MSI GS60 Ghost/ Ghost Pro Thread

Hey there,

I just registered cause all that heat around the pro modell with the 870m gave me kinda a headache for which modell I should go for...

That it is the 870m which is the more powerful one for gaming is fact, but how well does the 860m fare against? Anyone can report something about actual "real game" performance with the 860m (I am talking about demanding games like BF3/4, Crysis 3, etc...)?
That would be really nice.

As I cannot decide still, what about the following:


Underclock the 870m to 860m clock speeds in order to limit the heat output but still keep the higher Vram together with the higher memory bandwith bus, as well as having more shader cores (←are they called like that?). What do you guys who hold some experience over me think about that?

 

Check mark each GPU you want to directly compare.

Computer Games on Laptop Graphic Cards - NotebookCheck.net Tech

I would wait and see if GenTech PC does the repaste and see how much lower temps would be.

 

hey guys,

first post here =). I've been following notebook reviews since I purchased my old HP envy 14 back in 2010 (you guys were awesome for putting up all the drivers). I just put down the preorder for the GS60 pro version. I work with a lot of CAD/image processing software that uses CUDA, so the double cores is what I was looking for. hopefully a laptop cooler will help things run nice and cool on my desk

I was wondering if anyone has had experience with MSI's super raid configuration (i.e. raid 0). I've looked at the reviews and it looks like while the performance is real (i.e. read/write speed), but they seem to be unimpressed with its effects on other real world applications like load times. what's your experience?

regarding the 870vs860, I think it there are valid arguments for both. I'm thinking that the.870m may be a little too toasty for someone's lap, but i'm thinking that battery boost feature that nvidia could bump the thermal output to something similar to that of the 860m if you configure it right. My engineering experience isn't in EE, so i could be completely off. I'm also a little concerned that a flipped motherboard orientation (i.e. CPU/GPU facing up) may make laptop coolers less effective.

also thanks to the gentechPC/XoticPC guys who put up the review videos! you guys pretty much sold me the laptop.

 

Has GentechPC or XoticPC start shipping out the MSI GS60s yet? I don't want to have to place an order with Newegg, this waiting game is killing me...

 

Hey -=$tR|k3r=-, thanks for referring to that.
It gave me nudge back towards my initial plan of going with a 860m model (and I realized, most of my 50+ library on Steam is some years old anyway ). I'll be hanging on until reviews for the P34G V2 hit, though. It should come with a Maxwell and I'm still wondering if it'll have any different temps.

 

There's been one review of the P34G v2 by a Chinese reviewer (use Google Translate).
æè¼‰NVIDIA GTX 860M繪圖晶片 技嘉P34G v2電競ç†é›»æ¸¬è©¦ (第1é) - GIGABYTE - Mobile01

The P34G's CPU temps are in the high 80s C running benchmarks, max high 90s C. The heat pipes in the P34G are shared with the CPU and GPU (they are separate on the GS60), so I'd expect the GPU temps to be similar to the CPU temps. So the GS60 does far, far better at controlling temperatures, even with the 870m. Yes the P34G's 860m is Maxwell, but remember the Maxwell version runs at 1.029 GHz while the Kepler version runs at 797 MHz (870m version runs at 941 MHz).

I think part of the reason the bottom temps on the GS60 are so high is because it uses a magnesium alloy for the bottom. There's a reason most laptops go with a plastic bottom (the double-curves at the corners really helps stiffen the plastic, thus countering the main disadvantage). Metal may be stiffer, but it's a much better heat conductor. This is a common complaint on the 15" Macbook Pro as well - don't expect to actually use it on your lap under load.

I'm trying to decide between the P34G v2 and MS60 as well. The main things in favor of the P34G are the size and weight. I really want something 14" size or a small 15.6" size. While the GS60 is very thin for a 15.6" laptop, its width and depth are actually almost an inch bigger than most other 15.6" laptops. But other than that, pretty much everything else favors the GS60.

 

Well, I'm sure repasting will help, at least 5 C°. But will that be enough looking at the long term use of the laptop under heavy load I wonder. Eventually you start with a good drop in temperatures through repasting that slowly fades as time progresses...

Do you know what's kinda weird? I found that video by Schenker displaying their P304 with 860m (maxwell) on youtube. They are running Battlefield 4 on ultra and fullHD while the framerate never drops below 35 (as far as I could tell).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jfz-wKh_CW8
So why does notebookcheck.com states completely different numbers with even the complete same laptop??
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 860M - Notebookcheck.com Technik/FAQ

As maxwell 860m and kepler 860m should have identical performamce, the 860m would be a really good trade.

