MSI GS70 Stealth Gaming Notebook Review

[Rashkae]

Just picked up my MSI GS70 Stealth today to replace my old Razer Blade 2012. Here's my own unpacking and quick hands on. Feel free to ask questions, I'll do my best to answer them.

Quick tech specs:
21.8 mm thin
2.65 kilograms
(yes, that's slimmer and lighter than a Razer Blade pro and a Macbook pro)

Core i7-4700HQ Haswell
GeForce GTX 765m
12GB RAM
2x128GB SSD in Striped RAID (RAID 0) and a 750GB Data HDD
Creative Labs Sound Blaster Cinema Audio


Price:
2399 SGD, about 1890 USD. That's a full 1k cheaper than the Razer Blade Pro!!!

Unboxing:
The GS70 comes in a big, plain, unassuming brown box.

Inside the box, we get the GS70 in it's own small box, and a MSI Dragon-branded backpack to carry the GS70 around. This is free, and you don't need to pay a premium for a fitting carrying case! *cough* Razer *cough*

Inside the box, we see the well-wrapped and protected GS70 as well as the compartments for the power brick, the accessories CD, and the provided MSI Gaming mouse.

 

[Rashkae]

Speaking of the MSI mouse, it's themed like the GS70 but it's the sort of mouse I'd just chuck into a drawer as an absolute emergency backup. It stinks, and can't touch the R.A.T./Logitech/Razer/etc mice.

The power brick is not as slim, svelte and lightweight as the Razer Blade's piece of beautiful engineering (say what you will about Razer, they got this right!), but it's much smaller than the power bricks from most other gaming notebooks.

And of course there's the prerequitite plastic bag with all the CDs, quickstart guide, basically everything we always ignore.

 

[Rashkae]

So, now let's get to the best part, unwrapping the beauty.

Freed from the cardboard:

And another layer of protection:

Aaaaaand another:

Ah! Finally! But that plastic cover came off immediately. You can already see the MSI Dragon logo is a prevalent design philosophy.

 

[Rashkae]

Taking a look at the bottom, we can see some extra vents, a felt-lined area to protect you from the hottest areas on the laptop (nice touch, MSI) as well as the vents for the built-in subwoofer. Yes, you read that right. It's a 2.1 sound system (more on that later).

Here is the beauty exposed, with some clear resemblances to the Razer Blade - much like a red-headed cousin...

Almost all the stickers are on that clear strip at the bottom, so one pull and she's cleaned up nicely:

Do note that the L/R speakers are right under the monitor, and the holes above the keyboard are air intakes.


On the right side we have a tiny, almost invisible reset hole (paperclip size), 2 USB 3.0 ports, and SD Card reader (which Razer does not have...) the power port, Kensington lock and the air vent for the GPU. A note on the air vents: They try to blast the air upwards at 45 degrees to get it away from being sucked back into the laptop.

On the left side we have the other air vent, the LAN port, HDMI and 2 Display ports (for a total of 3 external displays... aaaaah I can already think of what do do...) 2 more USB 3.0 ports for a total of 4 USB 3.0 ports, and the configurable headphone/line-in/mic ports for the SoundBlaster Cinema DAC. Another note: MSI says they've put in an amp in the headphone jack, and I've tested it with a few of my larger cans and the GS70 had zero issues powering them.

 

[Rashkae]

Powering up the GS70 tells you a lot... It's FAST. I mean, it's REALLY FAST. It took less than 6 seconds to go from pressing the power button to the desktop. Photoshop CS6 started in seconds. Blink and it's done. That RAID SSD setup is working it's magic.

The Steelseries keyboard is fantastic, exactly what you'd expect from Steelseries. The keys are responsive with just the right amount of resistance, and the generous real estate allows for full-sized direction keys as well as a full numerical keypad. The keys have an Alienware-esque lighting scheme that is customizable.

As expected, the MSI logo at the back glows when the laptop is switched on.

Sound:
The sound is a huge surprise. The 2.1 speaker with the Creative SoundBlaster Cinema system creates a spacious soundstage with decent bass and good volume. A pleasant surprise, especially from such a slim system. I wish more notebook manufacturers would follow this route, it's really a pleasure to watch movies, etc with this sound system.


Some quick benchmarks:

CrystalDiskMark:

Yes. That's fast. Stupid fast.


3dMark 11:

Now to load up XCom and Mechwarrior Online and frag!!!

