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Would you recommend this gaming laptop? (MSI GT70)
SoulSurfer
Member UncommonPosts: 1,024
So, I'm still in the market for a gaming laptop and wish to buy one in the very near future. (a month or two max) I've been waiting for something to come out that will last me awhile, as price is not a big deal - under $3000 would be nice though. I do a lot of searches, and had my eye on the ASUS laptop, and maybe an alienware, but I'd figure I'd come here and get some second opinions... because those seem to be already obselete with new stuff coming out at the end of April. (ivy bridge chipsets?) ...
This MSI GT70 caught my eye, and the steelseries keyboard is a deal maker, since I own the steelseries headset, and like the ergonomics of the fit very much.
http://www.engadget.com/2012/03/06/msi-gt60-gt70-gaming-laptops-hands-on/
http://hothardware.com/News/MSI-Adds-GT60-And-GT70-Gaming-Laptops-To-Lineup/
Quizical? You told me to post again when I was getting close, do you have any suggestions or feedback? Anyone else feel free to give your opinions. Any are greatly appriciated! Thanks!
SS
Comments
Hi!, your talking my language when it comes to notebooks. I started gaming on laptops when dedicated graphics cards were first being intoduced into them, myn was an alienware area 51m 776(same thing as a 5500). I own newer laptops as well, I love them.
MSI for me as of this year has disappointed me extremely mainly because the slim DX series upgrade was terrible, they replaced the Nvidia Geforce GT 540 in there older DX with a Nvidia Geforce GT 630, which isnt an upgrade at all, in fact its the exact same card which is so silly. I stopped taking them serious this year, there way overpriced for what you get to be honest in my opinion.
With that said, there are some great things about the laptop your looking at, the gaming keyboard is a very cool feature and they also got matte screens on them which barely any gaming laptops do or any laptops at all for that matter. If your a first time buyer of any laptop, especially a gaming laptop, I would definitely recommend against getting a MSI for over 2 grand for sure. Stick below 1200, or better yet stay in tripple diggits. You can find a lot of great deals across the internet for under a grand and still game very well and will give you an idea of what you might better like if you plan on spending more money on something better equiped.
I own a Lenovo Ideapad Y460 and I have to say its one fine peace of hardware, everything about it is outstanding and I run my own Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 gaming server with it every day and play on it all at the same time. Here is my youtube channel, everything on it deals with my Ideapad Y460, http://www.youtube.com/notebookplayer, all the gaming footage was taken off of my laptop using fraps. There is a new model coming out in a few weeks, the Y480, you can read a bit more about it here, http://www.lenovo.com/products/us/laptop/ideapad/y-series/y480/, there is a Y580 that comes in 15.6 inch as well if you want something bigger. The soon to be released Y480 in late april is suppose to have a starting price of 999.00$, and you get an extremely fast graphics card in them. The Y480(14 inch) comes with a Nvidia Geforce GT 650m which has the faster GDDR5 memory in it, and the Y580(15.6 inch) comes with the Nvidia Geforce GT 660m with GDDR5 memory. I havent ever been so excited for a laptop lineup, we've never seen GDDR5 memory in a 14 inch laptop that was a true powerhouse laptop, it will be interesting. Reselling something like this would be easy to and you could get some good money back for something more expensive if you plan on going that route.
The best advice I can give being a laptop enthusiast is not to overspend, whether you got plenty of money or your saving every penny for it it doesn't make a difference, paying more then you should on shit never works out well and theres alot of shit out there. Separating whats legit and what is bunk is kinda tough in are current evolution of the mobile PC industry, most everything currently is a bunch of bs, lots of expensive laptops with GDDR3 graphics cards claiming there so fast and they use the most expensive stuff which there not, also watch out with memory, theres no reason you need more then 8 gigabytes of memory currently for gaming, the rest would never be used one bit, and super expensive SSD's 3 or 4 times the normal price are being used in laptops made by corporations/companys, its a waste theres no reason to overpay. The Ideapad Y series line currently is way way WAY ahead in terms of price to performance as well as legit specifications. I can honestly say with out a doubt, there isnt one company that even comes close to what there offering with the new Y480/Y580 line.
