MSI GT70 Review: GTX 880M Edition
by Jarred Walton on April 16, 2014 6:00 AM ESTMSI GT70 General Performance
I don’t want to dwell on the general performance of the GT70 too much, mostly because the use of a pure HDD storage solution in our test unit means it can feel very sluggish at times. I simply would not want to use a computer – desktop or laptop – that doesn’t have an SSD as the primary storage device. I’ve been “spoiled” over the past few years, and when I go back to conventional storage it can be unbearable. Basically, my usage habits have shifted thanks to SSDs, and so now I “require” one in order to function. PCMark 7 and 8 both have a storage test, and that’s as good a place to start as any:
With storage being such a bottleneck, it’s pretty much pointless to discuss the other PCMark scores as all of them (except for Computation in PCMark 7) place any SSD equipped laptops ahead of the HDD-equipped GT70. The scores are in Mobile Bench, but we won't bother listing them here as they basically just reiterate the point that an SSD scores much better than an HDD in PCMark.
For CPU and GPU testing, we do have a few things we can run, but we’ve covered this ground before and the i7-4800MQ is a known quantity. It’s faster than any other mobile CPU with the exception of the i7-4900MQ and i7-4930MX, just as you’d expect. 3DMarks also illustrate what we’ve already shown with our gaming benchmarks: the GTX 880M is the fastest mobile GPU around right now.
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HaloTechnology - Wednesday, April 16, 2014 - link
The cooling and the Display of the Alienware 17 is Superiordanwat1234 - Tuesday, April 22, 2014 - link
The MSI GT70 and GT60 laptops has a 12 volt cooling fan that moves about 25CFM of air according to tomshardware! The alienware uses multiple 5V fans. I think the MSI implementation is better.nathanddrews - Wednesday, April 16, 2014 - link
A 4K panel would be a nice pairing with this hardware! Or 880M SLI...Toshiba is bringing out the $1499 P55t April 22:
15.6-inch 3,840 x 2,160
Intel Core i7
AMD Radeon R9 M265X 2 GB GDDR5
16 GB DDR3L
1 TB HDD
Blu-ray
Sub out some of those parts and features to offset the cost of the 880M and it might still be around $2,000 total to get a 4K panel... in theory.
emarston - Thursday, April 17, 2014 - link
They do sell versions with 3K screens in 15.6" form factornathanddrews - Thursday, April 17, 2014 - link
1K short. ;-)Khenglish - Wednesday, April 16, 2014 - link
I do not understand why MSI uses a single fan for a 17" notebook with a top end GPU. They have a fake fan exhaust vent where the 2nd fan should be. Hell even Apple uses 2 fans on their tiny laptops with a dGPU.Meaker10 - Wednesday, April 16, 2014 - link
Number of fans is less important than total CFM and heatsink area.TheinsanegamerN - Wednesday, April 16, 2014 - link
You're right. and this fan doesnt have nearly the CFM required to properly cool this beast. thus, there should really be a second fan.danwat1234 - Tuesday, April 22, 2014 - link
25CFM or so. 6 watts or so.danwat1234 - Tuesday, April 22, 2014 - link
Because it is a larger 12V fan, they don't need a second fan. All other laptops use 5V fans.