I'm surprised to see the temperature and cooling of this notebook. I thought all gaming notebooks with high-end GPUs had inadequate cooling, thus leads to high temps. Clearly, I'm wrong here.
Nah most high end gaming laptops like this, alienware, or clevos have pretty good cooling. Essentially you want a dedicated fan for the CPU and another one for the GPU (or two, in this case, for the two gpu's)
More important than dedicated fans is the actual layout and capacity of the heat pipes and heat sinks.
Also some of the cheaper/worst designs are ones that put the CPU and GPU on the same heat pipes, as this often leads to throttling when both components are running at full bore.
As an owner of an M18x R2 (i7 Extreme), and a few other notebooks, I can say that the shared-cooling solution is much better.
Some games are more GPU-heavy, some CPU-heavy, and that goes for other workloads too. Sharing the cooling across multiple devices may help you achieve better performance in the long run.
Out of interest, I will, at some point link up all three fans in my Alienware when time allows, but only when my warranty expires.
The heat and noise problem crops up when the laptop becomes smaller. 18.4" laptops should never have heat issues, unless the heatsinks are clogged with dust, because there is a lot more room to work with. 15.6" and below tends to have some problems, especially when the manufacturer skimps on costs.
There seems to be a general lack of reviews on that phone. ARS hasn't published one either, only a preview. It's a decent phone and the camera should call attention to it. Then again maybe the S6 overshadowed it with its awesome camera.
If I was interested in this type of machine and had the money, I would buy it for sure. The thing that kills me though is the boot drive as two SSDs in raid. Just throw in a 256GB SSD and be done with it. Well probably a 512GB for the money.
How difficult is it to source compatible MXM modules these days? I've seen laptops with upgradeable graphics in the past, but no compatible upgrades were released.
Everyone is obsessed with packaging now and you can get a smaller laptop if you forgo the MXM slot, you save a bit of cash too. Since almost no one needs the modules, few places sell them and they're absurdly expensive.
MSI will sell them to you through your reseller who can do the upgrade for you and keep your warranty. This is a special service for GT72 and GT80 users.
Wow that's a lot of GPU perf and a fast Broadwell chip too. Too bad there's no G-Sync, I'm not in the market for a "gaming" laptop, but I couldn't imagine spending that much on one today without G-Sync support.
I would also consider a G-Sync display to be mandatory at this point for any computer aimed at providing good gaming performance, however with a 60Hz display I do not feel like it's inclusion would have had much of an impact on the smoothness of gaming on the integrated monitor (I have owned a Asus ROG Swift 144Hz G-Sync display for about a year now and I could not see much of a benefit of G-Sync, even with Nvidia's own pendulum demo. 33ms is just too long to display a single frame for; the motion is going to be unnatural and jumpy even if the frames are presented in perfect sync with the monitor).
I would still have wanted the review to test the display's response time and input lag, but seeing as it is capped at 60Hz AND is not a TN panel, I suspect that MSI would not have been too happy with the numbers had they been posted.
That said, when it is used as a true desktop replacement, with an external monitor, the GT80 would probably be capable of producing a very nice gaming experience, as long as the mobile SLI implementation does not intorduce unwanted frame time variances.
Actually I like the fact that the touchpad is on the right side, and wonder why no manufacturer does this for a second. I realized afterward that this layout does not work (at all) for those left-handed.
Still, just like the article suggested, the user would go with a mouse anyway.
I'm right hand dominant, but I'm also ambidextrious because I cut my fingers off when I was younger, so I had to adapt.
But I feel bad for all the dominant lefty users out there, you guys always get the short end of the stick on quite the regular when it comes to the gaming market.
I would think having the trackpad on the right could be a benefit for left-handed users, since they could then have a mouse on the left side, and not have to move their hand so far. I dislike having a keypad on the right, and then having to put the mouse even further to the right. I used to have an IBM keyboard that allowed one to put the keypad on either side of the keyboard, so I would put it on the left. As someone who plays piano, I can type numbers well enough with my left hand. My current keyboard does not have a keypad at all.
I bought a logitech G5, and back then it was the first right-hand oriented mouse I ever bought. However, I had no issues with it, even being left handed. Turns out it is even better, because I use it at an angle that matches the space on the desk, and all those buttons for DPI changing end right below the other 4 fingers, not the thumb, which allows some stunts right handed folks can't pull. I end up using the middle finger very often on the main button, leaving one finger for right-clicking, adding insult to injury, so to speak. I still have that mouse.
I think I read at one point the CEO of Razer said that only 10% of left handers actually use the mouse in the left hand, and given that 10% of people are left handed that accounts for 1% of users. Depending on which market you're talking about, that's either good or bad. I think he also said that because of the design differences, they never sell enough left handed mice to make a proper profit and are glad if they break even on those designs.
Expensive. Powerful. No G-SYNC support? At that price point there is no excuse not to have G-SYNC. There is no excuse not to have G-SYNC or Freesync support in anything you put a "gaming" label on these days.
At that price, there is no point for it not to come with a Blowjob too if you ask me.
MVM upgrades aren't an answer to laptop longevity if you ask me. They are so absurdly expensive to source, I would much rather just but a new laptop and sell my old one.
Optimus bashing is sooo 4 years ago. As a GTX 680M owner for the past 2 years, my sole interaction with Optimus is having to create a few profiles (e.g. gzdoom). I have seen no such long session stability issues, I can even hibernate and resume with games open and continue. It's rock solid.
Just verifying, as I know a lot of laptops won't be able to. Then, it's entirely likely you could put that kind of GPU power to use.
As a side note, I have a 980 Ti powering a 55" 1080p TV. Too much power? Maybe. I do see over 80% GPU utilization running DSR and the image quality is so so good. I did buy it primarily for VR, otherwise I would've stuck with a GTX 980 or 970. Hence, my question.
