MSI GT640 - Looking Good!

http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/03/msi-gt640-houses-core-i7-claims-to-be-worlds-most-powerful-ga/

45nm Core I7 and a 40NM GTS250. When 32nm comes, this might even be a 4-hour battery gaming laptop. I wonder if we'll see switchable graphics at that time.

 

Only issue is the price, at €1500 ( iirc ), its gonna need to have a lot to offer over the G51J and G60J that are supposed to release at $14XX.

 

MSI laptops are primarily attractive (to me) from a price point of view.

But this thing is €1400. That's close to the UK/Europe price of the W860CU or M15X. I can't think of any good reason to buy this instead of one of those - the build quality won't be as good and MSI are known to use LCD panels that are several generations old.

The GT725 was great value when it came onto the scene, especially for the UK/Europe market, but I can't help feel MSI are getting a bit cocky and pricing their stuff too high.

 

Very nice indeed!

 

Okay, I love my MSI, but the fact that they are calling this "the world's most powerful gaming notebook" is a joke. Even if the GDDR3 listed in other sources is a misprint and it has GDDR5 (which I hope it does), the GTS 250m is still only as powerful as a 9800m GT (same # of SPs, same speed, same memory bandwidth) and less powerful than a GTX 260m, present in many more laptops.

For the right price, this could still be a great option, but it is nowhere near the most powerful. I understand there is subjectivity in all advertising, but that's just a plain lie.

 

nice

too bad its only a 15"

 

Well, the nice thing is they probably won't have to underclock the GPU to meet the heat requirements of the laptop because it's 40nm. Also, it is technically a new architecture, even if it's not that different from the G80/G92 stuff. So yeah, only 96 shaders, but they're real 200 series shaders.

 

I love MSI but this is a joke.. the GTS 250M is no way as powerful as the GTX 280M... this is a real MSI screw up... W860CU is more powerful...

 

I also have to agreem the MSI is a nice option but not the best in its category, not by a long way....still a nice machine all the same.

 

Whats the price looking to be? Is under $1200 likely or possible?

 

It's no screw up. It was never designed to be near the GTX 280M or the W860CU - totally different market niche. Look at the past iterations of the 15" GT models. They always offer the bottom/mid range of the high end GPUs, charge <$1600 and with a relatively low weight.

 

No. But here, just to clarify.

Its a little under a 260M. So its still decent.

 

DDR3 is plastered all over MSI's marketing page, so I'm going to take it as fact until further notice.

 

Many in the MSI forum believe its a mistake/typo.... If it does really use gddr3 instead of gddr5, it's going to suck big time.

 

whatever the case, MSI is wrong to say that the GT640 is the most powerful 15 inch laptop... that title has to go to the W860CU...

 

maybe msi wants to release a gts260m model with gddr5 to differentiate the market.

 

Maybe I missed something, but I don't see msi claiming its the most powerful laptop. Only one's I see saying that are endgadget.

 

It's the most powerful thin and light 15" laptop . If you reformulate their statement that way it becomes true.

 

Yeah I went on MSI's site(at least the Canadian one) and nowhere does it mention the GT640 being the world's most powerful 15" laptop.

What's nice about this compared to more powerful new solutions such as the W860U or the G51 is the fact that its screen is still 16:10 rather than 16:9.

 

This picture is right in the middle of the MSI webpage I see.

 

If it added for it's weight class, that might be closer to being true. The Sager is 50% heavier.

 

Go to this website
http://www.msi.com/index.php?func=proddesc&maincat_no=135&cat2_no=&cat3_no=&prod_no=1901

than scroll down a bit.... There's a big poster saying world fastest quad core notebook makes its debut... and i got this website from an earilier post in this topic....

 

Another thing I heard was MSI is also putting the GTS 250m in the GT740, the 17'' model.. If they do that would be quite stupid considering the 4850 has more preformance.. MSI is getting abit stupid lately.. I doubt I would ever own another MSI gaming series.. They need to put out a better laptop and soon..

 

It's a GDDR3 card, confirmed straight from the PDF user's manual.

 

Does it say what memory bus size? If its 128 bit then its not much of a gaming laptop at all.

 

There is no 256 bit GTS 250M, it is a GPU with 128 bit memory bus. Coupled with GDDR3, it is going to be joke to call it a gaming laptop. I can't imagine this thing is going to outperform a 9700M GTS.

 

well it is, it's got double the amount of shaders.

