-->*OFFICIAL: MSI GT725 Owner's Lounge*<--

Wow that's great, I didn't even think about Newegg, I usually just get CPU's and VId cards there. I haven't seen any Gt729 from the top, but I SWEAR I can see the shift key, and it looks like a standard length. That was one of the only things that bothered me about the Gt725 was the tiny little shift key! Can anyone confirm my suspicions?

 

Wow so is that the Quad core working those scores? Dx10.1 really makes a difference too, I have seen some amazing FPS increases with ATI hardware due to 10.1. I must say, I think it would be worth paying the extra money for your quad model laptop cat, can you run turbo with the quad core also?

 

The only things wrong with the keyboard is the (right) shift key. You must have been look at the left shift key. The Fn & Ctrl buttons are swapped, and there is a tiny, tiny bit of flex, but by no means the worst flex I've felt in a laptop keybord, my XPS M1730 was appalling. Also, the directional keys are a tiny bit smaller, but I play GRID with these keys and it doesn't prohibit/negatively effect gameplay at all.

 

The only reason dx10.1 makes a difference is because the only difference between dx10 and 10.1 is that 10.1 has been optimized for ATI cards, thats why you won't find an nVidia (I'd like to take this opportunity to curse them) card that supports 10.1. Basically, nVidia = DX10, ATI = DX10.1.

EDIT: Hope that makes sense, just read through a few times

 

I ran that benchmark, 1680 x 1050, ultra preset, no AA, and my scores are nowhere near yours (P8600 @ 20% OC). I might post them within the next couple of days sometime.

Also, this is a pretty good looking game. Has anyone got the full version?

 

Does anyone know how useful that Active Power State Management thing is in our bios, should we enable it?

I also just installed Windows 7 X64 RC on my 6 year old desktop with and it literally is amazing, it boots faster than my super optimized vista and my vista boots in 28 seconds with everything loaded. I can't wait to get my 20 dollar copy.

and btw my desktop has a amd +3000 with radeon x1650 video card and 1.5 gig of pc3200 ddr ram hahaha i just got a new 7200 rpm ide hdd for it and it runs so ing good for how old it is im so impressed.

 

on a side note im really happy with my newly upgraded wireless internet and how our intel wifi card is performing

 

4MBps

Very nice... it'll probably be the best part of 10 years before we get anywhere near that on average in the UK! What with our ISPs general rate of capping stuff at the moment, I guess it doesnt really matter though ¬_¬

Wireless N is a good technology; I just dont like wireless because of the small microdropouts and interference the tech is prone too...give me a cleanly, tidily run Cat5/6 any day

 

The results i provided arent in the ultra preset, i have great difficulty using overdrive with ultra preset, but ive had bizzar results (some of which the frames burst up to 100 :S)

I believe the two cards are very very close but the gtx 280m comes out on top by a few frames.

I cant seem to understand what the ultra preset does though, (like AA MSAA MS, not really sure.)
I think so far though, i do like the X3 TC test, this is ok but i dont think its multi optimised.

 

From what I hear N only helps with range, but I get full signal in any area of my apartment. And yes wireless is not stable enough for me yet either. I play counter strike source competitively and those millisecond delays our quite annoying and frustrating

 

Higher throughput on Wireless N as well, within distance restrictions when pared with other N equipment. Useful for day to day stuff and internet browsing, or even filesharing, but I dont want to have to game over it again...been there, hated that!

 

That explains the different results then... I knew something had to be off.

The ultra preset changes the texture level and other settings. It's like running crysis on all medium and comparing the results to an all high run.

 

Not really true lambo, DX10.1 has everything DX10 has plus more. It's got some support that will be required in DX11... it's like halfway to DX11. And from what it seems, when games start being coded using DX11 (forever from now) they will probably support 10.1 cards in some respect... take these to lines from wikipedia:

 

Yeah true, but then again the comparison may be down to the qx having extra cache then the q9000 aswell as the .5 ghz, i will try get in touch with an msi qx user.

