MSI GT70/GT60 Dominator, Asus G750JM or?? Help me decide please! Lots of questions inside.

Hey guys! Looking for a new gaming laptop here. Currently have a Asus G73jh which as treated me well but it's time to upgrade. At first I was leaning towards the G750JM since I'm partial to Asus but it has the 860m and the 870m model is $500 more! That's when I discovered the MSI. I'm a bit worried about cooling though since via googling it seems the Asus gaming laptops are usually fine with heat but the MSI ones may have some issues.


I'm looking at the GT60 Dominator or GT70 dominator. Open to suggestions. My budget is flexible but I'm not sure if a $500 jump for a graphics card is worth it. Most likely will order through xotic. I can't decide on a 15" or 17". The laptop will mostly sit at home hooked up to multiple external monitors and the rest of the external (keyboard, mouse, etc). But I'll be taking it out and about with me sometimes and may game on that screen if I'm at a friends house. Also plan on sa extended overseas trip in the near future so the laptop screen may get a lot of use in the future. I'm leaning towards the 15".

I plan on doing medium gaming and the usual nerdy/computer/internet stuff. I won't be doing a lot of intense gaming of the latest and greatest games but I'd like something that'll last me a while.

I already have a Samsung EVO SSD ready to install and I just purchased a Monoprice 27" 2550x1440 monitor. I'm doing a lot of googling and having a hard time getting a clear answer on whether or not this will support gaming on that monitor at 1440. I plan on having the laptop hooked up to the 27" as my main screen and a 24" at 1080p (or lower, don't care) for different windows, web browser, movies, etc. I may add a 3rd if possible but I doubt I will. It seems it may barely support gaming at 1440 on the 27" and I may have to mess with some graphics settings.

Any reason to do a thermal paste upgrade or copper cooling upgrade via xotic? It seems the laptop already offers copper cooling. I'd like to avoid a laptop cooler if at all possible. I'm a bit worried about the overheating of the MSI gaming laptops.

If I do order a GT60 or GT70 dominator from exotic I'd get the GT60 424 dominator or GT70 895 dominator. I see they have different variations with SSDs, blu-ray burners, and more RAM. Probably will upgrade the RAM through xotic to 16gb generic ($75 more)

I'm also considering the Sager NP8268-S.

Appreciate any and all input, thanks

 

Hello,

I can't speak directly to the GT60 424 as for cooling (Mine is supposed to come in on Tuesday 4/1.. so then I can) but after having the GT60 20C-022 for a couple months I would say that I never had a problem with heat. You can see the benchmark results as well as temps for the GPU/CPU on the new GT60's on this really good review done by the GentechPC members.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3xkxFDCAEs Most of the temps reached a max of 90-95 I believe.

As for gaming on 1440 resolution, I can't really speak to that at all but I would assume that the 860m in the Asus would have more trouble running it than the MSI GT60/70's with the 870m.

On the thermal paste upgrade.. I would say for sure have them do it. Most of what I've seen is that it lowers the temps anywhere from 4-7c which to me atleast is a big deal. Same with the memory since another 8gb stick (in addition to the factory 8gb the 424 ships with) is only an additional $75.. which is about what the cost of memory will run you anyways.

I know I didn't get to all of your questions and hopefully more members will chime in but I hope it helped out some!

 

Hello Christoff,

MSI does a good job at cooling, there are not common overheating issues. However we do typically see Asus having some of the lowest temps out of the models we offer.

You mentioned the difference in price because of the video card. You also get a SSD and more RAM when you go to the JS model. But as you mentioned you already have an SSD so that may not be as much of a value to you. It may be tough at first to go from a 17.3" to 15.6" but since you do have other monitors hooked up you may not miss it. And for your future travels a 15.6" is going to be easier to take around with you.

You should be able to game on the 1440 monitor, but the higher the resolution the more taxing it is on the GPU and you'll get lower FPS. It sounds like you'd be OK with that though.

I always suggest the IC Diamond and use it personally on everything. If you don't have us do it for you, you'll want to consider doing it yourself if comfortable with doing it of course. We do see benefits of adding the additional copper cooling, it does vary by machine.

The GT60 will probably be your best bet for everything you're after. Plus the default CPU on them are the i7-4800 instead of the 4700 Asus has.

Sager computers are good too, you can jump over to the Sager forum and read up about them. The NP8268-S was just released (same with the MSI and Asus) so you may not find tons of info on that model. Look for the NP8265 that was the previous model which was pretty much the same but 7XXM GPU.

 

Appreciate the replies guys! I think I've settled on getting the Sager NP8268-S through xotic. Ideally I'd get the Asus but it's not worth the price. I was set on the MSI GT60 or GT70 Dominator until I decided to finally look at the specs/price of the Sager models.

The Sager models through xotic include the IC diamond compound. Not sure if that's because it's like that from the factory or xotic but either way!


When I ordered the monitor I just assumed most computers would run 1440p gaming. Didn't realize how taxing this was. It's fine though because I'll just lower the resolution in game or graphics quality. I'll mess around with this.

The next step Sager is $388 more for the same specs but 880. I think I'll go with the 870 model, though. Don't think $388 is worth the jump.

I wish I'd looked at the Sager models before starting this thread hastily but alas. Don't want to start an MSI vs Sager bicker-battle here. Hopefully this thread is informative to others, though.

 

Just to let you know, Sager machines have horrible speakers and headphone jacks.

 

Hearing really good feedback about the quality on the new ones. I know its something Sager/Clevo were working on.