 

I posted my BF4 thoughts a few pages back regarding the 860m, but my experience is very similar to that youtube video you posted. Game plays fantastic on high, and Ultra with 2xAA is usually mid 40s+.

Performance has not been an issue. For my money the 860m made sense as the better all around package. Having said that though, I am basing this a bit on my experience with my other laptop where I went for all out speed and honestly just never needed it... I'm totally fine dropping AA to 2x or even off while playing at 1080p on a 15" screen. I've gone down the road of fast hot and loud and am just fine clicking an option or two lower... been there done that got the t shirt ha


My other big reason for going with the 15" here over the 14" options was I need a numpad for work more than I needed to save an itch of width/depth. Weight wise it's as light as anything else.

 

So I am fickle, and decided why the heck not and went for the 3K model of the GS60 (switched it from the regular non-3k version). I've done more research and seen my friends 3K laptop, and Windows 8.1 scales nicely. Also he showed me some games where he put the res to 1080p and it looked fine for me anyway (i worried about blurriness). This was on his GT60.

Now to wait....

 

i dunno if that was a good move... i had the xps 15 with 3k res (1800px vertically) and it was annoying as hell for the third party apps... could not use chrome properly... firefox bugged out.. only IE had proper scaling (makes sense)... if I were you I would recommend 1080p for now... especially on a 15" laptop (don't fall into the high density/high pixel non-sense)... not yet at least

 

You do understand that people actively develop software and that it is likely updates to software fixing their scaling issues will be released in the future right? Especially as more people adopt higher pixel density screens. They aren't going to make the needed software updates if people don't adopt the new hardware, we need people to adopt new hardware to make fixing the scaling issues a higher priority for the developers.

 

We have, but all inventory we've gotten so far has been allocated to existing pre orders. We have a second shipment coming early next week and should be able to fill all existing pre orders with those but there wont be very many left over.

 

I know... But in the meantime it sucks especially if you use software for work and the text is so puny its annoying...

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

 

So I originally had a deal through the indie program with Razer to get a Blade Pro 17 for a discount but unfortunately that expired. I wasn't extremely enthused about getting a 17" laptop and I also didn't really see a ton of value in the Switchblade UI so when I saw the Ghost announced it immediately piqued my interest. I'm a huge fan of this forum and it's members so after a ton of lurking I wanted to ask if there were any competitors at this price point with similar features. My needs are as follows:

-I don't travel but build quality and size are important as my wife will use this periodically. She's an architect and while Revit won't go on the machine she's a power Adobe user with multiple applications and large files open at once.

-I'd like to keep the screen at 15" for usability as well as keep a numpad for productivity.

-I know mobile GPU's are diminishing ROI but I'd love something that serve as a great portable dev machine using Unity. Light gaming will be great but mostly it's for game development. In this respect I'd love an opinion on if an upcoming Mac 15 will be another option, though the price difference to me appears quite significant.

-I'd like reliability and know MSI as a good MB manufacturer but know little about them laptops. How does there 1 year WW/2 year local warranty work and what are people's experience with their machines and customer support?

-Currently it appears that no one is making an "ultrabook" in the 15" category with this kind of power, is that right? Also, I don't know of any 15" touchscreen laptops that would compete as well. Finally, are there any 15" laptops with similar performance that are heavier/bigger but also may be cheaper or have better components? I'm just trying to evaluate the cost/value ration for the sleekness of the GS60.

 

Hi, live in Belgium too. I've found a French-based vendor who also has a Belgian site for his webshop.
However, this is not an "AZERTY", since it's a French version, and it's not a pro model (although they have the GS70 (2PE) pro version).

What I find funny is that they have it in stock, ready to ship.

Despite it being in stock, I'm not buying (yet). I'd have to drive up to Paris (physical store since I don't have a French pickup address) for my second year of warranty.
I've seen some 'in stock dates' (mostly late April, early May) around the internet and I'm waiting until then.

I'd appreciate it though if you'd let me know if you've found a better option.

Cheers!

 

Having built in Unity (lets not go crazy I'm not AAA) with an integrated GPU, the 860M is more than enough. The only competitor in reality is the 14" blade, but Unity is not yet HiDPI panel friendly.

After reading about these for a month now and mulling it over and over I have to say the GS60 with 860M is on the top of my list now.

I'm just trying to be patient and wait for some more official reviews of all three gs60 models and blade 14. These units will all be waiting for me to order them when the time comes a few weeks from now.

