GeForce GTX 570M Available in MSI's GT683DXR and GT780DXR

We've known the GTX 570M was coming for a while now, but MSI is the first to start shipping notebooks with the new GPU. Sitting between the GTX 560M and GTX 580M, the GTX 570M packs 336 CUDA Cores clocked at 1150MHz, with 3GB of  GDDR5 running on a 192-bit bus and clocked at 3GHz (72GB/s of bandwidth). That compares to 192 cores clocked at 1550MHz with 2.5GHz GDDR5 (60GB/s) for the GTX 560M, giving the 570M 20% more bandwidth and 34% more processing power. The big brother GTX 580M on the other hand comes with 384 cores clocked at 1240MHz, with 3GHz GDDR5 on a 256-bit bus (96GB/s), so it has 33% more bandwidth and 23% more processing power.

Like all the 500M GPUs (and the 400M parts before them), the 570M supports NVIDIA's Optimus graphics switching technology, though it's up to the notebook manufacturers to actually use it or not. Unfortunately, it appears MSI has decided to not support Optimus with their G-series updates, so we'll have to wait for a future model to get that feature.

That brings us to MSI's new notebooks. The GT683DXR and GT780DXR update the GT680R and GT780R respectively. We reviewed the GT580R a few months back, and it sits in the middle of a bunch of similarly specced notebooks. The new model upgrades the GPU along with packing in 12GB RAM (2x4GB + 2x2GB), keeps the 2x500GB RAID 0 hard drive setup, and continues to offer a GPU overclocking tool dubbed Turbo Drive Engine (TDE) that boosts GPU clocks 3-5%. Newegg and Amazon already have the GT683DXR in stock, priced at $1600 and $1594 respectively.

The larger GT780DXR sports roughly identical specs, with the chief difference being the larger chassis and 17.3" display. The GT780DXR also includes a third USB 2.0 port and a VGA port, to go along with the two USB 3.0 ports and the HDMI port offered on the GT683DXR. and it has a backlit keyboard with three color zones. We haven't had a chance to look at the GT780 series before, so we can't comment on the display quality, but it can hardly be worse than the panel we tested in the GT680R. Considering it costs an extra $100 for a larger notebook with otherwise identical specs, not to mention the use of a matte LCD, we're hopeful that display quality is substantially better on the GT780DXR. The GT780DRX is also available at Newegg for $1700, or at Amazon for $1700.

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Computex 2011: MSI's Brazos, Cedar Trail and Tegra 2 Tablets

I met with MSI yesterday, a company that has been going through a bit of an  identity crisis as of late. ASUS is the only motherboard manufacturer that really made the transition from a component vendor to something more than that. MSI is trying its best to go back to its roots and develop a strategy that will work for it in the long run.

Tablets are of course a big deal these days and MSI had a number of tablets in its Windpad line on display.

 First off we have the Windpad 120W, a Cedar Trail based tablet (32nm Atom). Unfortunately, although Intel promised fanless designs for Cedar Trail it looks like the Windpad 120W will use a small, slow spinning fan to help keep it cool. The 10-inch tablet will have WiDi support for wireless video streaming similar to what you can get on an Arrandale or Sandy Bridge notebook today. It's unclear what formats or resolutions will be supported. Presumably Cedar Trail isn't going to have the transcoding performance of a Sandy Bridge so you should lower your expectations for WiDi on Atom accordingly. Pricing and availability are TBD on the 120W.

 Next up is a Brazos version of the 120W, the Windpad 110W. We get a similar chassis but a C-series APU inside. Pricing will be around $599 for the Windows 7 equipped tablet. Finally, MSI also has its Windpad 100A, a Tegra 2 based tablet running Android. Currently the tablet is running 2.3.3, however MSI's goal is to release it either with Honeycomb or Ice Cream Sandwich late this year. The industrial design on the Windpad will change by then, hopefully to a thinner form factor. 

 We'll see a sooner release from MSI running Gingerbread, in a chassis that likely looks very similar to what you see here. {gallery 1106}]]>

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Computex 2011: MSI's X79 and Llano Motherboards

By now you know that Ivy Bridge (due out in March - April of 2012) will be backwards compatible with some 6-series motherboards. The CPU itself has a PCIe 3.0 controller on-die, however MSI tells us that without modifications to existing motherboard designs you won't be able to properly support the 3.0 spec. 

MSI's Z68A-GD80 (G3) features new circuitry and switches between the CPU socket and the x16 slots that will apparently allow the motherboard to operate at PCIe Gen 3 speeds. The problem seems confined to the switches that motherboard makers use to automatically divide the 16 PCIe lanes coming from the CPU into 1 x16 or 2 x8. MSI claims that when Ivy Bridge comes out, the Z68A-GD80 (G3) will be fully PCIe Gen 3 compliant.

Of course MSI had a Socket-2011 X79 motherboard on display in addition to a pair of Socket-FM1 Llano boards. I'm hearing late summer for the desktop Llano launch at this point.

Those of you waiting for Bulldozer performance results from Computex, I'm afraid we're not going to see anything representative of final hardware. I did hear that the upcoming B2 stepping would restore performance to Bulldozer's original targets, however it's unclear how those compare to Sandy Bridge. The other thing I did hear at the show floor regarding Bulldozer was about its clock speed. Current B1 stepping parts are easily hitting 3.8GHz which is what the high end SKU may actually ship at (with turbo support up to 4.2GHz). I'm waiting for more confirmation but it sounds like Bulldozer will at least clock very high.

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CyberPower's X6-9300 and MSI's GT680R: Fighting for Your Mobile Gaming Dollar

Choosing a laptop can be a pretty confusing experience, because even if you have a good idea of what features and components you’d like, finding a laptop with them isn’t always easy. Once you do find the right features, you have to decide if you like the way the notebook looks, and in the mobile gaming world that often means living with a lot of gloss and bling, or going for the polar opposite with a dull black plastic shell. We have two gaming notebooks that happen to fall squarely into those categories, but there’s a lot more to the packages than that simple description.

Can MSI or CyberPower (Clevo) put together a midrange notebook that will wow us and walk away with your gaming dollar? If not, where do they come up short? Read on to find out.

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