MSI GS60 Ghost & GS70 Stealth Now With GeForce GTX 800M

By Marcus Yam
published

MSI updates its super thin gaming laptops with new Nvidia GeForce GPUs.

GS70 Stealth

MSI's GS60 Ghost and GS70 Stealth gaming notebooks are now available in 17-inch and 15-inch models with Nvidia GeForce GTX 860M and 870M Graphics. Also in the spec sheet are 4th Gen Intel Core i7 processors and Killer Gaming Networking, SteelSeries gaming backlit keyboard, powerful customization options with SteelSeries Engine, Sound Blaster Cinema, Dynaudio Technology and XSplit Gamecaster.

GS60 Ghost

 

Looking for a bit more graphical power? Check out which GeForce GTX 880M laptop is right for you.

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Marcus Yam
Marcus Yam
Marcus Yam served as Tom's Hardware News Director during 2008-2014. He entered tech media in the late 90s and fondly remembers the days when an overclocked Celeron 300A and Voodoo2 SLI comprised a gaming rig with the ultimate street cred.
7 Comments Comment from the forums
  • RewCore
    Overpriced hardware, YAY!
    Reply
  • jasonelmore
    Are these Maxwell 860M or Keplar 860M? God i hate what Nvidia did with the 860M naming scheme.
    Reply
  • Solandri
    12973304 said:
    Are these Maxwell 860M or Keplar 860M? God i hate what Nvidia did with the 860M naming scheme.
    It's Kepler. MSI's overseas announcements indicate a higher-end model (probably with the 2880x1620 display it was shown with at CeBIT) with an 870M which is Kepler-only. Speculation is they went with the Kepler 860M so they could use the same motherboard with both models.

    12972740 said:
    Overpriced hardware, YAY!
    This is pretty cutting-edge hardware. It's a quad core Haswell, which just by itself means about a $1000 laptop. On top of that it's got a gaming-worthy GPU. It's AFAIK the lightest quad core 15" laptop out there despite having a metal chassis (less than 2 kg) Unlike ultrabooks its memory and drives are all upgradeable. It actually has what looks like two M.2 SSD slots, not mSATA. So conceivably you could set it up with a ~2 GB/sec RAID-0. And you can also put in a 2.5" drive. The panel is PLA (IPS-equivalent) with the lone Russian review so far saying it covers 95%-100% of sRGB. And the keyboard has gotten rave reviews.