 

This is extremely helpful for me as I don't want to have to wait for Unity to update and support it nor do I constantly want to have to manage my display settings. I'm kind of tempted to pull the trigger at NE because they have an offer for a free mouse, bag, and headphones but I kinda doubt they are of any quality. I didn't know if anyone here had received them though and could comment.

 

A 3K screen will work with me especially on the type of work I do. I can probably do with a 1080p screen, but this is a laptop I don't intend on upgrading for quite awhile (I still use my M11X R2 from 2010 - until this of course). With 4K getting cheaper and the industry move to higher displays, more and more content will be moving over to make use of the higher display.

Also, after seeing my friend's GT60 3K version (GS60 has the same rez), it pretty much sold me.

 

Speaking of 3K... @GenTechPC or @XoticPC, do you know what panel is used for the 3k version of the GS60? Any samples yet? I am wondering if it will be similar to what the GT60 uses.

 

GS60 GhostPro temperature test with IC Diamond repasted:

 

Another great video, thanks for sharing!

Interesting that it didn't make much difference... I noticed the same on mine after I repasted as well with IC, temps were essentially the same on GPU. By comparison, in 3DMark11 the 860m maxes at 75C on mine after repeated runs. While gaming (Blood Dragon in particular) it has reached a peak of 81C.

I'm curious to see how the 870m fairs gaming, do you know if there is a higher fan speed to keep it around 91-92C or is that max fan? I know on my GT60 with turbo fan disabled once it hits 93C it drops boost speeds... I'd assume the 870m will have to do the same.

 

Well the Games you create will work fine, the editor just looks like garbage. I think they may be fixing it soon though. If you run the desktop at 900p or 1080p it will look fine.

Mono Develop (I don't use that I use sublime text) I hear is ok at HiDPI. Again you can just use a lower resolution for your desktop until more apps scale properly.

 

would like to know specification about the stock 16gb ram on the gs60, latency, brand , voltage etc., this way I will know if I need to upgrade or not

 

I am pretty sure they will use the Panasonic VVX16T029D00 found on GT60 3K Edition, you can read the review of the screen posted by holliday777 here:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/msi/736855-gt60-3k-edition-first-impressions.html

Yeah the ICD doesn't seem help much because of it's thin chassis.

I think the fan is at it's max when it gets 91-92C.

They don't always use the same brand but the current batch I see it's the Kingston MSI16D3LS1KBG/4G 11-11-11-28 @ 800 MHz.

 

Man that fan sounds loud.

 

Can anyone with the gs60 let me know what the bios settings are for drive encryption (drive passwords). For example, are you able to set different passwords per drive (pass1 for 2.5in, and pass2 for m.2; and what about m.2 in raid 0), or does it automatically set the password for all drives, or maybe it only supports password on the master?

I guess my main concern is that I can have the 2.5 password protected, and preferably (not a necessity) the same for the two m.2 in raid 0...which I don't expect to be an issue, but wanted to make sure and see just how flexible the bios was. (In the end, I plan on dual booting the machine with a win7 and win8 installs, and just hibernating one when switching to the other)

 

Hi, i've received the GS60 ghost with 860m today, the laptop is very impressive but after using for few hours I've noticed the top corners of the screen are weird or the build quality is not good. Because when you touch the screen to adjust the angle or close and open the lid, the top corners will crack open a little bit. So I'm kind of worry they will fall off after a while. Do you guys have the same problem like mine or I'm just unlucky because I received defective unit??

Here is the pictures

 

I got mine this morning and did a clean install of win8.1. I installed the sound blaster and it kept saying no devices found. Any ideas?

 

Hello Guys,

I've bought an MSI GS60 just yesterday and installed windows 8.1 on it.
The problem is i can't find a way to make the wifi works... Any advice ?

Thank you in advance.

 

mine's the same, you can stick a fingernail between that area if you try, but why?

 

Ken you can see fan speed in the MSI Dragon Gaming center console in the right hand tray, 5200 rpms is highest i've seen with a 860m. what have you seen with the 870m?

 

I found something similar like a week ago but I also thought it was weird they had it in stock, ready to ship. That was why I didn't really trust them. I will also wait for some other webshops to have it available so let me know when you (or someone else) find something.

 

Mine will do that if I force the bezel or twist the screen, but normally when not being touched they are flush. The top lid is super thin on this thing and does flex a bit when moved by only one corner. It's possible your plastic bezel piece has a slight bow to it in the corners. Mine by comparison has a slight gap down by the hinge that can fit a fingernail that I mentioned in a previous post when comparing my two units, but it's not something I'd return the laptop over. It's only noticeable when looking at it super close and should not get worse with usage.




