***The MSI GS60 Ghost Pro 970M Owner's Lounge***

Maxwell is way more power efficient than Kepler that should answer your question

 

No that doesn't answer my question considering that the benchmark said clearly that the 980m was using 200 watts (and yeah the 980m cannot be a Kepler anyway)...

 

So... What are our best guesses as to the availability of the FullHD/6GB vRam GS60 in Europe (or Poland)?

I think I need to make a decision now. If can get the FullHD model by the 15th of Nov then I'll wait for that, otherwise I might have to go for the 3k.

FuDoW, did you have any info on this?

 

"Indeed..."

 

We are talking here about 970M(not 980M) what is successor of 870M which used 150W adapter and it was enough

 

The Maxwell architecture provide a lot more power for the same power consumption.
That does not mean that the 970m will consume less power than the 870m, but it will be a lot more power efficient.

 

Does anyone know of any coupons or student discount codes at gentechpc or xotic pc or Excaliber pc ? I'm looking to pull the trigger and really want to take some load off of it. Thanks all !

 

Pro-star is offering $50 off with any upgrades

 

Cross-posting my reply from Maxwells thread, where the same question came up:

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Older version of MSI GS60 Ghost Pro with 3K screen and GTX 870M had max power draw of 168.5 watts and it did indeed cause troubles:

MSI GS60 Ghost Pro 3K Edition (2PEWi716SR21) Notebook Review - NotebookCheck.net Reviews

Maxwell GTX 970M though is supposed to have about 20 watt less TDP than Kepler GTX 870M. So a newer GS60 model's 150 watt power supply while very tight should be still somehow acceptable ( estimated max power draw of 148.5 watts).

------------

Please note that using new Maxwell GPUs don't necessarily mean low power draw, e.g. new thin Clevo P650/651 is quite a disaster. It also has GTX 970m and 150 watt power supply but there it's clearly insufficient - NotebookCheck measured max power draw of 203 watts.

Clevo P651SE (Schenker XMG P505) Barebones Notebook Review - NotebookCheck.net Reviews

Bear in mind though each notebook is different, e.g. that Clevo had 4K display, higher model of CPU and also 3 fans.

 

Thanks a lot for that answer this is the information I was looking for.

So basically it does affect the performances of the computer during heavy loads and furthermore the PSU suffers and heats considerably.

This is bad news as a lot of slim laptops that come with a 970m or 980m don't provide a sufficient PSU, including the MSI GS60 imo.
I wonder if the engineers even thought about that really.

Do you know if it's possible to upgrade the PSU for a bigger one easily ?

 

I believe you should be able to use a power brick with a greater amperage as long as the voltage and polarity are the same

 

Netherlands has it available at laptopshop.nl just go tithe search bar and type msi gs60 2qe

 

My guess would be engineers definitely though about it, but they lost against marketing .

Nobody likes big fat heavy power supplies, especially coming with thin lightweight notebooks. Physical size of power supply is something everybody notices easily, maximum possible power draw is only noticed by a very small percentage of thorough reviewers (e.g. like NotebookCheck).

In a sense though marketing may be right. In real world use cases only small percentage of users would have troubles with these power supplies. It's hard to make realistic scenarios where both CPU and GPU are used together at 100% load for any longer time periods. Even heaviest games are nowhere near that. Maybe if you do some scientific / engineering computations, that could get bad, but anyways that's not a good idea to use thin notebook for

Myself I'm also a bit antsy about those 150 watt supplies with GTX 970m notebooks, though it shouldn't be a showstopper.

-----------------

For comparison I have a massive 170 watt power brick that came with my Thinkpad and I passionately hate it. It's kinda what you get when you are overly cautious in the other direction.

Max power draw of my Thinkpad in that NotebookCheck stress test was 150 watts (FurMark + Prime95). I just checked few games to see the actual power draw in more realistic scenarios (numbers from PowerManager application):

- Tomb Raider got 50-70 watts, with one tiny spike at 95 watts
- Witcher 2 got 70-90 watts, with one flash of 97 watts
- few WebGL demos got 60-90 watts, with a brief spike to 107 watts

So that should give us some idea about realistic loads vs maximum stress test loads.

 

I asked MSI abt it via FB just before premiere, and got info that at the beggining they are going to offer only the 3k version, but later FHD should be available (but there were no strict eta mentioned).

