MSI GS30 Shadow - Part Beastly Gaming Rig, Part Ultrabook
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2015-05-07
·
2,031 words · ~10 min read
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I try to be unbiased I really do but the truth is I came into this review
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desperately wanting this notebook to be the one my Neo because it promises
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something that's never been delivered before a teaser for the upcoming Yeti
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Pro review no we do that all the time no
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I'm talking about the full portability of like an ultra class type form factor
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device with the gaming capability of a desktop and even some upgrade ability to
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boot putting it in the tough position where the only possible results are the
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Deep satisfaction of the longtime desire being finally fulfilled or the
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disappointment that follows when said desire rips a gigantic fart right in the
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middle that kills the whole mood so which one is it
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we'll have to start with a physical tour of the portable components by itself
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because while alone it doesn't redefine a product category anything and it
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certainly doesn't justify the price tag by itself it's a pretty darn fine little
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notebook packed into this thin astonishingly light magnesium aluminum
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blend chassis is a core i7 4870hq quad
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core processor 16 gigs of RAM 256 gigs
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of raid zero SSD storage Intel Iris Pro 5200 Graphics a really nice 13.3 in
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matte finish IPS 1080p display which only needed to be touched to be perfect
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for me and a 47w hour battery that lasted for 2 hours and 25 minutes in the
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PC Mark 8 work battery life test on the left of the unit is a lock ventilation
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Port USB 3.0 and discrete headphone and microphone jacks a nice touch for a
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gaming notebook around the front is this kind of weird
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illuminated strip thing that I personally think looks pretty cool but I
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think should be possible to turn off since the rest of the notebook is so
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professional and non- gamery looking by comparison on the right is an SD card
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slot another USB 3.0 Port an HDMI 1.4b
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port a killer gigabit Ethernet Jack and a power input for the unremarkable but
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reasonably sized included power brick the only Improvement I'd probably make
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to I/O would be mini DisplayPort instead of HDMI and maybe another USB 3
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Port if it could be done the keyboard is
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white LED back lit with a stiffer than
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usual tactile feel to it but reasonable key travels I rate it okay uh the layout
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is solid with no cardinal sins committed and my only real complaint is that while
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somehow it bothered me less than on the Dell X ps13 I reviewed recently you can
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watch that here by the way there is a lot more Flex in the deck than I like to
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see giving it a mushy feel when you bottom out your keystrokes improving
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this might add some weight to the chassis but it would make this notebook
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feel much more premium under my fingers while working on it and while Ms SI at
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it $22,000 notebooks need glass touchpads the XPS 13 taught me that too
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flipping the unit over we find not a whole lot some vent holes and a metal
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bottom plate that reveals unfortunately downward firing speakers and fortunately
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easy access to two sodum slots and the storage upgrade slot while we've got it
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open seems like a good time to show off the obnoxiously loud cooling solution I
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really wish a better job had been done of this even under light loads this
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notebook is not very quiet and the proprietary interface connector that
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sticks out the back and makes the whole desktop Graphics thing possible because
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that's right we missed the back of this notebook where there's another vent and
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these plastic flaps that fold back to plug this baby into a desktop Graphics
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box now total biscuits initial reaction to
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this thing on Twitter is one that I bet a lot of you share I mean wtf man it's
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basically the size of a single GPU gaming desktop anyway so what's the
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bleeding point and the point of it is that this is pretty different from any
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other gaming desktop or notebook out there for someone who wants to buy one
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device that they carry around with them a lot and then normally only use for
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lightweight tasks but then can without actually owning two full computers dock
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for the full desktop gaming experience this is a pretty compelling little piece
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because with how little development there's been in CPU performance of late
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and how little is on the road map most of this machine will actually keep up
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fine possibly for years to come with only graphics needing a shot of
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adrenaline now and then and that's what this box does and a bit more too just
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like a normal notebook dock you get ample data connectivity for the right
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side iio over here so next to that 92 mm intake fan is a four port USB 3 hub gigb
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Ethernet and audio jacks that you can just leave permanently plugged in
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there's a power button over here and a plug for the 450 W included power supply
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that powers everything inside and the doc's notebook so you don't need to fuss
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with your power adapter on the other side but you also get a PCI Express gen
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3 16x link and SATA 3 6 gbit per second
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so while I could take you on a full tour of the outside of this thing there
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frankly isn't much you haven't seen already there's an MSI logo on the mesh
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front that conceals a speaker that's functional if not particularly immersive
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since it only comes from One Direction and that's pretty much it let's take
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that piece off and find out all that cool stuff inside ah yes here it is
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inside the dock is room for officially any MSI graphics card you desire or any
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reference AMD or NVIDIA design and realistically most other ones it's not
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locked down in anyway there's also a power supply the one I mentioned before
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a 3 and 1/2 in Drive Mount so it can be plugged in here then screwed in here and
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used for up to 8 terabytes of game and mass storage um anything that you don't
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need with you when you're on the go and finally the custom PCB that powers the
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whole thing now one little trick I did find was to flip this fan control switch
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to low since it only makes a couple of degrees difference under load but I
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would like to see a more elegant solution next time around because it is
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freaking loud on high and honestly that should be speed controlled anyway by the
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system there needs to be some communication there and I mean while I'm wishing for things with how big this
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dock is maybe the option to have a single PCI e6x or split adex adex for
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some other expansion card on the next rision would be nice and maybe some
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smart ducting for a larger 120 mm fan so
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that it forces air into the laptop docked on top of it so it doesn't need
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its own cooling fan to unleash an Unholy wine upon my ears when I'm gaming which
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I guess leads us pretty well into the usage experience doesn't it
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it's loud like the CPU fan in the notebook overpowers the fan in the dock
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and the graphics card underload but with that aside the gs30 shadow is simply put
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awesome you do have to shut down
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every time you switch Graphics configs so here we'll we'll we'll do this live
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this is kind of an interesting little demo here Boop whenever you want to
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switch Graphics configs so for the first time ever I actually care about boot up
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speed and thankfully it is is shockingly
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fast and that's not the only thing that's fast about it I mean the machine
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absolutely flies even with the CPU over
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90° in some tests it turbos up to 3.5 to
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3.6 GHz in games which puts it on par with some pretty capable desktop CPUs of
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course you've got to pay to play without
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a dedicated graphics card for the dock it's over two grand and then you've got
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to buy one of those Pro tip for you guys by the way get a reference card using a
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rear exhaust 980 at the same clock speed as the MSI gaming 980 that they sent me
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resulted in higher GPU temps by 6° but still under the throttle point but 5
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degree lower CPU temps thanks to less um
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heat energy being transferred from the dock up into the notebook so much more
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reasonable CPU temperatures a worthwhile trade which leads us to the conclusion
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the gs30 Shadow from MSI is the first of its kind I mean yes there are janky DIY
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Solutions and yes Alienware also has an
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external graphics card box that works with a handful of its notebooks but MSI
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is different to me because they're the ones that I believe are doing this the
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way that I want it done with a lightweight legitimately super portable
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notebook rather than something that's already a gaming laptop and already has
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a gaming graphics card in it but it's
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got some first gen Growing Pains cooling needs to be quieter Standalone battery
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life could definitely be better and I'm sure that MSI can tune the base to be a
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bit more compact or offer some additional functionality but with all of
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that said this is a great start and I'm hyper excited about the future of a
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technology that I've been eagerly awaiting for years now speaking of the
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future of technology today's episode sponsor Ting has just reached a whole
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it tells you if you'd be saving money on Ting and it takes the guesswork out of
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it so I think that's pretty much it thanks to you guys for watching thanks to our sponsor Ting like the video if
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