MSI GT72 Dominator Pro: Performance Preview
by Jarred Walton on October 8, 2014 9:00 AM ESTInitial Thoughts
NVIDIA made some big promises with the GTX 980M, and in general they delivered. While the gap between the desktop GTX 980 and mobile the GTX 980M may end up being more than 25% in many cases, that's probably going to be more a case of CPU performance helping desktops than it is a lack of GPU performance. Overall, the GTX 980M bests the previous generation GTX 880M by over 30%, and in some cases it's as much as 45-50% faster, e.g. in Metro: Last Light Redux. Considering that's one of the most demanding games around, when the GPU is really pushed to its limits we'll likely see an even bigger margin of victory over previous generations of GPUs. And that's without even testing new features like DX12 support, VXGI, etc.
Of course, by the time we see games implement VXGI NVIDIA will likely have the next generation of mobile and desktop GPUs available. If you're already running a high-end gaming notebook, this is also a tough sell as 30-50% is certainly an improvement, but most gamers would be willing to drop a few settings in order to achieve high frame rates on anything from GTX 680M to GTX 880M. It's really a question of what you currently have and what level of performance you're willing to pay for. Gamers with GTX 680M and earlier will certainly be tempted, and the 980M should offer basically twice the performance of a GTX 680M. Notebooks also tend to wear out faster than desktops, so a three year old notebook is getting close to being due for an upgrade regardless.
Obviously we're still missing information on other elements like battery life, how well BatteryBoost works, and general application performance. I don't think that last one is really a concern, though – with three SSDs in RAID 0 and a quad-core Haswell CPU, the MSI GT72 is more than fast enough for mundane office tasks. Considering battery life has been rather hit and miss with MSI over the past couple of years, that's a bit more of a wild card, but the fact that NVIDIA has been using the GT72 as their demo notebook for BatteryBoost suggests it will make a better showing than the GT70 with 880M. Or perhaps not….
One interesting tidbit is that the GT72 doesn't actually implement NVIDIA's Optimus Technology. This will cause some controversy I'm sure, as a reboot cycle is now required to switch between the Intel HD 4600 and the GTX 980M, and many users will likely just leave the GTX 980M enabled and forget about the Intel Processor Graphics. (There's a button to the left of the keyboard that switches between GPUs.) I don't know (yet) what the end result will be in terms of battery life, but there are a few users out there that really dislike Optimus for a variety of reasons (e.g. it doesn't play well at times with things like the Oculus Rift, apparently). If NVIDIA can get power use of the GTX 980M low enough at idle that it doesn't impact battery life too much, though, this could be the best solution for gaming notebooks.
Right now, I have to say that I'm really impressed with the MSI GT72 Dominator Pro. I'd still love to see a slightly higher resolution display, and anything other than a TN panel would be preferable. 2560x1440 would be ideal in my opinion – 3K and 4K are too much right now, but 2560x1440 should be just about right for the 980M. Outside of that complaint and some concerns over the lack of Optimus support, there are really no other flaws with the GT72. It looks so much better than the previous generation GT70 that I suspect it may become difficult for retailers to move any unsold inventory. I've liked the changes that MSI made to the GE and GS lines, and it's great to see the GT series finally get a much needed overhaul. All we need now is a GT62, which could very well be in the works. I'll be back next week with the complete review, but if you can't wait that long this is looking like the gaming notebook to beat.
