Pros: Overclock-able unlocked Skylake processor. I have mine overclocked to 4.0Ghz when gaming.
The cool thing is that it came with the SATA adapter to to utilize super raid. (most laptops skimp on these adapters)
The MSI Shift makes it pain free to overclock just by using the Fn key.
I opted for this model for the unlocked processor versus the next processor up.

Cons: The only con so far until noted, is waiting on news on the MXM upgrade for the next iteration of video cards. There hasn't been any news or confirmation from MSI.

Other Thoughts: I highly recommend this machine to anyone that can afford it.

Pros: Showed up quick, working, not damaged. I have had this 5-6 weeks since mid/late DEC i just got to use it (FEB 1st) this week
other than a quick functionality test. This is a follow up review, i purchased the 019 model first and sent it back.
Had(019)the HM170 motherboard i didn't want, i wanted the C236 chipset so i can upgrade later if i keep it.

There is WINDOWS/FN key swap setting built into the BIOS, thats a huge deal me. Its on the "ADVANCED" page 6th item down.
I'm guessing the 3 reviewers below haven't found that out yet.

Raid card and extra memory slots are wide open for any future upgrade, way easier to get to than the battery which is embedded
in the middle of the computer along the lines of a motherboard. Its average to light weight actually for a 17" laptop, it will
still break your foot or some toes if you drop it and it hits your foot. Almost 2 pounds lighter than my DELL. Also keep in
mind you have to carry the power brick everywhere you take the laptop. Thats the rule on big power hungry portable work
stations & gaming units not just this one. Be realistic in your expected battery life- time wise. Your NOT going to get
2-3-4 hours out of it or any other big nasty power hungry computer. A high performance laptop like this means little to
no battery time, learn to live with it or dont buy it. This unit must remain married to the power brick so no use complaining
about having to carry it around.

Nice screen, very little bleed & no dead pixels on my unit. I dont have any of the yellowing screen
issues some user's report. BIOS is not self explanatory but is user friendly if you know what the settings do, that means
no instant "OC" button for you point & clickers. Normal users will probably never need to go in there anyway other than
to set the time and date when it first comes out of the box. The USB ports are actually far enough apart to use 2 at time,
not touching each other.

I know those gaming laptops with desktop CPU's in them are all the rage these days but we dont need another problematic
computer in this house. And i for-see them as being prone to reliability issues in the long run.

Cons: All the bad things you previously read from other reviews about the battery are true, MSI really shot themselves in the
foot on this one- and your going to end up paying for it.

This is just MY opinion, it's mostly based on fact & my experience with MSI. These things may not matter to or bother you.
You have to keep in mind if you purchase any MSI product there is NO support or RMA after your 30 day N/EGG purchase period.
And that's not just me picking on them, i'm a not a single person conspiracy.
You can see that information in any other MSI product reviews,(N/egg, azon) or find that out through a search engine.

This information may vary slightly dependent on where you regularly read tech reviews but it's close enough.
MSI has 2 out of the top 5 and 3 out of the top 10 gaming laptops on the market but rated #10 of 10 in support.

MSI gets kind of a bad rap because of their lack of support, if you just look at as if you have NONE its a good purchase hardware wise. Don't get me wrong on this, when a laptop cost as much as a used car you should get some support.

Battery, bad drivers, throttle errors- see warnings & other information below

Other Thoughts: As much as i like the hardware configuration(for myself) the embedded battery is an absolute deal breaker for me purchasing any
additional(GT series) unit's for for my kids. A normal user is probably looking at 250$++ in labor alone just to get it changed.
Embedding a battery in this manner is the type of decision management makes not engineering. Might have saved them 5-10$ in the mfg
process and its going to cost an average consumer 250-300$ to get fixed later. If it was just the 7 screws and under the bottom cover
like the hard drive or memory slot i could live with that, but its not. Its in the middle of the laptop, complete dis-assembly will
be required. If you don't use the battery you can open the bottom and unplug it so when you go to get rid of it in a year or two
you still have a good battery. An un-used battery is always going to last longer than one that sits on charge everyday even if
it's not getting used. I have L/T batteries that are 4/5 years old in my 3 work laptops because i dont leave the battery in 24/7
charging when its sitting there plugged in or not being used. Nobody wants to buy a used 2-3 year old L/Top that also has a
dead battery.

