MSI GE70 Apache Pro-012 17.3-Inch Laptop

MSI GE70 Apache Pro-012 17.3-Inch Laptop..

Buy MSI GE70 Apache Pro-012 17.3-Inch Laptop By MSI

Most helpful customer reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful.
Great Laptop
By Cali
(I bought this laptop at a local Fry's but I wanted to review it here) I have been using this laptop to run The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim on ULTRA HIGH settings all maxed with no lag. I get 60 FPS and when running bandicam, it stays the same! No drop of FPS.
Some people do not like Windows 8, and not having the start menu was very annoying, but I have adjusted perfectly by installing a program called Start8, which has a start menu that looks great for the windows 8 theme (you can also change it to look like the windows 7 start menu). The program is $5 though, so if you are looking for a free alternative I suggest "Startisback".

This laptop does not come with bloatware but comes with NVIDIA Control Panel (which is on pretty much all NVIDIA rigs), SteelSeries Engine (which lets you change the keyboard settings, macros, and LED color), Dragon Gaming center, and a few more. They are all useful.

This is a pretty new laptop, as it was recently added to my local stores and amazon.

MSI is actually not a cheap brand. MSI is most known for good computer parts, but they also make great computers.

PROS:
- Fast
- No Lag
- Newer GPU
- Light up keyboard (you can set the color of the LEDs to anything you want)
- Portable
- Not heavy
- Large clear display
- No glare on display
- You can switch between intel integrated graphics and the NVIDIA GeForce 860m GPU to save battery. (Use intel integrated graphics while web browsing, etc, and use the NVIDIA GeForce when gaming or using graphically intense programs)

CONS:
- Computer gets warm when gaming, but I just made sure the left side (where the vents are) were ventilated and it was fine.
- Games lag when the laptop is unplugged and running on battery (but this happens with pretty much all laptops I know of)
it doesnt make popcorn

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful.
Portability, Excellent Design, and Powerful
By Misty
Purchased this laptop over the similarly priced Destroyer with the GTX870M GPU for the style and portability that this unit offers. It is also the most powerful Maxwell GPU available in a laptop currently (870 and 880 are both slightly modified Fermi based units).

Stuff you want to know:
- It appears to be running the Maxwell 860M, supported by clock speed and part number.
- There is one 2.5' bay (filled with an excellent HDD), two mSATA slots, and two RAM slots (filled with an 8GB and 4GB). Accessing any of these will require breaking a warranty seal.
- According to MSI the warning seal is "preventative" and they don't actually deny service when broken, still -1 star for the scare tactic.
- Laptop runs shockingly cool for a rig of this power. 45C at the bottom and 65C at the exhaust port after 30 min. of BF4 on Ultra.
- There are some glitches. Relatively minor thus far, but you should expect this on a system this new.

Pros:
- Extremely appealing aesthetic design, not the typical garish gaming rig.
- Most powerful overall unit in this price range that will still fit in your backpack!
- GTX 860M performs fantastic with the new 337.50 driver. 1080p Max settings on everything!
- HDD is excellent, for a HDD. Absolutely the fastest HDD based laptop I have ever used.
- Keyboard is fantastic. Easily the best laptop keyboard I have ever used, and the color effects can be configured to your preference.
- Screen is extremely good for a matte solution.

