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Today we take a look at the new 15.6 inch MSI GE62 2QD (Apache) laptop. Featuring a metallic chassis comprised of traditional aluminum and Mg-Li alloy MSI claim it is 44% stiffer and 23% lighter than a traditional design. The GE62 2QD features an Intel Core i7 4720HQ processor, Solid State Drive, Nvidia GTX960M graphics and wide angle panel. Is this a good buy for £1,100?
This newest model eschews the last gen Nvidia GTX860M, focusing on the new low power GTX960M, a capable discrete solution we analysed recently in our Razer Blade Pro 2015 review.
MSI are clearly targeting a much broader audience than Razer, as the GE62 2QD is less than half the price of the Blade pro 2015 – featuring the same i7 4720HQ and GTX960M pairing.
Speakers are developed by partner DynAudio – a company normally associated in the high end audiophile sector. MSI are focusing on the inclusion of ‘Nahimic Sound Technology'. This offers ‘immersive 7.1 sound capabilities in high definition using exclusive stereo equipment.'
Other benefits of the Nahimic Sound Technology include:
- Virtual Surround: Total immersion in the game: 360° sound that puts you right in the heart of the action.
- Voice Leveller: Realism: highlighting even the smallest sounds and providing incomparable clarity of dialogue.
- Bass Boost: Gaming intensity: increased bass, giving you incredibly high-powered sound.
- Noise Gate & Reduction: Microphone communication quality: constant volume and noise reduction for optimum voice clarity and comprehension.
Product Specification:
- Display: 15.6″ 1920*1080 FHD, Anti-Glare, Wide Viewing Angle
- Processor Type: Intel Core i7 4720HQ
- Processor Cores: 4 (8 Threads)
- Processor Clock Speed: 2.50GHz (3.50GHz Turbo Mode)
- Hard Drive Size: 1000GB (7,200 rpm)
- Solid State Drive: 128GB SSD (M.2 SATA)
- Memory Supplied: 1 x 8GB
- Memory Size: 8GB 1600mhz DDR3
- Operating System: Windows 8.1
- Graphics Chipset: 1x Nvidia GTX960M
- Microphone: Built-in
- Keyboard: Full Colour Backlight Mechanical SteelSeries Keyboard
- LAN: 10/100/1000Mbps Killer GB LAN
- Wireless: 802.11 b/g/n/ AC
- Bluetooth: v4.0
- USB 3.0 Port(s): 3
- USB 2.0 Port(s): 1
- HDMI Ports: 1x (1.4) Support 4Kx2K Output
- Mini Display Port(s): 1x Support FHD 120Hz, 4K 60Hz
- Microphone Jack(s): 1
- Headphone Jack(s): 1
- LAN Port(s): 1
- Web Camera: HD type
- Battery: 6 Cell Li-Ion
- Product Weight (g): ~2.4Kg (With Battery)
- Warranty: 2 Years Collect and Return
The MSI GE62 2QD ships in a slim line brown box with company branding visible. Inside is a full colour box, featuring the famous MSI Dragon logo.
The laptop and accompanying accessories are neatly packed into compartments.
MSI include plenty of literature inside, most of which we imagine the audience will ‘store for future reference'.
A smallish power adapter is included, featuring the ‘Chicony' brand name. This is rated 12.5V, 6.15A, 120W. It is obviously universal, dealing with a range of 100V – 240V.
The laptop itself ships protected inside a thin felt bag.
The MSI GE62 2QD is an attractive laptop measuring 383 mm x 260 mm x 27mm (WxHxD). The MSI logo features on the front of the lid, as shown above.
There are plenty of cooling vents underneath the chassis to help with air flow.
The FHD display is quite beautiful and renders small text extremely well. There is a fine matte coating on the screen which enables viewing in some tricky situations. Edge to edge consistency is excellent. In my opinion a 1080p resolution is ideal for a 15 inch laptop. I measured contrast at 530:1 which is excellent.
Viewing angles are fantastic and some of the best we have seen in the last year. This is an IPS panel, not TN, which was a surprise considering the somewhat modest pricing point.
We analysed the refresh rate, and it returned a result of 6ms. Ideal for all but the most demanding of gamers.
The keyboard on the GE62 is more enjoyable to use than the one installed in the Razer Blade 2015 and Razer Blade 2015 Pro. The travel is a little greater and as such the response is much improved. I am not a fan of the single height return key, but this is personal taste rather than a fault.
