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We have built a system inside a Lian Li chassis with no case fans and have used a fanless cooler on our CPU. The motherboard is also passively cooled. This gives us a build with almost completely passive cooling and it means we can measure noise of just the graphics card inside the system when we run looped 3DMark tests.
We measure from a distance of around 1 meter from the closed chassis and 4 foot from the ground to mirror a real world situation. Ambient noise in the room measures close to the limits of our sound meter at 28dBa.
Why do this? Well this means we can eliminate secondary noise pollution in the test room and concentrate on only the video card. It also brings us slightly closer to industry standards, such as DIN 45635.
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 takeoff/Gunshot (close range)
160dBA – Instant Perforation of eardrum
Having the most powerful, hot running hardware does have a downside. It needs serious air flow to remain cool. The fans spin quite fast when both processor and graphics cards are under load. We recorded a maximum 40dBa from the system (after 90 minutes of Tomb Raider gaming), although generally it wouldn't be quite so loud.
do want, cant afford . . . yet 😉
btw quote: “MSI may be adding a 3k or 3k screen” 😉 4th paragraph from end
I really want this laptop! BTW, XoticPCs are selling this with SSD options allowing a choice of manufacturers and capacities. It’s hard to decide on buying now or waiting to see IF a 3K or 4K screen will be offered in the future. Good job, MSI!
Great review! Very thorough and detailed. Keep up the good job! Really gave me an idea about what this gaming laptop has to offer. It’s a really great laptop with the only downside I can think of being it’s price.
Don’t get the point of having that much graphics power without at least a 3k screen. Unless you’re doing some serious 3d rendering then it’s just so much hot air.
Don’t get the point of having that much graphics power without at least a 3k screen. Unless you’re doing some serious 3d rendering then it’s just so much hot air.
What doesn’t make sense is such a good laptop with only a 1080p screen. When will they learn?
Did you notice CPU-Z validation[1] reports wrong VRAM size?
[1] http://valid.canardpc.com/rng1v9
It’s missing the version of the benchmark software. Also, there’s no information on the SSDs models used.
Great Review…but so expensive….with mechanical keyboard is awesome
is this wide-view anti glare Display?
Wow! What a beast! Finally a laptop that really competes with the high end of the desktop market. The real downside is it’s very expensive.
A desktop with decent CPU and GTX 980 would be cheaper than this…but yeah laptops are more expensive since they need to be mobile…but lets be honest….this laptop ain’t that mobile for dat price tag.
shIT…dafuq did i just wrote 0.0
@Zardon is that HDMI port output only? No HDMI input mode? Alienware laptops from 2014 had the single HDMI port than could be run as input or output based on function key combination switches.
insane hardware but i must say im little disappointment whit screen resolution this laptop in eu cost 5k euros and screen should have at lest 1440p if not 4k
While that is true, the newest alienwares have omitted the hdmi in feature, so you cant really blame msi for not putting it in. Would have been an amazing feature to add in though.
This isnt so much as msi’s own fault, as the market for 18.4inch panels for laptops is a slowly dwindling marketspace. The current panels in the gt80 are also leftovers from the production by various companies in the past.
Yeah I heard about the change on the 2015. I don’t like a laptop smaller than 18.4″ screen size. Guess my M18X R1 is a precious model now, will be hard in the future to replace if something fails. Might have to stock up on the M18X R2 ivy bridge motherboard so I can fall back on that option since it works perfectly in the M18X R1 chassis. CPUs are more easier to come by.
Fed up with the ridiculous prices for MXM cards, for the price of two MXM top line cards I can build a ITX or Micro-ATX rig for high end gaming with sort of ‘acceptable’ mobility when I travel internationally. Just plug the HDMI output from cabinet to the laptop and I can have a gaming rig when I want it without the need for a separate monitor. The Alienware Graphics Amp is so large that getting a separate mini system makes much more sense and value. I would be willing to go the graphics AMP route if there was an 18.4″ model. 17.3″ just doesn’t cut it especially with embedded CPU and GPU. The graphics Amp is still penalized by somewhat with the 4X PCIE bus while the external cabinet option with a new system is going to be rendering on 16X PCIE 3.0 and fed out via HDMI.
Ideally I would like a simple 18.4″ laptop with no high end graphics in it, just upgradable PGA MQ processor support and HDMI input function. Am done with MGPU/dGPU laptops, MXM pricing by the cartel is untenable. MSI promises upgradeability by supplying parts but don’t be under any illusions their MXM cards will be just as expensive. The CPU is HQ BGA so it is embedded, which is a shame for a flagship laptop aimed at upgradeability.
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And yet other companies are making much higher resolution laptops, say Apple.