MSI GX640 Review

[Joseph@XoticPC]

Ok guys this isnt my full review or anything, but i was pretty excited about some of the scores we are getting on this new machine. Especially for its price!


Thumbnails attached below. stable HD5870 clocks(to clarify in case it is mis-read I overclocked the HD5850 to clocks a bit better than the HD5870 and they are stable) all for 1159!!

[kingtz]

12k+ on 3DM06 with the 5850? That's pretty damn good! Can't wait to see the rest of the benchmarks and temps.

[Joseph@XoticPC]

Keep in mind too this has the i5-430 too! I got 7500 on vantage by overclocking the GPU core to 724.95 and the memory to 1100. Were probably going to throw an i7-620 or i7-920 in there to see what we can come up with score wise.

Honestly now I want one of these. The cooling on it is simply amazing me right now. The screen is nice, the aluminum chassis I love.

[Fr0st]

VERY impressive for that price. I think I will stick with my G73, but will be recommending this to my more casual gamer friends looking for a decent and cheap lappy :)

[Virtuoso57]

Keep in mind too this has the i5-430 too! I got 7500 on vantage by overclocking the GPU core to 724.95 and the memory to 1100. Were probably going to throw an i7-620 or i7-920 in there to see what we can come up with score wise.

Honestly now I want one of these. The cooling on it is simply amazing me right now. The screen is nice, the aluminum chassis I love.

When you say the cooling is amazing, are we talking G73 temps?
Is it just me, or can anyone read the temperatures in the pictures?

[Solannis]

I cannot see any of those screen shots. They are too small on my monitor to make out anything other than the benchmark score in the center. Any way you could post slightly bigger shots?

That being said, I can't wait to get mine!

[fd212]

Those scores look nice! When can we expect them to ship out? Mine is currently in phase 2, but I've customized it.

[lackofcheese]

I've seen similar results elsewhere for the GX640, but the performance at stock clocks seems to be much lower than it ought to be. With increases of ~20% in core clocks and ~10% in memory clocks, the GPU score is jumping from ~5k to ~8k. There's no way clock speeds alone are responsible for that.
Any clues what the cause might be?

Also, is the cooling really that amazing? I've heard it maxes at around 80 degrees when gaming, and 90-something running Furmark (dunno what the ambient temperatures were for those results, though). I don't know much about gaming laptops, but to me those results seem solid, but not quite amazing.

One thing I would like to see is a battery life test, for light usage such as internet browsing.

[powerpack]

?? Lies or you might be wrong? I really do not know but what you say or the other cannot happen.

[Tree_Burner]

no it's true. i've seen similar reviews to the one lack of cheese has said. in the original clock, the PCIe says it's set at x1 instead of x16. it only changes after an overclock.

[wroy12]

Thanks for your preview, but can you replace with large screen shots and more game test result ?

[Joseph@XoticPC]

I am not sure why the images are show up as so small. They certainly weren't shrunk down on purpose by me. I will have a look to see if i can make them bigger.

And yes on the benchmarks I ran i didnt see the temps go over 83 C. I am very surprised that even overclocked this laptop is killing it in the cooling department.

I too am also confused how the scores jump up so much when you overclock the cpu. 5500 to 7635 is just too large of a jump for such a modest stable overclock. I will mess with the clocks a bit more to see what is causing such a great difference.

[lackofcheese]

One thing to test would be the performance when you overclock by something like 1MHz on core and memory - it shouldn't make a difference, but if it does, it proves something else is the culprit.

Others have suggested power management might be the cause, and the PCIe showing as x1 might also be related.

[GIG.AD]

Would love to see benchmarks with a i7-620m.
920XM would be insane, would love to see those too but not sure if the cooling is that good.
Do you guys even offer the 920XM in these?

[Joseph@XoticPC]

We will offer the 920xm on this unit as soon as we test one and make sure that it is stable. I do plan on slapping a 920 in here to see what kind of scores we can come up with.

[Solannis]

When you do that, please see about measuring the heat during extended game play (or similar stress-related computing situation). I would be interested to know how this laptop holds up under stress with that kind of proc in it.

On a related note, if I decide I want to upgrade to that processor after you've already sent mine out to me, can I send it back (with a check, of course) for an upgrade within some amount of time? It's not an option for me today, but if the 920XM does become one and the heat is not an option, I would certainly be interested in it.

[Tree_Burner]

anxiously awaiting the rest of the review. when is it coming?

[Tom Sawyer]

I received my GX640 today, stock config and I'm very pleased with it so far. I've just thrown a few steam games at it (LFD, HL2, UT3) and they were liquid smooth. Build quality is solid, screen is nice (glossy but the anti-glare is very effective). Have not tried any OC yet... but for my first gaming laptop I'm quite impressed. The air coming out of the vent is definitely not cool... and the fan does run fairly constant but is not annoying in it's level/frequency. Has been cracking RC5 keys all day and is rock solid..... :)

[Solannis]

Hey Joseph,

The pictures on the Asus N61AJ review are great and very readable. Can you please retake/repost the pictures for the MSI GX640 so we can see them clearly?

[Solannis]

Just received my new laptop today. It wiill take me a few hours to perform a clean install (just the way I like it done), document it and then image it, after which I will start providing some initial thoughts. I'm so excited!

[marcingens]

We will offer the 920xm on this unit as soon as we test one and make sure that it is stable. I do plan on slapping a 920 in here to see what kind of scores we can come up with.

Any update on that yet? ;-) looking forward to see some numbers with a 920xm on it aswell as temps after some long session of gaming! After much reading about 15" gaming laptops (while still being somewhat portable) I've finally made up my mind on the MSI640GX (over the envy for example) but now I wonder which would be the best cpu for it. Right now I'm considering the 620 although I would like to see how big is the impact of the 920xm in terms of temperatures, performance and battery (watts usage). Would be much appreciate if you could test that! :)

Just received my new laptop today. It wiill take me a few hours to perform a clean install (just the way I like it done), document it and then image it, after which I will start providing some initial thoughts. I'm so excited!

Solannis, I've been eagerly awaiting for your initial thoughts as you aquired a very similar setup to the one I'm aiming for. Wonder if it's *that* good ;-)

[Gemmer]

The score jump does seem odd, if it is 1x, would the 16x jump reduce battery life?

[Solar strom]

very nice post.

[s-one]

Me waiting too. :-)