Msi ge72 6qd review

With the arrival of the new Skylake laptop processors comes the renewal of one of MSI's most successful series, the GE72, specifically the 6QD model. It is a 17.3-inch model, with mid / high-end components that we will detail below and a fairly adjusted price.

We thank MSI Spain for trusting the product for its analysis:

MSI GE72 6QD

The main novelty is none other than a powerful i7 6700HQ processor, 16GB of DRR4 RAM at 2133Mhz CL15, accompanied by an nVidia GTX 960M with 2GB, Intel Wireless AC 3165 (AC 1 × 1) network card, backlit steelseries keyboard, and a single 1TB mechanical hard drive for OS and storage (separated into two partitions by default). Let's see what MSI surprises us with this time.

Technical characteristics

Unboxing and posing for the camera

The box is somewhat smaller than in the GT72 model, as are the included accessories.

The laptop comes in a cloth bag to avoid scratches (the aluminum is delicate, and very dirty in terms of fingerprints), which will serve to transport it in the future:

The laptop is finished in brushed aluminum on the top and plastic for the base. Its 17.3 inches make it an ideal substitute for desktop + monitor, although not so much for those who will move it daily. The battery for its part complies in autonomy, with about two hours of heavy use, much more if we only navigate and with the brightness at low levels.

A microfiber cloth is included to protect the screen, and by the way we can use it to clean it when we need it:

It is a model considerably thinner than the last GT72 analyzed, which works in its favor if we talk about portability, enough to fit in a standard size briefcase, even one designed for 15.6 ″ if we rush a bit.

It has a very respectable number of outputs, with an HDMI 1.4 output, a square format DisplayPort (not to be confused with mini-DP), two USB3.0 ports, a USB2.0, accompanied by a network port and a card reader. An important detail that will become relevant in the future is the inclusion of a USB3.1 type C.

The lower part offers us a grid design, without surprises and with a very reasonable cooling, with the processor fan on one side and the GPU fan on the other. It is not an especially quiet laptop, but the fan control works well and is not noticeable except in games.

For the upper part we see that MSI has once again opted for brushed aluminum, with an elegant and robust finish.

Open laptop detail.

The finishes are very good, and the quality of materials remarkable. They stand out the outer cover in aluminum, and the base of the keyboard in the same material. The lower body is plastic but robust enough not to detract from the whole. We did not like the touch of the touchpad too much, with vertical cuts and very rough, although the precision is reasonable. It is also not a very vital detail in a gaming-oriented laptop like this that will surely always have an external mouse.

At the top of the keyboard we have, in addition to the power button, a button to control the backlight (all the keyboard, left area to play, or off). In this case we only have a red backlight. The touch of the keyboard is good to be chiclet as we have used steelseries. We also have a button in the same place to set the fans to maximum, in case you want to bench in ideal conditions.

The front has 3 blue status LEDs. The laptop does not have an excess of lights and maintains a rather elegant line.

This laptop like most of its MSI peers is easy to take apart, with a single easily removable bottom cover. Unfortunately we have a guarantee sticker that we will have to break to make any modification.

Detail of the switched on equipment.

As we anticipated, the keyboard is of very good quality for a laptop. We repeat with the large letter Ç, which is a small snag that we already highlighted in the GT72, I think it would be much more elegant to leave that part for the intro. Again it is appreciated that the characters <and> are missing. Of course, this does not remove a great result from the keyboard, of course in Spanish layout (as indicated by the -ES of the model number).

The processor is the biggest contribution of this laptop compared to its predecessors, again with the smallest of the really powerful processors from Intel, an i7 6700HQ, with 4 cores and 8 threads, and Skylake architecture. Even though it is the most discreet in frequencies of its series, it has everything its older brothers, and it is certainly the right choice for a gaming laptop. The suffix -HQ means that it is a FCBGA socket processor (1440 in this case) , which indicates that it is soldered to the board and not mounted on the socket, a small drawback since it prevents future extensions (which are not very necessary either, because it is already a very high processor inside its socket) but it also shows that the laptop is appreciably thinner thanks in part to this change.

Although this processor starts with a modest frequency of 2.6Ghz, it has a turbo frequency of 3.5Ghz, almost like desktop processors, so in correct thermal conditions it should not be far from them, as we will see in the testing section performance.

