MSI entire lineup from 2013 with Haswell and 700M series

I think he was talking about the battery life when doing productive work like word processing or web surfing. Proper gaming is supposed to be plugged in anyway so it won't throttle.

I had the MSI x460dx and that was getting 4-5hours just web browsing while playing music in the background and the GE40 is exactly the same as the MSI x460dx that will be running on optimus and intel graphics when not gaming.

 

A quick update.

After some digging around - it appears that the 2 x mSATA slots on the GE40 are in fact a caddy that replaces the internal optical drive. Watch out for this if you are planning to buy one and then install your own mSATA drive!

Unfortunately the model I'd initially ordered was the base model with optical drive!

Anyway, I've re-ordered the correct model with the mSATA caddy (who needs an optical drive on a 14" gaming notebook anyway...), and will be RMA'ing the first one unopened tomorrow.

Sadly I won't get the correct GE40 until Saturday now (I missed the shipping deadline for next-day) - but I will run through some benches etc then when it gets delivered to my house on Saturday morning!

 

Good info. However I am sticking with the Primary HDD and the Dvd Drive since I need it and I'll just replace the primary hdd to an ssd down the road.

Another reason I don't like the msata/hdd combo is that I want the system to be quieter with no moving parts except for the system fan and going for the msata version removes the optical drive since the 2 msata ports are located where the optical drive is now.

 

Sure thing - everyone's needs are a bit different - its good that MSI offer options on this laptop. It would be good if they made it clearer that the mSATA and optical drives are an either/or choice though - I'm not sure if the caddy will be available aftermarket either.

I'm quite happy to have a spinner rather than an optical drive in the laptop provided I have a decent sized SSD for boot+key installs. I can shift my lesser used Steam caches off to the spinner and store video's and DVD iso's and stuff there when travelling.

Really looking forward to getting the machine tomorrow - its going to be tough not opening the one that is arriving this morning though

 

the ge40 2oe looks cool. is there a way to get this in canada?

 

Some Us places support shipping to canada.

 

My first GE40 arrived - the box is much lighter than I'd expected! Its going to be hard work not opening it

Oh well, the right one will be here tomorrow, and I have the 256gb mSATA SSD for it in hand now - so I can spend some time tomorrow getting it set up.

I don't really want Windows 8 on it - but driver availability might be an issue for W7 at present....

 

What were you expecting instead?

Get the start menu mod for windows 8 and get it to start on the desktop and don't worry about 7.

 

Where did you order yours from and where you from?

 

I'm in the UK, and ordered from overclockers UK (they have stock in hand of both models and most of the other new MSI stuff).

I'm sending back the (unopened) Dvd + 750gb version I received today and keeping the mSATA + 750gb version that is coming by courier tomorrow.

 

Could you post some pics maybe? It looks so cool from the MSI website.

 

Sure thing - I'll post a mini review and some pics/technical info when it arrives tomorrow. Once again - if anyone would like me to run any particular benches or check anything technical/hardware-wise let me know.

#Wonderdog

 

Someone did a review :
https://forum.lowyat.net/topic/2849748

 

Nice thanks Amal you kitty cat!

 

Wish there was one for the GE60 2OE

 

Btw, in regards to the GE40 unboxing link that Amal posted from lowyat, it came with a not too big and bulky 90watts ac adapter. Will this be enough to run the GTX 760m and Haswell Quadcore cpu without throttling when gaming or benchmarking? Read Below

The i7-4702mq uses 37 watts and the GTX 760m uses 50 watts which is similar to gtx 660m. That's a total of 87watts so i think it is still safe but i would have preferred it to come with a 120 watt ac adapter but as long as it doesn't throttle then it's all good.

 

Same here! I really like the GE60 2OE-003US and would like to see a few reviews before I buy.

 

I may be wrong but I remember reading before that the common rating for processors, Thermal Design Power (TDP), is not the same as power consumption.
TDP has more to do with how much power in heat energy it outputs which in turn determines the level of cooling required.

