AMD's A10-5750M Review, Part 2: The MSI GX60 Gaming Notebook
by Dustin Sklavos on June 29, 2013 12:00 PM ESTGaming Performance
Given that the AMD Radeon HD 7970M is the fastest mobile GPU that AMD offers, I'd ordinarily eschew including our "Value" benchmark results for the MSI GX60. Under the circumstances, though, those numbers might be enlightening. When a system is heavily CPU-limited, gaming benchmark results will often be flat or show very little performance loss as you move up in resolution and settings. It's reasonable to assume we'll see that kind of phenomenon here.
At our "Value" settings, it's clear Richland is giving the 7970M at least a little more performance headroom, but the gulf is massive compared to the way Ivy lets it stretch its legs. Metro: Last Light seems to be a bit of a bizarre outlier, though. Metro 2033 used to hammer the GPU almost exclusively, but times seem to have changed with the new release.
Mainstream performance actually demonstrates the same kind of weird wash between Trinity and Richland that I experienced testing using the IGP. It's only Tomb Raider that takes a bath with Richland, though, and even then it's still very playable. While our settings here help close the gap between the Alienware M17x R4's 7970M and the MSI GX60's, we're still obviously leaving a lot of performance on the table. Metro: Last Light in particular continues to be unplayable.
In some cases, enthusiast settings allow the GX60's 7970M to come within striking distance of the M17x R4's. Generally speaking, though, we still have a lot of performance left on the table, and it's sometimes even the difference between a game being playable and not. In situations where we're severely GPU limited (Tomb Raider with TressFX, for example), the GX60 makes a very strong case for itself. The problem is that in other situations, the GTX 675MX (and by extrapolation, the slightly slower GTX 765M) winds up producing a better experience because the CPU isn't bogging it down.
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Death666Angel - Tuesday, July 2, 2013 - link
Great APU if you want to do 768p gaming on a budget. Great GPU if you want to get a cheap gaming laptop. Horrible combination. :D I wonder how a beefy i3 with a 7970 would stack up to this notebook. On the desktop side, I can get an A10-6800K for 125€ and I can get an i3-3250 for 125€. Should be similar on the laptop side, no? Wonder how much of this is the single threaded and how much is the multi threaded performance.TheinsanegamerN - Tuesday, July 9, 2013 - link
multithreaded, the a10 is near identical to mobile i3 chips. any i5 or i7 would handily outperform it though.chadwickhhs - Tuesday, July 9, 2013 - link
How does this stack up against the PS4? I have a chance to get one this month for about $800. It has 1 upgrade which is that the memory was boosted to 16gb.I don't want to get it if it ends up lacking the CPU power to play next gen games on at least medium.
TheinsanegamerN - Tuesday, July 9, 2013 - link
you cant upgrade the ps4 to 16gb of memory. what you are looking at is a scam, especially since the ps4 is going for $399, not $800Rontalk - Sunday, September 8, 2013 - link
This computer all what it need is an 3.6GHz Richland A8-5550M 2185_A1 ES processor. How about re-done the tests with a processor like that? That would have been awesome to see the improvements and stupidity of AMD, lacking out the unlocked CPU multipliers from retail APU.hellermercer - Friday, November 22, 2013 - link
the apu still lacks dedicated memory and is not a good choice and it should have been an ssd for gaming with no L3 cache launching games may be slower.htwingnut - Saturday, January 4, 2014 - link
DDR RAM won't make a lick of difference when it comes to dedicated GPU performance. Just try it yourself. Run a few benchmarks, remove a stick of RAM, and try again. Same result within a few % at least. I did this a while back with the AMD Llano APU's and it made zero difference when it came to the dedicated GPU.htwingnut - Saturday, January 4, 2014 - link
I meant Dual Channel not DDR.... d'oh!Drittz121 - Friday, February 28, 2014 - link
Just do yourself a favor. STAY AWAY from this company. Yes they look good. But when it breaks and it WILL. All they do is give you the run around. They have had my system for over 2 months trying to fix the garbage they sell. Worse company out there for support. DONT BUY