***The Official MSI GT72 Dominator Pro (GTX-980M) Owner?s Lounge***

Hi!
I have the gt72 version:
MSI GT72 2QE-1433NE
Do I have a g-synk panel?
The rest of the specs are:

• Nvidia GTX 980M, 4 GB
• Core i7-5700HQ prosessor
• 1 TB HDD og 128 GB SSD

Link to the store with all the specs:
http://www.elkjop.no/product/data/b...1433ne-dominator-pro-17-3-gaming-pc#tab-specs

19998 norwegian kroner is about 1.600£

Kind regards
Knut

 

Knut, that page doesn't mention g-sync, googling that model doesn't show g-sync.

I don't have an example to image, but here are some I googled, so does it show g-sync options in these places in your Nvidia control panels?

 

Thank you for a speedy reply, Scott!
The computer is on its way to my house and will arrive tomorrow. I will sure check the settings in the Nvidia pannel first thing, thanks again
One more question:
If it does not have the g-synk option, should i return it? I hav a 30 days free return/get all your money back, no questions asked option.
Knut

 

Knut82, well I am not the best person to ask, since I don't see the need for an internal G-sync enabled 1080p panel for a 980m.

But, if you test it out during those 30 days, and you think I can't live without G-sync, then before returning it, consider the ramifications of taking a Windows 10 laptop in replacement - by that time all the new stock will have Windows 10 only.

You are inviting a long debugging process of getting a stable laptop on Windows 10, following closely MSI and OEM driver updates, Windows 10 update glitches, application incompatibilities, etc.

Not to mention the Windows 10 Privacy issues... not fun not knowing when someone is looking at your files, images, keystrokes, for any reason, benign or not.

I don't think G-sync is worth all that, better to be happy with what you have

 

Hi again,

And thank you for a well argued opinion. I will certainly take this into consideration before making my decision.

The machine comes with win 8.1, and you say I should wait with upgrading to Win 10 until bugs are fixed, right?

Sorry all the “newbie” questions, but this is the first time in 10 years I’m buying a computer to play games on.

Knut

 

Double check this, but I'm pretty sure all the Broadwell models have an IPS, even those without G-SYNC.

My vote would also go to the 980m. Sure you can upgrade the graphics card later, but it's pricey and who knows what will be out or coming out by the time the 990m is here. What if MSI release a new model with significantly better cooling for instance? Personally I'd be hesitant in buying a laptop with the intention of upgrading it, because when it's time to upgrade I might rather sell it and get something new. So I go by the old gaming laptop mantra: get the best graphics card you can afford at the time.

 

Knut82, it's a crap shoot, you could have no problems, you might as well have lots of issues, read the Windows 10 threads here. Quite a few people have gone through the upgrade and downgraded. Others say everything is working fine, then come back asking for help debugging odd behavior.

Windows 10 offers no performance improvements, and Windows 7/8.1 are rocking stable drivers, stable security updates, and have been through all the bug wringing out stages.

Windows 8 => 8.1 was particularly buggy with driver issues for 9 months after release. MS kept releasing new upgrade packages, as the year went on each new upgrade I did went smoother and smoother.

Then MS kicked in a bunch of botched updates - but we got through that too.

This time I decided to sit back and watch the carnage from a safe distance

And, it turns out with the Privacy / EULA silliness, I am happy I didn't just go in swinging like usual, I sat back and thought about it, and said No, I am not giving up my rights for silly software.

Not even for a fully functioning DX12 with a dozen games, nope not me... well not now anyway...

Now where was I... oh, yeah, I recommend holding off on upgrading from Windows 7/8.1 to Windows 10 until there is an actual benefit to doing it.

If that time never comes, then that is just fine with me.

 

Haha!
Point taken. I will take your advice
Not everything new is "shiny"!
Thank you for your time and good answers!
Knut

 

The CPU argument i dont think applies to this particular gt72, although i do see your point how some manufacturers cheap out, broadwell vs haswell is a slight boost in performance, even if almost negligible it still is technically an improvement. DDR4 is pretty much just the newest tech so itll be a safe bet as an investment choice right?

But as a future promise, isnt the whole point of a future-ready investment laptop piece that you are ready for all the future promises? unless im missing something here i may be wrong.

Also, in regards to the windows 10. As of now you may not see any difference, however towards the future and newer release games that utilize DX12, you will see some performance gains if nvidia's road plans are to be believed.

 

nightingale, as with everything, the devil is in the details - the broad strokes sound good, but when you get down to the exact specs and what is actually possible for you to access/use, the glossy shine gets a bit dull.

