MSI GT72 2QE Dominator Pro - Broadwell CPU & Mobile G-Sync!
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2016-05-06
·
1,936 words · ~9 min read
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Another day, another gaming notebook. Or
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if MSI is to be believed, another weapon
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to save mankind. I mean, really, MSI,
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really? Wow. For you, the viewer, I'm
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not recommending that you go watch that video. Although it is kind of hard to
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look away from cuz if you're that into cringe, you guys should probably be
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dropping a like on this video to let us know if you're excited for the
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conclusion of Scrapyard Wars 2, which is coming this weekend with probably more
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cringe than the MSI promotional video.
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Kingston KC 310 series businessgrade SSDs feature firmwarebased power loss
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protection. Massive capacities and performance to spare. In fact, we're
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using them for our new production server. Click right here to learn more
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about them. Let's start as always with specs because
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a gaming laptop could have as many RGB keyboards as it wants, but if it can't
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back it up with raw horsepower, I'm not going to recommend you buy it. At its
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heart, the GT72 2QE features an Intel
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Core i7 5700HQ. Yes, that is a Broadwell
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quadcore mobile CPU, which means about a 10% improvement over the last generation
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equivalent, 4720HQ. 16 gigs of DDR3L memory, and a GTX 980M
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graphics card, the best mobile GPU available, and only a stones throw from
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a desktop GTX 970 in terms of performance. So, lots of raw horsepower
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under the hood. looks good, too, with two massive cooling fans, a metric butt
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ton of heat pipes, and expandability galore with four M.2 SSD slots, a 2 and
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1/2 in drive slot, and four DIM slots available for upgraders to throw in up
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to four 8 gig sticks for a total of 32 gigs. I actually did try my 16 gig DDR3
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modules in the bottom slots. And while the BIOS and Windows picked up 48 gigs
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of RAM, which was sick, unfortunately, Windows only reported 32 as usable. So,
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who knows if that support will come in the future. Can you imagine 64 gigs of
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RAM? Anyway, withdrawing to the outside, the industrial design screams MSI with a
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gamey black and red color scheme. The screen backing is an aggressively
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sculpted brushed aluminum with an illuminated MSI Gaming Series logo. The
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bottom has tall rubber feet to allow ample air flow through the red grills to
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the bottom components. Oh, and there's a subwoofer port down there as well. A
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feature I usually ignore, but this laptop, perhaps actually more thanks to
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its large internal volume and that massive speaker on the inside, actually
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has a surprisingly potent sound system. On the back for IO, we find power in for
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the large included power brick. Gigabit Ethernet powered by a Killer E2200
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chipset to go along with the Killer 1525
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AC wireless inside. Two mini DisplayPort 1.2 ports and an HDMI 1.4A port for
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easy display expansion. On the right side, a Blu-ray burner, something I was
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surprised was missing from the last 17-in gaming notebook I checked out and
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yet something I didn't touch throughout my entire time with this one. As well as
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two USB 3 ports. Then on the left, we've got an SD card reader, audio ports, and
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four more USB3 ports, but you might have noticed, Lis, why didn't you
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specifically say USB 3.0? You always do that. Well, they're not. Two of them are
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USB 3.1 suckers. That means 10 gigabit
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max rated speeds on supported devices. And you can check out this video by
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clicking the little eye in the top right corner to learn the full dates of USB
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3.1. Cracking open the device, we'll start
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with the that huge speaker grill with the Dine Audio branding. Sounds
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surprisingly good. And then we'll follow up with one of MSI's characteristically
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solid Steeler co-branded keyboards. The layout is standard in all the good ways,
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including a full number pad and properly laid out arrow keys. Take notes, Razer.
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And in spite of its size, MSI has done a good job of keeping overall flex to a
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minimum. But if I was to complain about something, and I'm pretty sure that's my
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job, the keys have nice long travels, but are a little stiff at the top. Oh,
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and the function arrows. Function up and
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down are page up and down. Function left and right are home and end. Everyone
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needs to quit screwing this up, especially when it's the one damn thing
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about an otherwise fully programmable macro compatible keyboard that can't be
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changed. The touchpad is above average. It tracks well. It's responsive. It's a
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nice size and it has the usual gesture support, but this is going to be a love
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it or hate it thing. It's seamlessly integrated into the plastic wrist rest
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surface that's separate from the rest of the metal bottom under the keyboard.
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Personally, I like it cuz it'll keep crumbs out of the edges of my trackpad,
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but it does make it harder to find the edge without looking down and you can
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accidentally run out of trackpad unexpectedly. But that's not even my
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biggest complaint about the trackpad. And there's always one, isn't there?
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It's again a stiffness related one. The clicky buttons, which I like normally,
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are quite difficult to press down, and I'd like to see that dialed back a bit.