I've yet to get an absolutely perfect laptop, tablet, or vehicle

 

I Want to ask , what is the resolution of the front camera ? i noticed that some say it's FHD and some HD so what is it
i'm planing to get the laptop next week and i'm curious what is it?

 

The us msi website says its 720p.

 

Yeah i Know , but if i read in a lot of websites that its FHD and if you search google MSI Gs60 FHD webcam you will find a number of results
i know it's a silly Question but maybe just maybe the site was wrong and it's FHD it would be nice

 

Mine has a defective audio jack. Mic jack is ok but the headset jack is screwed up. I need to force the jack in really hard before it goes in. Further checking, I can see a small metal sticking out. That was the cause of it.

 

Mine only last about 3 hours with battery saver mode. How's about you guys?

 

I'd be very keen on knowing the typical battery life of the machine, this is only what's holding me back right now; please give your input guys (with settings & all) ! Thanks =)

 

Question about RAID 1 to people with access to GS60 -
They offer RAID 0 but does the BIOS support RAID1 as well ? I want to buy my Ghost with 2xM.2 boot drives and mirror them for protection - some times the controller knows to use the mirror for faster read speed too.

Thanks !

 

Hi, I have a question(s) mainly for guys from GenTechPC, but if anyone else knows how this works, please explain.

There's a RAM customization option for GS60 on your website from stock 16GB DDR3 1600/PC3 12800 Dual-Channel (8G X 2) to 16GB (8GB X2) Crucial Ballistix Sport 1866 PC-3 14900. How does it work, please?
I browsed the web looking for answers, but I'm still unsure how exactly this works, especially on notebooks.

Are you able to actually run it on that frequency with those timings or do you let it dial down to 1600Mhz to match CPU clock? (In other words, is there asynchronous RAM mode available?)
If it runs on 1866Mhz, does it still run on 1.35V and is there a default X.M.P. profile that just needs to be swapped in BIOS so it works, or is there more tweaking necessary? And how about some side effects to higher speed memory used? (excessive heat, memory unstability, etc.)

I'm asking this, because I'm considering this as my new notebook. I'm not from USA, though and GS60 models available to me need bit of HW upgrade, which I'm, most likely, gonna have to do myself since there's no vendor (to my knowledge) that offers optimizations like you do guys.

Thanks!

 

Hi Guys!

I have a question regarding GS60 and GS70.

1.Does GS60 provide a better cooling than GS70?
2.Are the internals(GPU,CPU,RAM, etc.) user replaceable?

Thanks a lot!
Von

 

Hi, as far as I know:

1.) Short answer: No.
Both notebooks use dual fan cooling system, so if anything, GS70 has slightly better cooling, since it's the larger one. That's assuming the same GPU is installed on both types.

2.) Short answer: Depends on component.
Since both of these notebooks use very slim chassis, CPU and GPU are soldered onto the motherboard. However, you have available 2 RAM slots and 2 SATA M.2 SSD slots, which are populated depending on model version. There's also 2.5" SATA III connector which have some kind of mechanical HDD already installed on pretty much every model version. There's a catch though: only the last connector is easily accessible. To access RAM and M.2 SSD slots, you have to take out entire motherboard, since these slots are located on it's other side. So, it's doable, but not so comfortable.

Hope I haven't made any mistakes.

 

Still hoping someone will be able to answer my question regarding the bios passwords, but in the meantime, a question regarding the display. Does anyone know what the power consumption difference is between the FULLHD and 3k displays? I'm contemplating getting the 3k display to 'future proof' the laptop since win 8.1 has added alot of api/improvements for dpi scalling...but it's going to take a while before applications adapt it. In the meantime, I'm thinking of using the display in 1080p (same for gaming), but I'm worried about the extra power consumption of the display since I don't expect it to decrease just cause I lower the resolution. Also, can anyone comment between the quality of the two displays (brightness, contrast, gamut, angles, etc)? Lastly, anyone know if the 870m 1080 version will be available before/after/same time as the 3k 870m version?
Oh, and anything else I might have missed with regarding running the 3k display at FULLHD?

 

Usually people would set a master bios password and then have different logins for each OS/OS account. You could install windows on each drive separately and use windows encryption on each and would be best getting an SSD with hardware encryption acceleration.

 

My 3.5mm jack got stuck in the audio port. Who in the right mind would my the port 3.4mm? It was tight when I plug it in and now I can pull it out. Seriously.....

