MSI GX60 Gaming Laptop Review (A10-4600M/HD7970M)

1. Introduction2. MSI GX60 Gaming Laptop3. MSI GX60 Gaming Laptop (Super High Res Gallery)4. Testing Methodology & Configuration5. Synthetic: SiSoft Sandra6. Synthetic: PCMark 77. Synthetic: Cinebench R11.5 64 bit8. Synthetic: Ungine Heaven Benchmark9. Synthetic: 3DMark Vantage10. Synthetic: 3DMark 1111. Synthetic: Hard Drive Performance12. Real World: BluRay Playback with PowerDVD 1113. Real World: MKV 1080p Performance14. Real World: Flash HD Performance15. Real World: Media Encoding16. Gaming: Total War Shogun 217. Gaming: Dirt Showdown18. Gaming: Max Payne 319. Gaming: Sleeping Dogs20. Technical: Battery Life21. Technical: Acoustics Performance22. Technical: Thermal Performance23. Closing Thoughts24. View All Pages

Today we are looking at the latest gaming laptop from MSI, which features the new AMD A10-4600M Trinity APU, 8GB of DDR3 memory, Steelseries keyboard, 750GB hard drive and 2GB Radeon HD7970M graphics card. At less than a grand, is this the new gaming laptop you should be shortlisting for an end of year present?

It has been a while since we had the opportunity to look at an AMD powered laptop so today we will compare against a range of Intel machines that we have tested in recent months. On paper it seems like a very good price, but can it perform well enough to take on heavy duty, full time gaming duties?

To make the deal even sweeter if you get in quickly, Overclockers in the UK are selling this machine at £899.95 inc vat, for a week only.

Specification:-

• 15.6″ Full HD (1920×1080) LED backlight, Anti-glare
• AMD Quad Core A10-4600M 2.30 GHz Processor (Boost 3.20GHz)
• AMD A70M FCH
• 8GB DDR3 (4G*2)
• AMD Radeon HD 7660G Onboard Graphics
• AMD Radeon HD 7970M 2GB GDDR5 Graphics
• 750GB (SATA) 7200rpm
• DVD Super Multi Drive
• 3x USB3.0
• 1x USB2.0
• Card Reader (SD(XC/HC)/MMC)
• 1x HDMI (v1.4)
• 1x Dsub
• 2x Stereo Speakers with Subwoofer
• THX TruStudio Pro
• 7.1 Audio Channels
• Mic-in/Headpphone out 1/1/1(line in)/1(line out)
• SPDIF: Yes
• Wireless LAN (AW-NB100H Combo (b/g/n)
• Bluetooth v4.0
• Gigabit Killer E2200 LAN
• Webcam: HD type (30fps@720p)
• 102 key chocolate non-backlight keyboard
• 9-Cell Li-Ion (7800mAH)
• Turbo Battery+
• Dimensions: 395 x 267 x 55mm
• 3.5Kg (w/ Battery)
• 2 year pick-up and return

The MSI GX60 ships in a thick brown cardboard box with the MSI logo clearly seen on both sides.

Inside is the main box featuring a nicely designed logo. ‘SteelSeries' get a high profile mention top right as they design the keyboard for the GX60.

The bundle is barebones, with the power supply, battery and literature on the product, along with a software disc. A full copy of Windows 7 Home Premium is supplied.

The power supply is a hefty brick, made by DELTA Electronics – model ADP-180HB. It is rated 19V – 9.5A – 100-240V.

The battery is a powerful 9 cell Lithium ION 87Wh 7800mAh model. We will rate life later in the review.

The MSI GX60 ships between two cardboard protective inserts and is wrapped inside protective film.

The GX60 is a plain black ‘gloss' finish although the lid is not smooth but beveled in the middle. The MSI logo is positioned slightly above center and glows when powered on. There are many vents underneath the chassis to help with airflow across the components.

Above, we took some photographs of the lid to highlight the circular raised bevel that MSI have adopted. The dimensions of the laptop are 395 x 267 x 55mm and it weighs 3.5kg with the battery installed.