 

Ugh, I got the ge40, and it has probably the worst lcd screen I have ever used. The screen door effect is the least of its problems, its contrast ratio is 80 as measured by my spyder 4 pro (and by eye strain I would agree...) and the viewing angles are horrid. Explains why its such a good deal I guess...

 

Me too, I might just bite the bullet and get it. The thing I'm most worried about is battery life and the new trackpad.

 

Viewing Angle does not matter to me since I will view it at my comfort level where i can adjust it. Now for the contrast ratio, i have to wait and see and I will be the judge of that when i get it. How is the matte screen though? Is it clear or is it grainy?

 

Could anyone tell me which game that is running on the lcd, the last picture, the review that amul77 linked to?

 

Another review and more pics of GE40 from the same person from lowyat this time with his female cousin.

https://forum.lowyat.net/topic/2850426/+0#entry61076258

 

Intentionally using the girl for attraction. Lol.


Copy Paste :

 

:rolleyes2:

 

You're a naughty cat Amal :yes:

 

Uhm, from what I can tell, left is a movie, middle is the result screen from FFXIV ARR benchmark, right is LoL / DOTA2 / some other MOBA. I'm not sure which LCD you meant so there you have it for all three of them.

When I finished that review, my mind was half inebriate from boobs. Not that I mind, but it was that obvious x).

 

Well, another youtube video of the GE40 has surfaced. There is no audio (or buxom cousins...), but there are plenty of other viewing angles

MSI GE40 Gaming Laptop - YouTube

In terms of battery life, a UK site selling the GE40 seems to suggest they give about 4.5 hours with the stock 6 cell battery.

MSI GE40 2OC-024UK 14" HD LED, i7-4702MQ, 8GB DDR3, 750GB HDD, GTX 760M 2GB, DVD-RW - Windows 8 [GE40 2OC-024UK]

 

She is one happy camper

Big notebook and big boobies would mean health problems for her..
Did anyone notice the USB ports on those pics? Or did you look at something else? And yes let's look at the "notebook's internals"

 

Also another quick video review :

 

Hi Wonderdog, hopefully the laptop arrived on time. Have you had any luck with the benchmarks etc?

 

Hi all,

Received my GE40 bright and early Saturday morning, but due to a family visit didn't get a chance to really play until yesterday!

Heres the lowdown:-

Build quality:- Overall very good - only the wrist rest and lid top are aluminium, the rest is black plastic. The gloss screen bezel is a bit distracting, but not the end of the world.

Keyboard:- Firm base and nice springy chicklet keys - felt good on my hand while gaming and typing. Slight annoyance that the far right of the keyboard has Home, End, PGup/Down etc - the Home key specifically is very annoying, as I regularly hit it while aiming for backspace. Other than that, no issues. No backlighting as reported.

Screen:-
PRO's: Resolution is perfect for this size of laptop. Anything higher and your going to struggle to make out text and icons at a reasonable sitting distance (and I have very good eyesight). Matte screen does a good job of reducing reflections, and response times on games are excellent, with no dicernable ghosting or input lag.

CON's: Matte effect is quite grainy at first. I strongly suggest a wipe over with a damp microfibre cloth followed by drying off with a soft dry one - this greatly reduced the out of the box "grainy" effect on my panel without impacting its anti-reflection properties. Viewing angles not great - There is certainly a sweet spot to be had between brightness and colour, but only for one person sitting directly in front of it (fine with me, but others may feel otherwise).

Temps/Cooling:-
Under gaming stress (not furmark) - the GPU ranged from 72C (Skyrim extended play) up to 80C (MechWarrior Online). CPU went as high as 88C.The CPU is located roughly in the middle of the keyboard, but the GPU sits underneath the wrist rest, making it warm when your hand is sitting there. In contrast, the right hand side of the machine remains at room temperature... why gaming laptop vendors cant locate their GPU's and CPU's on the off-side of the laptop away from your WASD hand I shall never know.