I am not a huge fan of the big sticker on the far right of the machine – I do wish more PC manufacturers would copy Apple in this regard. I already know the hardware specification, I don't need a constant reminder.
When powered on, the keyboard glows and looks great in dimly lit conditions. Unlike the Razer Blade however, the keyboard does not glow until the Windows software client is running. This is a little disappointing, if a minor point.
Onboard audio is perfectly fine, but I couldn't help but feel a little disappointed. Good headphones or speakers are advised to get the most from the GE62 2QD.
Nothing along the front of the laptop, and along the back are two large exhaust vents – this is where all the hot air is exhausted from inside the machine. We like the subtle red racing style stripe.
The left side of the laptop has a headphone and microphone jack, three USB 3.0 ports, Mini DisplayPort, HDMI, and a GB Lan port. There is a location at the rear for a Kensington lock. The right side of the laptop has a USB 2.0 port (ideal for a mouse), an optical drive, card reader slot and power connector port.
The trackpad is very good, with two physical buttons running along the full length of the bottom edge. A mouse is obviously preferred, but in a pinch, it is certainly serviceable.
Along the top are three buttons, one for full/auto fan mode, Steelseries, and power on/off.
The MSI GE62 2QD scores well in regards to build quality. The hinges for example are substantial and will certainly withstand a lot of rough handling. We like the fact that the screen doesn't shake at all during use – a problem with lesser designs.
The above image shows the screen fully extended. Its around 150 degrees.
On this page we present some high resolution images of the product taken in our professional studio. These will take much longer to open due to the dimensions, especially on slower connections. If you use these pictures on another site or publication, please credit Kitguru.net as the owner/source.
The MSI GE62 2QD ‘out of the box' install isn't too bad, although it could be better. Norton Internet Security (trial version) and Online Backup should never be installed on any system automatically, and I admit I removed it before testing the laptop due to invasive and annoying popups.
This is pretty much an identical configuration to the Razer Blade Pro 2015 we tested a few weeks ago (although the MSI only has 8GB of memory, not 16GB). The Intel Core i7 4720HQ is a great processor and the GTX960M is capable of delivering some good performance results at 1080p.
The only negative with this configuration is the single channel memory configuration. Two 4GB memory sticks would have been a better option than a single 8GB stick. Single channel memory won't make much of a difference for gaming, but it may do for more serious bandwidth intensive tasks, such as video encoding and 3D rendering.
Comparison Mobile Systems (for specific synthetic test compares):
MSI GT80 Titan (i7 4980HQ)
Razer Blade Pro (2015) (i7 4720HQ)
Razer Blade 14 Inch (2015) (i7 4720HQ)
MSI GS60 Ghost Pro 3K 2QE (i7 4710HQ)
MSI GT72 2PE Dominator Pro (072UK)
MSI GS60 2PE Ghost Pro 15.6 inch (Intel I7-4700HQ).
MSI GT70 2OC (Intel Core i7 4700MQ).
MSI GS70 2OD Stealth (Intel Core i7 4700HQ).
MSI GE40-20C Dragon Eyes (Intel Core i7 4702MQ).
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.
Comparison Desktop System (for gaming tests).
Detailed specifications over HERE.
Asus GTX980 ROG Matrix Platinum (1,241 mhz core / 1,753mhz memory)
Asus R9 290 Direct CU II OC (1000 mhz core / 1,260 mhz memory)
Gigabyte GTX770 OC (1,137mhz core / 1,753 mhz memory)
Sapphire Dual X R9 285 (965 mhz core / 1,400 mhz memory)
XFX R9 280X DD (1,000 mhz core / 1,500 mhz memory)
Asus Direct CU II GTX 760 OC (1,006mhz core / 1,502mhz memory)
Asus GTX750TI Strix OC Edition (1,124mhz core / 1,350mhz memory)
Software:
3DMark 11
3DMark
Cinebench R11.5 64 bit
Cinebench R15 64 bit
FRAPS Professional
Unigine Heaven Benchmark
Unigine Valley
SiSoft Sandra
CrystalDiskMark
ATTO Disk Benchmark
Cyberlink PowerDVD Ultra 12
Cyberlink MediaEspresso
Games:
Grid Autosport
Tomb Raider
Metro Last Light Redux
Rome Total War: Emperor Edition
Grand Theft Auto 5.