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Now, let's move on to the screen. Like the Seagar NP 9773 that we checked out
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recently, the 1080 IPS display in the
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GT72 features NVIDIA G-Sync. So, unlike
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on the desktop, notebook G-Sync works by having the GPU communicate directly with
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the panel. And instead of NVIDIA creating a scaler, they're just
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selecting G-Sync certified panels according to good behavior with variable
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refresh, solid color reproduction, and pixel responsiveness. And there's a
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couple of new features, although they're not limited to notebooks. G-Sync now
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allows the behavior beyond the max panel refresh rate to be modified to either
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VSYNC or no VSYNC, just like AMD's Freync. And it allows games to be run in
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windowed full screen mode. Now, very cool. But while variable refresh is
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undeniably a better gaming experience than the alternative, it's not all rosy.
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G-Sync doesn't work with Optimus right now. So, if you want to use the onboard
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graphics to save battery, you'll actually need to press this button,
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which will prompt you to reboot to switch. Bummer. The good news is that
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Maxwell's idle power consumption is much better than previous mobile graphics
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cards, so it's not as much of a kick in the teeth as it would be. So, let's talk
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temps and performance now. Then, I put it up against the NP9773 and the Razer
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Blade 14205 to see how it fared. In IDA
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64 CPU test, the GT72 walked away with
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it. This is going to be due to the fact that it's literally over twice the
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thickness of the only other one of these notebooks also using a mobile CPU and a
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last generation one at that. GPU is a
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bit of a tighter race here. We have to look not only at temperatures of our GTX
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980 or 970M graphics cores, but also at
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GPU boost turbo speeds. Again, MSI is
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looking really good here with solid boost clock speeds in Crisis 3. So then
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what about the gaming experience here? MSI delivers almost the whole package.
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The GTX 980M rocks and the new generation Broadwell CPU bridges the gap
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nicely between last gen mobile flagships
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and a full board desktop CPU. But for
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some reason, while I really appreciate the astonishing viewing angles of this
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particular IPS panel and the nonoversaturated default color profile,
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MSI opted for a 60 Hz panel, while competitors like Seager and ASUS are
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coming to the table with 75 Hz panels that from my experience can sometimes
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even overclock to a 100 hertz, making
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for a great mobile gaming experience. My
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GT72 managed a mere 70 Hz once
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overclocked. Which isn't to say that if
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we look past the hilariously stupid promotional video, this isn't a butt
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kicker of a laptop. I just have some reservations at this kind of price. I
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expect no compromises. And while I accept that I'm trading thin and light
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for cool and quiet in this case, I mean, it's gaming right now. You can hardly
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hear the thing. I don't think the 128 gig SSD and one
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TBTE hard drive are particularly competitive with other $3,000 machines.
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The good news is at least there's a variety of configs available. On the
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subject of variety, Squarespace, you pick out the template you want depending
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on what kind of simple, powerful, and beautiful website you want to build, and
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you just kind of go to town on it for a little bit. It really actually doesn't
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take that long. And if you're having any trouble, then you can contact their 24/7
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support via live chat and email and bippity boop for only $8 a month, at
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least starting at that. You get a domain if you sign up for a year, and you get a
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website and hosting all taken care of.
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Every website is capable of having a store on it, or you can just make a
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blog, or you can set up a portfolio for your work. And if you choose good
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images, basically that's all it comes down to. If you choose good-looking
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images, then your site will look awesome, whether it's on a desktop, a
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notebook, a phone, or whatever the case may be because Squarespace is all about
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making the web more beautiful. So, sign
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up today at squarespace.com and use offer code Linus to get 10% off your
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first purchase. So, if you buy a year, right, that's $8 a month plus you get a
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So, thanks to Squarespace for supporting our show and uh I'm supposed to do their
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slogan. I think Squarespace build it beautiful. I think the one I said at the
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beginning was their old slogan. Hopefully, they don't watch this, but you guys should watch it and go try it.
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Free trial. So, I think that's pretty much it.
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Thanks for watching, guys. If the video sucked, you know what to do. But if it
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was awesome, get subscribed, hit the
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like button, and even consider supporting us by using our affiliate
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code to shop at Amazon, buying a cool t-shirt like this one, or even with a
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direct monthly contribution through our community forum. Now that you're done
10:32
doing all that stuff, you're probably wondering what to watch next. So, click
10:35
that little button in the top right corner, the little eye, to check out our
10:39
Radeon R9 Fury X video, which hope
10:43
you've probably actually already watched if you're into this kind of stuff, but it's a pretty sick graphics card. Got
10:48
like water cooling on it. Good stuff. Go watch that or something else of ours or
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someone else's video, I guess. Just
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I don't know what to say anymore.
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I'm wearing an Apple Watch. Do I look cooler yet?