Case:
The laptop is thinner than most gaming laptops you will see, and made out of a nice durable plastic. The lid and palmrest are smooth and silky to the touch, but they attract fingerprints like crazy. I get some compliments on the lid, which has red and black designs on it. The screen has zero flex and seems very sturdy. The keyboard is nice to type on, I love the Steelseries brand, own a Steelseries mousepad. The keyboard is of the chiclet variety and has nice key travel. Doesn't take too long to get used to at all. All the keys are full-size except for the right shift key, which is a bit small. I personally never use that shift key, and would much rather take a small shift key over the tiny arrow keys on some laptop keyboards. Overall the design is great, nice and sturdy construction. 9/10 (for shift key)
Screen:
The screen is by far the nicest thing about this laptop. The screen has a 1920x1080 resolution, making it full HD, as opposed to 90% of the laptops at this price which will have a 1366x768 display. A note about HD: Everything is smaller and more crisp. I love the crispness on this screen, but if you don't like how small the type is you can switch to 1366x768 in settings. The screen is also anti-glare, which is a blessing. You will never see distracting lights reflect on your screen, or your own reflection. The brightness can go very high. Setting this laptop next to my friend's Toshiba Satellite is like setting a 3DS next to a Gameboy. If you didn't understand that comparison, just know that you'd be hard-pressed to find a better screen. 10/10
Performance:
The processor is a 3rd generation quad-core Intel i7. You can't get much better and I would accept nothing else. multitasking is a breeze. On this computer I will have a web browser (Chrome), Skype, League of Legends, iTunes, and Word all open 24/7, and it's not unusual for me to run two games at the same time. I highly doubt I've ever used more than 75% of my power. You will NEVER have responsiveness issues with everyday tasks. Info on the processor:
8 gigabytes of memory is more than enough for anything you are going to do. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.
The graphics card is a 2GB GTX660M, which is a high-performance card although not the best around. Link for stats:
Note: This laptop I have running all day, and trust me if you don't have the fan blocked it will never overheat. This baby has 5 (FIVE!) built-in fans, and they're damn quiet.
I would rate a 8/10 in performance. This is perfect for my needs, as I just want to run any new game at medium-high settings. This laptop will do that easily. You will spend literally double this price to get 10/10 instead of a solid 8.
Hard Drive:
7200 RPM is above average, but normal hard drives are becoming obsolete. People are buying expensive solid-state drives (SSD) instead. They run at something like 10 times the speed but they are far too pricey for me. Solution? Go out and buy a 128 gb SSD and an optical bay caddy, take out your CD reader, and install it there. Put your operating system on the SSD, and now you have 750 gigs to store everything, and Windows will be far faster.
7/10 (10/10 with my SSD)
Wrapping up, this laptop is perfect for hardcore multitasking or gaming on medium-high settings. The screen is what really sets it apart and makes it a great value. Hope this helps you decide. Leave any questions in comments.
Links:
Article on installing a SSD in your optical bay:
Help on finding the right caddy:
Click Here For Most Helpful Customer Reviews >>
The MSi GE60, with the i7 3630QM cpu and a Geforce 660M gpu, delivers solid gameplay on all games I've played. Solid 30+ fps on Guild Wars 2, and that is with a bad patch from the developer which has known issues with nvidia hardware. Everything else like Battlefield 3 on ultra, 45-60fps. I am very happy with this laptop, it is my first big laptop purchase over $1000 and meant to be a gaming machine when I am away from my desktop. If you're looking for the best bang for your buck on a gaming laptop, this is it.Best Deals for MSI Computer Corp. Notebook GE60 0ND-257US;9S7-16GA11-257 15.6-Inch
It runs games pretty well, no lag, and pretty good quality. Just make sure you have it plugged inPros:
Lightweight.
Great Screen looks beautiful
NO errors with anything, seems solid
Very fast for going on the internet, streaming video
Cons:
If you plug a microphone into it, you get a very loud static noise
Not as powerful for gaming as I'd hoped
No light up keyboard (not for me but many people would feel this way)
Gets pretty hot at times
little battery life
Honest reviews on MSI Computer Corp. Notebook GE60 0ND-257US;9S7-16GA11-257 15.6-Inch
I have been using the European version of the MSI GE-60 OND (identical specs to US version) for over 2 months now so I want to share a few thoughts.The laptop looks pretty good out of the box with its glossy finish but you do have to clean it often as it will accumulate fingerprints and dirt over a short time. The Steel Series keyboard does not a have great feel for typing but it is suitable for gaming as the keys have very short travel distance and are light to hold down. The actuation force is low enough not to cause fatigue over extended FPS gaming and the rebound is fast enough for double taps in RTS gaming.
The display has a matte finish as advertised so don't expect superb contrast as in Samsung LED TVs but I like it as I can comfortably use it in daylight. Be aware that this laptop uses NVidia Optimus technology so for purposes of power saving the system alternates between the GTX660m GPU and the integrated Intel HD4000 graphics adapter depending on the application. Here is the problem: even if you are rendering a frame using the 660m GPU, the integrated chip is ALWAYS ON and it will copy the rendered image from the NVidia frame buffer to its own buffer where it will finally be sent to the display. Because of this design, the HDMI output is physically connected to the integrated Intel HD4000 chip and not the NVidia GPU. Therefore even though the NVidia GTX660m supports stereoscopic 3D gaming you will not be able to play in 3D when you are connected to a 3D capable display thru HDMI because the HD4000 does not support it. You will not be able to install NVidia's 3D Vision and HDMI audio drivers.
