MSI GT70 Gaming Notebook – A Fully Tuned Gaming Beast (Updated!)

Updated : We've completed our full evaluation of the this gaming notebook and updated our former preview article (on 24th April) to a full fledged review to include performance scores, battery life aspects and a conclusion with ratings. If you've seen our previous preview article, you can jump straight to the third page where we discuss performance matters.

Ivy Bridge Charging into Gaming Notebooks!

It has been less than a day since Intel's Ivy Bridge processors, which formally go by the name of third generation Core processor family, have been officially made public but here at HardwareZone, the team never sleeps and is always busy testing and reviewing the latest and greatest gadgets. We've already covered much of the Ivy Bridge platform and here with us today is the very first Ivy Bridge mobile processor equipped notebook from MSI - the GT70 which hails from its gaming series of notebooks. We first gave you a heads-up of this beast of a notebook back in March, but not much of its huge list of specs was available for release at that point of time.

Today, we've got the actual retail unit of the MSI GT70 gaming notebook in our hands and we're going to share with you how it looks and feels up-close. Check back later this week for our full review where we’ll be breaking down its performance scores to find out if its new Core i7-3610QM (2.3GHz) Ivy Bridge processor, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670M GPU with 3GB GDDR5 VRAM, dual SSD drives in addition to a huge hard drive and 16GB RAM can help it take down the current gaming notebook performance champion, Dell’s Alienware M17X R3. Sounds like it has a mouthful of specs? It sure does!

But before you charge in for the kill, we recommend the following reading references to get better acquainted of Intel Ivy Bridge processors, the performance of its desktop counterpart (to set your expectations) and how the mobile edition of the processor and platforms compare:-

• What's New in Ivy Bridge CPUs and the Z77 Motherboard Platform?
• Intel Core i7-3770K - A Performance Analysis
• Ivy Bridge: 3rd Gen Intel HD Graphics - Does It Really Matter?
• What Ivy Bridge Means for Mobile Computing

A Fully Tuned Gaming Beast

Building a good gaming rig is a bit like tuning a sports car - to get the best performance, you can’t just throw in a supercharged engine and neglect everything else. You need a good exhaust system, air intake, responsive handling, suspension, brakes, wheels and tires. A well-tuned car is greater than the sum of its parts.

Likewise, what good is an ultra fast processor if your GPU ends up bottlenecking performance? What good is 16GB of RAM if you’re saddled with a 5200 RPM HDD? Perhaps you're getting perfect frame rates while gaming, but how are you supposed to kill anything with sky-high latency and a mushy and unresponsive keyboard?

When it comes to gaming notebooks, many manufacturers are guilty of selling you on the 'sexy' parts - the big performance processors and GPUs - and neglecting other areas. As a result, you end up with a machine that looks good on paper, but just doesn’t deliver the results or user experience you expect from its premium price tag.

MSI is set to change all of that with their new GT70 gaming notebook, which not only packs top-of-the-line processing capabilities like utilizing the latest Core i7-3610QM (2.3GHz) Ivy Bridge processor (though it's not the very best from Intel's new lineup), Intel HM77 chipset, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670M GPU with 3GB GDDR5 VRAM (which is so new that its desktop counterpart hasn’t even been released yet - at the point of publishing this article) and 16GB of RAM, but also crams in a whole host of third-party, pro-gaming grade upgrades including Killer Gaming’s Bigfoot E2200 network card and a SteelSeries designed keyboard. Perhaps best of all is the inclusion of two 64GB SSD drives in a RAID 0 configuration, with a 750GB 7200RPM HDD for storage.

Sparing no expense, the GT70 also includes a tray-loading Blu-ray burner, twin speakers and a built-in subwoofer system by Dynaudio. Surprisingly, its 17.3-inch, full HD resolution screen is the non-reflective type and that surely adds on to its brownie points. You can't imagine how often we've complained of glaring screens that sometimes spoil the usability of the notebook, more so in gaming.

