This is a GT72, 4K UHD display with enhanced horsepower, GTX 1080， The combination of the two makes it a better notebook.
The GT73VR 6RF is one of the most popular products among all Pascal game notebooks. Today, our GT73VR 6RF is equipped with a GPU with stronger performance - Nvidia GTX 1080 and a display screen with higher resolution - 4K UHD, which is the notebook that almost every fan dreams of. In this evaluation, we want to see what impact such performance combination will have on heating and fan noise, and what functional compromises will be made after using this ultra-high resolution display screen compared to the 1080P display screen.
Parameter list
Processor: Intel Core i7-6820HK 2.7GHz
Graphics card: Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 (mobile version), 8192MB; Core frequency: 1566MHz; Video storage frequency: 10010MHz, GDDR5X
Memory: 65536MB, DDR4，PC4-17000，1300MHz， 15-15-15-36, dual channel
a main board: Intel CM236（Skylake PCH-H）
Storage space: 2 x Sandisk X400 1TB M.2 SD8SN8U1T001122 (RAID 0), 2048GB in total; Second storage, 2TB Seagate ST2000LM003 HN-M201RAD
Interfaces: 5 x USB 3.0/3.1 Gen1, 1 x USB 3.1 Gen2, 1 x Lightning interface, 1 x HDMI, 2 x DisplayPort, computer lock, headphone hole, microphone hole, audio line input, audio line output (7.1, S/PDIF), SD card reader
Body size: 49 x 428 x 287mm, weight: 4.142kg
Battery: 75.2Wh, 5225mAh lithium-ion battery, 8-cell
Camera: full HD（ 1080P@30fps ）
Operating system: Windows 10 Home Edition 64 bit
Price: US $3100 (about RMB 21000)
appearance
For a laptop used to replace the host, we have no complaints about its appearance. This 17 inch game book is one of the heaviest and thickest laptops on the market at present, but the Asus G752 series is larger and heavier than this one. MSI does a good job in using the internal space of the fuselage, and the overall hardness of the fuselage is also very high. Even if you shake the screen, the shell will not appear obvious bending.
The body of the GT73VR 6RF is also excellent in workmanship. Different materials are spliced naturally without gaps. The heat dissipation holes on the back of the body are distributed on both sides. However, the bottom of the body is a relatively fragile place, because the bottom adopts a large area of hollow design, and the main components are located here, which is easy to be damaged in case of falling from a high place.
Basically, all the interfaces you need can be found on the GT73VR 6RF, HMDI、mDP、 Thunderbolt 3 and the four audio interfaces are troublesome. The interface on the back of the machine body is hard to reach with both hands, and the HDMI interface is different from most laptops. It is the reverse, which is strange. Unlike the G701VO and Gigabyte X5, the GT73VR 6RF uses HDMI 1.4 instead of 2.0, which restricts its 4K video output capability.
(Front of body, no interface)
(Right side: 2 x USB 3.0, SD card reader, computer lock)
(Back of body: Ethernet interface, DisplayPort interface, USB 3.1 Gen2, USB C, HDMI interface, power port)
(Left side: 3 x USB 3.0, audio line I/O, microphone, headphone jack)
In terms of SD card transmission speed, we used Toshiba's Excel Pro UHS-II to test. The reading speed was about 210MB/s, slightly slower than ASUS G701VO and Eurocom Sky X7E2. It took about 6.5 seconds to transfer 1GB photos from the SD card to the computer.
Whether it is replacement or repair, the GT73VR can be easily completed. The bottom shell can be opened only by removing five cross screws. It can be seen that the cooling device occupies the largest area, while the battery volume is relatively small. After all, the laptop with this configuration should consume a lot of power. You can see M.2 slot, 2.5 inch SATA III slot, and two SODIMM slots.