All the latest BIOS updates and drivers are used during testing. We perform generally under real world conditions, meaning KitGuru tests games across five closely matched runs and then average out the results to get an accurate median figure. If we use scripted benchmarks, they are mentioned on the relevant page.
Game descriptions edited with courtesy from Wikipedia.SiSoftware Sandra (the System ANalyser, Diagnostic and Reporting Assistant) is an information & diagnostic utility. It should provide most of the information (including undocumented) you need to know about your hardware, software and other devices whether hardware or software.
Sandra is a (girl’s) name of Greek origin that means “defender”, “helper of mankind”. We think that’s quite fitting.
It works along the lines of other Windows utilities, however it tries to go beyond them and show you more of what’s really going on. Giving the user the ability to draw comparisons at both a high and low-level. You can get information about the CPU, chipset, video adapter, ports, printers, sound card, memory, network, Windows internals, AGP, PCI, PCI-X, PCIe (PCI Express), database, USB, USB2, 1394/Firewire, etc.
Native ports for all major operating systems are available:
- Windows XP, 2003/R2, Vista, 7, 2008/R2 (x86)
- Windows XP, 2003/R2, Vista, 7, 2008/R2 (x64)
- Windows 2003/R2, 2008/R2* (IA64)
- Windows Mobile 5.x (ARM CE 5.01)
- Windows Mobile 6.x (ARM CE 5.02)
All major technologies are supported and taken advantage of:
- SMP – Multi-Processor
- MC – Multi-Core
- SMT/HT – Hyper-Threading
- MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, SSE 4.1, SSE 4.2, AVX, FMA – Multi-Media instructions
- GPGPU, DirectX, OpenGL – Graphics
- NUMA – Non-Uniform Memory Access
- AMD64/EM64T/x64 – 64-bit extensions to x86
- IA64 – Intel* Itanium 64-bit
The single channel memory in the MSI GE62 2QD negatively impacts performance in these synthetic benchmarks, although the Core i7 processor is certainly not lacking in grunt.
CINEBENCH R11.5 64 Bit is a real-world cross platform test suite that evaluates your computer’s performance capabilities. CINEBENCH is based on MAXON’s award-winning animation software CINEMA 4D, which is used extensively by studios and production houses worldwide for 3D content creation. MAXON software has been used in blockbuster movies such as Spider-Man, Star Wars, The Chronicles of Narnia and many more. CINEBENCH is the perfect tool to compare CPU and graphics performance across various systems and platforms (Windows and Mac OS X). And best of all: It’s completely free.
Performance is much as we would expect from the i7 4720HQ. The single channel memory configuration does impact performance a little.
CINEBENCH 15 is a cross-platform testing suite that measures hardware performance and is the de facto standard benchmarking tool for leading companies and trade journals for conducting real-world hardware performance tests. With the new Release 15, systems with up to 256 threads can be tested. CINEBENCH is available for both Windows and OS X and is used by almost all hardware manufacturers and trade journals for comparing CPUs and graphics cards.
Solid performance results, but as we have noticed earlier in the review, the single channel memory does reduce overall scores a little.
3DMark 11 is designed for testing DirectX 11 hardware running on Windows 7 and Windows Vista the benchmark includes six all new benchmark tests that make extensive use of all the new features in DirectX 11 including tessellation, compute shaders and multi-threading.
After running the tests 3DMark gives your system a score with larger numbers indicating better performance. Trusted by gamers worldwide to give accurate and unbiased results, 3DMark 11 is the best way to test DirectX 11 under game-like loads.
If you want to learn more about this benchmark, or to buy it yourself, head over to this page.
Performance from the GTX960M is decent, scoring around the 5,400 mark. 1080p is within its reach.3DMark is an essential tool used by millions of gamers, hundreds of hardware review sites and many of the world’s leading manufacturers to measure PC gaming performance.Futuremark say “Use it to test your PC’s limits and measure the impact of overclocking and tweaking your system. Search our massive results database and see how your PC compares or just admire the graphics and wonder why all PC games don’t look this good.To get more out of your PC, put 3DMark in your PC.”
Very similar overall performance to the desktop Asus GTX750Ti Strix OC. Perfectly acceptable for 1080p gaming.
We test both Kingston SSD and mechanical HDD with a variety of applications so we can see the potential performance available.
