MSI GT640X - Gaming Laptop Review

Page 4 – Insides, test configuration

Now is the time to remove all the covers from from the bottom of MSI GT640X and take a look at the things hidden behind them. Interesting, MSI have replaced the usual WD Scorpio Blue with Seagate Momentus 7200.4:

A quick look at the processor chosen by MSI – Intel Core i7-720QM in this case, working at mere 1.6 GHz in idle. That's the basic model, but with its four cores and capability for automatic overclock up to 2.8GHz under load (thanks to the „Turbo Boost”) it is in fact one of the fastest s mobile processors today. Add in the mix the “Hyper Threading” capabilities and the presence of 1MB L2 and 6MB L3 cache and we get quite a lot of performance. Sadly all this has a hefty price – the needs of this processor go as high as 45W, making it hardly fit for laptops relying mostly on battery power

MSI GT640X is provided with 2x2GB DDR3 Hynix RAM memory, working at 1066MHz, thus both of its memory slots are occupied. On the same photo we can see also the wireless network controller - Intel WiFi Link 5100:

The graphics are handled by the newest mobile graphic processor from NVidia - GeForce GTS 250M. Being one of the first mobile solutions that provide full DirectX 10.1 support, manufactured by 40nm technology it has 96 stream processors, supports PhysX, uses "Pure Video HD" technology that aids the processor in video processing and finally has 1024MB memory on its own. Its power consumption is 28W, which is very fine number indeed. The only disappointing thing in it is the 128 bit memory interface:

And here is the cooling that takes care for both processors:

Test system

The system we compared MSI GT640X to is as follows:

• Motherboard: MSI X58 Pro
• Processor: Intel Core i7 920 @ 2.66GHz (133x20)
• RAM: OCZ XCT Platinum 1800LV2G 3x2GB 1066MHz 7-7-7-16
• Graphic card: ATI Radeon HD 4870
• Hard drive: Seagate 640GB
• PSU: Hipro 550W

For the tests we used Windows 7 64-bit OS, along with the most recent drivers. We ran the following tests:

• 3DMark 06
• 3DMark Vantage (DirectX 10.1)
• oZone3D FurMark 1.6.5
• Cinebench 10.1 (64 bit)
• Cinebench 11.5 (64 bit)
• Paint.NET x64 3.36 - PDNBench
• Lame 3.97 Benchmark
• WinRar 3.7.1
• SuperPI (8MB)
• Disk Throughput Tester
• S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky (DirectX 10.1)
• Resident Evil 5
• X3 Terran Conflict