(Inside the fuselage)
Keyboard&Touch Pad
The GT73VR uses a Sirui keyboard, which can bring you a very good experience. MSI's G series notebooks all use this type of keyboard, similar to the AccuType keyboard used by Lenovo's ThinkPad notebooks. With the right key schedule, comfortable feedback and pleasant tapping sound, you will enjoy the experience brought by the keyboard whether you are playing games or working. Unfortunately, it lacks macro keys, and each key does not light up separately. Moreover, it is difficult to see the auxiliary key on the right side of the keyboard area.
The experience of the touchpad is good. Both cursor control and gesture operation are very accurate. The above two keys have a short key stroke, and the feedback is very real. The sound of clicking is very loud. On the whole, this touchpad is easy to use. Without a mouse, it can meet your needs.
screen
So what's the difference between the 4K UHD IPS screen and the FHD screen? In addition to the pixel density, this 4K UHD display is lower in contrast and slower in response than 1080P, but it is better in color accuracy than 1080P. We found that the Youda B173ZAN01.0 screen panel used by GT73VR is also applied to the GT80S, Sky DLX7 and XMG U727. In terms of brightness, 4K and 1080P are almost the same.
(Light leakage will appear under the screen)
(Sub pixel arrangement, 255 ppi)
(Screen brightness distribution)
In terms of color gamut, 96% of sRGB and 60% of Adobe RGB are covered. Compared with the 1080P GT73VR 6RE, the color gamut is much narrower. If you only play games, you may not find the difference, but if you are a professional image processing staff, you may not like this 4K screen very much.
The factory adjusted color temperature is slightly warmer, so you can adjust it to improve its color and grayscale. The visibility is poor outdoors. Due to the resolution, the font is too small and the contrast is not high enough. The IPS screen performs fairly well in the visual angle, but the brightness is not high enough to cope with sunlight and high ambient light. But if it is indoors, the visibility is not a problem.
(Gray scale, before calibration)
(Saturation Sweeps, before calibration)
(ColorChecker, before calibration)
(Gray scale, after adjustment)
(Saturation Sweeps, after calibration)
(ColorChecker, after adjustment)
(Outdoor visibility)
(viewing angle)
performance
GT73VR 6RF has GTX 1070 version or GTX 1080/4K UHD display screen. GTX73VR of FHD version (6RE) has a refresh rate of 120Hz and a response time of 5ms, while this 4K version has a refresh rate of 60Hz and a slower response speed. The user can manually switch the GPU and use the integrated display HD 530 to save power. Since the G-Sync function needs to be retained, Optimus cannot be used.
(Cinebench R15, single core)
(Cinebench R15, multi-core)
In the scores of CineBench, the i7-6820HK on the GT73VR is not very different from the Broadwell i7-5700HQ and Haswell i7-4700HQ. The desktop i7-6700K is about 30% faster than the i7-6820HK in terms of multithreaded tasks, while the single thread is about the same. When we set it to Turbo Performance mode, the CPU will maintain the main frequency at 4GHz in single thread and multithreading mode, while in High Performance mode, the CPU will be between 3.2GHz and 3.6GHz. The i7-6820HK in Turbo Performance mode is comparable to the desktop i7-6700K in performance.
（PCMark 8 Work）
（PCMark 8 Home）
（PCMark 8 Creative）
In PCMark's score run, the score of GT73VR is similar to that of several other competitors. If it was not for the lack of NVMe SSD, the score should be more than that. However, the system runs very fast, but its screen flickers from time to time, which may be due to hardware or software bugs.
storage device
This laptop supports NVMe SSD, but we are equipped with two 1TB Sandisk X400 SD8SN8U1T001122 SATA M.2 SSD RAID 0 disk arrays. The speed is slightly slower, but the price is more moderate. The normal read speed is about 900MB/s, which is much weaker than the 1600MB/s of Samsung SM951.
The second 5400RPM 2TB Seagate mechanical hard disk is very slow. When tested with HD Tune, the transmission rate is only 76MB/s. For example, the 7200RPM hard disk will have about 90MB/s.
GPU performance
From the 3DMark score, the GTX 1080 in the GT73VR is almost the same as the desktop GTX 1080 in performance. This laptop is 20% faster than the Eurocom X8 (GTX 980M SLI) and 70% faster than the desktop GTX 980.
