This article was originally published in May issue of the magazine "Gambling". Materials from the heading "Iron Workshop" are placed on "Gambling.ru "within five weeks after the appropriate issue of the magazine" Gambrine "on sale."
Technical characteristics
Screen : 15.6 inches (1920×1080), LED backlight * CPU : Intel Core i5-2410m (2.3 GHz) * Memory : 4 GB DDR3-1333 MHz * Video card : Nvidia GeForce GTX 560M * Hard disk : 500 GB (7200 rpm) * Connection : Wi-Fi 802.11n, Bluetooth 3.0, Lan * Connectors : 2x USB 2.0, 2x USB 3.0, Esata, Lan, D-Sub, HDMI, Audio * Battery : lithium-ion, 9 cells * Operating system : Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit * Additionally : cardrider, webcam * Dimensions : 39.6×26.9×5.5 cm * Weight : 3.3 kg * Price for June 2012 : 42,000 rubles
It is easy to choose a powerful laptop. We are looking for the one that is more expensive and buy: performance is guaranteed. It is much more difficult to find a good laptop for acceptable money. There are only a few companies in our country that offer interesting models at a reasonable price, and one of them – MSI. And today, on our tests, its representative in the person GT683. A fifteen -inch model, which, according to the manufacturer, should provide normal speed in all modern games.
Two loops and four bevels
The appearance of the laptop clearly indicates belonging to the game series. Chubby rectangle 5.5 cm thick and weighing 3.3 kg. The front part is a little narrowed, the back is raised. All corners are mowed. The main material is black plastic. The upper half is closed with gloss and decorated with a luminous company logo. On the bottom – a lot of ventilation holes and a lid that opens access to hard drives. The upper half is on two loops. There are no additional fasteners: the hinge is tight enough so that the laptop does not open when carrying.
Interior design GT683 for amateur. Deliberately sharp bevels on the faces, a thick frame around the perimeter of the screen, mirror plastic around the touchpad and webcams. It looks pretty, although someone may not like it.
Buttons, arrows and subwoofer
The keyboard here is island, low -profile buttons and long move. Standard layout: all keys are on the spot, Ctrl with fn are not mixed up. Only arrowing arrow and Home/Insert blocks are embarrassed. There was no place for the latter, and it stands above the digital keyboard. The arrows seemed to remain where it was necessary, but for this I had to move to the Ctrl and "0" keys. In general, the keyboard turned out to be convenient not only for games, but also for active printing. The buttons are quiet, and you don't need to get used to the layout. The only negative – the substrate sags a little in the center.
As for the touchpad, we had a double impression of him. On the one hand, the touch panel is too small for a 15.6-inch display. On the other hand, it is made in conscience. The site is drowned into the case and is fenced off by a high plastic side, so that the finger does not fly beyond it.
From additional management, GT683 has a number of sensory buttons above the keyboard. Part of them is responsible for the work of wireless technologies and screen, but there are several interesting functions. For example, if the laptop is very heated, you can increase the speed of the fans. The noise level will increase markedly, but the gland will become easier. Another technology, Turbo Drive Engine , Raises the frequencies of the video card by 5%, which allows you to get additional 2-3 FPS in particularly "heavy" games. And finally, the last feature is the video viewing mode. When pressing the corresponding button, the display parameters change: the brightness decreases and the color rendering improves.
Two speakers and one subwoofer from the company are responsible for the sound Dynaudio. The main emitters are located under the display and protected by a small grate, the low -frequency is on the bottom. The sound is pleasant – loud and clear. Of course, it is better for music to use external acoustics or headphones, but for films or games of built -in speakers there is enough.
One hundred and thirty thousand inch
For the display, a 15.6-inch TN-matrix is used. In our case, the panel supported the resolution of 1920×1080, so the density of the points was on top. However, if the laptop is purchased only for games, you can save on the screen. There are models from 1366×768 points on sale. For jokes or action, this is enough with the head, and it will affect the best way. As for the quality of the image, it is standard for TN: the average brightness level and modest viewing angles vertically. But the contrast and color reproduction are good – thanks for this glossy coating, which, although it glitters in the sun, but noticeably improves the picture.
