Performance and Battery Life
MSI
Dragon Edition (2013) (Core i7-4700MQ 2.4GHz, GeForce GTX 780M)
·
PCMark7: 6,111
·
PCMark Vantage: 20,250
·
3DMark06: 10,260
·
3DMark 11: E10,519/P7416
·
ATTO (top disk speeds): 1,19GB/s (reads),
806MB/s (writes)
MSI
Dragon Edition (2013)
MSI
GT70 (2012) (Core i7-3610QM 2.3GHz, GeForce GTX 670M)
·
PCMark7: n/a
·
PCMark Vantage: 14,073
·
3DMark06: 18,955
·
3DMark 11: n/a
·
ATTO (top disk speeds): n/a
MSI
GT70 (2012)
Razer
Blade 2.0 (Core i7-3632QM 2.20GHz, GeForce GTX 660M)
·
PCMark7: n/a
·
PCMark Vantage: 17,120
·
3DMark06: 15,876
·
3DMark 11: n/a
·
ATTO (top disk speeds): n/a
Razer
Blade 2.0
Razer
Edge Pro (Core i7-3517U 1.9GHz, GT640M LE 2GB)
·
PCMark7: 4,949
·
PCMark Vantage: 13,536
·
3DMark06: 10,260
·
3DMark 11: E2507/P1576
·
ATTO (top disk speeds): 409MB/s (reads), 496MB/s
(writes)
Razer
Edge Pro
Samsung
Series 7 Gamer (Core i7-3610QM 2.30GHz, GeForce GTX 675M)
·
PCMark7: n/a
·
PCMark Vantage: 11,515
·
3DMark06: 21,131
·
3DMark 11: n/a
·
ATTO (top disk speeds): n/a
Samsung
Series 7 Gamer
When consumers buy a 17-inch gaming laptop,
the battery life is not usually top of their list: raw power is important.
Therefore, we were surprised to see Dragon Edition MSI GT70 had plenty of both.
Not only does it run most games we tested, but it also survives the test in
standard battery for four and a half hours – longest lasting gaming machine at
this size we've ever tested. In a category where two hours is considered a good
showing, more than four hours is not a precedent. Intel's latest chipset is
certainly reason, made promises to consume less power than Ivy Bridge. If
Haswell can do this with a gaming laptop, we can’t wait to see it will help an
Ultrabook focused on long duration run.
Dragon has not slept through the
performance test, scoring 20,250 and 6,111 in PCMark Vantage and PC Mark 7. Do
not be surprised if considering what the machine is made. MSI GT70 Dragon
Edition chassis has Intel Core i7 2.4GHz 4700MQ Haswell CPU, Nvidia's new
GeForce GTX 780M chipset (with 4GB GDDR5), 32GB of 1600MHz DDR3 RAM and three
128GB SSDs configured in RAID 0 with 1TB hard drive for additional storage.
Suffice it to say that this machine was surfing through daily workflow as it is
running idle. We found that the configuration of the repository it pretty
quickly (to 1.19GB / s for read speed and 806MB / s write speeds in ATTO test
drive), but we know MSI for unit tests we are running really weak - perhaps it
should read data at a rate of 1,500MB / s. MSI says the problem is to find out,
and hopefully soon have the solution. However, we do not dare ridicule the
speed 1200MB / s. Dislikes test scores? This is a more realistic view of how
the drive is fast: a cold boot into Windows 8 Start screen takes a little more
than 9 seconds. It's pretty fast.
Dragon happens to be one of the first
computers on the market with Intel Haswell 4th generation processors and new
GTX 780M GPU of Nvidia's - the chance to check this duo is simply irresistible
appeal. Our standard group of test game did not hardly get Dragon, The Elder
Scrolls V: Skyrim was running at 75fps in outdoor environments, jumping 10fps
in the dark, and Call of Duty: Black Ops II rode away with an average speed of
92fps. Both games are configured at the highest available setting. Battlefield
3 has achieved impressive 70fps speed when turn to ultra-high detail, sticking
Batman: Arkham City with PhysX support 61fps. The city's bustling of Grand
Theft Auto IV has lagged behind with the average of 40fps. The newer games are
also not difficult system - Bioshock Infinite averaged 56fps on very high
quality and Farcry averaged about 45fps.
Whether or not the new silicon, we have
decided to give Dragon stumble. Naturally, we loaded up The Witcher 2 and
Crysis 3 - two popular games in pushing gaming hardware to the limit. Turn to set
the image at maximum, finally these games gave the GT70 something to groan
about. The Witcher 2 was originally 25fps, under threshold 30fps which many
gamers considered a minimum. Crysis 3 is worse, only 19fps. Of course, the low
frames do not last long - switching of the Ubersampling of The Witcher 2 allow
game runs at 55fps on the impressive set extremely high quality while Crysis 3
seeing the similar speed when be transferred to the medium setting. We can squeeze
more from Crysis 3, by changing the settings to medium, creating an average of
40fps. However, the machine disconnected from the AC adapter will make it turn
on again Intel HD 4600 GPU integrated. In a pinch, you can set the game down
and managed, but do not expect great things we have quoted above: we have luck
at 25fps in ultra-configuration without the help of Nvidia.
Dragon is really a monster, not only
demonstrated by impressive performance, but also by the huge heat it can
generate. While most laptops keep medium warm temperature during heavy gaming
sessions, the area under the left vent can become uncomfortably hot one.
Fortunately, it is not hot - the "cooler boost" area mentioned above
to keep the temperature at a stand, and is a must when playing games on the
thigh. However, make sure you plug in headphones, because fans become noisy
when they are forced to work too hard. Of course, the temperature control value
with greater noise, but we can’t ignore it completely.
