Since MSI ventured into the gaming laptop market they have consistently produced the goods performance wise if the styling has sometimes left a little to be desired.

The MSI GX660R is no different in this respect.  Somebody has told MSI that to be considered a gaming laptop their machines must be swathed in red and if you can throw in an excessive LED light show then so much the better.

Setting the dubious styling aside, does the GX660R deliver the all important gaming performance or is it just another mid range device with delusions of grandeur?

It’s time to find out.

A glance over the MSI GX660R specification gives cause for optimism. The 15.6″ display offers a 1920 x 1080 resolution and depending on the spec you get either 6Gb or 8Gb of RAM.

1Tb of hard drive storage space spread over 2 drives in a striped RAID 0 array is a strange choice.

There is little speed advantage with a RAID 0 setup and if one of the physical drives packs up then you lose the lot.  We would much rather see a single drive doing the work.

Storage options are completed with a Blu-ray writer.

Polygon crunching is provided courtesy of ATI’s Mobility Radeon HD 5870 card.

It’s a fine piece of kit with 1Gb of video RAM and just about has the edge on the NVIDIA GTX285M.

You basically won’t get faster without going down the SLI route.

This machine retails at around the £1000 to £1200 mark which is a veritable bargain in the gaming laptop world.  This price point inevitably brings compromises and the biggest of these is the processor.  MSI have opted for an Intel Core i5-460M processor.

You can’t access any overclocking options from the BIOS but there is a Turbo button which ramps up the FSB from 133Mhz to around 140Mhz.

There is also a fan boost button which forces more air through the system and creates a bit more noise which is nonetheless bearable and never becomes truly intrusive.

So what is the GX660R like to use?

It runs fairly cool so don’t expect cooked thighs if you are using it in true laptop mode. The keyboard is bordering on terrible. The key travel is fine but when you get to the bottom it doesn’t have a nice firm stop, more of a porridgey feel.

The trackpad isn’t the greatest either with a distinct lack of sensitivity.  Neither of these things is a deal breaker in our opinion but it does point to the GX660R being built to a price.

This machine starts to make sense when you actually use it for its designed purpose.  Although it only has a Core i5 CPU it is more than capable of keeping up with much more expensive Core i7 machines and the gap closes even further if you hit the Turbo button.

You can expect playable frame rates in hardware testing games such as Just Cause 2 and Dirt 2 even with the settings turned up.

If your gaming laptop budget can only stretch to the £1000 to £1200 mark then there is very little to compete with the GX660R and if you can live with the slightly poor quality keyboard and garish case then this little dynamo could make you very happy indeed.