The left side of the GX60 has two USB 2.0 ports, a multicard reader and a superspeed USB 3.0 port at the front. There is a large vent close to the rear which is used to expel heat.

The right side of the GX60 has another USB port and several headphone, audio and microphone jacks (7.1 THX sound is offered). A DVD optical drive is also available here.

The rear of the GX60 has another very large exhaust vent for cooling support. Next to this is an HDMI port (v1.4), a mini DisplayPort, VGA port, Gigabit Lan connector (Killer E2200) and power connector. The far left side has a position for another vent, although it is sealed. Next to this is a Kensington lock for security.

At the top of the screen is a 720p High Definition Web Camera which offers 30 frames per second at 720p resolution, ideal for chatting with friends and family.

The lower side of the GX60 is crowded with stickers. As this is a review sample we didn't want to remove the main GX60 sticker next to the touchpad, but we would if we owned it. Next to this is a THX audio and Windows 7 sticker.

The trackpad is a reasonable quality unit although I wasn't particularly impressed with the button feedback. It needs a lot of pressure to actuate. Underneath the trackpad are various indicators for Bluetooth, Wireless, battery and hard drive status/activity.

Steelseries make the keyboard for the GX60 and as expected the quality is excellent. I don't think it is quite in the same league as the keyboard found on the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 series, but it comes a close second.

The keyboard (102 key) has a numpad situated at the right and delivers fantastic tactile feedback, however I have one huge problem with the design. The return key is only single height and I found myself pressing the # key on a regular basis.

Perhaps not a huge issue for some people, but I would have a serious problem living with this as my main machine. Along the top of the keyboard are several pressure sensitive buttons which eject optical media and turn off and on various settings.

At the edges of the keyboard area are two speakers which produce a reasonable level of sound before distortion occurs. Obviously we would recommend high grade headphones or speakers if you wanted to get the best experience from the THX audio.

The lid is attached to a substantial chrome coloured locking bar which holds the screen tightly in place, regardless of the position.

The screen can be opened to a full 180 degrees which will prove useful in certain situations. Not many mainstream laptop computers have this feature.

The quality of the 15.6 inch LED backlit 1920×1080 panel is definitely very good, with an anti glare coating to ensure legibility even with a strong light behind the user. It is not usable in direct sunlight however.

The colour rendition is very good and panel backlighting is consistent across the full width of the panel. Vertical and Horizontal viewing performance is also well above average.

The underside panel is held in place with 7 screws and easily removed to give access to all the components. A dual heatpipe cooling system is attached to both AMD A10-4600M and HD7970M. At the other end of the rear of the laptop is the 750GB hard drive.

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.

The Windows Experience Index doesn't offer the most detailed analysis, however it is useful to get a basic overview of the system performance. The system is held back by the hard drive, which isn't surprising as MSI aren't using a Solid State in this unit.

MSI haven't polluted the system with a plethora of unnecessary software, although we would de-install some of the software such as Norton Online Backup.

The system has 8GB of Nanya Technologies DDR3 memory installed which runs at 1,600mhz with 11-11-12-28 timings.

The GX60 is built around the latest Trinity 32nm AMD A10-4600M APU, which incorporates HD7660G graphics.

MSI are using the HD7970M 2GB discrete graphics solution to improve the gaming performance, although GPUz wouldn't run on this system without hardlocking the computer. We know that the HD7970M is fully Direct X11 compliant, with 1280 pixel shaders. The core clock runs at 850mhz and the memory at 1200mhz connected via a 256 bit memory interface.

The GX60 uses AMD's switchable graphics technology in Catalyst Control Center to offer either increased battery life with the onboard 7660G graphics, or enhanced performance from the HD7970m discrete graphics.

This GX60 system doesn't include a Solid State Drive which had a general, negative impact on overall system performance. The single large, mechanical drive is partitioned into two sections, as shown above.

Comparison Systems (for specific synthetic test compares):
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 11
PCMark 7
Cinebench 11.5 64 bit
FRAPS Professional
Unigine Heaven Benchmark
CrystalDiskMark
Cyberlink PowerDVD Ultra 11
Cyberlink MediaEspresso
HQV Benchmark V2.
Total War: Shogun 2
Dirt ShowDown
Max Payne 3
Sleeping Dogs

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.