Still crazy frame bursts of 100 at times :S

 

Just to reput out this question as it may have been overlooked, Does anyone know how useful that Active Power State Management thing is in our bios, should we enable it?

 

When it comes to BIOS setting of which I know nothing, I leave them alone.

I agree that the cache makes a difference, especially comparing the 12mb in the QX to 3mb in my p8600. However, I would guess it makes a 3-5 fps difference at the most, where running the test at different settings completely invalidates the results for any sort of comparison.

 

Hmm agreed, the q9000 is also 3 x 2mb i believe so its basically a p7350, which could be the difference, what we need is a p9600

But i can see 2 fps differences in all the tests with my card, except the random 100 fps i keep getting.

 

For some odd reason my laptop keeps BSOD on Oblivion, out of all the games lol..
You can all play it on ultra without BSOD right? I can play fallout 3 on ultra.. for hours and its fine. at 45-60 fps.

 

Odd, can you get the bsod message?

 

I haven't played it for long, but I've run it without problems. Everything turned up all the way. No GPU overclock, because Oblivion doesn't need it.

 

Aye, I forgot I ran this test with different CPU speeds. Here's 2.93, 2.53, and 2.13, respectively (all at "Stock" GPU speeds, memory at 950 mhz for MXM 3.0 spec)

There's a few FPS worth of difference in the faster tests, the more graphically intensive parts you hardly notice a difference. Generally speaking, STALKER is graphically intensive, so I'd say even a basic stock clocked P8400 is enough for a 4850 or 260/280M. On top of that, STALKER isn't optimized for even dual cores... so what you have here is a GPU driven game.

Catacylsm, there's a reason I dragged the results window to the side so you could see my graphic settings

 

Your stock clocked numbers are VERY similar to my 550/900 numbers (the 2.13 run was within 1 fps the whole way down). When you factor in the L2 cache differences, I would conclude (for this game) that an CCC overclocked 4850 = Stock 280m

 

My 280M is a bad overclocker as well, the lucky ones can get core/shader speeds up to 700/1750, and with MXM 3.0 can get memory to 1050-1100. Those are more 3dmark speeds than gaming speeds, but I'm lucky to get a run in at 650 core and 1025 memory, comparatively.

 

Yeah, the 280m has been pushed quite hard, but still very good.
And i hate really people who try and get the highest score in 3dmark06 but cannot hold it stable :/ its quite pointless.

I will bump the q9000 up to 2.13 and try again, although dx10.1 i believe does yield more performance strangely, i seem to recall the pattern being the higher the dx the lower the performance.

On my laptop (the lower native) i stay in the 90s when it comes to frames, ati really does enjoy less pixels to render.

I think GTA would be an ok test, but i dont think there are any benches.
Any others we could try anothergeek?

Stalker seems quite intense but i dont think the graphics are anything special, i wonder what method it uses to actually smooth images? AA or sampling etc.

 

No but if it happens again Ill make sure to note it down. I downclocked to 16% and downclocked my gpu to stock settings to see if that fixes it.

 

been having the same issues recently , random BSOD in or outside game (especially with turbo on) . contacted msi , they gave a prog to test my cpu and ram , the result was positive but they still told me to ship it back .

 

Ugh, I already shipped mine back to newegg this is my second one, I dont wanna do it again haha, now oblivion just closed no blue screen

 

Resident Evil 5 is a great benchmark, and with catalyst 9.8 drivers runs at full performance now. Can be found here: http://downloads.guru3d.com/Resident-Evil-5-PC-Benchmark-Utility-download-2331.html

And here's my only result I did at 1680 x 1050, I'm not sure what clocks. I did many more results at 1080p and got some good overclocks in, coming in around 55 FPS. We can test AA as well.

 

Nice man, is this at full clocks?

