MSI GT70 Dragon Edition Notebook Review: Haswell and the GTX 780M
by Dustin Sklavos on June 18, 2013 12:01 AM ESTSystem Performance
The new benchmark suite has left us in a bit of disarray, but thankfully we did have the CyberPowerPC Fangbook in recently. The Fangbook sports an Ivy Bridge CPU with exactly the same clocks as the i7-4700MQ powering the MSI GT70 Dragon Edition, and that gives us an excellent baseline for comparison.
I'd also like to personally thank NVIDIA for furnishing us with an Alienware M17x R4 equipped with a GTX 680M at the eleventh hour so we can get proper comparative results. Unfortunately, as you'll see the 780M in the GT70 Dragon Edition gets hamstrung by the CPU (more on this later) when tested playing games that hit the GPU and the CPU especially hard.
Haswell is certainly faster clock for clock, but obviously owners of Ivy Bridge-based notebooks shouldn't be chucking their old kit. Under most circumstances, the i7-4700MQ is less than 10% faster than the i7-3630QM.
Pop on over to the 3DMarks and the 780M looks good, but unusually, not quite as good as it ought to. It has a commanding lead over the GTX 580M, and it should, but on Cloud Gate and Ice Storm it should also be blowing right past the 7970M. You'll get a better idea of what I'm talking about on the next page, when we look at actual gaming performance.
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darkhawk1980 - Tuesday, June 18, 2013 - link
Dustin,I realize that this is straight out of the box, but I highly suggest checking out MSI's own forums. There should be an electronic controller firmware you can flash that removes the throttling problem that is present in these notebooks.
I personally have one of the older GT70 0NE laptops with a GTX680M, and I can safely say that mine will trounce this notebook. This is because once the throttling issue is resolved, it's possible to run the GTX680M core at 950 MHz without any issues.
And while I do find turning on the fan to maximum while gaming, I think you're really putting the noise issue as being too high of a problem. It's not nearly that bad. I actually made a custom cooler for my GT70 simply because I wanted better cooling, and this custom cooling allows me to game at 950MHz without the maximum fan setting.
Honestly, the GT70 is a great notebook for the price with the super raid feature. It's perhaps not as 'nice' as an alienware, but it can compete easily, and for a good bit less money. Keep in mind, you are comparing the last generation hardware in the alienware, to the current/new generation hardware in the MSI. Of course the prices are going to be the same.....Compare the new alienware and realize that the price will now be $500 more than the MSI for the same features, possibly even less. MSI has again, priced it very competitively against the competition. It's the whole reason I bought a GT70 instead of an Alienware.
kogunniyi - Tuesday, June 18, 2013 - link
The author hasn't written "Alienware is better than MSI" or "Alienware provides better value for the money than MSI." Why do you define your MSI against Alienware?MSI is MSI, and Alienware is Alienware. A negative review is not a reason to justify your purchase to anyone else.
huaxshin - Tuesday, June 18, 2013 - link
He doesn`t need a new firmware. He need to remove the bad paste job and redo it.All CPUs no matter what model will throttle at 98C.
BobBobson - Tuesday, June 18, 2013 - link
OMG..shut up, please!
If you are happy with your GT70 then great, why dont you go away and just be happy about it cos there are plenty here who aren't.
huaxshin - Tuesday, June 18, 2013 - link
"Plenty here who aren't"I see you moved to Anandtech to whine more about your notebook. For those who doesn't know, this is the Only guy from notebookreview who had any problems with his GT70 and cried about it instead of sending it in.
Yes many here who complain about it. Only you just like in NBR.
JBVertexx - Tuesday, June 18, 2013 - link
Your ranting is actually making MSI look worse - it's pretty obvious from your rants that you have some sort of personal ax to grind. Really, perhaps you should do as BobBobson suggested.huaxshin - Tuesday, June 18, 2013 - link
Yes because I work for MSI and represent them.lol
BobBobson - Tuesday, June 18, 2013 - link
Yes, you do. And you are paranoid as well. If you don't actually work for MSI, then what the hell are you doing rabidly defending this company as though it were your dear old mom who was getting slighted?mercutiouk - Tuesday, June 18, 2013 - link
As we have a paid shill here, could you possibly get in touch with the european branch of the MSI repairs?Hitachi drive fails, sent back - came back from repair with a different power supply. This didn't fit the socket on the back snugly.
Come a warm summer the arcing between badly fitting power plug and power pin resulted in the socket basically melting. Sent back. "Customer damage". It took threat of forum posts detailing exactly how poor your service treatment in Europe was to get a "ok, we've approved it - this one occasion only".
5 months later... the hard drive fails again. The laptops now got 1 hitachi and 1 WD blue, in a raid-0...
I can well believe the review here. Notebookcheck or no, you screwed up your flagship product. I think more reviews will show this to be true.
mercutiouk - Tuesday, June 18, 2013 - link
Didn't make clear but this was on a GX660-R