I have all the same other issues as everybody else with bad drivers & throttling errors right out of the box. Just because you didnt check your log files and find the errors dont mean they're not there. I'm sure MSI has a documented solution for that by now (that was joke), you need to update the windows framework(s) or DOT.NET ?? to fix the throttle errors. I did an in place upgrade to 10-Pro after 4 days and turned off and or removed all the extra W-10 items & services via gpedit.msc. Probably an easier way to do it but thats the way i know best. I only use ON/OFF so i dont have any problems coming out of sleep mode.

When you configure the TCO and the maintenance cost of buying a new battery eventually its probably going to end up costing the same
as a ASUS, ORIGIN EON or DELL. But those do include tech support for those that will need it. AORUS by GIGABYTE never made my list, nor will a Gigabyte product ever make my list of possible purchase's. And i cant stand the way a RAZOR looks- period.

I would recommend this as a "short term" purchase or for those that know how to work on their own equipment.
Average user purchase that may need support someday, NOPE. I cant recommend it.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Andy,
Thank you for your feedback, however we do see that you're not a "Verified Owner" of our laptop product. Did you purchase a laptop through Newegg? The information you gather is not correct. MSI provide industry best technician and customer services. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the product, please do not hesitate to contact us directly at usreview@msi.com or contact us at our support toll free number 888-447-6564 M-F 6am to 6pm PST. and we will be more than happy to assist you, thank you.

Thanks for choosing MSI

Best Regards,
MSI Review Team | usreview@msi.com

Pros: Large, solidly built, great aesthetic design. Can't really say much the other very detailed reviewers before me haven't said. It's faster than my aging desktop machine in most respects. I was hesitant to upgrade to Windows 10 until now but now I'm glad I did (I didn't have much of a choice, but still). Have yet to run any benchmarks but I played BF4 on Ultra without any issues. I got the machine mostly for 3D work and gaming as a secondary purpose, and the CPU/GPU will get up to 50+C as I'm working. The simple fan button on the left side toggles the fan and cools things down rather quickly. It's not as loud as you'd think either, especially since I'm almost always listening to music while I work.

Cons: I hate the position of the Windows key because I use it often in it's standard position on the left side. Will take some getting used to.

The top of the lid get's really fingerprint-y and smudgy.

I'd rather have finer control of the fan than a simple toggle. As far as I'm able to tell there's no way to control the exact RPM, not even through MSI Afterburner which comes provided (the newer UI is ugly and I can't make sense of it, personally. I installed an older version of EVGA Precision which is basically the same thing and the ability to control the fan speed was greyed out).

It's pretty heavy for a laptop but nothing too crazy. 2 weeks after ordering the laptop and a nice carrying bag at the same time the bag has yet to arrive, but that has nothing to do with the machine in particular. I wish I would've waited a week or so and gotten Rise of the Tomb Raider free as I've been really looking forward to that. But what can you do...

Other Thoughts: I looked through the specs after buying it but before it arrived and noticed it can output to 2 4K displays from a single port. Hopefully that applies to this machine and not one of the higher-end models as that'll certainly be my next monitor upgrade.

Overall it's very solid and I can see it working out nicely barring any unforeseen catastrophic failures. I'll probably turn around and sell it after a year or so in favor of a new desktop, I just needed a laptop to be more mobile in the coming months.

Nearly went with an AlienWare but I couldn't quite justify the price. This machine can go toe to toe with an equivalent AW any day of the week. I got it specifically for the mobile CPU which to my knowledge is currently the highest-end Laptop CPU you can get that isn't a mobile Xeon.

Pros: - Love the look
- Good sound
- Runs great

Cons: - The track pad doesn't have 2-finger scrolling as an option. As most people will use this for gaming and will have a mouse handy, this is typically not a problem, but it is annoying that it isn't an option that I can enable or disable. At least, I could not find an option for it. And when I try to use it half the time it starts zooming in on the page rather than moving the mouse.

Other Thoughts: - I have yet to try playing games and and seriously test the rig out. This was just the first and initial annoyance I had.

Pros: Keep this in mind when reading this review. I will only have this for 12-13 months MAX and it will never leave my house. This is more of a desktop replacement than a portable. Its to big, to heavy and uses to much power to be carried around or used all day on a battery. I'm just fine with all that and knew it before i bought it. If you need to carry something around buy a 3 pound 12 hour battery UltraBook. This review is for your benefit not mine. I already own it, its sitting on my desk i know how it runs.

