I can confirm when I got my Battalion-m1771, that the Nvidia card was set to run everything, it is indicated by the power button glowing white when the Nvidia card is not being used, and red/orange when it is.
I also wondered why battery was so bad when I got mine, but I fixed the problem, and yesterday got about 4-5 hours of moderate usage, low screen brightness wifi on.
Yes but you can't really compare a backbreaking 4.2kg asus gaming laptop to a featherweight 2.5kg msi gaming laptop that honestly should have fallen under the ultrabook category with almost high-end gaming specs.
I have one and have been playing Batman games and Skyrim at highest detail and it plays great. Mind you I've not played a pc games in years before hand. But size, power and resolution, I have nothing to complain about.
I've had the MSI version of this notebook for two months and for the most part couldn't be happier.
That battery life does seem somewhat short of what I'm able to achieve. Is it possible you were stuck on the 765M while you were doing the battery life calculations? The power button should be amber when on the nVidia chip, and white when on the integrated Intel chip.
On the Intel chip I can get about 4 hours if i lower the brightness a bit and just do light web browsing.
The gtx 765m should consume about the same as the i7 yet the cpu is 30º hotter with similar heatsinks. Intel sould also focus on increasing heat transfer efficiency from the cpu to the heatsink, its practically impossible to have the cpu under 80º nowadays, since in reality the heatsink needs to be around 50s
Why does that matter? The CPU is designed for 105 C -- and will (via Turbo) attempt to get itself there. If you're overclocking I can see some point but in a notebook you're not doing that.
That's pretty misleading - the chip will only stop turboing if it goes above 105 C. It won't raise clock speeds until it reaches 105 C. It should never, in normal usage, reach 105 C...
The thing is the fan and heatsunk could be much smaller or make much less noise to keep the cpu at the same temperature and thus we could have much powerfull laptop half the size.
You might not overclock your laptop, but some of use do. I've got my GPU overclocked 295Mhz/1600Mhz .. and the CPU underclocked to bring the temperatures to a reasonable level. Sometimes unified cooling is helpful, but not often.
Dustin touched on that in the article. I think that it has a lot to do with heat density. The 765 is physically a larger chip (more transistors and larger process node) and it !makes sense.
You guys just glossed over the noise levels of the cooling system under gaming load. Could you elaborate more on what "a good citizen" means as far as noise levels? Noise of the cooling system while gaming is my #1 concern as there is no shortage of 765M or 770M (gigabyte p25w) systems to choose from.
Is it just me or is the keyboard tiny? There's a lot of extra room around around the chassis I don't see why they had to squish the keys into such a small area.
Wish they'd make a viable alternative to the blade 14 that fixes the screen. I'd be all over it. 17 is just too big for me to carry around with a work laptop.
As far as I'm aware the GE40 with 1080p screen comes with a decent panel, should be the same as the p34g (which was great according to the preview here). At least, this is what I based my purchase decision on. (the p34g isn't available in the Netherlands yet, also they seem to have a bending issue, not sure if thats fixed yet).
The ge40 is about 30% thicker than the blade. If they can make a laptop that's thinner than the blade pro I'd think they could make one closer to the thickness of a blade but with a better screen.
Why does this and the Razer Blade cost so much. I look at the Y410p and it offers a i7-4700MQ, 1600*900 display, 8GB RAM, 2GB Nvidia 755m, and a 1TB Hard Drive for $769
The 765 is a substantially faster chip, thus both more expensive and requiring better cooling. Also Msi seems to charge more for the 17", the ge40 is basically the same but quite a bit cheaper.
I think calling this a competitor to the Razer Blade is a surprisingly inaccurate, questionable statement coming from Anandtech -- How many people looking for a thin, light 14" gaming laptop are going to even CONSIDER 17", 6lb machines, let alone actually purchase one?
This machine would be FAR better if it was 14" with a 1600x900 screen(which is also nicely within the performance envelope of the 765M -- 1080p is not). The razer blade is good machine because it is weight and (almost) battery life competitive with a 15" Macbook Pro, with superior gaming performance.