CrystalDiskMark highlights strong performance from the Kingston drive, hitting peaks of close to 500 MB/s in the sequential read test. Write performance is a little lower, but perfectly acceptable. MSI have included a fast 7,200 rpm hard drive in the MSI GE62 2QD, and it scores around the 150MB/s mark in both sequential read and write tests.
ATTO highlights excellent performance characteristics from the Solid State drive, hitting 550 MB/s read and 500 MB/s write.
We used AS SSD as a final test on the Kingston Solid State drive. The final score of 751 points is healthy.To test USB 3.0 performance we need a drive that is capable of completely saturating the bus. Until recently we used the Corsair Voyager GTX drive, one of the fastest pen drives on the market. We have recently switched to using a 500GB Brinell Drive, available on Amazon for around £250 inc vat. Inside is a 500GB SAMSUNG EVO 840 SSD, a product all our readers are familiar with.
We have not reviewed this product, but it is one of the fastest external SSD products you can buy, and is self powered from the USB 3.0 port.
This is pretty much as good a result as we have recorded from this drive. Interestingly, we found that the front most USB 3.0 port on the left of the MSI GE62 2QD failed to deliver enough power to the drive. It wouldn't mount. Other drives worked fine in this port.
Read performance hit peaks of around 460 MB/s, at the limits of the USB3.0 interface (after overheads).
CyberLink MediaEspresso 6 is the successor to CyberLink MediaShow Espresso 5.5. With its further optimized CPU/GPU-acceleration, MediaEspresso is an even faster way to convert not only your video but also your music and image files between a wide range of popular formats.
Now you can easily playback and display your favourite movies, songs and photos not just on your mobile phone, iPad, PSP, Xbox, or Youtube and Facebook channels but also on the newly launched iPhone 4. Compile, convert and enjoy images and songs on any of your computing devices and enhance your videos with CyberLink’s built-in TrueTheater Technology.
New and Improved Features:
- Ultra Fast Media Conversion – With support from the Intel Core i-Series processor family, ATI Stream & NVIDIA CUDA, MediaEspresso’s Batch-Conversion function enables multiple files to be transcoded simultaneously.
- Smart Detect Technology – MediaEspresso 6 automatically detects the type of portable device connected to the PC and selects the best multimedia profile to begin the conversion without the need for user’s intervention.
- Direct Sync to Portable Devices – Video, audio and image files can be transferred in a few easy steps to mobile phones including those from Acer, BlackBerry, HTC, Samsung, LG, Nokia, Motorola, Sony Ericsson, and Palm, as well as Sony Walkman and PSP devices.
- Enhanced Video Quality – CyberLink TrueTheater Denoise and Lighting enables the enhancement of video quality through optical noise filters and automatic brightness adjustment.
- Video, Music and Image File Conversion – Convert not only videos to popular formats such as AVI, MPEG, MKV, H.264/AVC, and FLV at the click of a button, but also images such as JPEG and PNG and music files like WMA, MP3 and M4A.
- Online Sharing – Conversion to video formats used by popular social networking websites and a direct upload feature means posting videos to Facebook and YouTube has never been easier.
For our testing today we are converting a 3.3GB 720p MKV file (2h:12mins) to Apple Mp4 format for playback on a portable device. This is a common procedure for many people and will give a good indication of system power. We are using the newest version of MediaEspresso.
Hardware acceleration is enabled.
All systems are built around a Core i7 4720HQ processor and the results are quite different. Part of the impact will be due to the fact that MSI have installed a single 8 GB DDR3 memory stick in single channel mode, whereas both Razer machines are configured with dual channel memory (8GB x 2).
Tomb Raider received much acclaim from critics, who praised the graphics, the gameplay and Camilla Luddington’s performance as Lara with many critics agreeing that the game is a solid and much needed reboot of the franchise. Much criticism went to the addition of the multiplayer which many felt was unnecessary. Tomb Raider went on to sell one million copies in forty-eight hours of its release, and has sold 3.4 million copies worldwide so far. (Wikipedia).
We test at the native 1080p resolution of the panel with ULTRA image quality settings enabled.
Performance at 1080p is very good, holding a 51 average frame rate – this is perfectly playable. This game is also playable at ULTIMATE image quality settings too on the MSI GE62 2QD, although the engine frame rate drops below 30 a couple of times, which may annoy some gamers.
Grid Autosport (styled as GRID Autosport) is a racing video game by Codemasters and is the sequel to 2008′s Race Driver: Grid and 2013′s Grid 2. The game was released for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 on June 24, 2014. (Wikipedia).
