AMD's A10-5750M Review, Part 2: The MSI GX60 Gaming Notebook
by Dustin Sklavos on June 29, 2013 12:00 PM ESTConclusion: The Value of Balance
On paper, the AMD-powered MSI GX60 had to seem like a good idea, and I'm not even convinced it actually isn't one. Using a less expensive CPU to force the price tag down and going whole hog on the GPU isn't that uncommon among custom built desktop PCs, so as long as the gaming performance is there in a notebook, it's certainly worth a shot. The A10-5750M is nowhere near as powerful as an Ivy Bridge quad core, let alone a Haswell, but if it doesn't need to be, that's not an issue. Of course, it does need to be, but we'll get to that.
I feel like I've reviewed this chassis a hundred times by now, but at least shrinking it down to a 15.6" gives me both a better perspective and feels different. Knowing what I know now about how MSI seems to be designing and building their gaming notebooks, I can't under any circumstances recommend their 17.3" notebooks. The only reasons to buy one are if you somehow find a better deal than on its 15.6" equivalent, or if you just really want that larger display. You're not getting more pixels or better thermals, you're just getting two more pounds of bulk. But the hardware is almost identical.
There's the sweet and the sour. The chassis is bulky but at least reasonably tough, and the SteelSeries licensed keyboard really is very comfortable to type on if you can get used to MSI's goofy layout. They're able to cram a healthy amount of power and cooling potential into a 15.6" chassis as well, and you still get two 2.5" bays.
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The AMD model of the GX60 is cute in concept, but in practice has problems. The single biggest reason not to buy it is that for the same price, MSI will sell you a Haswell-based system with an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 765M. While that GPU is most definitely slower than the AMD Radeon HD 7970M, the brakes the A10-5750M APU puts on the 7970M keep it from hitting its true performance potential, and as a result I suspect the more well-rounded GE60 will ultimately make a lot of end users much happier. While $1,199 is a fantastic deal for an AMD Radeon HD 7970M, you're not really getting one. Looks fantastic in marketing material, though, no doubt.
What the GX60 really needs to be is a $999-or-less gaming notebook. That potentially means cutting the 7970M, but we need a more balanced combination of CPU and GPU anyhow. The 7970M is far too powerful for the A10, but a Radeon HD 7870M/8870M would be a more appropriate companion. Ideally AMD would release a mobile Bonaire GPU, which would be perfect for the A10-5750M. At that point the value proposition kicks in hard. GPU performance won't hit those outside highs, but under most circumstances neither part should hold the other back too much, and the end user doesn't wind up wasting money on more GPU than they could ever hope to use.
As for the A10, it's not a bad chip, but Intel has been driving prices down hard in the mobile space and AMD doesn't have much latitude to work in. I can see an all-AMD gaming notebook potentially working if Kaveri lives up to expectations. In the meantime, the GX60 is a cute idea in theory, but the inescapable fact is that as I said before, you're not really getting an AMD Radeon HD 7970M for $1,199. The GPU is there, but it's leashed. There are better alternatives.
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Sabresiberian - Saturday, June 29, 2013 - link
People can talk about how games don't need powerful CPUs all they want, but the fact is, there IS a minimum requirement, and some games DO make use of the top end CPUs available. The more powerful your GPU, the more powerful the CPU needs to be to allow it room to work.This MSI notebook is built using one of the reasons I don't buy pre-built desktops, cutting corners on one part to spend money on another. It's bad design, it doesn't work (at least when the corners are cut to this degree), it makes for a system that is built cheap and shows it in its performance. Shame on MSI, they know better (or at least some of them do - maybe those people aren't in the notebook division).
"Balance" is the key to computer design, just as it is with many things in life.
Dustin Sklavos - Sunday, June 30, 2013 - link
For a while it was true, games by and large didn't really need powerful CPUs. Over about the past year or two that changed and changed *dramatically.* You're getting games that have a tremendous amount of complexity to them; graphics are practically the least of Skyrim's engine's worries, Crysis 3 has an incredibly rich and vibrant environment (despite being kind of crappy), and Tomb Raider is no different. It looks like TressFX takes its pound of flesh out of the CPU *and* the GPU.j_kut - Saturday, July 6, 2013 - link
Skyrim, Crysis3 and Tomb Raider run all maxed out on the GX60 except for 4*MSAA.Only Games not running smooth on this system are MMOs where the CPU is needed for all characters on-screen.
Being a GX60 owner myself I can totally recommend it, except you wanna play GW2 or similar stuff.
YukaKun - Sunday, June 30, 2013 - link
Where's the battery test with just the iGPU like you guys did with the i7?We need those numbers for bragging rights :P
Cheers!
JarredWalton - Sunday, June 30, 2013 - link
Battery testing is done with the dGPU inactive via Enduro, so these are the "best-case" battery life results for this particular notebook.Khenglish - Sunday, June 30, 2013 - link
I know that on optimus systems that the dGPU will still draw a little bit of power even when off. The motherboard still keeps the Vin line active, although the GPU core and memory VR's shut down. I tested this with a multimeter. The fact that the card is still visible to on the pci bus means it's still drawing a little power.It's probably only like half a watt, but it's something.
JarredWalton - Sunday, June 30, 2013 - link
Last I heard from AMD and NVIDIA, it's not even half a watt -- more like 100mW or something in that range. But until we get a system that only has a Richland APU with no dGPU, we can't really test what battery life is like. The GX60 is also a large system relatively speaking, so I'd expect a less performance oriented laptop to get much better battery life with Richland -- same goes for Haswell and IVB laptops.silverblue - Tuesday, July 2, 2013 - link
There's something else that needs to be addressed, if at all possible...The first GX60 had exceptionally poor CPU performance as evidenced by your article eleven days back. From your conclusions, you didn't think that it could have all been down to the CPU (perhaps Enduro was to blame?). So, have MSI fixed that with the second gen GX60, or are we just seeing a (pardon me) turd with go-faster stripes? One or two of the part 1 tests actually underperformed the Trinity prototype which was interesting.
A comparison between both GX60s would be an eye opener.
kwrzesien - Tuesday, July 2, 2013 - link
I'm ready for another page: GAMING PERFORMANCE PART 2Add (or replace) the HDD with an SSD and replace the memory with 2x4GB 1866MHz RAM. Rerun all tests and compare the incremental cost to the more expensive Alienware models. I would argue that the best memory and a good SSD with greatly improve the lags in CPU performance and free the dGPU to perform closer to an i7. Definitely not going to catch it, but closer...
Wolfpup - Tuesday, July 2, 2013 - link
This continues to be an intersting system. I wish AMD would put out a higher end mobile CPU. Since their A series is roughly 50/50 CPU/GPU, there's no reason they couldn't dump the GPU portion and replace it with another 4(ish) cores, and/or clock things higher with a 45 watt TDP.