MSI GT683R-242US With GeForce GTX 560M Review
Game Tests & Battery Life
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Metro 2033 is your basic 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, but rather you’re left to deal with life, or lack there-of more akin to the real world with blood spatter on your visor and your heart rate and respiration level as indicators. The game is loosely based on a novel by Russian Author Dmitry Glukhovsky. Metro 2003 boasts some of the best 3D visuals on the PC platform currently including a DX11 rendering mode that makes use of advanced depth of field effects and character model tessellation for increased realism. We tested the game engine using the Metro 2033 benchmark tool. |
In comparison to some of our other reference systems, the GT683R wasn't a pack leader in the Metro 2033 benchmark tests. Even so, the GT683R posts playable frame rates at 1280x720.
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Like the original, FarCry 2 is one of the more visually impressive games to be released on the PC to date. Courtesy of the Dunia game engine developed by Ubisoft, FarCry 2's game-play is enhanced by advanced environment physics, destructible terrain, high resolution textures, complex shaders, realistic dynamic lighting, and motion-captured animations. We benchmarked the test systems in this article with the FarCry 2 benchmark tool using one of the built-in demo runs recorded in the "Ranch" map. |
Far Cry 2 isn't quite as hard on systems as Metro 2033, so we expected the MSI GT683R to perform better in this benchmark than it did in the previous. Indeed, the GT683R showed very good scores, coming in behind the Maingear eX-L 15 and Eurocom Panther 2.0 systems.
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Lost Planet 2 is a third person shooter developed by Capcom. It is the sequel to Lost Planet: Extreme Condition, and takes place ten years after the events of the first game. The plot begins with Mercenaries fighting against Jungle Pirates, while featuring major boss battles, extreme terrain, and the ability to pilot mechanized armor suits. We tested the game engine using the stand alone benchmark tool. |
We're seeing a theme here: the MSI GT683R performs well, but the higher priced Maingear eX-L 15 outperforms it in many of our benchmark tests. This continues to hold true in the Lost Planet 2 benchmarks where the MSI GT683R posts high scores, but comes in behind the Maingear eX-L 15.
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Just Cause 2 was released in March 2010, from developers Avalanche Studios and Eidos Interactive. The game makes use of the Avalanche Engine 2.0, an updated version of the similarly named original. It is set on the fictional island of Panau in southeast Asia, and you play the role of Rico Rodriquez. We benchmarked the graphics cards in this article using one of the built-in demo runs called Desert Sunrise. The test results shown here were run at various resolutions and settings. This game also supports a few CUDA-enabled features, but they were left disabled to keep the playing field level. |
The Just Cause 2 benchmark shows that the MSI GT683R and the GeForce GTX 560M perform very well in this game, posting playable frame rates at all resolutions tested.
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If you're considering a gaming notebook, you're probably not expecting exceptional battery life. With that said, the MSI GT683R was able to achieve 74 minutes of cord-free power on the very-taxing Battery Eater Pro test. Most likely, you should be able to adjust the notebook's settings and achieve even greater life from the notebook's battery, particularly when you're not using the notebook for demanding tasks like gaming.
