MSI GS40 Phantom-001

Same here, pre-ordered and contemplating cancelling the pre-order now.

 

i m currently using zenbook UX303LN haswell, and i m looking forward to wait this little beast.
i see this thing is worthed to have my wait...

 

Newegg has the GS40 listed as in stock http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834152981

 

Ah man I don't know what that means anymore. One second it's not out, the next it is (Well at least in the US) if that Newegg stock is legit.

Hopefully it means some reviews make their way out at last, but literally got no choice but to wait. An extra month is long but I guess as long as its before Christmas I'll be happy. Just need to know when to be in for the delivery!

 

The Phantom is finally here

 

Ah looks great! As if OCUK have not received a handful of GS40's just to fulfil pre-orders Seems you guys are getting the first batch!

 

Yes we got the very first batch.

 

By any chance did they happen to randomly arrive? Or did you have confirmation from MSI that you were receiving them on a known date?

 

Itching to hear what the fan noise is like on these things.

 

ken, would you mind to share with us here some video detail review later ?

 

It was delayed a little bit from the confirmed date which was the 11/10/2015.

Idle:



3DMark:

Already started working on the video review.

 

for me i dont really mind about the noise,

how about the temp ken ? how hot these thing while handle high task(gaming) and middle task(office) ? and did the battery 4 cell handle the good job too ?. please share to us here..

 

Another review here, quite in depth out of what we've got so far. Battery life is about 3.5 hours normal usage according to the reviewer.

 

Our video review is up:

 

I like the GS40. Seems like a nice performing, well cooled, portable powerhouse. If I need a small portable laptop I might consider it.

 

Hey Ken, i think it was mentioned in a previous post that the GS40 may get the 6820HK CPU as an option

, looking at those temps it sure can handle the upgrade, will you at GenTech be offering the 6820 as an option , thanks

 

Yeah temps looks pretty good indeed.

CPU options can only be offer by MSI since the chip is soldered on the MB, therefore, only if MSI willing to offer the SKU with 6820HK.

 

Seeing a massive problem with the review...

The clock speeds in HW Monitor and GPU-Z are showing 540 Mhz under max....

Thats way under the norm of 924 Mhz. Is it reading it wrong? Whats GPU-Z showing under sensors?

Otherwise, seems like a damn solid notebook.

 

My GS40 just arrived from Newegg. I am loading Windows 10 Pro onto a Samsung 950 PRO 256GB.

 

Where are you seeing that number?

 

Fast forward to 11:20 in Gentechs review. Look at hardware Monitor, then when he zooms out, you can see the same in GPU-Z.

 

And back it goes to Newegg. Not satisfied with this. See ya!

 

Care to elaborate?

 

Looks like the software is not reading it properly (old versions?)

 

@Daeyx
Bottom cover is thin plastic leading to the entire build feeling cheap. I was expecting this to be metal. Panel has IPS glow. Font on the keyboard is hard to read. I don't like the single button clickpads.
Windows 10 is a nightmare to use (but this can't be blamed on MSI). Tried everything I could think of (legacy mode, UEFI with CSM, integrating Intel USB 3.0 drivers into boot.wim and install.wim, turning on XHCI handoff, and more) to install Windows 7 but couldn't, it would get past the first phase of installation then BSOD after rebooting in the 2nd phase.

I would just say it's ok. It's not what I'm looking for and left me dissatisfied.

 

Ah man sorry to hear it's not for you. I could tell it was going to be plastic just from the KitGuru preview when he took the panel off, straight away was like that's not metal so I've already accepted it's not going to be Blade / Aorus build quality. But it is substantially cheaper, light and possibly cooler as a result, it's just the trade off.

Wish mine would arrive already though so I can see it for myself!

 

I have been following this thread and finally got the GS40 yesterday. No time to game yet but first impressions are that the build quality seems high - it's not a flimsy or tacky looking laptop apart from the logo, which is ridiculous. I can't see the concern with the back cover being thin plastic - it probably is but I can't notice it unless I pick it up and look closely at the vents, but how often do people stare closely at the back of their laptop? If the laptop felt cheap to touch I could understand, but it doesn't. The keyboard font being hard to read must be a highly personal thing because it seems fine to me. IPS glow is there in places but very minimal, and I'm happy to live with it (this can be a massive deal breaker for me). As for noise levels, I ran 3D mark and whilst the fan was very noticeable it wasn't annoying, and I was expecting it to be based on my reviews of other 14" gaming laptops. My only complaint so far is that the speakers aren't very loud or great sounding and I can't believe Dynaudio put their name to them, it has put me off their hi-fi gear (I'm an audiophile nut).

Looking forward to seeing the pro reviews especially in regard to noise.

 

I will really glad to know about using Samsung SSD 950 Pro at this laptop. Any suspicious and (maybe) expirience about it?

For example, this is compare default NVMe gs40 SSD (from GenTechPC review) and Samsung 950 Pro installed at GS60 6QE.



Thanks a lot.

