MSI GT60 Dominator Pro Gaming Laptop Review

by Joel Hruska — Monday, June 16, 2014, 01:00 PM EDT

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Metro Last Light, BioShock Infinite, and Hitman: Absolution

Note: Because the MSI Dominator Pro can run at 2880x1620, we've included that resolution in our results below. The MSI laptop is compared against the Alienware 17 at 1920x1080, with 3K resolution results at the top.

Metro Last Light is your typical post-apocalyptic first person shooter game with a few rather unconventional twists. Unlike most FPS titles, there is no health meter to measure your level of ailment; rather, you’re left to deal with life, or lack thereof, more akin to the real world with blood spatter on your visor and your heart rate and respiration level as indicators. Metro Last Light boasts some of the best 3D visuals on the PC platform and includes a DX11 rendering mode that makes use of advanced depth of field effects and character model tessellation for increased realism. This title also supports NVIDIA PhysX technology for impressive in-game physics effects. We tested the game at resolutions of 1920x1080 with its in-game image quality options set to their High Quality mode, with DOF effects disabled.

Metro Last Light

DirecX11 Gaming Performance

Metro Last Light

The Dominator Pro maintains a higher overall frame rate than the Alienware 17 at 1080p, or does until it starts to throttle. At 3K resolutions, however, it throttles much faster -- I wasn't able to complete a single run without the system yanking back its own clock speed to keep temperatures below 95C.

Bioshock Infinite

DirectX Gaming Performance

Bioshock Infinite

BioShock Infinite is clear game-of-the-year material. The floating city of Columbia is one of the most evocative, intense, and gorgeous environments we've ever seen in a PC game -- but how much you like it may depend on what sort of visual wizardry you prefer. BioShock Infinite is built on Unreal Engine 3, and while it pushes that framework's capabilities into the stratosphere, there's a clear difference between BioShock Infinite and, say, Crysis 3. BioShock Infinite emphasizes light, color and motion, and while the characters look more exaggerated and cartoon-like than some other games, they still look great. We tested the game at 1920x1080 with its DX11 code path with DOF effects enabled.

The GT60 is significantly faster than the Alienware 17 here, even with throttling taken into account. At 3K, however, the system still falters -- an average framerate of 25 fps just isn't fast enough for lag-free gaming.

Hitman: Absolution

DirectX 11 Gaming Performance

Hitman: Absolution

Hitman: Absolution follows Agent 47, a cold-blooded assassin, who takes on his most dangerous contract to date. Betrayed by those he once trusted - and now hunted by the police - he suddenly finds himself at the center of a dark conspiracy and must embark on a personal journey through a corrupt and twisted world. We tested the game at 1920x1080 with all in-game options set to their maximum values and global illumination and 4X anti-aliasing enabled.

Hitman shows the Dominator Pro again winning over the Alienware 17, and again, repeated runs of the benchmark don't show the huge slowdown that hits Metro Last Light. The 3K resolution, however, is still out of reach -- if you want to play at that detail level, you'll need to reduce other graphics options to make the game run properly.