1x 7-in-1 card reader and 4x audio outputs (headphone, micro, line-in
and line-out) for 5.1 or 7.1 speakers.
2x
USB 2.0 ports and Blu-ray drive are in the left.
In
the back lie ports of eSATA, VGA, HDMI and Ethernet (1Gbps, via Qualcomm
Atheros Killer E2200 Gigabit card) having bandwidth optimized for gaming
through local or online networks.
The
laptop uses a Li-ion 9 cell battery (7800mAh, 87Wh) which has twice capacity as
much as common laptops. However, with such power-consuming hardware specifications,
the battery could only last for 4h.
The
bottom lid can be opened, quite handy for upgrades of RAM, HDD, CPU and even
graphic card.
System
partition (containing Windows) is formed of 2 SSDs running in RAID 0. Aside
from expanding storage, RAID 0 increases transfer rate as well as the system’s
entire performance.
Screen, keyboard and touchpad
The
laptop comes with a 17.3in LED back-lit screen.
The laptop comes with a 17.3in LED back-lit
screen, featuring full-HD resolution (1920x1080pixel). It’s most interesting
that MSI, by default, set the sizes of texts and items on screen 125% bigger
than usual to make it easier to read. However, in fact, as the laptop doesn’t have
any touchscreen, user’s interaction is carried out through keyboard and mouse, resizing
icons and items on desktop wasn’t much helpful.
Though, we highly appreciated GT70’s
display in office environment. With an average brightness of 250cd/m2 and
approximately 800:1 contrast, graphic quality is sharp and brilliant,
differentiating dark colors from bright ones clearly. Plus, the LCD screen
comes with anti-glare technology so viewing-angle is partly limited and image
quality also a little decrease in outdoor or bright-lit conditions.
The
well-known SteelSeries keyboard
It’s recognizable that there’s a well-known
SteelSeries keyboard for gamers. Full-size Chiclet keyboard supports full of
basic buttons and number keys which come handy in some games. Keys’ sensitivity
is good and good feedback. They also don’t feel either too soft or too hard
while their surfaces are a bit concave for better feeling. LED system appears modern
and configurable via function keys.
Keys are optimized for APM (actions per
minute), narrowing down key’s distance by 50% shorter than common keys. APM is
the amount of actions (of both keyboard and mouse) within a minute and a
measurement for micro skills in most strategy games. Beside a suitable tactic, APM
skill will help you to get more chances to win. Furthermore, eliminating Windows
key on the left removes gamer’s worry about accidentally pressing this button
that might be annoying in some stressful battles.
The
touchpad
Touchpad feel soft and sensitive due to low
friction, helping mouse to move precisely and actions (scrolling, zooming,
rotating…) to get easily-performed. Two mouse buttons are separated. Above the
touchpad lies a function key lets user disable the touchpad when using an
external mouse.
In comparison with GT683DXR, GT70 has
touchpad higher appreciated but in fact, the touchpad is only suitable for
pointing during study and work. It didn’t gain much reliance as well as easy
control in games, especially first-person shooters. For gamer, a laser mouse is
preferred.
Performance
The
Core i7-3610QM processor
The incredible system features a quad-core
Core i7-3610QM processor (2.3GHz, 6MB cache L3) and 3.3GHz Turbo Boost, an
NVidia GeForce GTX 675M (3GB of GDDR5), 4 RAM trays for 16GB memory (1600MHz
bus) and two 64GB SSD running in RAID 0 mode. Besides, the device also comes
with 720GB HDD speeding 7,200rpm for fast installation of games and other contents.
The following results show GT70’s
remarkable power as it completed many tests easily. GT70 is also among few
laptops that we used testbed to check gaming performance. Additionally, 2 SSD
drives in RAID 0 increased overall performance plus brought faster response. We
got the transfer rates of 391.2MBps (write) and 635.4MBps (read). Similarly, PCMark
05 resulted 47.7MBps for executing apps and 376.9MBps for scanning virus.
The
device has good heat elimination.
Surprisingly, GT70’s design solved the
problem of temperature. Processing temperature ranged from 79 to 85 degrees
Celsius. When activated, Cooler Boost accelerates cooling fan’s speed maximally
to lower hardware temperature by from 5 to 10 degrees Celsius, maintaining the
system to work for continuous hours.
Detailed tests
Due
to NVidia GeForce GTX 675MPCMark 7 gave GT70 4,023score, twice as much as a few
models we have tested.
Similarly,
Cinebench R11.5 (64bit) gave our test model 6.21 scores for CPU and 43.95fps in
test of OpenGL.
In
ATTO benchmark, HDD got transfer rates of 391.2MBps (write) and 635.4MBps
(read).
With
emulated tests of PCMark 05, the device showed speeds of 47.7MBps for executing
apps, 376.9MBps for scanning virus and 66.MBps for booting.
Graphics
With
3DMark 11 test at Performance setting, GT70 got 3,254 scores for Graphics and
3,532 for overall performance.
Games
tested in DirectX 11 platform were Alien vs. Predator and Crysis 2, MSI’s
gaming laptop still proved its significant strength via frame rate.
Even
with Crysis 2, one of the hardware killers, Extreme quality was close to 30fps
at full-HD resolution.
Runtime
MobileMark
2007 recorded the model’s runtime of 4h 4min in test of Productivity.
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Specs
·
Size: 42.8x28.8x6.2cm.
·
Weight: 3.83kg.
·
Display: 17.3in, Full HD (1920x1080), LED
backlight.
·
Processor: Intel Core i7-3610QM (2.3 GHz, 6MB
smart cache)
·
Graphics: GeForce GTX 675M, 3GB GDDR5.
·
Memory: 16GB of DDR3 RAM, 1600MHz.
·
Webcam: HD 720p.
·
Hard drive: SSD 128GB (RAID 0) and HDD 720GB
SATA 3Gb/s, 7200rpm.
·
Optical drive: Blu-ray MLT UJ240AF.
·
Keyboard: SteelSeries, LED backlit.
·
Contact: VGA, HDMI, 2xUSB 2.0, 3xUSB 3.0, 1x
eSATA, card reader "7 in 1", 4x audio jack.
·
Connection: Bluetooth 4.0, Wi-Fi 802.11n, LAN
Gigabit.
·
Battery: Li-Ion 9 cell, 7800mAh, 87Wh.
·
OS: Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit, SP1
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