To round out the package, MSI has also incorporated their usual Turbo Drive Engine (TDE) software technology found on their gaming series of notebooks, which provides one button instant overclocking. We benchmarked this feature first on their GT660 model in 2010 if you're interested to know more. Something new this time round is Cooler Boost, which revs up fan speed at the touch of a button, for extra cooling when required.

So far, the GT70 looks like a dream machine, the kind of thing you build by selecting the best possible options at every stage of the ordering process, but how does it hold up in person? More on that on the following page.

Design and Features

Gaming notebooks generally only come in one style. When you’ve got something this big, it can look pretty goofy if you try to ape the clean, minimalist Ultrabook-design, so instead, everyone just makes it look like a fighter jet or some kind of alien spaceship.

MSI’s take on the gaming notebook-chic features a pronounced taper from back-to-front, with lots of angles and vents. They've gone for an all-black aesthetic, with a blend of different textured materials to give the GT70 a unique look and feel. Brushed, black aluminum covers the lid and keyboard, while matte black plastic goes around the side and back edge, with the front part of the lid sporting a black, ‘brushed’ plastic design. Inside, the keyboard, track pad and screen are ringed with shiny, black plastic, while the speaker grilles are picked out in silver. A single, red, accent line underlines the touch-sensitive control panel and appears again on the track pad.

It’s an interesting look. At first glance, our sensibilities were offended by the clashing materials, not to mention MSI’s over-enthusiasm for angles and corners, but surprisingly, we’ve found the design growing on us. The combination of all the different black materials and angles makes the notebook look a bit like Darth Vader, which can never be a bad thing.

Opening the GT70 up is a breeze thanks to a sizeable groove between lid and base, and rock-solid hinges - not to mention the fact that the entire unit weighs 3.9kg, most of that in the base.

Display

While we grudgingly understand their prevalence on style-centric Ultrabooks, we’ve never understood why glossy displays continue to show up on gaming notebooks. Fortunately, MSI has opted for an anti-glare, non-reflective finish on their full HD screen, which keeps reflections at a minimum.

While we were happy with the screen head on, we did notice that its viewing angles are woefully shallow. A couple of degrees to the left or right and there’s a sharp loss of color. While it’s not a problem for single-person use, it does reduce the GT70’s usefulness for co-op, split-screen gaming or as a movie-watching machine.

Audio

The GT70’s sound system is supplied by Dynaudio, who have a long-standing partnership with MSI. The 2.1-channel speaker setup is loud and clear, with plenty of volume and a well balanced sound. THX's TruStudio software provides a reasonable imitation of surround sound, and there's a clear distinction between left and right speakers. The subwoofer on the unit’s base has enough oomph to add an extra rumbling kick to explosions and other bass heavy sounds without threatening to overpower the overall sound experience.

A rarity among notebooks, the GT70 also features dedicated gold-plated, line-in and line-out ports letting you use the system’s speaker setup if you’re lacking good audio output from your portable devices, or if you want to connect a full-sized sound system.

Keyboard

SteelSeries is one of the biggest names in pro-gaming, and for good reason: they make some of the best gaming peripherals out there - they're particularly well respected for their input devices. MSI’s partnership with SteelSeries has been a major coup, giving the Taiwanese company a major selling point compared to other manufacturers.

The chiclet keyboard on the GT70 is exceptional, and without a doubt, one of the best we’ve experienced on a notebook. Each keypress is met with a satisfying, firm click with a generous response and loads of tactile feel. The keys themselves are smooth, matte black, very slightly concave, have a decent amount of key travel while retaining a fairly low-profile, which, all in all, makes typing very comfortable.

The layout is fairly standard, with a row of F-keys and a number pad crammed into the right side. Gamers will be pleased to see that the left side Windows key has been removed entirely. A track pad lock button can be found under the space bar. If we have one complaint about the keyboard, it’s the slight flex evident in the plastic keyboard well. It really doesn’t do justice to the keys, and it’s something we hope MSI corrects in future.

