iBuyPower Battalion M1771 (MSI GS70) Gaming Notebook Review
by Dustin Sklavos on December 30, 2013 2:45 PM ESTThe iBuyPower Battalion M1771 isn't going to have the absolute best performance, but given its relative form factor, the fast Intel i7 quad core processor and solid GeForce GTX 765M should allow it to at least throw some of its modest weight around.
Before we get into gaming testing, though, it's worth at least seeing how it stacks up in relation to other current generation (and a couple of older generation) gaming machines in most basic disciplines. The Razer Blade 14 can exist as a reality check in games excepting the CPU which is the slightly slower i7-4702HQ; the Blade 14 has basically the same hardware as the Blade Pro, which is in turn almost identical to the M1771 (MSI GS70) internally.
The M1771 has the fastest storage subsystem of the lot but only just barely; despite the two SSDs in RAID 0, its theoretical performance advantage proves to be academic in practice. Meanwhile it bounces a bit over the map in PCMark 8, posting a slightly anemic performance in the Home test. It's not horrible and exists essentially as an oddball outlier.
PCMark 7 is kinder, and the M1771 posts a strong performance bolstered by its CPU and fast SSD storage subsystem.
Meanwhile, performance in the 3DMarks is excellent. The 765M is a strong piece of kit, able to use raw clockspeed to essentially make up most of the difference in CUDA core count between it and the powerful GTX 675MX. The Blade 14 trails it slightly, probably owing to the 200MHz difference in base clocks and reduced turbo bins of the i7-4702HQ. Meanwhile, check out the lead in 3DMark 11 over the former heavyweight GTX 580M.
The 4700HQ is modestly generationally faster than the 3630QM, in line with the difference in IPC as the two have identical clocks and turbo bins. It's also notably faster than the 2720QM, but Ivy proved to be a much bigger boost to mobile performance over Sandy than Haswell is over Ivy. The M1771 is essentially where it needs to be, performance-wise.
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DanNeely - Tuesday, December 31, 2013 - link
No. Except for anything they buy out of pocket or what is donated to create testbeds its mostly loaners so that the manufacture can get a half dozen reviews out of a single piece of hardware.Kristian Vättö - Wednesday, January 1, 2014 - link
It depends on the review item, publication and company/region. Typically expensive items like notebooks and smartphones have to be sent back but I've only had to send back two or three SSDs and that's because I've dealt with companies' European offices (they have more limited marketing budgets).johnxfire - Wednesday, January 1, 2014 - link
Will we we ever get a review on the W230ST? Its probably my favorite piece of hardware ever, coming from my NP8150 to that has been an amazing move. It saddens me that Clevo resellers arent as popular as they ought to be.hfm - Thursday, January 2, 2014 - link
I seem to recall all the reviews saying it sounded like a jet engine during gameplay. One of these days we'll get a nice thin and like gaming laptop (4-6 lb depending on size) .. I think the 14" around 4-4.5 and 15-17 maxing around 5.75-6lb are good spots..hfm - Thursday, January 2, 2014 - link
I meant to say something these sizes and weight that don't sound like they are about to take off during gaming..Hubszo - Thursday, January 9, 2014 - link
You're pointing lack of 802.11ac connectivity and it sounds pretty logical considering today's WiFi development. But what surprise me the most that Anandtech has so far not taken proper focus on the widespread issues (some even say about law suit) regarding the most common 802.11ac solution in the form of Intel AC 7260 (specially if utilized under Windows 8.1). It is now several months with this unsolved problem where signal and connection drop-outs are making customers furious and disappointed with Intel's lack of proper action. Personally I own MS-1757 (MSI GT70) with the mentioned WiFi card and I have unfortunately joined huge group of unhappy users (66 sides of posts on Intel's forum speaks for itself) regardless that entire machine pleases me a lot..Ananadtech always was (and still is) my favorite source of IT info, pointing pitilessly bugs, design flaws and "scams" but I just don't understand why is so little attention here on this subject where its negative impact on WiFi experience is so obvious.
Innokentij - Tuesday, January 14, 2014 - link
Why dont you check for throttling issues when you review laptop gaming? 1 hour of gaming with fraps running to check is a must if you want to review a gaming notebook.