The laptop is cooled by a single fan that draws in from underneath near the GPU and exhausts to the left hand side of the laptop. This area exhausts a constant stream of hot air. While the fan does get going when gaming, its not so loud as to be a problem if your wearing a headset, and certainly isn't going to be an issue for anything at a LAN party for instance. Be careful not to block the intake, or your gonna have a bad time...

I haven't had a look at the thermal paste etc yet - but I don't imagine changing it would be an issue, as the whole heatpipe arrangement seems to screw off in one go from under the (warranty sticker protected... sigh) backplate.

Performance:-

DISK: The unit shipped with a Sandisk 128gb mSATA SSD. A quick crystal disk mark sat Sequential 1MB's at 480 / 290 - not world beating but nippy. 4k + QD32 was similarly fast in write speed, which was nice.The mSATA drives do indeed live in a ODD slot caddy - I haven't yet worked out how to open this, and didn't want to just yank it out, so I haven't fitted my extra 256gb drive yet! The 2.5" is easily accessible internally though.

CPU: See any other 4702MQ review for details - CPU-z showed that the cooling solution could cope well, and that it wasn't capping the turbo during gaming. Not much more to say there.

GPU: The GTX 760m is a real star - Bear in mind that the best drivers I could get that fully supported it where the 311.70's OEM's from MSI's site (via a link on laptopvideo2go) - there don't appear to be formal 320 series drivers that support the mobile GTX7xx series yet. The laptop shipped with 311.42 or something preinstalled. The chip clocked up to its peak turbo of 812mhz constantly during gaming, even for extended runs in Skyrim, Borderlands2 and MWO that I tried and didn't throttle. Seems like a perfect match for the 1600x900 and 4702MQ they've put in this 14" laptop.

Non-gaming: Many of you seem interested in this - I clocked 4.3 hours before the 6% critical battery warning messing about on the web on Wifi at full screen brightness using the Intel GPU. The unit doesn't feel like a gaming laptop in this mode - its pretty damn quiet (low fan noise), very cool to the touch, and performs great. I could definitely live with carrying this around if I still took classes - not as quiet or light as an ultrabook perhaps, but you can actually do some proper gaming on it as well... which brings us nicely on to -


Gaming FPS: The interesting bit. I use a registered version of fraps to monitor how games were running.

Skyrim:- Native res, High defaults, AA and AF to 0, FXAA disabled: 60-80fps, no discernible slowdown, GPU capped at 72C during extended playtime. Game is butter smooth even in heavy combat/particle effects. Got some 60FPS microstuttering when enabling AA and AF (as per the Geforce control tool recommendation) - could be a driver issue as only happened when I panned the mouse about. Disabling AA/AF fixed this.

MechWarrior Onling:- Native res, Medium defaults, Post processing off. 35-50 FPS, no discernible slowdown, GPU capped at 80C during extended playtime. Game runs great, and is known for being poorly optimised atm. Nothing else to report.

Borderlands 2:- Native res, High everything except PhysX (Low), AA off, framerate uncapped. Average of 50-80 FPS depending on what was going on - didn't dip below 40 at any point - great fun and much more fluid and playable than at 1920x1080 on the GTX 660M in my old laptop.

Company of Heroes 2 Open Beta:- Native res, everything High, AA off. Average 65 FPS, dropped a bit to high 30's during big artillery fights - otherwise fantastic.

Overall gaming rating:- Frickin' awesome. Took everything I flung at it and performed better than I'd been expecting. I'm surprised that there is no sign of thermal or power throttling during my tests for a unit so small and light. Highly recommended.