Customizable backlighting is pretty much mandatory on gaming notebooks these days, and MSI doesn’t disappoint. Three sections of the keyboard can be individually customized in a rainbow of colors (using MSI's utilities), which, unlike most we’ve seen, are actually fairly color accurate to the onscreen representation. Different lighting options include dual-color shift, breathe and the always-popular ‘Mexican wave’ option.

Above the keyboard, a touch-sensitive panel contains controls for Turbo Drive, Cooler Boost, Keyboard lighting, Wireless on/off, Screen on/off and the eject button for the Blu-ray drive.

The Trackpad

We're not sure quite what to make of the GT70's trackpad. On the one hand, MSI has chosen a trapezoid shape that mirrors the angular shape of the notebook itself but, in doing so, they've created an unusually small trackpad - made all the more noticeable by the notebook’s overall huge size. On the other hand, the trackpad itself handles like a pro.

The rough, textured surface is surprisingly accurate at recognizing multi-touch gestures, including the all-important, two-finger scroll. Considering how hit-and-miss this tends to be on Ultrabooks, we were very impressed that MSI managed to get this so right. Buttons are large with a nice, firm click. Honestly, this would be the perfect trackpad if it weren’t for the weird shape and small size. Our understanding is that the prospective user is likely to plug in their own mouse for extended usage rather than use the trackpad, hence MSI didn't really put a whole lot of thought and emphasis on the integrated trackpad. By the way, an MSI gaming mouse is included with the GT70, but you’ll probably want to connect your own personal choice for any serious gaming.

Killer Gaming Bigfoot E2200 Network Controller

Killer Gaming is a company that specializes in improving network performance for online gaming. Their network cards are amongst the best choice for serious online gaming where latency can mean the difference between victory and crushing defeat. Their network controller work by optimizing packet priority to achieve the lowest possible ping. Of course, this is also dependent on your network connection and, unfortunately, their desktop add-on cards are quite expensive.

MSI has partnered with Killer Gaming to incorporate their Bigfoot E2200 networking controller into the GT70. In a quick test using World of Warcraft connecting to a US server, we noticed a slight reduction in latency from an average of about 230ms using our non-Bigfoot equipped Dell Alienware M17X R3, to about 200ms with the MSI GT70. For local servers, we fired up Team Fortress 2, which went from 40ms ping to about 34ms. Not a massive drop in latency, but still a noticeable improvement that we're glad to know that the extra investment put into the notebook does actually do its job.

 

Ports and Connectivity Options

MSI wastes no surface on the GT70 with ports or LED indicators on every edge. We'll let the photos do the talking with their respective captions:

Watch out for our updated article in a couple of days with full test results to see if this new Ivy Bridge based MSI gaming notebook can deliver the goods!

Performance Benchmarking

The GT70 boasts the most powerful next-gen mobile GPU currently available, NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 670M. While we're certain it will be superseded by even more powerful machines with even higher class GPUs, at the point of publishing this review, it is the most powerful gaming notebook that's readily available in this region. It's also using Intel's brand new third generation, Ivy Bridge Core i7-3610QM (quad-core 2.3GHz processor) and dual 60GB SSDs in a RAID 0 configuration that's augmented with a 750GB storage drive. While the SSD array is labelled as the OS drive, Windows 7 Home Premium only takes up about 15GB of drive space, leaving some spare room to install a couple of important large games. We wished there was more space (perhaps dual 90GB SSD units would be better), but for the purpose of our testing, we managed to install all of our benchmarks and games on the SSD array.

As mentioned earlier, MSI has included their Turbo Drive Engine technology on the GT70. In theory, this 'one-button overclock' will boost the performance of the machine to give it an extra edge over its competitors. To prevent overheating (especially when Turbo is on) there's also a Cooler Boost button, which ramps up fan speed. 