I would get rid of RAID and just use one single 256GB SSD.
Then I'd get rid of SLI and just use one GTX965M GPU.
Then I'd drop the screen size down to 15".
Obviously power requirements would go down so you could use a smaller battery and PA. But if I could get everything else in this laptop, in my version of the laptop, for $1500 or less, I'd buy that.
I've been thinking along similar lines.. not only with this laptop but others as well. For me .. I like the roomie case/keyboard and larger screen which I am willing to pay a decent premium on but I'd be fine with a i5 CPU and a single 965..
Yeah.. very different machine. USG.. What I meant by my comment is you see a laptop and you like many things about it but you wish there were enhanced downgrade (..or for some upgrade) features to tailor it into something you'd buy.
I personally believe that these companies leave a shit-ton of money on the table by going the route they go... as most of us are not really in the market for a new item but could be enticed if it was more customizable.
uhhhh.... Clevo? Whitebook concept? They have been doing that for decades. Resellers do the customising. The last one I ordered was without RAM, O/S, HDD, Wifi card. Most often the comment from people who want a custom quote is "gee it's expensive" - duh, it's non-Chinese-peasant labour intensive.
What are you on about? That's a totally different machine lol, try their GE62 if you want a portable device. You can't really fit a mechanical keyboard in a 15" chassis so it may as well be 18".
That's not terrible, considering that a separate TKL mechanical keyboard weighs around 1.1kg.
I don't understand why you even bother complaining about the weight of something that has an 18.4" screen. It's not something you'd want to tote around everyday anyways. Clearly, if you wanted a light weight laptop, you would be looking at sub 1.2kg, 10" to 13" ultrabooks or convertibles anyways.
exactly I use mt m18x as a lan box and it is the most portable pc of all my friends and is faster than most too with 4.2ghz i7-2960xm and SLI GTX 780m.
Yeah well, but keyboards like that have a heavy base on purpose: To make it not move on the desk. Have you ever checked those on the inside (sometimes is obvious on the outside). They use a thick metal plate.
I would not want a 4K display, unless it had a controller that could do some great 200% and 50% scaling. I've never seen any monitor/panel do a proper scaling to make it look like a lower res screen.
Instead, every monitor/panel that I've seen tends to smudge, smear and distort the image being displayed, even though it's supposed to be a simple 1280x720 image being outputted to a 2560x1440 display. There should be no issues with artifacting and the sorts with that kind of direct scaling, and yet, every monitor that I have seen fails this.
As a comparison, if you tell your computer -an image program- to blow up an image to 200%, it'll do it with no distortions at all. Heck, you can even do 150% (3:2) and it'll still look better than what a monitor will do.
It seems to me that this thing cools really well. I'm not much of a laptop gamer, but the change to 16/14nm processes should be a huge improvement for laptop performance.
How can you play a game at "well over 60 fps" when laptop screens are limited to 60 fps? And if this screen can do more than 60 fps where does it say that and what's the limit?
Man imagine if they would of put a 120 or 144hz panel on this thing. That woulda just rly took it to another level considering it's easily hitting 120 fps+ on games.
I'm considering getting a Eurocom X8 for exactly that reason. It's ridiculous to give a laptop that much GPU power, only to cripple it with a 60Hz display.
"MSI includes a wrist rest in the box which mounts on the front."
Are there any pictures of said wrist rest being attached to the laptop?
I mean, I know it's an accessory and all, but if it's a laptop that comes with external accessories, it'd be nice to see the size of all accessories that come with the retail box the laptop came in.
For example, the power brick that came with the initial Xbox 360 was MASSIVE and that added a lot of bulk to the entire package, especially if you wanted to take it over to a friend's house.
I think the power numbers are quite misleading. Why don't you try doing what this laptop is built for and see how long the battery lasts? I didn't see any charts with battery life while actually using those two Titans. I'd wager you get 20 minutes of battery life before you need to plug in again.
Having had a string of DTR machines to my name, I can say that gaming tends around the 60 minute mark on battery.
The battery ends up being a UPS to most of the machines I've had, but the M18xR2 I have has HD4000 graphics, and I can run for hours using that, but annoyingly, it requires a reboot to activate, and thus gets little real world use.
Most gaming notebooks downclock on battery, too much current draw will overheat the battery. You just do not bother gaming on battery. The strength of this is that you're not tethered to your desk. Though... while not less hassle, it is probably a lot cheaper to just buy 2 desktops of similar power :o
Does this laptop use pci-e ssd's? I have a feeling it doesn't since the 2 gpu's will be eating up 16 pci-e lanes. We have to wait for skylake for the 4 extra pci-e lanes from the cpu before we can have sli graphics and pci-e ssd's.
Even so I am extremely impressed with this laptop. I truly hope MSI keeps this design going when skylake is released. If MSI releases this exact laptop with skylake and uses the extra pci-e lanes from skylake for pci-e ssd's I will be buying this to replace my m18x. Nothing beats a large 18 inch laptop for portable lan gaming. With this laptop since the keyboard is so nice you don't even need to pack a keyboard and monitor with you when you go. I currently have to carry a keyboard and 24 inch monitor with me as well as the notebook and mouse. With this design all I need is the notebook and mouse.
My wish is they keep this exact same design when skylake comes out and add the option of a XM overclockable skylake flagship mobile cpu so I can overclock it to a solid 4.3-4.5ghz similar to how i overclock the 2960xm to 4.2ghz in my alienware. And use the 4 extra pci-e lanes to make one of the m2 slots a pci-e 3.0 x4 slot and the other one a normal sata slot. If they make this simple tweak I will be buying on day 1.
would have preferred a physical numpad. What about cursor control? eh, trackpoint maybe? I'd expect an external mouse to be in use most of the time, and a trackpoint would be fine for backup
The article title is misleading. While this laptop can be equipped impressively it has several short comings as well. Over all the people that drop 3400$ (as tested or 3800$ max) on a gaming system get a much more powerful desktop than this laptop for same money. That is why I think the title is misleading. This is a niche product for a group of people that are willing to spend huge amounts of money to have the fastest of a specific thing.
