MSI GS60 Ghost/ Ghost Pro Thread

It's M.2 SSD, so you can't use mSATA SSD.

 

No ETA on the video, they said soon though.
We also were able to order a few (not a lot) of these from our distribution center. Those will go to orders in the order the pre-order was placed. I have asked them to let me know once they get here and i'll see if we can find out anything else about the GPU.

 

Thanks for the Linus review link, hadn't seen it yet... nice looking laptop for sure

 

At least he mentioned the 3k, 870M version, too bad he only said its coming soon. I hope before the end of April. I am just waiting for that. 3k will be great to get work done and if I am going Kepler, might as well go 870M.

 

Do you think it will be like with the GS70 Stealth 2013?
I think it was like 1-2 months after the release of the GS70.

 

So, mine just came today (I'm typing this post on it right now, in fact). Liking it so far (though I haven't had a chance to actually get a game running yet - still waiting for Diablo 3 to download...)

My biggest complaint is that the system had power management for Bluetooth turned on by default, so the system was disconnecting my mouse every minute or so, and it wouldn't come back until I turned it off and on or waited a minute. I disabled the appropriate power management feature and it appears to work fine now. I don't care for the trackpad much (the 'click' versus 'tap' behavior seems to be iffy, and I tend to prefer external mice anyway).

Also, my 860M is definitely Kepler, but I think we established that the GS60 was going to be Kepler only, so I'm not too shocked. The screen is nice and bright, and the keyboard is pretty good for a laptop.

I'll certainly have more to say about it once I've tried some games on it, but it's certainly a pretty nice device from what I've seen of it so far.

 

Well, venting a bit of frustration, apologies ahead of time Newegg managed to lose my GS60 package somehow before it ever even made it to FedEx; a claim has now been filed to start the 7-10 day investigation.... lovely lol, that's efficiency.

Seems if a company was going to be the exclusive initial retailer of a product, they'd be able to actually ship them out successfully.

Pondering if I even want to reorder with them. First order with Newegg, epic fail. A hundred plus orders with Amazon without a single glitch. Not to mention the custom resellers should be getting them next week.

Boo Newegg.

Damaniel, congrats on yours, enjoy! My biggest question would be your thoughts on fan noise?

 

I don't know how accurate this is, they may have just thrown the date in as a placeholder until more info comes along, but Engadget has on their "Ghost Pro" page that it is being released April 30.

 

Wow, that sucks. Mine also came from Newegg, and I didn't have any problem - at least with Newegg; the Ontrac guy who delivered it was ready to toss it over my fence instead of bringing it to the door. I was out mowing my lawn and caught him just as he was getting ready to drop it off. Pretty standard for Ontrac though.

As far as noise goes, I'd classify it as 'mildly perceptable' when just sitting at the desktop, browsing the web or such. There's a little bit of background noise in the room, and I had to hold the laptop a few inches away from my ear to hear anything. In a quiet room with nothing playing on the laptop, you'd probably barely hear them from a couple feet away. I tried playing Diablo 3 for a few minutes, and in that case the fans do spin up quite a bit (they're probably slightly louder than my 2011 Macbook Air was at full load), but I doubt you'd be distracted if you had the sound on while playing. In my case, the game was muted, so I could hear them while the laptop was in my lap. They're hardly jet engines, though.

 

How are the speakers? Quality and volume,

 

are colors rich and high intensity like IPS or somewhat whasd out like TN?

 

I received mine today as well. MAJOR ISSUE:

I set the ELAN smart pad to register 2 finger TAP as a popup menu (right click) and I even disabled all the other 2 finger gestures and edge scrolling to make sure they didn't interfere.

The trackpad randomly accepts the 2 finger TAP, sometimes it will do it 5 times in a row, sometimes it takes 4 tries to get the rightclick menu to show. This is really annoying! I even have the ELAN tray icon set to display 1 or 2 finger taps and it shows it properly everytime but the software doesn't always give you the rightclick menu!

Can other owners verify this?

