Sharing this review of MSI GT 70 Dragon Edition 2 unboxing from Taiwan

Box-opening with an MSI Beauty
The blazing Dragon Edition II flagship gaming notebook

I finally have the notebook computer of my dreams.

I may still be a poor grad student, but I’m crazy about computer games, especially first-person shooters like Crisis 3, Call of Duty, and BF3. My old computer wasn’t fast enough for these resource hogs, so I always had to set the graphics and performance to the lowest settings when I played them. My girlfriend gave me an unexpected birthday surprise--an MSI GT70 Dragon Edition II gaming notebook. I will be able to type out reports in class and when I get home I will be able to game with the graphics and performance settings maxed out. I’m so thrilled that I decided to commemorate this momentous occasion by having my girlfriend do the box-opening.



She’s camera shy, so we’ve invited Shaun the Sheep along to give her moral support.



Upon opening, we find a plastic-wrapped backpack and a box with the MSI logo.





Let’s take a look at the backpack first.



It’s really spacious.



It looks really sharp



In the cardboard box, we find the notebook wrapped in black sheaths with an MSI gaming logo.

There are actually a lot of accessories in the box, all in bags sporting the MSI gaming logo. Sweet!



Let’s take the computer and accessories out of the black bags and take a look.



Did you notice something about the picture above? There’s an accessory in a cardboard box. Let's see what’s inside.



Inside we see an MSI Dragon wax seal!





Setting up the computer after booting up the first time.



During the initial setup, the first thing to catch my eye was the awesome, multicolored backlit keyboard.



MSI Notebook and SteelSeries collaborated on the design of the specialized SS gaming keyboard.



The SteelSeries keyboard’s backlighting is a big draw for me, because I like to play computer games at night after the lights are out. The backlighting makes it much easier to find the key I’m looking for. When I played BF3 on my old notebook, I sometimes accidentally hit the Windows Start key, taking me out of the game window only to find I had been killed when I returned. The Windows key on the MSI GT70 Dragon Edition II has been relocated to the right side of the keyboard, so that's no longer a problem.



I’ve never seen a computer with a golden audio jack, but when I googled the technology, I discovered it is called MSI Audio Boost. It’s like an amplifier for your headphones, allowing you to hear in fine detail. Now when I play BF3 in online, I can clearly hear the footsteps of my enemies and even their location, making it easier to take them out.

There are actually a lot of accessories in the box, all in bags sporting the MSI gaming logo. Sweet!



Let’s take the computer and accessories out of the black bags and take a look.



Did you notice something about the picture above? There’s an accessory in a cardboard box. Let's see what’s inside.



Inside we see an MSI Dragon wax seal!





Setting up the computer after booting up the first time.



During the initial setup, the first thing to catch my eye was the awesome, multicolored backlit keyboard.



MSI Notebook and SteelSeries collaborated on the design of the specialized SS gaming keyboard.



The SteelSeries keyboard’s backlighting is a big draw for me, because I like to play computer games at night after the lights are out. The backlighting makes it much easier to find the key I’m looking for. When I played BF3 on my old notebook, I sometimes accidentally hit the Windows Start key, taking me out of the game window only to find I had been killed when I returned. The Windows key on the MSI GT70 Dragon Edition II has been relocated to the right side of the keyboard, so that's no longer a problem.



I’ve never seen a computer with a golden audio jack, but when I googled the technology, I discovered it is called MSI Audio Boost. It’s like an amplifier for your headphones, allowing you to hear in fine detail. Now when I play BF3 in online, I can clearly hear the footsteps of my enemies and even their location, making it easier to take them out.

FPS hit 98.1 (with Shaders set on medium), while most notebooks can only reach around 30 FPS.



Then, I used the 3D Mark tool to test the overall performance.



The scores were:

Fire Strike: 4625 (for high performance PCs)
Cloud Gate: 17,495 (for notebooks and home PCs)
Ice Storm: 86,743 (for mobile devices and entry-level PCs)



After testing, I played a few games to check how smoothly they ran. I tested with Call of Duty, putting everything on the highest setting.



Smooth gameplay, as expected.



Finally, I just want to talk about how I feel using it. The performance is stellar, of course, and even with everything running full blast, it doesn’t get the slightest bit hot. It’s a great computer. Hope you enjoyed reading this.



-THE END-