The lack of a 2560x1440 screen or even better 3840x2160 screen at this price point is a real let down. Not having 2560x1440 as the base screen is a real missed chance.
The 128GB raided drives (raid 0) do offer 256GB of fast access storage but for the price point I would have preferred to see the raid be 500GB to 1TB SM951's with NVM support and the HDD just dropped. Another really big missed opportunity. Really big one.
Also totally insulting that highest end model provides only 24GB of memory yet support for 32GB exist. Again like the screen and SSD components you can really see where they are short changing you for the keyboard and SLI mobile graphics.
My experience with MSI is that there is always a clearly visible set of areas that they cut corners to give you some great thing(s) and base the price on those things vice building a truly well rounded device. It comes down to the price point for me. At over 3000$ for a laptop I expect certain things like 32GB ram. Large SSD storage only. 1440p+ screen when the system clearly has the power to push that level of resolution.
Overall not impressed by this MSI offering. I would by the GT72 first and have money left over for a steak dinner and some good booze.
PLEASE... can we have an end to the 'you could build a faster desktop for less' argument. It is not a desktop, it is a laptop. Some of cannot own desktops, due to frequent travel.
I really want one badly. I wish I could trade in my Lenovo Thinkpad W541 for one of these babies. I have always been looking for a competent gaming laptop that could play all games with a real keyboard. This is it right here :-D
sRBG setting shown in here with regard to msi gt72 dominator pro ...is it according to the newest model with ips screen(talking about msi gt72 dominator pro g-14 series)..or older with TN panel...??
Msi for the love of god can you please stop using killer nics technology. Their drivers are so terrible. On my gt70 if i switch in and out of airplane mode my Bluetooths funtionality is lost untill I uninstall the driver and reinstall it >.>
I find it amazing that a LAPTOP this powerful has such a better temperature handling compared to my iMac 5k. The iMac easily gets to 92 degrees CPU and can even reach 104 degrees GPU (on the M295X model).
Is it just the easiest way to up memory bandwidth in a more power-"sensitive" design? Hopefully I dont sound like the novice that I am but I'm trying to learn as much about electronics as possible.
I really wish there was a way to buy these and use it in a desktop system. This would be IDEAL in a passively cooled case (HDPLEX, etc) with a desktop top end Haswell or Broadwell CPU. HDPLEX just announced a passively cooled 300w power supply... Would love a ~3.8ghz quad core CPU and these two GPUs connected to a 1080p TV. Blow any xbox1/PS4 out of the water PLUS HTPC...
I registered just to say that the graphs in your systems reviews are meaningless. I have no idea how fast an Alienware 18 is, and while I can google it I have no idea what config you are using to make to graph. This is true for every review except single components. Laptops, nettops etc are hopeless to get anything from.
There's one thing i dislike about gaming laptops, and this is the reason i went back to a desktop. 1: U can't swap hardware in your very expensive PC (an issue thankfully adressed by MSI here) 2: They require good cooling, but for some stupid reason u always have to split the laptom into atome to get to the coolers and clean them, voiding warranty in doing so.
And for step 2, that's one thing i'd like to see included in the tests, how easy (if possible) is it to clean then cooling, that obviously need to be in pretty good conditon to move the amounts of heat generated by, especially gamer laptops. (maybe this will have the companies think about giving the customers an easy option to clean the cooling on laptops as this could be a good sellingpoint over a competitor that would charge 100$ for a cleanup)
1) is not an issue, you can swap HDD, SSD, RAM like on regular desktop. CPU + GPU on mobile gaming laptop usually are good enough to get you through 2-3 years and then you just get new laptop with new tech anyway.
All that said I prefer desktop too from simple price point. One can get the same performance on desktop for usually half price of gaming laptop.
You are entirely wrong. Proper gaming laptops allow you to customize and upgrade EVERYTHING, which includes CPU, GPU, ram, storage(s) and display panel. And I doubt any proper gaming laptop forbids you from tearing it down, they are no silly apple product for total noobs.
- Impressive temps for a dual gpu setup, nevermind the dimensions.
- The 1080p/60Hz screen may be great for battery life (compared to a 4K/60Hz screen, for example), but considering the graphic muscle, a 1080p/120Hz or 1440p/60Hz would be a more even compromise.
128GB (2x128 RAID0) for the system/App drive is just ridiculous in this day and age, where a lot of AAA titles can take up to ~50GB or more space. So that is 30GB for Windows + updates + temp folders, 20GB for apps and user files, and you are left with around 70 gigs for your games. They should have instead offered a choice between 1x512GB or 2x256GB RAID0.
After months of waiting to buy my GT80, I'm just totally devastated by the total lack of support from the manufacturer! Simple things seem to take forever to get a response, they don't seem to be dealing with Windows 10 in any sort of progressive manner, and the features of the computers are great, WHEN they work. Have problems with black screen for first 5 to 10 minutes of log-on, keypad/touchpad that doesn't work properly, and recommendations from the support department are to blow off the whole thing, and then reload everything piece by piece, so you will know when the 'bad' program is done. I've got a friend who works at Microsoft, and while he is in awe of the tech specs, he is equally appalled at the poor support and lack of knowledge. His opinion, which is now mine, is that 'you bought it, it's your problem!' sure seems to ring true.