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

We can see that the AMD A10-4600M is struggling to keep up with the latest (and last generation) Intel i5 mobile chips, hitting the bottom of the chart in all tests, including memory bandwidth.

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.

The overall score of 2,229 points is rather poor, although the A10 4600M is clearly no powerhouse as detailed on the last page, and the lack of Solid State drive doesn't help either.

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.

Not bad performance from this budget chip, scoring just under 2 points. Not an ideal system for serious, ‘on the move' rendering duties, but capable of handling some light work on the move.

Unigine provides an interesting way to test hardware. It can be easily adapted to various projects due to its elaborated software design and flexible toolset. A lot of their customers claim that they have never seen such extremely-effective code, which is so easy to understand.

Heaven Benchmark is a DirectX 11 GPU benchmark based on advanced Unigine engine from Unigine Corp. It reveals the enchanting magic of floating islands with a tiny village hidden in the cloudy skies. Interactive mode provides emerging experience of exploring the intricate world of steampunk.

Efficient and well-architected framework makes Unigine highly scalable:

• Multiple API (DirectX 9 / DirectX 10 / DirectX 11 / OpenGL) render
• Cross-platform: MS Windows (XP, Vista, Windows 7) / Linux
• Full support of 32bit and 64bit systems
• Multicore CPU support
• Little / big endian support (ready for game consoles)
• Powerful C++ API
• Comprehensive performance profiling system
• Flexible XML-based data structures

We use the following settings: 1920×1080 resolution. Anti Aliasing off. Anisotrophy 4, Tessellation normal. Shaders High. Stereo 3D disabled. API: Direct X 11.

AMD's HD7970m is a mobile frame rate monster able to handle the most demanding Direct X 11 gaming engines – we have tested it before in several machines including the Alienware M17x R4. In the MSI GX60 it delivers an average frame rate of almost 45 frames per second at 1080p. Fantastic results.

Futuremark released 3DMark Vantage, on April 28, 2008. It is a benchmark based upon DirectX 10, and therefore will only run under Windows Vista (Service Pack 1 is stated as a requirement) and Windows 7. This is the first edition where the feature-restricted, free of charge version could not be used any number of times. 1280×1024 resolution was used with performance settings.

An overall score of 12,418 points is excellent for a gaming laptop. We can analyse the performance and see that the HD7970m scored over 17,000 points, but the AMD A10-4600M could only manage under 7,000 points which brings the average (overall) score down substantially.

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 scores P4,260 which is a very good result for a laptop, thanks to the HD7970M. The A10 4600M delivers a fairly weak physics score of 2,613 points which deflates the overall score.

A very important part of overall system responsiveness is down to hard drive performance. We use two of our favourite benchmark utilities Crystalmark X64 Edition and HD Tach to rate performance from the onboard 256GB SanDisk SATA drive.

The 7,200 rpm mechanical drive peaks around 120 MB/s which is as good as we could expect from a 2.5 inch performance hard drive. Sadly MSI haven't outfitted this particular machine with a Solid State Drive, and it is the GX60's most glaring weakness.

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.

ATTO drive performance is similar to the CrystalDiskMark results, shown above.

Real world performance is noticeably slow at times as the drive struggles to keep up with an active gaming system. I would personally mirror the internal drive to a 120GB or 240GB 2.5 inch Solid State Drive – swap the drives out and use the internal 750GB unit inside an external USB enclosure for backup duties.

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 extended Bluray Disc of Lord Of The Rings.

The AMD A10-4600M dedicates around 22 percent CPU time to this task, leaving plenty of cycles free for other duties in a multitasking environment.

The Matroska Media container is a very popular, open standard Multimedia container which is usually found as .MKV files. It is a very popular format in enthusiast circles and can be played directly in Windows Media Player with suitable codecs installed. We use the Combined Community Codec Pack (CCCP).

We ripped our BluRay disc of Sniper Reloaded to 1080P MKV and use Windows Media Player to playback the file.

1080p MKV contained files are demanding of the partnering hardware. The system requires 46 of the AMD A10 4600M time, although there are still enough cycles free for other tasks if needed.

