A lightweight powerhouse, the MSI GS40 is powered by Intel’s Core i7 and Nvidia’s Geforce graphics system.
Starting from the top, or should I say the back of the panel, the MSI GS40 has a brushed-metal finish and glowing emblem.
Moving on to the inner area, the full-sized key and large touch pad are comfortable to use.
I like it that MSI placed the POWER button far away from the keys but still I recommend exercising caution to avoid accidental POWER button press.
The keys are backlit in red color, matching the color scheme of the GS40.
Here are the ports on the left.
And here are the ports on the right.
The GS40 comes with forward facing speakers that are on the body and it has triangle shaped feet.
The exhaust panels are at the rear, note the beautiful looking grille in red.
From the bottom you’ll see the red colored mesh, underneath it is the cooling system.
Benchmarks
Here are the CPU-Z and GPU-Z capture for the MSI GS40.
The MSI GS40 shines when it comes to performance, let’s have a look.
x264 – 10bit to 8bit Video Conversion
In this test the i7-6700HQ mobile processor got the job done in 199 seconds which is slightly ahead of the i5-4670K but falls slightly behind the AMD FX-8350 and far from Intel’s i7-6700K desktop processor.
The source video is a 720p MKV file that is 90 seconds in duration. x264 settings at the slowest.
| Procesor | Time Taken (seconds) |
| Intel Core i7-6700HQ | 199 |
| Intel Core i7-6700K | 141 |
| Intel Core i5-4670K | 188 |
| AMD FX-8350 | 188 |
Cinebench R15
On Cinebench R15 the i7-6700HQ shows the same trend of being being behind the AMD FX-8350 and far from Intel’s i7-6700K.
| Intel Core i7-6700HQ | 533 |
| Intel Core i7-6700K | 927 |
| AMD FX-8350 | 633 |
Mobile processor are often quite far behind that of a desktop processor in this aspect but gap closes with Intel 6th generation Core i7 mobile processor.
In the graphics department the Nvidia GeForce GTX 970M GPU performs like the desktop GTX 960 GPU.
Unigine Heaven 4.0
*NOTE : Details are set to maximum.
*NOTE : AA disabled in 4K test.
| Card | 1080p (avg) |
| GTX 970M on MSI GS40 | 34 |
| ASUS GTX 960 4GB STRIX | 33 |
Metro Last Light
| Card | 1080p (avg) |
| GTX 970M on MSI GS40 | 51 |
| ASUS GTX 960 4GB STRIX | 55 |
Bioshock Infinite
Settings are at
2 – UltraDX11_DDOF | 2 – Custom | 1 – 16:9 | 4 – FullHD / 4K
| Card | 1080p (avg) |
| GTX 970M on MSI GS40 | 70 |
| ASUS GTX 960 4GB STRIX | 73 |
Shadow of Mordor
Settings : Set to ULTRA, V-sync off.
| Card | 1080p (avg) |
| GTX 970M on MSI GS40 | 54 |
| ASUS GTX 960 4GB STRIX | 52 |
Grand Theft Auto V
Settings : Every option to the MAX setting available.
| Card | 1080p (avg) |
| GTX 970M on MSI GS40 | 24 |
| ASUS GTX 960 4GB STRIX | 25 |
Power Draw and Temperature
As for the power draw, the MSI GS40 PQE idles at around 32 watts wall draw and when the CPU and GPU are on load it reaches around 127 watts wall draw.
The CPU idles at around 50c and reached up to almost 80c on load and what’s amazing is that it’s almost silent all the way. As for the GPU it idles at around 45c and 76c on load with the fan being quite noisy when that happens.
Other User Experience
The GS40 works great as a portable workhorse, with good processing power.
Performance capbility aside, the GS40 comes with IPS LCD panel that emphasizes color accuracy. As for the audio department, it’s decent at best. It’s neither bad nor good, I’ve heard better from higher-end MSI notebooks.
The Verdict
The MSI GS40 6QE Phantom is an excellent notebook that’s suited for both work and play. The model with 16GB DDR4 RAM, 256GB M.2 PCI-E SSD and 1TB HDD retails at RM 8,499 while the 8GB DDR4 1TB HDD model retails at RM 6,999
