MSI GT72 Dominator Pro: Performance Preview
by Jarred Walton on October 8, 2014 9:00 AM ESTMSI GT72: High Quality Gaming Performance
While the GTX 980M does manage to break 30FPS in all titles at our Ultra settings, there are times when dropping things down a notch can provide a better overall experience. Our High settings do exactly that, and if you're playing on battery power the added FPS headroom should yield overall improved battery life when BatteryBoost is enabled.
Again, full disclosure for the High settings is that I generally skip MSAA and SSAA, though if FXAA is available I do enable that. For Batman: Arkham Origins the settings are the same as Ultra (all DX11 features and other rendering enhancements enabled except for PhysX), but FXAA High is used instead of 4xMSAA. BioShock Infinite uses the VeryHigh preset (DX11 path), and Company of Heroes 2 uses High Image Quality and Textures, no Anti-Aliasing, with Snow and Physics set to Medium. GRID Autosport uses the High present with no anti-aliasing, and Metro: Last Light Redux uses High Quality and Tessellation without SSAA. Finally, Sleeping Dogs, Sniper Elite 3, and Tomb Raider all use the "High" defaults (which includes High FXAA and "Medium" SSAA for Sleeping Dogs).
1920x1080 High Performance
Here's where "beyond 1080p gaming" is really an option, as without SSAA and/or 4xMSAA many of the games push into the triple digit frame rates. Company of Heroes 2 seems to run into a CPU bottleneck or some other limit, as even at lower settings it doesn't get much above 60 FPS, making it the lowest performing game in our High settings. Metro: Last Light Redux actually breaks well past 60FPS for a change, Sleeping Dogs comes in at just under 100 FPS, and everything else is at the point where stereoscopic 3D at 60+ FPS is a viable option (though that's not supported on the MSI GT72 display).
Average performance compared among the GPUs is actually about the same as at our Ultra settings, meaning in general the games we're testing are still mostly GPU limited at 1080p High – they're just hitting much higher frame rates now. The exception is the desktop system, where the GTX 970 lead over the 980M grows a bit more (it's 29% faster now vs. 24% faster at Ultra settings). If I were to do another test at Medium quality settings, I think we'd really start to see CPU bottlenecks show up, but it's not really worth the effort as most games are already running well above screen refresh rates.
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JarredWalton - Wednesday, October 8, 2014 - link
Older than that: This is Spinal Tap (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Up_to_eleven)"As you can see, these numbers all go up to eleven. That's one louder than ten...." :-)
WereCatf - Wednesday, October 8, 2014 - link
Every time someone reviews these gaming laptops I wonder one thing: where are the laptops that are designed not to have an optical drive at all? I mean, you could certainly just leave the ODD out, but the chassis would still be designed with one in mind. What if I want a laptop with chassis that was not designed to hold an ODD at all and instead used the space for, say, better cooling?sullrosh - Wednesday, October 8, 2014 - link
just make the ODD removable and design an extra battery to fit in the slot.WereCatf - Thursday, October 9, 2014 - link
No. You'd still be wasting space on the support structures -- connectors and rails and whatnot -- plus the casing on the extra battery itself. It'd be more efficient to just skip the ODD-bay completely and simply make the main battery itself larger. Personally, when talking of gaming laptops I want good cooling-performance and skipping the ODD-bay would allow for designing airflow properly so that cool air goes in from one side and blows out the other side, all through the whole laptop. That's what I want, real, proper cooling in a gaming-laptop, without the totally useless ODD-bay at all.danjw - Wednesday, October 8, 2014 - link
What is going on with Broadwell. I was just looking around for a current time frame and all I saw was the Core M parts for tablets. Has Intel given up on Broadwell for more powerful systems?Acarney - Wednesday, October 8, 2014 - link
Is there anyway to get these graphic cards standalone? Was there any upgrade path in the retail chain? What's the connector for these and has there been any kind of hacked/modded cables for connecting these graphic cards to desktop motherboards? I think the potential for cooking this in a passive card (think HDplex) is higher then taking a desktop class board and trying to cool that. I know HDPlex has a new chassis about to be released that'll handle a 750Ti Maxwell part but this might be able to handle a 970M (if the rumored ~95w TDP is true and MAYBE even the 980M with a semi passive option; think one or two ~15dBa fans to move some air out of the chassis). Both these cards seem to out perform the 750Ti and probably would do even a little better matched with a desktop class i7 haswell. Could finally match or exceed Xbox1/PS4 class graphics with a box including the 970M or 980M & 100% passive for HTPC/DVR and ~15dBa semi passive when 1080p gaming...Laststop311 - Thursday, October 9, 2014 - link
Well When I upgraded my m18x r1 from radeon 6990 xfire to gtx 680m sli I ordered the gpu's from dell. You can buy the parts separately but they are not cheap at all. I paid 700 dollars each for my GTX 680m's when they first came out.The TDP claims are true and you need a MXM slot to install these dpu's they dont go into a regular pci-e slot but the tdp claims have tpo be true as MXM slots only provide for a max of 100 watt tdp.