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.

Flash playback varies between 8 and 35 percent in this test.

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.

Hardware acceleration is enabled for the testing today.

A final time of 24 minutes and 17 seconds is slightly disappointing, considering that many of the Core i5 mobile systems we have reviewed in recent months complete the same task between 14 and 18 minutes. The AMD A10 4600M struggles a little with intensive tasks, hampered by some bandwidth issues.

Shogun 2 is set in 16th-century feudal Japan, in the aftermath of the Ōnin War. The country is fractured into rival clans led by local warlords, each fighting for control. The player takes on the role of one of these warlords, with the goal of dominating other factions and claiming his rule over Japan. The standard edition of the game will feature a total of eight factions (plus a ninth faction for the tutorial), each with a unique starting position and different political and military strengths.

We use the STEAM built in benchmark for our tests today. This means you can compare directly against your own system.

Not a huge difference in the results between 720p and 1080p. The GX60 system is CPU limited at 720p. Both resolutions however are perfectly playable thanks to the powerful HD7970M discrete solution.

Dirt Showdown is the latest title in the franchise from Codemasters, based around the famous Colin McRae racing game series, although it no longer uses his name, since he passed away in 2007.

We selected 1080p and used the built in ‘HIGH' preset for our testing today.

Great overall results from the GX60 system, maintaining a smooth gaming experience, averaging 41 frames per second.

We did notice that the game was slower the first time we played as we had to manually force Catalyst Control Center ‘switchable graphics' to use the ‘high performance' option – the HD7970M and not the onboard 7660G.

Max Payne 3 is a third-person shooter in which the player assumes the role of its titular character, Max Payne. Max Payne 3 features a similar over-the-shoulder camera as its predecessors, with the addition of a cover mechanic, while also retaining much of the same run-and-gun style of gameplay. Max Payne 3 also marks the return of bullet-time in action sequences, for which the franchise is notable. In bullet-time it is possible to see every bullet strike an enemy in detail. New to the series is a “Last Stand” mechanic, which gives the player a grace period after losing all health during which time the player may kill the enemy that wounded them in order to continue playing, however this mechanic is only usable if the player has one or more bottles of painkillers in their possession.

We configured a high series of settings in the graphics panel of Max Payne 3, with a little MSAA (2x). The overall demand was 924MB.

The first time we played this game we noticed that performance was very poor and after checking in Catalyst Control Center, we realised that the driver had defaulted the graphics to onboard 7660G.

We manually forced Max Payne 3 to use the ‘High Performance' setting as shown above and the overall results were very good, averaging 37 frames per second for a perfectly playable long term gaming experience.

Sleeping Dogs started development as an original title, but was announced in 2009 as True Crime: Hong Kong, the third installment and a reboot of the True Crime series. As a result of the game’s high development budget and delays, it was canceled by Activision Blizzard in 2011. Six months later, it was announced that Square Enix had picked up the publishing rights to the game, but the game was renamed Sleeping Dogs in 2012 since Square Enix did not purchase the True Crime name rights.

We used a fairly high range of settings, using the optional high resolution texture pack.

Overall performance was again, very positive. Averaging 36 frames per second and only dipping below the sweet spot of 25 once.

To test today, we are putting the machine through a variety of ‘real world’ situations, mirroring the real world usage of a potential customer.

One as a media movie lover on the move (wearing headphones), a person wanting to watch high definition media on a train journey or bus with two thirds screen brightness.

Second as a businessman, with screen brightness around half way. Wireless was enabled. A mixture of checking, answering emails using Microsoft Office and editing pictures in Adobe Photoshop.

Lastly as a gamer, playing Dirt Showdown until the machine turned itself off.

Battery life is not as impressive as we hoped. We managed to squeeze just over 3 hours out of the machine handling light tasks. When gaming, the HD7970M eats the battery, lasting around 90 minutes.

We measure from a distance of around 1 meter from the chassis and 4 foot from the ground 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 Refrigerator
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 take off/Gunshot (close range)
160dBA – Instant Perforation of eardrum

The GX60 is relatively quiet under light use, but when tasked with gaming the fans quickly spin up to compensate for rising temperatures. Fan noise is noticeable under most conditions, although never annoying. Again the powerful HD7970M discrete solution is mostly responsible for this.

