Using the Nvidia’s new and powerful Maxwell graphics, the new Dominator Pro has much improved internally since the last generation of laptops from MSI. The Dominator Pro has a price of $1,799 and could rise to a steep price of $2,999 for the configured version of the MSI GT72 Dominator laptop.

This laptop even has an amazing number of four SSDs that are astoundingly fast along with the amazing Nvidia 980M GPU, one of the best keyboards found on a laptop and incredible audio capabilities. This is our MSI GT72 Dominator Pro review.

MSI GT72 Dominator Pro Design

Even though The Dominator Pro isn’t the most beautiful laptop we’ve ever seen, we wouldn’t exactly kick it off our desk. The black aluminum lid of the laptop is quite pretty and we really like the red emblem in the center. MSI added LED strips on the front of the laptop, which reminds us of the Alienware laptops and on the bottom of the laptop, MSI put some very large red vents.

The MSI GT72 Dominator’s interior deck is covered in black aluminum which we believe is quite a nice touch. On the left side of the keyboard there are buttons for the control panel of the SteelSeries Engine, XSplit GameCaster, Fan, Gpu and, of course, power.

The colors on the MSI GT72 Dominator keyboard can be customized by the user, the palm rest on the laptop is a little raised from the rest and made of a black glass and there are little LED lights that surround the touchpad.

MSI GT72 Dominator Pro Keyboard

The Dominator, like most notebooks designed for gaming, has a full size keyboard. Even though the keyboard is quite bright because of its backlight and the spacing is really good, we were a little disappointed. The Dominator’s keys had a travel of 1.7 mm but at a lower actuation of 50 grams which means the typing was a pretty mushy experience on the laptop’s keyboard.

As with previous generations, MSI’s Dominator Pro features a customizable keyboard that makes use of the SteelSeries Engine. The SteelSeries software offers elements of the control panel on Razer’s Synapse 2.0 and of the Command System software on Alienware devices.

Image Source: Notik.ru

You can create different profiles for use in different applications as well as customizing effects and colors on different zones on the keyboard. Users can designate specific actions to every key found on the keyboard, which is a feature similar to the one offered by the Synapse 2.0. The laptop’s interface also analyzes the way in which a gamer uses the keyboard, showing what keys are being used most.

Our favorite part about the MSI software is the ability to set up a light show. The software features seven effects, such as Gaming, Breathing and Wave. These effects split the keyboard in three sections. The SteelSeries software also offers the ability to create four color levels in one profile.

MSI GT72 Dominator Pro Touchpad

The laptop’s touchpad really has a nice feel to it, mostly because of its pseudo-glass and has a measurement of 4.3 by 2.5 inches. The laptop responded accurately and very quickly as we went between different applications, launched Internet Explorer by pressing three fingers on the touchpad and rotated a few images. There was, however, some issues when highlighting and scrolling down. Every try ended up in arrhythmic movements that quickly become very annoying.

The mouse buttons were, however, very firm and delivered a good feedback.

MSI GT72 Dominator Pro Display

Even though the 17.3 inch Full HD display on the laptop is not bad per se, it isn’t as colorful or as bright as the displays found on its rivals.

The GT72 Dominator reproduced just 88.5 percent of the sRGB scale. This result hardly beats the 88.4 percent by the Krypton and is well behind the 97.2 percent average of a desktop replacement. The Alienware 17 scored 106 and the G751JY from ASUS scored a 99.1.

Image Source: HwiGroup

On the test that measures the accuracy of color, the Delta-E test, MSI’s GT72 Dominator scored a very disappointing 10.3, barely beating the Krypton’s 10.2. The Alienware scored a 0.6 and the ASUS G751JY scored a 2. In the Delta-E test the perfect score is a 0.

For brightness, the MSI laptop scored 255 nits, below the average of 276 nits. The Alienware 17 scored 288 nits and the Krypton and G751JY tied at 304 nits.

Audio Capabilities

Image Source: NotebookItalia

No doubts here; the MSI GT72 Dominator is very loud. In the Laptop Mag Audio Test it hit 93 decibels. It went right by the average of 88 decibels and beat the scores of the ASUS G751JY of 78 dB and the Digital Storm Krypton of 82 dB. Alienware 17, however, was able to hit 99 decibels.

But it’s all about the sound, right? Well, the MSI Dominator Pro really produced balanced and loud audio able to fill the whole audio space.

MSI GT72 Dominator Pro Graphics

The desktop-level Nvidia GeForce GTX 980M GPU has an impressive 8GB of video memory. The GPU produced an incredible 67 FPS on ultra settings of 1080 pixels while playing Lord of the Rings: Shadow of Mordor.

In the 3DMark Fire Strike test, the MSI GT72 Dominator performed amazing as well and scored 8,228. This score was significantly higher than the 4,861 average of a desktop replacement. The Krypton and the Alienware 17, both equipped with Nvidia GeForce GTX 880M GPUs scored 5,527 and 5,389. The Nvidia GeForce GTX 980M on the ASUS G751JY, however, scored a slightly higher 8,367.

Image Source: NHL

BioShock Infinite on the highest settings reached an average of 85 frames per second, way more than the 63 frames per second on the Alienware 17 and 59 frames per second on the Krypton. The ASUS G751JY, however, reached a higher average of 92 frames per second.

However, the Metro: Last Light on the maximum settings was the true test. The Digital Storm Krypton and the Alienware 17 were only able to give 24 frames per second and 20 frames per second. The MSI GT72 Dominator, however, was capable of hitting 34 fps, while the ASUS G751JY hit 37 fps.

