MSI GS60 Ghost Pro 3K Edition (2PEWi716SR21) Notebook Review

[Redaktion]

Flat companion. Flat gaming is popular. No, we don't mean 2D games, but thin gaming notebooks like the MSI GS60. The 15.6-inch device is supposed to provide excellent mobility with a height of almost 2 centimeters and powerful hardware. Our review shows you, why this is going to be a hot ride.

http://www.notebookcheck.net/MSI-GS60-Ghost-Pro-3K-Edition-2PEWi716SR21-Notebook-Review.118569.0.html

[Throttling]

You had some concerns over throttling of the GPU & CPU in your tests.  You seeked to prove that there were no throttling issues by running 3DMark06 and comparing cold vs warm runs to see if there was a performance difference, you saw that there was no difference in performance & concluded that throttling wasn't an issue.  The problem with this is that 3DMark06 does not stress the GPU to 100% load, because it is a CPU limited benchmark with modern GPU's - I know this because I get low GPU load on my system when running 3DMark06.  Therefore your conclusion is not a conclusion, it's inconclusive in fact.  You also run Furmark & Prim95 at the same time again & unsurprisingly see loads of throttling.  Can you stop using Furmark, it's not representative of temperatures and throttling seen in games as the loads are artificially high.  The fact that you used 3DMark06 & Furmark to assess if there were any throttling issues with this laptop are quite possibly the worst choices you could have made to provide any clarity as to how this laptop would behave in gaming scenarios. 

There are better options out there for assessing the throttling & temperature behaviour of laptops.  Please can you use extended (30min) Unigine Heaven Benchmark runs to assess if there are GPU throttling issues.  This is very representative of gaming loads, and is also very controllable for you as it runs on a continuous loop.  You've used Heaven Benchmark before, but  you neglected to use it in this review.

Your site's reviews are really good, but I just don't understand why you hang on to using Furmark, and also 3DMark06.  Both tests show nothing about how modern systems perform, they are antiquated.  I know you probably find it hard to remove these from your testing suites because you want to have some standards of comparison from one year to the next, but this software has become irrelevant now & actually now provides misleading information that detracts from the rest of your excellent reviews.  Other sites update their testing regimes to keep them relevant, I think you should consider doing the same.

[Yavuz]

I have never seen 78 °C in a notebook  :o I think it will be broken so quickly

[Gadgeteer]

760m plus Fhd plus i5
And you get much cheaper and cooler alternative

[Florian Schmitt]

You had some concerns over throttling of the GPU & CPU in your tests.  You seeked to prove that there were no throttling issues by running 3DMark06 and comparing cold vs warm runs to see if there was a performance difference, you saw that there was no difference in performance & concluded that throttling wasn't an issue.  The problem with this is that 3DMark06 does not stress the GPU to 100% load, because it is a CPU limited benchmark with modern GPU's - I know this because I get low GPU load on my system when running 3DMark06.  Therefore your conclusion is not a conclusion, it's inconclusive in fact.  You also run Furmark & Prim95 at the same time again & unsurprisingly see loads of throttling.  Can you stop using Furmark, it's not representative of temperatures and throttling seen in games as the loads are artificially high.  The fact that you used 3DMark06 & Furmark to assess if there were any throttling issues with this laptop are quite possibly the worst choices you could have made to provide any clarity as to how this laptop would behave in gaming scenarios. 

There are better options out there for assessing the throttling & temperature behaviour of laptops.  Please can you use extended (30min) Unigine Heaven Benchmark runs to assess if there are GPU throttling issues.  This is very representative of gaming loads, and is also very controllable for you as it runs on a continuous loop.  You've used Heaven Benchmark before, but  you neglected to use it in this review.

Your site's reviews are really good, but I just don't understand why you hang on to using Furmark, and also 3DMark06.  Both tests show nothing about how modern systems perform, they are antiquated.  I know you probably find it hard to remove these from your testing suites because you want to have some standards of comparison from one year to the next, but this software has become irrelevant now & actually now provides misleading information that detracts from the rest of your excellent reviews.  Other sites update their testing regimes to keep them relevant, I think you should consider doing the same.

