Review MSI GT70H-80M4811B Notebook

The case is based on the heavy 3.8 kilogram MS-1763 barebone. Compared with the MS-1762 precursor, its looks have not changed much. The manufacturer again relies on a mix of brushed aluminum for the lid and wrist rest and plastic.

While the display bezel is now finally matte, the keyboard rim still features a glossy finish. As known from high-gloss surfaces, fingerprints and dust accumulate very soon. The Asian manufacturer apparently does not believe in matte and thus insensitive surfaces. The design makes a rather ragtag and garish impression in general. It lacks a straightforward line.

Not every gamer will appreciate the bulky build either. 428 x 288 x 60 millimeters is big even in the 17-inch category. The competing Clevo P170SM barebone (One K73-3N) and P177SM barebone (Schenker XMG P703) are both a few millimeters thinner. Transporting the device alongside the 180 watt power supply (16.7 x 8.3 x 4.0 centimeters) will not really be convenient. The GT70 was clearly designed for stationary use.

The advantage of the casing's bulky build is its decent stiffness. Although the base unit yields easily in some places (keyboard, fan grille), the 17-incher averagely does a better job than most contenders on the whole.

The workmanship and material impression range on the standard gaming level; thus they are neither cheap nor extremely high-end. The aforementioned Clevo barebones make an identical quality impression. The Asus G75V and Alienware M17x can still be considered to be the reference, at least in this category.

Software

Almost 40 programs and tools are installed in state of delivery. Besides the limited trial versions of Office 365 and Norton Internet Security, the buyer will find Windows Live Essentials 2012 and a tool for creating a system recovery, which is also available as a hidden partition. Owing to CyberLink's PowerDVD 10, the GT70 can play Blu-ray media without additional software. A few other programs, such as System Control Manager, can be found further below.

Accessories

The aforementioned 180 watt PSU and the just below 500 gram 9-cell battery are included alongside several information leaflets (quick start guide, warranty booklet, warranty card, etc.), a driver and a tool DVD as well as a dragon sticker for the laptop's lid.

Warranty

MSI promises a two-year pick-up & return service.

Keyboard

The chiclet keyboard was designed for gaming in collaboration with SteelSeries. Games are to be controlled perfectly due to a special arrangement of the WASD keys ("golden triangle"). The buyer has to decide whether this is true for them.

We do not inevitably deem the modifications to the standard layout as ideal because it needs more time getting used to. For example, MSI moved the <>| key, which is normally beside the left shift key, to the right beside the space bar. A single-rowed enter key (also applies to the German version and is the reason for a displaced # key) will also not suit everyone.

However, we would like to favorably highlight the four-column number pad and the cleverly distributed special functions. Why do other manufacturers not place the brightness and volume controls on the arrow keys? It is also possible to switch the screen and disable/enable the touchpad, webcam and wireless module via the F row.

A few touch-sensitive areas are again found between the speaker grilles. While the symbols in the left area are for PowerDVD 10, Cooler Boost technology (increases the fan speed in favor of temperature) and key lights, the right area starts plane mode, System Control Manager or turns off the screen.

The Synaptics V7.2 touchpad does a very decent job. The mouse replacement can always be located because it is lowered and it has a lightly roughened texture. In our opinion, the surface is a good compromise of feedback and gliding quality. However, the touchpad could be a bit bigger. A usable surface of 84 x 42 millimeters is not exactly generous in the 17-inch category.

However, the supported gestures i.e. scroll, zoom, rotate, compensate for this drawback. Apart from a few minor dropouts, most finger inputs are detected reliably. The accuracy is also decent. A nice idea from MSI is that the touchpad is automatically disabled when an external mouse is connected.

Processor

A quad-core processor from Intel's Haswell generation powers the laptop. The Core-i7 4700MQ is built in a 22 nm process and, like the more expensive Core i7-4800MQ, has a 6 MB L3 cache.

The CPU can increase its default clock rate of 2.4 GHz up to 3.4 GHz via Turbo Boost technology. Hyper Threading simulates virtual cores. A maximum of eight parallel threads promise a long-term viability.

A big advantage of the new architecture is the much stronger graphics chip. The laptop can switch between the HD Graphics 4000 and the dedicated graphics card since it supports Nvidia's Optimus technology.

It is convenient that the power button always indicates whether Intel's GPU (white) or the GeForce (orange) is active. Nvidia's system control offers many options to customize Optimus (profiles, global settings, etc.).

The GeForce 700M series is not a completely new architecture. It is mainly based on the technology of the former generation. Thus, the Kepler GPUs are still built in a 28 nm process.

The customer can choose between the two strongest members for the MSI GT70. These are the GeForce GTX 770 and the GeForce GTX 780M. While the GTX 780M comes with 1536 unified shaders and a 4096 MB GDDR5 video memory that clocks with 2500 MHz (256-bit interface), the GeForce GTX 770 only has 960 arithmetic units and a 3072 MB GDDR5 video memory with a clock rate of 2000 MHz (192-bit interface). The GTX 770M on-chip clock is also lower with 706 vs. 771 MHz.

Distinct increases are noticed when the old GeForce GTX 680M is compared with the GeForce GTX 780M. The former premium model (we exclude the GeForce GTX 680MX here) "only" offers 1344 CUDA cores, an on-chip clock of 720 MHz and a memory clock of 1800 MHz.

One of the most important features of the GeForce 700M series is the optimized overclocking function. Besides power consumption, the GPU Boost 2.0 now also considers the temperature. According to the GPU-Z tool, the on-chip clock climbed to a high 850 MHz in the Unigine Heaven benchmark.

Regrettably, the first batch of the GT70 has to work with the outdated ForceWare 311.48 GPU driver. Thus, the GeForce GTX 780M could only set itself apart from actually weaker graphics card to an extent in newer games like BioShock Infinite, which we tested with a new GPU driver.

