Power Pro 11:36 (MSI 16F2 barebone) review

[Tim4]

Review of Power Pro 11:36

It doesn't have orange lights, it's just several hundred dollars cheaper
Donald Stratton(Power Notebooks)

Hello,
We(Me and my friend) have oredred custom built laptop from Power Notebooks. it's called Power Pro 11:36. So, I wanted to share my experience with you. (NOTE:I am sorry for any mistyping or mistakes being made, English is not my native language.)
So, let's start.
Overview
Build quality of this laptop is good. it looks better than GT68X in my opinion. It doesn't have any orange lights and touch panel. Speaker system is the same DynAudio as MSI GT68X use. So, you can expect very nice sound quality. Here are the specs that our unit has:
Built-in Bluetooth Wireless 2.1+EDR
Built-in 802.11a/g/n WiFi Card
External USB Dual Layer SuperMulti DVDRW/CDRW Drive (Getting HDD for ODD Bay)
750GB SATA II 3GB/s 7,200RPM Hard Drive in ODD Bay
500GB SATA II 3GB/s 7,200 RPM Hard Drive - Seagate XT NCQ Hybrid w/4GB SSD
120GB Team Group Xtreem SSD
Intel® Core™ i7-2630QM (2.0~2.9GHz, 45W) w/6M L3 Cache - 4 Cores - 8 Threads
15.6" Full HD (1920x1080) LED backlit Widescreen LCD
12GB (3x2GB) DDR3/1333 Memory
nVIDIA GeForce GTX 560M 192bit w/1.5GB GDDR5

Now let's go to details
Chasis and buid quality
As I said before buid quality is very good. It's better that my current GX660 has. In my opinion it looks better than GX660 also. I like this matte black plastic. It looks actually as brushed aluminum.



You will find no touch buttons on front panel as GT68X have. Actually you will find only 3 buttons Power button, Web camera button and win key enable/disable button. All other fetures are available thriugh Fn+Fx key combinations.



Display and battery life

Display is FullHD Galre type AUO optronics B156HW01 V5, with very good viewing angles and image quality. What more can I say....
Battery life is awesome with new generation of intel CPU



Keyboard and touchpad

Touchpad is way better that my GX660 has. It's very responsive. Keyboard is the same with GT/GX series. Typing is very comfortable. No missed keystrokes.

Sound quality

As I said before this laptop is equipped with same DynAudio speakers as GT/GX series do. So, sound quality is the same. I compared it with my GX660 and found no difference. For me it's the best available sound system on laptops nowadays.

Perforamnce and temps





This laptop have no turbo cooler function as MSI GT/GX series do. But actually you will benefit 2-4C if you have it.
I have run some benchmarks. Here are the results:

3D mark06 at default settings. Ambient temp 27C. GPU has stock thermal compound. Maybe it will be changed to ICD 24 in future



3D mark 11 performance preset.



Furmark 1.9



As you can see 85C is the max temps I have achieved with Furmark. So, it means you will never see higher temps during you gaming. it cools down also very quick. It cooled my GPU from 85C to 56C in 3 mins.

Game tests

Dirt 3 benchmark
I have run dirt 3 benchmark 2 times




Fifa 11
All settings on high vsync on 1920*1080. FPS never droped below 60



Heroes 6 beta
Settings






The Whitcher 2
Settings medium 1280*720





The highest temps were detected at Whitcher 2. All other games haven't reached this point. I think, that even 80C is pretty acceptable for high-end GPU. My ambient temp during testing 27C.



Shootout between MSI GT683R & PowerPro R 11:36 from PowerNotebooks.com.

Video


Conclusion
I am very pleased with this laptop. It's truly affordable gaming notebook.
It has everything you need. Powerful GPU and CPU, impressive sound system, effective cooling system and it looks cool

[arikere]

Hey Tim,

Nice review!

can you post some frame rates for a few games on this machine??

[Tim4]

Hey Tim,

Nice review!

can you post some frame rates for a few games on this machine??

Sure I will test couple of games tomorrow. it's 12:59 AM here now. So, I'll go to sleep now

[mrs1986]

Thanks Tim4 i'm willing to buy this laptop but was ANY about it, just thoughts
I'm ordering this now, the price is unbelieveble. I was concerned about the quality of the laptop, Donald told me its really good but i wanted some review of an actual user...
Thanks a lot, i hope you to make a video review so we can all see that baby almost in person :P

[mr.rak]

It comes with a stock 6GB (3x2GB) DDR3/1333 Memory, right? You got the 12GB (3x2GB) DDR3/1333, is it the ideal one for game purposes? Why not a 8GB 1600 instead of 1333? Will I note any improvement in fps with 1600?

[Rykoshet]

It comes with a stock 6GB (3x2GB) DDR3/1333 Memory, right? You got the 12GB (3x2GB) DDR3/1333, is it the ideal one for game purposes? Why not a 8GB 1600 instead of 1333? Will I note any improvement in fps with 1600?

I suggest either 8GB, or if you must, 16GB, so you have dual-channel...

[Rykoshet]

Also, how is the stock screen...the 95% gamut is a $95 upgrade, and the matte another $95 on top...

But I hope I don't have to...

[mangos47]

Hi Tim,

very nice and timely review. thanks a lot!

I'm quite interested in this one also. The only concern I have now is the screen. I don't like glossy ones as I mostly use laptop in well illuminated environment so the reflection is a headache. Do you think the screen is bright enough so that if I put an anti-glare screen film (for protection as well as getting rid of the reflections) it won't get too dark?

another question is: I saw windows7 sticker on palmrest. Did your friend order it with OS? if yes, is the disc come together a installation disc or a recovery disc?

thanks in advance!

[Tim4]

Hi Tim,

very nice and timely review. thanks a lot!

I'm quite interested in this one also. The only concern I have now is the screen. I don't like glossy ones as I mostly use laptop in well illuminated environment so the reflection is a headache. Do you think the screen is bright enough so that if I put an anti-glare screen film (for protection as well as getting rid of the reflections) it won't get too dark?

another question is: I saw windows7 sticker on palmrest. Did your friend order it with OS? if yes, is the disc come together a installation disc or a recovery disc?
thanks in advance!

Screen is bright enought for me. Actually I haven't tried anti glare film myself, so I can't recommend you anything. Only thing I can say that I am using screen on 3/4 of it's brightness.(hope it helps). regarding Win7 sticker. We have put it ourselves as we have copy of Win 7 here. You can ask Donald at Powernotebooks about Win 7 disk.

[paladin44]

Yes, when you order Windows 7 the Microsoft disk comes with it, as well as the drivers disk.