Official MSI GX640 Owner's Thread

Bad luck with the whine; I don't have it.

 

Do any owners have Fallout 3? I'm curious as to what this thing can do with that game.

 

Put it this way, the 4850 could max it up,

The 5850....i'm not even going to guess

 

It'l be wine from the power components, but its definately not cheap or bad capacitors, they can handle much more load then there standard.

 

cant wait to receive mine!! I pimped it out like crazy the better thermal paste and SSD should help with the heat I suppose

 

Oh, could someone tell me what I should do once I receive it ... any very important updates to do or something of the sort to get the full potential of the computer and eliminate glitches/bugs?

 

Just uninstall the (relatively few) crap programs that come with it, and go to ATI control panel and disable Powerplay.

Also, you may want to repartition the hard drive. I just reinstalled Windows because I found the partitions as is to be stupid.

 

so bloatwares and disable powerplay ... I thought powerplay only affected the GPU in idle mode though ... not during high graphics usage like gaming or doing a benchmark test ... or does it affect the computer in some other way?

 

Has anyone who did a fresh install of Windows 7 noticed any difference in the way the 640 runs? Like temps, speed, etc?

I removed the bloatware pretty well but I'm just curious if a fresh install is worth it, not counting the odd default HD partitions as a reason.

 

It may just be other things.. but my idle temps went from 62 to 59 after fresh install.

 

I've had this notebook for under 3 weeks now. I love the performance but I don't think I can take the exhaust vent location anymore! I'm right handed and the hot air coming out on my hand (when using external mouse) is so annoying. I tried moving my hand down since the vent in the upper right but it's not comfortable like that. I don't know why they couldn't put the vent on the left side or the rear. That's pretty much a deal breaker for me. Going to see if I can sell it now since I can't return it to Xotic because I'm past the return period. Otherwise, this is a great notebook.

 

Yeah its annoying alright, with the gt725 you get cold air gushing out the right and hot air from the rear, they should have just used a rear vent lol..

 

just a pointer, if you get a cooler, it usually solves this problem, since the hot air will blow above your hand.

 

what ya selling it for?

 

I'd phrase that as "how much", because I misunderstood your post the first time I read it.

 

Has anyone found a notebook sleeve that fits the GX640 with the extended battery?

 

nope, ment what i said, ;p

 

But he already said why he was selling it in the post you quoted...

 

Could be that he's offering a trade for something else? Maybe someone on the forums might have something he'd be willing to trade for, who knows..

 

I'm going to keep it for the time being, I ordered a notebook cooler so maybe if the laptop is raised a bit more, the hot air won't bother me. If I decide to sell it later, then my cousin said he'd buy it (though I'll remove my SSD from it before!).

 

I pushed the laptop back about 4 inches further than my old one and move the mousepad slightly closer and found that I'm no longer in the line of fire of the vent. However, I also understand that might be uncomfortable for you and agree that it would be a problem having your hand under a heater for hours at a time.

 

You'd have a fairly skinny right hand.

 

New Realtek HD Audio drivers: Ver 2.48. fresh today
Realtek

 

whats the difference?

 

Maybe we get that awesome battery feature .

 

Crysis Gameplay on MSI GX640

What it says.

Sorry for the black bars, Crysis doesn't support the GX640's native resolution of 1680x1050 , so I went with 1400x1050 and Fraps recorded it like that. Settings for this video can be found HERE: http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e284/Lieutvis/Crysis/crysissettings.jpg

On high settings (as you can see here) the game ran relatively smooth, only dipping below the eye-comfortable fps of 24 when engaging in large firefights in areas with heavy foliage. Setting graphics to medium immediately boosted the fps to ~40, with dips to 30 @ large firefights. I guess you could play with the settings to make it half-medium/half-high. This is of course on DX10, ant the x64 executable of Crysis (why not take the advantage of 64 ) All in all I say that even though I'm not much of a fan of Crysis gameplay, after running this on the GX640 I might just give it a try Oh and like in Metro 2033, the temperatures wouldn't go higher than 88 Celsius.
Screenshots with fraps fpsmeter can be found here: Crysis pictures by Lieutvis - Photobucket

 

Just got my stock gx640. What is a reasonable vantage score for me to expect? I ran it with no changes and got 7127. Is that about right. Looking at GPU-Z, my temps were about 65c. That seems a bit low. I'm very new at this. Thanks.

