Conclusion
So, what does this all add up to? Quite simply, a desktop replacement in the purest sense, but with a bit more portability than your average 17” gaming notebook. The GT60 2OD-026US doesn’t compromise in the realm of performance, but it does feature a more well-rounded package for those who are seeking a little more versatility in their mobile gaming machine.
All in all, the GTX 780M is the fastest mobile GPU to date, and by a healthy margin, to boot. It destroys most every other recorded score to date, and it can handle even the most demanding games at high resolutions and settings. Not much else needs to be said here; the benchmarks speak for themselves.
As for Haswell’s role in all of this, the GT60’s i7-4700MQ certainly is a strong performer, though its power savings aren’t quite the silver bullet you might have expected going into this review. Nevertheless, roughly four hours of web surfing longevity on medium-high brightness and results paralleling those of some of the most powerful Ivy Bridge CPUs are nothing to scoff at. There is an argument to be made that, in today’s market, improvements in mobile CPU power efficiency provide more value than raw performance gains—and while the GT60’s battery life can’t hold a candle to modern Ultrabooks, it’s still far better than what we’ve seen in the past.
Then there’s the rest of the package. The sturdy, heavy-duty case made primarily of hard plastic (but adorned with brushed metal on the lid and palm rests) barely flexes under pressure. The attractive 1080p matte screen provides rich color, good contrast, great viewing angles, and acceptable brightness, and is even usable outdoors in many cases. Audio quality is mostly good too. Finally, the SteelSeries keyboard is overall very good, and the Synaptics touchpad—while small and coupled with less-than-stellar buttons—gets the job done.
Considering its full selection of ports and A/V output options, the GT60 2OD-026US could seriously pass for a primary workstation—a desktop replacement. That may help you digest the $2K price tag, which—while nearly double that of the Lenovo Y500—makes sense when you consider what a powerful and versatile machine you are actually getting. With a little better battery life, a little less heft, the absence of the warranty sticker, and some minor tweaks to the user interface here and there, it’d be hard to find more to ask for the price. As it stands, however, with just a few exceptions, the GT60 2OD-026US is one heck of a well-rounded gaming monster—and certainly worthy of strong consideration if you’re in the market.
More Photos:
MSI has been honoring
MSI has been honoring warranties, beacuse some state’s attorney general’s offices have put the kibosh on that sort of scare tactic with regards to Warranty, and just wait until the FTC gets wind of this! A bit of the Intel playbook, n’est-il pas!
Chicklet style keys again?
NO
Chicklet style keys again?
NO thank you.
Wise up gaming keyboard makers, especially at this weight class, REAL MECHANICAL KEYBOARDS….DO IT.
chicklet keys suck.
You really expect mechanical
You really expect mechanical keyboards in a laptop?
Although I liked the keyboards in the old thinkpads… they were pretty solid.
Rather buy a lenovo y510p and
Rather buy a lenovo y510p and use the savings to build a i5 haswell desktop.
almost any game can be played on medium or higher solid 60fps on y510p at it’s highest resolution.
Does MS allow you to
Does MS allow you to downgrade the OS from Win8 to Win7?
Oh those BCU(Beyond Coyote
Oh those BCU(Beyond Coyote Ugly) TIFKAM Tiles, No way in Hell, Just Collect Dust, MSI, without a Windows 7, or a Linux option, there is no option, but the NO SALE option!
GAG, heave my cookies, gag, heave some more!…
having a single vent ? no way
having a single vent ? no way i rather buy asus g750 which has 2 vents for cpu and gpu or sager which has 2 vents also for cpu and gpu the no doubt the performance is very good but the heat ? nah i don’t want unnecessary heat on my unit
And enjoy waiting for updated
And enjoy waiting for updated drivers. Unfortunately reference drivers will not work with Asus due to lack of optimus and the privilege of a custom graphics chip
I have had both and will stick with MSI
Actually it’s not a single
Actually it’s not a single vent system. I have a MSI GT780 which is the same design as the GT60 and GT70. The way it works is the heatsink run from the GPU to the fan and the CPU to the fan, there is only 1 fan, but the GPU expells heat out the rear of the computer while the CPU expells heat from the side of the computer. I was scared of it at first but i bought it anyways and the system worked excellently, and was majorly easy to clean. In 3 years of owning the GT780, I’ve never had one problem with overheating at all.
Is there a way to drive a 4k
Is there a way to drive a 4k display at 60 Hz (DisplayPort 1.2 MST), or is that only going to be gaming laptops with Radeon GPU’s?
I’d like to see a comparison
I’d like to see a comparison between the GT60 and GX60. That would be an interesting review.
I own a Japanese version of
I own a Japanese version of the MSI GT60 that I bought in Akihabara Tokyo, it features lots of things not included in the USA release version here. It has an overclock button and included overclock software, upgraded 16GB DDR5 ram, and 3GB DDR5 NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX670MX graphics card. My keyboard has Japanese Hiragana and English characters with language mode toggles, and it came with THX True Studio Pro sound processing software which is amazing through the HDMI output… The best of all was the price difference. It was only 1430 USD to buy in Tokyo, stores in the usa were selling it with less ram and lower specs for 2700$ in Indiana…
I have not had any issue with heat my coolerboost takes care of all the heat issues, its a pretty powerful little impeller. So far i havnt used over 9.9 of my 16 GB so yea its a little overkill but definitely a system that can take you into the future for several years easily and still run everything perfectly.
For those wanting a windows 7 eperience on windows 8 just buy the program Startisback. A single license is 3$ and your start menu “Is Back” with even more customizable options than before, and allows you to configure a balance between windows 8 and 7 features of your choice. I rarely ever look at the tiles anymore and my GT60 boots straight to desktop now.
Anyway ive vbeen very happy with my experience owning a GT60 so far.
Also my screen is an LED Panel 15.6 inch FHD (Non-Glare type) it has a matte finish. Im not sure because this review didnt cover wireless, it has wifi A/B/G/N, Bluetooth.
The only thing i would consider upgrading in the future is to get a solid state hard drive. Typically the HDD is the only thing that ever slows my system down. but once it loads all the files it needs to work with into its massive ram, its all set to go. I play games seamlessly. HDD is a 7500 RPM 750GB model.
Hope my review notes help out some people.
Thanks for your input! It’s
Thanks for your input! It's also worth plugging Classic Shell, which is a freeware implementation of the Windows Start Menu (and other items if you choose) that, in my experience, works very well indeed.