    If you're in the market for a $400 laptop, obviously it isn't being marketed it to you. But if you're like me and are willing to pay for a truly portable workstation which will let me edit my photos as well as play 3D games, it's very tempting. Cheaper and lighter than both the Macbook Pro and Dell XPS 15 with the same or better features with much better upgradability.
    Reply
  • ferooxidan
    12973304 said:
    Are these Maxwell 860M or Keplar 860M? God i hate what Nvidia did with the 860M naming scheme.
    It's Kepler. MSI's overseas announcements indicate a higher-end model (probably with the 2880x1620 display it was shown with at CeBIT) with an 870M which is Kepler-only. Speculation is they went with the Kepler 860M so they could use the same motherboard with both models.
    12972740 said:
    Overpriced hardware, YAY!
    This is pretty cutting-edge hardware. It's a quad core Haswell, which just by itself means about a $1000 laptop. On top of that it's got a gaming-worthy GPU. It's AFAIK the lightest quad core 15" laptop out there despite having a metal chassis (less than 2 kg) Unlike ultrabooks its memory and drives are all upgradeable. It actually has what looks like two M.2 SSD slots, not mSATA. So conceivably you could set it up with a ~2 GB/sec RAID-0. And you can also put in a 2.5" drive. The panel is PLA (IPS-equivalent) with the lone Russian review so far saying it covers 95%-100% of sRGB. And the keyboard has gotten rave reviews.If you're in the market for a $400 laptop, obviously it isn't being marketed it to you. But if you're like me and are willing to pay for a truly portable workstation which will let me edit my photos as well as play 3D games, it's very tempting. Cheaper and lighter than both the Macbook Pro and Dell XPS 15 with the same or better features with much better upgradability.
    But editing photos are waaay better on higher res screen such as Macbook's Retina Display or QHD display on XPS, or QHD+ (3200x1800) on Samsung ATIV 9 Plus for around the same price or even cheaper. Those MSI laptops only sport FHD display and yes, laptop GPU are all overpriced. If u can afford gaming laptops, most likely u have a great gaming rig as well on ur desk. I'll just play on my bigger screen with my desktop than tiring my hands on laptop palm rest and straining my eyes and neck on laptop smaller screen in unergonomic position to play (you have to choose between comforting ur hands but hurting ur neck in the long run or comforting ur neck but weird hands placement). If u are saying "then hook up a keyboard or hook it up to a bigger screen" I'd just play on my desktop, gaming laptop is overpriced hardware. Gaming on the go? I'll go for tablets, gaming with 15" or bigger on a car, bus, or plane is not comfortable except by train and the travel duration is long. Gaming anywhere e.g cafe, or friend's place? I'll make a gaming HTPC with portable monitor since u will need to connect ur charger anyway to get the max performance from gaming laptop otherwise 2 hours is ur max gaming time.Well if u are smart like me, I'll buy a better screen laptop with decent spec for editing photos (at least if u are saying professional level, if not then go ahead) and gaming anywhere as my comment states. This applies if you don't want to waste ur money buying this overpriced hardware. Otherwise, buy it anyway.
    Reply
  • Blax34
    12973304 said:
    Are these Maxwell 860M or Keplar 860M? God i hate what Nvidia did with the 860M naming scheme.
    It's Kepler. MSI's overseas announcements indicate a higher-end model (probably with the 2880x1620 display it was shown with at CeBIT) with an 870M which is Kepler-only. Speculation is they went with the Kepler 860M so they could use the same motherboard with both models.
    12972740 said:
    Overpriced hardware, YAY!
    This is pretty cutting-edge hardware. It's a quad core Haswell, which just by itself means about a $1000 laptop. On top of that it's got a gaming-worthy GPU. It's AFAIK the lightest quad core 15" laptop out there despite having a metal chassis (less than 2 kg) Unlike ultrabooks its memory and drives are all upgradeable. It actually has what looks like two M.2 SSD slots, not mSATA. So conceivably you could set it up with a ~2 GB/sec RAID-0. And you can also put in a 2.5" drive. The panel is PLA (IPS-equivalent) with the lone Russian review so far saying it covers 95%-100% of sRGB. And the keyboard has gotten rave reviews.If you're in the market for a $400 laptop, obviously it isn't being marketed it to you. But if you're like me and are willing to pay for a truly portable workstation which will let me edit my photos as well as play 3D games, it's very tempting. Cheaper and lighter than both the Macbook Pro and Dell XPS 15 with the same or better features with much better upgradability.
    But editing photos are waaay better on higher res screen such as Macbook's Retina Display or QHD display on XPS, or QHD+ (3200x1800) on Samsung ATIV 9 Plus for around the same price or even cheaper. Those MSI laptops only sport FHD display and yes, laptop GPU are all overpriced. If u can afford gaming laptops, most likely u have a great gaming rig as well on ur desk. I'll just play on my bigger screen with my desktop than tiring my hands on laptop palm rest and straining my eyes and neck on laptop smaller screen in unergonomic position to play (you have to choose between comforting ur hands but hurting ur neck in the long run or comforting ur neck but weird hands placement). If u are saying "then hook up a keyboard or hook it up to a bigger screen" I'd just play on my desktop, gaming laptop is overpriced hardware. Gaming on the go? I'll go for tablets, gaming with 15" or bigger on a car, bus, or plane is not comfortable except by train and the travel duration is long. Gaming anywhere e.g cafe, or friend's place? I'll make a gaming HTPC with portable monitor since u will need to connect ur charger anyway to get the max performance from gaming laptop otherwise 2 hours is ur max gaming time.Well if u are smart like me, I'll buy a better screen laptop with decent spec for editing photos (at least if u are saying professional level, if not then go ahead) and gaming anywhere as my comment states. This applies if you don't want to waste ur money buying this overpriced hardware. Otherwise, buy it anyway.
    If you were smart you wouldn't have any professional relationship with editing photos lol, you'd have a better job
    Reply
  • ashburner
    I have the GS70 from last year. I absolutely love it. I use it primarily for work 10+ hours a day, and when I am travelling for work, I can easily game on it. It has worked flawlessly. I have dual 128GB SSD's in Raid 0 and a 750GB D; drive. Boots in about 6 seconds. The screen is great and 1080p is fine. When I am at home, I have 2x 27" 2560x1440 monitors plugged in, as well as a 22" 1080p, and the primary screen. That's 4 monitors that I can extend the desktop across.One thing I noticed is that the new version only has 1 mDP which is a disappointment. The processor is the same, as well as amount of memory and Killer wireless (which works great- extremely strong signal)
    Reply
  • Solandri
    12974854 said:
    But editing photos are waaay better on higher res screen such as Macbook's Retina Display or QHD display on XPS, or QHD+ (3200x1800) on Samsung ATIV 9 Plus for around the same price or even cheaper. Those MSI laptops only sport FHD display
    Ooookay. Have you actually done any photo editing? For detail work, most of the time you're zoomed in at 200% anyway to avoid squinting at the screen. On a QHD screen you'd just be zoomed in at 400%.

    The higher resolution is nicer for viewing the entire picture at once (you can see more details without having to zoom in). But the types of editing you do when viewing the entire picture (color balance, highlights and shadows, etc) aren't resolution-dependent. For the final image sharpening, the high res screen is actually a disadvantage because most people won't be viewing the picture on a high res screen, and you need to sharpen it for best appearance on their screen.

    If you absolutely insist on the higher res screen, MSI was showing off a 2880x1620 version at CeBIT with preliminary pricing being about the same as the Dell XPS 15 or Macbook Pro 15 without GPU. And if Samsung made an ATIV 9 with a quad core i7 and GPU, I would own one right now.

    and yes, laptop GPU are all overpriced. If u can afford gaming laptops, most likely u have a great gaming rig as well on ur desk. I'll just play on my bigger screen with my desktop than tiring my hands on laptop palm rest and straining my eyes and neck on laptop smaller screen in unergonomic position to play
    Right. I'll just pack up my desktop and monitor and take them with me everywhere I travel.

    Maybe your work and lifestyle leaves you at home for all your free time. Others have different work and lifestyles, and we're frequently on the road a significant fraction of the time. That's the whole point of this. If the combination of features doesn't appeal to you, there is nothing wrong with that. It's obviously not the right laptop for you. But it's rather self-centered to write it off as pointless and overpriced just because it doesn't match your requirements, when it exactly matches what others are looking for in a laptop.
    Reply