With a set of ports of GT683 full order. All rarely used connectors are put to the back: power, LAN, D-SUB, ESATA and HDMI. This is very convenient – the cables do not hang out at hand. More popular ports scattered on the sides. Here and pair USB 3.0 with USB 2.0, and cardrider, and four nests for connecting acoustics. Interesting fact: USB ports support the proprietary technology of MSI I-Charger https://sister-site.org/lucky-carnival/, which allows you to charge all Apple devices, which instead of standard 0.5 require 1.2 A.
Two second -generation nuclei
On sale you can find several configurations GT683. In our main work, he was responsible Core i5-2410M -bilingual crystal with a frequency of 2.3 GHz, automatic acceleration of up to 2.9 GHz and 3 MB of cache-memory of the third level. RAM was 4 GB of standard DDR3-1333 MHz. Under the storage of data, there was a hard drive with a volume of 500 GB and the speed of spindle rotation 7200 rpm.
A friend was responsible for games in GT683 GeForce GTX 560M : 192 streaming processor at a speed of 775 MHz and 1.5 GB GDDR5 at a frequency of 3 GHz. Compared with "home" video cards, this is the level GeForce GTX 550 Ti.
Note that on sale you can find more powerful GT683 options. For example, with a quad -core processor Core i7-2630QM , a set of DDR3 with a volume of 8/16/32 GB and two rigid disks of 750 GB each.
Taking into account a powerful filling, we prepared a set of tests from synthetic benchmarks PCMark7 , 3dmark11 , Unigine Heaven Benchmark 2.5 and four games: Resident Evil 5 , Dirt 2 , Aliens vs. Predator And Just Cause 2. The settings were set to the maximum, the resolution ranged from 1680×1050 to 1920×1080.
In PCMark7, the system scored 2235 points, 3DMark11 in Performance showed 1926 Parrots, but Unitine Heaven Benchmark 2.5 issued 217 points at an average speed of 8.6 fps. The system did not fail in game tests. In the Resident Evil 5, the personnel meter did not fall below 56.9 FPS. Dirt 2 Minimum indicator – 48.6 frames. But in Aliens vs. Predator and Just Cause 2 Comfortable FPS failed to get, you need to reduce graphics settings.
In the end
GT683-a worthy laptop for those who for some reason cannot put a regular computer at home. For 42,000 rubles, MSI offers a Full HD screen, a comfortable keyboard, a huge number of ports and, most importantly, decent performance. For those who do not have enough processor or volume of the drive, expanded equipment with Core i7 and 1.5 TB of disk space is offered, however, you will have to give for it from 50,000 rubles for it. However, the most interesting is the offer with a simpler screen and resolution of 1366×768 – 37,000 rubles.
Pros:
- Good performance
- A large number of ports
- high -quality sound
Cons:
- The keyboard substrate is bend
- The display brings in the sun
Table 1
Synthetic tests
PCMark7
Scores
2235
3dmark11
Graphics Physicsoverall
181430561926
Unigine Heaven Benchmark 2.5
FPSSCORES
8.6217
Table 2
Game tests (personnel per second)
Resident Evil 5 (DX10)
Settings1680x10501920x1080
High, AF 16×64,561.9
High, AF 16X, AA 4×63,356.9
Dirt 2 (DX11)
Settings1680x10501920x1080
Ultra, AF 16×60.755.5
Ultra, AF 16X, AA 2×52,348.6
Just Cause 2
Settings1680x10501920x1080
High, AF 16×28.528.6
High, AF 16X, AA 4×30.827.4
Aliens vs. Predator (DX11)
Settings1680x10501920x1080
Veryhigh, AF 16×26,223.2
Veryhigh, AF 16X, AA 2×20.918.5