I was in exactly same spot as you are now - and decided that i dont want to w8 any longer

I must say, that im preety happy abt the choice i made - 3k is amazing, and 970m is powerfull enough to play in ultra settings and native 3k in any game i tried so far. Temps are just fine as well (never seen >83'C, even after long sessions of gaming in BF4).

If you are worried about those - not a problem at all, yesterday i played sim city, maxed in 3k, for over 6h stright (crazy i know, but i rly was supprised that 6h already passed ) and temps were mid 60 on both cpu and gpu.

Only downside is that you need to use some cooling pad if you want to have long game session on your laps - backside of gs60 gets quite hot after intensive gaming (even if cpu/gpu showed mid 60'C after this sim city session, it was quite hot down there)

 

Thanks for these precisions.
It doesn't sound THAT bad finally that the PSU are a little bit underpowered than expected.
But I think it must be doable to change it afterwards anyway.

I understand that having a massive power brick may be troublesome (especially when we talk about very light laptops !), that's why Razer did a very good job with its power brick (150W, but much much smaller than the MSI).
Hopefully it is possible to find a 200W power brick with a very decent size that could replace the original one.


I am still hesitating between the MSI GS60 and the Gigabyte p35x v3, the latter coming with a 980m and a better battery, but with a poorer cooling system and a not so good build quality, that may have been improved though.

 

I can vouch for this post by experience. I frequently saw throttling with the 870M when you pushed it real hard. I've only seen it with Furmark on the 970M, and that doesn't count. I have yet to see a game throttle the card due to lack of wattage.

 

I don't know if you are just being sarcastic or actually not knowing what you are saying bro lol

 

Thanks for this quality comment that will help developing the topic.

 

Using a larger power adapter will not help because the restriction is implemented on the EC side therefore the vest amount of power is limited.

 

so gs60 power throttles the machine at 150w?

 

Hey, wierd problem occurred with my msi dragon center - i lost the possibility of changing SHIFT settings (3icons dissapeared, only buttons for windows key and high performance left in this tab).

Im also unable to change it via FT keyboard shortcut.

Did any one expirienced same problem? I tried to google it but looking for anything with shift+problem or so its a nightmare :/

And yes, i did reinstall the msi dragon centre - nothing changed :/

 

Just had a look at that one here: MSI GS60 2QE-028NL Ghost Pro - Laptopshop.nl

I noticed they say it has a FullHD TN Panel? I thought it was also IPS.

I'm really having a hard time finding proper details comparing the FullHD and 3k panels.

Please help me out guys - I need to decide between 3k and FullHD.

Considerations:
- I do a lot of travelling and working in all kinds of environments. I'd need a screen that's going to be versatile in different lighting conditions. High brightness levels help a lot. A fully glossy screen will be a pain, but a anti-reflective semi-gloss (like on my Vaio z12) is fine in practice.
- I'm not worried about 3k for future gaming. I've got no problem turning down the quality/resolution if the 970m can't handle a game.
- I am worried about color accuracy, but only within a reasonable level. I'm a web designer/developer (don't do print anymore) so I don't want major weird color shifts like on the Lenovo y50, but I'm not so worried about perfect color reproduction. I do have a calibration tool I can use to adjust the screen.
- I'm not worried about scaling issues and 3k is actually conducive to my work so that I can do first hand testing for high dpi web optimizations.

So.. Someone please tell me that the 3k panel is as good or better than the FullHD so I can go buy the bloody thing already.

 

BTW, for anyone interested, Komputronik in Poland has dropped the price of the GS60 2QE 024XPL (i.e. the 3k model) by about $100.

The price is now:
€1610 with VAT
€1310 or $1675 without VAT

 

Probably due to my case of buying this model the day it got available, for 100$ more but they thought that they are selling me 128x2 super raid version. Neither they nor i was aware that there is only 1 ssd inside
Fortunately komputronik reacted fair and offered me this additional ssd, going to get it on weekend

 

I believe it. When I used a 180 watt adapter on the 870m version, it made no difference in performance.

 

The 3k screen is glossy, not semi-gloss. That said, it's not touchscreen gloss, so it's not as reflective as that at least. In a lit room on a black screen, you will see yourself. The good thing about the 3k screen is it is bright(over 300 nits), so in a well lit office environment, I hardly notice any reflections. The Matte FHD screen isn't as bright but it can obviously handle reflections better since it's matte. Both reproduce colors about the same and look great. I think you'll be pleased with bot screens, but if you think you'll be dealing with reflections a lot, it's safe to go with the 1080p screen.

 

Do they ship overseas?
I need one myself and Poland has the best prices.

