A Closer Look at the GX640, the 15-Incher
The GX640 is the smaller of the two heavy hitters from MSI, with its 15.4-inch screen and weight of 6.3 pounds. It's fairly portable, fitting into most standard laptop carrying cases, although it is by no means the lightest of notebooks. However, its extra weight is to be expected, considering the hardware it houses.
With Intel's Core i5-430M, the GX640 provides four cores of processing power (two physical cores with Hyperthreadying). This means excellent multitasking capability as well as strong performance with CPU-intensive tasks. Built with mobile computing in mind, the 430M can throttle itself very effectively, reducing its speed when idle and activating Intel's Turbo Boost technology at times of heavy computation. This makes the GX640 a very efficient processing machine.
In coordination with the Core-i5 processor, the GX640 also has an extremely powerful, DirectX 11 ready Radeon Mobility 5850, complete with 1GB of GDDR5 video RAM. What does all this mumbo-jumbo mean? It means that the GX640 can handle even the most advanced game titles, allowing you to crank the settings to maximum for just about any game you want to play. A downside, though, is that the Radeon 5850 can be somewhat power hungry, which makes it difficult to stay mobile for extended lengths of time.
Housing all of this power in such a small frame does have its disadvantages. With only three USB ports, one of which is also an eSATA port, you might find yourself wishing you had more. The cramped chassis also means that cooling can sometimes be an issue. During extended gaming sessions, you might find the brushed aluminum casing warm to the touch, causing your palms to perspire. When it comes to getting the most bang for your buck though, the GX640 is hard to beat.