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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.

The Screen, Noise Reading & HDMI

15.4” Screen

The standard size of most laptops now is 15.4”, the glossy screen is popular too, so it’s no surprise to see this type of LCD panel used on MSI’s mainstream GX600 notebook. Available with different resolutions, the basic models come at 1280x800.

This average resolution is a mixed blessing; while it reduces screen estate and forces you to scroll quite a bit, the lower resolution allows the onboard VGA play games at native resolution without too much struggle. While a 8600M GT can hardly be considered high end, it does stand a good chance for providing playable frame rates in most games at the 15.4” native resolution of 1280x800.

Taking a closer look at the glossy screen, we took snapshots at different viewing angles. The left/right angle is quite wide; up/down is less impressive, so make sure to have the screen at the correct angle to get the best picture.

(click to zoom)

At the top of the screen is a 1.3MPixel webcam, this one can be disabled/enabled by use of the hotkey on the motherboard, MSI did not provide any software for the webcam, but the driver worked perfectly under Windows Vista and MSN Messenger recognized it without issue.

Madshrimps (c)

Noise Reading

In a quiet room late at night with ambient noise level slightly below 36dBA we held our dBA meter over the front of the laptop ; when running idle (web browsing/movie) we got this result :

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At ~4dBA over ambient the laptop’s fan was noticeable but not very disturbing. When under load (gaming/benchmark/heavy applications) the noise level was much higher though:

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At ~12dBA over ambient the fan in the GX600 is definitely very noisy; luckily the fan scales back quickly once the CPU is idle again, so after a heavy game session the fan will become quiet not long after.

HDMI Test

Using the onboard Geforce 8600M GT, through NVIDIA control panel we could set the native resolution for 720p and connect a Panasonic Plasma Panel over HDMI, image quality was perfect, and playing high definition content was as good looking as directly from PS3/XBOX.

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One noticeable downside though is the absence of sound over HDMI; you need to separately connect audio from the laptop to your home theater.

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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