I would give this whole company a DON"T BUY recommendation based on the bad experience I have had. They may have some great features, but when parts only work at times, that can't make up for the rest of the whole. Buy elsewhere, and don't inherit the problems that so many have talked about in so many posts!
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EzioAs - Friday, June 26, 2015 - link
I'm surprised to see the temperature and cooling of this notebook. I thought all gaming notebooks with high-end GPUs had inadequate cooling, thus leads to high temps. Clearly, I'm wrong here.Nice tongue twister on the intro btw.
Refuge - Friday, June 26, 2015 - link
I would hope with how much extra room they have over other things like the P35x that there wouldn't be heat issues.der - Friday, June 26, 2015 - link
20th comment!extide - Friday, June 26, 2015 - link
Nah most high end gaming laptops like this, alienware, or clevos have pretty good cooling. Essentially you want a dedicated fan for the CPU and another one for the GPU (or two, in this case, for the two gpu's)extide - Friday, June 26, 2015 - link
Although, this one cools the CPU with the 2 GPU fans, which should be fine, it's generally the GPU that you need to worry about overheating anyways.WinterCharm - Friday, June 26, 2015 - link
More important than dedicated fans is the actual layout and capacity of the heat pipes and heat sinks.Also some of the cheaper/worst designs are ones that put the CPU and GPU on the same heat pipes, as this often leads to throttling when both components are running at full bore.
extide - Friday, June 26, 2015 - link
Yeah, but those are ones where the cpu and gpu share a single small fan, this one shares the cpu across both gpu fans, which are suitably large.nerd1 - Saturday, July 4, 2015 - link
Very few applications taxes both CPU and GPU hard so shared heat pipes actually makes sense.Notmyusualid - Friday, June 26, 2015 - link
As an owner of an M18x R2 (i7 Extreme), and a few other notebooks, I can say that the shared-cooling solution is much better.Some games are more GPU-heavy, some CPU-heavy, and that goes for other workloads too. Sharing the cooling across multiple devices may help you achieve better performance in the long run.
Out of interest, I will, at some point link up all three fans in my Alienware when time allows, but only when my warranty expires.
WinterCharm - Friday, June 26, 2015 - link
A lot of better designed notebooks do not have cooling issues. Of course you pay a premium for them, but you get what you pay for in this case.meacupla - Friday, June 26, 2015 - link
The heat and noise problem crops up when the laptop becomes smaller. 18.4" laptops should never have heat issues, unless the heatsinks are clogged with dust, because there is a lot more room to work with. 15.6" and below tends to have some problems, especially when the manufacturer skimps on costs.Samus - Monday, June 29, 2015 - link
This isn't a Lenovo, so it cools fine.raikoh05 - Monday, June 29, 2015 - link
amazing what happens when laptops arnt trying to be thinLJ_sbek - Friday, June 26, 2015 - link
When do we see LG G4 review? Sorry to change topic. Its been a while.hansmuff - Friday, June 26, 2015 - link
There seems to be a general lack of reviews on that phone. ARS hasn't published one either, only a preview. It's a decent phone and the camera should call attention to it. Then again maybe the S6 overshadowed it with its awesome camera.Ian Cutress - Saturday, June 27, 2015 - link
Josh is working on it. You can ask him direct on Twitter (@JoshuaHo96); it's one of a few devices he's testing concurrently.LJ_sbek - Saturday, June 27, 2015 - link
Thank you.ingwe - Friday, June 26, 2015 - link
If I was interested in this type of machine and had the money, I would buy it for sure. The thing that kills me though is the boot drive as two SSDs in raid. Just throw in a 256GB SSD and be done with it. Well probably a 512GB for the money.leexgx - Sunday, June 28, 2015 - link
I agre just use a 256gb or 512gb ssd, raiding is pointless and can invite more problemsicebox - Friday, June 26, 2015 - link
Reminds me of the old 286 laptops I saw some many years ago: http://images56.fotki.com/v124/photos/1/1223041/54...Fun aside, that's a seriously cool laptop.
Notmyusualid - Saturday, June 27, 2015 - link
Funny, they didn't look anything alike to me. Try this: http://www.specsavers.co.uk/eye-health/eye-testGigaplex - Friday, June 26, 2015 - link
How difficult is it to source compatible MXM modules these days? I've seen laptops with upgradeable graphics in the past, but no compatible upgrades were released.Flunk - Friday, June 26, 2015 - link
Everyone is obsessed with packaging now and you can get a smaller laptop if you forgo the MXM slot, you save a bit of cash too. Since almost no one needs the modules, few places sell them and they're absurdly expensive.The only place I know for sure that sells them is Eurocom: http://www.eurocom.com/ec/vgas(1)ec
hyno111 - Friday, June 26, 2015 - link
Not very hard, but only if your laptop supports it, most laptops with upgradeable gpu only supports +1 gen gpu. And expect insane prices.extide - Friday, June 26, 2015 - link
You CAN get them, especially on Ebay and a few other sites but they are EXTREMELY expensive!Meaker10 - Friday, June 26, 2015 - link
MSI will sell them to you through your reseller who can do the upgrade for you and keep your warranty. This is a special service for GT72 and GT80 users.Notmyusualid - Saturday, June 27, 2015 - link
Source? Fleabay. I've bought a few over the years. And when 980M GTX price falls, I'll be buying a couple of those.Physical / electrical compatability? Here: http://www.mxm-upgrade.com/Tech_13.html
chizow - Friday, June 26, 2015 - link
Wow that's a lot of GPU perf and a fast Broadwell chip too. Too bad there's no G-Sync, I'm not in the market for a "gaming" laptop, but I couldn't imagine spending that much on one today without G-Sync support.ingwe - Friday, June 26, 2015 - link
Good point. If I was going to put out the money for this, I would definitely want G-Sync.Xenonite - Saturday, June 27, 2015 - link
I would also consider a G-Sync display to be mandatory at this point for any computer aimed at providing good gaming performance, however with a 60Hz display I do not feel like it's inclusion would have had much of an impact on the smoothness of gaming on the integrated monitor (I have owned a Asus ROG Swift 144Hz G-Sync display for about a year now and I could not see much of a benefit of G-Sync, even with Nvidia's own pendulum demo. 33ms is just too long to display a single frame for; the motion is going to be unnatural and jumpy even if the frames are presented in perfect sync with the monitor).I would still have wanted the review to test the display's response time and input lag, but seeing as it is capped at 60Hz AND is not a TN panel, I suspect that MSI would not have been too happy with the numbers had they been posted.