Other Stuff:-
Bundled with a massive pile of bloatware pish that took 15 minutes to clear out. Highlights included Norton internet security, winzip etc. Also ships with a restore partition (on the hard disk rather than the SSD thankfully) and a tool to burn a restore disk (not sure if this works to a USB pen drive or just a CD...). The MSI software stack has some nice features - plugging in an external mouse automatically disables the trackpad for instance, and the FN+hotkeys are all sensibly placed and what you would expect. Webcam is a run of the mill unit that will be fine for Skype.

Audio is a Realtek HD audio chip, not the soundblaster I was expecting from the spec - the machine comes with some sort of SoundBlaster booster software however. A bit naughty to advertise it as SoundBlaster (implying creative) audio though imo.

Network is Realtek + some weird Wifi card. No issues.

BIOS settings - practically non-existent. Disk settings (AHCI, RAID, SATA) but nothing for the CPU, devices, memory etc etc. Will need a modified BIOS before we can try anything interesting on it really.

Next steps - I'm going to open her up, take a look at the thermal paste to make sure its up to scratch, add my faster 256gb mSATA SSD and do a clean Windows 7 install on there (drivers permitting - failing that I'll do a clean Windows 8).

I'll definitely be picking up a small laptop riser/cooler for extended play - both the bring the small machine up to a more friendly eye level and to help keep it nice and ventilated. Some kind of USB gaming keypad might also be in order, as while the heat around the WASD area (where the heatsink and fan are) is certainly better than my last alienware, it still annoys me a bit!

Hope this brief handson writeup helps some of you!

#Wonderdog

 

Nice review, it's just to bad the GE40 does not have a backlit keayboard but overall a pretty impressive laptop.

 

Good review Wonderdog!

The GTX 760M can boost up to 812mhz? That's a very nice boost there, thanks to the new boost 2.0 I guess, since the stock boost clock is at 719MHz.
Quite near the GTX 765M speed, which is around 901MHz on boost 2.0. Not bad at all.

Temperature also looking good, I supposed.

Are you an Overclocker type of user?
Was wondering how high can the memory of the GTX 760M be OC.

 

As it stands - there are no overclocking or other tweaking options at all in the BIOS - I'd need to use either a modified /unlocked BIOS or a windows level OC tool to mess with the clocks. I don't like the idea of pushing the unit too much higher in temp either. It seems well balanced as it is.

I think my first task will be to get it open, get my 256gb ssd in place, get a clean, optimised windows install (7 preferably) on there with clean up to date drivers and no bloatware, and look at changing the stock cooling paste for something a bit more efficient while I'm in there (any recommendations NBR peeps?).

Oh yeh - the machine ships with a single ADATA 8gb LDDR3 chip according to the BIOS - so adding a second 8GB is possible (rather than replacing 2x4gb's with 2x8's. Not sure how having the stock memory in a single slot rather than dual channel will affect memory performance - worth noting though.

 

Just noticed the review on the previous page (with the hottie). I very much doubt it was being pushed properly as it only hit 60C on the GPU. Mine was idling about 42C, up to 80C under load in a 20C ambient environment, which seems far more realistic given the work it was doing - 60 seems way to low for it to have been properly "stressed". I would be interested to know the driver versions they used etc.

UPDATE

On closer inspection their 3dMark results were from the Intel integrated GE2 4600 GPU NOT the Nvidia GTX760m - the reason the Nvidia GPU sat at 60°C is because it wasn't actually doing anything

I tried running 3dMark (latest version demo from Steam) but it shat itself after the first test (the space fight) due to the non-supported 320.xx drivers I was running at the time I think. I'll try it tonight on the stable 311.70's I have on now.

 

What is the screen brand manufacturer of that HD+ matte display Wonderdog? Auo? Chi Mei? LG? Is the screen really cloudy and grainy or just a lil bit and is it very clear and bright?

 

Any idea how quickest to tell?

Dot pitch, input response and clarity (i.e, lack of ghosting) are all top notch.

Viewing angle, brightness and colour pop are all lower on the scale.

