The gaming laptop race heats up with four new models from MSI

Brian Ambrozy 7 Sep, 2011 at 8:48pm ET Article published in Tech

MSI has tossed a new contender into the ring of portable gaming laptops today with the release of four new gaming laptops, and they all sound like pretty compelling devices

MSI GT780 SteelSeries backlit gaming keyboard

The backlit SteelSeries keyboard on the 17" models

All four laptop models come with Intel Core i7-2630QM quad-core CPUs on the HM67 chipset, and all four come with a minimum of 12gb of DDR3 RAM. All four models come with 1920×1080 displays. The 15″ models, the GT683DXR-423US and GT683DXR-427US, have chiclet keyboards, but the 17.3″ GT780DXR-095US and GT780DXR-099US come with SteelSeries backlit keyboards. Here are the full specs:

	GT780DXR-099US	GT780DXR-095US	GT683DXR-427US	GT683DXR-423US
Processor	Intel® Core™ i7-2630QM (2.0Ghz -2.9Ghz)
Operation System	Windows® 7 Home Premium 64bit
Chipset	HM67
Display	17.3” Full HD Non Reflection 1920×1080 (16:9)		15.6” Full HD Glossy 1920×1080 (16:9)
Graphic	NVIDIA® GeForce® GT570M 1.5G GDDR5
Hard Disk Drive	1.5TB (750GBx2) (7200 RPM)		1TB (500GBx2) (7200 RPM)
Memory	16GB (4Gx4) DDR3	12GB (4Gx3) DDR3	16GB (4Gx4) DDR3	12GB (4Gx4) DDR3
Optical Drive	Blu-Ray Burner	DVD Super-Multi	Blu-Ray Burner	DVD Super-Multi
LAN / Bluetooth	Giga LAN 10/100/1000
Wireless	Condor Peak 1×2 (802.11 b/g/n)
Card Reader	SD/SDHC/SDXC/XD/MSPRO/MS/MMC (suppor SD 3.0)
Mic-in/Headphone out	Yes
USB	USB 3.0 x 2 USB 2.0 x 3		USB 3.0 x 2 USB 2.0 x 2
HDMI	HDMI 1.4
Webcam	720P HD Webcam
Speaker	Dynaudio Premium Sound Speakers
Battery	9 cell
AC Adapter	180 W
Keyboard	SteelSeries Gaming Backlit 103 Keys		103 Jets (Chiclet)
Touchpad	Single Touch Touchpad
Dimension (WxDxH)	16.85″ x 11.34″ x 2.17″		14.97″ x 10.24″ x 1.77″
Weight (with battery)	8.6 lbs		7.7 lbs
MSRP	$1,999.99	$1,799.99	$1,849.99	$1,699.99

The price range puts these four MSI laptops in direct competition with other premium gaming laptop brands, most notably the recently announced Razer Blade (although the Blade is less powerful with a less capable GPU, it does bring an innovative one-of-a-kind touchpad to the table).

Mobile gaming is a reality (albeit an expensive one). It’s been interesting to see the evolution of gaming PCs that people bring to LAN parties like Expo Icrontic over the years; from huge monstrosities with 19″ CRTs to tiny gaming laptops more recently. I can imagine a future scenario in which every machine at a LAN party is a laptop—and it’s probably closer than we think.

The four MSI laptops are available now on Newegg and Amazon, but until September 30th, they are offering a free SteelSeries Kinzu gaming mouse if you buy either the GT780DXR-099US or GT683DXR-427US from Newegg.

Comments

7 Sep 2011 ~ 10:09pm Rob-Merritt How ironic since heat is one of the major issues with gaming laptops.
7 Sep 2011 ~ 10:58pm Slayer5227 I think you mean how icrontic *ba dum tsss*
8 Sep 2011 ~ 8:16am Sonorous I think YOU mean *bum tsss....* oh forget it.
8 Sep 2011 ~ 8:22am storrm why is this news every wear. i've been doing research on these for a while now. i find it odd that people are noticing them now seeing as thay have been shipping for a few weeks. the 17'3 is going to be my next computer, looking at about $2000 after all the upgrades im looking at. really id prefer to build my own desktop but i move around to much. any way been lurking on icrontic for aegis with out commenting, i feel like this is the first time i've seen this at the bottom. i got sick of making accounts just to comment on blogs a long time ago so this works for me.
8 Sep 2011 ~ 11:55am ardichoke I do like my GX640 (last year's gaming series notebook from MSI). Just pray you never have to deal with their support if you get one.
8 Sep 2011 ~ 2:53pm primesuspect Hey Storm; Welcome to Icrontic. Your comment about "first time seeing this at the bottom" really struck me. That's kind of a big deal to me. Can you elaborate? My goal is to make it better/easier for people to comment and join the community. I'm curious about your experience.
8 Sep 2011 ~ 4:49pm Tushon Also curious as to what he meant. *popcorn*
9 Sep 2011 ~ 9:22am storrm tl;dr skip to bottom.
ah just this(i say "this" coz im staring at it). i remember going to comment a while back and it asking me to make an account. that was a while ago tho, over 3 months. im terrible with time when it comes to months so it could of been a year ago, lol thats really how bad i am when it comes to jugging months from memory. somthing to do with me being able to recall something from 3 years ago like it was last week but not associating it with a month fucks me up with jugging time well. ANY WAY thanks. this should be fine the way it is, i probably didn't notes it changed becoz i didn't think i could comment so i wasn't looking to. by the way im going to lol if you tell me its been like this forever. coz that would mean a complete brain fail on my part. digitaltrends has a pretty stupid... well its better then it used to be but theres no point commenting there an way, and comments on engadget seems mainly for trolling and flaming. i always end up ranting overly long.
"oh floaty head man, don't fix what ant broken" ah you could add emoticons for the lolz Tushon looks like the type that mite like them.
must stop typing ahfaf lakshkajg k.
its really odd not seeing a characters limit.
i've got a cold and this is my first time typing any thing all day so im all over the place. oh btw i was going to go for a Crucial 128 GB m4 as my boot drive it seems most of the Icrontic staff like OCZ, but
120 GB Vertex 3 or 128 GB m4 as a boot drive? reliability over speed.
9 Sep 2011 ~ 9:26am storrm wow that looks really long.(im commenting again coz after putting "tl;dr skip to bottom." i forgot and kept typing lmao, so now its at the bottom-ish)

Oh floaty head man, don't fix what ant broken.
9 Sep 2011 ~ 11:07am PirateNinja TBH
moar floaty head men
9 Sep 2011 ~ 11:12am Thrax
10 Sep 2011 ~ 1:14am erichblas2005 I whish the asus g series had a 570m
10 Sep 2011 ~ 9:51am storrm LMAO