 

Since no1 wanted to help me i managed to help myself

Somehow stupid win8.1 decided to swich the default boot mode from normal start to selective start (a lot of services was turn off by default and that was the reason for SHIFT mode not working)

Windows for life...

 

Model 064 (6GB VRAM and FHD display) got its ETA updated to October 22 on Xotic PC. Still no sign of a 3K version of that

 

Has anyone tried putting Windows 7 on their machine? On the support page, there are only Win 8.1 drivers available but I assume using the drivers from the 870m version of the laptop should work?

 

Another 3k vs FHD screen question.
Does the 3K upgrade affect battery life?

 

wow that is such as dck move, 150w is not enough for this thing at full load. have you tried kepler bios tweaker to raise the power limit?

 

It will take more juice to drive those extra pixels on the screen itself and also on the card itself. Not directly proportional, but more nonetheless. I suspect the screen utself will have different power requirements too - all factors in the calculation. In real life, the difference will be less than half an hour. Probably more like 15 mins... Just speculation - i have no facts to back this up. Happy to be proved wrong...

 

Thank you for that answer.
15 mins is the difference between another episode of Daniel Tiger for my kid. However, people speak so glowingly of the 3k display... Money isn't an issue and I pretty much only play Blizzard games.

 

Link for buying this in the UK and Ireland?

 

Windows 7 will still work, some of the driver packages are Win7 compatible.

 

Try scan, overclockers, Amazon...

 

Hello guys,

After having read the 30 pages of the topic, any news from the 9S7-16H512-064 version of the laptop in Europe (France)?
(16 go, GTX970m 6gb, Full HD only) ? From my researches, they only have the 8go et 970m 3gb version...

Btw, might be a weird question but what are the differences in term of performance between the 970m 3gb and 6 gb?

Thx

 

Nothing huge... it's just future proof for being able to play games at ultra at 3K display...

 

Here's a good write-up about video RAM: The video RAM information guide - Graphics Cards - Linus Tech Tips

 

A 1080p version of GS60 with 6GB vRAM is future proofed. The 3GB version might stutter with some badly coded games.

This statement can be taken as true or not. I am about to pull the trigger on the GS60 as soon as the 6GB version hits the shelves but just want opinions from others on this matter.

 

somehow I felt 6GB VRAM is wasted on a small 1080p resolution. Even a full size GTX980 comes with 4GB (yes I own a MSI GTX980 Gaming OC)

More beneficial will be gaming with 6GB VRAM on 3K/4K display. But 4K gaming is problematic with a 15.6"

But if a person's wallet is deep, go for the top most specs for future proof. GS60 2QE CPU and GPU are soldered on and cannot be upgraded.

 

OK, has this been posted yet? Looks... interesting.

MSI GS70 Stealth Pro-096 Gaming Laptop Intel Core i7 4710HQ (2.50GHz) 16GB Memory 1TB HDD 768 GB (256 GB mSATA x 3 RAID 0) SSD NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970M 6GB 17.3" Windows 8.1 64-Bit Multi-language - Newegg.com

 

Red kills it for me, I know there is a silver version and shame they don't offer it in the US.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/msi/763425-gs70-red-silver-gorgeous.html

 

Hi,
Im a new owner of a GS60 with 970m.
I've installed Intel XTU to undervolt the i7, but i've a problem with it... When i click on the setting button, i get an error "Perftune has stopped working" :/
How can i fix that ?

 

Typical.. So today morning I made the decision to pull the trigger on the 3k and guess what... They've sold out overnight at the only store that had em and they don't know when they'll get more...

I just wanna cry.

FuDoW, if you've got any info on other suppliers in Poland, I'd really appreciate it.

 

Hey guys, gonna be posting gtx 970m gameplay videos https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvL6opSfzloh1bweJOvQoAQ

You can check them out to see the performance of gtx 970m.

I use the msi gs60 ghost pro.

thanks.

 

Sorry that last link was wrong,

working link updated

Hey guys, gonna be posting gtx 970m gameplay videos @ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvL6opSfzloh1bweJOvQoAQ

You can check them out to see the performance of gtx 970m.

I use the msi gs60 ghost pro.

thanks.

 

thats wierd - both x-kom and komputronik stopped offering the 2qe models maybe they are going to budle them with superpack or elitepack like older 2pe versions?
I would asked MSI Polska directly via FB if i were you

 

I didn't know the GhostPro has 3 slots for M.2 SSDs ... can owners/resellers confirm seeing the 3rd slot ?