MSI is known for manufacturing the first overclocking motherboard and over the years has become one of the most recognized brands in gaming hardware. This year, with the introduction of Intel’s latest 6th generation processor, codename Skylake, the ambitious company has set its sights on becoming the go-to brand when it comes to gaming laptops.
Last week, we met with MSI to talk about the new product line and see first hand these sleek new machines. MSI’s Notebook product manager, Clifford Chun, says MSI owes its twenty-nine years in the business to its “insistence on 100% in-house design and hardware production which gives MSI the ability to quickly implement new and innovative ideas.” He further explained that the company attributes the high quality of its machines to the company's holistic approach—one that controls the entire process from R&D to manufacturing.
Although well established as a hardware purveyor, MSI's main goal these days is to work hand-in-hand with professional gamers and video game developers. To that end, they've collaborated with companies such as Square Enix, Blizzard, Nvidia, and Intel. MSI are also proud sponsors of over fourteen eSports teams around the world, among them, North American League of Legends team, TDK.
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GT72 Dominator Pro G
Dedicated to providing gamers with the best gaming experiences possible, MSI's gaming laptops come in four segments meant to serve all types gamers: the GT, GS, GE and GP series. The GT series are for top-of-the-line hardcore gamers looking for the most powerful specs and features MSI has to offer. The GS series are meant to appeal to professionals who desire both power and slim design for work and play on the go. Committed gamers will enjoy the reliability and sturdy build of the GE line while price-conscious casual gamers will gravitate toward the value-oriented GP series.
Regardless of category, all of the new gaming laptops boast impressive upgrades to graphics, audio, performance and features. Clifford Chun brought examples of each to the meeting and each of them showed to be well-designed and solidly constructed. The high-end GT72 Dominator Pro G looked exceptionally good, with a matte black finish, fully customizable SteelSeries backlight keyboard (three areas of LEDs that can change in time with your music), six heat pipes for keeping things cool, and a removable bottom panel that allows access and upgradability to components. The GT series also comes with multiple configurations; such as M.2 PCIE, Gen 3x4 SSD, Super RAID 4 drives that brings performance up to 3300mb/s, and can support up to 64GB of DDR4 memory.
GT72 Dominator Pro G gaming notebooks will come with an Intel i7-6820HK processor and can support overclocking up to 4 GHz. Chun said that this will result in approximately 30% CPU increase compared to 4th gen. core i7 processors. Further improvements include Nahimic Audio. An audio system used by the French Army in military aircraft simulators and contains a voice leveler, 90% white noise cancellation, customizable profile settings, FLAC audio playback and ESS Sabre HiFi DAC.
On the graphics side, these 6th gen. gaming notebooks all come with Nvidia video cards. Graphical features on the GT72 include Nvidia’s latest G-Sync Technology display, DirectX 12, anti-aliasing, and True Color Technology, all allowing the most state of the art display performance.
While these core features are perhaps to be expected, MSI included additional bells and whistles to sweeten the deal. First, these notebooks will have Type-C USB ports with certain higher-end GT72 models sporting a Super Port that allows file transfer speeds up to 800MB/s. That means watching movies and playing games in 4K resolution and extending your field of view with daisy chain multiple monitor support.
GS60 Ghost
Second, Killer Shield, the latest technology from Killer Networking, whose Networking Manager enables you to track your speed, prioritize network traffic and prevent lag spikes. Chun explained that Killer Shield works by selecting programs you want your network to prioritize to ensure maximum bandwidth, thus cutting down jitter and reducing lag. He added, “No more blaming your losses on ping!”
From the sheer power of the GT72 Dominator Pro G to the slim, light-weight style of the GS Stealth, MSI seems confident their machines will dominate the future of gaming notebooks. Chun himself stated unequivocally that they'll offer gamers the best quality and feature set for their buck. From what we saw during the meeting, we're excited to try the new line out, but we have a few more weeks to wait. The Skylake line launched September 1 in Japan and China, but won’t arrive in North America until September 27th.
