Battery, Thermal & Display Testing
Battery Test - Tomb Raider 2013 Battery Rundown
To test battery life, we set each laptop’s battery profile to Balanced while running Tomb Raider’s built-in benchmark at the lowest detail preset. The frame rate is locked at 30 FPS through GeForce Experience’s Battery Boost to limit the strain on the battery. Meanwhile, a script running in the background monitors and time stamps the system’s battery percentage. The laptops are set to hibernate once battery levels reach 5%. We test the battery life at 200 nits.
If you take a look at the spec sheet, you’ll notice that the MSI GE63 Raider contains a 6-cell 51Wh battery. This doesn’t spell much confidence in the Raider’s battery life, especially in comparison to its competitors' much larger batteries. The Raider lands in last place, lasting just under 80 minutes. By comparison, the EVGA SC17 ranks second to last, but lasts nearly 20 minutes longer.
On the upper end of the spectrum, the AVADirect Whitebook 16K2 lasts just shy of two hours thanks to its larger capacity 64.98Wh battery and less demanding Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060. The Aorus X7 DT v7 takes second place at 109 minutes of play time, nearly 40% longer than the Raider. The Aorus is a special case; it has powerful components such as the Intel Core i7-7820HK and a GTX 1080, but it also has an impressive 94.24Wh battery. The Alienware 15 delivers 25 more minutes of game time over the Raider thanks to its 99Wh battery.
Thermal Testing
We use our Optris PI 640 infrared camera to measure the laptop’s thermals. To compliment our thermal images, we take the average and maximum temperature from GPU-Z’s thermal log. For more information about how we test, be sure to check out our Measurement Science article.
The GE63 Raider runs middle of the pack in terms of heat dissipation. At idle, the components linger in the low-to-mid 40s, but heat up to the mid-to-high 70s after 15 minutes of Furmark stress testing, with the GPU heat sink emitting about 79°C. GPU-Z detects average GPU temperatures of around 69°C, with a maximum temperature of 72°C. The two other GTX 1070-equipped laptops perform much cooler, with maximum temperatures nowhere close to 70°C. The Aorus performs slightly warmer, but this is to be expected considering its more power-hungry GTX 1080. The AVAdirect runs hotter still because of its slim size.
Display Testing
We use the SpectraCal C6 Colorimeter to measure the MSI Raider's display. Be sure to check out our Display Testing Explained article for a full description of our test methodology.
The MSI Raider doesn’t have an IPS display, so we expected poor contrast levels and at least mediocre color accuracy. We were pleasantly surprised to find that this couldn’t be further from the truth. The display has a rather low minimum white luminance of 5.4844 nits, which is countered by an extremely low minimum black luminance of 0.0057 nits. This results in a high contrast ratio of 956.1:1, the highest in our roundup. Similarly, the display’s modest white luminance of a 304.7968 nits and an impressive maximum black luminance 0.2847 creates a contrast ratio of 1070.6:1.
Continuing this trend, the Raider’s display offers great RGB balance. The blue levels remain slightly higher than optimal at all brightness levels. Meanwhile, red levels take a slight dip and green levels jump upward. Luckily, reds and greens balance out at maximum brightness.
The relatively well balanced RGB levels result in excellent grayscale accuracy. Ideally, a display should aim for a DeltaE 2000 of 3 or lower, where the grayscale errors will be imperceptible. The Raider’s display offers an average DeltaE 2000 of 2.4161. It’s not the lowest in our list--the X7 and SC17 perform slightly better--but the color errors aren't noticeable on any of these three laptops.
The display’s biggest issue is its lower-than-average gamma levels. The Raider produces an average gamma of 2.0975, well below a balanced saturation point of 2.2. The gamma point chart illustrates the gamma dipping below 2.2 at virtually every brightness level. This results in a noticeably undersaturated image.
Overall color accuracy is measured the same way as grayscale accuracy--in values of DeltaE 2000. Therefore, a display should strive for values of less than or equal to 3. The Raider’s display tops the roundup with the lowest color error levels, and is the only display whose DeltaE falls below 3. The discerning eye might notice errors in greens and cyans, but these likely won't detract from your viewing experience.
MORE: Best Gaming Laptops
MORE: Gaming Laptop Previews
MORE: All Laptop Content