With such impressive specs, we had high hopes for the GT70, so we put it up against Dell's Alienware M17X R3, our current notebook performance champion, and Samsung's Series 7 700G7A, our Tech Awards 2012 Editor's Choice for Best 3D Gaming Notebook. Of course these comparison machines are based on last generation hardware like Sandy Bridge class processors and previous generation top-end GPUs, so we're really expecting our very first gaming-grade MSI GT70 notebook to trump them.

PCMark 7

The GT70 started off strong with a convincing win against both the M17X R3 and G700G7A in PCMark 7 thanks largely to its SSD drive configuration. Looking at the Productivity suite, which relies heavily on storage read/write speeds, and also the System Storage score, you can see how much of a boost the GT70's SSD drive gives it.

Looking at the Computation score, which is less reliant on system storage, and more taxing on the processor, we can see that the GT70's 2.3GHz Ivy Bridge processor shows slight performance gains against the older M17X R3's 2.5GHz Sandy Bridge processor.

Rather disappointingly, with Turbo Drive Engine enabled, the GT70's scores didn't turbocharge off the charts, limping to an underwhelming increase of less than 1% across the board.

3DMark 11

In 3DMark 11, the MSI notebook's GeForce GTX 670M discrete graphics module was very competitive with the Dell's GeForce GTX 580M - the top mobile GPU from last year. This only means a notebook with a 680M graphics processor will set new records for mobile gaming performance, but we're plenty happy with the 670M for now. With Turbo Drive Engine enabled, the 670M graphics engine caught up and was level on both Performance and Extreme presets. Even so, this was only a negligible 1% increase in performance from the GT70's base scores, which again was disappointing and, as a result, we've turned off Turbo Drive Engine for the rest of our benchmarks. 

As a side note, we had Cooler Boost turned on while Turbo Drive Engine was enabled and the sound emitted by the revved up fans was about on par with a hair dryer right next to you on full blast - definitely not an option for those wanting to be stealthy. 

For comparison's sake, we've also included a desktop graphics card with similar scores, AMD's Radeon HD 6790, so you can see how mobile GPUs compare against their desktop counterparts. Obviously, a full-sized desktop graphics card will always be more powerful than a same generation mobile unit, but essentially, a high-end mobile GPU today is roughly equivalent to the previous generation's mid-range desktop graphics card. For those interested to know how it stacks with a desktop NVIDIA counterpart, the GTX 670M is roughly on par with a desktop GTX 460.

Gaming Benchmarks
 

Far Cry 2

In our Far Cry 2 benchmark, the MSI GT70 was a little disappointing, failing to keep up with the Dell M17X R3. We were expecting the GeForce GTX 670M on the MSI machine to match-up with the previous generation GeForce GTX 580M. However, in terms of actual gameplay it was excellent, with average frame rates maintaining well above the 60FPS target on both Medium and Very High settings. Minimum FPS on Very High settings dipped down to 54FPS at its lowest (during a scene with multiple explosions), which was still very acceptable. 

Dirt 3

Moving on to a more taxing DX11 enabled game, the MSI GT70 was still underperforming against the Dell M17X R3, lagging behind by about 10% on High settings and 20% on Ultra settings. While there wasn't much difference at High settings between the two machines in terms of actual user experience, at Ultra settings, gameplay on the GT70 was noticeably more choppy, with frame rates falling as low as 24FPS in some areas.

Unfortunately the Samsung 700G7A was not available for either Dirt 3 or Crysis 2 game re-tests, but we the results so-far should give you an idea of where the GeForce GTX 670M in the MSI GT70 stands against the competitors.

Crysis 2

In our toughest gaming benchmark, the MSI GT70 was finally competitive with the Dell M17X R3, and actually slightly outperformed the Alienware on both presets. While gaming wasn't perfect, even at High (which is the lowest preset setting), it was playable, with frame rates mostly hovering around the high 50s. Both machines suffered during a highly explosive shootout, which resulted in FPS dropping to the mid 30s, hurting their overall average scores.

At Extreme, both machines struggled, dropping down to about 15FPS during the shootout. Despite holding a 7% performance lead on benchmark results, the GT70 was no better than the M17X R3 in actual gameplay.