 

Even with GDDR5 and 96 shaders, its more or less equivalent to a 9800M GTS/GTS 160M. With GDDR3 and crippled 128 bit memory bus, it's never going to be near the performance of a 9800M GTS/GTS 160M, thus my speculation.

 

I think when it says "worlds fastest quad core notebook" it means: "A notebook featuring the worlds fastest quad-core (i7)"

 

Nice joke guys ;-) Not even putting GDDR5 and claiming such bulls...ridiculous.

Yeah you must be right.

 

Anyway, GTS 250M and GTS 260M are more power efficient than just efficient So don't expect them to outperform high-end gpus. I'm pretty happy about this orientation.

The GDDR5 models will be very decent though.

 

lol, I wonder who at MSI decided this.

 

it's faster, reference gts250m has the same clocks and shaders and bandwidth as the 9800m gt. but gimped with gddr3, we have to see some benches.

 

It will murder a 4670, I'll bet money on that much. I think the MSI GT640's direct competition will be HP's Envy 15, with it's i7 and Mobility 4830.

 

performance might be similar, but i think the envy 15 starts at 2k right?

 

If MSI comes out with this laptop with the 250M and DDR3, will it benchmark lower than the GT628 w/ 160M? Assuming similar spec'd computers with price. Let's say the i7 vs Core 2 Quad.

 

At 1680x1050 the 160m would win hands down. Probably at 1280x800 as well.

 

That is terrible, why would MSI come out w/ a laptop that's weaker than the GT628. Makes no sense.

 

THe title should be "MSI GT640 - Looking BAd....
seriously. i wish they would go with a gtx260. gaming notebooks are not meant to be thin and light. thin and light is a bonus. I would rather have it a bit thicker with the 260 than thin and light with 250.

On a related topic, I wonder why they put a 250 on the gt740? why not keep the 4850? I kept thinking "nvidia has something to do with this", but it doesn't make sense because the top of the line models are 260m and 280m.

anyway, i'll wait till they come up with new chassises to house more powerful components. the gt640 and gt740 are just msi's rush to join the core i7 party.

 

Is there even a mobile GTS 250? If it's the actual desktop GTS 250 then it'll be just as capable as the GTX280M.

 

there is a mobile GTS250M... look at notebookcheck.net

 

Asus is doing the same thing. They are putting in weaker GPU's this time because of the hungry power requirements of the i7. At least these weaker cards are what they claim to be instead of offering undervolted 260's like the asus g51's before. In order to boast a high end card a beefy chassis like the M15x with extremely good cooling will be needed. An M15x user has already confirmed that the gtx 280m works in the M15x with no apparent cooling issues. The new Clevo/Sager is the only 15" that comes loaded with a 280 but I have a feeling the battery life could be potentially really bad, maybe less then 2 hrs. The good news is the next gen of ati cards (5000 series) have much lower power req's and all of these laptops with mxm 3.0b may be upgradable.

 

same specs as 9800m gt, just 40nm.

 

first of all..the G51 is underclocked, not undervolted. undervolted it doesn't need any underclocking...I don't hit 90C in any game I've played since undervolting. secondly, you are wrong about the GTS250m in the new asus:

http://1toppc.com/Merchant2/merchan...e=G51J-A1&Category_Code=AS15&Product_Count=11


gentechPC confirmed in multiple posts on this forum that the info on the asus page was a misprint and it indeed, is running the same GTX260m as was in it before.

 

5870 has insanely low idle power consumption, a very impressive 27w. too bad there is no way it's going to a laptop, load power is a bit higher than a GTX 285.

 

plus it's 128bit.

 

Anyone head any news on this laptop? Even though I hate how they basically downgraded the video card, if the price is right and it has longer battery time, it might still be worth it. I almost gave up on it but will have to see what kind of warranty it offers as well as the stuff mentioned above.

 

It's a desktop GTS 250, not a mobile one. That means it's probably clocked much higher than the GTX 280M which it's a direct cousin of.

 

Can you provide a link or something where it says the GTS 250 in the new MSI laptops are desktop GPU's? The idea is kind of hard to grasp.

 

Epic Fail.
Facepalm.
Insert the internet meme of your choice here.

Just because engadget forgot to type an m after 250 ( http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/03/msi-gt640-houses-core-i7-claims-to-be-worlds-most-powerful-ga/) does not mean MSI actually shoved a desktop card with a TDP of 150W into a 15" laptop with a 45W CPU already in it.