MSI GE620 Gaming Laptop Review (Core i7/Nvidia)

1. Introduction2. MSI GE620 Laptop (Bundle)3. MSI GE620 Laptop4. MSI GE620 Laptop (Super High Res Gallery)5. Installed Software, Hardware Configuration and Testing Methodology6. Synthetic: 3DMark 117. Synthetic: PCMark 78. Synthetic: Cinebench R11.5 64 bit9. Synthetic: SiSoft Sandra10. Synthetic: CrystalDiskMark11. Synthetic: HDTach 3.0.4.0.12. Synthetic: ATTO Benchmark13. Real World: BluRay Playback with PowerDVD14. Real World: Flash HD Performance15. Real World: Media Encoding with Cyberlink Media Espresso16. Image Quality: HQV Benchmark 2.017. Gaming: Dirt 318. Gaming: From Dust19. Gaming: Dead Space 220. Gaming: Resident Evil 521. Technical: Thermal Dynamics22. Technical: Battery Life23. Technical: Acoustics Performance24. Closing Thoughts25. View All Pages

Gaming laptops are for an elite audience, where ultimate performance is paramount. Sadly they aren't cheap either, often costing £1,500, or more. Fear ye not, for today because we are looking at the MSI GE 620, a 15.6 inch portable which packs in a Core i7 quad core processor, 4GB of fast DDR3 with Nvidia discrete graphics … and all for £800 inc vat. Surely there is a catch?

The GE620 is positioning itself as a viable machine for a wide audience who are interested in portable gaming. On paper it is certainly an impressive specification for well under a grand, we have tested the Intel Core i7-2630QM before and it is a fantastic processor. Equally so, the Nvidia GT 540M is a capable discrete solution capable of powering through many of the modern gaming engines.

Main Specifications:

Processor: Intel Core i7-2630QM Processor (6M Cache, 2.00 GHz)
Operating System: Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium
Chipset: Intel HM65
Memory: DDR3 1066/1333 MHz
LCD Size: 15.6″ Full HD (1920×1080) or HD (1366×768) LED backlight
Graphics: Nvidia GeForce GT 540M (DDR3 1GB)
HDD (GB): 500GB
Optical Drive: Blu-ray / DVD Super Multi
Audio: 7.1
Webcam: HD type (30fps@720p)
Card Reader: SD(XC/HC)/MMC/MS(PRO)/xD
LAN: 10/100/1000
Wireless LAN: 802.11 b/g/n (Intel or Atheros)
Bluetooth: Bluetooth v2.1 + EDR

The MSI GE 620 arrives in a colourful box with an image of the product on the front, there are some key selling points listed down the right, such as THX audio support.

The bundle contains the battery, literature on the product, a free copy of Assassins Creed 2, a power adapter and operating system/driver discs. No mouse is supplied with this bundle, but considering the lower price, it is to be expected.

The power supply is a medium sized Delta Electronics unit, rated at 19V/6.32A. 120W.

The BTY-S14 battery is a fairly slim design and is rated at 4400mAh, 49Wh. This is a 6 cell battery.

The laptop ships with a soft felt protective strip between keyboard and screen. It is a plain design from the outside with only the name of the company seen in the middle of the lid.

The 15.6 inch laptop measures 383 x 249.5 x 37.6~32.3mm and weighs 2.4KG. It isn't a super portable, but it won't break your back either.

Immediately we noticed that the W,A,S,D keys were coloured red, an indication of the ‘gaming laptop' status. The four main keys used for first person shooters. The design of the laptop is rather traditional, and a little boring if we are being honest. The screen resolution is 1366×768 and it is glossy, making it rather difficult to view with a backlight behind the user. We don't mind a glossy screen, but this is more reflective than most. The onboard sound is acceptable, but it lacks bass response, therefore external speakers or headphones would be advised.

