Pros: This thing is solid for a video card of it's price, the ati overdrive brings it up to a fairly good GPU Clock/ Memory Clock without much added effort from the fans, keeps cool within the 50-60 degree C range under moderate load (which is fine for most video cards).

Cons: Read reviews carefully before buying a card and spend some time on it. I am using Windows 7 -64 Pro and have read well into it before purchase. You should not use the provided CD for drivers, and make absolutely sure to wipe old drivers if you are upgrading from nvidia or old ATI using driver sweeper or other in safe mode. Go ahead and get the ati catalyst 9.12 drivers before you upgrade to be prep'd. Works just fine for me in LFD and other games.

Overall Review: My older, as in, taken from my last built computer 4 years ago SD 17 inch monitor appears to be the conflict driving the vertical bars, when I don't use dual monitors and don't use it, there are no vertical bars in anything, any games, any power dvd blu-rays, and any online videos.

Pros: Sound, speed, and video are outstanding. Ultra graphics all the way. The keyboard and effects are beautiful (and customizable). The mechanical keyboard is comfortable (other than sometimes hitting shift when I mean to hit 'a' because things are slightly closer than my desktop. The fan speed and the gpu engine switch are nice and I can really crank down the power usage and go without wall charger for a ridiculous amount of time. The sound quality is simply amazing The surround effect is great and full bodied. The fan button kicks on and has a moderate amount of added dB's but with the sound it isn't noticeable whatsoever. Gaming software makes tuning easy also.

Cons: I was tempted to rate it 4 star because something I figured out late into the game with this one. The Laptop comes with Win 8.1 64 (check), the laptop comes with a blu-ray player (check), the laptop comes with Power DVD 10 (failure). The problem here is that PDVD 10 doesn't function with blu-rays and windows 8.1 and it was purchased in January of this year (by that time cyberlink in it's ever increasing money scheme had released a few new 'versions' of it's software). So I'm stuck without a way to update to a version that is not only compatible with win 8.1, but isn't 79 bucks to upgrade because PDVD 10 doesn't get the free upgrade to the compatible versions that play blu-rays. I've tried getting VLC and the codec/key file to work to no avail... I called MSI and of course got a guy that helped zilch and was unsympathetic to my desire to watch a movie occasionally!

Overall Review: I bought a nice Samsonite Laptop backpack for it and with less than a foot of a drop bent in a corner of the laptop (very slightly) even with all the padding. Be wary of taking off your backpack too swiftly and dropping it down.