MSI GE40 Review: a Slim Gaming Notebook
by Jarred Walton on July 16, 2013 3:00 AM ESTMSI GE40 General Performance
The GE40 sort of straddles the line between being a gaming notebook and a standard laptop, but we’ll start off with a look at the general performance. Since the model we received has a 128GB SSD, PCMark 7 scores should only be compared with other SSD-equipped laptops to be meaningful. The remaining benchmarks on this page will look more at CPU and GPU performance. We also ran PCMark 8 (1.01—currently available for press use but not quite ready for the public), but we don’t have scores from most of the other notebooks. For the interested, the GE40 scored 4085 in the Home test (and 4108 in Home with the GTX 760M selected for OpenCL 1.1 tasks), 3855 in the Creative suite, 4873 in Work, and 4874 in Storage. As we run PCMark 8 on more notebooks, we’ll eventually include graphs, but for now the full scores are listed in Mobile Bench.
PCMark 7 places the Razer Blade 14 slightly ahead of the GE40, which is interesting as other than the SSD both are running similar hardware—the GPU shouldn’t matter much for PCMark 7. The Cinebench scores are also a bit odd, with the GE40 placing slightly ahead of the Razer Blade 14 in the single-threaded workload but quite a bit slower in the multi-threaded workload. X264 HD 5.0 continues that pattern with the GE40 beating the Razer by over 10% in the first pass, but then it falls behind by over 10% in the second pass. Given the newness of the HM87 chipset and Haswell processors, we are likely seeing minor variance caused by those factors. The GE40 also uses a single SO-DIMM, so potentially memory bandwidth plays a role as well, but outside of iGPU workloads we generally don’t see much scaling of performance with dual-channel memory. Whatever the case, all of the notebooks here (with the possible exception of the GX60) are “fast enough” for all of these tasks, so let’s move on.
Looking at graphics performance, we start to get a hint of what the gaming benchmarks will tell us. In the mostly GPU-limited Fire Strike test, the GTX 760M places at the bottom of the charts, slightly behind the Razer Blade. Interestingly, while the GE40 is also at the bottom of the Ice Storm chart, it’s now basically tied with the GX60 and the Blade is 40% faster, which is more than the theoretical performance difference so we’re again seeing some discrepancies—possibly the single-channel RAM is to blame, or more likely the GE40 firmware isn’t fully optimized. Finally, in the Cloud Gate benchmark the CPU appears to be more of a factor and the GX60 falls well off the pace set by the Intel-equipped laptops. 3DMark11 on the other hand has yet another set of results, where this time the Sandy Bridge i7-2720QM and GTX 580M tie with the GE40. We don’t have results from the GTX 680M for the various 3DMark tests, though, so let’s see how things look there.
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n13L5 - Thursday, July 25, 2013 - link
I found out that you could install a replacement display meant for the Thinkpad X1 Carbon into Razer's Blade 14...Presumably, this would void your warranty, but at least you'd have a decent display.
jtciti - Wednesday, July 17, 2013 - link
The gigabyte p34g is one that has slipped past a lot of radars. It packs a GTX 760m and is much lighter than the razer or the ge40, however expect a TN screen againthe p35K has an IPS screen and a 765m, but it is a full 15 inches. (still light at under 5 lbs).
My only hope is the new retina macbook pro has a 760m or 765m
Zeratul56 - Wednesday, July 17, 2013 - link
The current retina gets quite warm. I used one to play starcraft and its keyboard it unusable due to how hot it gets under load. The design is beautiful but it does not displace heat well at all. If you intend to game I don't think the retina is the way to go.n13L5 - Thursday, July 25, 2013 - link
Why can MSI not hire a professional product designer?They crank out one embarrassingly awful looking notebook after another...
n13L5 - Thursday, July 25, 2013 - link
Jeez, high gloss black went out of fashion years ago...Hello MSI! What rock have your "designers" been hiding under?
Well, we know you didn't hire any actual designers, you're just letting the mail boy make some sketches.
MarcVenice - Tuesday, July 16, 2013 - link
It totaly baffles me not only that they include such a crappy screen (1080p-panels can be had for like $50, should be even less if you buy thousands of them), but also the glossy plastic exterior. MSI has been doing this for such a long time, you'd think they would understand that this doesn't appeal to the European- or US-market as much as it does to the Asian-market. The only thing they really get right, is the price. Although for me this still has to many downsides. At least the CPU+GPU is a better pairing then their GX60, where the AMD-cpu halfs the gpu-performance because it's so slow.piroroadkill - Tuesday, July 16, 2013 - link
1600x900 is fairly appropriate for a gaming laptop at this size.It means you're not pushing the GPU as much to get native res.
hfm - Wednesday, July 17, 2013 - link
Not to mention 900p is also a good fit for the GPU.. 1080p is just too much for a 765M if your top priority is gaming and everything else is secondary.piroroadkill - Tuesday, July 16, 2013 - link
Ah, unless you refer to the quality of the screen, which, as I read later, turns out out to be crap.1080p is no fix. There are plenty of crap 1080p panels too.
silverblue - Tuesday, July 16, 2013 - link
There still needs to be a more detailed look into the GX60, because the new model barely outpaces the old one, and that had more issues than simply the CPU. It could be an Enduro thing.