MSI GS70 870m vs 860m

[Subzie]

Hi all

 

i am sort of thinking of getting a slim laptop for some mobile gaming and i was thinking of getting a Msi Gs70 with either a GTX 860m or GTX 870m which in the UK retails for about £1199 for the 860m and 12gig of ram or £1399 for the spec with a 870m and 16gig of ram.

 

I have sort of been informed by a friend that for the sake of £200 extra the 870m and a extra 4gig of ram is not justifiable in terms of the extra cost over the 860m and 12gig ram

 

i kinda wanted to get some opinions on this before i end up spending a large amount of money on a 17" laptop, what do you folks think, would the extra £200 spend be worth it for a few extra FPS or is it better to save some money and go for the 860m and 12gig model

 

 

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/search_results.php?keywords=gs70&_=1403397141995 would possibily be the site i would use to get it

 

regards

Subzie

 

 

[PillowSmoke]

http://www.gaminglaptopsjunky.com/gtx-870m-vs-gtx-860m/

[StingBull]

Depends. You cannot upgrade the GPU later down the line. If you already have a desktop PC or plan to buy one in the future go for the cheaper one. The more expensive and the better model will last you longer but keep in mind unless you don't have the desktop option there is little reason to spend that much money on a laptop.

I am also planning to buy a very expensive MSI laptop with a GTX 780 because I need the portability and I won't be able to buy another PC for at least another 5 years. If I didn't need portability I could build an equivalent desktop PC for less money and have the ability to upgrade as well.

[Scionyde]

I agree that a better GPU will last you longer, but your choice should also depend on what kind of games you're planning to play on the laptop. If you're playing a lot of newer, more graphically demanding games, maybe get the 870M.

 

As for RAM, it doesn't really matter. Regardless of whether you pick 12GB/16GB, as long as you're just gaming, either will be more than enough.

[mattias1172]

Defiantly go for the 870m model. The 860m is very underpowered. But DO NOT fall victim to the 6gb VRAM version. It performs in the exact same way as the 3gb version since the gpu doesn't have enough memory bandwith (plus a very other reasons) to capitalize on the extra VRAM. I'm actually looking at the msi gs60 pro 3k version so I've done a good amount of research on the gs60's and some on the 70's

[Subzie]

yeah i do agree with the ram there, gaming will be the main thing im doing on the laptop

 

in terms of games that im gonna play, probably tomb raider, battlefield 4 and hardline beta, maybe i might get titanfall, Grid Autosport, Farcry 3, but what i am thinking is that im not going to be playing them at maximum settings all the time, tone down Anti Aliasing and anistropic Filtering

 

Also in terms of a price difference in the UK i worked it out to be a extra 18-20% extra cost for the 870 over the 860, although thats £200 its not that bad.

[BudgetEngineer]

I'm typing this out on the MSI GS60 Ghost Pro with the 870m 3gb (1080p screen) and 12gb ram.  I have it running the laptop display at 1080p, a 1200p monitor over HDMI, and a 1440p monitor with League of Legends maxed at 80 FPS and it doesn't even flinch.  I know LoL isn't demanding but I haven't had time yet to get my other games downloaded for testing.  Go with the 870m, RAM you can upgrade to a 16gb kit later if you really need to.

 

Btw, so far I'm very impressed with the laptop, only complaints being the trackpad seeming to have some issues with tracking small, precise movements and the battery life is only 3 hours even on power saver mode.  Though this might be defective with my laptop as most other people are quoting 5 hours actual use.

[Subzie]

i was talking to a friend regarding this, and i think he mentioned that Linus himself kinda did not recommend the 870 over the 860, i might have been mistaken though

[BudgetEngineer]

Might be because the 860m in the gs60 and 70 is supposed to be Maxwell for better battery life? I'm not sure but I got the 870 for vram and Cuda cores for mobile editing.

