MSI Announces the Fastest Ivy Bridge Laptop in the World [Pictures]

MSI has recently presented the much awaited and long anticipated GT60 and GT70 gaming laptops, on its official website.

Both MSI brothers come with an Intel Ivy Bridge processor that is powering an Intel HM77 platform.

Intel’s new CPU is around 10% to 15% faster than its Sandy Bridge older brothers and boosts an increased power efficiency of around 20% when compared with Sandy Bridge based processors.

On the 3D side, both notebooks, the GT70 and the GT60, come with Nvidia’s Kepler based GeForce 670M mobile GPU featuring a whooping 3GB of GDDR5 discrete graphics memory.

The maximum system memory supported is 16 GB of DDR3 1600 MHz for both laptops as the platform has 4 DIMM slots available.

Networking is professionally handled by Big Foot’s Killer NIC Gaming E2200 Networking processor. This is the first time that MSI has incorporated Big foot Gaming LAN Killer E2200 Intelligent Networking into its notebooks.

The adapter comes with Advanced Game Detect technology that recognizes online game data packets and processes them first, accelerating them in the process.

This could prove a good solution against stuttering characters, freeze-ups, and lagging. Game data will be defined as having first priority and will be accelerated over other network tasks.

MSI promises a 2x reduction in ping time when playing League of Legends and a 50% reduction in Counter Strike.

The sound is specially handled by MSI’s Audio Boost design that enhances sound output by 30%. The  audio jacks are gold plated and provide stable sound transmission with reduced obstruction and work in conjunction with the optimized AMP (Audio Power Amplifier) design that promises low noise and low distortion.

The speakers are of professional quality with a built-in sub-woofer and are THX's TruStudio Pro certified.

MSI’s GT70 comes with four audio connectors : MIC, Line Out, Line In and SPDIF.

Probably the most special and powerful aspect of the GT70 is its SSD based RAID 0 hybrid storage system.

The system consists of two mSATA SSD drives that are part of a RAID 0 matrix and a separate 7200 RPM mobile hard disk drive with up to 1TB of storage capacity.

The RAID 0 system reaches speeds well over 800 MB/s while the HDD offers enough capacity for your games and files.

MSI’s mobile storage solution is absolutely unique and provides performance never before seen in a gaming laptop.

The MSI GT60 15” little brother also comes with two HDD 2.5” bays for two 1 TB mobile HDDs or one SSD and one HDD. The maximum supported capacity is 2 TB while the standard configuration comes with one 500GB drive.

Both laptops come with FullHD screens than can have AntiGlare or Glossy treatments. The GT70 has a 17” screen while the GT60 comes with a 15” one both having an integrated HD webcam.

The design includes metallic plating for the outer lid and the wrist pad and both models have a, SteelSeries signed, full-color backlit programmable keyboard.

It accurately responds to 10 simultaneous key actions and has over 1,000 color combinations of differential lightning, a technology that MSI has already introduced in its GE Series gamig laptops we’ve presented here.

MSI’s top mobile gaming systems come with MSI's exclusive Turbo Drive Engine (TDE) technology that provides an instant boost in graphics performance and MSI Cooler Boost technology that can increase the airflow of the cooling system at the touch of a button.

Connectivity is very rich with options as both laptops come with three USB 3.0 ports but the 17” one has two extra USB 2.0 ports. They both sport a card reader, a HDMI 1.4 connector and eSATA/USB combo port along with a VGA connector.

Unfortunately there is no Express Card slot on either of the notebooks but we can let MSI slide about this one as USB 3.0 and eSATA offer enough bandwidth for even the most demanding applications.

Both  notebooks have a 9 cell battery that will likely last a little bit more on the 15” one and a 180W AC adapter.

The 17” GT70 weights in at 3.9 Kg while the smaller GT60 is 400 grams lighter. That’s almost 8.6 pounds for the 17” model and 7.7 pounds for the 15” one.

Pricing is set between 1499 USD for the basic 15” GT60 configuration and can go up to  1999 USD for a 17” version with two 64 GB SSDs in RAID 0 and a 1 TB HDD complete with a Blu Ray drive.

That’s 1140 EUR to 1512 EUR for the European buyers. If you think there is a faster Ivy Brige announced, feel free to let us know.

Posted in: Hardware, Review