MSI GT72 Dominator Pro Performance

The Dominator is equipped with a 2.5 GHz Intel Core i7-4710HQ CPU and 32GB of RAM.

On Geekbench 3, the Dominator scored a 13,018 which is higher than the 12,336 average on the desktop replacement. The Alienware 17, which has a 2.9 GHz Intel Core i7-4910MQ CPU, scored 14,009, the Digital Storm Krypton, with a 2.8 GHz Intel Core i7-4810M CPU, scored 13,774 and the ASUS G751JY, which has the same CPU as the Dominator Pro, scored 12,582.

The Dominator transfers easily huge amounts of data because of its four 128GB SSDs in Raid 3. The Dominator also features a great 1TB 7,200 rpm hard disk drive.

Image Source: GenTechPCForums

In the File Transfer Test, the Dominator duplicated several media files of 4.97GB in only 8 seconds. This means it has a transfer speed of 636.3 MBps, the average being 260 MBps. The Alienware had a transfer speed of 463 MBps and the G751JY had a speed of 339.3 MBps. Hardly worth mentioning, under the circumstances, is the Krypton which was only able to show a transfer speed of just 159 MBps.

In the OpenOffice Spreadsheet Macro Test, the Dominator tied with the ASUS and matched 20,000 addresses and names in just 3 minutes and 53. The average is 4:54 but neither the G72 nor the G751JY were faster than the Alienware 17 at 3:29 and the Krypton at 3:33.

How’s the Heat?

Once we started playing Shadow of Mordor, the temperature on the touchpad increased to 83 degrees Fahrenheit and the part between the H and G keys increased at 86 degrees. The undercarriage of the laptop rose at 102 degrees.

Streaming on Hulu for 15 minutes increased the temperature on the touchpad to 79 degrees and the space between the H and G keys at 89 degrees. These temperatures are still below the comfort threshold of 95 degrees in Laptop Mag.

Other Features

1. Webcam

The Dominator’s 2 megapixel camera is not the greatest in terms of color and detail. In a picture we took, the colors looked very washed out and the individual strains of hair look very blurry and bad.

2. Ports

Next to the laptop’s Blu-ray reader there is a pair of USB 3.0 ports and there are four more USB 3.0 ports on the laptop’s left side. The left side of the Dominator Pro also features gold plated jacks for audio, microphones, headphones and S/P-DIF and a 2 in 1 card reader. On the back of the laptop there are an HDMI port, a gigabit Ethernet port and two mini DisplayPorts.

Image Source: HardwareZone

3. Battery Life

Even though the MSI is very powerful it doesn’t offer very much battery life. The MSI GT72 Dominator Pro lasted just 3 hours and 14 minutes in the Laptop Mag Battery Test. The Alienware 17 lasted on the same test 4:06, the ASUS G751JY lasted 3:53 and the Krypton lasted 2:54.

4. Configurations

We reviewed the $2,999 version of the MSI GT72 Dominator Pro laptop which comes equipped with a 2.5 GHz Intel Core i7-4710HQ CPU, 32GB of RAM, Nvidia GeForce GTX 980M GPU with 8 GB of video memory, 1 TB 7,200 rpm hard disk drive and four 128GB SSDs in Raid 3.

MSI also offers a $1,799 version which has a 2.5 GHz Intel Core i7-4710HQ, 12 GB of RAM, Nvidia GTX 970M GPU with 3 GB of video memory and a 1 TB 7,200 rpm hard disk drive.

Here is a more detailed specs list:

CPU: 2.5-GHz Intel Core i7-4719HQ processor

Operating System: Windows 8.1

RAM: 32GB RAM

Hard Drive Size: 128GB

Hard Drive Type: Quad SSDs

Secondary Hard Drive Size: 1TB

Secondary Hard Drive Speed: 7,200 rpm

Secondary Hard Drive Type: SATA Hard Drive

Display Size: 17.3

Native Resolution: 1920×1080

Optical Drive: BD-R/DVDRW DL

Optical Drive Speed: 8X

Graphics Card: Nvidia GeForce GTX 980M

Video Memory: 8GB

Wi-Fi: 802.11ac

Wi-Fi Model: Killer Wireless-n/a/av 1525 Wireless Network Adapter

Bluetooth: Bluetooth 4.0

Touchpad Size: 4.3 x 2.5 inches

USB Ports: 6

Ports: Mini DisplayPort, HDMI, USB 3.0 Ports, S/PDIF

Card Slots: 2-1 card reader

Warranty: 2 Year Limited Warranty

Size: 16.85 x 11.57 x 1.89 inches

Weight: 8.2 pounds

Wrapping Up…

PROS

– Fast file transfer speeds, great graphics performance, great audio, low heat, customizable keyboard

– Very capable gaming laptop

CONS

– Display lacks brightness and color accuracy

– Very expensive

The Verdict

The MSI GT72 Dominator Pro offers some of the greatest performance we’ve even seen in a laptop designed for gaming. The $2,999 version of the laptop offers a very fast hard drive configuration, a customizable keyboard, Nvidia 900 series GPU, i7 Core CPU and great audio quality. However, we can’t help but wish the display on the laptop was of the same quality as the rest of the laptop’s components.

For $500 less you can buy the ASUS G751JY which offers pretty much the same performance, a more vivid and sharper display and a somewhat longer battery life. But all in all, users that are searching for an absolute monster of a gaming machine should consider buying the MSI GT72 Dominator Pro laptop.