MSI GT72 Dominator Pro Review: GTX 980M Reigns Supreme
by Jarred Walton on November 11, 2014 8:00 AM ESTMSI GT72 Dominator Pro: Dramatically Improved
Top performance gaming notebooks are generally quite expensive, and they’re certainly more of a niche market than mainstream laptops and notebooks. However, there’s something to be said for a gaming notebook that can rival the performance of a decent desktop PC, and that’s exactly what MSI has with the GT72. We’ve heard the same story quite a few times over the past decade – gaming notebooks are closing the gap with desktops! – but this is about as close as we’ve ever come. And perhaps most importantly, the updates to the GT72 basically wipe out nearly all of my complaints about the design of MSI’s earlier GT70 notebook. There are now two cooling fans to better distribute the cooling load, and the industrial design is modern and attractive. Finally!
Performance from the GT72 Dominator Pro is exactly what you’d expect from a top-tier gaming notebook: it set records for all of our games for single GPU performance from a notebook. You might need to turn down a few settings in a few titles if you’re gunning for 60FPS (SSAA in particular can prove a bit too much, even for the mighty GTX 980M), but so far I haven’t found a single game where you can’t average at least 30FPS at maximum quality (though I've only tested around 20 games). Most of the performance benefits come courtesy of NVIDIA’s shiny new GTX 980M, and by comparison the Core i7-4710HQ CPU looks quite tame. There are higher spec models of the GT72 with i7-4980HQ processors if you need every last bit of CPU performance, but for most games it’s not really a major concern – either the GPU is the bottleneck, or frame rates are far enough above 60FPS that it doesn’t matter.
Of course desktops are still potentially faster and more powerful than gaming notebooks like the GT72, they don't cost as much for the same level of performance, and it’s easy to make the argument that a desktop is far more upgradeable than any notebook. However, you can’t carry around a gaming desktop (and display and keyboard) without a lot of effort, and notebooks like the GT72 can easily rival many desktops in terms of performance. Plus you can connect to an external display (or two or even three), mouse, and keyboard to the GT72 and use it as a desktop replacement that you can grab and go when you need to.
I’ve complained several times about the industrial design of MSI’s GT70 over the past few years, and if you had asked me a few months ago what my order of preference would be for gaming notebooks I would have put the Alienware 17 at the top, ASUS G750 second, and third place was basically a toss-up between the Clevo P150/P157/P170/P177 and the MSI GT70. Now, MSI’s GT72 has basically vaulted from tied for last among gaming notebooks to being the one to beat, and it doesn’t look like Alienware, ASUS, or Clevo are updating their industrial designs this round so MSI should stay on top for a while.
Battery life is also respectable, and there are certainly times where having manual control over the switchable graphics is preferable to NVIDIA’s automatic Optimus switching. I’d still like to see power use for the dedicated GPU lower than the ~8W it currently uses at idle, but if you’re mostly using the GT72 for gaming you’re still going to have the AC adapter with you, and that means you probably won’t need the HD 4600 Processor Graphics. The one exception to this is if you want to use Quick Sync for video encoding or other video related tasks; it's not available without switching off the discrete GPU, which is a bit of a shame. BatteryBoost is also functional and at least somewhat interesting, but really it’s a story of giving up performance to improve battery life, and that’s not always desirable.
The only real complaint I have (other than some minor quibbles with the 10-key layout) is that MSI doesn’t use an IPS panel across the entire line of GT72 models. Of course there's a cost involved with upgrading the display, but we're almost in 2015 now; something other than TN should have become the norm on laptops five years ago (if not earlier), and it's really sad that it took tablets and smartphones to finally get companies to pay more attention to laptop displays. We're starting to see more and more notebooks and laptops with good quality displays, but this should have happened a long time ago, especially on any laptop costing more than $1000 and definitely on $2000+ offerings. The fact that MSI has a TN panel on all of the GT72 models costing less than $3300 (but more than $2100) is almost inexcusable…except the same is true of pretty much all the 17.3" competition as well. Hopefully 2015 will see more laptops shift to IPS or similar technologies.
Considering the substantial overhaul to the industrial design, not to mention the excellent performance and great feature set, I’m pleased to award MSI’s GT72 Dominator Pro with our Silver Editors’ Choice award. This is an expensive piece of hardware, but gaming notebook fans should be happy for at least a few years with the GT72. It’s fast, it looks great, it’s built reasonably well, and for now it’s the gaming notebook to beat. If we could get an IPS display (and potentially High DPI) in all of the models this would be a Gold award instead, and hopefully we'll see that with the next cycle of hardware (e.g. in early 2015 when high performance Broadwell CPUs launch).
Congratulations to MSI for providing a gaming notebook that truly impresses; they certainly deserve commendations for the most improved notebook design I can ever recall seeing. Other than Broadwell and an IPS display, I’m not sure what they can do for an encore, but this is a design that could easily carry MSI through several years of upgrades without getting stale. If you’re not in the market for a hefty gaming notebook, there’s nothing here that’s likely to change your mind, but for notebook gamers this is as good as it gets.
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frodbonzi - Tuesday, November 11, 2014 - link
Alienware gives you the same hardware....it's only the 980m that is different...and I'm sure it will be offered soon. Someone on the Alienware 18 owner's thread on a different forum has said it was late November...Anyways, as I posted earlier, once you are going the gaming laptop route, I don't see the reason for going "half way"... Yes, the 18" laptops are heavier - but it's not like you're going to be taking this one with your everywhere either... they're both "portable desktops".