Has the latest technology in Hardware and Software with Microsoft Windows 10 installed. With 72 running processes in the background i'm sure this is doing some excellent things i would of never imagined doing myself. My (W8) GT70 only has a measly 24 running process's. I will never have to worry about carrying an extra spare backup battery becuase there isn't one thats changable or user accessable. Also I dont have to worry about buying my own spare iether because MSI dont sell parts-ever. Not even batteries for thier own portables, and there's not a battery available anywhere anyway, right now. I'll just have to gladly pay the service fee & ransom in 1-2 years and send my laptop to MSI or some other vendor for a month or so to get fixed. I hope they're going to have some special warning feature from the frimware pop up my screen at every boot or at least the regular low battery warning & flashing all the time to let me know when i need to do that. All those previous GT72 battery issues are supposed to be resolved.

Keyboard's very solid, it will easily last me a year and i use it a lot, for actual typing.. I like that lighted feature turns off all by itself now & then for no reason. I do need to hit FN+1 key to wake it back up ocassionally though. Not sure if thats a software feature or a really good driver. The mode key for the lights is to the left by the power and fan mode keys. There is a PHYSICAL switch there also to change between Intel/Nvidia graphics only. Otherwise it probably switches dynamiclly i believe.
Speakers are loud, Fan Noise is ehe- loud as i expected. Its bearable to me. I'm used to that much noise though you may not be.
Bios is Aptio-raid-eufi, its fairly unlocked for the most part. Kinda old school, no pretty dragons or banners in there but its end user functional. I didnt have to BUY or PAY the extortion fee for a bios upgrade from Svet on the MSI support site, not yet anyway. I do think MSI probably condones that type of solicitation though because they could stop it anytime they wanted, they DO own the site and its been going on for ever. I'm not sure if the bios is unlocked because of the K-CPU or they all are, and thats not that important to me anyway. It will stay a virgin bios while i own it.
This screen is bright & pretty-RGB. Knock's my GT70 down a notch or 3 in that department, i dont know if its the RGB, Gsync or just because its new. I dont have any bleeding at all that i noticed and thats kinda un-commom to not have any.
WiFi/LAN, Its BigFoot/Realtek. I dont care iether way, i turn it on and leave it alone. I dont know if if this version turns itself to OFF/DISABLED when not in use or not. If it does its a SOFTWARE FEATURE not a hardware problem.
The ODD, its incedibly slow so you can be sure its taking its time and reading that disc correctly, expect 0 errors. Maybe i just missed a setting, but it took about 25 minutes to copy a(3gb)MSI driver disc to my D:\ drive
Toshi SSD #THNSN5128GPU7, seems fine to me. I dont ever B/Mark new items. That causes problems where there isnt any. Nothing gets that stressed in TRW.
16 GB of memory is plenty for(me) this unit, its only a Gaming computer and i dont use Multiple displays, RamDisc or any other programs that would need more memory. There is 2 empty open slots on the bottom.
Entire unit is vented very well, holes everywhere. That also makes the inside a dust magnet, get a can of air. I'd rather have dust than heat if i have to pick. The fans will aslo help keep dust out though.

I wont comment(much) on the software suite- if there is something i dont like it i'll just change it and not whine & cry about it. The MSI backup program works nicely as always.To switch to power saver or battery mode is 2 L-clicks on the battery icon. Charger is a nonpropierty 230. .??
I just unplugged and have right now 3:45min est time left on 95% full battery at MAX PS mode. These batterries were allegedly already fixed from the mistake in the 4th gen release.

Cons: From System Log, "The speed of processor 1-8 is being limited by system firmware. The processor has been in this reduced performance state for... " Is that a throttle error ?? I think so, its caused by the following drivers. It happens right after they load. Located in the Prog..X86 folder>
\\.\.\winio64.sys
\\.\.\NTIOLib_X64.sys

I wont use those 2 associated gaming programs and will remove them. It may be fixable by removing completely & reinstalling those 2 programs, not an issue for me but someone may want to use those programs. May also be because i never set them programs up, but it did start at the very first boot and still happening so probably not. Get the extended warranty if your going to keep this for a few years. Learn how to fix your own issues, your gonna need it. I wont slam MSI support dept as i no longer think it exists, like Santa Clause i believed in it for a while when i was young but i know better now. Just read some other hundreds of MSI product reviews and you'll understand about their tech support.

