What are we imagining that the 300 MB/sec transfer rate that 2.5GB LAN affords you won't be good enough for over the life of this laptop? If you're buying a four thousand dollar laptop you're upgrading in the next three years for sure, anyway.
A Sabrent TB3 10Gbit Ethernet adapter (a plain Aquantia to all OS) is €100 and much smaller than the power supply. As 10Gbase-T can be a bit toasty it's good not to include in a chassis that already struggles with heat.
You can also use TB3/4 networking (use 32-64k block size for throughput, latency is lnfiniband low!), which should be really interesting with the new TB4 hubs, but with its random MACs it can be a bit of trouble, when the notebook isn't stationary.
As for the AMD options, I don't see that a design that modular vs. a separate product makes much sense for a notbook chassis.
I prefer my 5800X over any Rocket Lake, but after comparing a Tiger Lake NUC with an 5800U based Lenovo Slim notebook, I'd actually tend to think that the 4 extra cores (vs. higher clocks on TL) on a -U power budget far to rarely gain me any noticeable advantage on my workloads, while the Xe iGPU does rather consistently trump the Vega9.
Now with Tiger Lake and Ryzen 5000 8-cores in the 45 Watts class, I'd guess that Intel will lead at max power and thermals, while the energy efficiency advantages of AMD only get to play out in battery mode, which isn't the priority in this design.
On a desktop the 5950X may not win every fight against Alder Lake, but most of my workloads and without throwing a fit of thermals, noise and heat.
360hz is neither dumb, nor a useless trend. It's specifically for e-sports games where 360FPS should be no issue and high refresh rates are absolutely beneficial.
E-sports might be a niche requirement (albeit one worth billions of dollars a year now), but it's certainly a valid one. MSI is offering a bunch of different options for the screen anyway - no-one's being forced to choose that option if it doesn't meet their needs.
Yes it is. What's dumb is MSI clearly topped the 360Hz on the most sh*tty panel they could find.
Instead, what they should have done is use a "high-end" [600nit 16:10, QHD, 144Hz, 3ms, LTPO display with perfect colors] and then maybe build on that Spec to improve the refresh rate later on. Then nobody here would be complaining at all.
It really is particularly bizarre in a notebook. 1080p is a low resolution for a 17.3" display - at this price, the 4K 120Hz makes much more sense. You can always run at 1440p and use an upscaler if the performance isn't there to hit the display's full refresh rate, and Windows looks amazing at 200% scaling.
But the "Excel is Broken" key is vital to any modern office experience. Nothing matches the fun of not being able to work because your arrow keys suddenly stop doing what you expect.
MSI's been doing that for a number of years. I don't overly fault them for using the same physical keyboard in the US/abroad; but the extra key in the lower right could be mapped to something considerably less stupid (ie a menu/right click key; or a second windows key) for the US model. Their not doing that is a long standing mystery.
those are notebook, battery usage to performance should be the metrics that count here.. what I see here is +5% performance ( not in multithreading , mainly in storage and in gpu ( with a gpu that probably costs 1.5x the AMD's one ) ), and -30% battery life.. amd has won hands down
These laptops are nothing special. I can buy an open box RTX 3070 laptop from Bestbuy for $1299. The RTX 3080 is a pointless product, as it is just a 3070 in disguise, it doesn't use the RTX 3080 desktop chip.
$1299 or $3399, you're not getting a lot more for your money.
Comparing a mysterious, open-box 3070 laptop, with this up-spec'd, new-in-box, 3080 laptop... what's the point?
If someone thinks 3070 is as good as 3080 can buy this laptop starting at $2250 (according to the article) so immediately the price difference is halved.
Tomb Raider pulling out 10w more than the power supply can deliver is not good, it means you'll be losing charge as you play and the increased wear on the battery will cause the capacity to decay much faster.
They measured power draw at the wall, not after the power supply. Since the GE76 power supply is rated for 280 W that means it can supply 280 W to the system. There is loss in the power conversion process. If it's drawing 290 W from the wall I'm guessing it should be well within the limits of the power supply, as even if it had 90% efficiency at 290 W it would be providing 261 W to the system, which is well under the 280 W limit.
Oh, also, by measuring at the wall we can know for certain that the power supply is providing the power resulting from the 290 W draw: any power coming from the battery would not be measurable at the wall.
Yes... those that complain about a niche requirement they haven't understood. It's for eSports. (check out blurbusters.com or similar if you actually want to understand it).
Surely if you are testing a desktop replacement, a meaningful comparison point in benchmarks would be... a desktop?