That said, when it is used as a true desktop replacement, with an external monitor, the GT80 would probably be capable of producing a very nice gaming experience, as long as the mobile SLI implementation does not intorduce unwanted frame time variances.
mr_tawan - Friday, June 26, 2015 - link
Actually I like the fact that the touchpad is on the right side, and wonder why no manufacturer does this for a second. I realized afterward that this layout does not work (at all) for those left-handed.Still, just like the article suggested, the user would go with a mouse anyway.
andrewd18 - Friday, June 26, 2015 - link
Many of us left-handed users have become accustomed to mousing with the right hand. I, for one, wouldn't mind the trackpad being on the right.Refuge - Friday, June 26, 2015 - link
I'm glad you have been able to adapt so well.I'm right hand dominant, but I'm also ambidextrious because I cut my fingers off when I was younger, so I had to adapt.
But I feel bad for all the dominant lefty users out there, you guys always get the short end of the stick on quite the regular when it comes to the gaming market.
DanNeely - Friday, June 26, 2015 - link
Razer Has been selling a few lefthanded mice for years. So much better than the ambidexterous mice I had to use before.Ktracho - Friday, June 26, 2015 - link
I would think having the trackpad on the right could be a benefit for left-handed users, since they could then have a mouse on the left side, and not have to move their hand so far. I dislike having a keypad on the right, and then having to put the mouse even further to the right. I used to have an IBM keyboard that allowed one to put the keypad on either side of the keyboard, so I would put it on the left. As someone who plays piano, I can type numbers well enough with my left hand. My current keyboard does not have a keypad at all.Gonemad - Tuesday, July 7, 2015 - link
I bought a logitech G5, and back then it was the first right-hand oriented mouse I ever bought. However, I had no issues with it, even being left handed. Turns out it is even better, because I use it at an angle that matches the space on the desk, and all those buttons for DPI changing end right below the other 4 fingers, not the thumb, which allows some stunts right handed folks can't pull. I end up using the middle finger very often on the main button, leaving one finger for right-clicking, adding insult to injury, so to speak.I still have that mouse.
Ian Cutress - Saturday, June 27, 2015 - link
I think I read at one point the CEO of Razer said that only 10% of left handers actually use the mouse in the left hand, and given that 10% of people are left handed that accounts for 1% of users. Depending on which market you're talking about, that's either good or bad. I think he also said that because of the design differences, they never sell enough left handed mice to make a proper profit and are glad if they break even on those designs.Zak - Friday, June 26, 2015 - link
Expensive. Powerful. No G-SYNC support? At that price point there is no excuse not to have G-SYNC. There is no excuse not to have G-SYNC or Freesync support in anything you put a "gaming" label on these days.Refuge - Friday, June 26, 2015 - link
At that price, there is no point for it not to come with a Blowjob too if you ask me.MVM upgrades aren't an answer to laptop longevity if you ask me. They are so absurdly expensive to source, I would much rather just but a new laptop and sell my old one.
sabrewings - Friday, June 26, 2015 - link
Very interesting bit of kit from an engineering standpoint. However, in the looks department it looks like a 90s laptop:https://cdn2.content.compendiumblog.com/uploads/us...
Not sure I would want to be seen with such a thing. And no, it doesn't make my desktop jealous. ;-)
Wolfpup - Friday, June 26, 2015 - link
Sweet. No Floptimus = mandatory (try actually playing games for hours on end and you'll start hitting stability issues with Optimus).Mechanical keyboard = awesome.
And easy to get in to...I'm not going to replace my main system yet, but this would be at the top of my list to check out.
bennyg - Sunday, June 28, 2015 - link
Optimus bashing is sooo 4 years ago. As a GTX 680M owner for the past 2 years, my sole interaction with Optimus is having to create a few profiles (e.g. gzdoom). I have seen no such long session stability issues, I can even hibernate and resume with games open and continue. It's rock solid.Tunnah - Friday, June 26, 2015 - link
You could buy a high end rig, AND a 4K monitor for this sort of money. Putting that much GPU power for a 1080p screen seems...wastefulmasouth - Friday, June 26, 2015 - link
"Putting that much GPU power for a 1080p screen..."You do realize that you are not limited to using only the built in screen on the majority of laptops, right?
2 x Mini DisplayPort v1.2
HDMI 1.4
sabrewings - Friday, June 26, 2015 - link
But will it VR?BMNify - Friday, June 26, 2015 - link
why not? VR will work fine, the fact that this laptop has no optimus makes it an ideal laptop for Occulus Rift.sabrewings - Friday, June 26, 2015 - link
Just verifying, as I know a lot of laptops won't be able to. Then, it's entirely likely you could put that kind of GPU power to use.As a side note, I have a 980 Ti powering a 55" 1080p TV. Too much power? Maybe. I do see over 80% GPU utilization running DSR and the image quality is so so good. I did buy it primarily for VR, otherwise I would've stuck with a GTX 980 or 970. Hence, my question.
