Gadgetory

hello everyone and welcome back to hardware unboxed it's been a while since I've appeared on the channel but I'm back with a look at one of my favourite MSI gaming laptops the msi ge62 VR stealth pro and for the aziz and new zealanders watching this video you might be interested in the giveaway i'll be discussing at the end spoiler alert we're giving away one of these laptops thanks to msi but before then let's take a look at the GS 63 VR now the Gina 63 has been on the market in a variety of variants for a couple of years but this particular model includes something special nvidia geforce gtx 1070 max-q graphics previously this laptop was restricted to just a gtx 1060 so it's awesome to see msi bumping this up to the power of a 1070 you know with the help of nvidia in the very same relatively thin and light design as for other hardware all the usual stuff an Intel Core i7 7700 HQ 16 gig of ram a 256 gig SSD and a 2 terabyte hard drive configurations like this er priced around $2,000 or about 3400 in Australia which is a bit pricey compared to the most basic gtx 1070 laptops however these basic laptops tend to be pretty chunky usually around 25 millimeters thick and 2 point 2 kilograms heavy the GS 63 is 17 point seven millimeters thick and one point eight kilograms heavy so it's significantly more portable even though you still need to lug around that 600 gram power brick to the Gio 63 VR doesn't just have a portability advantage it's also one of MSI's best designs the slim aluminium alloy chassis looks great because it doesn't go completely overboard with gamers style though there are some angles that it does have a few more gamer e red highlights and yep there's a three zone AHA GB backlit keyboard as well so MSO i can hit all of those 2017 buzzwords do you love IO well the GS 63 has you covered with basically everything for USBA ports Thunderbolt three HDMI mini DisplayPort Ethan SD card slot and 2 3.5 ml I do Jax but do you want really good laptop speakers because you might want to choose a different laptop also what's up with this strange power button placement bit odd having it on that corner of the laptop MSI are still using its SteelSeries keyboards for their laptops in this case one with a numpad the layout is good and the typing experience is acceptable with a spongy but serviceable feel to each key you know it's perfectly fine for gaming the trackpad on the other hand it's not great which is thoroughly unsurprising considering its from ELN you know you want to use an external mouse and save yourself the frustration of this trackpad if you plan on doing any sort of serious gaming the display is exactly what you'd want on a gaming laptop with this hardware inside its a 15.6 inch 1080p IPS LCD with the refresh rate of 120 Hertz that last point is important as the gtx 1070 you know it's typically capable of gaming above 60fps of 1080p ultra settings the extra smoothness and fluidity provided by 120 hertz refresh is noticeable in a lot of situations though it's a little disappointing there's no g-sync support but the big thing that you're all interested in of course is going to be the performance so let's talk about that in terms of the CPU and RAM the combination of the i7 and 7700 HQ and 16 gig of ram is basically you know standard for gaming laptops these days so it's no surprise that GS 63 matches the performance of similar systems in CPU heavy benchmarks you know it's so similar I'm not going to bore you with the graphs that don't show anything interesting but you can see a couple of examples right here before I look at the GTX 970 max Q GPU though he's a quick look at storage performance the hard drive is glacially slow in a massive shock to no one but the SSD it's very quick it's a samsung PM 961 256 gig in my case which has excellent sequential read and write performance and very good random performance there's not a whole lot of available space for games hence the hard drive that's included but if you do install apps on it you won't be disappointed with how it performs so the gtx 1070 max qg here's the key piece of new hardware here and it's slightly different to the standard gtx 1070 we see in other gaming laptops unlike other mobile ten seventies max-q designated ten seventies have to hit specific noise power and thermal targets all related to the cooler as max-q laptops are slim the cooler isn't that beefy so it can't dissipate as much heat as thicker laptops as a result the gtx 1070 max cube may not necessarily max out at the rated TDP at all times and on top of this nvidia is 40 DB a cooler noise limit prevents fans from imitating jet engines to compensate for the small heatsink so what does all of this mean well in simpler terms it means the max q gtx 1070 variant typically doesn't reach the same performance levels as this standard 1070 both GPUs are physically identical with the same specs like 2048 CUDA cores a rated boost clock of 164 5 megahertz but max Q leads to a different power and clock speed profile so let's jump right into some games look at performance starting with one of the highest selling games of all time Grand Theft Auto 5 at maximum settings this title is relatively hard to run on laptops though the GTX 970 max Q exceeds 75 FPS on average here performance is similar to the standard gtx 1070 in the associate over to vs on average though it falls behind in 1% lows but all up are very playable experience on the GS 63 rise of the Tomb Raider is a punishing game at maximum detail levels and it's in this game that the gtx 1070 max q slots in nicely between the gtx 1070 and gtx 1060 the 1070 is 31% faster while the 1070 max-q is itself 22% faster than the gtx 1060 with 1% lows below 30fps is unlikely you want to play on these specific settings though Deus Ex mankind divided is another game where the 1070 max Q sits between the standard 1070 and 1062 average results using the ultra preset there's an 8 to 10 FPS gap separating the 1070 match to you from GPUs on either side and 1% those are decent you know without