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MSI dresses up its gaming lineup with Skylake
With Intel's new Skylake processor inbound, it was only natural that gaming notebook manufacturers would jump on board to offer this latest boost to their machines. MSI is no exception, kitting out a few of their existing machines with the 6th-generation processor. If the promise of a CPU that can be overclocked 30 percent higher isn't enough to entice you, there are plenty of other new goodies packed into the lineup that might be worth the ding to your bank account.
Which gaming laptops are worth buying?
For years, the wisdom has been that if you wanted a dedicated gaming machine, you bought a desktop. Gaming components were too unwieldy to fit in a notebook form factor, and if you tried to put together a machine with desktop-caliber components, it always ended up too big and heavy to be truly portable. However, recent gaming laptops have defied that history, packing lots of power into thinner and lighter chassis. They're still not as slim as Ultrabooks, and meanwhile there's still a gap in performance versus desktop machines. Even so, your days of lugging around a large desktop tower to LAN parties are over. We've taken a look at some of the more recent entries in the race to build a smaller gaming machine to find ones that can fit your needs -- and budget.
MSI unveils lightweight GS70 gaming laptop, hopes to take Razer's crown
MSI tentatively entered the world of thin and light gaming laptops with the GE40. With the newly launched GS70, the company is leaping in with both feet. The 17.3-inch portable is clearly built to take on the Razer Blade Pro, mating a big screen with a chassis that's even lighter -- at 5.7 pounds, the GS70 is a flyweight next to its 6.6-pound rival. While the system's quad-core, Haswell-based Core i7 CPU, GeForce GTX 765M graphics and 128GB SSD match what Razer offers, MSI doubles the RAM to 16GB and complements its storage with a 750GB hard drive. That makes the GS70's $1,800 base price a potential bargain -- if you don't mind losing the Blade Pro's touchscreen trackpad, you'll get more PC for the money.
MSI shows off a concept gaming laptop with a touchscreen trackpad (hands-on)
Hot on the heels of announcing some fresh gaming notebooks, MSI is showing off yet another laptop -- albeit, one you can't buy yet. The GS70 Stealth is a 17-inch gamer's machine, and by most indications, it's designed to go head to head with Razer's Blade lineup. At 3.9kg (8.6 pounds) it's reasonably light for a system with this screen size, and with an all-aluminum chassis, it has a more premium feel than other MSI machines (not to mention some competing models from brands like Alienware). What really makes us think of Razer, though, is the secondary display on the interior, which doubles as a touchpad. Unfortunately, because the unit we handled was an early-stage prototype, it wasn't actually functioning as it should, but MSI says the display would allow for touch input, since the primary 17.3-inch (1080p) screen will be non-touch. In short, then, the company thinks this might present a good compromise for folks who want a touchscreen handy, but would rather it not be the main display where they're viewing games. And who knows? Even if you don't crave touch input, it might still make for a neat secondary display, especially if you've got games running at full-screen. No word on when this will come out or how much it will cost, but MSI is going to release essentially the same system, just with a regular touchpad. Look for it in August with a starting price around $1,699 (we've included shots of that below, if you're curious).%Gallery-190221%
