the 6 and a half liter SLI equipped Core
i7 cylindershaped PC that MSI first
showed off at CES 2016 refusing to allow
me to see the insides apparently for fear that I would break it which is fair
I suppose is shipping now. So, after all
the waiting, then I have finally got my hands on a finished unit of the MSI
Vortex G65 to validate their claims that
it is fast, small, and quiet while
looking, in my eyes, pretty freaking cool. Let's get down to it.
Glasswire is the intuitive, easy-touse firewall software that reveals and
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Linus to upgrade and save 10% for added features. Things got off to a good start
when I first booted Windows and was greeted by a product registration and a
prompt to download and install Google Chrome. A nice touch, by the way, to not
even pre-install your bloatware, making it truly optional. Then took a turn down
Poostick Avenue with a gigantic Norton
registration popup. Let's see what else is on here. Some of this stuff is okay.
After burner for overclocking the video card, their Nhemic DSP utility, and the
one-year expl. But battery calibration doesn't
have a battery. MSI social media collection. The help desk seemed like a
good idea, but most of what's in here feels even less useful than in Windows's
own help tools. Let's move on to hardware. Things get a lot more
impressive here. Measuring a mere 10 1/2
in tall and about 7 1/2 in in diameter.
The entire computer is not that much
bigger than a single GTX 980 reference
card. And it's got two GTX 980s inside.
Not to mention, it has something the 980 never had: RGB lighting. I guess that
explains the $4,000 asking price. In terms of IO,
there's nothing at the front but a power button, but I don't really mind that
given how easy the system is to reach around to the back for a fairly easy
access to most of the ample connectivity. Starting at the top is
optical audio. 3 and a half millimeter audio jacks for speakers and a
microphone. Four USB 3.0 5 GB typeA
ports. Two HDMI 1.4 ports. Wouldn't have
minded if those were HDMI 2.0. 2 GB LAN ports powered by killer networks. Two
mini DisplayPort 1.2 ports. And finally, two reversible type-C USB ports
that can handle USB 3, DisplayPort 1.2,
or even Thunderbolt 3 duty. Let's move
inside. There are actually two different configurations on the MSIUS site at the
time of writing this, but the only way in which they differ is the installed
system memory and graphics card setup. So, they both pack an Intel Core i76700
Kylake quadcore hyperthreaded CPU with a maximum 4.4 4 GHz turbo boost speed and
assumed upgradability to the upcoming codeame KBL Lake architecture thanks to
a socketed CPU design. They both feature a Z170 chipset motherboard that's been
fully customized to fit in this unusual form factor and provide all the
necessary internal connectivity. Two MXM video card slots for the GPUs. A mini
PCIe for the Killer N 1535 AC wireless.
This is an MU MIMO capable Wave 2 device, by the way. Two M.2 PCIe X4 Gen
3 slots for the 2x128 gig RAID zero boot
drive configuration or whatever you want to put in there after the fact. A SATA 3
port for the 1 TB 2 and 1/2 in hard drive and customized power connectors
for the 450W 80 plus gold chicky power
supply. So then as far as differences are concerned, the lower-end model
features 16 gigs of DDR4. sodium memory
and two 3 gig GTX 960s in SLI, while the
other packs 32 gigs of RAM and two 8 gig
GTX 980s in SLI. It's important to note
that each of these are full desktop configuration GPUs, similar to the full
fat MXM form factor GTX 980 video cards
that started showing up in laptops around September
2015. Neither of them comes cheap, by the way. The entry level one goes for
$2,200 with the top-of-the-line ski running about
$4,000 like I alluded to before. So, how
then does MSI justify a price tag like
this? Well, when you've got a unique
product, I guess you pretty much dictate what it's worth, and they've got that.
While there is one other high-performance trash can-shaped PC on
the market, the 2013 Mac Pro, that one
will appeal to a very different customer. Sure, they're both round and
they both feature an assisted convection cooling configuration with a large fan
that draws air in the bottom and exhausts it from the top of the unit,
but other than that, I would argue they are really nothing alike. Thanks to
Apple's use of an LGA 2011 CPU socket,
they can cram up to 18 CPU cores into theirs. But while both computers boast
dual video cards, the Workstation Fire Pro GPUs in the Mac Pro are more
appealing to creative professionals than they are to gamers. The Vortex G35's LG1
1151 socket can, by contrast, hold only
a maximum of four CPU cores, but this
feels like a sensible direction given that more than four CPU cores hasn't
been demonstrated to help with straight gaming. I've got a video, by the way,
showing what it takes to finally overwhelm an 8 core Extreme Edition.
Check that out here. So, that extra power and thermal budget can be used to
throw more video card horsepower at the problem. So, what does that translate to
then? Well, really, really good
performance. As advertised, the Vortex G65 is a very strong little gaming
machine capable of handling anything you can throw at it, including gaming at
resolutions above 1080p, gaming with textures maxed thanks to the 8 gigs of
VRAM per GPU, and thanks to the top-of-the-line consumer grade Core i7
processor. But of course, all this hardware means nothing if it creates an
unpleasant user experience due to acoustics or doesn't run to its full
potential due to thermal issues. And I'm
pleased to report that the acoustics, much like the Mac Pro, are shocking with
the tower emitting only an unobtrusive low hum even while gaming. And the
thermals are pretty darn good. On the GPUs, you'll see about 75° in our Crisis
3 Skybox and UniGen Heaven tests. And
while under full CPU load in I to 64,
that's without the GPUs doing anything. By the way, the CPU did sit in the low8s
in a 19° ambient room. This result
doesn't to me indicate a poorly designed computer. That kind of a sustained
multi-core load would only be seen in short bursts, like while rendering a
video, for example, on a gaming machine. So, all it means to me is that I
probably wouldn't find myself overclocking this system in spite of its
advertised overclockability. Which leads us then to
the conclusion. Is the Vortex G65 worth
your money? I guess it depends what you're after. While Thunderbolt 3 and
external PCI Express expansion enclosures seem to be finally reaching
maturity, making me feel better about giving up all of my PCI Express slots, I
find the core component upgradability of this device a little bit worrisome. with
future CPUs likely to arrive in only
four core variants and no guarantee at this time that MSI will be offering
Pascalbased GPU upgrade modules like they promised on their GT80 Titan. But
with that said, if you're willing to pay NVIDIA's premium for those MXM GTX 980
video cards for a super small gaming rig that packs a shocking punch, then
there's simply nothing else on the market like it.
And we're back with another offer from our friends
at Massdrop. If you guys aren't familiar with Massdrop, head over to their site.
It's linked in the video description. They've got all kinds of cool stuff.
Everything from Wow, my tablecloth's going away. That's okay. They don't have
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stuff, camping supplies even. And the way it works is the community says,
"Hey, we want to buy this thing, but it's kind of expensive." And Massdrop
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drop goes to a maximum limit. And they've got a pretty cool offer to talk
about today. This is the AKG K553 Pro
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isolating qualities of closedback headphones with a more expansive sound
stage. It's an overyear headphone with soft leatherrett ear pads. It terminates
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features 50mm drivers. It's got an MSRP
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$119.99 at the lowest drop. So check out the link in the video description. That
is draw.lt
/lT-553. Thanks for watching, guys. If this video sucked, you know what to do.
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