 

Mine only accepts presses intermittently. That is, there's two ways to use the pad, either through taps (single or multi), or by full 'presses' (single or multi, region dependent). The tap actions all seem to work. However, I can only get the single click action to register as a left click about 20 percent of the time. My preference is to click instead of tap, so it's a little annoying. Since I use it near exclusively with a Bluetooth mouse, and because I figure the problem is a driver issue, I'm not planning to do anything about it for now. On the other hand, trackpads are one of those things that should work pretty well out of the box, and Apple is the only company that consistently gets that right.

 

Another oddity I noticed. I thought the frame rate in Diablo 3 was a little low for a mid-upper range discrete GPU (30ish FPS with settings at medium high). The laptop was defaulting to running the game on the integrated video (which does surprisingly well), but more concerning is that the game won't run in dedicated fullscreen mode when using the 860m. I was able to modify the config file to bring it up in windowed mode, and switch to windowed fullscreen from there, but if I toss it back into fullscreen, I just get a black screen (well, the cursor, but otherwise a black screen).

It runs fine in windowed fullscreen, and that's the mode I usually use, but it should still work in every mode. I'm currently installing another game I play often (Rift) to see what happens when I run it in full screen mode.

EDIT: Rift defaulted to the 860M and ran in fullscreen mode with no complaints (and in Ultra mode, no less). Maybe it's an issue specific to Diablo 3? This is my first laptop with both an integrated and discrete GPU, so I don't know what the compatibility pitfalls are. As long as both games work at native res and running on the 860M (which they are), I'm happy.

 

Keep in mind the 860M GPU is new, and NVidia is yet to optimize 8xx drivers for many games. FPS and playability should improve substantially with future driver are releases. Also, you should be able to insure the game uses the 860M, by setting-up a profile in the NVidia Control Panel.

How do I customize Optimus profiles and settings?

 

I got this too, it starts off with integrated, however with dedicated i get perfect 60 fps with max I get the black screen you're talking about to but only if I disable vsync. This guy seems to have similar problems somewhat so maybe the game? Diablo 3 screen goes black in certain tasks. - Blue Posts - Diablo 3

Although that website is a bit jacked, up at least for me. Yeah the touchpad is really annoying. I can use it to where it's "ok" most of the time. But one thing that irks me is that if I have my palm resting to the left of it it makes it impossible to left click anything. It's like it's pressing down the touchpad on that side. Otherwise the only thing I would want out of this laptop is 4k and better battery life but that's not going to happen for quite a while lol

 

Yep, I forced it over using the Nvidia control panel. Sadly it still won't run in 'Fullscreen' mode ('Windowed fullscreen' works fine though). I'm not concerned about any of this; these are all signs of driver immaturity as opposed to actual hardware issues, and those are par for the course for early adopters.

 

Huh? Early Adopter? Don't know what you are talking about. (Been there, done that many times..... so much so, I AM Mr, Early Adopter)

LOL!

 

This might make you guys feel better:

Min-Liang Tan (@minliangtan) tweeted at 10:19pm - 31 Mar 14:

@Diablo Running RoS on high dpi (3200 x 1800) settings and the cursor disappears. Help? ( https://twitter.com/minliangtan/status/450819718509645824)


Min-Liang Tan (@minliangtan) tweeted at 1:21am - 1 Apr 14:

For those playing @Diablo RoS with the new Blade - you'll need to put it in windowed full screen for 3200 x 1800 - runs like butter! ( https://twitter.com/minliangtan/status/450865603742400512)

 

Another MAJOR ISSUE:

whenever the GPU kicks in (power button turns red) the WIFI signal is decreased significantly.
i noticed it when i was playing in a low signal area Guild Wars 2 and whenever i would try and log on it would randomly disconnect me. i moved to a better signal area and it worked fine but then i decided to test the WIFI degradation with speedtest
no gpu running the download speed was 25-30 mbps upload 7-8 mbps
gpu running download speed was 12-18 mbps upload 6-7 mbps

is the gpu interfering with WIFI signal? or is it drawing power away from the WIFI card? or is it the fans kicking in that are interfering with signal or power? i cannot figure it out

 

Well that is a very interesting observation... I'll have to compare and see if this is an isolated hardware problem on your machine or a design issue. Can't see how it could be driver related. Thanks for the insight, I'll report back when I receive my machine.