Hi,

we totally understand your concerns. We chose FurMark and Prime95 exactly for that reason: To put the system under absolute full pressure and to see how it performs there. We want to see if the graphics card does throttle at all and if it doesn't do that under full pressure you can be sure that you will have a system that is future proof and can also now run the most demanding software without slowing down. We chose 3DMark06 also for the reason that you mention: It doesn't challenge the graphics card to it's limits any longer. But that's exactly what we wanted: We want to see how the graphics card is performing under medium stress after two hours under full pressure. If there is a difference to the results from cold start (which we have seen often enough with other devices) then we can say whether the graphics card will throttle under normal circumstances when under high but not full pressure or not.
However, your comment is valuable to us and it will certainly influence our ongoing internal discussion about how we review.

Thanks again and best regards
Florian

[Throttling]

You had some concerns over throttling of the GPU & CPU in your tests.  You seeked to prove that there were no throttling issues by running 3DMark06 and comparing cold vs warm runs to see if there was a performance difference, you saw that there was no difference in performance & concluded that throttling wasn't an issue.  The problem with this is that 3DMark06 does not stress the GPU to 100% load, because it is a CPU limited benchmark with modern GPU's - I know this because I get low GPU load on my system when running 3DMark06.  Therefore your conclusion is not a conclusion, it's inconclusive in fact.  You also run Furmark & Prim95 at the same time again & unsurprisingly see loads of throttling.  Can you stop using Furmark, it's not representative of temperatures and throttling seen in games as the loads are artificially high.  The fact that you used 3DMark06 & Furmark to assess if there were any throttling issues with this laptop are quite possibly the worst choices you could have made to provide any clarity as to how this laptop would behave in gaming scenarios. 

There are better options out there for assessing the throttling & temperature behaviour of laptops.  Please can you use extended (30min) Unigine Heaven Benchmark runs to assess if there are GPU throttling issues.  This is very representative of gaming loads, and is also very controllable for you as it runs on a continuous loop.  You've used Heaven Benchmark before, but  you neglected to use it in this review.

Your site's reviews are really good, but I just don't understand why you hang on to using Furmark, and also 3DMark06.  Both tests show nothing about how modern systems perform, they are antiquated.  I know you probably find it hard to remove these from your testing suites because you want to have some standards of comparison from one year to the next, but this software has become irrelevant now & actually now provides misleading information that detracts from the rest of your excellent reviews.  Other sites update their testing regimes to keep them relevant, I think you should consider doing the same.

Hi,

we totally understand your concerns. We chose FurMark and Prime95 exactly for that reason: To put the system under absolute full pressure and to see how it performs there. We want to see if the graphics card does throttle at all and if it doesn't do that under full pressure you can be sure that you will have a system that is future proof and can also now run the most demanding software without slowing down. We chose 3DMark06 also for the reason that you mention: It doesn't challenge the graphics card to it's limits any longer. But that's exactly what we wanted: We want to see how the graphics card is performing under medium stress after two hours under full pressure. If there is a difference to the results from cold start (which we have seen often enough with other devices) then we can say whether the graphics card will throttle under normal circumstances when under high but not full pressure or not.
However, your comment is valuable to us and it will certainly influence our ongoing internal discussion about how we review.

Thanks again and best regards
Florian

Hi Florian, thanks for taking the time to respond to my comment, and I'm glad that you've taken it on board to potentially influence the future choices your site makes on future stress testing software.  I understand your response & what you have written, and I appreciate that, but I do think your reasoning is still flawed for all of the reasons I mentioned in my initial post.  It's OK, you don't need to respond to this one, I'm just pleased that you're willing to take on board comments & suggestions & hopefully have them influence your future decisions on choosing relevant stress testing software.  I feel that this is the only place where your reviews are consistently lacking in relevance, everything else is great - keep up the good work, your site is the best on the net for laptop reviews in my opinion, work to keep it that way. :-) 

[Florian Schmitt]

You had some concerns over throttling of the GPU & CPU in your tests.  You seeked to prove that there were no throttling issues by running 3DMark06 and comparing cold vs warm runs to see if there was a performance difference, you saw that there was no difference in performance & concluded that throttling wasn't an issue.  The problem with this is that 3DMark06 does not stress the GPU to 100% load, because it is a CPU limited benchmark with modern GPU's - I know this because I get low GPU load on my system when running 3DMark06.  Therefore your conclusion is not a conclusion, it's inconclusive in fact.  You also run Furmark & Prim95 at the same time again & unsurprisingly see loads of throttling.  Can you stop using Furmark, it's not representative of temperatures and throttling seen in games as the loads are artificially high.  The fact that you used 3DMark06 & Furmark to assess if there were any throttling issues with this laptop are quite possibly the worst choices you could have made to provide any clarity as to how this laptop would behave in gaming scenarios. 

