Who said gaming notebooks had to be giants? MSI says its new GS70 is not only powerful, but it's also the world's thinnest and lightest 17-inch gaming rig. Measuring 16.5 x 11.3 x 0.85 inches and weighing in at a relatively light 5.73 pounds, MSI's latest rig beats Razer's thin-and-light 17-inch Blade Pro, which measures 16.8 x 10.9 x 0.88 inches and weighs 6.58 pounds.
When it comes to gaming systems, though, size and weight are second to performance, and from the looks of the GS70's spec sheet, it should have no problem competing in that department. Sporting a 2.4-GHz quad-core Intel Core i7-4700HQ, 16GB of RAM, your choice of a 128GB SSD paired with a 1TB HDD or a 128GB SSD paired with a 750GB HDD and an Nvidia GeForce GTX 765M with 2GB of RAM, the MSI GS70 should offer plenty of computing firepower. The rig with the 128GB SSD and 1TB HDD will set you back a cool $2,000, while the system with the 128GB SSD and 750GB HDD will cost you $1,800.
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The Razer Blade Pro, meanwhile, comes with the same processor as the GS70, 8GB of RAM, a 128GB SSD and same Nvidia GeFore GTX765M with 2GB of RAM for $2,299. Bump that up to a 256GB SSD and you'll have to fork over$2,499. Hit the max 512GB SSD and you'll end up paying $2,799. That's a rather big difference in price compared to the MSI.
Still, for less than the $1,800 you'd pay for the base MSI GS70, you could get Toshiba's Qosmio X75, which packs a 2.4-GHz quad-core Intel Core i7-4700MQ processor, 16GB of RAM, a 256GB SSD paired with a 1TB HDD and Nvidia GeForce GTX 770M graphics chip with 3GB of RAM for $1,769. Of course, the Toshiba's 7.4-pound chassis will put a greater strain on your back than the featherweight MSI GS70.
Stay tuned for our full review on the MSI in the coming days.
