MSI GT780DXR 17.3″ Laptop review

Rating: 8.5.

Today we are looking at one of the first prototypes of the 17.3 inch MSI GT780 gaming laptop which features a new chassis design, Quad Core Intel i7 processor, 1.5TB of Raid storage with Nvidia GTX 570M discrete graphics. Is this as good a machine as the excellent Asus G74SX which we reviewed a few weeks ago?

Asus are due to update their gaming laptop range soon, so the new MSI GT780DXR has the benefit of a higher specified Nvidia GTX570M (compared to the GTX560M in the ASUS machine). MSI wanted us to point out that the review sample we have today does not reflect the final retail quality. Our machine also has a slightly different hardware configuration, detailed below.

The MSI GT780DXR we are testing today retails for £1,498.99 with the following specifications:

• Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium
• 17.3 Full HD (1920×1080) LED Backlight Screen
• Intel Core i7-2670QM Processor (6M Cache, 2.00GHZ)
• 8GB DDR3 memory
• 1.5TB SATA 7,200 rpm (750 GB x2) Raid 0
• Blu Ray Optical Drive
• Nvidia Geforce GTX 570M/1.5GB GDDR5

Our review sample was one of the first made and shipped out with a slightly lower spec (-200mhz) Core i7 2630QM processor, and 2x500TB hard drives, in Raid 0. All the rest of the specifications are the same. Our results today will therefore be slightly lower than you can expect with the retail version of the GT780DXR.

To make matters slightly more complicated, there are three versions of this machine.

The ‘609UK' which is the flagship model with a 128GB SSD/750GB HDD combination. This model also has 16GB of system memory with a 3GB GTX570M. We don't have a confirmed price for this model just yet.

The ‘621UK' is almost the same as the model we are reviewing today, which Scan are currently stocking for £1,498.99.

Overclockers UK have an exclusive version (603UK) with lower specification Core i5 processor and a single hard drive, retailing for £1079.99.

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