Although the ForceWare 320.21 was available at the time of the tests, this version caused serious problems, e.g. black screen when switching to the desktop. At least we could run 3DMark 2013 and 3DMark 11 one time. The result was that the new driver partly boosted the performance considerably (+8% in 3DMark 2013).

The GT70H-80M4811B that we tested is powered by a small 128 GB mSATA SSD and a large 1000 GB HDD. It quickly becomes clear that MSI makes no compromises here when looking at the benchmarks.

In contrast to the SSD RAID in the former GT70 (2x SanDisk U100), the solid state drive in the new model (SanDisk X100) scores with all file sizes. A sequential read speed of 470 MB/s and a sequential write rate of 332 MB/s are just as good as full-blown 128 GB models, such as the Samsung SSD 830. The SanDisk X100 does not exhibit any weaknesses in the access rates of 0.17 ms @ read and 0.06 ms @ write either. The operating system is booted swiftly owing to the SSD technology. Installations, data transfer and loading are also performed quickly.

MSI additionally installs a one terabyte Scorpio Blue HDD from Western Digital to ensure that the customer has enough storage for personal data. It spins at 5400 rpm. A sequential read and write rate of around 93 MB/s gives no reason for complaint, for an HDD.

The graphics performance does not fall short anywhere. As can be seen in the chart below, the GeForce GTX 780M copes with almost all modern games in maximum details and 1920x1080 pixels. A two or four time MSAA anti-aliasing is usually no problem either.

The premium model only has difficulties with extremely computing-intensive tracks, such as Far Cry 3 or Crysis 3, which also still look very good in high details. The GeForce GTX 780M is also the only laptop GPU that surpassed 35 fps in the integrated benchmark in Metro: Last Light (ultra setting w/o SSAA) until now. The majority of the tested games ran with an average of over 40 fps.

We were surprised that the GT70 scored a bit lower than the One K56-3N2 and Schenker XMG P703 GTX 780M contenders in CPU-heavy games, such as F1 2012, Dirt: Showdown, Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, Assassin's Creed III and Skyrim. Both the processor's and graphic's Turbo were inconspicuous in "normal" 3D operation. Perhaps the Clevo laptops have a superior driver although the version number actually indicates the opposite (ForceWare 311.27 rather than 311.48).

The GeForce GTX 770 calculated roughly 25-30% slower throughout all benchmarks.

System Noise

The noise development was one of the biggest, positive surprises. The MSI GT70 produced less noise than the Clevo P170SM and P177SM barebones in both idle as well as during load. This is particularly astonishing since the 17-incher only sports one fan.

While both gaming contenders attracted attention with approximately 36 dB in idle, the GT70 only reached 30-32 dB. Depending on the situation, the laptop was either only slightly audible or almost silent.

It took a long time until the fan jumped from 36 dB to a very audible but not yet distracting 41-43 dB in 3DMark06. Both Clevo devices were much louder with 46-47 dB. The GT70's full load noise level was also lower with 47 vs. 54-55 dB.

Generally, MSI scores with better fan management, which is more stable and not as sporadic. We would have counted with a higher noise considering the powerful GeForce GTX 780M graphics card.

Besides the noise emissions, the temperatures are also compelling. The casing's surfaces settle to an agreeably low 23 °C after two hours of idling. An average of 33 °C during full load is also pleasant. However, the chassis achieves up to 46 °C on the top and 49 °C on the bottom in the vent's area. It is possible to adequately enjoy games for several hours because the wrist rest remains cool with a maximum of 28 °C.

Although the graphics card and processor reach up to 90 °C in extreme cases, the hardware temperatures are still reasonable. The CPUID Hardware Monitor recorded 30 °C at the hard drives. We can only criticize the GeForce GTX 780M's clock behavior. The on-chip clock dropped to below 600 MHz during our unrealistic one-hour stress test via Furmark and Prime tools. The Clevo P177SM barebone exhibited a similar behavior.

All measurements were performed with disabled Cooler Boost technology.

The battery life is above-average for a premium laptop. Not every contender achieves almost 1.5 hours in Battery Eater's Classic test using maximum brightness and six hours in Battery Eater's Reader's test with minimum brightness (e.g. Toshiba Qosimo X870-119).

The GT70 benefits from the battery's high capacity in addition to the graphics switching (87 Wh, 7800 mAh). The battery mentioned in the review of the Clevo barebone is "only" specified with 77 Wh and 5200 mAh. Wireless browsing is possible for about five hours before the laptop has to be recharged. We unfortunately could not test the DVD playback runtime because our test device apparently had a defect Blu-ray combo.

Note: The gaming performance decreases by about 60% in battery mode.

The 17-incher seamlessly follows in the footsteps of the GT70 series. Buyers looking for a compact, light and unobtrusive laptop will definitely not find anything by MSI. The bulky chassis is not really portable with a weight of 3.8 kilograms. The unusual design is also a matter of taste.

Hardcore gamers who crave an eye-catching and powerful desktop replacement can certainly take this device. Besides the matte, Full HD screen, the sound quality is also compelling. Only a few laptops offer an equally good sound.

The moderate emissions also have to be praised. Despite the high-performance hardware installed in the GT70, it does not get exceedingly warm or loud. The gaming laptop makes a decent to good impression in battery runtime, input devices and connectivity. We also count the maintenance-friendly innards as a pro. It allows quickly replacing various components (three mSATA slots). Convenient fan cleaning is not a matter of course either.

If we have to complain about something then it is the high price. Although the 17-incher features a Blu-ray drive, a 128 GB SSD and the currently fastest laptop GPU, a price of 2000 Euros (~$2643) is quite steep.