Cons:
- Ships with an outdated GFX driver that wont run anything. 337.50 Beta drivers were released today (4/7/2014) and are the only alternative to the shipped version. No issues with 337.50 thus far, but given the Beta status I suspect I will find something broken before long.
- Really should be using at least a small hybrid SSD to be called a modern gaming laptop, but as I said the included HDD isn't bad for what it is.
- Must void warranty to install RAM, add an SSD, or clean the crap out of the fan? -2 stars for this alone, FIX IT MSI!
- Sound Blaster presets are extremely poor. DTS and Dolby have had some wonderful innovations in the past decade, Sound Blaster is still the same as they were back in the 90s from a preset perspective.
- Integrated speakers are disappointing. Midrange and Bass are completely gone. If you only listen to Banjo riffs this should be perfect for you...
- Windows 8.1. It's not MSI's fault, but sometimes I wonder how Microsoft can be so out of touch. Metro was and is a huge flop in the mobile space on Windows Phone, what makes them think it will be a different story here?
- It is configured out of the box with a dynamic disk! That's bad news for those of you who want to add an SSD as you will almost certainly end up reimaging the entire thing.
- Occasional low level crashes that cause the device to completely power down without warning. Able to reproduce this 100% in the boot recovery menu->advanced->boot options. Wait a few seconds after it boots into the utility and it will crash. Have seen it twice randomly in windows.

I'll update this review if anything significant happens over time.

Update: I installed the SSD, what a pain! Use the "Burn Recovery" utility to create a set of backup DVDs or flash drive, then install the SSD (remove the HDD even if you are using an mSATA for now), hold F3 on boot, run recovery disk, proceed thru recovery, after booted into new OS install open disk management, delete the data partition, expand the OS partition to fill the space. If you are doing an mSATA drive you will also need to: connect HDD to USB with adapter, use Acronis True Image to wipe all of the old windows 8 partitions (cant do this in drive management), reinstall HDD in SATA bay, and finally format with a new MBR NTFS partition in drive management. If this process description does not make sense I would strongly suggest you buy one of the models with an SSD included!!

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful.
MSI GE70 Apache Pro with GTX860m
By jhughy
I have had this laptop for the better part of four days and have had a chance to play around with it, game with it, tinker with it, so I think that I can post an honest review for the few days of ownership. If there are any updates to my review I will be sure to post them as well.

Four stars is what this laptop will get from me thus far, which I believe is an honest and fair score (albeit a relatively positive score) considering:

Pros: For the price, this laptop is relatively a good value. I have been reading reviews on gaming laptops for the better part of the past year now, and I can say that the new GTX860m packs a pretty good punch for what you pay for. (I'm assuming that a majority of purchasers will be buying for gaming as well). The 860m is quite a bit faster than the 765m and supposedly requires less energy. I was playing BF4 on Ultra (1080p) on a large conquest 64 player map whilst getting a steady frame rate of 40. The low frame rate was around 28 whilst the high frame rate was 58 (these are frame rates that were sustainable that I could physically see in the upper left corner while running FRAPS).

It comes with a 7200 RPM HDD which is a decent upgrade from the 5400 RPM drives gaming laptops usually come with. My previous laptop had a 5400 RPM HDD which was very sluggish.

The case is beautiful, sleek, thin and relatively light. If you are considering between the GT series and the GE or GS series I would recommend stopping by your local Fry's and putting hands on all three. I personally was going to get the GT or the Asus ROG 750 series but I ended up not liking how bulky they were once I was hands on with them. The GE is much more nimble than the GT.

The sound quality from the laptop speakers are incredible for laptop speakers. They play plenty loud and can easily fill a small room with noise.

Cons: The fan is incredibly loud especially during gameplay. I guess this is the trade off as I assume the GT series does not get as loud with the larger base and rear blowing fans. I've noticed that during gameplay the CPU and GPU get rather hot. I ran HWMonitor as the high was in the 90's C for CPU and the 80's C for GPU. MSI could have done a much better job with the temps if they'd use higher quality thermal grease and heat pipes from the factory.

So far the fan is really my only con (besides maybe some of the bloatware and other gimmicky software).

Note (to user and MSI): I'm frustrated that it costs a premium for any small upgrade. If I wanted to get an SSD in place of the HDD I should be able to do this with only paying for the difference between the two (instead of retail price and then some). Same goes for other components. I know that their are companies that allow for upgrades on the MSI (xoticpc) but even they charge a premium for any upgrade. It's cheaper to do some upgrades (HDD to SSD and memory) yourself after the laptop arrives (but then you run the risk of voiding warranties I assume).

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