MSI GE40-2OC Dragon Eyes Laptop Review (i7-4702MQ/GTX760M)

The Windows Experience Index isn't the most indepth tool, but it is useful for pointing out any particular weaknesses with a specific system.

The MSI GE40-2OC is being held back by the Hard drive and the graphics performance, although we are fairly sure that this tool is directly accessing the integrated Intel HD4600 graphics and not the GTX760M.

MSI have installed Windows 8 on this particular machine.

The MSI GE40-2OC system install isn't as clean as some others we have reviewed in recent months such as the PC Specialist Inferno. MSI have decided to clutter this machine with various software packages, including Norton's Internet Security, PC Checkup and others.There was a time when I actually didn't mind Norton software but in recent years it is demanding a lot of resources.

The worst aspect of this install was the PC Checkup section of the install. This program would pop up stupid alerts bottom right of the screen.

For instance?

When we were running CrystalDiskMark on the internal hard drive it popped up with an alert saying that an application was utilising a lot of hard drive time. CrystalDiskMark then crashed mid test and it would not let me cancel the test. I attempted a restart and the GE40 hardlocked.

I ended up deinstalling the Norton software it as it was interfering with the review process and made me really dislike working with the MSI GE40-2OC. MSI lose half a point for all this useless trialware – gamers do not want this software forced upon them out of the box.


An overview of the system in CPUz and GPUz. The Core i7 4702MQ is a powerful solution … a quad core processor with hyperthreading (4+4) which can turbo up to 3.2ghz. As we mentioned earlier in the review, we were dismayed to see that MSI have used a single 8GB SO-DIMM in this machine, meaning memory is not running in dual channel, but single channel. This will negatively impact performance with some tasks.

You can get validation of the system over here.

It is worth pointing out that some of the systems below use Windows 7 – so there will be minor variables between Windows 7 and Windows 8. That said, in offline testing we have found Windows 7 and Windows 8 to report very similar results.

Comparison Systems (for specific synthetic test compares):
PCSpecialist Inferno 11.6 inch (Intel Core i7 3630QM)
MSI GX60 (AMD A10 4600M)
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon (featuring Core i5 3427U)
Lenovo ThinkPad Edge S430 (featuring Core i5 3210M)
PC Specialist Vortex III HD72 (featuring Core i7 3610QM).
Asus G74SX-91013Z (featuring Core i7 2360QM).
Dell XPS 14z (featuring Core i7 2640M).
AlienWare M18X (featuring Core i7 2960XM Extreme Edition).
MSI CX640 (featuring Core i5 2410M).
Intel Core i7 2600k desktop processor.
Intel Core i5 2500k desktop processor.

Software:
3DMark
3DMark 11
PCMark 7
Cinebench 11.5 64 bit
FRAPS Professional
Unigine Heaven Benchmark
Unigine Valley
SiSoft Sandra
CrystalDiskMark
ATTO Disk Benchmark
Cyberlink PowerDVD Ultra 12
Cyberlink MediaEspresso
GRID 2
Metro Last Light
Tomb Raider (2013)

Technical Monitoring and Test Equipment:
Asus USB BluRay Drive
Lacie 730 Monitor (Image Quality testing)
Thermal Diodes
Raytek Laser Temp Gun 3i LSRC/MT4 Mini Temp
Extech digital sound level meter & SkyTronic DSL 2 Digital Sound Level Meter
Nikon D3X with R1C1 Kit (4 flashes), Nikon 24-70MM lens.

Game descriptions are taken with courtesy from Wikipedia.

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