MSI GE60 Review: Mainstream Mobile Maxwell
by Jarred Walton on July 17, 2014 5:00 AM ESTConclusion: Worth Considering
After testing and using the MSI GE60 for several weeks, I've come away reasonably impressed with what's being offered. It's not the fastest or flashiest laptop around, and it's not the cheapest either, but it gets most of the important areas right when it comes to building a good gaming notebook.
Perhaps most importantly, the performance is good, the keyboard and touchpad work well, and the display also looks nice. If you want a system you could take to a LAN party or a gaming session at a friend's house/apartment, the MSI GE60 could certainly fill that need. What's more, you get a good level of performance without breaking the bank. The GTX 860M is really the star of the show here, and NVIDIA's Maxwell provides a good boost in performance over the previous generation GTX 760M while adding a few new features in the process, but let's not forget Intel's Haswell i7-4700HQ, which is fast enough for other tasks as well.
There are a few flaws however. The build quality is a bit suspect, particularly with the LCD cover, and the hinges don't feel all that solid either. Over months and years of use, I would expect the hinges to become quite loose, and the cover could potentially break. That's more conjecture than fact, however, so take it as you will. I could also raise a few concerns about the design and aesthetics of the GE60, but it's a difficult balancing act. Do you want a thinner, sleeker looking notebook, or do you want something that can run fast and not overheat?
More critically, the battery life is somewhat poor for a Haswell-based laptop. I'm not sure how much of this is simply due to component selection and how much could be caused by lack of power optimization efforts, but I remember testing the first quad-core Sandy Bridge notebook several years ago and seeing battery life of nearly seven hours in our Internet test at the time. 3.5 years later and two architectures updates and battery life (granted, on a shipping laptop) is still not able to match that old Sandy Bridge prototype; I'd like to see someone do better than this on a gaming notebook without sacrificing in other ways.
Ultimately, what it all boils down to is choice. If you want something fast and sleek, MSI's slightly more expensive GS series of laptops might be more your style, and I'll post the full review of the GS70 shortly. The GS series basically drops the optical drive and a bit of bulk, but increases the cost several hundred dollars. Razer has the Blade and Blade Pro, which of course are a much larger jump in price, and there's always the Apple MacBook and Dell XPS 15 to consider – but those aren't really in the same performance league, as the GT GPUs are a decent step down from the GTX GPUs. Probably the most compelling alternative is the Lenovo IdeaPad Y50, which ends up with very similar features in most respects (and it also targets four hours of battery life), so it's basically a question of design and aesthetic preference.
In terms of price, performance, and features, the MSI GE60 gets everything right. I just wish MSI had spent a little bit more effort on improving the chassis build quality and battery life, as those are the only things really holding this system back from an Editor's Choice award. As it stands, the MSI GE60 warrants at least an honorable mention, and if you're looking for a GTX 800M notebook for under $1250 there aren't a whole lot of alternatives. I'd still plan on at least upgrading the storage to an SSD if you can manage it, as dealing with pure HDD storage has become more than a little painful.
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thesavvymage - Thursday, July 17, 2014 - link
in writing is not even always necessary, depending on local laws :) in Washington state, a verbal contract is a VALID contract. No need to write it and sign. There does need to be a third party to verify it thoughReedTFM - Friday, July 18, 2014 - link
For Americans, the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act applies. Just modifying/servicing your product doesn't void a warranty guarantee, unless the producer can show the modification caused the defect. This came about because of car manufacturers were pulling crap like, "Oh look you added an aftermarket exhaust, you voided your warranty and we will not cover the windshield wipers failing."With static discharges, however, it will be hard to refute user error, but still, it's always worth making the argument.