The TB world has always been expensive, there are no single devices that will take full speed throughput, even at TB1, let alone TB3, you need multiple devices in a RAID0 to approach the maximum available throughput - the actual cost is huge, in the $thousands$ to take full advantage of the TB3 throughput.

Can you do it, yes, does it make financial sense for an individual not making $ through their laptop, no.

The only promise in TB3 future is spending big $ on matching peripherals

The DDR4 speed improvement is held to a limit, just like DDR3L. Look at the ark.intel.com memory throughput numbers.

http://ark.intel.com/compare/83503,87720,88970

I reached and surpassed that memory bandwidth limit for DDR3L with 2133mhz memory at 27.45GB/sec when OC'ing the CPU/uncore, actual published limit for a 5950HQ is 25.6GB/sec:



The limit for Skylake is 34.1GB/sec, already reached at 2133mhz/2666mhz, unknown whether desktop 6700k DDR4 throughput scaling will happen with 6700HQ/6820HQ/6820HK, need to wait for faster DDR4 SODIMM's. It is a nice 15% bump, but hardly noticeable in most application. With DDR4 having slower response CL vs DDR3, some benchmark results may be much less than 15% improvement - we haven't gotten enough data yet.

DDR4 is more expensive than DDR3, and still in it's infancy. Over time newer controllers and faster memory are going to continue evolving forward, and will surpass the first Skylake release, likely quickly.

All good stuff, but all more expensive than Haswell/Broadwell, and not providing much noticeable improvement for the added costs.

 

I'd get the 970m + G-SYNC. You can always upgrade the GPU in a few years - you won't be able to get G-SYNC without buying a new laptop.

The 970m is fine for pretty much all modern games. There's a reason it's more popular than the 980m.

 

While all this is true, it is still more updated tech in comparison, and as i am sure the use case will be that the person will keep the laptop for a long time to come, it all helps to just get the best that you can. Also for the ddr4 argument, at the moment it is more expensive and doesnt show too much of a difference in performance to ddr3, it will all improve in the future such as becoming cheaper, more accessible to buy and overall better performance, ddr3 started at 1333 and now reaches 2133+ with good performance, i imagine ddr4 could do the same.

It all depends ont he specific use case and how long the laptop will be kept for as the main rig.

 

nightingale, my point was the new 1st gen Skylake laptops are fixed at 34.1GB/sec, which 2133mhz / 2666mhz memory benchmarks on that chipset have already attained.

Faster DDR4 memory coming later may or may not make these first gen Skylake laptops any faster than their maximum 34.1GB/sec memory throughput allows.

The desktop 6700k appears to scale throughput with faster DDR4, but it is unknown if that happens with 6700HQ/6820HQ/6820HK. Faster DDR4 desktop memory is available, we need faster DDR4 SODIMM's to test.

The DDR4 SODIMM's might get cheaper eventually, but DDR3L SODIMM's already are dropping in price, now is the time to pick up some 2133mhz DDR3L

 

@hmscott aren't those bandwidth figures based on just validated memory? Does the i7-6820HK not support to over 4000MT/s if the controller can handle it and if supply and demand ever sees such speed on mobile platforms. For instance isn't the theoretical speed for say 3200MT/s something like 51GB/s or is there a limit elsewhere?

 

Dufus, I posted this earlier, comparison of 3 CPU's, 6820HK, 5950HQ, 4980HQ, look at the "Max Memory Bandwidth" row in the listing:

"Max Memory bandwidth is the maximum rate at which data can be read from or stored into a semiconductor memory by the processor (in GB/s)"

http://ark.intel.com/compare/83503,88969,87720

27.6GB/sec for the 4980HQ/5950HQ, and 34.1GB/sec for the Skylake releases this gen. Sandra Memory Bandwidth test measures this.

 

@hmscott Yes, but as already said these are based on validated memory speed and memory speed can be increased beyond that.

From http://www.legitreviews.com/ddr4-me...nding-the-best-ddr4-memory-kit-speed_170340/3

Quote:
Benchmark Results: These charts are the largest that we’ve ever used for a memory article as we’ve never tested 10 different clock frequencies in one chart before, so be sure to click on them to open them full size for a better look. On the ASUS Z170-Deluxe motherboard with the Intel Core i7-6700K processor overclocked to 4.6GHz we saw the memory bandwidth increase rather dramatically as we increased the DDR4 frequency. With the slowest DDR4-2133 dual channel memory kit on the market we were just shy of 32,000 MB/s of read/write memory bandwidth and by the time we got up to DDR4-3866 we were running over 50,000 MB/s! The write memory bandwidth went from 31,923 MB/s to 56,467 MB/s, which is a massive 24,544 MB/s or 76.9% increase in the effective write bandwidth. The performance increase was found to be fairly consistent until the very end when we had to begin increasing the memory timings to achieve the clock speeds we were trying to get.

