MSI GS70 2OD-Stealth 17.3 inch Laptop Review

Always worth running a new system through the Windows Experience Index, although it doesn't really go into much detail. Still, initial reports indicate very strong overall performance, limited by the graphics to 6.9.

Not the cleanest install, with a lot of third party software installed – such as the bloated Norton Internet Security … nagging immediately for a payment. Urgh. Not the worst install we have seen, but a lot of this software could have been omitted for a cleaner initial starting point.

The worst aspect of this install was PC Checkup. 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 GS70 hardlocked. Exactly the same situation as the GE40 which we reviewed way back in June this year. This needs to change.


An overview of the hardware inside the GS70. The Core i7 4700HQ is a powerful processor – a quad core processor with hyperthreading (4+4), it runs at 2.4ghz and can turbo up to 3.4ghz. It has 6MB of cache. This system has 16GB of DDR3 memory installed in a dual channel configuration. Regular readers will remember that the MSI GE40 Dragon Eyes which we reviewed in June only shipped with a single 8GB SO-DIMM which dropped overall performance.

The System has Intel HD4600 graphics, and a discrete Nvidia GTX765M solution to handle more intensive duties. This solution runs at 800mhz and the memory runs at 1000mhz (4Gbps effective). It has 16 ROPS 64 TMU's and 768 CUDA Cores. The 2GB of GDDR5 memory is connected via a 128 bit memory interface.

You can get validation of the system over here.

Comparison Systems (for specific synthetic test compares):
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.

Software:
3DMark Vantage
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
Alien V Predator
Tomb Raider (2013)
Total War ROME 2
Dirt Showdown
Splinter Cell: Blacklist

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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