Review MSI GT780R Notebook
Matte SurfacesThe days of high-gloss cases seem to be coming to an end.dell latitude e6500 battery As opposed to the previous GT663R, MSI has now settled for mostly matte, scratch-resistant surfaces. The case design now looks calmer and less flashy. Dell inspiron 1300 battery
The materials used make an overall good impression.Dell vostro 1400 battery While the bottom of the case and most edges are made of plastic, the display lid and palm rest distinguish themselves through brushed aluminum. The 17" colossus is pretty sturdy on the whole. Except for the bar of touch keys above the keyboard (which was not exactly firmly set in place in our test model) the base unit hardly caved in even when we applied some strong pressure to it. The display lid, however, proved itself to be rather flimsy—a quality observed in too many laptops. Dell inspiron 1420 battery
The display lid hinges are not the tightest. The upside is that you can easily open up the notebook with one hand.Dell inspiron 1521 battery But when the table underneath the laptop starts shaking just a bit, the screen starts bobbing back and forth. The GT780R is meant to be kept in one place more often than not, especially considering its weight of about 4 Kg can become a hassle to carry back and forth with you.dell studio 1535 battery
The keyboard here has several surprises in store.Dell inspiron 1525 battery MSI decided on individual chiclet keys measuring a decently-sized 15x15 mm. We found the feel of typing to be up to par but the resulting noise a bit loud. Note: the "Enter" key at the center of the keyboard is not the large backwards "L" shape some of us are used to but is rather a smaller rectangle. Dell latitude e6400 battery
In order to satisfy the high standards of the gaming community,Dell latitude d620 battery MSI collaborated with gaming respected accessory manufacturer SteelSeries on the keyboard. An important difference to most keyboards is the position of the "Windows" key, which is found on the right side of the GT780R keyboard.Dell latitude d630 battery MSI uses the freed-up space at the left to make the "ctrl" and "alt" keys larger. These changes supposedly put the WASD keys in the perfect arrangement with the lowest row of keys, MSI speaks here of the "Golden Triangle". Dell inspiron 1526 battery
The keyboard backlight is yet another unique feature. Dell inspiron 6400 batteryThanks to the clear interface of the intuitive software, the keyboard backlight can be easily configured to your detailed preferences. Three sections,Dell inspiron 1501 battery 28 colors and various modes—oh the possibilities! On top of that MSI equips the laptop with a row of touch buttons right above the keyboard. Among these is the "eject" button for the Blu-Ray drive.Dell vostro 1000 battery
The touchpad performance is patchy.Dell vostro 1520 battery On the upside we have the generous size (91x46 mm), support for multi-touch gestures, the recessed touchpad surface and the option to deactivate the touchpad. Everything else could really use some improvement.Dell inspiron 1720 battery The rough, textured surface does indeed make for good feedback but infringes upon a smooth, comfortable feel in return.
What's more is the unpredictably sensitive touchpad,Dell vostro 1500 battery the cursor sometimes moving incredibly fast across the screen and inaccurately landing somewhere where you didn't want it. Once you redirect the cursor to where you actually want it, not every click registers, leading to yet more frustration. To put the icing on the cake, scrolling and using multi-touch gestures shows a delayed and overall choppy response (configured via touchpad driver).Dell latitude d820 battery
Update: Although the second test laptop we received didn't satisfy our standards 100% (the rough texture of the touchpad is simply subpar), a few things have improved. Multi-touch gestures worked a bit more smoothly and moving the cursor was more predictable overall. Dell latitude d830 battery
The selling point of the GT780R is the brand new graphics carddell studio 17 battery. Nvidia's excitedly awaited premium model GeForce GTX 560M is soon to be released onto the market. Unlike its predecessor the GTX 460M, the GTX 560M is not based on the GF106 chip, rather on the GF116 chip which is better optimized for energy efficiency. Dell studio 15 battery
To get the most out of the GeForce GTX 560M, dell studio 1535 battery MSI has fitted the GT780R with a special turbo mode. With the press of button the core and shaders shoot up to 813 MHz and 1627 MHz, respectively (+5%). The actual improvement in performance corresponds pretty well to the increase in clock rate.Toshiba PA3534U-1BRS While the Unigine Heaven 2.1 benchmark ran its course 5% faster, the boost in performance observed in playing the new racing game Dirt 3, however, amounted to a mere 3%—same for the GPU score earned in 3DMark 11.toshiba pa3535u-1brs battery
5.9Windows 7 Experience IndexProcessorCalculations per second7.4Memory (RAM)Memory operations per second7.6GraphicsDesktop performance for Windows Aero7.2Gaming graphics3D business and gaming graphics7.2Primary hard diskDisk data transfer rate5.9GPU Performancehp pavilion dv2000 battery
The DirectX 11 performance of the GeForce GTX 560M was tested via Unigine Heaven 2.1 (1280x1024) among other benchmarks.hp pavilion dv6000 battery Although the Nvidia GPU does manage a good refresh rate of 27.6 fps here,hp pavilion dv9000 battery this score isn't nearly enough to ensure first place among mobile GPUs. AMD's top-of-the-line Radeon HD 6970M (Eurocom Racer) achieves 20% faster performance with 33.2 fps. As far as the GPU score of the 3DMark 11 (1280x1024) benchmark goes, the GeForce GTX 560M stands no chance against the current throne holder—the Radeon HD 6970M beats it by a whopping 56% with 2,834 to 1,820 points.hp compaq 6710b battery
