MSI GT72 Dominator Pro Review: GTX 980M Reigns Supreme
by Jarred Walton on November 11, 2014 8:00 AM ESTMSI GT72 Dominator Pro Battery Life
Battery life is one area where the GT72 isn’t going to be the best notebook on the planet, but hopefully you knew that going into the review. Seriously: when was the last time a true gaming notebook could also last all day between charging? Anyway, the GT72 as I mentioned earlier is interesting in that MSI has decided to forego Optimus support and instead use muxes with a software switch to enable/disable the discrete GPU (with a reboot required for the change to take effect). We’ve tested with both the GTX 980M as well as the HD 4600, and of course turning off the dedicated GPU improves battery life… but perhaps not quite as much as you might at first guess.
First things first, the MSI GT72 with the GTX 980M enabled managed to last as long in our Light battery test as the MSI GS60 with Optimus support. I’m not sure it’s praise of the GT72 so much as a further indictment of the poor battery optimizations on the GS60, and frankly the GE60 and GT70 aren’t winning any awards for battery life either. What’s really important however is that MSI seems to have made more of an effort to provide decent battery life with the new GT72, and when we switch to the Intel HD 4600 we even manage to reach nearly six hours of mobility. This is all with the same capacity battery as the GT70, though I should note that at one point MSI had a BIOS update on the GTX 780M variant of the GT70 that achieved around six hours of battery life as well.
Switching over to estimations of power draw, in the Light test the GT72 uses ~14.8W (give or take) with the HD 4600 compared to ~22.1W with the GTX 980M, so having the discrete GPU active appears to result in a constant power drain of around 7W. That’s as much as some Ultrabooks use in light workloads, but that’s the price you pay for high performance (and 8GB of GDDR5 memory). The Heavy testing basically confirms those numbers: power draw with the HD 4600 active ends up being ~18.7W while turning on the GTX 980M the GT72 uses ~29.2W. (The Heavy workload involves H.264 video playback, so the GPU is going to be more active.)
We already did an in-depth look at BatteryBoost on the GT72, so I’m not going to get into it too much here. Gaming without BatteryBoost will generally mean less than an hour of battery life, while dropping to a 30FPS target will in some cases allow you to break two hours of mobility. The trick of course is that by targeting 30FPS you’re effectively turning the GTX 980M into something a lot more like a GT 750M in terms of performance, but it’s nice to have options. Also note that with the battery being behind the chassis cover on the bottom, there’s no way to swap batteries to extend your mobile time, so carrying the AC adapter with you is pretty much a requirement.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
57 Comments
View All Comments
darkich - Tuesday, November 11, 2014 - link
..you missed to add the ugliest part - the stone age screen with a resolution lower than on some 200$ 10" tablets!!They have a high quality 1440p IPS screens yet this thing somehow gets by with less?!?
Disgusting, unacceptable atrocity
frozentundra123456 - Tuesday, November 11, 2014 - link
So does that mean everyone that is using a 1080p desktop in a 23 or so inch size is also living with an "unacceptable atrocity"?Personally I think anything over 1080p on a tablet is basically for snob appeal.
darkich - Wednesday, November 12, 2014 - link
Yes, such desktops are now also a big dated POS.1080p is enough for 8" tablet, but it looks horrible on 17" laptop and 23" desktop.
When you actually browse and read Web pages after doing so on a high PPI screen that fact simply becomes glaringly obvious for anyone that isn't half blind.
darkich - Wednesday, November 12, 2014 - link
Heck, I have an 1280x800 8" tablet, (170ppi) and compared to a iPad mini retina its lower resolution is strikingly obvious even when I hold it on my lap.Only when you get to compare low ppi with a high ppi you realize what a really highly defined image is.
And on a $3000 laptop with the best GPU available, high definition screen should be an absolute must.
I find it baffling how some people can still deny that.
Wolfpup - Tuesday, November 25, 2014 - link
I think there's something of a point to crazy high resolution screens on tablets...namely for reading, whether books or magazines or graphic novels, it's nice to have it look more print-like when you're holding it up close. That's really the ONLY benefit to me though.For a PC or game console, I think higher resolutions aren't as beneficial. I can't see pixels even on a 27" 1080p monitor from a few feet away, so who cares?
Plus of course PCs actually have the power to drive 1080p, which no tablet does when displaying anything more complex than a web browser or whatever.
NA1NSXR - Tuesday, November 11, 2014 - link
These are childish arguments, literally. Adults often have to move or travel. If they need desktop-like performance, these kinds of systems are still incredibly portable compared to any alternative. I can fly with these systems. I can't with a desktop. My heavily overclocked Alienware M17X (IvyBridge i7 @ 4GHz, 680M OC'ed over 260MHz on the core) has been back and forth with me between Asia and the US constantly over the last 2+ years as well as back and forth from work every day. When it was new it offered upper-midrange desktop performance. It still offers midrange desktop performance today. It has been an incredible VALUE as a machine for both work and play. Trust me, I'd rather be on a desktop. I've gone through so many mental hoops to try and justify one, including small ITX's that might be able to fit in carry on luggage, etc. But realistically, these kinds of laptops are just so much better overall as a compromise.ImKuya - Tuesday, November 11, 2014 - link
Well, there's a reason they're called "Notebook" rather than "Laptop" haha. This costs x4 as much with one big reason being the x4 128GB ssds in RAID 0.Braincruser - Tuesday, November 11, 2014 - link
Anyone that travels even a little, a notebook is a no question investment. For me personally a desktop system would be useless. I wouldn't be able to use it more than 10% of the time I am able to use my laptop.Also, I can game in my bed. You can't beat that :)
behrangsa - Friday, November 14, 2014 - link
You don't buy this notebook to put on your laptop in the same way you won't buy a trailer to go to office with everyday from home.But if you need a portable laptop with 32GB of RAM, all options are more or less like this.
MDX - Saturday, November 15, 2014 - link
There is absolutely no way or reason to compare a laptop to a desktop. Move along.