Gigaplex - Sunday, June 28, 2015 - link
At which point you're better off with a SFF desktop.Hrel - Friday, June 26, 2015 - link
I would get rid of RAID and just use one single 256GB SSD.Then I'd get rid of SLI and just use one GTX965M GPU.
Then I'd drop the screen size down to 15".
Obviously power requirements would go down so you could use a smaller battery and PA. But if I could get everything else in this laptop, in my version of the laptop, for $1500 or less, I'd buy that.
just4U - Friday, June 26, 2015 - link
I've been thinking along similar lines.. not only with this laptop but others as well. For me .. I like the roomie case/keyboard and larger screen which I am willing to pay a decent premium on but I'd be fine with a i5 CPU and a single 965..USGroup1 - Saturday, June 27, 2015 - link
Gigabyte P55K v4just4U - Sunday, June 28, 2015 - link
Yeah.. very different machine. USG.. What I meant by my comment is you see a laptop and you like many things about it but you wish there were enhanced downgrade (..or for some upgrade) features to tailor it into something you'd buy.I personally believe that these companies leave a shit-ton of money on the table by going the route they go... as most of us are not really in the market for a new item but could be enticed if it was more customizable.
bennyg - Sunday, June 28, 2015 - link
uhhhh.... Clevo? Whitebook concept? They have been doing that for decades. Resellers do the customising. The last one I ordered was without RAM, O/S, HDD, Wifi card. Most often the comment from people who want a custom quote is "gee it's expensive" - duh, it's non-Chinese-peasant labour intensive.Meaker10 - Saturday, June 27, 2015 - link
What are you on about? That's a totally different machine lol, try their GE62 if you want a portable device. You can't really fit a mechanical keyboard in a 15" chassis so it may as well be 18".bernstein - Friday, June 26, 2015 - link
4.5kg. ugh.meacupla - Friday, June 26, 2015 - link
That's not terrible, considering that a separate TKL mechanical keyboard weighs around 1.1kg.I don't understand why you even bother complaining about the weight of something that has an 18.4" screen. It's not something you'd want to tote around everyday anyways. Clearly, if you wanted a light weight laptop, you would be looking at sub 1.2kg, 10" to 13" ultrabooks or convertibles anyways.
sabrewings - Friday, June 26, 2015 - link
It'd be best not to think of this as a laptop. It's more like a LANbox with its own power supply and flip up display. :)Laststop311 - Friday, June 26, 2015 - link
exactly I use mt m18x as a lan box and it is the most portable pc of all my friends and is faster than most too with 4.2ghz i7-2960xm and SLI GTX 780m.Notmyusualid - Saturday, June 27, 2015 - link
And, as I'm sure you will know, those 2960XMs have been seen doing 5GHz too...Beaver M. - Saturday, July 4, 2015 - link
Yeah well, but keyboards like that have a heavy base on purpose: To make it not move on the desk.Have you ever checked those on the inside (sometimes is obvious on the outside). They use a thick metal plate.
Notmyusualid - Saturday, June 27, 2015 - link
Well, may I ask, what are you expecting?I believe my M18x is 5.4kg.
I carry it all over the world. And I do mean that.
vladx - Friday, June 26, 2015 - link
So why not offer a 4K display option? I'm sure a dual 980M can run games on high-very high even in 4K.BMNify - Friday, June 26, 2015 - link
Because there is no one selling 4k panels for 17/18 inch laptops, so all large gaming laptops have to stick with 1080p for now.Notmyusualid - Saturday, June 27, 2015 - link
Argeed.And I'm not changing my M18x R2, until another panel at 18.4", with a resoultion of at least 1440p comes along. Preferably at 120Hz too.
The first manufacturer to tout such a screen (and with QUALITY too), is going to have a feeding frenzy on their hands from the enthusiast community.
meacupla - Friday, June 26, 2015 - link
I would not want a 4K display, unless it had a controller that could do some great 200% and 50% scaling. I've never seen any monitor/panel do a proper scaling to make it look like a lower res screen.Instead, every monitor/panel that I've seen tends to smudge, smear and distort the image being displayed, even though it's supposed to be a simple 1280x720 image being outputted to a 2560x1440 display. There should be no issues with artifacting and the sorts with that kind of direct scaling, and yet, every monitor that I have seen fails this.
As a comparison, if you tell your computer -an image program- to blow up an image to 200%, it'll do it with no distortions at all. Heck, you can even do 150% (3:2) and it'll still look better than what a monitor will do.
ViperV990 - Friday, June 26, 2015 - link
A laptop like this could really benefit for an "ezel" type hinge. Ever better if it could telescope.TallestJon96 - Friday, June 26, 2015 - link
It seems to me that this thing cools really well. I'm not much of a laptop gamer, but the change to 16/14nm processes should be a huge improvement for laptop performance.sulu1977 - Friday, June 26, 2015 - link
How can you play a game at "well over 60 fps" when laptop screens are limited to 60 fps? And if this screen can do more than 60 fps where does it say that and what's the limit?Meaker10 - Friday, June 26, 2015 - link
You can overclock the panel.Meaker10 - Friday, June 26, 2015 - link
Also some of the G-Sync displays that launched are 75hz as standard. Plus you can hook it up to external displays.Laststop311 - Friday, June 26, 2015 - link
Man imagine if they would of put a 120 or 144hz panel on this thing. That woulda just rly took it to another level considering it's easily hitting 120 fps+ on games.dali71 - Saturday, June 27, 2015 - link
I'm considering getting a Eurocom X8 for exactly that reason. It's ridiculous to give a laptop that much GPU power, only to cripple it with a 60Hz display.meacupla - Friday, June 26, 2015 - link
"MSI includes a wrist rest in the box which mounts on the front."Are there any pictures of said wrist rest being attached to the laptop?