We test at the native 1080p resolution of the panel, with the highest image quality settings and with 8x Anti Aliasing enabled.
No problems powering the engine, although those wanting to hold a constant 60 frame rate would need to disable anti aliasing completely and probably reduce the image quality settings a little too.
On May 22, 2014, a Redux version of Metro Last Light was announced. It was released on August 26, 2014 in North America and August 29, 2014 in Europe for the PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. Redux adds all the DLC and graphical improvements. A compilation package, titled Metro Redux, was released at the same time which includes Last Light and 2033. (Wikipedia). We test with following settings at 1920×1080: quality medium, SSAA on, 16AF, Tessellation NORMAL, VSYNC off and Advanced PhysX off.
These are very good results, especially considering the fact that SSAA is enabled. I would consider this playable, but some people may prefer to reduce the image quality settings further to improve the minimum frame rate.Total War: ROME II Emperor Edition. Emperor Edition collects together all free content to date, which includes wide-ranging revisions, additions to game features and adds a brand new Campaign Pack expansion, ‘Imperator Augustus’. We test the game at 3200×1800 with the image quality settings at both ‘ULTRA’ and ‘VERY HIGH’.
We test at 1920×1080 with the ULTRA image quality setting profile enabled.
The ULTRA profile is particularly demanding, however the GTX960M handles the task well, holding frame rates above 25 at all times.Grand Theft Auto V was some time coming for the PC, but it was worth the wait. The PC version features full 4K support with enhanced textures and a plethora of image quality settings to suit almost every system on the market. At the highest image quality settings at 4K, you will want a couple of Titan X graphics cards, but scale it down, and lesser solutions will deliver a playable experience. Rockstar have produced one of the finest PC games of all time.
GTAV has a lot of settings to play with. You will want to keep your eye on the GPU memory demand.
For the most part the engine is running between 30 and 40 frames per second, with one or two minor drops to 27-29fps. I would consider these image quality settings playable – but adjustment could be made to improve frame rate further, with a subsequent loss of image quality.
The tests were performed in a controlled air conditioned room with temperatures maintained at a constant 23c – a comfortable environment for the majority of people reading this.Idle temperatures were measured after sitting at the desktop for 30 minutes. Load measurements were acquired by playing Tomb Raider for 30 minutes and measuring the peak temperature. All fan settings were left on automatic.
The MSI GE62 2QD doesn't suffer from thermal throttling and generally it runs reasonably cool. The processor peaks at around 84c, although this was after a 100% load test for some time – not a situation you would find yourself in often, unless you are performing intensive 3D rendering duties on the move.
To test the real world impact of heat I looped 3DMark and measured temperatures on the keyboard of the laptop with our Fluke Visual IR Thermometer/Infrared Thermal Camera. This is a real world running environment.
Details on each test are shown below. (To compare, head to THIS page to see thermal testing of the Razer Blade 14 (2015).
The hot spots are in the central areas of the keyboard, the outer areas hold steady between 28c and 31c.
Peak temperatures in the central keyboard area peak around 41c. There are two exhaust vents at the rear of the laptop which expel hot air out and backwards. The thermal image above shows a little escaped heat along the bottom of the screen area.We measure from a distance of around 1 meter from the closed chassis and 4 foot from the ground to mirror a real world situation. Ambient noise in the room measures close to the limits of our sound meter at 28dBa.
Why do this? Well this means we can eliminate secondary noise pollution in the test room and concentrate on only the video card. It also brings us slightly closer to industry standards, such as DIN 45635.
KitGuru noise guide
10dBA – Normal Breathing/Rustling Leaves
20-25dBA – Whisper
30dBA – High Quality Computer fan
40dBA – A Bubbling Brook, or a Refrigerator
50dBA – Normal Conversation
60dBA – Laughter
70dBA – Vacuum Cleaner or Hairdryer
80dBA – City Traffic or a Garbage Disposal
90dBA – Motorcycle or Lawnmower
100dBA – MP3 player at maximum output
110dBA – Orchestra
120dBA – Front row rock concert/Jet Engine
130dBA – Threshold of Pain
140dBA – Military Jet takeoff/Gunshot (close range)
160dBA – Instant Perforation of eardrum
The dual fan system is very capable, and it never has to spin that high to keep the system cool. The choice of GTX960M helps the situation, as the GTX970M requires more adequate cooling.To test today, we are putting the machine through a variety of ‘real world’ situations, mirroring the real world usage of a potential customer.
