MSI GAMING 27 6QE Review

<p>Building a system by yourself can be a mammoth task&period; For most people inexperienced with selecting components and understanding the general complexity of computer building pre-builds are a perfect solution&period; The problem I have with pre-builds is that they lack features beyond a standard PC that I could build myself&period; Quite simply&comma; pre-builds come with a pricer tag&comma; a &&num;8220&semi;comfy&&num;8221&semi; warranty and perhaps some peace of mind&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Although in recent years pre-builds have gotten more competitive against the DIY market and ostensibly cheaper they still lack that extra &&num;8220&semi;POW&&num;8221&semi; that would tempt me to buy one&period; Sure you might get a pretty glowing logo&comma; but where really is the incentive&quest; I&&num;8217&semi;ve held this opinion for some time and nothing has quite tempted me to change that until I laid my eyes on the MSI Gaming 27 6QE &lpar; a mouthful I know&rpar;&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>For the first time in a long time I think a pre-build has finally swayed me&period; That is a little misleading because the 6QE is no ordinary pre-build&comma; it is an all-in-one gaming PC&period; MSI have&comma; in my opinion&comma; created a system that&comma; despite its high price tag&comma; could be worth the purchase&period; The 6QE has an extensive array of features&colon; high caliber specifications and a gorgeous anti-glare screen that will appeal to students&comma; people on the go and LAN enthusiasts across the board&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The biggest feature of the 6QE is exactly what it is&comma; an all-in-one&period; I know what you&&num;8217&semi;re thinking&comma; that sentence was really stupid and you sir &lpar;or ma&&num;8217&semi;am&rpar; would be outstandingly correct&period; But the simple complexity of an all-in-one is really what makes it such a winner&period; Luckily&comma; being at the technologically advanced stage we are at&comma; you no longer have to sacrifice power&comma; performance and features in order to have a complete system&period; We are talking about a machine that packs a I7 6700 amongst other impressive feats&comma; not some simple &&num;8220&semi;Look how many Google chrome tabs I can have open mom&&num;8221&semi; domestic PC&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Its portability is what makes it so striking&period; Admittedly&comma; it was on the slightly heavier side of things&comma; but this system can be packed away into its original box &lpar;with space for a keyboard and mouse&rpar; in next to no time&period; It is significantly easier than lugging around a PC&comma; a plethora of accessories and then a monitor on top of that&period; Just out of interest&comma; I recorded exactly how long it took me to go from fully set-up to in the box&period; It was just under a minute and a half in total before It was all packed away safely and securely on the Styrofoam supports provided in the packaging&period; Even a micro-atx PC would be less efficient in terms of movement&period; As someone who has attended the Insomnia LAN festival here in the UK&comma; a powerful PC with such manoeuvrability is wonderful&period; For those students out there backing between home and university&comma; this too is right up your alley&period; Unlike most &lpar;but not all&rpar; laptops for gaming&comma; the 6QE doesn&&num;8217&semi;t compromise on power and comes with a large 27&&num;8243&semi; display to boot&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><strong>Design<&sol;strong><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>First and foremost I think we can safely agree that the 6QE is a good looking machine&period; It comes with MSI&&num;8217&semi;s traditional red and black colour scheme with the dragon badge slap bang under the screen&period; On either side of the badge is a mesh screening which covers the speakers built into the system which offer more than an adequate sound solution&period; The bottom is finished off with a dense&comma; transparent plastic&period; Along the back we have a DVD writer slot&comma; and the numerous input and output