MSI GS70 Stealth Gaming Notebook
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2015-05-07
·
1,831 words · ~9 min read
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with the recent spec change including new performance profiles and a graphics
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card upgrade to the recently released GTX 970m 3 gig we figured and MSI agreed
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that it was finally time to take the gs70 stealth for a spin in our studio
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the red anodized finish on this stunning
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device didn't hurt matters
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either The Cooler Master nepton 240m features an exclusive pump design and
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their new silencio fans to provide impressive near silent performance click
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now to learn more we'll start with the specs rundown there's a bit of a variety
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here but the one that I've got is topof the- line except for storage it's got a
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core i7 4710hq processor that runs at 2.5 GHz nominal and 3.5 GHz boost 16
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gigs of DDR3 memory and two slots Max
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384 gigs worth of raid zero SSD goodness
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that was able to achieve sequential read speeds of well over 1 Gigabyte per
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second for the OS with a 1 tby hard drive for larger programs and mass
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storage Hardline gigabit networking and 802.11 AC both with qualcomm's killer
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packet prioritization for gaming and a GTX 970m graphics card giving you more
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performance than a last generation top-of-the-line 880 M equip notebook
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with less power and less heat output but
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none of this would be that impressive if it wasn't for the physical design of
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this gaming sheet yes I even came up with a new name for pancake thin gaming
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notebooks gaming sheets so let's do a bit of a physical tour the profile of
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the notebook is less than 2.2 cm and it
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weighs under 6 lb thanks to its aluminum magnesium alloy casing making it about
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as lean and mean as anything else on the market this top cover features a MSI
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gaming logo that I actually kind of hated at first but it's sort of grown on
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me over the last year or so and an otherwise extremely clean brushed
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aluminum finish the bottom has a similar finish with a port for the bottom
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subwoofer Bend holes for the Dual side exhausting cooling fans and this weird
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velvety material that perplexed me at first and then I was sitting there using
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the thing and I went oh yeah it's so it doesn't slide off your lap when you've
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got it sitting on your thigh flipping brilliant and say whatever you want
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about the red color I personally think it's drop dead gorgeous and a very
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positive move away from the standard black notebook with accent color that
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everyone's been doing for at least the last 100 bazillion years it manages to
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be extremely eye-catching without that Gody only 14-year-olds would like it
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look about it that many gaming products manage to be stuck with and if you don't
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like red well it's available in black and silver too anyway I guess in terms
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of IO both sides are taken up with a surprisingly complete configuration with
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the left side equipped with a gigb Ethernet port HDMI out dual mini display
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port uh yeah that's a total of three concurrent 4K displays two at 60 HZ one
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at 30 HZ two USB 3 ports and goldplated
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audio jacks and then on the right side we find a Kensington lock a somewhat
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awkwardly placed power input for the 150 W power brick that's still pretty
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sizable but at least similar in thickness to the notebook at powers and
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finally an SD card reader and two more USB 3 ports and now it's time to get
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inside this Beauty around the 17-in display is more Tastefully plain design
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with only an MSI logo and a 1080p 30fps
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webcam its lowlight performance isn't as good as its well-lit performance but I
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still think that's a nice inclusion with the way that webcams have turned into a
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spec list checkbox item rather than a quality Hardware add-on which leads us
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to the million dooll question how is that 17-in display well it's 1080p so if
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you were hoping for a 3K or 4K display then you will be disappointed but I
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personally think 1080p is still a good place for the 970m and it's TN so if you
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were hoping for IPs then you'll be disappointed by that too but there is
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some good news here while the vertical viewing angles aren't amazing at this
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size with how easy it is to adjust the vertical angle of a notebook display I
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don't consider this to be a deal-breaking issue and horizontal
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viewing angles are surprisingly good so if you're sitting on the couch watching
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a movie with your bow you'll both be able to enjoy it rather than you know
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who gets to watch without the colors inverted being an indicator for who
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wears the pants in your relationship speaking of colors I liked the
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multicolored backlit keyboard by Steel series the first time I saw it and I
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still like it today each of the keyboards three zones can be
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individually lit whatever color you want at any of the four possible brightness
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levels turned off or set up with a variety of lighting patterns including
