MSI GT683R-242US With GeForce GTX 560M Review


PCMark & 3DMark Tests

We'll start our benchmark testing with Futuremark's system performance benchmark, PCMark Vantage. This synthetic benchmark suite simulates a range of real-world scenarios and workloads, stressing various system subsets in the process. Everything you'd want to do with your PC -- watching HD movies, music compression, image editing, gaming, and so forth -- is represented here, and most of the tests are multi-threaded, making this a good indicator of all-around performance.

Futuremark PCMark Vantage
Simulated Application Performance


As you can see the GT683R performs quite well, outscoring all of the notebooks in our reference bank with the exception of the Maingear eX-L 15. When you consider the price difference of the Maingear eX-L 15 ($2,456) compared to the $1,499.99 price tag of the MSI GT683R, the performance of the GT683R is quite impressive.

 

Futuremark 3DMark Vantage
Simulated Gaming Performance

Next, we'll take a look at Futuremark's 3DMark Vantage benchmark, which focuses on gaming performance. Some of the technologies in 3DMark Vantage are only available with DirectX 10, making this a better barometer of modern gaming prowess than the older 3Mark06 benchmark. And unlike previous versions, 3DMark Vantage puts a bit more emphasis on the CPU rather than focusing almost entirely on the GPU(s).

Here again, the GT683R posts a very good score. In fact, the notebook once again outscores all of the notebooks in our reference bank with the exception of the high-end Maingear eX-L 15.

Futuremark 3DMark11
Synthetic DirectX Gaming


Futuremark 3DMark11

The latest version of Futuremark's synthetic 3D gaming benchmark, 3DMark11, is specifically bound to Windows Vista and 7-based systems because it uses the advanced visual technologies that are only available with DirectX 11, which isn't available on previous versions of Windows.  3DMark11 isn't simply a port of 3DMark Vantage to DirectX 11, though.  With this latest version of the benchmark, Futuremark has incorporated four new graphics tests, a physics tests, and a new combined test.  We tested the graphics cards here with 3DMark11's Extreme preset option, which uses a resolution of 1920x1080 with 4x anti-aliasing and 16x anisotropic filtering.


Because 3DMark11 is so new, we're still building our reference bank to use in comparing systems. Here, you can see that the GT683R achieved a very respectable score with the Extreme preset option.

When running the 3DMark11 benchmark with the Performance Preset, the MSI GT683R again achieves a high score, though the Maingear eX-L 15 and Asus G73Jh-A1 are able to squeeze out a few more points than the GT683R.


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