The tests were performed in a controlled air conditioned room with temperatures maintained at a constant 24c – 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. Room ambient temperatures were 23c.

We measured results with CPUID Hardware Monitor software. The CPU was loaded with Cinebench in a loop and Furmark stress test.

The processor peaks around 64C when loaded with Cinebench R11.5 64 bit on a loop test. The system does get quite warm under load and the fan has to work hard to compensate. We couldn't use any software tools to measure the temperature of the HD7970M as they would all crash or hard lock.

We attached five diodes to the back of the chassis and measured the temperature (Celcius) after one hour of intensive work and gaming.

The underside of the machine has a single ‘hot spot' at the rear which has the section housing the primary heatsink and fan.

Hot air is expelled out the side and rear vents, although some travels to the central section of the machine due to the large copper heatpipes attached to the HD7970M in this area. The remainder of the machine is quite cool to touch although we wouldn't want to be using this machine on our lap when gaming for a long period of time.

The MSI GX60 Laptop is a well priced machine targeting a wide enthusiast audience who don't wish to pay £1,500-£2,000+ for a new high powered gaming laptop. The recommended retail price of £999.99 inc vat is very competitive. The fact that Overclockers are selling it this week for £899.99 inc vat makes for a very tempting proposition.

The MSI GX60 has many strong points worthy of mention. The included Steelseries keyboard is fantastic, offering tactile feedback, well spaced out keys and a full numpad. The only problem is the lack of double height return key, which always causes a problem for me, long term. It isn't backlit either which is slightly disappointing.

The trackpad is also very good, although both buttons feel a little too stiff to me, requiring a lot of force to register. The 1080p LED screen is better than we had expected at this price point. The colours are both vibrant and life like and it is extremely easy to read with fine text, ideal for on the move office workers and designers alike. Viewing angles are also well above average and the matte coating ensures that the screen isn't excessively reflective in a variety of environmental situations.

The onboard THX sound is also quite good, although to get the best out of the system, we would recommend high quality headphones or dedicated external speakers. Still, for on the move duties, there is enough clarity and volume available. Bass is a little lacking, as would be expected.

The GX60 doesn't emit an excessive level of noise, although when gaming there is a noticeable hot spot at the back of the machine, related to the hot running AMD HD7990M graphics card.

For gaming duties, the GX60 certainly won't disappoint, although the AMD A10 4600M won't offer a serious challenge to an Core i5 mobile chip. It is a capable, well priced processor, with onboard 7660G graphics, but when tasked with more demanding programs such as 3D rendering and video editing, it does struggle to finish the tasks in a reasonable time frame. To be fair, a gamer is unlikely to notice this, so we can't fault the machine too much, especially given the low asking price.

We did encounter some issues during game testing however. The AMD switchable graphics would often default to 7660G, requiring manual user intervention to get the best performance from the machine. Battery life was also slightly disappointing considering the 9 cell Lithium ION 87Wh 7800mAh which is shipped with the machine. Expect around 2 hours and 30 minutes under normal situations with screen brightness up high.

The omission of a solid state drive is the biggest performance issue for the GX60. The large 7,200 rpm mechanical drive is about as good as you can get in a 2.5 inch form factor, but it is still limited to around 120 MB/s which can cause the machine to grind at times. If I bought the GX60 I would budget another £130 for a Solid State Drive, then use Acronis software to mirror the drive, swap them out and use the 750GB in an external USB drive enclosure for backup duties.

Pros:

• Great gaming machine.
• very competitive price point.
• 8GB of memory.
• HD7970M is a powerhouse mobile gaming solution.
• screen is very good.
• connectivity is strong.
• Steelseries keyboard.

Cons:

• No solid state drive.
• AMD switchable graphics often defaulted to the onboard 7660G.
• A10 4600m can run out of steam with more demanding tasks.
• can get hot.
• battery life isn't great.

Kitguru says: At the price, we can overlook some of the misgivings.

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