EDIT: I am glad to read they kept the power button indicating which GPU is running by color.

 

How are the external speakers??

 

I haven't noticed that particular problem, but I was sitting only a few feet and one wall away from the access point, so it might be different when you're in an area with marginal signal. Half of my house falls into that category; I'll have to try it when I can.

They sound pretty good for laptop speakers. I've only used them a little; I either use headphones or play muted and only played Diablo 3 with them on for about 30 seconds or so. I'll probably have more to say once I've tried playing some music or videos on it.

 

Is there any coil whine by the gs60?

Had a xps15 last week and had to return it because of ridiculously loud coil whine...

Sent from my Nokia Lumia 720 using Tapatalk

 

Why did the GE60 Apache get Maxwell 860m and the GS60 a freaking Kepler rebadge?

 

Probably because they otherwise had to equip the two versions (with 860m and 870m) with a different mb because of the different architectures.

 

Hey guys, anyone got the battery specs for the gs60? I bought this from tigerdirect and the freight forwarder i used needs the battery details to be able to ship lol. It's 6 cell but what Wh? They want it to be less than 20Wh/cell oor 100Wh per battery/pack. cheers fellas

 

I really want to get a the GS60 Ghost Pro when it comes out and have GenTech or XPC buff it up a bit. The only issue I have is knowing that the GS70 trackpad has been a nuisance and it doesn't sound like much progress has been made to fix it after reading recent posts here. I assume they share trackpad hardware. I spend a lot of time on my computer without a mouse. Has it improved to the point where you can reliably use it?

 

6-Cell Li-Polymer(4840mAh 52Wh)

Its written at MSI site right in specifications of GS60 Ghost Pro

 

And this is with the 860m model correct? I'm trying to decide between 860m and 870m for the gs60, and i feel that there's not enough benchmarks and real life gaming tests out there :/

 

Well in my opinion it is not worth to buy 870M or 880M laptop ... simply because there's so huge price difference between them ...
for example like it is with GS70 ... 860M with 1ssd costs around 1499€ in my country, but 870M with 1SSD costs 1699€
I dont think that +15% higher power is worth that 200€ difference ://

 

First post here, and thought I'd jump in with my impressions. I received this machine from Newegg a couple of nights ago, and last night spent some time playing Elder Scrolls Online. Full res, settings to Ultra, and it ran between 50-60 FPS. Also, I was worried about thermals, but it stayed cool, even after a couple of hours.

Also, the screen is impressive. Its clear from every angle.

Fan noise is also not bad. You can hear the fans when the gpu is in use, but its not distractingly loud. I'd had non gaming laptops with louder fans.

Overall, Im an super impressed with this machine. At $1000 cheaper than the Razer, its a steal.

 

Can you please link the website where GS70 is available for that price?

 

Does XoticPC or Gentech deliver to UK, and what would be the price with shipping if I ordered for example gs60-003 that costs $1699?

 

It is not really worth importing from the US unless a friend can bring it to you, because the +20% VAT gets slapped on the price on top of the shipping as well, so you're at around the same price as if you just bought it in the EU.

 

Sorry but they ship only in Slovakia or Czech republic ...

 

I don't think 1000 difference is a steal. Razer has the 870m, 3k igdo touchscreen display, 512GB ssd (for the 1000 difference u r saying), and it is smaller which for notebook increases prices, and they position their brand as premium. I still think it is very expensive though. Cheers

Sent from my SM-N9005 using Tapatalk

 

Overclockers.co.uk are offering GS60 with 8gb ram, 128ssd 1TB hdd, 860m, for 1200 pounds. ETA 09/05/14.