[BudgetEngineer]

i was talking to a friend regarding this, and i think he mentioned that Linus himself kinda did not recommend the 870 over the 860, i might have been mistaken though

Might be because the 860m in the gs60 and 70 is supposed to be Maxwell for better battery life? I'm not sure but I got the 870 for vram and Cuda cores for mobile editing.

[Lord_Karango17]

Might be because the 860m in the gs60 and 70 is supposed to be Maxwell for better battery life? I'm not sure but I got the 870 for vram and Cuda cores for mobile editing.

I remember that linus said something, about a few of the 870m's being maxwell as well...

[BudgetEngineer]

I don't think there are any Maxwell parts except the 860m. That's what I heard, my 870m is Kepler.

[Lord_Karango17]

The ram portion of the questions really isnt the problem, as unless you are video rendering, or have everything on your hdd open at the same time 12 gb is more than enough...

But the 870m is a huge performance leap over the 860m (the 860m gets around 5000 in 3dmark 11, while the 870m gets around 7000), but this performance boost is only justifiable if you will use it, and again we come back to what you think you will use the laptop for... anything very taxing/ cant deal with lower frame rates... then get the 870m...

[Lord_Karango17]

I don't think there are any Maxwell parts except the 860m. That's what I heard, my 870m is Kepler.

ahh... anyways, even with the maxwell, we have to remember that these laptops come with optimums and when you are browsing the web, or doing basically anything other than gaming it will switch to the intel hd graphics, and will basically cut all power to the gpu, so the power consumption of the gpu wont effect the battery life much... unless you are gaming on the battery, which wouldn't be a satisfying experience anyways, as the gpu will normally down clock when not powered, due to the battery not being able to give enough power for both the cpu and gpu to be at max clocks...

[BudgetEngineer]

ahh... anyways, even with the maxwell, we have to remember that these laptops come with optimums and when you are browsing the web, or doing basically anything other than gaming it will switch to the intel hd graphics, and will basically cut all power to the gpu, so the power consumption of the gpu wont effect the battery life much... unless you are gaming on the battery, which wouldn't be a satisfying experience anyways, as the gpu will normally down clock when not powered, due to the battery not being able to give enough power for both the cpu and gpu to be at max clocks...

Yep Optimus works very well. I can tell you the maximum battery life I've gotten Web browsing is only about 3.5 hours. Other people are reporting 5 so I think I might have to call Msi

[seiny]

I think we'll need to wait a few more years before we get better battery performance on laptops

[Lord_Karango17]

I think we'll need to wait a few more years before we get better battery performance on laptops

Yeah, with the rate of advancements in many sectors within tech, the battery aspect is really lagging behind... 

 

In any case that just probably means that we are fairly close to a breakthrough... there is only so long that it can be stagnant...

[SkilledRebuilds]

http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Mobile/MSI-GT70-2PE-Dominator-Pro-Gaming-Notebook-Review-Appropriately-named/Gaming-Performa

3DMark 11’s findings are congruent, scoring the

MSI GT70 (880m) 8464 points.

ASUS G750JX’s (770M) isn’t even in the same ballpark here, receiving just 5202 in comparison (62.7% lower).

[Lord_Karango17]

Yeah, what ive noticed, is that the 800 series card are comparable to 1 step up of the 700 series cards... so a 860m is similar to a 770m, but this dosent hold true for the top tier cards, as the 880m isn't a huge bump up from the 780m...

[seiny]

Yeah, with the rate of advancements in many sectors within tech, the battery aspect is really lagging behind... 

 

In any case that just probably means that we are fairly close to a breakthrough... there is only so long that it can be stagnant...

I hope so, I remember an old article talking about new battery technology for mobile phones that was said to give like 2 - 4 weeks of battery life with regular usage, charging your phone just once a month was sounding very nice but God alone knows what happened to that. That article was back in 2006/7.

[Mateyyy]

You should get the 870M version, because you're not really able to change the GPU later. It's more powerful than the 860M (Captain Obvious), so it's gonna be a bit more "futureproof".