That way you can see what level of tradeoff you are making in performance for the advantages of the form factor. Otherwise... you're comparing a laptop to other laptops, even though you say it's a desktop replacement.
No num lock indicator. This is a much more annoying design flaw than it might at first seem. Probably going to return this laptop because of that. I might have been able to adapt to an arrow button being where the 0 key should be, but not being able to tell if num lock is on its infuriatingly frustrating.
With per-key LED settings, you ought to be able to set up the key's LED as an indicator. If not already, I'm sure some combination of utilities should make it possible.
We’ve updated our terms. By continuing to use the site and/or by logging into your account, you agree to the Site’s updated Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
33 Comments
Back to Article
Vitor - Wednesday, September 8, 2021 - link
360hz display is a really dumb, useless trend.YB1064 - Wednesday, September 8, 2021 - link
Almost $4k and no 10GBe or AMD options. Who, besides a North Korean dictator's son would buy this?garblah - Wednesday, September 8, 2021 - link
What are we imagining that the 300 MB/sec transfer rate that 2.5GB LAN affords you won't be good enough for over the life of this laptop? If you're buying a four thousand dollar laptop you're upgrading in the next three years for sure, anyway.shabby - Wednesday, September 8, 2021 - link
4k "videos" take too long to transfer at that speed...abufrejoval - Wednesday, September 8, 2021 - link
A Sabrent TB3 10Gbit Ethernet adapter (a plain Aquantia to all OS) is €100 and much smaller than the power supply. As 10Gbase-T can be a bit toasty it's good not to include in a chassis that already struggles with heat.You can also use TB3/4 networking (use 32-64k block size for throughput, latency is lnfiniband low!), which should be really interesting with the new TB4 hubs, but with its random MACs it can be a bit of trouble, when the notebook isn't stationary.
As for the AMD options, I don't see that a design that modular vs. a separate product makes much sense for a notbook chassis.
I prefer my 5800X over any Rocket Lake, but after comparing a Tiger Lake NUC with an 5800U based Lenovo Slim notebook, I'd actually tend to think that the 4 extra cores (vs. higher clocks on TL) on a -U power budget far to rarely gain me any noticeable advantage on my workloads, while the Xe iGPU does rather consistently trump the Vega9.
Now with Tiger Lake and Ryzen 5000 8-cores in the 45 Watts class, I'd guess that Intel will lead at max power and thermals, while the energy efficiency advantages of AMD only get to play out in battery mode, which isn't the priority in this design.
On a desktop the 5950X may not win every fight against Alder Lake, but most of my workloads and without throwing a fit of thermals, noise and heat.
Spunjji - Friday, September 10, 2021 - link
10GbE for what? This isn't a workstation. There's absolutely no call for the extra cost and heat of 10GbE on a gaming device.Slash3 - Wednesday, September 8, 2021 - link
Lack of VRR/G-Sync makes it almost pointless outside of the desktop UI, if it's true. What a crazy decision.schizoide - Thursday, September 9, 2021 - link
Coming here to say this. VRR is not optional for gaming in 2021. If your product doesn't include VRR it is simply not a reasonable option.Awful - Wednesday, September 8, 2021 - link
360hz is neither dumb, nor a useless trend. It's specifically for e-sports games where 360FPS should be no issue and high refresh rates are absolutely beneficial.E-sports might be a niche requirement (albeit one worth billions of dollars a year now), but it's certainly a valid one. MSI is offering a bunch of different options for the screen anyway - no-one's being forced to choose that option if it doesn't meet their needs.
Vitor - Wednesday, September 8, 2021 - link
a desktop with a proper gaming keyboard will be better anyway.Vitor - Wednesday, September 8, 2021 - link
After 200hz, diminishing returns hit hard.Prestissimo - Wednesday, September 15, 2021 - link
Yes it is. What's dumb is MSI clearly topped the 360Hz on the most sh*tty panel they could find.Instead, what they should have done is use a "high-end" [600nit 16:10, QHD, 144Hz, 3ms, LTPO display with perfect colors] and then maybe build on that Spec to improve the refresh rate later on.
Then nobody here would be complaining at all.
Spunjji - Friday, September 10, 2021 - link
It really is particularly bizarre in a notebook. 1080p is a low resolution for a 17.3" display - at this price, the 4K 120Hz makes much more sense. You can always run at 1440p and use an upscaler if the performance isn't there to hit the display's full refresh rate, and Windows looks amazing at 200% scaling.sheh - Wednesday, September 8, 2021 - link
Almost good keyboard layout, but what's with the duplicated backslash key instead of Menu?(Does it produce a unique code that can be remapped?)
