MSI GS60 Ghost Pro 3K Review
by Jarred Walton on August 21, 2014 6:00 AM ESTMSI GS60 Ghost Pro 3K General Performance
Where the GE60 was lacking in general performance (thanks to the lack of any SSD storage on the unit we reviewed), the GS60 has no such problems. Below you can see our results for PCMark 7 and 8, with CPU performance and WiFi results as well.
There's nothing shocking here: i7-4710HQ is a fast chip, and all the other components are up to par as well. For general use, the GS70 can handle pretty much anything you might want to throw at it. Including dual-band 802.11ac WiFi is also a plus, with transfer rates topping 380 Mbps on 5GHz connections thanks to the 2x2:2 antenna configuration. As for 3DMark, I include these charts mostly as a point of reference; it's far more useful to look at the performance of games you actually care about, but the results from 3DMark are more or less in agreement with our gaming scores.
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nathanddrews - Thursday, August 21, 2014 - link
Figuring that a 256GB OS drive is included, a 1TB upgrade could be $400 and they would make plenty of profit. Depending on how much it costs them, they could make the upgrade $300 or $350 and still get some margin.I'm still waiting for 2TB SSDs to get under $500. I think that will spark a major boom in SSD adoption beyond just boot drives. 3-D TLC should get us there.
falc0ne - Saturday, August 23, 2014 - link
this is a gaming laptop and don't tell me you want to use play Starcraft while commuting and hope the battery will last the whole day. Lets be reasonablelimitedaccess - Thursday, August 21, 2014 - link
No pictures with the back cover off?Also regarding notebook reviews in general I think size/weight measurements for the power brick would be useful information. Some review sites do include this already. Especially in a case like this where you'd in many (if not all cases) have to take that with you as well due to the battery life combined with one the core usage scenarios (gaming).
limitedaccess - Thursday, August 21, 2014 - link
Just to add something else that would be nice to see commented more on in reviews is wireless connectivity which it seems like quite a few laptops have issues with (and differing performance).Another common related issue is running off wifi and having a bluetooth device connected.
JarredWalton - Thursday, August 21, 2014 - link
I did list WiFi throughput in the general performance benchmarks (the last chart before 3DMark). I didn't experience any unusual WiFi issues with the GS60; it lost connectivity a few times but that happens to nearly every laptop I've tested and it wasn't a constant problem. (It could have been my router as well -- the nature of the 802.11ac beast.)Arbie - Thursday, August 21, 2014 - link
I would much rather have an SSD than the super high res, which I doubt will be much use on a screen that size. And on any laptop over $1K I would expect an SSD. This one is $2K.ZeDestructor - Thursday, August 21, 2014 - link
It has two SSDs alongside the harddrive.GreenMeters - Thursday, August 21, 2014 - link
I was late to the party for the last MSI gaming laptop review, so I'll ask again here: can the tacky badge on the back of the display be removed?JarredWalton - Thursday, August 21, 2014 - link
Nope -- it gets lit by the LCD backlight, so it actually would leave a hole through the metal cover.sheh - Thursday, August 21, 2014 - link
I hate stupid keyboard layouts. If the WinKey only on the right wasn't bad enough, there's an extra backslash key to the right of the spacebar. What's the point of two backslash keys?