The Alienware 18, even with "only" dual 880m, will beat this laptop (and any other single GPU laptop) handily... the benchmarks Jarred included were from dual 780m... and they STILL beat the 980m! Alienware can give you an IPS screen and 4 SSDs (although I prefer 3 SSDs and a blu-ray drive myself) for just a bit more cash...
Lastly, I have to say that once you are in this price range, cost ceases to be a large factor. Yes, when buying a $500 laptop, an extra $200 is a big deal... But when buying a $3000+ laptop, a few hundred dollars no longer really matters...
CrazyElf - Tuesday, November 11, 2014 - link
We're not talking about a small difference in price here though. The Alienware 18 is a couple of thousand dollars more if you max it out. Price I'd argue still matters.I have no doubt that the top end Alienware and Clevo laptops will beat this thing, especially if they are running 980M SLI (when that comes out). The top end Clevo probably will run a desktop grade CPU, so it's even more potent in this regard. I believe Clevo P570WM3 is the 6 core Ivy Bridge E model. Not sure if they are coming with a Haswell E laptop that can support 8 core Haswell though.
The only other benefit I can see is this thing can support 4x M.2. Not sure how many the Alienware 18 can support, although they are probably using 2.5" SATA 3 drives. It's not a huge advantage though, as M.2 is faster, but not something you'd notice for gaming.
Agree on the Blu-Ray drive.
@Jarred Walton
Would it be possible to get the IPS GT72 tested out when it comes out? It should have a better quality screen overall.
frodbonzi - Thursday, November 13, 2014 - link
If you don't mind refurbished, we're only talking about $200-$300.... and Alienware 18s have 1 M.2, and 3 SATA slots (some models give u 3 hard drives and an optical drive, others give all 4 hard drives).As a point of pricing:
My Alienware 18 (purchased 2 months ago) has 32GB of RAM, dual 880m, and the i7 4940mx. I'm not a fan of RAID 0, so the "fast" M.2 is my boot drive (256gb) and the other 2 drives are 256gb sata SDDs... I replaced the DVD drive with a $50 Blu-Ray writer off of ebay (Panasonic UJ265)...
Cost: $3200 --> I've seen the same on ebay ranging from $3000 to $4000...
Aikouka - Tuesday, November 11, 2014 - link
I ended up picking up one of these a few weeks ago, and it's a nice laptop. I went with the "budget" 980M version that only has a single SSD, and I purchased a separate 512GB SSD to use in non-RAID. It works great as I leave the original SSD for the OS and use the other one for more important games/applications. That's the same approach that I take on my desktop as well.I also had the same problem with the bottom of the laptop. Honestly, I was afraid that I was going to break it! MSI uses a *ton* of tabs in addition to the screws to hold the bottom panel on, and it requires a bit of yanking to get it off. I also found it to be a bit more difficult than desired to put it back on.
I'm not the biggest fan of the trackpad though. I find that even at higher sensitivity, it just isn't all that sensitive and requires a lot more movement than some of my other laptops. The problem is that when making scrolling gestures and such, I really have to push down on it or else it doesn't register the gesture.
I was also pleasantly surprised by the Killer Wi-Fi card. I use Intel 7260-AC cards in my two NUCs, and honestly... they're downright awful. If they do connect, it will only last for a few days until it drops to unusable levels of performance, and I've never had one connect at full AC speed. My laptop connects to my router at full 2x AC speed.
As for the noise, I do wish that the laptop was a bit quieter during low usage, but I'm also the type that builds very quiet PCs. I highly doubt that any normal user would mind the noise.
jabber - Tuesday, November 11, 2014 - link
Nice hardware...shame it looks like a tacky toy.utferris - Tuesday, November 11, 2014 - link
I am a computer scientist, I just do not understand the design.4x128GB RAID 0, seriously? The failure rate will be incredibly high with RAID0 of four storages of any kind, though they can get some speed up.
I can understand gamers buy monsters, but I donot understand why they will pay for such stupid design.
DanNeely - Tuesday, November 11, 2014 - link
Agree, 1st thing I'd do would be to RAID10 it; but every time someone at Anandtech or elsewhere sends a "RAID0, WTF!" email to a gaming laptop representative, the answer they get back is some version of "Our customers are demanding RAID0." Assuming their market research is valid, there're a lot of idiots buying gaming laptops with no clue beyond benchmark numbers. I'm somewhat skeptical though because you don't see the same thing in pre built gaming desktops. I suspect that what happened was that they went RAID0 in the HDD era to try and compensate for the crapitude of 2.5" HDDs; and haven't checked to see if it's still a valid customer requirement.What surprises me is that they don't offer an alternative model with a single 2.5" SSD. The price premium on M.2 drives is high enough that they could still charge a large markup on it while being substantially less than the M.2 RAID0 model.
jabber - Wednesday, November 12, 2014 - link
I know a few friends that have bought such machines in the past. The truth is they spend more time going back for repairs/fixes than actually on the users desk. More trouble than they are worth in the long run.IgenIgen - Tuesday, November 11, 2014 - link
The new ASUS G751JT/JY actually use a redesigned chassis compared to the G750. It also comes with an IPS display as standard (at least in Europe).JarredWalton - Wednesday, November 12, 2014 - link
Is it a radical overhaul of the design, or just incremental tweaks of the previous iterations of the G7xx series? Judging by images, it's the latter:http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...
Compared that with the GT70 vs. GT72 and it's a massive change. That's what I'm trying to get at.