Other Thoughts: There is thousands of computers for sale here. I chose this anyway knowing completely before i ordered it it had Win-10 on it. I dont prefer Win-10 and will just change it instead of complainig about it. Its only going to take 4-5 minutes to load W8 on it with this hardware and you'll easily spend more time crying & whining about it than doing something about it. If your thinking W7 you should of saved your money and bought an older slower computer because thats what your gonna have if you do that- a slower computer.I will put Win-8 on it next month or ya know when i get to it. I have a W8 MSI-OEM image that should work nicely.

Its gonna be slow for the first few hours, widows has to find & open all those files your using for the very first time. It will take 4/5/6 complete cold boots before it starts under 5-10 seconds, windows needs to learn where those files are too.

I would recommend this to someone who doesn't need a lot of support and can fix their own issues. For the hardware requirements i needed it was this or a precision and i already own a piece or two of MSI equipment

Pros: Very nice laptop with one of the high-end Skylake laptop chips. Furthermore, it doesn't overheat and throttle when put under an intensive load. (By intensive, I mean like AVX2-intensive.)

I got this laptop because it's currently one of the only gameable laptops that can be upgraded to 64GB of ram.

If you plan on upgrading the memory on this thing, there are 4 memory slots. Two accessible from the back side and two under the keyboard. The ones on the back are more accessible since the ones on the front require removing the keyboard.

For this model, the 2 x 8GB sticks that come with the laptop are under the keyboard and the empty slots are on the back. This is very convenient for upgrades. I currently run it with 48GB of ram by popping a pair of 16GB sticks in the back.

There are four m2 SSD slots. Plenty of room for upgrades. And great if you prefer dual-booting from different physical drives.

As far as aesthetics go: The screen is very sharp and crisp. And the colored keyboard looks really nice. For those who are not a fan of bright colors, the keyboard leds are software/driver controlled. So you can turn them off. The software and driver seem to be required to turn on the colors. But unfortunately, they are also very bloated.

Cons: The overclocking support in the BIOS is very clunky. It's not like your normal overclockable desktop BIOS options. Settings that are at default show up as zero which makes it tricky/risky to adjust things since you don't know what they are currently at. The base clock is the exception and the bios shows it as 10000 at default. (Again non-intuitive since there's an implicit decimal place as it's supposed to be "100.00".)

If the CPU multiplier is set to anything other than zero (default), the BIOS will reset to default settings on the next reboot. So overclocking via CPU multiplier is not persistent.

Even though the chip is overclockable and the BIOS supports it, it clearly isn't meant to be overclocked. Likewise, they probably didn't spend too much effort writing the overclocking menu.

In addition to that, (perhaps I lost the silicon lottery), but a bump of 200 MHz (3.2 GHz -> 3.4 GHz) increases the power draw from 45W to >60W. I didn't go any higher.

In order to open up the laptop, you need to break the warranty sticker. You need to do this even if you're doing something as simple as upgrading the memory and/or storage devices. That said, MSI claims to honor warranties with a broken sticker as long as there's no physical damage.

There are two 2.5 in. drive slots. But I only found one power/data cable plug. So don't expect to fill both slots without mods.

As with nearly all off-the-shelf computers, this one also comes with plenty of preinstalled bloatware. So power users may wish to wipe everything and reinstall Windows from a separate disk. The license key is in the hardware. So any Windows 10 installation disk will pick it up automatically. The DVD that comes with the laptop has all the drivers.

Other Thoughts: The fn and windows keys are switched on the keyboard. So fn is on the left side and windows is on the right. This makes a lot of sense for gamers who have a tendency to fat-finger the windows button and task out. But it messes with those (like me) who expect keys to be where they are supposed to be.

The number keypad uses non-standard key sizes. They are narrower than normal keypads. Again this may take some getting used to for people with muscle memory for normal keyboards.

This is a 17 in. laptop, but it's actually slightly bigger (and thicker) than my previous 17 in. laptops. This one doesn't have rounded corners so it may have trouble fitting into backpacks that comfortably hold other 17 in. laptops.