MSI GS60 6QE (Ghost Pro 4K) Skylake Laptop Review

The MSI default install is primarily drivers and software related specifically to this machine – including Steelseries Engine and Boot configuration utilities. Sadly some of the programs installed such as Norton's do NAG the user from time to time. I am not a big fan of Norton's and completely removed it before testing the laptop.

On first start up MSI boot configure appears to ask if you want to ‘stay with Internet Explorer' or use ‘Google Chrome'. I don't think I have ever seen a company put so much effort into skinning a pop up message to install a browser they don't make. I can't help but feel we really don't need this kind of pop up prompt – we all know there are alternative browser options. Go away, thank you very much.


An overview of the GS60 6QE via CPUz and GPUz. The Skylake i7 -6700HQ  operates at a frequency between 2.6GHz and 3.5GHz. There is 16GB of DDR4 memory installed (2x8GB) running at 2133mhz with 14-15-15-15-36 timings. Intel HD 530 graphics are integrated and the GTX970m is built on the 28nm process and has 48 ROPS, 80 Texture units and 1280 Cuda Cores. The GDDR5 memory speed is set at 1253mhz (5Gbps effective).

We include game tests today at 1080p because this is the resolution best suited to the GTX970m. We also run some game tests at 4K settings, but as you will see – to comfortably game at 4K you will want either one or two GTX980m cards. Unless you don't mind running with massively reduced image quality settings that is. None of us want that in 2015.

Comparison Mobile Systems (for specific synthetic test compares):

Razer Blade Pro (2015) (4720HQ)
MSI GT80 Titan (i7 4980HQ)
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 some 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:

F1 2015
Tomb Raider
Metro Last Light Redux
Grand Theft Auto V
Witcher 3

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.

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