For this project idea you have be prepared to spend around 3000 when all is said and done and that's if you can even locate all the parts you would need. You would need to find a motherboard that supports desktop cpu's and MXM graphics cards. Like the boards used in some laptops that use full desktop cpu's. That specialized board will cost you big bucks. They use all laptop parts like so-dimms and mxm gpu's but have a regular desktop cpu socket. I believe clevo made laptops like this. The GTX 980m will probably cost 1000 dollars to buy as a standalone separate part from dell or such. So by the time you buy a proper case, the specialized mobo, the gpu, sodimm ram, tiny psu, cpu, storage, odd and whatever else you may be looking at even more than 3000. Is it really worth it just to have a silent htpc with extra potent gaming power?
You do realize you can build a very quiet htpc with MSI gaming gtx 970 gpu and that fans don't even start spinning until the gpu hits 60C so when you are doing anything other than gaming the gpu fans don't come on and then even under light gaming it can turn on just 1 of the 2 fans and since it uses large 100mm fans they spin much slower. Check out the reviews the twin frozr V cooling system with 2x 100mm fans it is literally the quietest top end GPU ever. Even the GTX 980 is super quiet like 1db louder than gtx 970. And really since the fans don't even turn on except for gaming you have the silence you are looking for when you actually need it. You don't need pure silence when you are gaming as the noise from the gaming will far drown out the tiny fan noise. When you are watching movies or doing anything else you have silence.
You can build this version of what you want far cheaper then trying to build this laptop gpu version. 100 dollar mitx board, 350 dollar gpu, 250 dollar cpu, 100 dollar ram, 75 dollar psu, 100 dollar case, 20 dollar ODD, storage varies depending on how much space you need but since you can use 2.5" drives pretty dirt cheap 230 dollars for 512GB or so. Add another 200 for top quality noctua case fans that are dead silent and a noctua cpu cooler with noctua heatsink fans that are also dead silent and you spend 1400 for something you are going to spend 3000 on doing it the convoluted way you describe. You can send me 800 dollars as a consultation fee and still be 800 cheaper
Laststop311 - Thursday, October 9, 2014 - link
when i say large 100mm fans i mean relatively large as fans located on the gpu are typically 80mm or even smaller. 100mm size on the actual gpu is the largest size to date to come pre installed on a gpu.rpanic - Wednesday, October 8, 2014 - link
Got a MSI 17” barebones with 680m a few years ago, travel with it and have it on every day very happy with it and it was cheaper than anything else when the 680m came out. Very solid laptop if you don’t mind putting in your own OS, HD and CPU.jdrch - Wednesday, October 8, 2014 - link
With 2 mDP 1.2, an HDMI, and a GigE port, this thing is pretty much a dream engineering workstation. Compare that with HP's EliteBook line that has 1 DP port, or Dell's Precision line that has 1 DP and 1 HDMI.