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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 price is good, however i would opt for the same machine with Core i7 in it, probably £300 more, but well worth it IMO. No need for the A10, as 7970 is in this machine and it seems that AMDs switchable graphics system causes some problems. read about that on forums as well last week. not isolated to this machine.
I thought it was only me who didnt like keyboards with single height return keys. good review. nice machine. good price too
I was actually looking at this machine during the week, seems a very good price for what you get. shame they didnt use a smallish SSD instead however. thats the killer.
As an owner of this machine i can only say that this review is quite well balanced. I have got a SSD in mine now (optional extra) and its so so fast.
The keyboard keys are quite a change from my alienware laptop and need pressing quite hard to get a response – no light touch here. I assume its to protection the keys for the keyboard mashers out there.
The graphics switching is actually OK. When you first start an application / game it will some time default to the wrong GPU, but upon exiting the application it does prompt you to check the settings.
I have the 12.9 beta drivers installed and they are a lot better than the 12.7’s installed onto the machine by default.
It would appear the 12.11 drivers are going to give it yet more boosts against nvidia gaming laptops
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/374799-15-catalyst-drivers-great-performance-gains
Hey Zardon and others. I am in need of some help from owners of this machine, as I personally bought one over the weekend. Now the problem is whatever I do, my rig just can’t seem to pick up the 7970M.
My MSi Kombustor numbers, and the MSi Afterburner all seem to pick up only the 7660G as the GPU. Worse still after being initially prompted to pick profiles for apps, that screen just doesn’t pop up anymore to select High Performance in the Power menu. Do you have any solutions? All help will be greatly appreciated. – A grumpy gamer
PS – While every single driver is current, I haven’t yet reinstalled them clean.
Did you run a 3dMark 11 score to see if the 7970 is active and if CCC is selecting the ‘performance’ mode? Did you buy the same machine as our review model or another variation?
EDIT: Ok you say it seems to have vanished. What did you do just before the panel stopped working? Did you install a new driver on the system?
Hey Zardon,
Thanks for the super quick reply. I forgot to say this in the last post, but great and comprehensive review, made even better by all the screenshots and practical images.
Now back to the issue – I think I might have done a driver install after. The way things stand Afterburner gives me this info (http://forum.notebookreview.com/attachments/msi/86163d1350819074-offical-msi-gx60-owners-lounge-pic1.jpg) and the AMD Vision Engine Center Power has only these options )http://imageshack.us/f/854/pic2rt.jpg/). I am currently on the Catalyst 12-9.
At no point have I actually seen the 7970 detected with every detection software recognizing only the 7660G. I can’t run 3D Mark right now as it’s down. But won’t be surprised to see it do the same.
Ya, just ran the 3D Mark 11 Basic Test and as thought it gives me the lower results (http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/4724952)
Hi Varun,
Have you tried recovering the unit to it’s out of the box settings? press F3 at POST.
As I found during some testing, there are a numbe of driver packages available that are not meant to be installed onto a unit with switchable graphics. Installing these will mess with or even remove the switchable graphics function completely.
Hey ScottiB
Thanks for the tip. I will try that reset this evening, but I really doubt it’d work. I have already asked it for a recollection. This is a great machine (when not unlucky) so hopefully other gamers out there, find the joy I did not.
Cheers,
Varun
Hey guys
I think this is a very good machine for this price and perfect for somebody who wants to play everywhere… Do somebody know where can I buy it in US?
Cheers,
Chongee
how many ram slots are there 2 or 4
The MSI website mentions the possibility of a RAID solution with 2 SSDs. isnt it possible than to have both the 750 Gb drive with an SSD drive?
Nice Review, so Msi GX60 come out on mid october.. 21, same day i order my M14xR2.. (i73630QM, Gt650M,purchase with Dell coupon£960.04 11%discount) wow GX60 like the Radeon7970… dislike CPU on GX60… but still i Envy those owner of this GX60.. 🙂 got good deal under£1000.00, if i did my full research on gaming notebook extended to other brands.. i may be owner of this GX60.. too bad.. haha but hey Msi Superb HardwarE for gamer..:)
Do we know that the HD7970 was being used in all of the benches??? Even the CPU related ones, if everything is using the HD7970, the APU can allocate more TDP to the CPU with the 7660G at idle. Additionally, newer BIOS updates for the HP systems seems to enable better turbo mode from the CPU, so it actually hits 3.2Ghz more often and longer.
The one thing I dont understand is why you stopped the comparisons? How do the gaming scores compare to those machines you had compared to earlier?
Hi guys I wanted to ask (particularly Phillip Brown) how to install the extra SSD because even by detaching the screw I still can take off the base protection as if it was somehow sticked. How did you manage to add you ssd ? Is there any specific movement to make to take off the plastic back ?