Theres a huge spike towards the end of area 1 i can see there, looks like over 100 lol.

 

Not sure what clocks, but that was my first run, so on the lower end (630 core?). When I found that it ran stable at high clocks, it came down to a competition with Don at 1080p and 8xAA

This isn't a CPU intensive title either, it's like DMC4 but more potent. It does seem to be optimized for quad core, so I'll play with it later.

 

Ahh awesome man, if you put out a list of presets for us to try i'll attempt to get the bench, but im having a few internet issues.

 

Here's a run at 650/1625/1025, pretty much high as it goes. Note the use of all cores...

 

And here's the CPU comparison, 2.93, 2.53, 2.13 respectively. Note the difference: nothing.

 

Ahh right, its single thread?

Normally that's the result i get if i run a single thread game, it in a way separates when it isn't coded for multi thread?

 

What settings you using for the RE5 benches AG?

I'm not sure anything is fixed. I still get the same frame rate crapouts in scene 3 with any AA.

 

9.8 (Hotfix) work a lot better; the DX10 variable benchmark now completes and runs a lot better rather than crashing out/freezing on my crossfire setup; but it hasn't fixed the bugs with shadows flickering on the fixed bench, or generally low framerate in the fixed benchmark.

Its not quite there yet, getting much better though, so I'd imagine the next driver set or two should have it, especially as I'd imagine they'll want a good working set to release the new 5-series cards with.

 

Hey guys, I'm having a problem with my GT725. Whenever I try to plug it into my LCD TV via a HDMI cable I either get the Blue Screen Of Death or it just shuts itself down. I would really appreciate if anyone knows any reason this might be happening?
Thanks

 

What drivers are you using?

I have that problem (with 9.6/7/8) but not with the original drivers that came with the 725. Apparently i need to reinstall the driver using Mobility Modder ( http://www.driverheaven.net/modtool.php ) but i havent got round to it.

Blazin

 

DX10, motion blur, high settings, no AA thus far

 

does anyone know if this will work with our msi gt275 laptops?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820161339

its dirt cheap compared to other brands

 

I'm pretty sure that's 2x2 GB, and it's not dirt cheap for that.

 

Well stand me up and call me Dan. I can't remember where I read that but its obvioulsy incorrect

Actually I think my brother told me that... Wait a sec while I go and bash him up

 

Whats the point? RAM is the last thing I'd consider changing in this laptop (ok so maybe the 4850 can stay too). Its already DDR2 @ 800mhz, and overclockable 24%. The only way you'd get it quicker is by fitting in DDR3 ram slots, in which case you might as well buy a GT729

 

Yeah you're right it is, I didn't look at the picture haha. and what else can you upgrade in this laptop ? lol besides hdd and ram

 

If you're willing to fork out some cache, you might want to look into a new CPU.

And Cat, I was wondering why your benchmarks were way higher than mine, then I realized you native res is 1440 x 900! Have you ever considered buying a bigger res (1680 x 1050) screen from lcds4less?

 

Hehe naa not really lambo, i love the 1440 res, and its going to last me alot longer then the 1680 res for gaming, but.

I do have a 1680 22inch monitor to the right of my machine

 

How does that effect your GPU temps & clocks? I did the same thing, connected through the HDMI port with a HDMI-DVI converter, to a 1680 x 1050 22in, and it pushed the clock up to 500/850, which then made it idle at about 65/70 degrees. Does this happen to you?

 

It was hotter, but now its at 56 the majority, but i think the temperatures are pretty sound because the fan doesn't really kick in either, it just renders the additional pixels and gets on its way ^^.

 

Here's my RE5 benchmark DX10 all high with blur overclocked. The benchmark has been giving me issues, but I've tracked it down to my undervolt... strange since it doesn't give me issues playing Bioshock, Assassins Creed, or GTA IV for hours.

 

Has anyone who bought it from the US and shipped to another country had any luck with the windows 7 upgrade options?