Overall - imo its adequete for its price band and proposed use (light office tasks and portable gaming), but then I'm very much spoiled by my desktop HP ZR30w monitor most of the time, so I'm pretty picky...

If I had an option to pay a bit extra to fit a "better" panel (brighter, better viewing angle but keep the res and low latency), I'd probably do it.

 

Update - checked the EDID - its an AUO303E

 

Thanks wonderdog. I like Auo because the Chi Mei is very notorious in having that cloudy/grainy like some grease was smeared over the screen. I'll get my GE40 by Wednesday and i'll be able to check it out myself. I could careless about the viewing angles since it is a TN panel, the only thing i'm worried about is the grainy cloudy effect like on my previously owned Vaio S13p which had horrible screen because it was so grainy.

 

Cool - glad I could help.

I'm also glad I have mine - visiting Singapore for fortnight on business from the end of this week, and will be good to have something with me to keep me amused! I think I'll buy myself a nice cooling stand and keypad there on saturday as there are so many good electronic/PC stores and I can try a few out.

 

I find it too grainy, but the viewing angles are just a complete joke. If you're not in the perfect spot, the image goes to hell. Most tn screens aren't great, but you could move your head and still see a reasonable representation of whats there. My ge620 screen is on the low quality side, but this is a new low.

 

After Wonderdog's review :thumbsup: I have taken the plunge and ordered a GE40. I have bought through GentechPC and gone for an additional 8GB RAM and the free upgrade to the IC Diamond 24 Carat Thermal Compound on the CPU and GPU.

 

I would have chosen GE40 ONLY IF IT HAD A BACKLIT KEYBOARD !!!

 

Anandtech's review is up and its not looking good. The GT70 has a basic flaw in the cooling system.

AnandTech | MSI GT70 Dragon Edition Notebook Review: Haswell and the GTX 780M

 

It's actually different. The issue with the bridge is that it raises the CPU temp when taxing the GPU hard. But the problem is that stock paste on these machines is very dodgy. Luckily GentechPC has a free paste job offer. My temps, on a hot environment of 93F here in Mexico, get me 90C temps, which is a good 9 degree less than those in the review.

The issues with the cooling solution are the following:
1) Paste Job
2) Fan speed
3) Thermal bridge (This is both good and bad in its own).

The problem is, fan spins very lowly in general. Even when gaming, the fan is not really audible unless you use turbofan. The end result is that temps get quite high. When not gaming, this laptop is almost completely silent, and that's thanks to the thermal bridge. Likewise, when using turbofan, you can even heavily OC your GPU and play easily, albeit with high noise from the fan and low temps. So the problem is that the stock fan speed is very low even when taxing the system. That's the main flaw. My previos GT70 barebone cooled off an overclocked 680m and 3610qm with great temps using a single fan and low noise. This time around, the fan is even more silent.... obviously it harder to cool off even higher performing parts too.

 

I think I'll open mine up tonight (now that I'm satisfied its stable) and check the thermal paste job - probably cleaning and replacing with something decent.

Also going to work out how to get this 256gb mSATA installed, as I've already run out of disk space due to steam installs

 

Does MSI still have stickers saying that you will void your warranty if you repaste or remove heatpipe/heatsinks or does MSI allow fully messing with the internals like Alienware?

 

Problem is something else. If you look at the benchmarks done in the review, the M17xR4 with the older hardware *beats* the MSI 70GT with the newer hardware. Its not even close once you start getting in higher resolutions. Doesn't take much to think that any gaming laptop with latest hardware will beat the pants off the GT70. The newer hardware lost meaning to a silly cooling system. Also, reapplying thermal paste is something I don't want to do. The manufacturers should do it themselves and lots of companies are guilty about this.
I just want to take the laptop and start playing. Opening it up to reapply thermal paste and tweaking the fan speed etc is not something I want to do with a $2000 laptop.