MSI GX640-098US Review

Just ordered my gx640..

Im pretty sure you can run crysis at 1680x1050

 

anyone on my post min do u know

 

Is the touchpad multitouch (e.g. two finger scroll?)

 

Uh... there's nothing poking through on mine, and I don't see anything wrong with yours. Try retaking the pictures with the close object mode.

 

Hey min2209,

I noticed you posted earlier that you are also experiencing the 10.3 Catalyst issue that dinkelover was experiencing (post #271, of the official owner's thread)

I am also seeing the exact same problem. When I install the latest 10.3 Catalyst drivers from the AMD site and reboot, I get into a blank screen. I'm forced to revert to LKG (Last Known Good) drivers.

However my question is about your review. I noticed in your Unigine benchmark it says that the drivers you are using are 8.712.0.0.

I believe these are Catalyst 10.3 drivers and not the included MSI drivers (which should be 8.69...something).

How did you benchmark this if you also can't install the 10.3 Catalyst drivers?

Thanks

 

@min2209- can you take a few more pictures of the battery sticking out from different angles. Need to make sure of its portability.

Thanks!

 

Ya I can take more pictures of the battery when I get home today.

To buff-daddy:

I can install the driver, it's just that it makes it impossible to wake up from hibernate/sleep afterward. A few times this even forced me to recover the whole system. Right now I am running 10.5 which has the same problem, just every night I shut down instead of hibernate. Like I mentioned, I'm still trying to get it fixed.

 

I too would like to know.
Also, is there a bios feature that allows Ctrl Fn switiching? I remember my Dell Studio 1536 (uuuuuuuugh) had it....

I also ordered a GX640 (1082.98 before 7% taxes ) and am awaiting its arrival!

 

1082.98 with an i5-540M? Why?

 

I'm guessing thats a typo?

 

hey min2209, i made a new thread on these driver problems, could you respond to that thread and post your vbios version?

thanks

 

Could you say a bit more about the keyboard? I do have the SC2 beta and on my current laptop (Gateway 6860FX,) my issue is the same as I had in BW. The keys just aren't very good compared to a real keyboard. I guess because they're shallower or something, it's just more difficult for me to use them for serious gaming. In FPS games, it's doable but it becomes a lot harder in RTS games when I'm always reassigning hotkeys.

 

Hi,

Ya... I'll look for the BIOS in a sec, I'm in the middle of something right now. Anyway, I'll post a picture of my battery. Someone asked before.. I forget who :S
The picture will be in the review.

 

Excellent review. Niiiiice laptop. Thanks for all the followup too. Good job!

 

Thank you

The keyboard.. well, for me they're perfectly usable, but for some others, maybe they don't like the flex in the spacey key. But from what I hear, applying the flex fix seems to give a rock solid keyboard that otherwise has no problems.

 

Well there are flex fix videos on youtube, all you need is double sided tape, its really strange why it flex's actually :S.

 

HD5850 1GB GDDR5, 15.4" WSXGA+ Screen, 500GB 7200RPM HDD & BT......and I'm in Canada so....

More like why not?

 

The true question is : How?

Another good question might be: Where?

 

What about key travel? Are they shallow and easy to press (compared to a desktop keyboard) like most laptop keyboards?

Ty for the answers, btw,

 

I like everything about this lappy, but am worried about the keyboard. Will the off-center typing space annoy most users?

 

Another key issue about travel.

I do a lot of flying, and on most of my flights my airline provides me with an outlet to plug my laptop into.

The GX640's power bar uses up more power then usual and doesn't work in them. This was kind of a disappointment, but what can you do?

 

What's the voltage of the power bar (120V)?

The Envy 15's power bar uses 120V.

I thought the airlines supply power up to 120V per outlet.

 

Yes, well, theoretically if you short out the two outlet prongs you can force the voltage to drop to 0.

Anyway, my point is that although the outlet gives you 120V open circuit voltage, it may not be able to deliver 1A at that.

 

That would definitely be a ymmv question imo. I don't own a 640 but I type 80+ wpm and I know I can adjust to almost any keyboard whereas my friends/co-workers have keyboards that drive them crazy.

 

My GX640 came with the 10.3 drivers installed but now whenever I start Windows, it just sticks on a black screen (I can login with Safe Mode though). I tried downloading the older drivers off MSI's site but it doesn't install any drivers. I removed the 10.3 ones first. Can somebody help me with this please. Thanks.

 

How : I work for a "Network Consultant", he gets deals and tax breaks.
Where : A wholesaler.

 

The wholesaler changes the CPUs as well?

 

Lmao. MSI Quotes:

• Not covers:

Cosmetic damages (scratches, dents...etc), lost, stolen, incorrect or inadequate custom installation, intentional damage, recovery or transfer data, acts of God and natural disaster.

 

Hello, all.