 

So i've made my decision to purchase the gs60, but would like some advice.

1. I've heard Raid-0 is relatively pointless when you have SSD (i.e. performance isn't that much greater in day to day use and only in file transfers). How true is that?
2. If I were to replace the SSD, is there an SSD I should be replacing the standard w/? what are the benefits? (Besides size)
3. Is there any point in replacing the 16gb ram w/ a corsair or kingston? What are the benefits?
4. It seems stock thermals are pretty good (on the 860 model). Is it still a good idea to apply IC Diamond?

Thanks all in advance.

 

1. Day to day I struggle to see it being a noticeable difference, but it is technically faster, although your data integrity is then depending on two drives instead of just one to stay healthy. I've personally kept things single drive as the jump to SSD was a huge improvement itself that is still plenty fast enough.
2. M.2 doesn't have a lot of options at this point as it is very early on for this design, I would wait and see what becomes available in the future.
3. Similar to your first question, it is technically faster, and I've upgraded in the past, but honestly after I upgraded to 1866mhz in my last laptop I couldn't tell a difference in actual performance, only in benchmarks.
4. IC Diamond is a better compound, and if you are ordering from Gentech it's not a bad idea for what they charge, but after taking the time to repaste mine personally with IC, it's not much of a difference in this laptop. Ken @ Gentech has reported similar results with his repasts. Temps as you said seem to be very well managed with the 860m from the factory so I wouldn't bother in hind sight.

Enjoy your new machine, I love mine!

 

So does the BIOS on the gs60 allow raid1 mirroring of the boot drive ?

 

RAID-0 actually works for SSDs (it produces very little speedup for HDDs due to the seek latency). In fact internally, a SSD is to basically 8, 16, or 32 flash drives which are about 20-50 MB/s each. Glom them all together into a giant RAID-0 and you get a 500 MB/sec SSD. Putting together two SSDs into a RAID-0 is just the same thing that gets you close to 1 GB/sec..

The problem is that from the perspective of a person, "speed" isn't MB/sec. It's sec/MB. That means the bigger MB/sec gets, the less perceptible difference it makes. e.g. consider copying a 1 GB file.

At 125 MB/sec, this takes 8 sec
At 250 MB/sec, this takes 4 sec. +125 MB/sec = 4 sec speedup.
At 500 MB/sec, this takes 2 sec. +250 MB/sec = 2 sec speedup.
At 1 GB/sec, this takes 1 sec. +500 MB/sec = 1 sec speedup.

See how the bigger the MB/sec gets, the smaller the perceptible speedup? Each time you double the MB/sec, the time saved is halved.

For most things you do on a computer today, a ~500 MB/sec SSD is "fast enough". Putting two of them in a RAID-0 doesn't really make a big difference unless you're working with lots of big files (e.g. editing videos). You'll have to decide for yourself if the extra speed is worth it or not. Since the laptop has two M.2 slots anyway, it's pretty easy to go with two 240 GB SSDs instead of one 480 GB SSD. So the additional cost is pretty minimal. (Also note that 4k read/writes or IOPS is usually more important than max sequential read/write speeds.)

The benchmarks I've seen point to only a 2%-5% speedup. It's a very poor return on investment based on price/performance ratio. Go for it if you can spare the money and want the absolute fastest performance. But otherwise opting for the 870m version for $100 more will result in a much bigger performance improvement.

The majority of the temp improvement from re-pasting is actually from the re-pasting, not the type of paste. The composition of the paste itself does make a small difference. But the best pasting job is to use to least amount of thermal paste. You want as much metal-on-metal contact between the CPU/GPU and heat sink as possible. The only purpose of the paste is to fill in tiny microscopic pits in the flat metal surfaces - to provide additional surface area for heat transfer when the two metal surfaces don't meet. You do not want paste sitting between metal surfaces which would touch each other if you hadn't used so much paste.

When your laptop is manufactured at the factory, the worker assembling these parts doesn't have much time to attach the heatsink to the CPU/GPU. So he'll squeeze on a dab of paste, put on the heatsink, squishes it around a couple times to distribute it, and moves on to the next laptop. The excess paste reduces heat transfer from the CPU/GPU to the heatsink.

GenTechPC deals with a much smaller volume of laptops. When they re-paste it, they take the time to do it right. They'll squeeze out excess paste to maximize the metal-on-metal contact. Using the least amount of paste necessary is what accounts for most of the temperature drop. If you happened to get a laptop where the factory worker actually did the job right (whether by chance or work ethic), you won't see much improvement from re-pasting.