Derrick
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- Joined
- Nov 22, 2010
- Messages
- 5,085
- Reaction score
- 5
The performance is mediocre for gaming, and the whole package seems more style than substance. It’s a cut above the usual integrated graphics found in business notebooks and may be suitable for light gaming at low resolutions.
The MSI GX700 is a notebook that makes no pretences about its function. From the sleek black finish with flames to the bundled backpack, 2500dpi mouse, and headset, it screams gaming through and through.
This is exactly what MSI was aiming for, in an attempt to create a notebook that gamers would do more than scoff at when it appears at a LAN party.
However, looks are only skin deep, and unfortunately for the G X700, what’s hot under the hood counts for more than the flames on top of it. I n this regard, it fails to deliver the kind of performance gamers are going to be looking for in today’s modern games.
Even last-generation titles from 2006, such as F.E.A.R. are not going to be playable at the native 1,920 x 1,200 resolution of the giant 17” widescreen LCD. N ewer games like BioShock are likely only going to run at low resolutions such as 800 x 600 and probably low graphics detail as well, thanks to the underwhelming GeForce 8600M G T that powers the graphics on the G X700.
Since the G X700 makes such a bold statement about D irectX10 support with the stickers on it, and ships with Vista preinstalled, we will assume that the majority of users buying it for gaming are going to be looking for that kind of support.
We installed several games with D X10 support and ran benchmarks, in each case allowing the game to autoconfigure itself to appropriate settings once we applied the latest patches. We did not manually adjust quality or resolution.
In Crysis, the flagship DX10 title at the moment, performance was a slideshow-like 8.11FPS. World In Conflict gave us a spread of 4FPS minimum, 6FPS average, and 12FPS maximum. Unreal Tournament 3 fared the best with a 30.15FPS average, but only exceeded 30FPS, which many gamers consider the minimum playable speed, 64% of the time.
While it is possible to improve performance by lowering quality and detail in each game below defaults, we doubt that most gamers would consider that an acceptable solution. 3DMark06 also confirmed our assessment with a score barely above 3,000, which is similar to a high-end gaming PC of mid-2004 (Athlon F X-55 & GeForce 6800 Ultra).
The 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 D uo T7700 gives plenty of CPU power, and 2GB of RAM seems like a good deal, but it can only use the obsolete 533MHz and 667MHz versions of DDR 2, which will drag performance down. 1GB of faster DDR 2- 800 would likely perform better in many games.
Likewise the 250GB SATA HD is a nice thought, but a smaller 7,200rpm HD would have yielded better performance.
One of the major problems we found was the keyboard. Several keys have been compressed on the right side to make room for a full-size number pad, which seems an odd addition for gamers. The sub-standard arrow keys and shift key on the right will likely drive both gamers and typists crazy with constant misses. We
would definitely have preferred a full size keyboard instead.
In other respects, it’s a reasonably good laptop. The screen is big and bright with a good response time. Outputs include an HDMI port, which is a bit novel, and the drive reads HD-DVD, though we suspect this will change now that Blu-Ray has gained the upper hand in the home video market.
The bundled mouse is a cut above the usual in that it’s full sized and a 2,500dpi gaming mouse, the same OEM design as the OCZ Equalizer, A4Tech X7, and Trust Predator. The bundled headset and backpack are also a nice touch.
In the end though we can’t overlook the lacklustre performance in games, which is the main target of this product.
This is mostly due to the anaemic 8600M graphics chip, which is even less powerful than its much-maligned desktop counterpart, which is already inadequate for most new games.
The MSI GX700 is a notebook that makes no pretences about its function. From the sleek black finish with flames to the bundled backpack, 2500dpi mouse, and headset, it screams gaming through and through.
This is exactly what MSI was aiming for, in an attempt to create a notebook that gamers would do more than scoff at when it appears at a LAN party.
However, looks are only skin deep, and unfortunately for the G X700, what’s hot under the hood counts for more than the flames on top of it. I n this regard, it fails to deliver the kind of performance gamers are going to be looking for in today’s modern games.
Even last-generation titles from 2006, such as F.E.A.R. are not going to be playable at the native 1,920 x 1,200 resolution of the giant 17” widescreen LCD. N ewer games like BioShock are likely only going to run at low resolutions such as 800 x 600 and probably low graphics detail as well, thanks to the underwhelming GeForce 8600M G T that powers the graphics on the G X700.
Since the G X700 makes such a bold statement about D irectX10 support with the stickers on it, and ships with Vista preinstalled, we will assume that the majority of users buying it for gaming are going to be looking for that kind of support.
We installed several games with D X10 support and ran benchmarks, in each case allowing the game to autoconfigure itself to appropriate settings once we applied the latest patches. We did not manually adjust quality or resolution.
In Crysis, the flagship DX10 title at the moment, performance was a slideshow-like 8.11FPS. World In Conflict gave us a spread of 4FPS minimum, 6FPS average, and 12FPS maximum. Unreal Tournament 3 fared the best with a 30.15FPS average, but only exceeded 30FPS, which many gamers consider the minimum playable speed, 64% of the time.
While it is possible to improve performance by lowering quality and detail in each game below defaults, we doubt that most gamers would consider that an acceptable solution. 3DMark06 also confirmed our assessment with a score barely above 3,000, which is similar to a high-end gaming PC of mid-2004 (Athlon F X-55 & GeForce 6800 Ultra).
The 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 D uo T7700 gives plenty of CPU power, and 2GB of RAM seems like a good deal, but it can only use the obsolete 533MHz and 667MHz versions of DDR 2, which will drag performance down. 1GB of faster DDR 2- 800 would likely perform better in many games.
Likewise the 250GB SATA HD is a nice thought, but a smaller 7,200rpm HD would have yielded better performance.
One of the major problems we found was the keyboard. Several keys have been compressed on the right side to make room for a full-size number pad, which seems an odd addition for gamers. The sub-standard arrow keys and shift key on the right will likely drive both gamers and typists crazy with constant misses. We
would definitely have preferred a full size keyboard instead.
In other respects, it’s a reasonably good laptop. The screen is big and bright with a good response time. Outputs include an HDMI port, which is a bit novel, and the drive reads HD-DVD, though we suspect this will change now that Blu-Ray has gained the upper hand in the home video market.
The bundled mouse is a cut above the usual in that it’s full sized and a 2,500dpi gaming mouse, the same OEM design as the OCZ Equalizer, A4Tech X7, and Trust Predator. The bundled headset and backpack are also a nice touch.
In the end though we can’t overlook the lacklustre performance in games, which is the main target of this product.
This is mostly due to the anaemic 8600M graphics chip, which is even less powerful than its much-maligned desktop counterpart, which is already inadequate for most new games.