being outstanding hitman is known to be a cpu demanding game but this doesn't seem to be the issue holding back the gtx 1070 max-q again we're seeing a similar split between the 1070 1070 mac sakura 1060 were looking at 1% lows you can see the CPU limited nature in the Auris x5 these seven results which come in a fair way ahead of other gtx 1070 laptops due to that faster HK series cpu but civilization 6 is the most CPU limited game in this set of benchmarks hence the gtx 1070 max you performing around the same levels as the standard 1070 and even the 1068 x playable though a faster cpu definitely helps a lot in this game watchdogs 2 is one of the strongest results for the 1070 max-q the fully fledged 1070 is just 8% faster while the 1070 max-q clocks in 26% ahead of the 1060 with an average result of 47 FPS using the ultra preset you may want to turn down the quality levels to hit that golden 60fps mark but there's no stuttering or frame patient issues even at this quality Mass Effect Andromeda was a flop but it's not a bad game to benchmark particularly inside the surprisingly demanding tempest area anyway we're seeing 13% more performance than the 1060 here which is okay though it does allow the GS 63 VI to hit a 60 FPS average jump onto a planet and you will see better frame rates prayed it's one of my favorite games of the year and it runs really well on laptops the gtx 1070 max q he hits a 1% low above 60 FPS in our test with an average of 90 FPS super soil results here you also get a fair bit more performance than gtx 1060 25% more to be exact the final game I have a chart for is shadow of war a very disappointing tile with a horrendous ground war end game I push myself through this game story but the ending is just so bad anyway it runs reasonably well on the gtx 1070 max q despite the punishing requirements of the high resolution texture pack if you turn down the settings from ultra to height you will hear 60 FPS 1% low and there's no chance of this last game just yet but I did play some Assassin's Creed origins on the system and found you can run on the ultra high preset with a 1% load of around 35 fps much more enjoyable game than shadow of war by the way if you are thinking of choosing you know a current iteration get in time to digest all the gaming results the main thing to note here is the gtx 1070 max-q provides a very similar relative experience of the GTX 1080 max-q the 1080 max cuse at almost exactly between the 1070 and 1080 when averaged across the games I tested with it's a similar story with the 1070 max key looking at average frame rates the standard 1070 was 17.8% faster than the 1070 max-q on average while the 1070 max Q is 20.8% faster than the standard 1070 on average these figures improved in favor of the gtx 1070 max q when looking at 1% lows here the 1070 max Q was 28.6% faster than the 1060 while the 1070 was just 11.5% faster but all up you can in general expect performance between the 1070 and 1062 overclock which is something I didn't cover here so what about thermals and noise well the genus 63 VR produces similar thermals to a lot of gaming laptops I've tested in watchdogs to the CPU hit in 92 degrees while the GPU satyr and 81 degrees after a long period of gaming but the GS 63 is also reasonably quiet achieving 43 DBA from 50 centimeters away yeah this is 3 DB a higher than invidious max Q specifications but it's still pretty quiet compared to other gaming laptops chuck on some ingame audio through headphones or speakers and you can't hear this system at full blast which is a really good result there could be some room for overclocking here considering the low maximum fan speeds but that's something you'll have to export if you buy one of these laptops and should you buy one well that depends on what you want from a gaming laptop there are cheaper gtx 1070 laptops out there even from msi themselves that provide better gaming performance the difference in price is as much as $600 in some cases so if you want the best performance and don't care about form-factor get one of those gtx 1070 laptops instead but if you want something portable the g63 VR is a great choice it's the same price as the gtx 1070 max-q variant of the assuages heiress but you don't have to deal with the awkward keyboard position it's $250 more than the gtx 1060 version of the GS 63 but twenty to thirty percent faster it beats the razor blade to offering more performance at the same price combine these factors and you end up with a great portable gaming laptop purchase now what about that giveaway I promised at the start of the video well we're partnering up with MSI to celebrate the Christmas season and give away one of these very laptops a GS 63 VR stealth pro with a gtx 1070 max-q inside to a lucky person from the australia new zealand region yes this giveaway is just for those in Australia and New Zealand unfortunately we couldn't do this one worldwide but those in the A&Z region are in with a great chance of winning there's also three surprised gift packs of MSI to give away for the runners-up so to enter follow the links to MSI's registration site in the description below and leave a comment on this video on MSI's Facebook post and on invidious Facebook post when those go live I'll also put links to those in the description below when those posts are up so get commenting follow the links and follow all of that good stuff you have until Christmas Day that's December 25th to sign up with the winner getting announced on December 25th at 6 p.m. Sydney time MSI tells me the winners should get their gifts in the first week of 2018 so very exciting times oh and for those of you outside the Australia region I know it's a bit disappointing that you can't join in this particular giveaway but we do have some global giveaways planned for this month as well so stay tuned to the channel for those so good luck everyone thanks to MSI for running this giveaway in conjunction with hardware unboxed I hope you enjoyed the review and we'll catch you next time you