ports &lpar;detailed in the specifications below&rpar;&period; It comes with a contrasted MSI dragon which when caught under decent lighting conditions looks great&period; There are of course various venting slots out the back too&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>There is finally another dense piece of plastic&period; This&comma; however&comma; is the stand that holds the system upright on the desk&sol;surface&period; This is arguably my only criticism of the design&period; The stand&comma; whilst looking good&comma; somewhat bothers me&period; I much would have preferred an anchor like piece of metal that I could fold out&period; The plastic certainly isn&&num;8217&semi;t flimsy&comma; but a retractable metal stand would have given me much greater peace of mind&period; The stand isn&&num;8217&semi;t particularly wide either&comma; and I imagine a somewhat sizeable knock could cause the machine to topple&comma; which is the last thing you want&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>On a slightly brighter note&comma; there are four mounting screws should you choose to mount the system on a wall which although not particularly practical for a maneuverable PC&comma; it is a good to have the option&period; It is also worth noting that the 6QE is quite a slim build&comma; It certainly didn&&num;8217&semi;t feel uncomfortably bulky&period; For your enjoyment&comma; have an extensive array of product photos&colon;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;100707" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-100707" style&equals;"width&colon; 710px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"size-large wp-image-100707" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2016&sol;02&sol;03225916&sol;20160214&lowbar;151027-1024x576&period;jpg" alt&equals;"The 6QE fits snug on any desk&period;" width&equals;"710" height&equals;"399" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-100707" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">The 6QE fits snug on any desk&period;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p><img class&equals;"aligncenter size-large wp-image-100691" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2016&sol;02&sol;03230156&sol;sdacx-426x1024&period;png" alt&equals;"sdacx" width&equals;"426" height&equals;"1024" &sol;><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><img class&equals;"aligncenter size-large wp-image-100623" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2016&sol;02&sol;03230938&sol;sads-2-1024x814&period;png" alt&equals;"sads &lpar;2&rpar;" width&equals;"710" height&equals;"564" &sol;><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><img class&equals;"aligncenter size-large wp-image-100625" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2016&sol;02&sol;03230621&sol;sads-1-1024x683&period;jpg" alt&equals;"sads &lpar;1&rpar;" width&equals;"710" height&equals;"474" &sol;><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><img class&equals;"aligncenter size-large wp-image-100622" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2016&sol;02&sol;03231014&sol;sads-1-1024x791&period;png" alt&equals;"sads &lpar;1&rpar;" width&equals;"710" height&equals;"548" &sol;><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><img class&equals;"aligncenter size-full wp-image-100618" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2016&sol;02&sol;03231047&sol;IMG&lowbar;20160214&lowbar;160158-e1456700243232&period;jpg" alt&equals;"IMG&lowbar;20160214&lowbar;160158" width&equals;"720" height&equals;"960" &sol;><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Out of the box you get a tonne of guides&comma; a start-up CD and the power supply brick which powers the entire system&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><img class&equals;"aligncenter size-large wp-image-100693" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2016&sol;02&sol;03230134&sol;20160214&lowbar;160432-1024x576&period;jpg" alt&equals;"20160214&lowbar;160432" width&equals;"710" height&equals;"399" &sol;><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><img class&equals;"aligncenter size-large