Theres many different places to look for gaming laptops though, just google Xoticpc, malibal gaming pc, alienware(never in million years would recommend to first time gaming laptop buyer), cyberpower, razer has a cool new gaming laptop I would recommend but its extremely expensive, its new though so its justified. Asus has gaming laptops but I wouldnt really recommend them at least there not my cup of tea, the G53 series was cool though, I wouldnt mind a 14 inch laptop in there G lineup, still the stealth figher look is so fricken corny and cheesy. If your not all that sold on the new lenovo line, browse newegg for cheap laptops and give one of them a shot, go to Newegg here, then scroll down where u get the options and click "more options" and then click graphics type and dedicated card, just browse threw those till you find one you like.
Also use notebookcheck, its your friend when looking up information on graphics cards, if you find a laptop you like but arnt sure about the graphics card, just copy what the name of it says and put it into a search engine and notebookcheck will usually come up on the first page, and it will tell you everything there is to know about it. Here is the link to notebookcheck, its the best website for any buyer, although there reviews can be bias sometimes from what I can tell, http://www.notebookcheck.net/. I could really keep going on and on about different places you could check out, and different brands of laptops you could try, its really an endless discussion, but having a foothold when it comes to gaming laptops is a must and will save you very very much frustration and anger and tons of other offal emotions if you just research a bit about what your getting your self into.
Of course if you ever have any questions about anything to do with laptops, you can skype me, im jefferybaks(nickname)
Don't be deceived by marketing hype. The video card in there an old Fermi chip, and not what you want in a laptop. It's a cut down GF114, just like the GeForce GTX 580M and 570M and (desktop) GeForce GTX 560 Ti, GTX 560, and one version of the GTX 460. And then tacking 3 GB of GDDR5 memory onto it is completely insane, as all that will do is to drive the price tag and power usage way up with no plausible benefits.
Ivy Bridge and Trinity processors are getting close. Pitcairn and Cape Verde GPUs are already out for desktops, so AMD could launch them for laptops anytime they feel like it. Most likely, they're waiting for Ivy Bridge or Trinity to launch, rather than expecting laptop vendors to use them in a very, very short-lived part.
The silly thing was using a GeForce GT 540 in the first place. You get all of the drawbacks of a discrete card without the performance benefit.
The GeForce GT 650 in the Lenovo laptop you link will probably be faster than Trinity integrated graphics by a large enough margin to have a point. But we won't know for certain until the parts launch.
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For the benefit of the original poster, you should realize that Eycel prioritizes a slick form factor over high gaming performance. While that is a reasonable set of preferences, if it's not your own, then his advice should be taken with a grain of salt. He won't link something that flatly can't run games such as Intel's awful new "ultrabooks", but he doesn't shop on a price/performance basis.
There are problems with MSI's gaming laptop. You should understand that MSI is predominantly in the same market as ASUS, so their laptops are pretty cheap styling, pretty powerful hardware. Last years laptops had a cheap plastic enclosure that tended to get hot from the heat generated on it. It was also pretty hefty in weight. However, its hardware was pretty powerful. In terms of price, you get whats in an asus for about 10% less.
Not sure where everyone is getting at GT630M from. All MSI gaming laptop come with atleast a GTX 560M.
In terms of brands to buy for laptops, I would definetly look at the Taiwan big 3. ASUS, ACER, and MSI. I would also look at Sager and Clevo(CyberPowerPC). In high priced markets I would look at Digital Storm and OriginPC.
You are going to have trouble finding a gaming laptop with AMD inside, even if the AMD product is better. Your not going to see the refreshed nVidia mobile GPUs for several months, so they are all going to be stripped down fermi.
Eycel has a broader definition of "gaming laptop" than you do.
Rumors say Ivy Bridge launches on April 29 and Trinity on May 15. Presumably all gaming laptop lines that you might plausibly want to buy (plus a lot that you won't) will be refreshed shortly after that--and with Southern Islands or Kepler video cards.
The lower end Kepler cards might well come to laptops sooner rather than later. Nvidia knows that if you miss the date that an OEM needs it when they refresh their lineup, they're not going to refresh it again a month later because you're ready. So I somewhat expect the first GK106 and GK107 chips to all go into laptops, and then the desktop versions of the card will launch when the supply is sufficient.
