MSI GT780DXR/GT680DXR First to Receive New Intel Chips

The only just released versions of MSI’s gaming laptop lineup with the new and more powerful Nvidia GeForce GTX 570M are due for another upgrade. Intel’s halfway refresh of its Sandy Bridge (2nd-gen Core) processors will apparently find their way into MSI’s laptops pretty soon. Other manufacturers will no doubt follow, considering that this replacement part sells for at same price as the one it replaces to OEMs.

This is nothing dramatic like a next-generation CPU, but a modest increase in clock rates is always welcome. The part in question is the ever-present (in gaming laptops) Core i7-2630QM (2.0GHz, 2.9GHz Turbo Boost) that is now being replaced with its successor the Core i7-2670QM, which has a 200MHz advantage over its predecessor. Intel adds no new features to the table–it’s a 10% performance boost plain and simple–but it does so without increasing the power consumption. On the other hand, you should be able to overclock it even higher now using MSI’s proprietary Turbo Drive Engine (TDE) feature.

All in all, it looks like MSI are on top of things. The fact that they’ve fitted both of their latest laptops–including the smaller 15-6-inch GT683DXR–with Nvidia’s GTX 570M is quite impressive considering it’s the second fastest GPU in Nvidia’s current portfolio. We are now waiting for ASUS to do the same. With the efficient cooling solution we mentioned in our G53SX review, this one (and even less so the G74SX) should have any problems housing a faster GPU.

The Intel CPU upgrade, on the other hand, should start to roll out to new laptops from all manufacturers any day now. There’s only the small matter of clearing out existing stock before the new CPU is commonplace in every other gaming laptop. It might also help bring the prices down on models with the 2630QM.

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Jesper Berg
Jesper Berg

Gaming hardware enthusiast since the 80286 era.

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