The GS70 is inferior in terms of weight, portability, and battery life. It's not even in the same class as the Razer Blade, let alone competitive, in any key metric for a "thin, light" machine except price...
If you're considering the ge40, do yourself a favour and get the 1080p screen. Though 900p fits the 760m better, the difference in screen is supposed to be dramatic.
He's calling it a competitor to the blade *PRO*, which is also 17". Both are thin and for the screensize light. Whether that's thin, light & portable enough is subjective, of course. I've considered it, but it was just outside of my budget.
No. Except for anything they buy out of pocket or what is donated to create testbeds its mostly loaners so that the manufacture can get a half dozen reviews out of a single piece of hardware.
It depends on the review item, publication and company/region. Typically expensive items like notebooks and smartphones have to be sent back but I've only had to send back two or three SSDs and that's because I've dealt with companies' European offices (they have more limited marketing budgets).
Will we we ever get a review on the W230ST? Its probably my favorite piece of hardware ever, coming from my NP8150 to that has been an amazing move. It saddens me that Clevo resellers arent as popular as they ought to be.
I seem to recall all the reviews saying it sounded like a jet engine during gameplay. One of these days we'll get a nice thin and like gaming laptop (4-6 lb depending on size) .. I think the 14" around 4-4.5 and 15-17 maxing around 5.75-6lb are good spots..
You're pointing lack of 802.11ac connectivity and it sounds pretty logical considering today's WiFi development. But what surprise me the most that Anandtech has so far not taken proper focus on the widespread issues (some even say about law suit) regarding the most common 802.11ac solution in the form of Intel AC 7260 (specially if utilized under Windows 8.1). It is now several months with this unsolved problem where signal and connection drop-outs are making customers furious and disappointed with Intel's lack of proper action. Personally I own MS-1757 (MSI GT70) with the mentioned WiFi card and I have unfortunately joined huge group of unhappy users (66 sides of posts on Intel's forum speaks for itself) regardless that entire machine pleases me a lot.. Ananadtech always was (and still is) my favorite source of IT info, pointing pitilessly bugs, design flaws and "scams" but I just don't understand why is so little attention here on this subject where its negative impact on WiFi experience is so obvious.
Why dont you check for throttling issues when you review laptop gaming? 1 hour of gaming with fraps running to check is a must if you want to review a gaming notebook.
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xTRICKYxx - Monday, December 30, 2013 - link
Is NVIDIA Optimus disabled? The battery life seems unusually bad.InvderSkoodge - Monday, January 6, 2014 - link
I can confirm when I got my Battalion-m1771, that the Nvidia card was set to run everything, it is indicated by the power button glowing white when the Nvidia card is not being used, and red/orange when it is.I also wondered why battery was so bad when I got mine, but I fixed the problem, and yesterday got about 4-5 hours of moderate usage, low screen brightness wifi on.
lukedaly - Thursday, October 9, 2014 - link
It can be fixed. But either way, for a gaming laptop it stands no chance to ASUS ROG G750JM-DS71. /Luke from http://www.consumertop.com/best-laptop-guide/IMMrLame - Monday, November 24, 2014 - link
Yes but you can't really compare a backbreaking 4.2kg asus gaming laptop to a featherweight 2.5kg msi gaming laptop that honestly should have fallen under the ultrabook category with almost high-end gaming specs.skiboysteve - Monday, December 30, 2013 - link
Xps 15 review in the pipeline?SavingPvtBryan - Monday, December 30, 2013 - link
Seriously, are they ever going to review the Dell XPS 15?Try-Catch-Me - Tuesday, December 31, 2013 - link
Also the 2013 rMBP. It's been way too long. These two devices seem to be very similar, so I want an in-depth comparison.nportelli - Tuesday, December 31, 2013 - link
I have one and have been playing Batman games and Skyrim at highest detail and it plays great. Mind you I've not played a pc games in years before hand. But size, power and resolution, I have nothing to complain about.jwetmore - Monday, December 30, 2013 - link
I've had the MSI version of this notebook for two months and for the most part couldn't be happier.That battery life does seem somewhat short of what I'm able to achieve. Is it possible you were stuck on the 765M while you were doing the battery life calculations? The power button should be amber when on the nVidia chip, and white when on the integrated Intel chip.
