MSI GX640 Discontinued?

Is MSI stopping production on the GX640's? I was looking on some websites and many of them are saying out of stock/discontinued from manufacturer. I thought the laptop came out in April. I was thinking about picking one up from B&H Photos. I know I can still get it from some other places but shipping/tax from other stores makes the price more than what I I want to pay. Has anyone heard news about this laptop being taken off the virtual shelves?

 

I doubt it's discontinued, but it probably is just out of stock. It's a very popular model so it leaves the shelves pretty quick.

EDIT: You know, it may actually be discontinued. I checked Provantage where I got mine from and it lists it as special order which they then state can be due to a discontinued model.

RK Computers still has it in stock. In fact, I would shoot them an e-mail. They'll probably tell you for sure.

 

They've been showing off the GX640 at Computex for the last week so it's not likely.

Maybe after the GT660 comes out though.

 

yeah...it's probably just back-ordered from the factory.

 

Yea newegg took it off theirs a couple of weeks ago.

 

Hmm.. that would be a very odd decision by MSI. GT660 is heavier than the GX640, and the GTX 285M has about the same performance as the HD 5850 with much higher power draw. Maybe it has better profit margins? Who knows. I've been seeing excellent ratings for the GX640 on retailer sites, though. That's kind of odd.. It's not like we've seen any unusual failure rates either. Guess we'll wait and see.

 

GX640 was 16:10...it's days are (or were ) numbered.

 

But it wasn't released too long ago... right?

 

The chassis is a couple of years old only the CPU and GPU are newish.

 

Its in stock @ buy.com

 

Get'em While They're Hot ;p

 

That is strange... The laptop is still currently on MSI's website (but so are other much older models), and their official announcement of its availability in North America was on April 21st. Who knows, maybe that great price point wasn't bringing in enough profit? Although I doubt that because I'm pretty sure that they would have figured all that out before releasing it.

 

I think Newegg still has an open box GX640 for $930~, which is an amazing price. There's probably like 2-5% BCB floating around too.

 

Good one!

 

They did the same with previous models , business strategy I guess.

 

Yeah, they always kind of overlapped discontinued with new announced models/releases, but this just seems a tad too early??

Wonder if PCWorld have grabbed any of the models yet?

 

Sheesh, is this for real? It's been two months since the original release... I had pretty much just decided to buy one, but probably won't be able to do it until mid-summer. What about all the people who are holding out and researching reviews, etc.

 

You snooze you lose? j/k

Like I said before, the chassis is a couple of years old, and if the discontinuation is real MSI may have already stopped new production of more chassis stock before they even started selling the GX640. What people have been buying up until now may just've been previous stock that MSI wanted to sell off before new models are released...and resellers that still have systems listed for sale may be selling off what they have left as well.

 

Well, the chassis maybe similar but it's not entirely the same. Plus, most of the internals are indeed different than previous models. The motherboard for example is new as well as the heatsink. I doubt that MSI would create a new motherboard and revise the chassis for it in order to get rid of old stock.

 

Yep, it would appear that the GX640 is already a discontinued product. NCIX is usually pretty quick on updates for products and the status has gone from back-ordered to "no longer available".

This could mean that the GT660 is coming out very soon.

 

NCIX says it's available but not in stock. I shouldn't be writing this on shomer shabbat.

 

See attached screenshot. I'm talking about the real NCIX, the Canadian one.

 

The dude abides

 

This makes zero sense as a marketing strategy.

 

Perhaps it was just meant to fill a three month gap while customers wait for the GT660 to come out.

 

Honestly i feel its more of an issue of limited supply. Maybe they underestimated the amount of these they would sell?

 

Maybe it died of heat stroke...

...I'll be here all week.

 

Possibly still having problems with manufacturing/silicon aquiring?

Its so soon, so i cant think of why they'd call it off.

 

2 reasons
1. Replacing it with the GT660, but as mentioned earlier makes no sense.
The GX640 is a pretty potent laptop but the only negative is that it looks dated, don't get me wrong I have a 1651 that uses the same chassis it's nice but let's be honest it can use a upgrade especially the touchpad.
2.Supply and demand.

 

My 1st post.

NCIX had 10+ last week.

I ordered 1 and it arrived today.

Then went out off stock pretty much after a couple of days.

Typing this on my shinny GX640.

