MSI GT70 Dragon Edition Notebook Review: Haswell and the GTX 780M
by Dustin Sklavos on June 18, 2013 12:01 AM ESTGaming Performance
I had been hoping the MSI GT70 Dragon Edition would be an able demonstration of the performance of Intel's Haswell and NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 780M. While we can isolate the CPU performance easily enough, isolating GPU performance is much trickier. NVIDIA is using boost clocks on the GTX 780M, which means it's able to turbo up depending on thermal and power headroom, and there's actually a healthy enough variation in clocks that different chassis will be able to produce different levels of performance.
There's also the cooling system of the MSI GT70 Dragon Edition, which either doesn't have or just barely has the capacity to handle a combined 150W of heat.
Entry-level gaming results are in Bench, but suffice to say the GTX 780M is more than adequate for those settings, and so for the review I'm going to stick to Mainstream and Enthusiast level benchmarks.
In situations where the CPU is not a limiting factor, the 780M is able to boast a healthy lead on the 680M. But you'll notice that the GT70 Dragon is actually underperforming in certain cases; the CPU is getting throttled due to heat. The superior cooling system of the Alienware M17x is able to dissipate far more heat than the GT70's is.
Situations that stress the GPU more exclusively can result in healthy gains over the 680M, but overall stress on the CPU stemming from processor-intensive games like Skyrim and StarCraft II, as well as the hit from TressFX in Tomb Raider, effectively keeps the 780M from really stretching its legs.
Remember that on paper, at stock clocks, the 780M has at least 22% more shader power than the 680M and 39% more memory bandwidth. That means that, bare minimum, the 780M should be roughly 15%-20% faster than its predecessor. We're getting that in the traditionally GPU intensive Sleeping Dogs and Metro: Last Light, and most of it in BioShock: Infinite. But other games see lower gains, or are even slower on the GT70 Dragon Edition despite it having directly superior hardware.
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Shayler - Monday, June 24, 2013 - link
I must say, after comparing this article with Notebookcheck's much more professional and thorough review, I'm disappointed in your outcome.With such comments as, "...a few runs of games and some stress testing..." I'm forced to question your methodology which throws your entire review into question.
Please see Notebookcheck's test of this system (the non dragon edition) and reevaluate your review.
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-MSI-GT70H-80M4...
JarredWalton - Monday, June 24, 2013 - link
Given that Notebookcheck's review is of a slightly different build, it may not have the issues we noticed in this review. Our review is what we would expect an end user to get if they buy the GT70 Dragon with i7-4700MQ and GTX 780M right now; if you get a similar system with the MSI chassis but assembled by a boutique that uses different thermal paste, you may see better results. If you're willing to disassemble your notebook to replace the thermal grease, you may also see improved performance and lower temperatures, but we don't expect most end users to resort to such measures.michael777 - Tuesday, June 25, 2013 - link
Thats great but to come back to my question you cant have a laptop with these specs (considering MSI GT70H-80M4811B) for the price of 2000 euros. So what am I actually risking apart from the hot machine and few frames less in few games?Shayler - Tuesday, June 25, 2013 - link
Hi Jarred,Thanks for taking the time to respond.
The internals on these systems are identical. The MSI GT60/70 (regardless of model name/number) and all bare bones use the same cooling system. In fact, you can remove the all of these parts and interchange them. Including the motherboards!
My thought is, you received a bad sample. No one expects the end user to repaste their system (even though it's very easy on these models), but from personal experience with this model, I know for a fact that the temperatures you're reporting are far above normal even with silicon based thermal compounds.
My concern with your review is the lack of documentation. Where's your methodology? What games did you play, at what settings, and for how long? Wheat benchmarks did you run? What were your ambient temperatures?
Contact MSI, have them send you a new sample, document your methodology and results, and reevaluate your review.
If you have the same results, post them and have your, "I told you so." moment.
JarredWalton - Tuesday, June 25, 2013 - link
My point about the internals is that special editions (e.g. the Dragon Edition) may go through a modified assembly line at the factory. Dell and others do this as well -- it's an optimization for a SKU that they expect to sell more units, and it simplifies things as they don't have to custom build every single notebook. You just put the same parts in every Dragon and thus it's faster and easier -- but what if you happen to have a minor glitch on the thermal paste application?Oh, if only it were that easy. I'll see if Dustin wants to do a follow up...or I can ask as well. Sometimes it's difficult to get even one notebook sample in for review, and if it's not a favorable review they may just try to cut their losses. Anyway, no promises that it will happen, but I'll at least give it a try. Stay tuned....
michael777 - Tuesday, June 25, 2013 - link
Looks like its a bit hard for the author(s) of that review to find an answer for my pretty simple question and, in fact, their own statement. So ill try again, what laptop with i7-4700MQ and gtx780 can you find for the similar money even if the cooling isnt the strongest point of this one?JarredWalton - Tuesday, June 25, 2013 - link
Here are a few vendors stocking Clevo builds (no mSATA RAID, but that's not a huge issue IMO)....AVADirect:
http://www.avadirect.com/gaming-laptop-configurato...
http://www.avadirect.com/gaming-laptop-configurato...
http://www.avadirect.com/gaming-laptop-configurato...
Eurocom (http://www.eurocom.com/) -- look at their gaming notebooks X3/X5/X7.
OriginPC (tend to be a bit more expensive): http://www.originpc.com/gaming/laptops/
Mythlogic: http://www.mythlogic.com/mobile.php (Pollux 1613)
Alienware 17: http://www.dell.com/us/p/alienware-17/fs
If you're looking at a $2700 notebook like this, there are certainly other options, including beastly SLI setups if you don't mind spending even more money and carrying around a gigantic notebook. They all have pros and cons for certain, but I'd be more inclined to spend a few extra hundred if it's the difference between throttling/cooler temperatures and not. Or maybe it really is just the thermal paste -- we'll see if we can get a second sample for testing.
Trkkr - Tuesday, August 20, 2013 - link
I'm looking for the same answers as michael. Jarred, do you know if any of the manufacturers you have listed here have had their 17.3" GTX 780M models reviewed? If they haven't what's to keep their systems from suffering from cooling issues as well (they might have dual fans but that doesn't mean their systems will stay any cooler). Thanks.Globemaster - Thursday, June 27, 2013 - link
How do you reconcile the folks at gentechpc getting temps of 60 CPU and 65 GPU when running the similar benchmarks on the same Dragon Edition 2 at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVjv2gcB7uc. I know they have a commercial interest, but doubt they faked the video. I'll be getting mine tomorrow and will try to replicate what you had here. Rest assured, if I get these results, it'll be going back. I just really think you got a lemon. That should be noted, but in my experience with reviews (even of SimCity V), most reviewers try to evaluate a working version of a product while making note of the possible quality control issues rather than just trash the product completely when results come in that seem unreasonable. Possibly at least worth a note in the article that you might have just gotten a lemon, rather than making people search through the comments to find alternate hypotheses.Globemaster - Friday, July 5, 2013 - link
Just upgraded to 320.49 drivers and got 5002 on Firestrike 3DMark 2013 (same config 4700MQ and 780M) and temps never exceeded 74 on CPU or GPU. Not sure why you got a better score on older drivers with such high temps here (was yours force overclocked???), but I had hoped for over 5000 and hit it. I was getting 4600 with the stock 311.xx drivers. The only scores I'm seeing higher are oc'd through bios or 3rd party programs. My 2 year old Sager with a 485M only got 1563, so this more than triples performance. I'm thriled with this laptop and will be keeping it.