wp-image-100695" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2016&sol;02&sol;03230055&sol;20160214&lowbar;160519-1024x576&period;jpg" alt&equals;"20160214&lowbar;160519" width&equals;"710" height&equals;"399" &sol;><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><img class&equals;"aligncenter size-large wp-image-100694" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2016&sol;02&sol;03230113&sol;20160214&lowbar;160458-1024x576&period;jpg" alt&equals;"20160214&lowbar;160458" width&equals;"710" height&equals;"399" &sol;><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><strong>Specifications<&sol;strong><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The specs of this machine are quite impressive&period; It comes with an admirable 16GBs of DDR4 RAM&period; a 980M GPU and two impressive 128GB M&period;2 SSD&&num;8217&semi;s in Super RAID 4 configuration which is capable of achieving speeds of 3000Mb&sol;s to 3300Mb&sol;s&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><strong>CPU<&sol;strong><br &sol;>&NewLine;Intel® Core™ i7-6700 &lpar;3&period;4GHz&comma; Turbo 4GHz&rpar;<br &sol;>&NewLine;<strong>Operating System<&sol;strong><br &sol;>&NewLine;Windows 10 Home<br &sol;>&NewLine;<strong>Chipset<&sol;strong><br &sol;>&NewLine;Intel® H170 Chipset<br &sol;>&NewLine;<strong>Memory<&sol;strong><br &sol;>&NewLine;16GB DDR4 2133 SO-DIMM&comma; 4 slots&comma; Up to 32GB Expandable<br &sol;>&NewLine;<strong>Graphics<&sol;strong><br &sol;>&NewLine;NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 980M 8GB GDDR5<br &sol;>&NewLine;<strong>Panel Resolution<&sol;strong><br &sol;>&NewLine;27” LED Backlight 1920 x 1080 with MSI Anti-Flicker &amp&semi; Reduced Blue Light Technology<br &sol;>&NewLine;<strong>Storage<&sol;strong><br &sol;>&NewLine;2TB HDD 3&period;5” 7200RPM SATAIII x 1<br &sol;>&NewLine;M&period;2 PCI-E SSD 2x 128GB &lpar;RAID0&rpar;<br &sol;>&NewLine;<strong>Optical Drive<&sol;strong><br &sol;>&NewLine;Tray-in DVD Super Multi &sol; Blu-ray Writer &lpar;optional&rpar;<br &sol;>&NewLine;<strong>Audio<&sol;strong><br &sol;>&NewLine;ESS SABRE HiFi audio DAC technology<br &sol;>&NewLine;Nahimic Audio Enhancer<br &sol;>&NewLine;<strong>LAN<&sol;strong><br &sol;>&NewLine;Killer E2400 Game Networking<br &sol;>&NewLine;<strong>Wireless LAN<&sol;strong><br &sol;>&NewLine;Killer Wireless-AC 1535<br &sol;>&NewLine;<strong>Bluetooth<&sol;strong><br &sol;>&NewLine;1&lpar;4&period;1&rpar;<br &sol;>&NewLine;<strong>USB 3&period;1 port<&sol;strong><br &sol;>&NewLine;1 &lpar;Type C&rpar; Gen2&comma; 3 &lpar;1 with Super Charger&rpar; Gen1<br &sol;>&NewLine;<strong>Card Reader<&sol;strong><br &sol;>&NewLine;3 in 1 &lpar;SD&comma; MMC&comma; MS&rpar;<br &sol;>&NewLine;<strong>Webcam<&sol;strong><br &sol;>&NewLine;2M-pixel Full HD<br &sol;>&NewLine;<strong>Expansion Slot<&sol;strong><br &sol;>&NewLine;M&period;2&period; x 3&colon; &lpar;1&rpar;WiFi x1 &lpar;2&rpar;SSD x2 &comma; Mini-PCI-E x 2<br &sol;>&NewLine;<strong>HDMI in<&sol;strong><br &sol;>&NewLine;1<br &sol;>&NewLine;<strong>HDMI out<&sol;strong><br &sol;>&NewLine;2<br &sol;>&NewLine;<strong>Mic-in&sol;Headphone-out<&sol;strong><br &sol;>&NewLine;1&sol;1<br &sol;>&NewLine;<strong>AC Adapter<&sol;strong><br &sol;>&NewLine;330W<br &sol;>&NewLine;<strong>Dimension&lpar;WxDxH&rpar;<&sol;strong><br &sol;>&NewLine;672&period;23mm &ast; 66mm &ast; 482&period;9mm<br &sol;>&NewLine;<strong>Net Weight<&sol;strong><br &sol;>&NewLine;16&period;16Kg<br &sol;>&NewLine;<strong>Gross Weight<&sol;strong><br &sol;>&NewLine;18&period;54kg<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>There is some serious hardware under the hood here&period; I want to list a few personal favorites&period; The &&num;8220&semi;HDMI in&&num;8221&semi; slot is really sweet&period; This gives you the ability to hook up a console &lpar;which is a cardinal sin considering this beastly system&rpar; or other HDMI devices&period; It makes this system more appealing to those constantly on the move as they can utilize the PC as a full blown TV-style output&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>MSI&&num;8217&semi;s anti-flicker technology and reduced blue light certainly was evident in practice&period; I could play quite a few rounds of <em>Battlefield<&sol;em> without feeling much in the way of eye-strain&sol;tiredness&comma; especially in comparison