 

Dufus, for the 5950HQ, I couldn't get the uncore multiplier above 37x, but I got better memory throughput than uncore at stock 34x, which is why with faster than "validated speed memory" I was able to surpass the 25.6GB/sec max memory throughput to 27.8GB/sec.

The "validated memory speed" on Haswell is 1600mhz, and that gets about 14-17GB/sec, on the supposed 25.6 max throughput, whereas I got 27.8GB/sec with 2133mhz memory - first time I could get higher than the Max memory throughput spec.

I thought the memory max throughput is based on uncore multiplier + increasing memory speed from "validated memory speed", same on Broadwell BTW, but there was a limit closer to the listed maximum, glad to see there is so much actual headroom

So I looked at the article, and they said they had the cores multi at 46x, but they don't mention the uncore multiplier. Do you see the uncore ratio mentioned anywhere?

Thanks for the link, glad to see it can scale higher, but I still would like to know if it is linked to uncore ratio, or if it is just a matter of core ratio + higher speed memory.

The other big question is, will this headroom be available in the 6700HQ/6820HQ/6820HK? Will faster DDR4 + increased uncore gain throughput significantly past the 34.1GB/sec?

 

The bandwidth quoted by Intel is maximum theoretical speed. For instance DDR RAM running at a clock of 800MHz is able to transfer data on the rising and falling edge of the clock to give double data rate at 1600MT/s (Mega Transfers per Second). Memory modules data lines are typically 64-bits wide. With dual channel we have 128bits of data or 16Bytes. So 1600,000,000 x 16 = 25,600,000,000 Bytes/Sec = .25.6GB/s = 23.84GiB/s. We might get near that with small bursts but expect overhead for larger chunks. Different benches may measure bandwidth differently as well.

Uncore (Cache) says 4.1GHz in one of the BIOS screen shots.

Spoiler

http://www.legitreviews.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/z170-deluxe-uefi-settings2.jpg

Both core and cache can have an effect.

Hopefully DDR4 will improve over time, guess we will just have to wait and see.

 

Hello community

I´m looking for sellers in europe that can have a cheap msi gt72 2qe dominator pro g

can someone advise some sellers?

thank you very much my friends

 

So what is the latest status on SoundBlaster / Nahimic on the 4th GEN GT72?

After upgrade to Win10, the SB GUI can not be started.
I read to use the 5th GEN Nahimic utility or even only use RealTec drivers.

I'm lost now in this forrest of drivers/software...

Do I really need these utilities to get the full options of the audio features?
What driver should be installed (5th gen?) or from RealTec website?

It is about time MSI updated their downloads to support all drivers/utils on Win10 !!!!

 

Dufus, I guess we will need to get our hands on the hardware ourselves to get a better idea what is going on. The math checks out, but doesn't show up as such in reality, the 1600mhz throughput is more like 14-17GB/sec, and the theoretical maximum isn't reached without 2133mhz memory.

The jpg, while showing 4100mhz cache, the showing values of 46x for core isn't committed, look over on the right at the Hardware Monitor, core is set to 40x. It might be 41x uncore used for the testing, but it would have been better if they had stated it explicitly.

 

You can use every single software/driver from the 5th GEN the only thing you cant use are FIRMWARE and BIOS updates for that you must use 4th Gen option.

There is no Creative with GT72, the support is officially dropped and instead msi decided to go with NAHIMIC .

You need the DRIVERS first, REALTEK one either from msi driver page or REALTEK page ..doesn't really mater then you need to install the Software in this case NAHIMIC.

I don't like it and it doesn't suite my needs so I'm using Creative MB3 solution with the latest Realtek drivers from Reltake page.

http://software.store.creative.com/p/software/sound-blaster-x-fi-mb3

 

I may be wrong but the reason the gtx970m is more popular is because its a quite a bit cheaper than 980m not because of G-Sync or because it "is fine". It is also a lot less powerful than the 980m.

Besides, who buys a gaming laptop and purposely doesnt buy the best GPU he can afford? In that case, its not really bought for gaming.

As a gamer, there is nothing I hate more than having to turn down eyecandy on my games in order to get amooth gameplay. And almost any game you buy now, you have to turn down eye candy if you have anything less than a 980m. Whats going to happen with forthcoming games with a 970m when you are already maxed out, with lower video quality settings with current games



Sent from my LG-D855 using Tapatalk

 

It's popular because its price/performance is greater than any other card out there. Sure, the GTX 980M is 25-30% more powerful, but its also $200-$300 more expensive. And the 970M runs pretty much all modern games at ultra settings.