So no they are not discontinued... just HOT

 

They've always sold out very quickly each time a batch comes in. I think maybe the idea that it's not bringing enough profit might have some truth in it.

A 5850 GDDR5 card should carry a pretty hefty price tag... especially the memory. Back in the day many manufacturers tried to save money by using GDDR2 instead of GDDR3. Besides, the base specs and warranty for $1100 or so is a lot better than anything meant to compete with the machine. I don't know.. but I think the GT660 will be significantly more expensive.

 

Perhaps, but MSI has an edge being that they are the ones who manufacture the various parts in their machines. Rather then having to buy them from another company.

 

MSI doesn't have the semiconductor fabrication facilities, do they? I was under the impression that at most they could make electrical boards and chassis components.

 

Even without the semiconductors, they still have a leg up with just being able to produce/assemble their own Mobo's and Graphics cards. Compared to others like dell, hp and what not. Of course i may be completely wrong here. Been known to happen.

 

Yeah, that could be true. There's actually a comparable notebook, the Asus N61JQ which also comes at a very similar price and excellent price/performance ratio. It has an HD5730 and a i7-720QM for $1100 or so as well. And it certainly isn't going anywhere, either. So, I don't know why MSI would do this, I guess

 

The 5850 is in a completely different class to the 5730, though. When we look at ~$1100, the GX640 is definitely head and shoulders above the rest of the pack. The i5-430M equipped 15-16" ASUS models like the G51 and G60 are closer competitors than the N61JQ, though the GTS 360M they come with is still a ways behind; the 5830 in the Envy 15 (with coupon) has a similar level of performance to the 360M also.

The BestBuy G73 is probably the closest to the GX640 in value for money, but it's a 17" and the BB warranty is poor.

 

Well, I'm taking price into account also. Uh, pretty much I figured that the price difference between the i7-720QM and the i5-430M is about the same as the difference between HD 5850 and HD5730. Just a wild guess.

 

I'm taking price into account by looking at the $1000-$1200 price point.

The difference in performance between the i5-430M and the i7-720QM is around 0-30% (~30% only on heavily multithreaded tasks), while the 5850 is almost twice as fast as the 5730. Plus, for a gamer, the GPU is much more important than the CPU anyway.

How much the actual components are bought for doesn't really matter - for example, the i7-920XM is a ~$1000 CPU, but its performance doesn't really reflect that price tag.

 

You think the GX will still be around come July 27th?

 

Prolly not, the end of the world is July 26th.

 

The "GX" will be around for years to come....it's the "640" that might not be here long. :wink:

 

It is not. It's the beginning of a new one I wonder if Arirang E-Sports will be broadcasting SC2 once it comes out.

 

I know. But still, MSI buys the chips at prices that do not reflect their performance either.

All I'm saying is, when MSI has to enter $X into their books for cost of production and $Y for gross profit, they might find that the difference for GX640 isn't very good.

 

It's true that the profit margin might be a little low, but if that's the issue here, why would they have developed the GX640 in the first place? They would've known what profits were going to be like before they put the model out, after all.

In any case, as long as they're making some profit on it, that's better than no profit at all. Maybe once something like the GT660 is out they can stop producing it, but really all it would take is to raise the price a little. Even at $1300 it would be a solid deal - it doesn't have the performance or quality of a Sager around that price range, but it's more portable, and with 2+ times more battery life.

 

Maybe as someone said they just wanted to use up the rest of the chassis they manufactured for the GX630, GT627, etc?

 

The 098US model appears to be discontinued, but NCIX shows a new model, the 260US. Same specifications except for the CPU. It now comes with a Core i5 450M instead of a 430M. The price has been raised slightly, but it's still under $1,200.

NCIX is expected to have stock in a week, but orders can be placed immediately.

NCIX.com - Buy MSI GX640-260US Intel Core i5 450M 4GB 500GB 15.4IN WSXGA+ Radeon HD5850 Windows 7 Premium Notebook - GX640-260US In Canada.

 

Heh, there you go. That might well be what's behind this issue. If they're putting another one out with an i5-450M now, the GX640 isn't likely to disappear any time soon.

The i5-450M is only ~6% faster, but as long as the price increases by ~$20 at the most doubt anyone will complain. If Intel is charging pretty much the same price for the two, this is probably a good move by MSI.

I guess this just goes to show that this laptop is selling really well - quite a lot of the 098US models have happy owners now, and now many people will have to wait for the 260US.