One as a media movie lover on the move (wearing headphones), a person wanting to watch high definition media on a train journey or bus with screen brightness two notches from maximum.
Second as a businessman, with screen brightness around half way. Wireless was enabled. A mixture of checking, answering emails using Microsoft Office and editing pictures in Adobe Photoshop.
Lastly as a gamer, playing Tomb Raider until the machine turned itself off.
Battery Life is actually very good. Under reasonably light, normal work loads, the system last 5 hours and 30 minutes. Watching HD movies reduces battery life to around 3 hours and 30 minutes, a fair result.
It has been a very active year for MSI so far – they have been releasing a steady stream of award winning laptops, including the mighty GT80 Titan which despite the hefty price tag is still sold out in many countries. UK punters will be pleased to hear that GT80 stocks have recently reached Overclockers UK and Scan.
The MSI GE62 2QD (Apache) targets a more modest audience. The gamer who demands portability, but enough grunt to tackle the latest game engines at 1080p. The combination of Core i7 4720HQ and GTX960M has proven successful in our testing over recent weeks, and many of the latest game engines run perfectly fine at 1920×1080. Even Grand Theft Auto V is playable, as long as you keep the engine at more realistic image quality settings.
The GE62 2QD is a fine looking laptop – we like the beveled lid design accented with red racing strip. It is light enough (2.4kg) to carry with you all the time, and it is small enough to use effectively on a train or plane.
The Steelseries keyboard is a stand out point for me. It is one of the better designs we have tested in recent years with reasonably deep key travel. The keyboard will suit not only gamers, but fast touch typists who thrive on feedback through their fingers. I was able to hold a constant 120wpm typing rate using this keyboard. MSI have also managed to cram in a numpad on the right, which earns them a little bonus point.
Another stand out point is the 15.6 inch IPS screen. The light matt finish and super wide viewing angles mean it is a pleasure to use in a variety of situations. Colour rendition is first class, photographs are beautifully saturated and text is clean and crisp.
The touchpad is decent, although not at the same level as the keyboard. Ideally we wouldn't want to use any touchpad more than a few minutes at a time, but in a pinch, this one is perfectly serviceable.
Onboard audio is a little disappointing, especially with DynAudio speakers incorporated into the laptop, but i am constantly disappointed with the speakers fitted into a laptop anyway – realistically there is only so much they can do. Headphones or external speakers are recommended for the full media and gaming experience.
Battery life is surprisingly good, and we managed to squeeze 5 and a half hours out of the system under lighter loads, before the system shut down. With a little care and attention to the screen brightness settings 5+ hours is easy enough.
The MSI GE62 2QD doesn't disappoint when dealing with more intensive tasks such as 3D rendering and video editing … well with a minor caveat. The use of a single 8GB memory stick means that people can easily upgrade the system without having to bin the installed memory, but it does negatively impact performance in key areas, as a single channel configuration is somewhat bandwidth restricted. I think MSI should have kitted this laptop out with either 2x4GB sticks, or offered 16GB of memory (2x8GB) with a very minor price increase.
Some of our readers have been quick to dismiss the GTX960M as a worthless solution, but I couldn't disagree more. Certainly, the GTX970M is beefier, but if you want to lower the cost by a couple of hundred pounds and reduce heat, and subsequent fan noise – then the GTX960M is perfectly capable – especially at 1080p. I have been testing many laptops recently featuring this modest Nvidia solution and it has constantly impressed me. It actually performs at a similar level to the desktop Maxwell GTX750ti.
You can buy this configuration of MSI GE62 2QD direct from Overclockers UK for £1,149,95 inc vat.
Discuss on our Facebook page HERE.
Pros:
- GTX960M is very capable at 1080p.
- runs cool under load.
- Responsive at all times, thanks to Intel i7 processor and fast SSD.
- reasonable fan emissions.
- fantastic backlit keyboard.
- lovely IPS screen.
- solid battery life.
Cons:
- single channel memory.
- frontmost USB 3.0 port failed to power our custom external Samsung SSD.
KitGuru says: An excellent gaming laptop, which, thanks to the inclusion of a first rate Steelseries keyboard and IPS screen also doubles up a powerful work machine on the move.
