Benchmarks: System and Gaming
PCMark appears to put a heavy emphasis on system storage, and doesn't recognise the GS60 2QE Ghost Pro 4K as a major step up from last year's GS60 2PC Ghost. 3DMark, however, is a more accurate reflection. Focussing specifically on the discrete GPU, the newer machine's GTX 970M is found to offer a massive 137 per cent performance increase over the older machine's GTX 860M.
Gaming Performance - Average FPS |
||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1080p FHD |
4K UHD |
|||||
| Game | Quality Settings | MSI GS60 2QE-239UK |
||||
(GeForce GTX 970M 6GB) |
(GeForce GTX 980M 8GB) |
(GeForce GTX 860M 2GB) |
(GeForce GTX 970M 3GB) |
|||
| BioShock Infinite | Medium | 129.6 |
155.4 |
73.1 |
124.5 |
38.8 |
| High | 115.9 |
136.4 |
61.4 |
113.4 |
33.8 |
|
| Max | 70.7 |
88.1 |
35.6 |
72.1 |
20.8 |
|
| Total War: Rome II | High | 146.7 |
157.8 |
72.5 |
138.3 |
54.0 |
| Very High | 88.8 |
98.6 |
44.0 |
87.9 |
28.3 |
|
| Extreme | 46.2 |
53.4 |
21.6 |
46.0 |
13.7 |
|
The extra performance headroom is hugely beneficial when gaming - most titles can be played at a full-HD 1080p resolution with quality settings cranked right up, and you'll rarely experience a stutter. As expected, however, there's much less mileage at the laptop's native 4K resolution. Dial games up to 3,840x2,160 and you'll have to significantly scale back quality settings in order to maintain playable framerates.