MSI GX640: $1100 for a Speedy DX11 Laptop

MSI GX640: A Great Package with a Few Blemishes

The MSI GX640 is a very interesting laptop, continuing the trend started by Gateway's FX series by putting a lot of performance into a reasonably priced package, and building on the MSI GT627—literally! If you take the GT627, swap out the mobo/CPU/GPU for updated parts, and use a better LCD you have the GX640. That means our complaints with regards to the GT627 design still hold true, unfortunately, but the other upgrades help quite a bit. If you're not particularly concerned with some of the lacking design elements and care more about bang for the buck mobile performance, the GX640 warrants serious consideration. There aren't many other options unless you spend more money or cut back performance and features. Acer's 5740G is in a similar situation: great performance for the price, but with some compromises that you may or may not be willing to live with. Let's start with the good aspects.

First, AMD's HD 5850 is a great compromise between price and performance. It's at roughly the same level as the GTX 280M—just slightly behind the GTX 285M—but it has DX11 support. As long as you don't require antialiasing (and are willing to run Crysis at Mainstream settings instead of Gamer or Enthusiast), the 5850 ran every title at the native resolution without dropping below 30FPS. The CPU is a good match for the 5850, providing more than enough performance for gaming or other everyday tasks. Adding in a spacious 500GB 7200RPM hard drive and 4GB DDR3-1333 memory means you're ready anything short of serious content creation (where adding a quad-core CPU would definitely help). MSI provides all the major peripheral ports including eSATA, FireWire, and an ExpressCard slot; most people don't need them, but for those that do the GX640 is ready. Finally, the standard 3-year warranty (in the US at least) is another great feature; laptops just don't seem to last as long as desktops, even if you're careful, so having the warranty as a fallback helps. Hopefully you'll never need it.

Some other areas aren't specifically good or bad, but they might sway your decision. Heat and noise levels fall into the "average" category. We've used hotter and noisier laptops, but compared to the ASUS G73Jh the GX640 is a lot more noticeable. A lot of that has to do with cramming everything into a 15.4", 1.2" thick chassis, so there are tradeoffs both ways. The LCD is a bit of a mixed bag; it has a good contrast ratio, but it's not quite as bright as we'd like. The 16:10 aspect ratio is a plus in our book—despite all the marketing hype with "Full HD" and the plethora of 16:9 LCDs. Battery life is decent for a gaming notebook, but we're surprised that the combination of i5-430M with an 85Wh battery wasn't able to last four hours or more in our idle battery life test. Here's a case where NVIDIA's Optimus Technology could have really made a difference; obviously AMD doesn't have an Optimus equivalent (yet), and old-style switchable graphics causes issues with updating drivers. Still, the HD 5850 is likely eating up ~18W of power even when the laptop is idle, and it's a shame the i5 IGP can't be put to good use. The non-NVIDIA GPU also means no PhysX and CUDA support, though PhysX on GTX 260M and lower tends to drop performance too much for our tastes (i.e. Batman at 30FPS instead of 60FPS).

As for the bad, the biggest complaint we have is the keyboard. It's not the worst keyboard we've ever used, but for $1050 it really shouldn't be hard to fix this problem. The keyboard as it stands has as much flex as an old Schwarzenegger film. You'll also want to get the latest firmware and BIOS updates from MSI (1656 is what we used), as they substantially improve battery life and fix problems with hibernate/sleep failing to resume/wake with the latest Catalyst 10.5 drivers. The base design is also lacking in refinement in a few areas, specifically the large battery jutting out the back looks clunky; we'd just as soon have a slightly larger chassis with the battery fitting flush with the casing. You can certainly live with these blemishes though.

In terms of competition, besides less expensive (and slower gaming—the HD 5650 and 5730 are about half as fast as the HD 5850) laptops like the Acer 5740G or the Lenovo Y560, the only other laptops that can compete for your gaming dollar will need GTX 260M/HD 5830 or faster GPUs. That whittles down the list of potential candidates substantially. The HP Envy 15 has a 5830 and better build quality, but unless you can find it on sale or are willing to shop on eBay you're looking at $1300+ (and more like $1450 with the 1080p LCD and a few other extras). You can also find the Clevo W860CU starting at around $1300 with a dual-core i5 processor. GTX 260M laptops with Core 2 Duo processors will do fine for gaming if you don't mind the older CPU technology, in which case we'd suggest looking at the ASUS G51Vx—you can even find them for $700 or less if you're willing to buy a refurbished unit. The ASUS G51J goes the opposite direction and pairs GTX 260M with a quad-core i7-720QM processor for about $100 more than the GX640. 17" notebooks like the MSI GX740 (HD 5870) or the ASUS G73Jh are also an option, though now we're getting into the upper midrange/lower high-end segment. So put in that context, the GX640 is a great buy for mobile gamers.

As far as DX11 laptops go, this is the least expensive option right now where you can still enable DX11 features and high detail without killing performance. As such, it definitely belongs near the top of any list of budget gaming laptops. The flaws are potentially big enough that you really should try one out in person if possible, as some people are going to really hate the keyboard, which is enough for us to withhold an Editors' Choice award. Fix that one aspect and this moves up into Bronze territory. Right now, the only other compelling options in the same price range involve lower GPU performance with added battery life. Certainly such laptops are a better fit for non-gamers, but the GX640 might be the perfect companion for your next LAN party.