There are better options out there for assessing the throttling & temperature behaviour of laptops.  Please can you use extended (30min) Unigine Heaven Benchmark runs to assess if there are GPU throttling issues.  This is very representative of gaming loads, and is also very controllable for you as it runs on a continuous loop.  You've used Heaven Benchmark before, but  you neglected to use it in this review.

Your site's reviews are really good, but I just don't understand why you hang on to using Furmark, and also 3DMark06.  Both tests show nothing about how modern systems perform, they are antiquated.  I know you probably find it hard to remove these from your testing suites because you want to have some standards of comparison from one year to the next, but this software has become irrelevant now & actually now provides misleading information that detracts from the rest of your excellent reviews.  Other sites update their testing regimes to keep them relevant, I think you should consider doing the same.

Hi,

we totally understand your concerns. We chose FurMark and Prime95 exactly for that reason: To put the system under absolute full pressure and to see how it performs there. We want to see if the graphics card does throttle at all and if it doesn't do that under full pressure you can be sure that you will have a system that is future proof and can also now run the most demanding software without slowing down. We chose 3DMark06 also for the reason that you mention: It doesn't challenge the graphics card to it's limits any longer. But that's exactly what we wanted: We want to see how the graphics card is performing under medium stress after two hours under full pressure. If there is a difference to the results from cold start (which we have seen often enough with other devices) then we can say whether the graphics card will throttle under normal circumstances when under high but not full pressure or not.
However, your comment is valuable to us and it will certainly influence our ongoing internal discussion about how we review.

Thanks again and best regards
Florian

Hi Florian, thanks for taking the time to respond to my comment, and I'm glad that you've taken it on board to potentially influence the future choices your site makes on future stress testing software.  I understand your response & what you have written, and I appreciate that, but I do think your reasoning is still flawed for all of the reasons I mentioned in my initial post.  It's OK, you don't need to respond to this one, I'm just pleased that you're willing to take on board comments & suggestions & hopefully have them influence your future decisions on choosing relevant stress testing software.  I feel that this is the only place where your reviews are consistently lacking in relevance, everything else is great - keep up the good work, your site is the best on the net for laptop reviews in my opinion, work to keep it that way. :-)

Thanks, we'll definitely consider it :)

[Hector Santamaria]

lifespan that time has this processor working at 75 and reaching 90 degrees and I'm almost 5-6 hours a day playing ...

[Tiago Michelan]

Hey, I'm really waiting for the MSI GS60 Ghost gtx 860m review. Are you guys intending to do that ??

great job, btw!

[sidney]

if something isn't acceptable ...why give it an 80% rating, why not give it a 0% overall and send a message that overheating laptops to the point of consumer injury is not acceptable period.

[Irfan Muhammad Wikaputra]

PLEASE MAKE REVIEW OF GTX 870M SLI
PLEASE PLEASE...
thank you

[Krafty]

I purchased this model a week ago. My primary use case is gaming while travelling and, most often, gaming on a hotel desk. So far, I am extremely happy with the size, weight and power this machine offers. I seriously considered it against the Razor Blade but prefer the better feel of the keyboard of the MSI and the larger screen. I hope I dont suffer a short life due to heat although I understand it has a 2 year manufacturers warranty. The other thing to consider on the negative side is the size of the power brick. It is fairly flat and backpack friendly but it is pretty heavy. Not sure how that compares to the others but in the weight category, all models should be weighed with the power brick included since that is what most of us will be lugging around. Thanks again for a great review!

[Kai Chen]

Hello, I got some different data from my SSD test to yours.
here are my screenshots:
http://i.imgur.com/2yJ5t7F.png
http://i.imgur.com/r7adGZn.png
http://i.imgur.com/6AhJNcP.png

[earl]

Great job. thanks. could you also put the max recorded temps for the CPU and GPU in the temperature section.

Also, the section on terperature cites exterior temperatures of 78 degrees celsius. However the picture with 9 sections of the top and bottom only show a max temperature of 36.5 degrees celsius.

[joseph kracko]

It appears that this new 15 inch chassis just can't handle the heat that the quad core and 870 put out.  But I do love everything else about it.  MSI should really put out a dual core/840 version at a lower price point, for the more casual gamer, or for anyone who doesn't want to burn their legs while gaming.