All the people who bought a machine with a GTX 970M? Which is to say more people than those who bought the 980M. Not quite sure what you were trying to get at with that comment - its actually quite condescending. I bought all my machines with a 970M, and they were for gaming. What you're trying to do here is take your opinion on the matter and turn it into fact.

False. Almost any game today can be run at Ultra settings with a GTX 970M @ 1080p (a quick Google search would have told you this). Not all, but most. Sure, you may not be able to crank every single available setting to the max, but this is also (mostly) true of the 980M as well. And many of the settings beyond Ultra don't always offer meaningful extra "eye candy".

The extra 25% or so performance of the 980M means that instead of running a game @ 60FPS, it runs it at 75FPS. For example, you'll get something like 25 FPS in the Witcher 3 on Ultra with a 970M, while the 980M will get you 33FPS. To some that's worth $300, to others it isn't.

Fun fact: not everybody requires all the eye candy to enjoy their games. Plenty of gamers are perfectly happy with high/ultra settings.

 

Some good discussion in this thread, so let me ask this... ignoring future upgradeability, what do you guys think is the more "future proof" configuration, the 980m or the 970m with G-SYNC? 3-4 years from now which will provide the better 1080p gaming experience?

 

The 680m is a 4 year old card. How does it fare in today's games? That should give you an idea.

The idea is that G-SYNC will sync your displays refresh rate to your GPUs output, making it smooth. So in theory, a 970M pushing out 32 FPS + G-SYNC will provide a much smoother experience than a 980M running 40FPS. In theory.

Though that being said, if you're a gamer spending that kind of coin on a laptop, you probably won't settle for a machine that can't crank out at least 50FPS. So you might have sold off that laptop by then anyway, unless you can upgrade the GPU.

Truth is that G-SYNC is a new technology and nobody knows what will happen in 3-4 years.

You probably won't get a definite answer since nobody really knows. You'll have to make up your own mind, maybe look up some reviews.

 

Its this normal? Randomly, i check and i get this spikes, that could be the reason i crash when playing csgo.

 

Owntec, nice catch

It's possible it's a monitoring anomaly, I am using 4.65-2545, that newer version might be buggy. It's worth installing an older version to see if that spike is still happening. My BCLK is steady.



That kind of a spike, up to 107.6mhz should have crashed your machine, most BCLK tunings on these laptop chipsets don't go anywhere near as high, like I can't go above 100.750mhz, which is way below 107.6mhz.

Rather than recording that spike, the laptop should have crashed. That's why the first thought is a buggy monitoring tool release.

Try uninstalling the 5.02-2575 version of hwinfo64, and installing an earlier version, and see if you still get those spikes.

If you still record large variations in BCLK that is excellent evidence to give your seller to validate a return, or MSI for an RMA.

Update: hwinfo64 has released 5.04, running that now.

 

Question for current owners: To the right of the spacebar, do you notice duller backlighting under the ALTGR, Windows and CTRL keys? Under my windows key especially, any backlighting at all can only be observed from a certain angle.

Just wondering if this is a problem specific to my unit.

 

Yes that is how it is on all units.

 

So, I get my new GT72 up and running for the first time today, check out the system info and discover that the model I've been sent is 8GB of RAM and not the 16GB as indicted on the seller's website and on my invoice. *sigh*

So it's gonna have to go back, but I'm unsure how to reset it to factory settings so my data is erased but preinstalled things like the Dragon Gaming Center remain. Can anyone advise? Thanks in advance.

 

Hi!
Just got mye MSI GT72, and I´m loving it!
I have the
5700 intel
16 gig ram
128 ssd + 1 TB 7200 disc
GTX980
Not G-synk
version.

My only problem is that I can have a Clevo (multicom in Norway) for the same money. I paid 2.200$ for my MSI, and can have all my money back within the first 30 days, no questions asked.

The Clevo have better specs, but no store to go to if anything goes wrong with the computer. What would you do? Kinda hoping you tell me to keep my MSI

The Clevo has these specs:
Full-HD Matt IPS G-SYNC monitor
Intel Core i7-6700K,
16GB DDR4,
256GB PCIe SSD, 1TB HDD,
GTX 980M 8GB,

Should I retur a perfectly fine MSI with excelent customer serivice for a better specs Clevo?
The Clevo comes with a clean installment of WIN 10. No other programs. The MSI has the usual MSI-programs and stuff (norton etc) and WIN 8.1

Kind regads
Knut

 

Just ran a benchmark on my new G72 Looks good. Is there a custom vbios for the msi 980m to unlock the +135 limit?


http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/8559005?

