MSI GT72 VR 6RE 1070 Gsync Gaming Laptop Review

Introduction

The world of gaming computers shifts so rapidly that we can imagine even the great Gordon Moore must be wondering if his proclamation was overly cautious. Desktop systems progress at a dizzying rate, but because of the nature of portable gaming, nowhere does the market move quite as fast as it does in the world of gaming laptops.

It is almost a year to day when we reviewed the MSI GT72 2QE, a £2000 gaming laptop which sported all the premium features of, at the time, current gaming laptop thinking. In this world where a laptop is considered a somewhat disposable item due to the lack of upgrades available it still would be mad for MSI to get rid of their excellent GT72 chassis entirely, and indeed today's review of the GT72 VR 6RE is what the 2QE would have been if you compiled the specifications list today.

Everywhere you look there are upgrades, and yet because it retains the GT72 design it is also familiar. The white heat of competition refining areas of weakness and MSIs eternal quest for perfection improving the breed. What probably will catch the attention of anyone with an interest in gaming is the graphics card that beats at the heart of the 6RE, a GTX 1070. The efficiency gains of modern GPUs are demonstrated with crystal clarity in a laptop, where heat dissipation and power draw are at a premium. It isn't even listed in the specifications as a mobile variant, which was eye-opening to say the least.

However, it isn't what is claimed that we care about, it's how it performs, but before we get to our benchmark results let's take a closer look at this latest model from the ever-popular MSI Dominator Pro range of laptops.

Technical Specifications

The GT72VR 6RE reads like a wishlist of components. Even if we ignore the excellent Steelseries keyboard, the i7-6700HQ processor and DDR4 support courtesy of Skylake, we still have a NVMe storage device, 120Hz IPS G-Sync monitor, GTX 1070, BluRay writer and KillerNIC. Add onto that Windows 10, so superior to Windows 8.1 that it's almost laughable and the GT72VR 6RE has all the boxes ticked.