On the Intel chip I can get about 4 hours if i lower the brightness a bit and just do light web browsing.
nunomoreira10 - Monday, December 30, 2013 - link
The gtx 765m should consume about the same as the i7 yet the cpu is 30º hotter with similar heatsinks.Intel sould also focus on increasing heat transfer efficiency from the cpu to the heatsink, its practically impossible to have the cpu under 80º nowadays, since in reality the heatsink needs to be around 50s
BillyONeal - Monday, December 30, 2013 - link
Why does that matter? The CPU is designed for 105 C -- and will (via Turbo) attempt to get itself there. If you're overclocking I can see some point but in a notebook you're not doing that.Egg - Monday, December 30, 2013 - link
That's pretty misleading - the chip will only stop turboing if it goes above 105 C. It won't raise clock speeds until it reaches 105 C. It should never, in normal usage, reach 105 C...nunomoreira10 - Monday, December 30, 2013 - link
The thing is the fan and heatsunk could be much smaller or make much less noise to keep the cpu at the same temperature and thus we could have much powerfull laptop half the size.Flunk - Monday, December 30, 2013 - link
You might not overclock your laptop, but some of use do. I've got my GPU overclocked 295Mhz/1600Mhz .. and the CPU underclocked to bring the temperatures to a reasonable level. Sometimes unified cooling is helpful, but not often.erple2 - Tuesday, December 31, 2013 - link
Dustin touched on that in the article. I think that it has a lot to do with heat density. The 765 is physically a larger chip (more transistors and larger process node) and it !makes sense.Egg - Monday, December 30, 2013 - link
Did you run into the issue where Chrome says that it's conflicting with one of the Killer Networks dlls?hfm - Monday, December 30, 2013 - link
You guys just glossed over the noise levels of the cooling system under gaming load. Could you elaborate more on what "a good citizen" means as far as noise levels? Noise of the cooling system while gaming is my #1 concern as there is no shortage of 765M or 770M (gigabyte p25w) systems to choose from.nevertell - Monday, December 30, 2013 - link
This is not the review I was looking for.blzd - Monday, December 30, 2013 - link
Is it just me or is the keyboard tiny? There's a lot of extra room around around the chassis I don't see why they had to squish the keys into such a small area.Connoisseur - Tuesday, December 31, 2013 - link
Wish they'd make a viable alternative to the blade 14 that fixes the screen. I'd be all over it. 17 is just too big for me to carry around with a work laptop.Mil0 - Tuesday, December 31, 2013 - link
As far as I'm aware the GE40 with 1080p screen comes with a decent panel, should be the same as the p34g (which was great according to the preview here). At least, this is what I based my purchase decision on. (the p34g isn't available in the Netherlands yet, also they seem to have a bending issue, not sure if thats fixed yet).Connoisseur - Wednesday, January 1, 2014 - link
The ge40 is about 30% thicker than the blade. If they can make a laptop that's thinner than the blade pro I'd think they could make one closer to the thickness of a blade but with a better screen.Mayuyu - Tuesday, December 31, 2013 - link
Why does this and the Razer Blade cost so much. I look at the Y410p and it offers a i7-4700MQ, 1600*900 display, 8GB RAM, 2GB Nvidia 755m, and a 1TB Hard Drive for $769Where is all that extra money going to?
