MSI GT780DXR 17.3″ Laptop review

The system install is relatively clean from crapware, although we never like to see Norton or McAfee security software installed out of the box. For some reason our system had the Stone Giant benchmark preinstalled.

As we mentioned earlier in the review, our prototype features a slightly slower processor than the retail version. Our i7 2630QM runs at 2GHZ, with a turbo speed of 2.9ghz. The retail machines are equipped with the i7 2670QM which is 200mhz faster – 2.2ghz, with a 3.1ghz turbo speed. Both are 4 physical core designs with 6MB of cache and hyperthreading, for a total of 8 cores.

Disclaimer: Due to this hardware change our CPU specific results today will therefore be a little lower than you will achieve with the final retail version of the laptop with i7 2670QM processor.

The GT780DXR uses 8GB of memory, with two 4GB DDR3 sticks running at 1333mhz with 9-9-9-24 1T timings.

The Nvidia GTX570M has 24 ROPS, 336 CUDA cores and 1.5GB of GDDR5 memory connected via a 192 bit memory interface. The CPU core ticks over at 575mhz.

Comparison Systems (for specific synthetic test compares):
Dell XPS 14z (featuring Core i7 2640M processor).
AlienWare M18X (featuring Core i7 2960XM Extreme Edition).
MSI CX640 (featuring Core i5 2410M).
Intel Core i5 2500k desktop processor.

Comparison System for gaming:
Asus G74SX (with GTX560M)

Software:
3DMark 11
PCMark 7
Cinebench 11.5 64 bit
FRAPS Professional
Unigine Heaven Benchmark
CrystalDiskMark
HD Tach
Cyberlink PowerDVD Ultra 11
Cyberlink MediaEspresso
HQV Benchmark V2
Resident Evil 5
F1 2011
Far Cry 2
Lost Planet 2
Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Total War : Shogun 2

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.

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