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MSI GX600 Performance Laptop Review

Mobile/Laptops & Netbooks by jmke @ 2008-04-02

MSI laptops are becoming more popular with good reason, offering excellent performance at competitive prices. Their latest gaming laptop comes with retro style Turbo button which overclocks the CPU on the fly. Equipped with 8600M GT and 2Gb ram this multimedia power house aims to impress.

GX600 A Look Inside & More About Fingerprints

A look inside

MSI GX600 did not make if difficult to service the laptop, you can swap out the hard drive and memory, only thing you need is a screwdriver and a bit of patience.

While there is a large sticker over on the backside warning you that “warranty voided if sticker is tampered with”, we checked with MSI who told us that warranty is not voided if you change memory/HDD.

(click to zoom)

The battery pack is easy to remove and rather compact, while it’s not lightweight bringing a second one when on a long trip, will not take much room in your suitcase/backpack.

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The hard drive is standard 2.5” size, a Western Digital 250Gb SATA model:

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The other flap reveals the CPU, chipset and GPU area, as well as give you access to the memory modules. Two large flat heat pipes transport heat from the CPU and GPU towards the rear of the laptop where a rather small cools a set of copper fins down.

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The memory modules are cascaded, the GX600P comes with 2x1Gb, you can upgrade to more if needed in the future, the laptop takes DDR2-667 SO-DIMM, which is quite affordable nowadays.

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Finger Prints

An exaggerated illustration of the thumbprints issue on the piano black finish:

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It takes a few seconds to clean up, if you have the cloth in reach:

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Enough about smudges and inside bits, time to open the lid and take a closer look at the keyboard ->

Comment from jmke @ 2008/04/02

my first lappy review, what is missing, what can I do better in the future?

Comment from Massman @ 2008/04/03

I like it, compleet, good pictures, good benchmarks ... I have nothing to comment on (yet

)

Comment from thorgal @ 2008/04/04

Quote:

Originally Posted by jmke

my first lappy review, what is missing, what can I do better in the future?

Like the review very much, read the whole thing

Only thing that I'd like to be more elaborated are the battery tests, or rather "a" battery test, if possible a repeatable one.

Comment from jmke @ 2008/04/04

this test is repeatable

running 3DMark06 in loop until system shuts down isn't very hard

Comment from thorgal @ 2008/04/04

Quote:

Originally Posted by jmke

this test is repeatable

running 3DMark06 in loop until system shuts down isn't very hard

Not really light use hey

A battery test should consist out of two or three scenario's : for example: wireless browsing while listening to music (1), watching a DVD (2), gaming (or 3D06 if you like) (3).

Comment from Massman @ 2008/04/04

in two different test environments: Power saving and at full speed.

Comment from jmke @ 2008/04/04

Quote:

Originally Posted by thorgal

Not really light use hey

A battery test should consist out of two or three scenario's : for example: wireless browsing while listening to music (1), watching a DVD (2), gaming (or 3D06 if you like) (3).

scenario 1 & 3 are mentioned in article

Comment from thorgal @ 2008/04/04

Quote:

Originally Posted by jmke

scenario 1 & 3 are mentioned in article

You said it : "mentioned". Put an exact figure (minutes) on it to compare in future laptop reviews.

Comment from jmke @ 2008/04/04

Balanced
2.2Ghz (stock) 3Dmark06 loop: 49min
2.2Ghz (stock) Idle browsing: 120min

Comment from geoffrey @ 2008/04/09

At work, we test batteries by loading them with a heavy duty resistor. A pc browsing the net will average at around X current, while heavy load will make it consume Y current. You can simulate X and Y situations by using different resistor configurations. Not exactly a real time benchmark, but you do get exact results this way. Downside, you might kill the battery when running it completely empty, you need an automatic stop circuit, for example when the battery voltage drops below 11V (no idea how much is really need to make the PC shut down). Nothing too hard to build, costs nearly nothing too.

Comment from jmke @ 2008/04/09

drop me a line when you're up to the challenge

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