MSI GT70, GT60 Gaming Laptops Pack Ivy Bridge Chips, Color Keyboards

Gamers need the fastest machines to run video-intensive games, so the GT60 and the GT70 are both equipped with quad core Intel Core i7 processors (Core i7-3610QM, to be exact). These chips are part of the first wave of Intel’s new Ivy Bridge processors announced on Monday and made available only for desktops and high-end laptops--like gaming rigs.

In PCWorld benchmarks, Ivy Bridge processors offer a moderate CPU performance boost over current Sandy Bridge chips--but, more importantly, significant graphics improvement (as well as better battery life).

The GT60 and GT70 also come standard with NVidia GeForce GTX670M graphics cards with 3GB of video RAM and full high-definition (1920-pixel-by-1080 pixel resolution) anti-glare displays.

Support for an enormous amount of system memory--up to 32GB--should suffice for your power gaming needs, and storage options include both typical hard disk drive and solid state drive RAID configurations.

Special Gamer Keyboard

Laptops with Ivy Bridge chips are still rare, but they’re starting to trickle in. The first ones on the scene, because of the demanding hardware needs, are gaming laptops like the Asus G75, Samsung Series 7 gaming laptop, and now these two GT Series from MSI.

As expected from high-end laptops sporting the latest and greatest hardware, these laptops don’t have bargain prices: The GT60 starts at $1,499 and the GT70 starts at $1,549.99. You can find out more on the MSI GT Series order page.

Follow Melanie Pinola (@melaniepinola) and Today@PCWorld on Twitter