 

[Soloduo11x]

Is the 765M is disabled if you pull the plug on the AC power.dose Running off the battery switch it to the INTEL CPU graphics?

 

[Rashkae]

Is the 765M is disabled if you pull the plug on the AC power.dose Running off the battery switch it to the INTEL CPU graphics?

As is standard with all such dual-GPU laptops, this depends on the APP that is running, NOT the AC power.

So, if it's general web surfing, office, etc etc, the Intel GPU will run. Power up a 3D Game and the nVidia chip kicks in.

 

[Soloduo11x]

Are you sure because I had a y500 that did that as soon as you unplugged it from the ac Adapter the Nvidia graphics Would disable And it would run off at the Intel integrated graphics so I returned it. I already ordered my gs70 so I hope It doesn't do the same.

 

[Rashkae]

Are you sure because I had a y500 that did that as soon as you unplugged it from the ac Adapter the Nvidia graphics Would disable And it would run off at the Intel integrated graphics so I returned it. I already ordered my gs70 so I hope It doesn't do the same.

That would then be specific to the y500... No gaming notebook I've ever used behaved like that.

 

[Connoisseur]

Any chance they'll be releasing a 13.3-14" competitor to the Blade? Would love to have a 2nd laptop for gaming to carry around when I travel for work.

Wouldn't mind giving up the RAID 0 SSD's and the num pad if they could squeeze the 765m into a smaller chassis with a better screen than the Razer's.

 

[Rashkae]

Any chance they'll be releasing a 13.3-14" competitor to the Blade? Would love to have a 2nd laptop for gaming to carry around when I travel for work.

Wouldn't mind giving up the RAID 0 SSD's and the num pad if they could squeeze the 765m into a smaller chassis with a better screen than the Razer's.

No Idea, but I would not be surprised.

 

[Connoisseur]

A couple of more questions:
> is this an aluminum or plastic body?
> How's the stiffness of the keyboard and screen? Is there any creaking or flexing?
> How's the hinge? Is it tight or loose?
>Finally, of course, the screen. How are the colors and viewing angle? Is it washed out? Is it easy to view in bright light?

 

[Rashkae]

A couple of more questions:
> is this an aluminum or plastic body?
> How's the stiffness of the keyboard and screen? Is there any creaking or flexing?
> How's the hinge? Is it tight or loose?
>Finally, of course, the screen. How are the colors and viewing angle? Is it washed out? Is it easy to view in bright light?

- As stated in all the specs, previews, etc, it's an all-aluminum body.

- The keyboard is nice and stiff. Steelseries quality.

- There is minor flex at the screen, but nothing that would cause concern or wear and tear. Same amount as on a Blade.

- Colors are great, viewing angle as well. Easy to view in bright light. The Blade Pro may have a slight advantage, but not a $1000 advantage.

 

[scheps]

very nice pictures and review thus far. I was hoping you could run a stress test to see if it gets throttled quickly or not given its so slim. I mean the 765 and i7 (although haswell) would put out some heat one would imagine, which could lead to throttling......

would be grateful for your experience in this

 

[BrosephD]

How do people game on these? The most my laptop can run is Mine Sweeper.

 

[Rashkae]

How do people game on these? The most my laptop can run is Mine Sweeper.

Son, you need a better laptop.

 

[Rashkae]

very nice pictures and review thus far. I was hoping you could run a stress test to see if it gets throttled quickly or not given its so slim. I mean the 765 and i7 (although haswell) would put out some heat one would imagine, which could lead to throttling......

would be grateful for your experience in this

Yup, just trying to find a good program that can stress CPU and GPU and monitor throttling at the same time.

 

[Rashkae]

double post

 

[idrivepie]

Nice review. Any temp benchmarks? Its mainly the CPU that'll get hot so any CPU intensive games or physics/FPU tests will do the trick.

 

[khel]

Looks great.. might look into getting one. any dates on the us?

 

[Rashkae]

Nice review. Any temp benchmarks? Its mainly the CPU that'll get hot so any CPU intensive games or physics/FPU tests will do the trick.

I'll leave HWMonitor running when I play Mechwarrior Online later.

 

[littlesmoof]

How is the battery life?

 

[Rosseyn]

I am also very interested in the battery life.

For a few of the other questions, see here.

 

[Rashkae]

Battery life with normal usage is about 4-5 hours.

 

[Rashkae]

Update on battery life: Just played MechWarrior Online marathon from battery only. From a 100% charge until Windows started warning me the battery was at 5%, it took 4 hours, 12 minutes.