A whole bunch of new laptops with Intel Ivy Bridge processors and next-gen Nvidia/AMD GPUs have been unveiled at CeBIT in Germany this week. Things are shaping up nicely for laptop gamers, with several new promising machines. The only downside is that they are still a couple of months from release.
MSI has launched updates to both the 15.6-inch and 17.3-inch version of its G-series gaming laptops. The names have been simplified to GT60 and GT70 and the biggest visual change is to the smaller version that replaces the current GT683 series, including the GT683DXR that was just reviewed here on gaminglaptopreport.com. It looks like the 15.6-inch GT60 is now more in line with the GT70, which in turn looks more or less the same as its predecessor, the GT780.
The exact specifications have not been revealed at CeBIT or in MSI’s press release, but both laptops will definitely ship with quad-core Ivy Bridge CPUs as well as a graphics card from Nvidia’s “real” 600M series with the new 28nm Kepler architecture. The Verge has some additional details and pretty pictures. While the late April release date is not surprising, the prices are. Although these laptops are no doubt very powerful, starting prices at €1,999 / $2,630 for the GT 60 and €2,299 / $3,025 for the GT70 sound excessively steep.
When the new GT series hit store shelves they will have to compete with similarly brand new laptops from Alienware, Asus, Gigabyte and many others. With that kind of competition, MSI will have to offer up some unique selling point to justify that sort of price tag. One interesting such feature is what MSI calls “Super-RAID”–or more accurately dual SSDs in RAID 0 plus a separate mechanical hard drive for storage. Another unique feature that carries over from the current lineup is MSI’s overclocking feature TDE (Turbo Drive Engine).