I mean, I know it's an accessory and all, but if it's a laptop that comes with external accessories, it'd be nice to see the size of all accessories that come with the retail box the laptop came in.
For example, the power brick that came with the initial Xbox 360 was MASSIVE and that added a lot of bulk to the entire package, especially if you wanted to take it over to a friend's house.
JKflipflop98 - Friday, June 26, 2015 - link
I think the power numbers are quite misleading. Why don't you try doing what this laptop is built for and see how long the battery lasts? I didn't see any charts with battery life while actually using those two Titans. I'd wager you get 20 minutes of battery life before you need to plug in again.Notmyusualid - Saturday, June 27, 2015 - link
Having had a string of DTR machines to my name, I can say that gaming tends around the 60 minute mark on battery.The battery ends up being a UPS to most of the machines I've had, but the M18xR2 I have has HD4000 graphics, and I can run for hours using that, but annoyingly, it requires a reboot to activate, and thus gets little real world use.
bennyg - Sunday, June 28, 2015 - link
Most gaming notebooks downclock on battery, too much current draw will overheat the battery. You just do not bother gaming on battery. The strength of this is that you're not tethered to your desk. Though... while not less hassle, it is probably a lot cheaper to just buy 2 desktops of similar power :oSirGCal - Friday, June 26, 2015 - link
If this had G-Sync to the monitor and an M2 PCIe slot for faster still performance storage, I'd buy it in a second... So close though!Laststop311 - Friday, June 26, 2015 - link
Does this laptop use pci-e ssd's? I have a feeling it doesn't since the 2 gpu's will be eating up 16 pci-e lanes. We have to wait for skylake for the 4 extra pci-e lanes from the cpu before we can have sli graphics and pci-e ssd's.Even so I am extremely impressed with this laptop. I truly hope MSI keeps this design going when skylake is released. If MSI releases this exact laptop with skylake and uses the extra pci-e lanes from skylake for pci-e ssd's I will be buying this to replace my m18x. Nothing beats a large 18 inch laptop for portable lan gaming. With this laptop since the keyboard is so nice you don't even need to pack a keyboard and monitor with you when you go. I currently have to carry a keyboard and 24 inch monitor with me as well as the notebook and mouse. With this design all I need is the notebook and mouse.
My wish is they keep this exact same design when skylake comes out and add the option of a XM overclockable skylake flagship mobile cpu so I can overclock it to a solid 4.3-4.5ghz similar to how i overclock the 2960xm to 4.2ghz in my alienware. And use the 4 extra pci-e lanes to make one of the m2 slots a pci-e 3.0 x4 slot and the other one a normal sata slot. If they make this simple tweak I will be buying on day 1.
dominiqueovalle - Saturday, June 27, 2015 - link
when will the anandtech review for the 1080p razer blade come out? if everMamiyaOtaru - Saturday, June 27, 2015 - link
would have preferred a physical numpad. What about cursor control? eh, trackpoint maybe? I'd expect an external mouse to be in use most of the time, and a trackpoint would be fine for backupdrzzz - Saturday, June 27, 2015 - link
The article title is misleading. While this laptop can be equipped impressively it has several short comings as well. Over all the people that drop 3400$ (as tested or 3800$ max) on a gaming system get a much more powerful desktop than this laptop for same money. That is why I think the title is misleading. This is a niche product for a group of people that are willing to spend huge amounts of money to have the fastest of a specific thing.The lack of a 2560x1440 screen or even better 3840x2160 screen at this price point is a real let down. Not having 2560x1440 as the base screen is a real missed chance.
The 128GB raided drives (raid 0) do offer 256GB of fast access storage but for the price point I would have preferred to see the raid be 500GB to 1TB SM951's with NVM support and the HDD just dropped. Another really big missed opportunity. Really big one.
Also totally insulting that highest end model provides only 24GB of memory yet support for 32GB exist. Again like the screen and SSD components you can really see where they are short changing you for the keyboard and SLI mobile graphics.
My experience with MSI is that there is always a clearly visible set of areas that they cut corners to give you some great thing(s) and base the price on those things vice building a truly well rounded device. It comes down to the price point for me. At over 3000$ for a laptop I expect certain things like 32GB ram. Large SSD storage only. 1440p+ screen when the system clearly has the power to push that level of resolution.
Overall not impressed by this MSI offering. I would by the GT72 first and have money left over for a steak dinner and some good booze.
Notmyusualid - Wednesday, July 1, 2015 - link
PLEASE... can we have an end to the 'you could build a faster desktop for less' argument. It is not a desktop, it is a laptop. Some of cannot own desktops, due to frequent travel.mlambert890 - Monday, August 24, 2015 - link
Large laptop panels above 1080p dont exist. Period. No one is making them.So what should they do? Not release it at all? Sorry but no.
People always find things to nitpick but the screen issue is NOT something an OEM can control.
PulloDimo - Saturday, June 27, 2015 - link
I really want one badly. I wish I could trade in my Lenovo Thinkpad W541 for one of these babies. I have always been looking for a competent gaming laptop that could play all games with a real keyboard. This is it right here :-DAllanMoore - Saturday, June 27, 2015 - link
Cinebench results are quite impressive! http://picoolio.net/image/Tnwgeek005 - Saturday, June 27, 2015 - link
sRBG setting shown in here with regard to msi gt72 dominator pro ...is it according to the newest model with ips screen(talking about msi gt72 dominator pro g-14 series)..or older with TN panel...??siberus - Saturday, June 27, 2015 - link
Msi for the love of god can you please stop using killer nics technology. Their drivers are so terrible.On my gt70 if i switch in and out of airplane mode my Bluetooths funtionality is lost untill I uninstall the driver and reinstall it >.>
Notmyusualid - Saturday, June 27, 2015 - link
Worry no longer my friend.I've written to them, and got little help, and no resoultion from them whatsoever, with my Killer issues.