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breathing and color cycling it's a nice little touch of flare and personal
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ization and since it doesn't have a negative impact on the keyboard layout
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which other than the missing media controls I really like by the way nice
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standard key layout with proper arrow keys and a full numpad or the
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surprisingly solid tactile response that I don't really see a downside since if
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you don't care about it you can just set it to one color forever and just use the
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steel series engine utility for rebinding whatever Keys you want setting
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up macros or whatever else it is you want to do you don't have to touch the
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color blow Weare um I was ready to give
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the gs70 stealth a B minus for Norton
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being installed and having links to wild tangent and MSI's YouTube channel and
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Facebook page in the modern UI start menu but MSI's performance monitor that
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they also include is lightweight and somewhat useful and the Machine comes
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with a six-month license for xplit gamecaster included so I'm going to bump
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that up to a B+ useful bundled applications with trial periods that are
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long enough to not just be considered a try before you buy demo are actually
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worth marks to me here which leads us to that useful thing in MSI's control
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center app their new shift functionality the general concept here isn't really
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anything new different performance and fan profiles depending on your tolerance
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for noise and heat but it works really seamlessly just function F7 to switch
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between sport Comfort or green mode and you go from higher temps and pretty loud
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and whiny to uh but with better performance down to lower temps quite
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and much less whiny with less performance of course it should be noted
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though that these modes only work when plugged into AC power but there's
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NVIDIA's GPU boosts 2.0 when you're on battery anyway which lets you throttle
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performance depending on your tolerance for lower frame rate targets and in-game
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details when you're on battery in order to get more on the-go gaming out of your
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PC in my experience it works for anywhere from a negligible Improvement
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for really demanding games that we're going to max out the GPU regardless to
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well over 50% more life if you really scale things back or you're playing
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something that's not very demanding like League of Legends so conclusion time I
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guess who is the gs70 still for well I'd
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say anyone who's willing to pay a premium over the more traditional brick
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style gaming notebook for what is in my mind a more portable and more visually
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appealing design with similar performance not quite the same but at
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the cost of component temperatures the outside stayed within reason but our CPU
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got up to around 90° in sport mode with
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CPU and GPU benchmarks running at the same time something that won't really
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happen during games where we topped out around 65° but might be a concern if
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you're a content creator who uses both CPU power and Cuda for video or 3D
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production at the same time the good news though is that our CPU didn't go
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under 2.9 GHz turbo on all four cores when stressing CPU RAM and GPU so no
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throttling is a very good thing now that
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the laptop's out of the way I'm sure you guys are wondering what the heck is up
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with the little dragon stuffy that we've
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had sitting here his name according to MSI Canada's Facebook fans is EMS INF
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Inferno because there's an i at the beginning of INF sorry and they're
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running a cool little promotion with this laptop where if you buy it in November you get one of these bad boys a
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keyboard skin and a steel series flux
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headset with little MSI branding on it and all that but if you are not shopping
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for a notebook then you can still actually get one of these bundles
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they're giving them away to three winners on Facebook and they're also
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doing a grand prize bundle with this polo shirt a mouse pad and a GK 601
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mechanical gaming keyboard the full contest details are linked in the video
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description so good luck MSI told me
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they wanted me to wear this shirt in the video so this is this is going to count
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as me wearing it I wear it on my head so
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guys uh thanks for watching like this video if you liked it dislike it if you
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disliked it leave a comment below if your feelings are more complicated ow
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than this or this also check the link in the video description to support us you
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can give us a monthly contribution buy a cool t-shirt like the one I'm wearing you can't buy these unfortunately you'll
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have to sign up for aiz contest or you can change your Amazon bookmark to one
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with our affiliate code so we get a small Kickback whenever you buy gaming notebooks or plush dragons or whatever
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else when I breathe in really fast with the shirt on my face it like covers no
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and I can't breathe because I tend to breathe pretty hard when I'm doing these
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videos now it's a cape find us away