MSI GT70 Review: GTX 880M Edition
by Jarred Walton on April 16, 2014 6:00 AM ESTMSI GT70 GTX 880M Gaming Performance
We’re at the point now where the fastest mobile GPUs can run just about everything at maxed out settings. There are a few exceptions, e.g. Metro Last Light will need to drop a setting or two to stay above 30FPS at 1080p, but the GTX 880M – and even the previous generation GTX 780M – are fast enough that some games are running into CPU limitations. That’s not really a problem in practice, since games that are CPU limited tend to still hit 60+ FPS, and if you’re running at lower detail settings just to show CPU bottlenecks it’s an artificial constraint.
Anyway, if you happen to have a system with a GTX 880M paired with an i7-4700MQ and you compare performance to a GTX 780M with an i7-4930XM, you’ll find instances where the faster CPU wins out. At our Mainstream and Enthusiast settings, however, all of the games we currently use for testing favor the faster GPU over a faster CPU. We’ve included results from some of the fastest notebooks we tested during the previous year for comparison. I’m only going to post charts of our Enthusiast settings, as anyone buying a notebook with a GTX 880M inherently qualifies as a gaming enthusiast in my book, but you can find the Mainstream and even Value scores in Mobile Bench (though the Value scores in particular are mostly meaningless).
In their launch materials, NVIDIA claimed the new GTX 880M as being 15% faster than last year’s GTX 780M. Overall, our results with the GT70 compared to the Clevo P157SM or the previous GT70 Dragon don’t really agree with that figure, though it varies by game. It’s more accurate to state that the 880M is “up to 15% faster” rather than a 15% increase on average. The 880M boasts core clocks that are around 16% faster than the 780M, but memory bandwidth is the same so titles where the memory bandwidth comes into play (which is most games when we’re running at high/max details) will see quite a bit less than the maximum 16% increase in performance. The 880M does come with 8GB GDDR5 RAM, so there may be a few instances where the additional memory can help slightly, but right now most games are still targeting 4GB or less VRAM as the vast majority of GPUs shipped fall into that classification.
Overall, if we take the better result of the MSI GT70 Dragon and Clevo P157SM (on the assumption that driver differences may have negatively affected a few titles), the new GTX 880M ends up around 7% faster than the GTX 780M. It's not too surprising, considering we're looking at the same core architecture and the same memory bandwidth. 8GB VRAM is clearly more than the GTX 880M needs, at least with current titles; it might prove beneficial in the future, but I suspect by the time games are routinely using more than 4GB the 880M will be replaced by something newer/faster/better. While 7% isn't much of an improvement, keep in mind that the increase in cost (at least for an entire notebook) is only around $50. On an $1800 notebook that's a 3% increase, and considering the difficulty of acquiring a GPU upgrade for a notebook without buying a complete system, if you’re in the market for a gaming notebook the GT70 certainly offers a good value. If on the other hand you already own a gaming notebook with GTX 780M, you’ll likely want to wait for the inevitable “Big Maxwell” notebook GPUs to appear.
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Hrel - Wednesday, April 16, 2014 - link
I've always wondered why laptop GPU's include so much extra GPU RAM. I've never seen a GTX660 with 4GB of RAM, much less 8. Yet I saw GTX460M's configured with 4GB of RAM years ago. What gives?Gunbuster - Wednesday, April 16, 2014 - link
It's a check box feature. That RAM is not that expensive and makes the system sound more impressive. It's not like they can stick a huge gaudy yellow three fan MSI cooler on the prefab graphics module they buy from Nvidia...ssiu - Wednesday, April 16, 2014 - link
And I always thought the 4GB on mobile GPUs are typos, since even desktop cards like 780Ti doesn't have 4GB. So they really have 4GB (and 8GB for this one)?? *mind blown*Batmeat - Wednesday, April 16, 2014 - link
I have the GE70. The machine is amazing. IMO save yourself the money and put your own SSD in. That's what I did.emarston - Thursday, April 17, 2014 - link
Same here, I popped in 2 SSDs in my GE70 and it's awesome.Harmattan - Wednesday, April 16, 2014 - link
Let's call this like it is... this is a 3 year-old laptop using a 1 1/2 year-old GPU. The 880m is the same exact chip as last year's 780m (which provides the same or better performance when overclocked) -- it's as if, in the desktop space, NVDA was to increase the GTX 780's core speed a bit and call it a "GTX 880". Further, the 880m is same chip as a 680m albeit with another shader block enabled. My issue is not the performance the 880m/780m provides, which is very good -- it's the fact that NVDA is sitting on tech and dribbling it out -- with virtually no cost improvement -- since there is no competition whatsoever at the high end. We need a high-end Maxwell mobile solution toute suite.Also, just a note on the pricing points you make at several points: this GT70 as configured is actually $50-100 more expensive than an NP8278/P170SM (which actually had some cosmetic changes since the last version, and has much better cooling) with the same hardware depending on the reseller -- not sure where you're pricing these machines...
Meaker10 - Wednesday, April 16, 2014 - link
Still has a much worse speaker setup and keyboard however.godlyatheist - Wednesday, April 16, 2014 - link
Where can you buy the i7-4700MQ 3 years ago? Oh wait, you can't.It's not a crime to use existing design and update them. They are faster (even if marginally) and not more expensive compared to the release price of the old gen equivalent. I don't get the problem here. It's not like they marketed the 680M laptop for $1000 and 880M ones for $2000.
"The 780m (which provides the same or better performance when overclocked)" That statement says the 880m improved because it is able to reach higher clock at same power envelope. You may think it's nothing, but you can't deny it's an improvement.
You said it yourself, there is no competition at the high end. Is it Nvidia's fault that AMD can't compete? Why should they do anything when refreshing existing design let's them reign with ease?
MSI has traditionally been weak in the cooling department, because they make budget gaming laptops. They are going to save the $$$ somewhere and cooling is what MSI chose. If you only care about specs, sure go with Sager/Clevo. All the other stuff surely aren't worth $50-100 right?
I have the P150HM/NP8150 with 2nd gen i7 + 680M and it runs any game I need comfortably. It has a dual fan design yet the cooling is crap unless you mod the casing. The reason is thin heatpipe and lack of air intake. Clevo has improved since then but it's the same as any other company. Oh yea, the keyboard is junk on it.
danwat1234 - Tuesday, April 22, 2014 - link
The MSI has a very high flow 12V cooling fan. If you crank the fan to full speed, temps will stay nice even at full load on all processors. Unless it's needs a repaste.pmpysz - Wednesday, April 16, 2014 - link
"ASUS is now using an IPS panel in their competing G750 series"What model? I've been looking at them all and haven't seen a single IPS panel in any of the G750s. Even the new ones with the 800 series GPUs.