I also felt fascinated when first saw this notebook on offer in local store's website. It was much cheaper than my last favorite-to-buy notebook Asus G51-JX with i7 Q720.

So, after min’s review I finally decided to buy it. However, I live in Czech republic currently, so I got a slightly different version of package:

-Instead of 3 years of warranty I got 2 y international warranty
+The package contained Carrying backpack and a gaming mouse (both branded msi)

So here are my impressions:

First of all, the overall impression after opening the box was great - nice, well finished notebook, red details are neat - inspiring gaming spirit

I'll skip those not interesting parts about [how many I/O ports it has, what is the screen resolution etc] - you can see it from specs. My, as a user, personal impressions are more important, I guess.

So, the first thing I noticed was of course the screen - while the matrix is totally the same as in my previous notebook (LG S1 Express Dual), this one has better brightness when comparing side to side at maximum brightness setting. The resolution is the same, so no big changes for me here.

After that - keyboard and ultimately the additional controls. But I said to myself that I will get used to it somehow. And yet, when comparing to my previous LG notebook, which had superior controls for volume and SRS WOW/TruSurround modes, I was a bit disappointed: Instead of being able to increase/decrease volume with just one press, I have to press Fn+F6 or F7. And the upper touch panel – it has buttons to play/pause, stop, next, previous…..but no volume controls? Who was responsible for this design? How often do users change track and how often they adjust volume? I bet the proportion would be 1 to 100 easily. But, as I said previously, I will get used to it somehow although it’s not a good engineering decision from msi.

Continuing the sound issues – I am very surprised, why min in his review mentioned the superior quality of speakers on this notebook. I either got a faulty notebook or something is not right in here. Or maybe it’s just me, as I had a notebook with a perfect sound system (yes, the same LG S1). The sound coming from GX640’s speakers is unnatural and somehow “metallic”. On top of that, my main issue:

When I play certain frequencies (especially in louder settings), the panel and grill, covering the speakers start to make annoying noise (comparable to a loosened cover on quality speakers). Yet, when I press my fingers on that upper panel, covering the speakers, this noise is reduced drastically. So, design, or assembly fault? If I’m the one having this issue, then I have to do something about it – please give me your impressions about this issue, cause now I must use very low volume settings and/or headphones.

Ok, enough whining, let’s make some positive response. And positive response it is – THE graphics card. Yes, It’s a wonder. I easily got 7069 Marks on Performance test in 3D Mark Vantage (GPU result) and it chews games like a charm. Battlefield Bad Company 2 with all settings maxed, 4xAA, 4xAF, HBAO disabled is running like an angel without any problems even on big explosions and intense gameplay.

Keyboard is OK, I guess, no big complains from me. I still need some time to adjust to it.

Temperatures and fan noise. Yes, this is interesting. Remembering the last time I baked my LG’s motherboard (one week before warranty ends - lucky), I pay a lot of attention to cooling solutions. And this notebook manages it well, I guess – because of an internal design, when air for the fan is not being taken just from beneath it, but through various holes in the bottom of the notebook. The bottom remains only slightly warm in places, but generally – very comfortable to put on a lap. Yet I cannot tell this about the air coming out from air exhaust – in gaming it is really hot. And because I am right-handed, it really makes my mouse hand sweat (I guess this will come handy in winter  . Internal temperatures are OK, CPU about 45-55 C on idle and GPU about 60 C. While gaming it increases but not too much – up to 75 C max I guess (didn’t measure accurately).

Fan noise – yeah – this is also a bugger. How can I reduce it? I know it is normal for the fan to be extra active and noisy when gaming – I agree, but why should it be blowing like mad when cpu is idling and is only 47 C? On LG, I had 3 fan settings: Silent, Normal, Cool. Which corresponded accordingly to their namings. If I wanted to leave the notebook to download something overnight, I just left it in Silent setting and the loudest part was a hard disc. Yet in GX640 it’s different. The fan has its own mind and cannot be told to be silent or loud. It’s just loud. No changes in any Eco mode. I believe that Eco modes just adjust screen brightness and that’s all – pity really, because I can set my screen brightness myself.

Didn’t test the battery life though yet, but I will update you with that info as soon as I will know myself. If the fan will be blowing like that even on battery, I cannot predict good results even from this big battery.

So this is it for now, I hope you find this personal impressions useful. Please confirm comment on my speaker issues so that I would know if I it is a design fault or just a fixable issue.

Thanks, Molius.

 

Yeah, they will only say Overclocking is an act of GOD lmao

 

Is that at stock clocks, or overclocked? That's exactly the kind of stock result I thought this GPU was supposed to get, but others haven't been getting that kind of result because of some driver-related issues with PCIe at x1. Perhaps the European GX640 doesn't have this problem?

 

lmao... i literally lol'd at this...

