MSI GT70 0NE-276US

Gaming laptops are not known for their subtle design. Within and without, they're big, ostentatious systems, and the MSI GT70 0NE-276US ($2,599.99 Direct) is no exception. Its hulking chassis is packed to the gills with features, like a multicolor backlit SteelSeries keyboard, a Blu-ray burner, and a dazzling 17.3-inch 1080p display. Moreover, its equally impressive specs churned through our benchmark tests with brio. Still, its performance fell short of other gaming laptops in the same price range. It's a system worth checking out, but better choices are out there.

Design and Features
Like most enthusiast-grade gaming laptops, the GT70 sports an eye-catching, over-the-top design. Its chassis weighs 8.37 pounds and measures 2.17 by 11.34 by 16.85 inches (HWD), so it's not exactly the easiest system to tote around. If you do carry it around, however, you'll likely receive a bevy of complements on the handsome system tucked under your arm, as the GT70' sports an intricate design, which consists of a plastic body sporting a brushed aluminum lid and palm rest,.

Designed by SteelSeries, the GT70's tiled keyboard offers a superlative typing experience, with keys that are springier than those of most laptops. The keyboard features full-colored backlighting that, via preloaded software, can be customized in a few different ways, from a dual-color arrangement to a "breathing" light effect wherein the user-selected colors gently pulsate. Touch-sensitive LEDs above the keyboard include a Cooler Boost button to increase the fan speed, toggles for the keyboard backlighting and display, and a Turbo Drive Engine button that purportedly optimizes performance by maxing out the power settings in a vein similar to the "Turbo" setting on the Samsung Series 7 Gamer's Mode Dial. Though most of your attention will undoubtedly be directed towards the lovely keyboard, the touchpad and its accompanying mouse buttons, meanwhile, work smoothly and provide excellent tactile feedback.

Gaming is obviously a visually intensive experience, and the GT70's matte-finished 17.3-inch 1,920-by-1,080 display delivers with aplomb. During use, it's hard not to admire the crisp colors and deep, inky blacks. Likewise, video playback looks fantastic, especially when you toss a Blu-ray disc into the GT70's Blu-ray burner. Yes, you read that correctl?the GT70's built-in optical drive can also write Blu-ray discs, a singular feature that sets it apart from other systems in its class, like the Alienware M17x R4, for instance, which can play Blu-rays but only burn DVDs. Through dual speakers housed in metallic grilles directly beneath the display and a built-in subwoofer, audio is pumped out at fairly loud volumes thanks to an added boost by THX TruStudio Pro software. Though not exactly ground-shaking, the built-in speakers are good for a laptop. That said, though, the GT70 is clearly designed to be hooked up to a surround sound system, as suggested by the multiple gold-plated audio jack ports and built-in amplifier.

The GT70 is loaded with ports. Alongside the Blu-ray burner, the right side houses two USB 2.0 ports. Meanwhile, the left side features the aforementioned gold-plated audio jacks, three USB 3.0 ports, and a 7-in-1 card reader (with SD and Memory Stick compatibility). At the rear of the GT70, you'll find an eSATA port in between VGA and HDMI-out ports.

As far as storage goes, the GT70 manages to be both capacious and quick, coming equipped with a pair of 128GB solid-state drives (SSD) arranged in a RAID 0 (striped) array alongside a 7,200 RPM 750GB spinning hard drive. Unlike the Alienware M17x, though, there's a good amount of preloaded software included on the GT70, some of which can be classified as bloatware, and that gamers would immediately uninstall, like 30-day trial versions of Norton Online Backup and the 2012 edition of Trend's Micro Internet Security suite, as well as 7-day trials of Magix Music Maker and Magix Video Easy SE.

Performance
The combination of a 2.30GHz Intel Core i7-3610QM processor and 4GB Nvidia GeForce GTX, along with 16GB RAM, made the laptop a solid performer in our benchmark tests. While its PCMark 7 score of 4,875 points fell short of the class-leading Origin EON17-S (5,461 points), it nonetheless topped the rest of its class, including the M17x (4,598 points). Despite performing admirably, however, the GT70 didn't fare as well in our multimedia tests. It completed our Handbrake video encoding test in 1 minute 17 seconds, falling markedly short of the Origin EON17 (1:01) and, to a lesser extent, the Alienware M17x (1:12). Its Cinebench R11.5 score of 6.19, meanwhile, ranked at the bottom of the class and was even outflanked by the substantially cheaper Series 7 Gamer (6.23). Meanwhile, the 3 minutes and 23 seconds it took for the GT70 to complete our Photoshop CS5 test was on par with the Series 7 Gamer (3:23) but was a second slower than the MSI GT70 0NC-011US (3:22) and was significantly outpaced by the Origin EON17 (2:27).

As far as gaming goes, the GT70 unsurprisingly crossed the 30 frames per second (fps) playability barrier without breaking a sweat, but its frame rates were lower than the rest of its class. In our Crysis benchmark tests, its performance (93fps in medium quality at 1,024-by-768 resolution; 36fps in high quality at native resolution) were eclipsed by both the Alienware M17x (98fps and 38fps, respectively) and the Origin EON17 (120fps and 41fps, respectively). On the other hand, though, the GT70's performance on our Lost Planet 2 benchmark tests (148ps in medium quality at 1,024-by-768 resolution; 63fps in high quality at native resolution) dominated the rest of the pack, save for the Alienware M17x (159fps and 77fps, respectively). Likewise, its entry-level 3DMark11 score of 8,726 points came in second place behind the Alienware M17x (9,023).

Given their emphasis on unbridled performance, gaming laptops aren't renowned for stellar battery life. Even with lowered expectations, the GT70s' removable battery yielded underwhelming results. In MobileMark, it lasted 2 hours 16 minutes, falling slightly short of both the Origin EON17 (2:33) and Alienware M17x (2:36) and significantly behind the MSI70 0NC (5:29).

There is plenty to like about the MSI GT70 0NE-276US, like its inspired design, built-in Blu-ray burner, and beautiful display. At the end of the day, however, performance is the only thing that matters about gaming laptops, and the Alienware M17x R4 outguns the GT70 almost entirely across the board while sporting the same price tag, and it remains the system to beat.

BENCHMARK TEST RESULTS:

COMPARISON TABLE
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