We weren't overly impressed with the screen, it was perfectly usable but the colours were a little muted and overall definition seemed a little lacking when compared against the best screens on the market.

The touchpad has a textured surface which is pleasant to use, and it offers a modicum of resistance to enhance the tracking. There is a button underneath the trackpad area to allow for left and right clicking (it is quite stiff). A row of status buttons are underneath this area. Above the trackpad is a small button, which can be used to disable the trackpad – ideal for people who might accidentally trigger the touchpad when typing and using a mouse.

The laptop is quite slim, although it won't be challenging the Macbook Air in the portability stakes. Overall it is rather ‘businesslike' by design and we would feel that executives would feel happy working on this machine in public locations.

The keyboard is comfortable to use and a good physical size, with a full number pad at the right. I frequently pressed the # key however as it resides above a single height return key. I always use boards with a double height return key. There is minimal flex with the board, even with a reasonable amount of pressure applied.

The left side of the laptop is home to a security lock, the power socket, and a large vent which is positioned for horizontal air flow. There are two USB 3.0 ports next to an HDMI connector, and at the front a headphone and microphone jack. The right side of the laptop contains a single USB 2.0 port, VGA connector and GB lan connector. At the front is a dual layer DVD R/W optical drive.

To access the internals, simply remove the battery first, then 3 screws. A heatpipe cooler transfers heat from the GPU and CPU cores, then airflow forces this heat outside the chassis. There is a 500GB Western Digital Drive bottom right of the machine, this is a ‘WD50 00BEKT-22kA9 01.0' – 7,200 rpm drive. MSI are using 2x2GB of Elixir memory which is rated DDR3-10600 (1333mhz).

On this page we present some super high resolution images of the product taken with the 24.5MP Nikon D3X camera and 24-70mm ED lens. 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.

Thanks to the fast 7,200 rpm hard drive, the machine takes around 1 minute to boot up into Windows 7.

On first boot, MSI offer a variety of system installs. The install is fairly clean, however there was no way to disable the BING toolbar or the Norton Security suite. This would need to be deinstalled after the install is finished.

Above, we can see the hardware ‘insides' of the MSI system, it is based around the Intel i7-2630QM processor, which is a quad core design with Hyperthreading (4 physical & 4 logical). This operates at 2ghz, but can turbo up to 2.9ghz.

It is built on 32nm architecture, has a maximum TDP rating of 45watts with 6 megabytes of Level 3 cache onboard. The motherboard is an MSI design with an American Megatrends bios. Memory is running at 1333mhz with 9-9-9-24 timings @ 1T.

The laptop has both Intel GT2 onboard graphics and Nvidia Geforce GT540M – operating at 672mhz core and 900mhz from the GDDR3 memory (connected to a 128 bit memory interface).

System validation is available over here.

Comparison Systems (for specific synthetic test compares):
MSI CX640 (featuring Core i5 2410M)

Software:
3DMark 11
PCMark 11
Cinebench 11.5 64 bit
FRAPS Professional
Unigine Heaven Benchmark
CrystalDiskMark
HD Tach
Cyberlink PowerDVD Ultra 11
Cyberlink MediaEspresso
HQV Benchmark V2
Alien V Predator
From Dust
Dead Space 2
Dirt 3
Resident Evil 5

Technical Monitoring and Test Equipment:
Asus 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
Kill A Watt Meter
Nikon D3X with R1C1 Kit (4 flashes), Nikon 24-70MM lens.

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.

The system scored over 1000 points at the default ‘performance' setting, which is a strong result for a laptop and indicates that it should be good for powering modern gaming engines at 720p resolution.

PCMark 7 includes 7 PC tests for Windows 7, combining more than 25 individual workloads covering storage, computation, image and video manipulation, web browsing and gaming. Specifically designed to cover the full range of PC hardware from netbooks and tablets to notebooks and desktops, PCMark 7 offers complete PC performance testing for Windows 7 for home and business use.

