CyberPower's X6-9300 and MSI's GT680R: Fighting for Your Mobile Gaming Dollar

Conclusion: Two Notebooks Enter, Two Notebooks Leave

I really wish I could come out with a highly positive review for one of these notebooks; unfortunately, too many areas come up short. If you can deal with some of the quirks, both offerings allow you to get a well-equipped gaming notebook for around $1300. That’s a great price point to hit, and it puts these notebooks in the same company as Gateway’s old FX line. Prior to 2008, getting a reasonably equipped gaming notebook usually meant spending well over two grand, and Gateway changed the playing field when they launched the FX P-6831. Sadly, the FX line is no more, though it was long overdue for an aesthetic overhaul so maybe that’s for the best. Today, laptops like the ASUS G-series, Clevo’s notebooks, and MSI’s G-series carry on that legacy, with a good balance of performance and features at reasonable prices. What’s more, I’d say they mostly look better while offering significantly more performance than you’d get from an aging FX notebook. Still, there are areas that need fixing.

Starting with the Clevo, there are two major complaints. First is the keyboard layout—I’d rather have something like Dell’s XPS 15 layout sans 10-key than to have a wrong 10-key crammed into a 15.6” chassis. The other big complaint is the fan noise; I don’t expect a 15.6” gaming notebook to be silent, but it doesn’t have to be loud either and it certainly doesn’t need to oscillate between near silent and 35dB when sitting idle on a desk or table. A steady 33.5dB would be preferable if we just take the mean of the two fan speeds. On the other end of the spectrum, while trying to keep components cool is generally recommended, Clevo could probably back off a touch and let the laptop run at 41dB with slightly higher temperatures under most loads. Fix those two items and get rid of the glossy LCD bezel and the P151HM (or CyberPower’s X6-9300) would be Editors’ Choice material, because the LCD is simply beautiful. I’ve had it sitting side by side with Dell’s XPS 15 and I prefer the Clevo panel (even if I prefer most other design elements on the Dell). Add in Optimus so that users don’t need to abandon battery life in the pursuit of a gaming notebook and this could even reach the Gold level.

MSI has very different issues. The cooling works well, and the keyboard is actually a substantial improvement from when I used the old GX640. If it had backlighting it would be even better; overall, I’d still take the Dell XPS 15 keyboard, because I use the Home/End keys all the time. I can live without a 10-key, personally, especially on a 15.6” chassis; I can’t get used to pressing Fn+PgUp, particularly when you have to go to the very top-right area of the keyboard with your right hand. If the keyboard layout were the worst of its problems, the GT680R would be in good shape, but I’ve got a laundry list of things that could use fixing. Worse than the keyboard for me is the touchpad, with no scrolling gestures, but you’d want a real mouse for playing games anyway.

It’s the overall design aesthetic that really nixes the GT680R, because glossy plastic used in this manner is something that should have gone out of fashion three years ago. It’s as if MSI took the old ASUS G50V, tweaked the design, and upgraded components, not realizing that most people didn’t particularly like that design in the first place. And the final straw for me is the low quality LCD; Clevo manages to pack in a better panel for roughly the same price, and I’d happily pay $100 more to upgrade from the MSI LCD to the Clevo LCD. Where MSI does well is in performance and sound quality, with very good gaming performance, the potential to use an SSD+HDD setup, and speakers that can rival the XPS 15 (depending on personal preference). It’s not a bad notebook overall, and some people will probably like the design a lot more than I do, but I wouldn’t want to spend more than $1200 for this particular notebook.

Because we’ve had several notebooks come through with roughly the same specs and performance, we end up with quite a few comparison points. The Clevo P151HM’s build quality may not be the greatest, but it’s not as bad as it could be. I prefer the rubberized texture on the P150HM, but the price premium for that upgrade is too high so the P151HM is a fair compromise. Both the P150HM and P151HM have an awesome matte 1080p LCD that’s my favorite current notebook display, which almost makes up for the other complaints I have. The MSI GT680R has a similar price (at least if you go with the CyberPower X6-9400), but you downgrade the LCD and chassis, upgrade the speakers, and add in a second hard drive bay. Again, pricing is fair for the performance you get, but since we’re not talking about a girlfriend I don’t think it’s shallow to focus a lot more on the physical appearance. If I had to choose between the P151HM and the GT680R, I’d live with the keyboard and noise and go for the Clevo/X6-9300, but it’s not a decisive victory.

Elsewhere, Dell has the XPS 15 L502x with an upgraded 1080p LCD and a few other extras occupying the same ~$1300 price point. That will get you great sound, a great display (second only to the P150HM panel in consumer notebooks), and a chassis that’s wonderfully devoid of glossy plastic. You also get much better battery life but only half the GPU performance, so it’s not all roses. For anything other than gaming, the XPS 15 is my current pick for a good 15.6” laptop. Finally, we already reviewed the ASUS G73SW with the same 2630QM and GTX 460M, but that’s a larger chassis and unfortunately we haven’t been able to get the G53SW in for review yet. Without hands on time, we don’t know what LCD ASUS is using, and we don’t know if there are any other serious problems. I did see a G53SW pre-production notebook at CES and the LCD looked decent, but that was pre-production and the G53JW apparently used the same LCD as the MSI (judging by at least one review). The G53SW also supports a second HDD like the MSI, and the overall aesthetic is superior, but I’m not sure it’s worth the $150 price premium.

So once again, what I’m personally looking for in a quality 15.6” gaming notebook is something that doesn’t exist just yet. Give me the LCD in the P151HM, a chassis and build quality like the Dell Latitude E6520 or ThinkPad T510—and toss in a backlit keyboard—speakers that sound like the Dell XPS 15, and a GPU like the GTX 460M but with Optimus enabled. I would be willing to settle for a slightly slower GPU like the GT 555M, but since I’m wishing for something that doesn’t exist we might as well go whole hog. Then we just need someone to put all of those features and components together and keep the price under $1500—which doesn’t seem likely to happen, given the prices on moderately specced Latitude and ThinkPad laptops. Instead, we have quite a few options that all offer parts of the whole, but no one has yet put together a modern Sandy Bridge laptop that nails every area.