ramj70 - Thursday, July 17, 2014 - link
I contacted MSI and they said that opening the laptop will to upgrade will not void the warranty. I also bought an SSD and replaced the HDDruthan - Thursday, July 17, 2014 - link
Without inbuild 3g modem.. so not for real life.Novaguy - Saturday, July 19, 2014 - link
There are phone plans that come with data tethering or wifi hotspot options, and I find those work well.Tanclearas - Thursday, July 17, 2014 - link
No DisplayPort and no G-Sync. This is exactly the class of machine that would benefit the most from it. Even if the claim is that it's too expensive to integrate into the laptop panel (though Nvidia themselves talked about how it's easier on laptops), DisplayPort would have at least allowed for the possibility of using an external G-Sync monitor.JarredWalton - Friday, July 18, 2014 - link
No, G-Sync is actually a pain in the butt on laptops, for one reason: Optimus. To do G-Sync, you need to have the GPU and display communicate with each other, so the only way NVIDIA can do it is if they get rid of Optimus. But doing that means you just killed battery life as well. There are potentially ways around that I'm sure, but it's the reason there haven't been any G-Sync notebooks yet. I actually asked NVIDIA about it at CES and they basically said as much: "We're looking at ways to implement it, but right now we don't have anything we can talk about."Tanclearas - Friday, July 18, 2014 - link
Wow. Interesting. Nvidia's response to AMD's "free sync" demo implied that laptops were easier to implement."However, Petersen quickly pointed out an important detail about AMD's "free sync" demo: it was conducted on laptop systems. Laptops, he explained, have a different display architecture than desktops, with a more direct interface between the GPU and the LCD panel, generally based on standards like LVDS or eDP (embedded DisplayPort). Desktop monitors use other interfaces, like HDMI and DisplayPort, and typically have a scaler chip situated in the path between the GPU and the panel. As a result, a feature like variable refresh is nearly impossible to implement on a desktop monitor as things now stand."
All of this just raises more questions.
In AMD's demo, did they have to disable DSG for free sync to work? If not, how does an AMD GPU communicate with the display? If so, then what AMD showed was even more impressive if Nvidia is still "looking at ways to implement it".
Are there laptops with free sync (officially) coming?
I am not trying to take things off topic. I just want to reiterate that the reviewed laptop is exactly the class of machine that would benefit the most from G-Sync/free sync. If anything, it is more important for a laptop because you do not ever have the option of replacing the GPU once your framerates start dropping.
One final (two-part) question. Could a laptop not have the DP connected directly to the Nvidia GPU? Is it not safe to assume that a person connected to an external DP monitor would have access to external power (and therefore not need Optimus)?
JarredWalton - Friday, July 18, 2014 - link
So basically on a laptop if you plug directly into the dGPU, yes, it's easier -- but I'm not sure how much easier we're really talking about. Obviously it can be done with desktop displays with enough effort, the main benefit of laptops being you have multiple inputs into desktop displays with scalers and such. An interesting corollary is that AMD might have an advantage with laptops using AMD APUs -- both the APU and dGPU would be AMD software, so there's no "Intel iGPU" in the way.As to the question of when laptops with G/Free Sync are coming, I don't believe any have been announced yet, so your guess is as good as mine. I told NVIDIA that laptops would be great for this as getting >60 FPS on a laptop is rather difficult but ~40 FPS with G-SYNC would still be achievable. We might see this in the next year, or perhaps even earlier with non-Optimus solutions (e.g. ASUS has the G750 without Optimus, so it might be a target for G-SYNC in an update). Of course, the number of displays with G-Sync support is still very small (one or two ASUS are officially available, another ASUS display can be modded by the user; Acer and BenQ have displays coming but they're not out yet.)
As for the second question: sure, an external G-Sync display could easily be driven by a laptop. But that sort of defeats the purpose of a laptop in large measure. :-)
Tanclearas - Saturday, July 19, 2014 - link
At first it might appear that it defeats the point of a laptop, but there is (what I assume a growing) group of aging gamers that require a laptop for business/work, but still want to game at home. I have a Lenovo Y580 with 16GB of RAM, a 240GB mSATA SSD, and the Nvidia GTX 660m. It's great for work, and OK for games, but would be better with G-Sync or free sync.