A strong showing from the MSI laptop, scoring 2,409 points in the demanding PCMark 7 benchmark.

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.

The differences between the Core i5 2410M processor in the CX640 and the Core i7 2630QM processor in the GE620 are easily seen. The extra cores also help to significantly raise the overall system performance. The MSI GE620 system is actually acceptable as a rendering station for serious ‘on the move' duties.

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 Core i7 2630QM processor is a mobile powerhouse, dominating the Core i5 2410M in the Sandra benchmarks. These are class leading results for a laptop system.

A very important part of overall system responsiveness is down to hard drive performance. We start off with CrystalDiskMark 3.0 x64 which is a great test program for hard drive performance.

The 7,200 rpm drive is a decent performer, averaging over 100 MB/s in both sequential read and write tests. This is a clear improvement over the sluggish 5,400 rpm drive which was used in the lower priced CX640.

I have been using HDTach for many years now and always find it is an invaluable benchmark to ascertain potential levels of performance. HD Tach is a low level hardware benchmark for random access read/write storage devices such as hard drives, removable drives (ZIP/JAZZ), flash devices, and RAID arrays. HD Tach uses custom device drivers and other low level Windows interfaces to bypass as many layers of software as possible and get close to the physical performance of the device.

Overall results aren't bad, although we know that HD TACH 3.0.4.0. tends to underscore results when compared to other synthetic applications.

The ATTO Disk Benchmark performance measurement tool is compatible with Microsoft Windows. Measure your storage systems performance with various transfer sizes and test lengths for reads and writes. Several options are available to customize your performance measurement including queue depth, overlapped I/O and even a comparison mode with the option to run continuously. Use ATTO Disk Benchmark to test any manufacturers RAID controllers, storage controllers, host adapters, hard drives and SSD drives and notice that ATTO products will consistently provide the highest level of performance to your storage.

Performance via ATTO is as good as we would expect for a 2.5 inch drive, averaging over 100MB/s in both read and write tests.

Our good friends at Cyberlink kindly supplied the software for our BluRay and conversion tests.

Cyberlink PowerDVD 11 is one of the finest solutions for the BluRay experience on Windows and we found this software to work perfectly with this chipset. We tested with the new Bluray Disc of Source Code starring Jake Gyllenhaal.

With hardware acceleration enabled, the system was only using an average of 8 percent CPU time. Plenty of CPU cycles left over for multitasking demands.

Many people using this system will be enjoying Flash related content so we feel it is important to test with some of the more demanding material available freely online. Full hardware acceleration is enabled.

Again, no problems with the high definition video file, averaging 8 percent CPU load.

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 which has been optimised for Sandybridge processors.

Nvidia Cuda acceleration is disabled, then enabled. Both times are recorded.

With hardware acceleration enabled, the time for encoding reduces from almost 25 minutes to just over 14 minutes, a huge performance increase. We can thank Nvidia for their CUDA acceleration.

HQV Benchmark 2.0 is an updated version of the original tool and it consists of various video clips and test patterns which are designed to evaluate motion correction, de-interlacing, decoding, noise reduction, detail enhancement and film cadence detection.

There are two versions of the program, standard definition on DVD and high definition on BluRay. As our audience will be concentrating on HD content, so will we.

This has a total of 39 video tests which is increased from 23 in the original and the scoring is also up from a total of 130 to 210. As hardware and software gets more complicated, the software has been tuned to make sure we can thoroughly maximise our analysis.

We connected the MSI GE620 to an external LaCie 730 monitor for image quality testing.

Read our initial analysis over here.