In RAM memory they have opted for a 16GB kit, in two 8GB DDR4 modules at 2133mhz CL15 configured in dual channel, a generous amount to go several years left over and nothing out of the ordinary in these ranges.

The laptop works smoothly and with solvency, although it can be seen that the main disk is a mechanical HDD (to top it all, 2.5 ″, with sufficient performance but without fanfare), so neither the startup nor the opening of programs they are especially fast compared to other teams. Now, although we do not have the best loading screens, the performance in games is what we expect, very remarkable.

In the graphic section, mount a solution that is a very good compromise in performance / cost / consumption, as is the usual GTX 960M. Based on the GM107 chip, Maxwell architecture, it is a really efficient chip, with considerable power and a good overclocking margin. This graph has 640 CUDA cores and 2GB of GDDR5 memory mounted on a 128-bit bus. The size of the graphics memory may not be very spectacular but personally I find it very suitable for the power of the chip.

The integrated graphics of the processor is the new Intel 530, a graphic with reasonable power that will take over when we are not running any heavy application to save battery power.

For the cable network, mount a Killer, a good choice, and for wireless an Intel Wireless AC 3165, which supports 802.11ac networks but unfortunately it is a very basic model, limited to 1 stream, which limits its capabilities, without being not bad at all.

WE RECOMMEND YOU New MSI GTX 680 Lightning-L

Although a good physique is important, it is said that what matters is the interior, so without further delay it is time for performance tests.

Test of performance

The first test we'll look at is Cinebench, which is a fairly objective measure to see at a glance the performance of the multithreaded processor. As we see, it has a very slight advantage to the laptop haswell processors, not too much, since the 4720HQ has a somewhat higher turbo frequency, and to top it off the latencies of DDR4 are high, but enough to stand out from the rest in the race towards 4790K. In its favor, it has a palpable improvement in consumption by the processor and also by the memory, where we estimate that less than 1W is scratched.

The results in games are very good, although of course far from more expensive graphics such as the 970M. Likewise, to have half of the shaders of the previous one, we see that it defends really well. We see a reasonable 36 FPS on average in tomb raider maxing adjustments, which easily become 60 when we deactivate the TressFX and some filter maintaining the maximum quality of textures. The score on Fire Strike is also quite good, with a result around 20% better than what 3DMark ladders consider “Gaming Laptop”.

In the hard disk we find a performance without surprises, exceeding 100MB / s in sequence, but of course with mediocre results with small blocks as it is a mechanical disk.

In short, we have a performance that does not disappoint, living up to expectations with the components and much higher than usual in laptops.

Final words and conclusion

The MSI GE72 6QD supposes a very strong bet of MSI for one of the ranges that more sales reports, the one situated around the 1000 €, since it is not usual to see much bigger budgets even when a user looks for a Gamer laptop.

Competition is tough from brands like Lenovo and its Y50-70, but this MSI has interesting advantages, such as the DVD drive, and it doesn't look like it's going to be more expensive.

As great assets, excellent material quality, and remarkable performance. Its weakest part, probably, the absence of SSD. The touchpad could be better, but as we say it is not a serious failure.

The wireless network card could be a little better, the 7260 of its older brothers being ideal, but it has support for 802.11ac networks and very reasonable performance, with more than 150mbps in actual download.

The screen has good quality, despite being a TN panel. A benchmark in high ranges that keep the price at a tight level.

ADVANTAGE	DISADVANTAGES
+ PROCESSOR PERFORMANCE. 16GB RAM	- UNEXCUSABLE ABSENCE OF SSD, ALTHOUGH OUT OF 128GB
+ REASONABLE PRICE FOR COMPONENTS	- TN PANEL SCREEN (ALTHOUGH GOOD QUALITY)
+ VERY GOOD QUALITY BACKLIGHT KEYBOARD. ALSO EXCELLENT AUDIO, WITH INTEGRATED SUBWOOFER	- IMPROVABLE TOUCHPAD TOUCH
+ QUALITY OF MATERIALS, ALUMINUM BRUSHED ABOVE
+ IMPECCABLE AESTHETICS
+ AC WIRELESS NETWORK (ALTHOUGH ONLY 1X1)

The Professional Review team awarded him the gold medal for his excellent performance.

CPU power

Graphics Power

Materials and finishes

Additional features

Price

9.1 / 10

A laptop that has it all. Add an SSD for maximum enjoyment.