to some of my other displays&period; The tech doesn&&num;8217&semi;t effect the final image quality which looks fantastic might I add&period; The 6QE also has two HDMI outputs for a triple display set-up should you choose to&comma; making full use of the 8GB 980M&period; The final nice touch was the MSI Super charger that allows you to charge your phone even when your PC is off&period; I was even able to achieve &&num;8220&semi;fast charging&&num;8221&semi; on my S6 &lpar;however results vary for other users&rpar;&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><strong>Performance<&sol;strong><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>So the specs all sound very good and make for a convincing high-end system&period; But how does it stack up in the real world usage&quest; Well&comma; below is an extensive list of everything from boot times to Benchmarking scores and FPS averages in game&period; These were all performed at stock settings straight out of the box&comma; so you can be the judge of performance&period; I also wanted to mention temperatures&comma; because if you are like me&comma; they damn well matter&period; The 6QE never pushed beyond the high 70C&&num;8217&semi;s under full load which was good to see&period; I personally consider a comfortable temperature at the max 70s and low 80s&period; It is safe to say MSI were very cautious&comma; and their engineers seemingly have come up with a high-end all-in-one that doesn&&num;8217&semi;t temperature throttle or cause any concern in the overall temperature category&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>I do have one rather small complaint though&period; Out of the box&comma; the MSI 6QE&comma; whilst cooling the system well&comma; appears to have a slight noise problem&period; The system isn&&num;8217&semi;t loud by any means&comma; but when games and software start pushing it&comma; the fans ramp up in a very audible&comma; noticeable manner&period; I feel as though a less rapid fan curve could solve this issue which is something you can edit yourself in the BIOS&period; It just would have been nice for it to be sorted out of the box &lpar;seeing as this system has a target audience of those who perhaps aren&&num;8217&semi;t so tech savy&rpar;&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><em>Power Consumption &lpar;In Watts&comma; measured via a socket monitor &&num;8211&semi; Lower is Better&rpar;<&sol;em><br &sol;>&NewLine;<img class&equals;"aligncenter size-full wp-image-100698" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2016&sol;02&sol;03230037&sol;Untitled-23&period;png" alt&equals;"Untitled-23" width&equals;"600" height&equals;"50" &sol;><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><em>Boot Time &lpar;In Seconds&comma; from the power button press to fully operating &&num;8211&semi; Lower is Better&rpar;<&sol;em><br &sol;>&NewLine;<img class&equals;"aligncenter size-full wp-image-100699" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2016&sol;02&sol;03230027&sol;Untitled-2&period;png" alt&equals;"Untitled-2" width&equals;"600" height&equals;"50" &sol;><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><strong>Higher is Better from this point forward&period;<&sol;strong><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><em>Unigine Heaven 4&period;0 Score &&num;8211&semi; 2XAA&comma; Moderate Tesselation &amp&semi; High Quality<&sol;em><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><img class&equals;"aligncenter size-full wp-image-100701" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2016&sol;02&sol;03230015&sol;heaaaaav&period;png" alt&equals;"heaaaaav" width&equals;"600" height&equals;"50" &sol;><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><em>PCMark 8 Creative Suite Score<&sol;em><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><img class&equals;"aligncenter size-large wp-image-100702" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2016&sol;02&sol;03230003&sol;pcmkarrk&period;png" alt&equals;"pcmkarrk" width&equals;"600" height&equals;"50" &sol;><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><em>FireMark 1&period;1 Score<br &sol;>&NewLine;<&sol;em><br &sol;>&NewLine;<img class&equals;"aligncenter size-large