	MSI GE620
Dial	4
Dial with static pattern	5
Gray Bars	5
Violin	5
Stadium 2:2	5
Stadium 3:2	5
Horizontal Text Scroll	5
Vertical Text Scroll	5
Transition to 3:2 Lock	5
Transition to 2:2 Lock	0
2:2:2:4 24 FPS DVCAM Video	5
2:3:3:2 24 FPS DVCam Video	5
3:2:3:2:2 24 FOS Vari-Speed	5
5:5 FPS Animation	5
6:4 12 FPS Animation	5
8:7 8 FPS Animation	5
Interlace Chroma Problem (ICP)	5
Chroma Upsampling Error (CUE)	5
Random Noise: Sailboat	5
Random Noise: Flower	5
Random Noise: Sunrise	5
Random Noise: Harbour Night	5
Scrolling Text	3
Roller Coaster	3
Ferris Wheel	3
Bridge Traffic	3
Text Pattern/ Scrolling Text	3
Roller Coaster	3
Ferris Wheel	5
Bridge Traffic	5
Luminance Frequency Bands	5
Chrominance Frequency Bands	5
Vanishing Text	5
Resolution Enhancement	15
Theme Park	5
Driftwood	2
Ferris Wheel	5
Skin Tones	5
Total	179

Image quality score is 179 points out of 210, which is very strong.

Dirt 3 is a rallying videogame and the third in the Dirt series of the Colin McRae Rally series, developed and published by Codemasters, although the “Colin McRae” tag has been completely removed from this iteration (having been previously been removed from American versions of previous games in the series).

Performance with Dirt 3 was excellent, and we were able to run at the native resolution of the panel, with the ‘high preset' default settings. The frame rate was maintained above 30fps at all times.

Campaigns in From Dust are structured as a sequence of missions, whereby completing certain objectives expedites the tribe’s progress and bestows additional powers, such as the capacity to jellify water. Tribal shamans alert the player to natural disasters, notably tsunamis and volcanic eruptions, shortly before they occur. These disasters can be inhibited through creative, physical manipulation of the environment: a tsunami can be jellified, wildfires extinguished, and lava flows diverted.

We are including this game today as it is one of the best indie games we have played in recent years.

From Dust is a fantastic game and it can be demanding of the partnering hardware. With this laptop, the game was perfectly smooth, averaging 30 fps and dropping a few times to 28 fps and 26 fps.

Dead Space 2 is a survival horror third-person shooter. The player controls Isaac Clarke from a third-person point of view, looking over the character’s right shoulder. The game features no HUD elements, relying on holograms projected from the player character and his weapons to show information such as messages and ammunition count, respectively. Player health and stasis is shown by a visual indicators located on Isaac’s back. Isaac must fight an alien organism that infects and takes control of human corpses, turning them into “Necromorphs”, mutating their bodies.

Necromorphs must be dismembered as the alien organism controls host bodies via tentacles extending into their limbs. Other, larger types of Necromorphs that cannot be dismembered will often have yellow, glowing pustules, indicating weak spots. Occasionally, when an enemy gets close enough to Isaac, they will grab a hold of him, and the player must repeatedly press a key to fend off the enemy, with failure to do so leading to death of the player character.

Dead Space 2 was a great experience at the native resolution of the panel, averaging 40 frames per second.

Resident Evil 5, known in Japan as Biohazard 5, is a survival horror third-person shooter video game developed and published by Capcom. The game is the seventh installment in the Resident Evil survival horror series, and was released on March 5, 2009 in Japan and on March 13, 2009 in North America and Europe for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. A Windows version of the game was released on September 15, 2009 in North America, September 17 in Japan and September 18 in Europe. Resident Evil 5 revolves around Chris Redfield and Sheva Alomar as they investigate a terrorist threat in Kijuju, a fictional town in Africa.

Within its first three weeks of release, the game sold over 2 million units worldwide and became the best-selling game of the franchise in the United Kingdom. As of December, 2009, Resident Evil 5 has sold 5.3 million copies worldwide since launch, becoming the best selling Resident Evil game ever made.

Again, great performance from the Direct X 10 version of the engine, averaging almost 40 fps.

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 running Furmark and Cinebench together.