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JarredWalton - Wednesday, October 8, 2014 - link
Older than that: This is Spinal Tap (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Up_to_eleven)"As you can see, these numbers all go up to eleven. That's one louder than ten...." :-)
WereCatf - Wednesday, October 8, 2014 - link
Every time someone reviews these gaming laptops I wonder one thing: where are the laptops that are designed not to have an optical drive at all? I mean, you could certainly just leave the ODD out, but the chassis would still be designed with one in mind. What if I want a laptop with chassis that was not designed to hold an ODD at all and instead used the space for, say, better cooling?sullrosh - Wednesday, October 8, 2014 - link
just make the ODD removable and design an extra battery to fit in the slot.WereCatf - Thursday, October 9, 2014 - link
No. You'd still be wasting space on the support structures -- connectors and rails and whatnot -- plus the casing on the extra battery itself. It'd be more efficient to just skip the ODD-bay completely and simply make the main battery itself larger. Personally, when talking of gaming laptops I want good cooling-performance and skipping the ODD-bay would allow for designing airflow properly so that cool air goes in from one side and blows out the other side, all through the whole laptop. That's what I want, real, proper cooling in a gaming-laptop, without the totally useless ODD-bay at all.danjw - Wednesday, October 8, 2014 - link
What is going on with Broadwell. I was just looking around for a current time frame and all I saw was the Core M parts for tablets. Has Intel given up on Broadwell for more powerful systems?Acarney - Wednesday, October 8, 2014 - link
Is there anyway to get these graphic cards standalone? Was there any upgrade path in the retail chain? What's the connector for these and has there been any kind of hacked/modded cables for connecting these graphic cards to desktop motherboards? I think the potential for cooking this in a passive card (think HDplex) is higher then taking a desktop class board and trying to cool that. I know HDPlex has a new chassis about to be released that'll handle a 750Ti Maxwell part but this might be able to handle a 970M (if the rumored ~95w TDP is true and MAYBE even the 980M with a semi passive option; think one or two ~15dBa fans to move some air out of the chassis). Both these cards seem to out perform the 750Ti and probably would do even a little better matched with a desktop class i7 haswell. Could finally match or exceed Xbox1/PS4 class graphics with a box including the 970M or 980M & 100% passive for HTPC/DVR and ~15dBa semi passive when 1080p gaming...Laststop311 - Thursday, October 9, 2014 - link
Well When I upgraded my m18x r1 from radeon 6990 xfire to gtx 680m sli I ordered the gpu's from dell. You can buy the parts separately but they are not cheap at all. I paid 700 dollars each for my GTX 680m's when they first came out.The TDP claims are true and you need a MXM slot to install these dpu's they dont go into a regular pci-e slot but the tdp claims have tpo be true as MXM slots only provide for a max of 100 watt tdp.
For this project idea you have be prepared to spend around 3000 when all is said and done and that's if you can even locate all the parts you would need. You would need to find a motherboard that supports desktop cpu's and MXM graphics cards. Like the boards used in some laptops that use full desktop cpu's. That specialized board will cost you big bucks. They use all laptop parts like so-dimms and mxm gpu's but have a regular desktop cpu socket. I believe clevo made laptops like this. The GTX 980m will probably cost 1000 dollars to buy as a standalone separate part from dell or such. So by the time you buy a proper case, the specialized mobo, the gpu, sodimm ram, tiny psu, cpu, storage, odd and whatever else you may be looking at even more than 3000. Is it really worth it just to have a silent htpc with extra potent gaming power?
You do realize you can build a very quiet htpc with MSI gaming gtx 970 gpu and that fans don't even start spinning until the gpu hits 60C so when you are doing anything other than gaming the gpu fans don't come on and then even under light gaming it can turn on just 1 of the 2 fans and since it uses large 100mm fans they spin much slower. Check out the reviews the twin frozr V cooling system with 2x 100mm fans it is literally the quietest top end GPU ever. Even the GTX 980 is super quiet like 1db louder than gtx 970. And really since the fans don't even turn on except for gaming you have the silence you are looking for when you actually need it. You don't need pure silence when you are gaming as the noise from the gaming will far drown out the tiny fan noise. When you are watching movies or doing anything else you have silence.
You can build this version of what you want far cheaper then trying to build this laptop gpu version. 100 dollar mitx board, 350 dollar gpu, 250 dollar cpu, 100 dollar ram, 75 dollar psu, 100 dollar case, 20 dollar ODD, storage varies depending on how much space you need but since you can use 2.5" drives pretty dirt cheap 230 dollars for 512GB or so. Add another 200 for top quality noctua case fans that are dead silent and a noctua cpu cooler with noctua heatsink fans that are also dead silent and you spend 1400 for something you are going to spend 3000 on doing it the convoluted way you describe. You can send me 800 dollars as a consultation fee and still be 800 cheaper
Laststop311 - Thursday, October 9, 2014 - link
when i say large 100mm fans i mean relatively large as fans located on the gpu are typically 80mm or even smaller. 100mm size on the actual gpu is the largest size to date to come pre installed on a gpu.rpanic - Wednesday, October 8, 2014 - link
Got a MSI 17” barebones with 680m a few years ago, travel with it and have it on every day very happy with it and it was cheaper than anything else when the 680m came out. Very solid laptop if you don’t mind putting in your own OS, HD and CPU.jdrch - Wednesday, October 8, 2014 - link
With 2 mDP 1.2, an HDMI, and a GigE port, this thing is pretty much a dream engineering workstation. Compare that with HP's EliteBook line that has 1 DP port, or Dell's Precision line that has 1 DP and 1 HDMI.