Battery Performance

Gaming notebooks aren't exactly designed to be road warriors and the GT70 is no exception. At a hefty 3.9kg, only the most dedicated of LAN gamers will be carrying the GT70 out and about. However, if you do find yourself stuck without power, MSI has supplied the GT70 with a 9 cell, 11.1V 87Wh battery, which is pretty much comparable with the other notebooks put together for comparison in this review.

The days of sub one hour battery lives are long behind us with the GT70 lasting an impressive two and a half hours at half brightness/audio in our DVD looping battery test -over 30 minutes longer than the Dell M17X R3, and a full hour longer than the Samsung 700G7A. This substantial increase in battery life is definitely thanks to the GT70's Ivy Bridge processor, which has much lower power consumption compared to its Sandy Bridge predecessors. Additionally, the new generation high-end GeForce GTX 670 is also more power efficient than competitors from last year and no doubt contributed to the better battery life.

In our Power Consumption chart below, you can clearly see how much better the power consumption is on the GT70 compared to its competitors, both of which are using older Sandy Bridge processors and last generation GPUs.

Portability Index

Make no mistake, the MSI GT70 is not a small machine. At just under 4kg, and with an extra thick 55mm profile, you'll need an extra big backpack if you want to carry it around. While it's saved somewhat by its very good battery life, it still scores an index under 0.1 on our Portability Index which relegates it to near the bottom of the table along with the other gaming monsters. 

Compared to the Dell M17X R3 and the Samsung 700G7A (both of which are also big, heavy machines), the MSI GT70 may have ranked closer to the Samsung unit (thanks to its battery life), but its actual footprint is closer to the super-heavy M17X R3. 

Our recommendation? Leave this one at home on your desk where it belongs.

Game On

MSI has put together a great gaming machine in the GT70. It's got great specs with a fast Ivy Bridge Core i7 quad-core processor paired with a a fairly high-end NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670M GPU and a pair of dual 60GB SSDs in RAID 0 configuration. While it wasn't quite able to completely  topple our resident performance champ, the Dell Alienware M17X R3, remember that our fully specced out Alienware machine will set you back a cool S$4887, which is probably beyond what most gamers are willing to pay - and that's without Blu-ray or SSD. Last time we checked, adding those two extras will bump the price up to a ludicrous S$6518.85. The one thing that Dell had which the MSI GT70 didn't was a 3D screen, but it's not a must-have for many gamers yet.

At a far more reasonable S$3699, the MSI GT70 gives you almost everything the Alienware has to offer, plus a much better Steelseries keyboard, better audio with built-in subwoofer, and a Killer Gaming network card, making it a far more complete (and affordable) package.

While the MSI GT70 was on par with, or even better than the M17X R3 in our performance benchmarks, when it came to our gaming benchmarks, it was a bit underwhelming occasionally, losing - by as much as 20% in Dirt 3 on the Ultra High setting - in two out of three games. Turbo Drive Engine did provide a small boost to performance however, which may mean that there's some extra headroom to be squeezed out of the GT70 with the right tweaking.

On the whole, we were quite satisfied with the MSI GT70's overall performance, experience and usability, especially for it's price point. Though if we had to suggest a key area for improvement, we really hope the notebook could have been made slimmer and lighter. It's a tall order, but that's perhaps the next big leap to be made for gaming notebooks. Samsung's Series 7 700GA managed to pull that off last year and it still delivered comparable gaming performance to this new MSI GT70 notebook.

Of course, we haven't yet seen what Dell or the other gaming notebook manufacturers will do with their Ivy Bridge model updates, so it still remains to be seen how the MSI GT70 will fare compared to other Ivy Bridge gaming notebooks. For now, MSI is one of the earliest in this group of products and if you really need a powerful and up-to-date gaming notebook fast, you can't go wrong with it (if you don't mind its bulk).

Our articles may contain affiliate links. If you buy through these links, we may earn a small commission.