 

Yes there are, prema offers one and the tech inferno guys too, just be aware how much vram your card has and get the appropriate file. Also be aware of the warranty implications.

 

Is anyone having issues with wifi connection? It will make my internet go limited and then say there is no wifi (kind of like the card turning off and on) then it will reconnect and work fine. Really annoying when I'm downloading things. It happens most when I'm downloading. It also started happening when I upgraded to W10

 

There have been a lot of odd issues with Win 10 across the board, but it seems like most are just related to drivers. I would try downloading the newest driver from the wireless card manufacturer's site, and see if that helps. That is the first thing I would look at.

 

If your unit came with Intel, then visit the URL below to obtain the latest driver for Win10.
https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/25279/Intel-PROSet-Wireless-Software-for-Windows-10

Otherwise, visit Killer site below instead.
http://www.killernetworking.com/support/driver-downloads

 

I have , and I stil l don't know if I actualy fixed the issue , it cost me 2 full reinstall of W10 , complaining to my provider and all kind of crap . So as for now it works again but ...there is a BUT . I dont know what actually fixed this issue , I reinstalled at least 5 different revisions of Killer suite , then only driver without the suite , in some time it looks like it is normal and I have the full bandwidth , then again without any warning it degrade it self and becomes very slow . then like you mentioned ..the adapter is gone ?? I thought that ,maybe the network device is gone bad almost wanted to bring my GT72 for repair ..then it works again...crazy. So after all this hassle and 3th clean W10 installation I installed the latest Killer suite , then again it was like crap until I chose within Killer Suite > optimize for MAX THROUGHPUT but to be honest I have no Idea if that was the only problem and if that actually fixed the issue or was the latest driver? I'm completely in the dark here.

 

Hi!

I found here a review of the new keyboard MSI: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2978...d-thunderbolt-3-0-for-new-gaming-laptops.html.

Here you can see a comparison of the old and new keyboard: http://imgur.com/a/syD58. Surely in the new laptops GT72 with Skylake will be used so cheap keycaps with stickers on top instead of a full keys?

 

Is there a way to replace the MSI logo when booting ?
I would like to use my own company logo.

The logo will probably be in BIOS EEPROM and wonder if anyone has tried to change it.


/EDIT

I have found that there is a Aptio ChangeLogo tool which is able to extract the logo from BIOS file and also to update it with a new logo.
I downloaded it from here:

https://onedrive.live.com/?id=50142...33!998&authkey=!AAmAQaaK2TM88qY&action=locate

And opened the latest BIOS and could extract the MSI logo to jpg file.

I'm not confident to actually burn this BIOS, I could wreck the BIOS.

 

is there any bios mod to stop throttling or anything to make this better? and for the vbios, can i use prema vbios gtx980m 8gb g-sync?

 

for the cpu, use this. Worked for me


http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/the-throttlestop-guide.531329/

 

Best to check with Svet about this, since he knows how to modify MSI BIOSes and you will have higher rate of success from his service.

 

Hi guys, i plan on getting the new MSI GT72 DOMINATOR PRO G-1666 with the 5th generation I7-5700HQ and GTX 980m with G-Sync.
I plan on upgrading the RAM to 32g, drives to 2tbssd + 4x512gb m.2 ssd
My biggest concern so far is if all the hardware and software will be compatible with Windows 7, since i plan on removing whatever O.S comes with(w8 or w10) and reinstall W7.

If anyone has any idea please let me know.

 

There is no reason why this configuration wouldn't work. I would suggest just purchasing it with Window 7 so the unit will be fully tested with Win 7 OS and that configuration before it is sent to you.

 

thank you for the thread sir.

my notebook come with windows 8.1 there is no option for windows 7 and i want downgrade it to windows 7 is that possible? will everything work fine?

official msi driver download only available for win 8.1 and win 10, where i can get win 7 driver?

 

This is what i'm actually afraid of, that there's no support for Windows 7 drivers, on windows and even more on Linux. There's no official option to switch to W7 and it's a huge issue for me no to be able to use Windows 7. Any more insights are welcome guys.

 

is that possible to use MSI GT72 Dominator Pro Dragon Edition Intel i7 4th Gen driver in this msi gt72 dominator pro g which use intel 5th gen i7 ?

MSI GT72 Dominator Pro Dragon Edition Intel i7 4th Gen have windows 7 64 driver option here
or maybe the pe edition here

 

It is not officially supported, but it can work and "drivers will be limited" (msi rep).

 

I'd assume you can't reach the same FPS as in W10 or W8.1 :/