Home / PC / Gaming PC / MSI introduces GS30 laptop with PCI Express x16 external GPU box

MSI introduces GS30 laptop with PCI Express x16 external GPU box

MicroStar International (MSI) has introduced its new high-performance GS30 Shadow 13.3” laptop that comes with a special dock for external graphics cards. The dock can be equipped with its own power supply unit and will support all graphics cards possible, thus, wedding high-performance gaming with portable sizes of a notebook.

The MSI GS30 Shadow laptop (which we previewed last year) features a 13.3” display with 2560*1440 resolution and is powered by Intel Core i7 “Haswell” microprocessors with integrated Iris Pro graphics, thus, offering four cores and generally decent performance for modern video games. The system can be equipped with up to 16GB of DDR3L memory and two M.2 solid-state drives, which should enable plenty of high-performance storage, something all gamers need. Like most modern notebooks, this one sports 802.11ac Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0, Gigabit Ethernet, USB 3.0, 720p HD webcam, SD/MMC card readers and so on. The laptop weighs only 1.3 kilograms and is 19.8mm thick, which makes it portable and easy to carry.

msi_notebook_external_gpu

While the GS30 Shadow seems to be a very nice notebook with a good display, its main selling point is support for a special Gaming Dock that is compatible with all available graphics cards and can be equipped with a dedicated power supply unit. The dock and the notebook feature a special interface that lets the laptop to connect to a desktop-class graphics card using full-bandwidth PCI Express x16 bus. The dock can also hold an additional 3.5″ hard drive, it contains a USB 3.0 hub, Qualcomm Atheros Killer Gigabit Ethernet network adapter and even speakers.

The MSI GamingDock is not the first external graphics solution for notebooks, but it is clearly the most powerful one: it supports fully-fledged PCI Express 3.0 x16 interface and thus allows the notebook to take advantage of any graphics card without bandwidth limitations. There is a catch, though, whenever external graphics card is used, an external display will be required too.

msi_notebook_external_gpu_1_gs30_shadow

Unfortunately, just like predecessors, the MSI GamingDock is not ideal. It is only compatible with the MSI GS30 Shadow laptop. Therefore, once the notebook becomes obsolete, the dock will likely become obsolete too because other notebooks will need to maintain the form-factor of the GS30 Shadow in order to maintain compatibility, something that will unlikely happen.

The target launch time for the GS30 Shadow and the GamingDock is January, 2015. Pricing is unclear.

EDIT 8th January: You can see our preview on this over HERE.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: If you are in the market for a truly portable 13.3” laptop with great gaming capabilities, then the MSI GS30 Shadow with the GamingDock is probably the best choice today. However, keep in mind that the GamingDock – which will likely cost a significant sum of money – is hardly an investment that is going to last longer than the notebook itself.

Become a Patron!

Check Also

Disco Elysium Android

Disco Elysium is getting a pseudo-reimagining for Android

Disco Elysium is being reimagined for Android. Coming this Summer, the much-loved RPG is taking the original game’s story while shaking up the gameplay formula.

3 comments

  1. Santi Criso Serrano Moran

    price $2500 usd

  2. Why has no one made a good external gpu box like this for ALL laptops?

  3. Razer core3 did IT, ASUS Rog xg station2 did it too :), ans its Wirth better than this device

We've noticed that you are using an ad blocker.

Thank you for visiting KitGuru. Our news and reviews teams work hard to bring you the latest stories and finest, in-depth analysis.

We want to be as informative as possible – and to help our readers make the best buying decisions. The mechanism we use to run our business and pay some of the best journalists in the world, is advertising.

If you want to support KitGuru, then please add www.kitguru.net to your ad blocking whitelist or disable your adblocking software. It really makes a difference and allows us to continue creating the kind of content you really want to read.

It is important you know that we don’t run pop ups, pop unders, audio ads, code tracking ads or anything else that would interfere with the KitGuru experience. Adblockers can actually block some of our free content, such as galleries!