Meet the MSI GT72 Dominator Pro

[jasong]

http://www.anandtech.com/show/8619/i...boost-msi-gt72

Anandtech did an investigation into the improvements in gaming battery life using Nvidia Batteryboost in the GT72 when going to the 980m. It seems like with very conservative settings (30fps target, vsync on), 2 hours of battery gameplay is possible:

The bottom line is that BatteryBoost is certainly improving battery life, though it does so at the cost of frame rates. Considering many console games target 30FPS it's not a horrible solution, but gamers willing to fork out the money for a notebook with a GTX 980M are likely to pack around their AC adapter so that they can get every ounce of performance possible out of their notebook. At some point, I still want to see a gaming notebook that can deliver a decent gaming experience at 60FPS and high quality for more than two hours – and once we reach that level, I'll want to see three or four hours of gaming battery life, I'm sure. It's the great thing about technology: there's always some further milestone to try to achieve.

[jasong]

MSI has developed a feature called SHIFT for the GT72. Even though the GT72 barely doesn’t run particularly hot, you might come across some scenarios where you might approach the thermal limits of the hardware, such as gaming outside or in offices without air conditioning in hot countries. Maybe you just don’t need all that performance, and want to limit the heat output, for comfort reasons? You can make sure you’ll stay inside thermal limits, both your own as well as the system’s with a simple key combo, completely independent of your operating system’s power profiles.

In short, you have three modes to choose from, when running on AC power:
Sport Mode: Overclocking of both CPU and GPU. Also activates Cooler Boost
Comfort Mode: CPU turbo is enabled, but GPU frequency is prohibited from ramping up into boost frequencies.
Green Mode: CPU turbo disabled, lower frequencies/voltage on both CPU and GPU. Lower revving fans.

The switch between SHIFT profiles is simple, done by pressing the Fn + F7 key combo, or via Dragon Gaming Center. As you’d expect, Sport Mode delivers the maximum potential of the hardware and the highest scores, while Comfort and Green Mode are a bit slower, but lowers the temperatures by a lot. Below, you can see the performance difference between the different profiles in 3DMark Fire Strike on the GT72.

The largest gains are in GPU temperatures though – by changing from Sport to Green Mode, you’ll see an 11°C drop in temperature and a full 14°C drop in CPU temperature.


SHIFT, therefore, is a handy tool which helps you control power consumption and heat output. If you don’t need all the power, for example during lighter game loads, why not make sure the system runs quieter and cooler?

SHIFT is available on NVIDIA GTX 900M-series equipped GS60/70 as well as the GT72.

[jasong]

I saw Nag Magazine gave the GT72 9/10 in the latest issue:

Seems our Neo's a fan . I see he only reviewed the 880m model here though.

[jasong]

The GT72 comes with a much improved dual-fan cooling solution compared to its predecessors. Thanks to advanced thermal engineering and features such as the thermal bridge (the heatpipe connecting the CPU cooling block to the VGA exhaust fins), the GT72 has a world-class cooling system. Anyone can keep a system cool by blasting the fans on max RPM, but the dual-fan Cooler Boost 3 solution also manages to keep the revs and thereby the noise levels down.


As we already touched on a couple of weeks ago, we know that the temperatures never reach above 80°C, even with a grossly overclocked GTX 980M – the Cooler Boost 3 design you see above is the reason for this.

[jasong]

Anandtech finally got around to reviewing the 980m version of the GT72 and they seem thoroughly impressed:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/8694/m...tor-pro-review

That means that with one fell swoop, MSI has gone from being one of the least attractive high-end gaming notebooks in my book to the one that others have to beat. It took longer than I’d like to get here, but I won’t argue with the end result!

Considering the substantial overhaul to the industrial design, not to mention the excellent performance and great feature set, I’m pleased to award MSI’s GT72 Dominator Pro with our Silver Editors’ Choice award. This is an expensive piece of hardware, but gaming notebook fans should be happy for at least a few years with the GT72. It’s fast, it looks great, it’s built reasonably well, and for now it’s the gaming notebook to beat. If we could get an IPS display (and potentially High DPI) in all of the models this would be a Gold award instead, and hopefully we'll see that with the next cycle of hardware (e.g. in early 2015 when high performance Broadwell CPUs launch).

Congratulations to MSI for providing a gaming notebook that truly impresses; they certainly deserve commendations for the most improved notebook design I can ever recall seeing. Other than Broadwell and an IPS display, I’m not sure what they can do for an encore, but this is a design that could easily carry MSI through several years of upgrades without getting stale. If you’re not in the market for a hefty gaming notebook, there’s nothing here that’s likely to change your mind, but for notebook gamers this is as good as it gets.

[jasong]

Q4 2014 Bundles

Nowadays, when you buy a gaming notebook from MSI, chances are you’ll end up with a little something on the side, apart from the notebook and the usual accessories. The tricky bit is that what extras you get vary quite wildly from region to region, making it close to impossible to summarize what’s bundled where, and for you as an end-user, even harder to know what you’re getting.
(not me in pic)

Recognizing this little dilemma, we decided to take a look at a selection of things you will find bundled in a little video presentation of the Q4 2014 bundles, including plushies, mouse pads and backpacks. The video is found on Youtube:

[jasong]

Audio Boost 2 – theory and practice
Audio Boost and Audio Boost 2 are just one of many MSI-exclusive features on the G-series notebooks, but most importantly, it’s one of few audio related. Audio Boost 2 enhances your sound experience, whether you’re using a headset or the built-in Dynaudio speakers.

GT72 is currently the only MSI notebook to feature Audio Boost 2 – which is a collective name for the use of triple amplifiers, an isolated audio jack PCB, gold-plated audio jacks and the use of Sound Blaster Cinema 2. The point of this article is to explain to you what this all really is.

Triple amplifiers is a pretty self-explanatory name – it’s got three separate amplifiers. The GT72 with Audio Boost 2 amp is capable of delivering a full 15W to the 1” speakers, another 15W to the built-in 36mm woofer, as well as also utilizing a dedicated headset amplifier.

The isolated audio jack PCB is again what it says. Electrically separated from the rest of the motherboard for signal separation, it comes with gold-plated jacks and is optimized for headsets with 32-48 ohm impedance.

Additionally, the GT72 employs a superior audio codec compared to the competition – with full 7.1 output, the ALC892 beats the likes of ALC668 and ALC282 used by others.

Sound Blaster Cinema 2 is also part of the Audio Boost 2 package, letting you fiddle around with your sound settings for optimum gaming sound. Another software feature is Ear Protection, which lets you set a maximum sound level, to guard your ears against any sudden bursts of loud noises, potentially preventing hearing damage.