MSI Intros "World's Thinnest, Lightest" 17-inch Gaming Laptop

By Kevin Parrish
published

Here's another "world's lightest and thinnest" gaming laptop.

The battle for the title of "world's thinnest and lightest" in the gaming notebook arena continues with MSI's latest release, the GS70. Available in two configurations, the GS70 20D-002US has a starting price of $1,999.99 and the GS70 20D-001US has a starting price of $1,799.99. Both measure just 0.85 inches thin and weigh 5.73 pounds.

Based on the list of specs, the only difference between the two models is what they offer in terms of storage. The 002US version has a Super RAID configuration spanning two 128 GB SSDs in RAID 0 and a 1 TB HDD. The 001US model merely offers one 128 GB SSD and one 750 GB HDD (7200RPM). All other hardware features are identical.

That said, the new GS70 series sports a 17.3 inch Full HD Anti-Reflective display backed by Intel's Core i7-4700HQ "Haswell" processor (2.4 GHZ, 3.4 GHz) with 6 MB of cache, and Nvidia's GeForce GTX 765M GPU with 2 GB of GDDR5 VRAM. The laptop also has 16 GB of DDR3L memory at 1600 MHz driving Microsoft's Windows 8 platform.

The laptop doesn't have an optical drive, but an SD card reader is provided for additional storage. Wireless connectivity is handled by Killer E2200 Game Networking providing Wireless N and Bluetooth. There are also a handful of I/O ports including four USB 3.0, one HDMI 1.4, two mDP, SPDIF output and a microphone/headphone combo.

The laptop's audio is powered Creative's Sound Blaster Cinema, two speakers and an integrated subwoofer capable of delivering the quality of 5.1 surround sound. There's also a 720p HD webcam mounted above the display for making video calls with Skype, taking profile pictures and whatnot. A 6-cell battery powers this portable performance PC.

Additional features highlighting this new laptop include a SteelSeries full color backlit keyboard with Anti-Ghosting keys, and a dual-fan cooling design that pulls heat from the top side of the laptop and dissipates heat at a 45 degree upward angle. Nvidia's GPU supports up to three displays (HDMI x1, mDP x2), thus widening the gaming field and increasing productivity.

"The MSI GS70 sets a new mark for gaming rigs," said Brian Choi, Senior Product Manager at Nvidia. "With the super-fast and super-efficient GeForce GTX 765M GPU on board, MSI is able to offer the thinnest chassis ever seen in the gaming segment."

Both configurations are available now.

Kevin Parrish
14 Comments Comment from the forums
  • classzero
    Starting price at 1799.99, windows consumers don't want to pay $500 for a laptop
    Reply
  • cscott_it
    Uninspired for the price point. Shaving off a pound or two will make it lighter, but any gaming laptop is still going to be big and heavy relative to every other laptop. More to the point, given the specs, I don't see these moving off the shelves like hotcakes when you can get essentially the same laptop for much less.

    @classzero
    You know this is a gaming laptop, right? It's a successful niche product.

    Quick edit: At .85 inches, I wonder about the thermals after prolonged "heavy" usage. I know that with laptops this size it will sit on a desk, but having previously owned a gaming laptop or two (the joys of being traveling for work) - they can be annoyingly noisy.
    Reply
  • hitman40
    11300278 said:
    Starting price at 1799.99, windows consumers don't want to pay $500 for a laptop

    But they do for gaming laptops.

    You know, all this talk of horsepower, and they don't even brag about the thing people will spend 100% of their time looking at, the display. I'm betting it's a typically crappy TFT screen without even 95% color gamut, slapped on with the 1080p FULL HD Sticker ooommgggg.

    Plus, Windows laptops have poor resale value since PC's are spec based unlike Apple where they have extremely good resale value. That combined with the fact that it's $1700 and by the time you are done using it, you'll get little money back, not a good buy for me.
    Reply
  • lunyone
    I think this is to combat Razers thin gaming laptop, IMHO.
    Reply
  • christop
    I Am shocked it doesn't weight 20 lbs or so.
    Reply
  • chumly
    I would take the two SSD out of RAID 0, put my OS on one, and store my games/programs on the other. It doesn't make sense to run them in RAID, given that we know there will not be a real world performance gain. In fact, the random I/O performance will be much much better if the two are separate, and for the purpose of gaming, it would better suit the system to separate the OS disk and the disk with the game, as is always the case.
    Reply
  • joe nate
    The 1799 one is better. With out trim support on raid arrays the benefit of raid 0 quickly loses out after reasonable use without running an optimizer all the time.
    Reply
  • dalethepcman
    Without a touch screen or Leap Motion, windows 8 is not worth installing. My opinion, save your pennies for an asus laptops with leap built in, or buy Windows 7.
    Reply
  • danwat1234
    Interesting that they are using the 4700HQ rather than the 4700MQ, a soldered rather than socketed CPU so it uses less space. But you can't upgrade to an extreme CPU like in the GT60/GT70 2oc/2od laptops.
    Dual fans rather than the single super powerful 12V fan in the GT60/GT70.

    I don't understand Asus with their G750 flagship heavy gaming laptop, it also has the 4700HQ rather than a socketed CPU, but for no reason! It's a big laptop.
    Reply
  • halcyon
    11301912 said:
    Interesting that they are using the 4700HQ rather than the 4700MQ, a soldered rather than socketed CPU so it uses less space. But you can't upgrade to an extreme CPU like in the GT60/GT70 2oc/2od laptops.
    Dual fans rather than the single super powerful 12V fan in the GT60/GT70.

    I don't understand Asus with their G750 flagship heavy gaming laptop, it also has the 4700HQ rather than a socketed CPU, but for no reason! It's a big laptop.
    Is the HQ less expensive?
    Reply