And not sure, but I think I'd prefer Fn to be at the left side.
sheh - Wednesday, September 8, 2021 - link
Plus, Power is in a somewhat unfortunate location. Can be pressed accidentally.And no Pause, but instead Scroll Lock?!
DanNeely - Wednesday, September 8, 2021 - link
But the "Excel is Broken" key is vital to any modern office experience. Nothing matches the fun of not being able to work because your arrow keys suddenly stop doing what you expect.DanNeely - Wednesday, September 8, 2021 - link
MSI's been doing that for a number of years. I don't overly fault them for using the same physical keyboard in the US/abroad; but the extra key in the lower right could be mapped to something considerably less stupid (ie a menu/right click key; or a second windows key) for the US model. Their not doing that is a long standing mystery.undervolted_dc - Wednesday, September 8, 2021 - link
those are notebook, battery usage to performance should be the metrics that count here..what I see here is +5% performance ( not in multithreading , mainly in storage and in gpu ( with a gpu that probably costs 1.5x the AMD's one ) ), and -30% battery life.. amd has won hands down
m00bee - Wednesday, September 8, 2021 - link
no one cares for battery life in gaming notebook. it's like having built-in UPSAlistair - Wednesday, September 8, 2021 - link
These laptops are nothing special. I can buy an open box RTX 3070 laptop from Bestbuy for $1299. The RTX 3080 is a pointless product, as it is just a 3070 in disguise, it doesn't use the RTX 3080 desktop chip.$1299 or $3399, you're not getting a lot more for your money.
Alistair - Wednesday, September 8, 2021 - link
Even the Raider with the 3070 is $1999 right now, it is more interesting than reviewing the top of the line model.grant3 - Wednesday, September 8, 2021 - link
Comparing a mysterious, open-box 3070 laptop, with this up-spec'd, new-in-box, 3080 laptop... what's the point?If someone thinks 3070 is as good as 3080 can buy this laptop starting at $2250 (according to the article) so immediately the price difference is halved.
lemurbutton - Wednesday, September 8, 2021 - link
Just wait for the M2X Macbook Pros later this year. Yes, I said M2X because it will come after the iPhone 13 and will utilize the A15 core.abufrejoval - Wednesday, September 8, 2021 - link
Go eat some gallium arsenide thee nasty bot!wrkingclass_hero - Wednesday, September 8, 2021 - link
Tomb Raider pulling out 10w more than the power supply can deliver is not good, it means you'll be losing charge as you play and the increased wear on the battery will cause the capacity to decay much faster.Yojimbo - Wednesday, September 8, 2021 - link
They measured power draw at the wall, not after the power supply. Since the GE76 power supply is rated for 280 W that means it can supply 280 W to the system. There is loss in the power conversion process. If it's drawing 290 W from the wall I'm guessing it should be well within the limits of the power supply, as even if it had 90% efficiency at 290 W it would be providing 261 W to the system, which is well under the 280 W limit.Yojimbo - Wednesday, September 8, 2021 - link
Oh, also, by measuring at the wall we can know for certain that the power supply is providing the power resulting from the 290 W draw: any power coming from the battery would not be measurable at the wall.The_Assimilator - Wednesday, September 8, 2021 - link
360Hz displays exist only to single out stupid people.Awful - Wednesday, September 8, 2021 - link
Yes... those that complain about a niche requirement they haven't understood. It's for eSports. (check out blurbusters.com or similar if you actually want to understand it).Lonyo - Thursday, September 9, 2021 - link
Surely if you are testing a desktop replacement, a meaningful comparison point in benchmarks would be... a desktop?That way you can see what level of tradeoff you are making in performance for the advantages of the form factor. Otherwise... you're comparing a laptop to other laptops, even though you say it's a desktop replacement.
Greeba77 - Thursday, September 9, 2021 - link
So you'll review a laptop with a 3080 in it, but you still haven't reviewed the 30xx family of cards.Have you given up on flagship GPU reviews?
PS anyone that replies to this suggesting a Youtube reviewer is banned for life.
Charles Mahan - Friday, September 10, 2021 - link
No num lock indicator. This is a much more annoying design flaw than it might at first seem. Probably going to return this laptop because of that. I might have been able to adapt to an arrow button being where the 0 key should be, but not being able to tell if num lock is on its infuriatingly frustrating.CityZ - Monday, September 13, 2021 - link
With per-key LED settings, you ought to be able to set up the key's LED as an indicator. If not already, I'm sure some combination of utilities should make it possible.