iBuyPower GT72 Dominator Notebook Review Update

[Redaktion]

You've got the power. We provide some more benchmarks and comparison numbers for our second look at the MSI GT72 with GTX 980M graphics. In short: This is performance that rivals a system with GTX 780M SLI graphics.

http://www.notebookcheck.net/iBuyPower-GT72-Dominator-Notebook-Review-Update.130456.0.html

[Seriously...Furmark?!]

Come on guys, why are you still using Furmark?!  Furmark has even less relevance than ever now that the new GPUs have sophisticated power managment features, it's just not anywhere near close to a relevant real world test - it has no value, when you continue to use Furmark to draw conclusions all it does is muddy the waters.  All notebooks will throttle when using Furmark, so it doesn't provide useful distinctions between the different throttling & temperature characteristics of different notebooks.  Furmark is an unrealistic power virus  that places loads on the GPU that will never be seen during gaming.  Instead, use Heaven Benchmark or a long session of Crysis 3 to ensure a consistent 100% GPU load under realistic conditions - it's far more insightful and will provide meaningful distinctions between the notebooks you test.

Your reviews are really good apart from this glaring oversight, I find it so surprising that you can push out such good & sensible reviews yet continue with the confusion causing & irrelevant Furmark; I know you've used it since the Dawn of Time but that's no reason to keep on using it, that's the point - testing methods need to keep pace with changes in technology.

[MathiasHT]

Will you be reviewing the new GS70 (2QE), with 970M?

[Allen.Ngo]

hey guys,

We use FurMark because it is tradition like you stated. However, it wouldn't hurt for us to stress test with Heaven also, so we'll add that in today. Thanks for the feedback

We have the GS70 coming with 970M as well so that will be soon too :)

[Seriously...Furmark?!]

hey guys,

We use FurMark because it is tradition like you stated. However, it wouldn't hurt for us to stress test with Heaven also, so we'll add that in today. Thanks for the feedback

We have the GS70 coming with 970M as well so that will be soon too :)

Cool, that's really good to hear, often times I'm curious about what temperatures & clocks can be achieved on the GPU on a more real world test, and Heaven Benchmark is a good choice for that test - I'm pleased that you'll be including it.  When you do that test it would be useful to know how long you run it for and what the stable GPU clocks were (as well as temperatures of course).  Excellent, that's great news, thanks again, that means we'll have good info on throttling & temperature behaviour from here on out. :-)

[MathiasHT]

aaaand when will the GS70 review be published?   ;D

[GorbazTheDragon]

My MSi GT60 showed similar symptoms, which were a result of a badly programmed BIOS only allowing the laptop to use 120 rather than 190w. In certain games and most artificial stress tests the CPU would throttle to 800MHz regularly unless it was clamped to a non-turbo speed (anything below 2.5GHz seemed fine)

Went through to intel with this initially, they were pretty much convinced the problem was with MSi's BIOS... Looks like they still have the same problem...