MSI GE72 7RE Apache Pro Notebook Review

Changes are hard to find on the outside. The chassis did not change at all; expect for the stickers. Thus, we omit evaluating chassis, connectivity, and input devices and focus on the upgrades under the hood. Information about the missing aspects can be found in the recently reviewed GE72VR 6RF predecessor.

Btw., you should not expect too much from the card reader and the Wi-Fi module. While the first only runs at USB 2.0 speed, the Intel Wireless-AC 3168 partly performs significantly worse than the Wireless-AC 7265 (HP Omen 17) and the Killer Wireless-n/a/ac 1535 (Aorus X7 v6). This is not surprising since the AC 3168 only achieves a maximum of 433 Mbit/s according to Intel's homepage.

However, you'll get a bigger performance gain if you leave both CPUs at their standard settings. The Multi Core tests of Cinebench R15 and R11.5 are the best examples. The Core i7-7700HQ performs just under 10 % better than 6700HQ notebooks. However, you will hardly notice any difference if at all during everyday use, especially in 3D applications such as games. Hence, you can safely buy a cheap Skylake notebook if you find such.

As expected, the GE72 7RE performs quite well in the system tests. With 5,810 points, the 17-inch laptop ranks in between the HP Omen 17 and the Aorus X7 v6 in PCMark 7. Our Asus GL702VM, which has to make do with an HDD and only achieves 4,114 points (-29 %), makes apparent, that an SSD as Windows drive is almost obligatory these days.

Speaking of the HDD: An HGST Travelstar 7K1000 is used as secondary storage. It runs at 7,200 rpm and features a capacity of 1 TB.

Let's finally turn to the decisive factor for gamers: the graphic card. In contrast to the desktop counterpart, which has already been on the market for a few weeks, the mobile variant of the GeForce GTX 1050 Ti took a longer time to launch. Laptop enthusiasts who always consider the price performance ratio can find out themselves whether it was worth waiting for it.

It already gets obvious when checking the specifications that the DirectX-12 chip rather belongs to the mid-range than to the high-end range. With Mit 768 vs. 1280 shaders, the GTX 1050 Ti falls significantly behind the manufacturers' favorite, the GTX 1060. In order to cut costs, memory interface (128 vs. 192 bit) and VRAM capacity (4 vs. 6 GB GDDR5) are also smaller. The clock rate difference is smaller. For example the GTX 1050 Ti works at 1,493 vs. 1,506 MHz (core) and 3,500 vs. 4000 MHz (memory).

Especially the VRAM capacity might become a problem in the future. In the meanwhile, many games require more than 4 GB for maximum details. (e.g. Call of Duty Infinite Warfare, Watch Dogs 2 & Deus Ex Mankind Divided), whereas the GTX 1050 Ti can also get too slow due to other reasons - depending on the game. We unconditionally recommend the Pascal chip in the price range of about 1.500 Euros - not least because of the better energy efficiency compared to the Maxwell predecessor.

According to the synthetic benchmarks and our gaming tests, the GTX 1050 Ti is about on par with the GTX 970M (with small advantage for the newcomer). However, the GE72 7RE cannot keep up with GTX 1060 models. In the Fire Strike test of the current 3DMark it is about 30 % slower and it performs about 50 % worse than the GTX 1070.

Those you can do without highest graphics settings if necessary will get a decent graphic card for Full HD gaming in the GeForce GTX 1050 Ti. From 29 tested games, only the apparently very poorly optimized Mafia 3 refused to run smoothly in the preset high. Otherwise, the system mostly leveled off at above 40 fps.

Since Battlefield 1 refused running with the pre-installed driver (ForceWare 373.06), we used the brand new ForceWare 376.33 for running the world war shooter. Apart from this, the standard driver worked well. We neither observed crashes nor graphic errors. An average GPU clock of 1,700 MHz was recorded in 3D mode. The maximum clock was 1,785 MHz.

The cooling system first attracts attention under load, even though 38 and 43 dB during 3DMark 06 (average: 41 dB) and a maximum of 49 dB during the stress test are not utterly loud. Apart from the HP Omen 17 and the MSI GS73VR, also the Aorus X7 v6 is louder. However, these laptops come with a more powerful graphic chip.

Let's briefly discuss the inner components. »Thanks« to fact that the CPU Turbo sticks at 3.4 GHz, the Core i7-7700HQ gets quite warm unter full load. After one hour, the HWMonitor tool reported about 90 °C. Most of the time, the GPU remained significantly cooler with a maximum of 69 °C - no reason to complain apart from the fact that it slightly throttles.

Frequenzdiagramm im Vergleich (Checkboxen oben an-/abwählbar!)

Since the GE72 7RE is slightly more designed for mobility than its thicker siblings, MSI omitted G-Sync support and decided to implement an automatic graphics switch instead. Nvidia's Optimus technology uses either the GTX 1050 Ti or the processor graphics (Intel HD Graphics 630) depending on the software. Hence, energy is not wasted when running simple tasks such as office or web surfing.

The power consumption does hardly differ from several GTX 1060 notebooks, for example the Asus GL702VM, which is almost on par overall. MSI includes a 150 W power adapter, which weighs moderate 516 g and should be sufficient for the used components.

The graphics switch of the GE72 7RE, can only make up for the modest battery capacity of 51 Wh to some extent. 3:04 hours of web surfing via Wi-Fi and 3:15 hours HD video playback at medium brightness are not much for users who are fond of travelling. Those who are frequently on the move should therefore rather buy the HP Omen 17 (95 Wh) or the Asus GL702VM (76 Wh).