 

One strange notice: I compared GPUZ data in the screens in [a thread nearby where a guy shows his results and temps] with mine and for my GPU everything is the same except PCI Express version. That guy has 2.0, I have 1.1. And yet I didn't have any problems installing drivers from ATI website or any problems with PCI Express x1 or x16 issue. As I said, everything is totally the same. I'll probably upload a screen this evening.

Edit: Yeah, this Vantage result is with stock clock values.

 

Yep, my machine gets a 6981 gpu score in vantage with no OC so they GPU can def destroy any game

 

Well, I played some songs on my computer and I can't say I've noticed the metallic sounds Molius has mentioned. Perhaps someone else can verify?
Thanks

 

No they do not. This would have to be something that I do in my spare time.

Thought if I've done it a million times before, I'm sure that it is doable again...at least it is not soldered to the mobo...

Also

MSI REP_1 : Look at this....
MSI REP_2 : OH...MY...GOD
MSI REP_2 : IT IS AN ACT OF GOD!
MSI SUPERVISOR : ITS JUST A i7 720qm ya idjiots, void his warranty and ship ti back at his expense!

 

4th wrong his wrong, nothing will void his warrenty!

The super clock should be yelling,

MSI SUPERVISOR:GET THAT VANTAGE SCORE OVER 9000!!

edit: Super clock?? super visor.

 

Hello again,

As promised, uploading 3D Mark Vantage results. Today they even better ^^.
ATI Overdrive is on, but no OC.
Eco mode "Gaming"
Everything else "as is"

Score: P7153 (GPU 7110, CPU 7284)

So, I will attach two images: first one to see all the settings and drivers/bios etc. And second one has mouse rolled over PCIe field in GPU-Z and it shows, that GPU is running in PCIe 1.1 version. As said earlier, no problems with x1 and x16 modes.

Edit: I'm having problems with the screen not turning on after sleep or lid close:/

 

Uh, yes, everyone's having that can't wake up problem unless they use the stock drivers. Just wait for MSI and ATI to fix this I guess.

 

What drivers did you use, though?

 

Default drivers on the cd

 

That's cool. So there's no need to use the Windows 7 drivers like some were saying, just the stock MSI ones.

 

Nope, no need at all. You can use the Windows 7 drivers but the ATI ones work just fine, the worst youll have to do is do a restart to get into max performance mode.

 

Can you tell us what was causing this:

(That's when you got the ~6k GPU score)

 

I've noticed that before I could consistently stay at x16 with the MSI drivers, however after reinstalling various drivers different times I noticed that whenever I run full screen it forces things to x1. So that's why I'm running the Win7 drivers.

Plus I can also close my lid now without any problems

 

Well, when I get my own GX640 I'll leave the drivers alone and use 3DMark Vantage to make sure I get ~7k GPU score. If performance isn't up to scratch or I have any trouble, I'll go with the Win7 drivers instead. It sounds like that's the best thing to do, given others' experiences. Thanks for saving me some time, everyone!

 

I haven't ordered my GX640 yet, but I will be and I was just wondering how you get the Win7 drivers. Do you just use windows 7's driver update tool?

Also, no Canadian resellers offer thermal compound upgrades, so I am ordering through xoticpc.com, having it shipped to relative's just over the boarder and paying taxes when I bring it across (it comes out to the same price). Anyways, my question from that aside is this: Is there a big difference between the $25 thermal paste and the $50 thermal paste upgrade?

 

I asked XoticPC guys the same thing:

here:

Ben: Since I'm really interested in this notebook,
I see that the only "upgrade" i'd be giving it while customizing it would be the thermal compount it comes with...
Are you aware of any improvements with the IC DIamond over the stock thermal compound ?
Joseph L: well the stock compounds actually seems to do a pretty good job
and it isnt your normal strip it seems like they are using MX-2 or something similar.
however on some of the machines we have seen them apply it too generously which works against you instead of for youi
Ben: yeah...
Joseph L: so adding the ic diamond will ensure that you have the best compound, that your machine is fully tested, and that the compound is applied correctly
Ben: I see... I want to know what kind of pre-shipping tests do you guys make... since I've been reading that some people do have issues with this laptop, screen goes black, and so forth
Joseph L: If you make any customizations at all..even IC diamond or a wifi card then we put it through the full gammut of tests
Ben: oh Gee, thats just what i needed to read
Joseph L: wprime, prime95, hdtune,memtest 86, GPU benches
Ben: wow thats just awesome... would you guys update drivers too, if asked?
Joseph L: if asked yes
we have the newest catalyst 10.3 on a pen, we could also upgrade anything else that needed it as well
when you place your order you just have to request that next to my name in the comments box




hope it helps

 

@Ben, Thanks for that.

 

I think that was 10.3 being screwy, I uninstalled all drivers and just reinstalled the default drivers then I was okay