 

Yes, you can expect around 7k GPU score and also ~7k Overall score.

 

That's exactly what I got:

3dmark 7127
CPU score 7022
Graphics score 7163

Thanks for the reply. BTW, the exhaust vent really blows the hot air (onto my right hand).

 

just got 7020 in 3DMark Vantage, 7188 for GPU and 6702 for CPU (i guess the cpu had something else going on a bit, as i forgot to turn off utorrent)

 

You are my hero.
I'm trying to +rep you like crazy but I have to "spread more rep around"


Thank you.

 

Dam, that i5 is really close to my q9000 when it comes to performance...(It is an i5 you guys are using isn't it?)

Otherwise some really great stuff, crysis should easily be playable on very high without fraps, but thats awesome to see the 640 doing very well .

 

Anyone know where I can find the ATI 10.3 drivers? All the auto downloads I try forward me directly to 10.4

 

crysis does support the native res 1680 1050...

 

I can run it on my 725 at native res.

@ Butr0s , try strags.com

 

Here's a link to the 10.3 preview, you download a install utility that scans your laptop to see if it's compatible with you laptop (MSI is) and then installs the driver. I can't guarantee you won't get the 10.4's though. just check filename and cancel out if it's the 10.4's. I use the 10.3's and really like them.
ATI Catalyst 10.3 Preview Driver

 

Thanks, that worked great. There's also a bunch of preview drivers I'm going to read up on.

Yes, that's what i tried the first time but it did indeed download the 10.4's. Strags.com had the 10.3's - running great and benchmark wise I see no difference between 10.3 and 10.4 other then my fan is kicking in less with the older drivers.

 

well maybe there's an update for that or something, since i had the very 1st version of crysis
Well what do you know, Installing update 1.2 fixed the issue. Also, overall fps gain of 5-7 !

 

o man i'm in such a dilemma. Idk if i should cancel my order for my gx640 (it's still in the middle of processing, so canceling shouldn't be a problem) or wait until summer to see if any new notebooks will be released. I've been hearing talk of a g53, which is supposed to be a smaller g73, and it is said to be released this July...it sounds interesting but as of right now there are no spec info on it. But I'm kind of impatient and want to game on a new notebook already b/c I've been stuck with a 7 yr old dell desktop hahhaa. But I don't really NEED a notebook until college starts which is Sept. 1.

 

I've been in college for 4 years and I've only just gotten a laptop, and I got one because I NEEDED it for gaming ^_~

 

So I tried putting a notebook cooler underneath the computer and the hot air still bothered my hand. I sold it to my cousin yesterday and picked up an Asus G73 (it's huge! but the vents are in the back at least). I think the MSI is an amazing laptop for the price but the positioning of the exhaust vent, especially considering this is a gaming laptop, is not right. It probably won't bother most people but inconveniences like that bother me, especially when I'm on the computer for so many hours.

 

Does anyone feel like YDAF about the vent? Is it that annoying/inconvenient?

 

When I use the mouse my hand never gets close to the vent, I'm always a good 4-6 inches lower so I never feel any heat.

 

same here.

 

I've been reading up on this thread quite often and I really like the gx640. I don't plan on purchasing a gaming laptop for another month ( damn you IRS with my late refund! ), but I was wondering if 1 month from now will this still be the best gaming laptop I can get at its price range $1100-$1200?

 

It's not the best gaming laptop at the moment, that honor would probably go to the sager 5890 (at least for 15''). However, I would consider it the best overall laptop for specs, battery life, and portability all combined.

 

Not much coming out soon in that price range that I can think of. Only other laptops on the horizon of mention would be the Acer timelines which I wouldn't call gaming laptops and maybe take a look at the Envy 14 if u want

 

DId you mean the Sager 8690? Hmm its only $1300 Do you think if I want a gaming laptop for $1300-$1400 would that be my best choice? Looks like it has better cooling than the gx640.

 

It's also gigantor, isnt it? And super heavy too, because it has so much hardware inside, and the build quality is top-notch. The weight is pretty much the only thing steering me away from a Sager. Come to think of it, $1300 is quite mucho too.

 

Yeah lol I want the gx640. Sager was like 250-300 more. I mean for god's sake it didnt even come with a damn OS =D