In US, GS60 is already available. I tried pre-ordering the same model, except that it has 16gb RAM on Amazon: $1699 + $40 expedited shipping (2-4 days) + approx. $350 VAT, that's $2089, or 1266 pounds. So basically same price, except extra 8gb RAM already installed and I should get it much earlier than 09/05 !!!

Makes sense, right?

 

Um - no - unless you like US keyboards.

I am in the UK wanting a GS60 also but I have never ordered from Overclockers so I don't know what they are like and I need 16GB RAM and they only offer models with 8GB.

I would also prefer a de-badged version if possible,

Also I think it's worth waiting a month until there are some other retailers offering the GS60 in the UK in case the price drops a bit (although I don't hold out much hope)

Scan.co.uk seem to be offering the GS70 (with 870m) as a barebones (LG179) so I am hoping that Scan or XMG will have the GS60 barebones up soon.

If you order from the US see what GenTech can do - they seem like good people.

 

I don't mind US keyboard. Can you please link to that barebones? I can't find it.

 

3k screens are useless with windows... The scaling is horrible

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

 

It's actually the 3XS Graphite.... Thin and light 17in gaming laptop with Intel Core i7 and - 3XS

 

Ok, Thank you!!

 

Warranty is also a factor worth considering; I think out of the 2 year warranty on MSI laptops only the first year is global, so if you import from the US you will only have 1 year warranty technically.

 

First shipment arrived. We will be working on all pre-orders starts today.

 

Follow up to my previous post yesterday regarding Newegg confusion, got home from work today and surprisingly had 2 GS60's sitting at my door despite them claiming one was lost and replacement would arrive next week... needless to say tore right into one of them!

Some initial thoughts after an hour or so of setting up, updating, and running a 3DMark11 session to test GPU function:

+Very impressive packaging, MSI has stepped up their game in this area. Also, LOVE the matching sleeve they included.

+Size: It really is as thin as it appears, build quality feels solid, metal chassis is a nice upgrade over plastic.

+Touchpad: Love the much bigger size compared to the GT series, which has always felt a bit cramped. Will need to use further but seems about average, definitely not great but not bad in usage.

+Screen: It's a good screen, bright and clear with good viewing angles. Not the best by any means but much better than average.

+Power brick is quite a bit smaller than I'm used to with other laptops.

+Great keyboard, very pleased with feel and response.

~Cooling: Fan noise is louder than I'd prefer at idle or basic desktop usage... it's a constant rush of air from CPU fan (right side) with fan speed idling around 3300rpm @ 45C. I think it's louder as well because the air is being sucked in directly above the keyboard; if you put your hand up there you feel the airflow, which of course creates noise that is right in front of the users face instead of on the bottom like other machines which would block some of the noise. On the flip side, internal GPU/CPU temps seem to be well managed, so it is a compromise they made. Another plus with this design is when sitting on my lap, air vents are not blocked as the air intake is on the topside and exhaust is on rear and side corners. I'll be curious to see from further usage if the noise becomes annoying or something I can accept. Under load the fan noise gets loud, but initial thoughts is not as loud as the GT60. By contrast, at idle, the GT60 is substantially quieter however.

~Bottom side of laptop does get quite warm when gaming in the far two corners near fan outlets... right where the CPU/GPU are located. When sitting on a desk this isn't a factor and palm area/keyboard remain cool, but for mobile lap usage could get quite warm on the legs!

3DMark11 scored 5276 with CPU hitting 81C and GPU hitting 75C.

Definitely a nice laptop. I will play with it more this weekend and report back... First general thoughts and feel are overall positive :thumbsup:

 

Yeah, 860. If you want a couple games benchmarked that I might have, I could do a couple

 

I think you can make the comparison,more so when warranty is factored in.


1 year vs 2 years with MSI.

Razer has a history of shipping units with crap screens.I had chance to use a Razer 14 last Fall for a few days,and got to see this with my own eyes next to a Asus G750JH.The screen on the Asus was fantastic in comparison.

 

Waiting for this pro version gets harder everyday....

 

The panel on the new Razer is top-tier, forget what you saw last year.