（Ice Storm Extreme ）
（Fire Strike）
（Cloud Gate）
（3DMark 11）
In terms of games, in our test, the GT73VR 6RF is basically of high image quality* Or higher picture quality Run down all 4K games, but the average frame rate of most games cannot reach 60fps. It seems that 4K 60fps games are quite stressful for GTX 1080.
Limit test
We used Prime95 and FurMark software to detect whether the laptop would overheat and reduce the frequency. We turned off the Turbo Performance and Turbo Fan modes, and then started the two software runs at the same time. The CPU and GPU temperatures went to 70 ℃ and 80 ℃ respectively. Now turn on the Turbo Performance mode, and then the main frequency will go to 4.0GHz, the CPU temperature will remain at 80 ℃, the GPU frequency will be increased from the basic 1556MHz to 1800MHz~1900MHz, and the Turbo Fan will adjust the fan speed to the maximum 5000RPM to reduce the temperature of the CPU and GPU, which can reduce the temperature of both by 15 ℃. No matter in which mode, frequency reduction will not occur, and the core temperature will not go to 90 ℃.
If the power supply is not connected, the power of the CPU and GPU will be limited. Under the test of 3DMark 11, the physical score and the graphic score will fall back to 7038 and 2542 respectively, while when the power supply is connected, the scores will be 8978 and 27685 respectively.
fever
In view of the thick shell and huge heat dissipation device, the surface of MSI's game laptop series is usually not very hot. Even under full load operation, the keyboard and wrist support area of the GT73VR will not overheat. Heat is mainly concentrated at the top of the keyboard, and fingers seldom touch that area.
(Heat generation during full load operation, left is the front of the fuselage, right is the back of the fuselage)
(Heating when idle, left is the front of the fuselage, right is the back of the fuselage)
Battery life
The battery life is similar to other 17 inch game laptops. When WiFi is connected, you can surf the Internet for more than 3 hours. If you play games, the battery life is only 1 hour. When you enter the power saving mode, the video card will switch to integrated display, and it can last for 5 hours when idle.
The charging time from 0% to 100% is about 2.5 hours.
Idle condition (turn off WiFi, medium brightness): 5 hours and 6 minutes
Surfing in WiFi environment: 3 hours and 18 minutes
Full load operation (maximum brightness): 1 hour and 5 minutes
summary
The combination of the 4K UHD display and the GTX 1080 is one of the strongest combinations in the notebook at present. The performance is so strong that it can achieve many functions. However, compared with the 1080P display, there are gains and losses.
First of all, this 4K display is limited to 60Hz, which is much inferior to the 120Hz/5ms 1080P display, and also worse in contrast and color gamut than the 1080P display. Secondly, the GTX 1080 is also hotter than the GTX 1070 when running, resulting in greater noise, which brings performance improvement at the same time, but also pays a corresponding price.
The GT73VR 6RF is one of the most suitable notebooks for carrying the GTX 1080 at present, because of its large shell and highly efficient heat dissipation device. Although some lightweight GTX 1080 notebooks, such as Razer Balde Pro, will be launched this year, to be honest, it may not be able to perform better than MSI.
Bonus points
√ For a game laptop, its core temperature is relatively low
√ The cooling system is very powerful, and the fan noise is acceptable
√ Even if the machine runs at full load, there will be no frequency reduction
√ Very good workmanship of the fuselage
√ The interior can be easily disassembled, and the GPU can also be disassembled
√ With USB C/Lightning 3 interface
√ GPU can be manually switched
Negative equinox
The contrast of the × 4K display screen is low, the color gamut is narrow, and the response speed is too slow
× There is no special macro key, the key does not light up independently, and HDMI is not 2.0
? If the bottom housing is removed, the warranty will be lost
× High GPU temperature
× Average battery life
Translation of pictures and texts from:
Our WeChat official account: playphone
More professional reviews of boutiques, more interesting videos, welcome to follow the WeChat official account《 Love to play computer games 》And The Machine. Pay attention to love computer and share the beautiful digital life