 

Hi there, the GS40 has a SM951 SSD installed. Its virtually just as capable as the 950 Pro counterpart. The issue for the lack of speed stems from lack of flash memory onboard. Flash performance is depended on flash running in parallel, basically meaning the more flash onboard, the higher the performance. So a 256 GB will be faster, 512 GB faster then that etc.

 

This is the Samsung 512GB 950Pro on GS40:

 

Is anyone who has one here able to comment yet on how it's performing both in battery life and for general gaming? I know there's a couple of reviews trickling through but it would be good to hear from regular users as well

 

Hey,
I have a GE40 with an 850M and the readings of HW Monitor are totally wrong (i oc my 850M by 135MHZ, the max the nvidia inspector allows me to, and HW monitor shows me a similar reading (435 or 540, dont know it by heart)) , only the "gpu-z sensors " give me a correct reading.
And i assume that GPU-Z also shows wrong data, as there is also no data next to memory (the 2 white gaps normally show the boost clock) .
You should compare the 970M performance of the GS40 to the 970M performance of an ASUS G or MSI GT 7x series notebook - if the results for the GPU performance are nearly the same everything is good.

 

The proof of the pudding is always in the eating after all, if it plays well what programs say does not mean much.

 

So I received my new MSI GS40, nice notebook. Very Fast, build quality is reasonable, but its not the most solid notebook out there. But its weight helps make up for it,

Problems I am having are the damn fans, they are either 0 RPM or 3300 RPM when idling. This is entirely random, temps are idling around 50 C for the CPU which is reasonable for such a thin chassis, but there is no inbetween for the fans. Its either 0 or 3300 RPM and thats it! Not happy about that.

 

Yeah I'm noticing this too. Even when the pc is completely idle, the fan will kick in now and then. Would love to know a fix.

 

Svet will likely modify his EC tuner for it so you can plug in your own fan profile.

 

Can Svets profiles allow me to control the cpu fan as well?

Anyway that I can contact him so that I could maybe throw him $20 for his trouble?

 

Head over to the MSI.com forum, he is in there. His program allows adjusting of both CPU fan and GPU fan curves so worth a contact.

 

Svet's can modify BIOS, EC, VGA BIOS (VBIOS) on pretty much all of MSI products.

 

So curious what people think so far about the machine. I am debating between this and the Alienware 13. Any thoughts guys? The Alienware can be upgraded to the 3200x1800 touch screen, which seems intriguing.

 

Svet is adding the GS40 to his tool as I type this. He said he should have it done within 24 hours for you other GS40's out there.

Hi CFree,

The notebook isn't perfect by any stretch, but its pretty good. I would imagine the Alienware having better build quality, the GS40 has average build but its lighter. Battery life is average at around 3-4 Hours. Not great by any means.

The screen i find is very good, nice and vibrant. Cooling for the GPU is amazing, it never passes 72 C with looping 3D Mark tests. Fans can be loud under load, but this is expected given the thickeness and power of the unit. Couple issues with the fans turning on randomly while idle (see above post), but Svet should be releasing a fix for this soon .

If the price is equal between the Alienware and the GS40. The GS40 destroys it hardware wise.

6700HQ vs 6500u
Gtx 970m VS 960m.
Samsung SM951 128GB in the MSI (Which by the way is giving me 2000 MB/s reads in Crystal Mark and 675MB/s Write).

 

Well you have some margin if you want to leave it at stock and slow the fans slightly using the EC editor.

Also yes the alienware is a totally different class of machine, no chance of matching against the MSI.

 

Unfortunately it seems that the fans have a minimum speed of 3300 rpm, so you can't slow them. So I raised the minimum temperature before they activate. This will make the notebook idle warmer, but makes it a lot quieter.

 

Interesting as my GS30 fan had quite a lot of extra range than was being used.

 

I set the fans to 15% and they wouldn't go lower then 3300 RPM. Similar behavior to the GS60 I believe.

 

Thanks for the input! I am not doing the most intense gaming right now, so the Alienware HW probably will fit what I need. I just see this and the HW is soo much better, for the same cost. Only thing is the AW has the 3200x1800 screen. Not sure that is really necessary though.

 

For some people's eyes, such high resolution on small screen can be exhausting.
And some may simply reduce resolution to comfortable level.
So if this resolution is suitable for your needs and applications then go for Alienware, otherwise you get more value from your investment with MSI.

 

Hey guys, I started following this discussion last week so I could have missed some information.
Do you notice any important flex under medium pressures? Does the chassis bend?

Thank you

Inviato dal mio LG-D802 utilizzando Tapatalk

 

[IGNORE] Has anyone got a link to the MSI forum thread that has the fan tool there? I've tried searching the forum using his name but the results are a mess and not sorted by date. Trying to have as much prepared as possible for the eventual day mine arrives.

Someone linked it in another forum, not to worry

 

Has anyone noticed any throttling (resulting in a dip in FPS) while gaming at high settings? The Gigabyte P43W seems to throttle after only a few minutes, which defeats the purpose of having a powerful graphics card...