I did have some issues running the system out of the box. StarCraft 2 was crashing constantly. Turns out the Killer Network E2200 adapter driver was not compatible with Win 8 so I had to update that. The NVidia GTX660m GPU was running at 835MHz whereas it should have been running at 950MHz with GPU Boost (turbo function). I was also unable to overclock the GPU with MSI Afterburner. This issue was solved by flashing the latest BIOS.
Overall I am pretty happy with the machine's performance. With the exception of the GPU it generally performs better than my custom 3 year old Win 7 desktop with Intel i7-950 CPU (stock clock settings), Asus Rampage III Formula motherboard and NVidia GTX 460 GPU which is impressive for a mobile system.
Gaming performance with the GTX660m is acceptable. Don't expect to play Crysis 3 unless you don't mind low frame rates. Some games I can manage to play at a steady 60fps with vertical sync turned on are :
StarCraft 2 (DX9) High settings no AA except for a few demanding maps where I switch shaders from high to medium.
Colin McRae Dirt 2 (DX11) Medium settings 2xAA generally.
Company of Heroes (DX9 or DX10) High/Ultra settings. If I switch to Ultra (DX10) shaders frame rate drops below 60fps.
Call of Duty 4 World at War (DX9) 60fps on max settings but barely.
Graphically more demanding games such as EA's Battlefield series will require you to play between low and medium settings.
The reason I gave an average rating for this product is the laptop's somewhat poor cooling performance. If you have read through specs you will know that there is a turbo fan you can activate at the press of a button whenever you start gaming. This fan works, it does cool the system between 5-6 degrees but it is very loud. You will not hear it with headphones on but other people sharing the room will be disturbed.
The problem is the laptop's thin design makes it very difficult to get efficient airflow inside. I wish MSI had opted for a less attractive but more performance oriented design as that is what most gamers care about. I think ASUS's twin fans in their gaming laptops provide better thermals (at a little higher cost).
Do not stress test your system with FurMark or Prime95 as temperatures will easily peak to throttling levels. For more real life applications I monitored temperatures while running a StarCraft 2 replay as this game is graphically demanding for a mobile GPU and can even bring desktop CPUs on its knees during big battles. Averaging around 80% GPU usage on stock clock settings the GPU peaked at 80 C and the CPU at 83 C.
I then overclocked the GPU to 1085MHz (core +135MHz, memory +450MHz). I increased in-game graphics settings so I would still average GPU usage around %80 leaving me enough headroom for big battles, explosions etc. Running the same replay the GPU peaked at 84 C and CPU at 86 C. While I did not overclock the CPU, you can observe that CPU temperatures increased running exactly the same set of computations. This indicates the GPUs heat is dissipating towards the CPU.
Needless to say I was not very happy with these thermal values as I have read about many overclocked 660m GPUs peaking in the low 70s with other laptops manufacturers. I therefore purchased a notebook cooler and I managed to get temperatures barely below 80C again. This actually defeated my purpose of buying a "gaming" laptop as I thought cooling performance would not be excessively compromised on these. Even my Zalman NC-3000 cooler was only able to reduce temperatures by 4C because there aren't enough apertures below the machine to facilitate airflow.
Now I know I shouldn't evaluate cooling performance based on overclock settings as notebooks are not a suitable environment for overclocking but I would have expected better temperatures from standard clock settings as well. The GPU and CPU will both certainly be able to handle 80C but other PCB components may warp over the long run. I therefore deduct 1.5 stars for high temperatures and 0.5 stars for having to flash BIOS just to get the GPU working properly and award this product with a 3 star rating.
Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for MSI Computer Corp. Notebook GE60 0ND-257US;9S7-16GA11-257 15.6-Inch
I've had this laptop for over a year now and I've had to send it to MSI for repair twice. I must say however, MSI has had extremely wonderful customer service and has been extremely quick to reply and quick to fix any problems. The first was simply a bad stick of RAM the second was the headphone jack broke on the inside somehow. Overall this laptop has a lot of power for gaming, and as people have mentioned the screen is fantastic. A full 1920x1080 at only 15.6" is insanely awesome.My one con with this laptop is the build quality seems flimsy. The case around the screen feels weak, although I haven't had any problems with it so far. A good case should probably protect it plenty.
The other build quality problem is I believe the keyboard uses ABS plastic. Now the feel of the keyboard is awesome when you first get it. It works great and feels nice to type on. (Typing this review on it now) The problem with ABS plastic on keyboards however is with long term use the oils on your hands actually wear away the plastic and create that shiny effect you may be familiar with. This is mostly an aesthetic thing as I don't think it compromises the structural integrity of the keyboard. I would recommend a keyboard cover, but I have been unable to find one that both fits and has positive reviews. (If you're using this as a desktop replacement laptop you could always buy a nicer quality keyboard for use at home)
Overall if you're looking for a high speed good price laptop this is an excellent choice.
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