The temperatures are fairly good, although the processor does heat up to 84c when loaded for some time. Nothing dangerous, but a little higher than we would like to see under normal circumstances.

We also attached 5 diodes to the rear of the machine to measure the load temperatures of various parts of the chassis. These were measured after 1 hour of intensive work.

The underside of the laptop can get warm near the battery, as the system fan and heatsink/heatpipes are positioned to the left (right from underneath). Most of the hot air is pushed horizontally across and out the side, but it does get rather toasty on a lap.

To test the battery today we put the machine through three sets of real world situations. One as a media movie lover on the move, a person wanting to watch HD media on a train journey or bus with two thirds screen brightness (any less and quality suffers). Secondly as a business man, using the machine for productivity with wireless enabled and balanced power settings with a mid way (around half) brightness setting. Thirdly as a gamer on the move, with the nVidia solution fully active and screen brightness up high.

The battery life is actually quite good, averaging between 3 and 4 hours under most conditions. When gaming, this drops to around 2 hours and 20 minutes.

We measure from a distance of around 2 foot from the chassis with our Extech digital sound level meter to mirror a real world situation.

KitGuru noise guide
10dBA – Normal Breathing/Rustling Leaves
20-25dBA – Whisper
30dBA – High Quality Computer fan
40dBA – A Bubbling Brook, or a Refridgerator
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

When loaded, this system becomes clearly audible, and even slightly annoying. When watching a bluray movie, the noise levels move between 33 dBa and 35.5 dBa, but when gaming this rises to over 41 dBa. We think MSI should have improved the cooling system inside the machine, because the fan is having to work very hard to keep the temperatures in check. As we recorded earlier in the review, the CPU will rise to almost 85c when fully loaded.

The MSI GE620 is a heck of a good value for money gaming laptop. For £800 you get a high performance Core i7 2630QM quad core processor with hyperthreading and the very capable Nvidia GT540M discrete solution.

In regards to overall system performance, this is one of the best value for money systems we have reviewed in recent months. It is capable of a variety of uses, such as general office duties, high definition movie playback and more intensive tasks such as gaming, rendering and video encoding.

Battery life is also a plus point, averaging between 3 and 4 hours for media playback and general work related demands. Gaming reduces this to just over 2 hours, but for a 6 cell battery this is good. We are glad to report that MSI are using a 7,200 rpm hard drive which delivers decent all round performance with high storage capabilities.

The build quality is decent, although we were disappointed with the quality of the panel. It is extremely glossy, causing noticeable and distracting reflections and the colour rendition is distinctly average. It isn't bad, but we have seen much better, especially on other MSI laptops.

Onboard sound is fine, but there is very little bass reponse. The keyboard and mouse are also acceptable, but nothing exceptional or even noteworthy.

This laptop is slightly ‘unbalanced'. We have no complaints with system performance – it is extremely responsive and capable of a huge variety of tasks. When the excitement has passed however, we can't help but feel disappointed with the appearance, screen, keyboard and trackpad.

Additionally, we think MSI could have approached the cooling system from a better angle. The Core i7 processor can heat up to almost 85c under load and the undersides of the machine get hot. The internal system fan has to cope with a lot of heat and will become clearly audible under load. We could always hear it and it did irritate a little. That said, performance freaks and gamers will probably not care.

You can currently buy the GE620 from Amazon for under £800, inc vat (look at panel on the right, its £788 direct from Amazon.co.uk).

Pros:

• Powerful system, thanks to Core i7 2630QM.
• fast 7,200 rpm hard drive.
• Nvidia graphics are excellent.
• price point is fantastic.
• good battery life.

Cons:

• bland design for a ‘gaming' laptop.
• screen quality is average.
• gets hot.
• is noisy under load.
• keyboard and trackpad are average.

Kitguru says: It offers a lot of performance for the money, but you need to be able to live with an average screen and considerable noise and heat.

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