MSI GTX783 – Review

At $2600 the MSI GT783 – 625US doesn’t come cheap, but it’s offers the sort of premium features and outstanding performance which justify such outlay for serious gamers or people in the market for an engineering-quality notebook.

MSI GTX783 gaming notebook beats the similarly-priced Alienware M17x on almost every benchmark test. The GT783 features an angular black brushed-alu shell , with bevelled corners and a tapering front edge. This sort of powerful machine certainly isn’t made to be carried around in a backpack all day – it weighs a back-breaking 8.6 pounds and is 2.3 inches at its fattest point though still a pound lighter than the M17x.

The 17.3-inch matte full HD 1920 x 1080p display renders vibrant colors with deep blacks.

Keyboard input comes via the SteelSeries keyboard, with responsive keys which can register ten simultaneous key presses to allow super-snappy switching between weapons. The MSI GTX783 keyboard is backlit for extra effect and use in dim light, with three separate backlighting zones and a 29-color palette to enhance gaming. Various effects are available, such as ‘wave mode’, allowing the colors to change in sequence across the keyboard, or ‘breathing mode’, which gives a pulsating effect. In gaming mode the ASWD keys are illuminated for easier orientation. Each of the GT783′s input devices function superbly – the touchpad responds briskly and accurately, as do the separate mouse buttons, although the mousepad might have been a bit wider. A row of touch-sensitive buttons extend across the top of the keyboard, amongst them buttons for Turbo Drive Engine (keep reading) and Cooler Boost, for extra fan speed when yu fear the machine is in danger of getting hot and bothered. The fans become deafening when Cooler boost is inuse, unless you happen to have the audio turned up… The Cinema Pro control enhances audio playback while softening the display spectrum to create a movies-type aura. Then there are buttons to eject a disk from the drive and WiFi and Bluetooth buttons.

As with most gaming rigs, the GT783 offers a good selection of ports – a pair of USB-3 sockets a trio of USB-2 ports, four audio jacks (headphone, mic, S/PDIF jacks), eSATA interface, and VGA and HDMI interfaces.

For storage MSI GTX783 laptop have taken the hybrid route – a 128GB SSD is paired with a 750GB 7200rpm hard drive. Audio is excellent thanks to Dynaudio processing and THX Surround Sound, and the speaker system includes an embedded subwoofer. Loud, crisp playback with decent volume. Audible bass, if not tangible.

Inside this GTX783 beast is the 2.2GHz Intel Core i7-2670QM CPU teamed with a fabulous 16GB RAM and an NVidia GeForce GTX580M discrete GPU, all of which enables the latest games to run smoothly, and which will take multimedia productivity in its stride. For comparison, that CPU offers 80% better performance than the i5-2450M found on many high-end mid-rangers. In the PCMark 7 benchmark the GT783 bested even the Alienware M18x, which sells at $4500.

Admittedly it couldn’t match the M18x for multimedia performance, but it did come out tops for Photoshop CS5. That Turbo Drive Engine boosts GPU output by around 5% though its only available when the notebook is plugged in. 41fps on high settings in Crysis is decent gaming capability by anyone’s standards.

Battery life is commendable at 3 hrs 29 mins of moderate use , an hour longer than the M17x manages. This machine is a lifestyle choice – its superlative input devices, premium sound system and herculean performance all justify its price. And with these components it’s about as future-proof as anything out there.

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