The solution is, given that their hardware is always other manufacturers, is to find the original wireless-chip type, and install the driver for that.
For example;
Killer 1103, 3x3 mimo card, is MADE-BY Atheros, and the original chip is an AR9380.
Link: https://www.atheros.cz/atheros-wireless-download.p...
Using the Atheros driver, all is well. However, I got so fed up, I changed both machines with Killer 1103s to Intel 6300, and 5300.
odedia - Saturday, June 27, 2015 - link
I find it amazing that a LAPTOP this powerful has such a better temperature handling compared to my iMac 5k. The iMac easily gets to 92 degrees CPU and can even reach 104 degrees GPU (on the M295X model).DanNeely - Saturday, June 27, 2015 - link
Thats because your iPride is optimized to look thin not for sustained performance.hotsacoman - Saturday, June 27, 2015 - link
How do I win this bad boy? I'd take it out for a sweet lobster dinner, after which I'd definitely upgrade its ram and OC its GPU.SunnyNW - Saturday, June 27, 2015 - link
Might be a noob question...but can someone PLEASE tell me why they use So much More vram in the mobile gpus? tySunnyNW - Sunday, June 28, 2015 - link
Is it just the easiest way to up memory bandwidth in a more power-"sensitive" design? Hopefully I dont sound like the novice that I am but I'm trying to learn as much about electronics as possible.Acarney - Saturday, June 27, 2015 - link
I really wish there was a way to buy these and use it in a desktop system. This would be IDEAL in a passively cooled case (HDPLEX, etc) with a desktop top end Haswell or Broadwell CPU. HDPLEX just announced a passively cooled 300w power supply... Would love a ~3.8ghz quad core CPU and these two GPUs connected to a 1080p TV. Blow any xbox1/PS4 out of the water PLUS HTPC...meathim - Monday, June 29, 2015 - link
I registered just to say that the graphs in your systems reviews are meaningless. I have no idea how fast an Alienware 18 is, and while I can google it I have no idea what config you are using to make to graph. This is true for every review except single components. Laptops, nettops etc are hopeless to get anything from.Sn3akr - Monday, June 29, 2015 - link
There's one thing i dislike about gaming laptops, and this is the reason i went back to a desktop.1: U can't swap hardware in your very expensive PC (an issue thankfully adressed by MSI here)
2: They require good cooling, but for some stupid reason u always have to split the laptom into atome to get to the coolers and clean them, voiding warranty in doing so.
And for step 2, that's one thing i'd like to see included in the tests, how easy (if possible) is it to clean then cooling, that obviously need to be in pretty good conditon to move the amounts of heat generated by, especially gamer laptops. (maybe this will have the companies think about giving the customers an easy option to clean the cooling on laptops as this could be a good sellingpoint over a competitor that would charge 100$ for a cleanup)
milkod2001 - Monday, June 29, 2015 - link
1) is not an issue, you can swap HDD, SSD, RAM like on regular desktop. CPU + GPU on mobile gaming laptop usually are good enough to get you through 2-3 years and then you just get new laptop with new tech anyway.All that said I prefer desktop too from simple price point. One can get the same performance on desktop for usually half price of gaming laptop.
Love the keyboard position on reviewed laptop.
nerd1 - Saturday, July 4, 2015 - link
You are entirely wrong. Proper gaming laptops allow you to customize and upgrade EVERYTHING, which includes CPU, GPU, ram, storage(s) and display panel. And I doubt any proper gaming laptop forbids you from tearing it down, they are no silly apple product for total noobs.Gonemad - Monday, June 29, 2015 - link
As soon I win the lottery, I'm buying one of these. It outclasses my old desktop as it is.prophet001 - Thursday, July 2, 2015 - link
Any notice of microstutter on this machine?n13L5 - Wednesday, July 15, 2015 - link
I'd rather carry around my Sugo SG08 case and buy a 40" TV to hook it up to at the destination if there isn't one on the wall already.Makes me think of Bishop in Alien II, sitting outside somewhere trying to remote control the second drop ship on some humungous looking laptop...
D. Lister - Thursday, July 23, 2015 - link
- Impressive temps for a dual gpu setup, nevermind the dimensions.- The 1080p/60Hz screen may be great for battery life (compared to a 4K/60Hz screen, for example), but considering the graphic muscle, a 1080p/120Hz or 1440p/60Hz would be a more even compromise.
128GB (2x128 RAID0) for the system/App drive is just ridiculous in this day and age, where a lot of AAA titles can take up to ~50GB or more space. So that is 30GB for Windows + updates + temp folders, 20GB for apps and user files, and you are left with around 70 gigs for your games. They should have instead offered a choice between 1x512GB or 2x256GB RAID0.
nukenight - Thursday, December 3, 2015 - link
After months of waiting to buy my GT80, I'm just totally devastated by the total lack of support from the manufacturer! Simple things seem to take forever to get a response, they don't seem to be dealing with Windows 10 in any sort of progressive manner, and the features of the computers are great, WHEN they work. Have problems with black screen for first 5 to 10 minutes of log-on, keypad/touchpad that doesn't work properly, and recommendations from the support department are to blow off the whole thing, and then reload everything piece by piece, so you will know when the 'bad' program is done. I've got a friend who works at Microsoft, and while he is in awe of the tech specs, he is equally appalled at the poor support and lack of knowledge. His opinion, which is now mine, is that 'you bought it, it's your problem!' sure seems to ring true.I would give this whole company a DON"T BUY recommendation based on the bad experience I have had. They may have some great features, but when parts only work at times, that can't make up for the rest of the whole. Buy elsewhere, and don't inherit the problems that so many have talked about in so many posts!