Gaming with a punch: MSI GX620 Review

The tamed-down version of MSI’s GT627, the GX620 still packs quite a punch. Featuring an Intel Core 2 Duo P9500 and NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT graphics, together with its unique look of brushed aluminium and red stripes, the GX620 is sure to get heads turning.

We have here in our labs today the MSI GX620 G-Series gaming laptop. This particular series has been around for close to a year; they were launched slightly after Intel made available Centrino 2 parts to vendors.

MSI’s G-Series would be a good choice for those who want to break away from the usual brands like Acer, Compaq and HP just to name a few.

That said, the GX620 itself is quite attention-catching with stylish design, featuring a black brushed aluminium top cover, and its bright red outlines.

The review unit here comes with a 9-cell battery, which would be able to provide longer running times as compared to a 6-cell battery, but of course at the expense of the laptop being slightly heavier.

The GX620 is generally well constructed, giving a solid feel to it – the chassis does not flex when some pressure is applied, and the hinge of the LCD screen is tight with no free play.

Let us now take a look at what is hidden under the shell of the GX620.

An Intel Core 2 Duo P9500 processor is at the heart of the GX620. It is a low-power ‘full sized’ mobile part clocked at 2.53GHz, but has a TDP rating of 25W. Intel has recently introduced the P9600 and P9700 though, which are clocked at 2.66GHz and 2.8GHz and have TDP ratings of 25W and 28W respectively. Nevertheless, the configuration of this laptop is pretty balanced with MSI’s choice of Core 2 Duo P9500, and a NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT graphics chip.

Storage wise, we have a Western Digital Scorpio Blue with a capacity of 320GB. WD’s drives are considered to be generally slightly more power-efficient than the rest of the pack. The optical drive is a DVDRW Super-Multi one, and not one that supports Blu-Ray. For that you’ll have to get the more powerful (and refreshed) MSI GT627. I’ll touch on the GT627 very briefly at the end of this article.

The 7.1-channel High Definition audio is handled by a Realtek chip. Gigabit Ethernet is also handled by another Realtek chip.