With all the other high-end hardware in place MSI didn't forget to put in a good hard drive.compaq presario cq60 battery The model we reviewed came with two 500-GB HDDs from Western Digital (WD5000BEVT), spinning at 5400 RPM and set to run in tandem via RAID 0. IBM thinkpad r60e battery
With a sequential read rate of 116.6 MB/s and a sequential write rate of 137.1 MB/s, Lenovo thinkpad r60 battery the hard drive here performs at the level of a faster-rotating 7200 RPM HDD (Hard Drive Test, CrystalDiskMark). Compared to new SSD hard drives, the two speedy HDDs nevertheless seem old. In terms of boot-up speed,Lenovo thinkpad t60 battery reaction time and loading times, solid state drives are a great deal faster.Lenovo thinkpad x60 battery
The hard drives can, nonetheless, easily be swapped out,IBM thinkpad X60S battery (all the important hardware is accessible). So, there's nothing standing in your way if you choose to upgrade to an SSD at a later date.Lenovo thinkpad t500 battery
The application performance of the GT780R impresses across the board.Lenovo thinkpad t61 battery Intel's quick Sandy Bridge processor speeds up just about every program to incredibly smooth performance so as not to negatively affect your pace of work. What's more is that the quad-core CPU is powerful enough for running the applications of years to come. Lenovo thinkpad r61 batteryNvidia's high-end GeForce GTX 560M is also good choice and first shows weakness only when dealing with extremely demanding 3D applications. An excessive 16 GB DDR3-RAM will never leave you wanting more—8 GB really would have been enough. MSI should have just invested in an SSD instead of the extra RAM.Lenovo thinkpad t400 battery
In running various recent games, Lenovo thinkpad t410 battery our aim was to find out to what extent the GeForce GTX 560M can set itself apart from its predecessor. The results for the GeForce GTX 460M come from our reviews of the Medion Erazer X6813 or the Asus G73SW depending on the particular game at hand—both of which were also equipped with an Intel Core i7-2630QM.Lenovo x300 battery
The brand new racing game Dirt 3 overwhelms the GeForce GTX 560M with graphics details set to max.Lenovo x200 batteryWith a full-HD resolution of 1920x1080 pixels, 4X Antialiasing (4X AA) and "Ultra" graphics presets, the refresh rate averaged out to a slightly choppy 23.3 fps. With such high graphics settings, only the absolute best graphics card would run the game smoothly, such as the AMD Radeon HD 6970M which achieved a fluid 33.2 fps here (+42%).Lenovo 3000 v100 battery
This extremely resource-demanding shooter from Crytek pushes the GeForce GTX 560M even harder. Lenovo 3000 v200 battery The graphics preset "Extreme" produced a fairly choppy 19.4 fps at a full-HD resolution (1080x1920)—which really makes a first person shooter hard to play. At 18.1 fps, the older GeForce GTX 460M is a mere 7% slower. We'd recommend the graphics preset "Very High" and a lower resolution.Lenovo 3000 c200 battery
The GT780R was able to spit out a perfectly smooth picture for the latest Call of Duty offshoot: Black Ops.Lenovo ideapad s10 battery Even at full HD (1920x1080), 4X AA, 8X AF and the graphics preset "Extra", the GeForce GTX 560M produced a perfectly smooth 64.0 fps. Like with Crysis 2, the older GeForce GTX 460M turned out to be around 7% slower (59.3 fps).
Thanks to its not-very-demanding graphics engine, the gangster epic Mafia 2 can be enjoyed in all its glory on the GT780R.Fujitsu lifebook t4215 battery The built-in benchmark measured a smooth 41.6 fps with 16X AF in a full-HD resolution (1080x1920). The older 460M managed only 34.7 fps, putting the new GeForce GTX 560M here a respectable 20% ahead of its predecessor.Fujitsu lifebook t4210 battery
Bilzzard's real-time strategy hit doesn't cause the GeForce GTX 560M to break much of a sweat. The campaign's intro, "For The Swarm", was run in a full-HD resolution 1920x1080 with "Ultra" graphics settings at a smooth average of 35.2 fps. Nvidia's older GeForce GTX 460M is around 11% slower here (31.5 fps).Fujitsu lifebook t4220 battery
The new GeForce GTX 560M really hasn't made much a gain compared to its predecessor in playing Bad Company 2.Fujitsu lifebook t5010 battery A fairly smooth 34.3 fps results from a resolution of 1920x1080 pixels, 4X AA, 8X AF and high detail settings,apple a1175 battery although the picture get a slight bit choppy every now and then. In playing Bad Company 2, the older GeForce GTX 460M is a mere 8% slower (31.6 fps). In order to have the game run completely smoothly, you'd have to either reduce the resolution or the graphics enhancers (AA and AF).apple a1185 battery
Compared to all other notebooks, the GT780R shows outstanding gaming performance. apple a1189 battery Only do extremely demanding titles like Crysis 2 or Metro 2033 make the GeForce GTX 560M choke up and produce a choppy picture. Other than that, the GPU can run just about any game in full HD and with maximum graphics settings.acer aspire 5920 battery Graphics enhancers like antialiasing and anisotropic filtering are also no problem. Nvidia's oldie-but-goodie GeForce GTX 460M on average only trails about 13% behind the new top dog.acer aspire 5050 battery
Big time gamers will find just about everything they want in the GeForce GTX 560M,acer aspire 5100 battery which truly earns the GT780R the distinguished title of gaming laptop. Hardcore gamers who will compromise at nothing would be better off with the Radeon HD 6970M or the GeForce GTX 485M. As far as desktop graphics cards go,acer aspire 5100 battery GTX 560M would only rank in among mid-grade GPUs à la GTS 450.