Meaker10 - Tuesday, December 31, 2013 - link
Screen, chasis, graphics, ssd, heatsink.Mil0 - Tuesday, December 31, 2013 - link
The 765 is a substantially faster chip, thus both more expensive and requiring better cooling. Also Msi seems to charge more for the 17", the ge40 is basically the same but quite a bit cheaper.Sancus - Tuesday, December 31, 2013 - link
I think calling this a competitor to the Razer Blade is a surprisingly inaccurate, questionable statement coming from Anandtech -- How many people looking for a thin, light 14" gaming laptop are going to even CONSIDER 17", 6lb machines, let alone actually purchase one?This machine would be FAR better if it was 14" with a 1600x900 screen(which is also nicely within the performance envelope of the 765M -- 1080p is not). The razer blade is good machine because it is weight and (almost) battery life competitive with a 15" Macbook Pro, with superior gaming performance.
The GS70 is inferior in terms of weight, portability, and battery life. It's not even in the same class as the Razer Blade, let alone competitive, in any key metric for a "thin, light" machine except price...
TheinsanegamerN - Tuesday, December 31, 2013 - link
you know, there is a 14 inch 1600x900 laptop from msi. the GE40. its got the 760m, but they are the same chip, the 760m is just clocked slower.Mil0 - Tuesday, December 31, 2013 - link
If you're considering the ge40, do yourself a favour and get the 1080p screen. Though 900p fits the 760m better, the difference in screen is supposed to be dramatic.Mil0 - Tuesday, December 31, 2013 - link
He's calling it a competitor to the blade *PRO*, which is also 17". Both are thin and for the screensize light. Whether that's thin, light & portable enough is subjective, of course. I've considered it, but it was just outside of my budget.jigglywiggly - Tuesday, December 31, 2013 - link
you have to send it back? don't reviewers normally keep the hardware they are sent?DanNeely - Tuesday, December 31, 2013 - link
No. Except for anything they buy out of pocket or what is donated to create testbeds its mostly loaners so that the manufacture can get a half dozen reviews out of a single piece of hardware.Kristian Vättö - Wednesday, January 1, 2014 - link
It depends on the review item, publication and company/region. Typically expensive items like notebooks and smartphones have to be sent back but I've only had to send back two or three SSDs and that's because I've dealt with companies' European offices (they have more limited marketing budgets).johnxfire - Wednesday, January 1, 2014 - link
Will we we ever get a review on the W230ST? Its probably my favorite piece of hardware ever, coming from my NP8150 to that has been an amazing move. It saddens me that Clevo resellers arent as popular as they ought to be.hfm - Thursday, January 2, 2014 - link
I seem to recall all the reviews saying it sounded like a jet engine during gameplay. One of these days we'll get a nice thin and like gaming laptop (4-6 lb depending on size) .. I think the 14" around 4-4.5 and 15-17 maxing around 5.75-6lb are good spots..hfm - Thursday, January 2, 2014 - link
I meant to say something these sizes and weight that don't sound like they are about to take off during gaming..Hubszo - Thursday, January 9, 2014 - link
You're pointing lack of 802.11ac connectivity and it sounds pretty logical considering today's WiFi development. But what surprise me the most that Anandtech has so far not taken proper focus on the widespread issues (some even say about law suit) regarding the most common 802.11ac solution in the form of Intel AC 7260 (specially if utilized under Windows 8.1). It is now several months with this unsolved problem where signal and connection drop-outs are making customers furious and disappointed with Intel's lack of proper action. Personally I own MS-1757 (MSI GT70) with the mentioned WiFi card and I have unfortunately joined huge group of unhappy users (66 sides of posts on Intel's forum speaks for itself) regardless that entire machine pleases me a lot..Ananadtech always was (and still is) my favorite source of IT info, pointing pitilessly bugs, design flaws and "scams" but I just don't understand why is so little attention here on this subject where its negative impact on WiFi experience is so obvious.
Innokentij - Tuesday, January 14, 2014 - link
Why dont you check for throttling issues when you review laptop gaming? 1 hour of gaming with fraps running to check is a must if you want to review a gaming notebook.