windwithme

Recent years the biggest change on PC market, I think that must be the drop of the DIY market.
We can see that change easily, many years ago, the PC markets was full of people when weekend.

Consider to the market, the most reason must be the rise of NB market.
Because of the huge price dropped, now many entry level NB products did not have the specific price gap compare with PC platforms.
All the NB makers also stay focus on NB business market share growing.

There are 3 main segment on the market:
Light and small segment, mostly belongs to 12inch design, but most of them did not have the independent graphic core so the performance is lower.
14inch is average in many aspects, comes with independent graphics to have higher performance. That’s popular in ASIA.
The last segment is the size over 15inch design, besides the screen is bigger; they also have the most external interface.
This is the segment which can be the PC replacement, more on desk and less on trip.

This time we have the MSI newest NB product here.
MSI GX600, 15.4inch LCD / 250GB HDD / 8600GTM / 2.6kg
Dedicate belongs to performance platform, even it’s 15.4inch design, but the weight compare with 14inch is very close..

The BOX design.


Bundle with knapsack, easy to carry GX600.




The accessories.


The long life battery with 9Cell 7200mAh.
Use this battery will make the weight become 2.8kg


MSI GX600 itself.
There is the detail spec. sticker out side.


The outlooks of GX600 also got special fire totem design.

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Left side IO
LAN port / Modem port / 2x USB2.0 / DVD Super-Multi / HD-DVD Combo.


Right side IO
Power / D-Sub / S-Video / HDMI / 2x USB2.0 / IEEE1394 / eSATA port.


Full of the heatsink holes.
All copper sink inside with good heat spread effect.



GX600 comes with different totems than other MSI NB products.


Silver push button comes with the LCD panel hold design.
Below is the MMC / SD / MS card reader.
Ear phone out / MIC in/ AUX in ports.


Inside design


Up right side above keyboard,
The red block is the DOLBY audio speaker output, the left one is power button.
The key button in the middle is the TURBO.
When we push this button, that will flash with orange light, and will make the CPU overclock with 20% frequency enhance with FSB overclock.


Inside above, 15.4inch wide screen LCD, good 16:10 design for better image view.
This LCD panel is good on view angle and color present; so far this is the best one I’ve ever used before.


Push the TURBO button will auto overclock CPU to have 20% higher frequency.
The light will flash with /orange color.


BIOS also have the FSB overclock options.
CPU FSB adjust up to 260MHz.

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DRAM also have multiplier options.


This gaming notebook is really powerful on performance.
Let’s take a look on 3D performance.
Independent graphic – NVIDIA 8600M GT 512MB VRAM
TURBO mode – CPU 2400MHz.

3DMARK2003


3DMARK2005


3DMARK2006



Gaming presents

Age of Empire 3
Let’s take a look in real game.
Setup: 1440*900 resolutions.


Frame rate is about 33~40 per second.
8600GT is able to handle most of new games.

VISTA test software.
Normal mode – CPU 2000MHz


TURBO mode – CPU 2400MHz



Even this is NoteBook, but this is performance gaming platform, so the test result is really good. GX600 use big capacity 250GB 5400RPM SATA HDD.

HD Tach


HD Tune


The key feature is overclock, so how is the stability?
Push the TURBO button, SP2004 is stable.

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2000Mhz-CINEBENCH R10


CryatalMark 2004R2
2000Mhz


2400Mhz


The summery of the GX600 test experience.


LCD: 15.4inch is big enough, color is good, is really suitable to use for gaming and media center platform.
Audio: 4.1 channel speakers is good with DOLBY support, MSI have great improvement on audio side, good for surround experience.
CPU: Taiwan retail version will use T7500 2.2GHz dual core CPU, will have higher performance.
HDD: 250GB SATA 5400RPM, is the highest on big size HDD. That will be perfect if we can use 7200RPM HDD here.
Shell: This time MSI have special totem design, but that’s not popular for everyone. If they can design different totems, that will be great.
Another story, the mirror surface painting is good, but that might be easy to get dirty.

I think as a high performance and overclock platform, MSI did have great effort on this NB with great hestsink design,
no matter idle or full speed, the fan speed is not very high, and it’s only about 50 degree.
When overclock or TURBO mode, fan speed will get higher, but with acceptable noise, that’s also the plus point.

For the price, of course other competitors also have products on same segment.
MSI GX600 takes 1700~1800USD, that’s not high price compare with others.

Points to improve:
Use 9Cell battery but only have 2.5 more hours with DVD playback.
The bundle laser mouse should use wireless design.

So far MSI come out different segment, Professional/ YA Edition/ Gaming/ Value? Crystal segments.
GX600 is for Gaming, comes with great overclock ability, and the cost is also lower then other gaming notebooks.
The notebook market will become more fun with MSI’s new products join it, we also have more different choices.

The next test:
ATI new high performance VGA – RADEON HD 3870 512M

geoffrey

I'm having my laptop on AC all day long, only reason I bought it is because it doesn't take too much space. Overclockable laptops would suite me, but the above product doesn't really interest me. It looks... well... I don't like it And no high-end vga :/