If this is the case I'll just wait, because I'm not that much in a hurry. It just means I will break down my desktop rig on the next trip for my job or two jobs in order to wait for newer laptop products to come out. It's tedious but it will be worth it because I am going insanse sitting in hotel rooms watching lame info-mercials in the middle of the night when I could be doing other menotmious tasks such as crafting.... lol
I really appriciate the repsonses and opinions, as I will be busy the rest of the night just surfing around the net reading things you guys have linked/posted.
I'll post again in a month or two, and keep my eye open on this forum for other laptop news.
Thanks again!
SS
btw: this just in!!!
http://laptop-computer-planet.com/blog/2012/04/08/origin-pc-launches-completely-overhauled-gaming-notebooks-with-intels-ivy-bridge-and-nvidias-kepler/
http://hothardware.com/News/Origin-PC-Unveils-Overhauled-EON17S-and-EON15S-Laptops-at-PAX-East/
http://www.engadget.com/2012/04/08/origin-pc-eon15-s-eon17-s/
AND OMFG WTF LOL:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gltshfQBdl0
There's less there than meets the eye. The GeForce GTX 675M is nothing more than a GeForce GTX 580M with a new name. The GeForce GTX 670M is merely a cut down version of the same chip. That will get you all of the runaway power consumption problems of Fermi, and is not what you want in a gaming laptop.
The GeForce GTX 660M, on the other hand, is the GK107 chip, which is Kepler. But that's not the next chip down from GK104; that's two lower, and probably the lowest end Kepler chip. GK107 will almost certainly be slower than AMD's Cape Verde, which is their bottom of the line Southern Islands chip. (Roughly, GK107 is about 1/4 of a GK104, while Cape Verde is about 1/3 of Tahiti, and GK104 is close to Tahiti.)
I'm guessing that the GeForce GTX 660M will give performance in the same ballpark as a GeForce GTX 560M or Radeon HD 6870M, but that's just a guess. But $1500+ is way too much to pay for that plus a dual core Sandy Bridge processor. It might just be a huge price premium because there are hardly any GK107 cards out there yet.
So do I need to be looking for "Nvidia Geforce GT 640M and 650M series"? Those are the higher end Keplar chips?
I just realized that my desktop rig has 295GTX and I bought that back in 2009...
Eycel's suggestions are looking appealing, as it's taking me some time for everything to sink in.
http://www.theverge.com/2012/3/22/2892273/nvidia-geforce-600m-kepler-fermi-mobile-specs
No, those are lower bins of the same GK107 chip as the GTX 660M.
If you want a high end gaming laptop, then the Clevo P170HM has been a nice option for quite a while. It seems to be disappearing, though; Sager, Xotic PC, and AVA Direct no longer have it at all. Malibal does, but without the Radeon HD 6990M that you'd want. Eurocom still has it (as their Racer or Neptune) with a good variety of parts listed. Alienware still has their M17x R3, but the Nvidia options are gone, though they still have the Radeon HD 6990M.
The reasons why it's disappearing are pretty obvious: in three weeks, no one will want it unless it's at a deep discount--the sort of deep discounts that mean the company have to take a loss just to get rid of excess inventory. Better to sell out a little early than lose a ton of money on excess inventory.
If you want a list of the mobile Kepler parts that Nvidia has announced, check here:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/5697/nvidias-geforce-600m-series-keplers-and-fermis-and-die-shrinks-oh-my/2
GF anything is Fermi, and that's what you don't want. GK107 is the bottom Kepler part. GK106 is the middle Kepler part that Nvidia hasn't yet said anything about. It might be a good option for your needs, but it might also be a long way off.
I don't know if Nvidia will try to cram GK104 into laptops or not. They probably shouldn't, but they might decide to try it if they feel some desperate need to beat out Pitcairn and have the top laptop card. They did stuff GF114 into laptops, which is just as bad, and even GF100, which was much worse.
AMD hasn't officially announced their Southern Islands laptop parts, but I can tell you what they are. Radeon HD 7700M and 7800M series are Cape Verde, and probably a little faster than GK107. Radeon HD 7900M series is Pitcairn, and is their high end. AMD isn't going to stuff Tahiti into a laptop. Anything with a number below 7700 is old hardware, and not Southern Islands.
thanks
this was a good read, and some of the comments are hilarious.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-57407183-1/should-you-buy-a-laptop-now-or-wait/?tag=mncol