Man, Core i7 laptops just keep
coming and
coming (kinda like Arnold). The latest in what's sure to be a torrent of companies upgrading their premier products to Intel's finest quad-core
battery killer is MSI, with the GT640. Though MSI hasn't yet specified which of the trifecta of
Clarksfield chips it has inside the machine, we do know there's a 1GB NVIDIA Geforce GTS 250 taking care of graphics, as well as options for up to 4GB of DDR3 RAM, half a terabyte of storage and a Blu-ray burner. Other notables include a two megapixel webcam, HDMI, 7.1 channel audio output and an eSATA input. While we don't yet know the wallet damage for that red-striped aluminum alloy body, its Windows 7 installation would indicate a release some time around, oh,
October 22 perhaps? One more shot of the keyboard and screen after the break.
[Via
Laptoping]
Update: The
German announcement for this machine has been more forthcoming with the details. There's a 1680 x 1050 resolution, 4,800mAh battery and a two-year warranty among the things we didn't know about before, and the most important thing, the CPU model, is now revealed as a 1.6GHz Core i7 720QM. [Thanks, Johannes]
posted October 3rd 2009 1:41AM
An eSATA *input*?
And how come a top-of-the line machine tops out at 4GB of RAM?
Was wondering that myself. Even my G71GX has 6GB of RAM.
You can find the informations here: http://www.msi-computer.de/index.php?func=newsdesc&news_no=10081
"Pumping Iron" reference FTW.
This laptop will be excellent value for money, people who are still nieve enough to assume that they need to spend over £2000 in order to have a gaming laptop need not bother to apply,
Yes I am also a member with my GT725 I have not had any issues gaming what so ever, and when this baby is running XP and gaming its falawless. But its ok for all of thsoe who need to to a have a badged Sony Vaio/ Dell I mean Alienware Laptop to game on enjoy yourselves.
Only 4GB...while win7 x64 supports over 190GB of Ram....early days, but why on earth would you bost about a max of 4GB!!???
This is what I don't understand. My office has just bought me a "no doubt piece of crap" Dell but even that can take 8GB RAM and it hardly claims to be the best at anything - it's just a basic business laptop. Mind you, whether you actually need any more than 4GB remains to be seen but it does seem strange to "cripple" an otherwise powerful computer, particularly if you are going to advertise it as being the most powerful.
How can people be so stupid? Even as satire/parody, this comment is utterly retarded.
Thanks to Johannes for clearing my resolution question.
There's more info about on the manual, available on the product webpage.
Some things I like:
HDMI and VGA port on the back
one USB port on the left
Some things I don't like
the two usb ports on the right
DVD on the right
LAN port on the right
Its beyond me why some laptop makers have recently decided to put more ports on the RIGHT of the laptop. That's where your mouse goes (unless your left-handed). It makes sense to have that area free of cables.
Would love to see a 15.1 inch 1400X1050 (4:3 aspect ratio) version of this laptop.
What a crock of $h!7? That is totally 100% bullshit and absolutely not true. Just to list a few much much more worthy candidates...
http://www.dell.com/content/products/category.aspx/laptop-gaming?c=us&l=en&s=dhs
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Hands-On-Clevo-M980NU-Notebook.14554.0.html
I hate liars, perhaps someone should report MSI to the consumer council for making false claims and lying their @$$ off in general?
and thank god to high heaven it does not look like the monstrosities that AlienWare is putting out
It may be one of the most powerful 15 inch laptop under 6lbs for now. I guess I'd want something like this if I was traveling a lot..or the LG P310.
a 1.6GHz Core i7? is that a typo or do i just not understand these new chips, because that sounds hella weak.
Yes, you are not understanding, there's more to processors now than raw clockspeed boy.
They have the Turbo Mode.The CPU will overclock itself when required, and MSI also has a Turbo button that overclock your cpu by 15% whenever you press it. And even when running at 1.6ghz it spanks higher clocked core 2 quad mobile cpus so i wouldn't worry about that.
1680 x 1050 resolution
boo, you cant even go all the way for 1080p here? More preferably 1920x1200
Do you really think that would make a big difference on a 15 inch screen ?
I loves my 1920x1200.
GTS 250 is a rebranded and tweaked 9800GTX+ ... Its good enough to run all present games at max settings....stop complaining guys:)
Kinda boring looking. The thinkpad of portable gaming.
MSI's website currently lists this notebooks GPU as utilizing DDR3, which is a far cry from the GDDR5 memory of the reference GTS 250M. Unless this is a typo, the GT640 houses a severely gimped version of this 128-bit GPU.
Why do even the "high end" laptops these days have less than 1920x1200 screen resolution??
Actually all the new Nvidia mobile chips are still G92 cores. The highest end part, the GTX 280M, is a rebranded 8800M GTS in a 55nm package, which has been out for like 2 years... I have one on my old HP HDX "Dragon" notebook (the one with the ridiculous 20" screen... that's no moon) And no, the GTX 280M / 8800M GTS is not as fast as the desktop 8800 GTS... let alone anything with a newer core.
Not sure if this link will work, but here's a bit on Tom's hardware with benchmarks discussing this: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-gtx-280m,2353.html
Kind of sad the world's "most powerful gaming notebook" has a weaker GPU than one I got on closeout from Newegg over a year ago. Though the i7 is faster than my C2D...
All GTS and GT 200M cards are genuine G200 cores, not rebranded G92s like the GTX 200M cards.
If anyone had taken the time to download the PDF manual from MSI's website, this entire uproar over the RAM could have been completely avoided.
Memory
Technology DDR3 800/ 1066/ 1333 MHz (optional)
Memory 1GB/ 2GB/ 4GB DDR3 SDRAM 800/1066/1333 MHz (optional)
Maximum 8 GB
Taken straight from the manual. The Video Card uses GDDR3.
Actually, I'm pretty pissed at the ability of the MacBook Pro to run Windows. Apparently Apple has decided to lock down the integrated 9400m so that when I am in Windows 7 I have to run the 9600m GT. That means when I am on Windows I get a notebook that has crappy battery life and is searing hot. Bullshit move by Apple there.
Plus, the MBP is not a gaming computer. Yes, it looks nice and has great battery life (on the 9400m), but it is not a gaming notebook.
Also, Windows 7 is one hell of an OS. Absolutely on par with OS X in pretty much every area, better in a few and worse in a few. As a long time OS X "fanboy", I think that Windows 7 has caught up and OS X has stagnated.
I might be buying the next decent looking PC notebook that comes out to replace the MBP. I need Windows for my job, and the performance of the MBP is piss poor in that area. I wouldn't get something like this though, I'm looking at the Envy.
how much worse is GDDR3 version of GTS250 compared GDDR5 version? how does it compare to 160M, and are you going to see actual gaming performance increase from gt628? The fact that it's not GDDR5 version makes the claim as the "most powerful gaming laptop".even less convincing
I read on a forum a few days ago that 11/5 was going to be the release date (perhaps in germany?) for the msi gt640.
Then today I found this video, which is a 3dmark06 run-through. For those who just want the score, it was 8815.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KScoPrPPw0