Verdict: MSi takes on our £1,000 gaming laptop challenge
Even when Intel was in its lowest NetBurst doldrums, it could still count on the superiority of its laptop chips. With their roots in a completely different, pre-Pentium 4 architecture, Pentium M CPUs offered far higher performance per watt than AMD's alternatives - and were great for games too.
Whereas Intel was quick to double up the Pentium M and turn it into Core Duo, and then replace it altogether with the Merom-core Core 2 Duo, AMD has lagged on the laptop front. Only when AMD launched its Turion mobile version of the Athlon 64 did it start to nick sales from Intel. AMD finally launched a dual-core Turion, the Turion 64 X2, but it managed to do this at around the same time as Intel's Core 2 Duo, so the laptop was overlooked. However, it can't be denied that the Turion 64 X2 offers excellent value, and this is one reason why MSI's new Megabook M677 is so cheap and cheerful. The M677 sports the second-fastest Turion 64 X2, the TL-56, yet still costs well under £1,000.
At 1.8GHz, the Turion 64 X2 TL-56 is clocked considerably slower than its desktop Athlon 64 siblings - the top-end Turion 64 X2, the TL-60, only runs at 2GHz - but it also consumes far less power. Even a lowly 2GHz Athlon 64 X2 3800+ draws 89W (although there are 65W and 35W versions), whereas the 1.8GHz Turion 64 X2 TL-56 in the M677 requires just 33W. This is around the same wattage as Intel's top Core Duo and Core 2 Duo alternatives.
Beyond the processor, the rest of the M677 is reasonably specified. This is our first taster of Nvidia's mid-range GeForce Go 7600 graphics as well, and it's accompanied by a healthy 256MB of GDDR3 memory. The graphics card is supplied in MXM II form, so it can theoretically be upgraded, although, in practice, we've found that the options are never that great, if they exist at all. MSI's UK website mentions ATi Mobility Radeon X1600 as a possibility, but this would be more of a 'crossgrade'.
With its 15.4in TFT screen, the M677 is smaller than the gaming laptops we've seen previously, such as the Evesham Voyager C720DC Plus with its 17in screen, and the 20in Rock could comfortably bash the M677 into dust. Given the meek powers of the GeForce Go 7600, the modest widescreen resolution of 1,280 x 800 is a sensible bet. We've seen laptops squeeze 1,920 x 1,200 into this screen size, but the MSI's pixel count is more appropriate for the graphics power it totes. It's also an anti-reflective display rather than anti-glare, so it has a glossy finish that lets through more light than traditional displays. This may not be to everyone's taste, but it's great for DVDs and can be handy for gaming, as colours and shadows have more impact.
The rest of the specification is fairly standard. The 1GB of Transcend PC2-5300 DDR2 memory is handily supplied as one SO-DIMM, leaving another slot free for an upgrade. The DVD drive is an LG model, and offers 2.4x dual-layer burning plus 8x single-layer. The Fujitsu hard disk sports a healthy capacity of 100GB but, as with last month's sub-£1,000 Fujitsu Siemens Amilo Xi 1546, it's only a 5,400rpm model. There's a memory card reader supporting SD/MMC, XD, SmartMedia and MemoryStick, and MSI has even built in a 1.3 megapixel webcam in the top of the fascia, making this an ideal system for Skype video calling.
All the requisite ports are available, including FireWire, a quartet of USB 2 ports, Ethernet and even a modem - just in case the built-in 802.11g wireless networking can't leech access from a local hotspot. All this, and the laptop still weighs in at just a touch less than 3kg, so it won't be too much of a strain to carry. The keyboard is comfortable, with a dedicated numeric keypad and separate cursor keys. However, we think the claimed three-hour battery life is an exaggeration; I had to rush to write the last part of this review, as I could only get around 90 minutes out of the M677, so apologies if there aren't as many as puns you'd normally expect.
PERFORMANCE
The Athlon 64 X2 was once a tower of strength but, against Intel's Core 2 Duo products, it looks decidedly last-year. Sadly, the same is true of the Turion 64 X2. From a performance perspective, the Turion 64 X2 has a clock speed disadvantage against mobile Core 2 Duo to contend with as well. Whereas the top TL-60 runs at 2GHz, the fastest mobile Core 2 Duo, the T7600, runs at 2.33GHz. So the M677's TL-56 is only on a par with the slower Core 2 Duos. With only 2 x 512KB of Level 2 cache, it's lacking in on-chip memory too - Intel's T7600 has 2 x 2MB.
Compared with the best that Intel has to offer, the Turion 64 X2 looks pretty moribund in our Media Benchmarks. The M677 was 44 per cent slower than Evesham's Voyager C720DC Plus overall. However, the Voyager costs twice as much as the M677. The Fujitsu-Siemens Amilo Xi from last issue had an Intel Core Duo T2400 clocked at 1.83GHz, and scored 1.03 overall, so the M677's overall score of 1.00 shows that, clock for clock, the Turion 64 X2 compares well against the Core Duo. Against the Core 2 Duo, the Turion 64 X2 obviously fares less well.
We were hoping for similarly workmanlike, if not outstanding, results in games. On paper, the graphics card's specs don't fill you with confidence; the GeForce Go 7600 sports only eight pixel shader units and five vertex shaders - the same number as that of the GeForce Go 6600 - but it runs with a much faster 450MHz GPU clock and 500MHz (1GHz effective) memory. Need for Speed: Most Wanted lacks proper widescreen support, and the hack didn't work, so we had to resort to the highest 4:3 option available, 1,024 x 768, and even then, the game didn't feel smoothly playable with minimum AA and AF settings. Need for Speed: Carbon is even tougher than its predecessor, and we had to sacrifice detail settings as well as AA and AF, and drop the resolution to 1,024 x 768, to keep the game moving quickly.
F.E.A.R. ran at the TFT's native 1,280 x 800, but wasn't capable of a decent frame rate with 2x AA and 2x AF, dropping to just 13 fps in some sections. It was a little smoother when we reduced the resolution to 1,024 x 768, but the minimum was still too low. Even when we completely turned off AA, there were still annoying stalls.
Quake 4 was a little more reassuring. With dual-core support turned on, Quake 4 was playable up to 1,024 x 768 with 2x anti-aliasing. At 1,280 x 800, we had to drop the AA to sustain the frame rate, but it was still the smoothest game on the MSI. We found that the screen was a little dark though.
CONCLUSION
Frankly, it's disappointing that you can't play many modern games at the screen's native resolution. The GeForce Go 7600 is as underpowered for modern games as the Mobility Radeon X1800 in last month's Fujitsu. From what we've seen so far, it seems as though neither ATi nor Nvidia has much to offer gamers who want a gaming laptop for less than £1,000.
Still, if gaming isn't your main focus, the MSI isn't bad; it's fairly portable, not too slow and has a decent array of extras - but it's difficult to become excited about a machine that offers such lacklustre gaming performance.