wp-image-100703" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2016&sol;02&sol;03225951&sol;firemaark&period;png" alt&equals;"firemaark" width&equals;"600" height&equals;"300" &sol;><br &sol;>&NewLine;<em><br &sol;>&NewLine;Cinebench OpenGL and CPU Scores<&sol;em><br &sol;>&NewLine;<img class&equals;"aligncenter size-large wp-image-100704" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2016&sol;02&sol;03225939&sol;cineee3&period;png" alt&equals;"cineee3" width&equals;"600" height&equals;"50" &sol;><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><img class&equals;"aligncenter size-large wp-image-100705" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2016&sol;02&sol;03225929&sol;cineeeer&period;png" alt&equals;"cineeeer" width&equals;"600" height&equals;"50" &sol;><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><strong>Game Performance<&sol;strong><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>With a 980M &lpar;which performs just below a 970 Desktop GPU&rpar; and an i7 6700 it is safe to say you can expect good game performance from the system&period; Other features such as the 16GBs of RAM are very much needed &lpar;expandable to 32GB&rpar;&period; The twin SSDs are also a very welcomed performance addition for games&period; Titles such as <em>Battlefield 4<&sol;em> booted incredibly quickly and loaded maps in next to no time&period; Unfortunately 2x128GB SSDs aren&&num;8217&semi;t massive in size so you will have to prioritize a little&comma; but they certainly add an extra kick&period; The 6QE performed well overall&period; However&comma; considering you can&&num;8217&semi;t upgrade the system&&num;8217&semi;s graphics card&comma; it isn&&num;8217&semi;t exactly 100&percnt; future proof&period; I&&num;8217&semi;m sure DX12 will solve most of that concern though&period; For LAN enthusiasts who simply care about <em>League of Legends<&sol;em> or <em>CSGO<&sol;em>&comma; graphics will hardly be an issue&period;<br &sol;>&NewLine;<em><br &sol;>&NewLine;Witcher 3 &lpar;Ultra&rpar;<&sol;em><br &sol;>&NewLine;<img class&equals;"aligncenter size-large wp-image-100820" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2016&sol;03&sol;03225434&sol;Witcher&period;png" alt&equals;"Witcher" width&equals;"600" height&equals;"50" &sol;><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><em>Battlefield 4 &lpar;High&rpar;<&sol;em><br &sol;>&NewLine;<img class&equals;"aligncenter size-large wp-image-100821" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2016&sol;03&sol;03225422&sol;bf4444444&period;png" alt&equals;"bf4444444" width&equals;"600" height&equals;"50" &sol;><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><strong>Conclusion<&sol;strong><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The MSI Gaming 27 6QE Is a fantastic machine&period; It runs games well&comma; it is compact and manoeuvrable and has an extensive array of features from HDMI in slots and anti-glare&comma; to Super RAID 4 SSDs&period; This system is without a doubt a great choice for people on-the-go or those of you out there looking for a sleek&comma; compact and powerful all-in-one&period; No compromises have been made on performance and the 6QE&&num;8217&semi;s repertoire of bonuses make it a perfect choice for those out there looking for a pre-build as opposed to building a PC themselves&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>As always you get the service and warranty of the commendable MSI company too which will put a lot of minds at ease&period; The only real question is the price tag&period; MSI have an MSRP of £1799 incl&period; VAT&period; Considering the spec of the system&comma; the warranty and service provided by MSI and the benefits of an all-in-one system&comma; I&&num;8217&semi;d say that is a reasonable price&period; Of course&comma; it will always be cheaper to build your own PC&&num;8217&semi;s &lpar;a bit more challenging for All-in-ones&rpar; but without question&comma; those buying a pre-build or system for moving around have a perfect find in the 6QE&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; center&semi;"><strong>The product was sent by MSI for review purposes&period; <&sol;strong><&sol;p>&NewLine;

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