MSI machine: Bend is king

[PConline stand-alone evaluation] If you ask a game player, what type of next computer will choose? It may be that desktops and games will make up the majority, and few people will think: I want to buy an all-in-one machine to play games. Although it is more space-efficient than traditional desktops, it has always been criticized for its performance, and it has become a barrier for one machine to obtain a strong market performance. MSI Apollo G34CQ Reference Price: Loading... Image Reviews Quote Parameter Overview In fact, 2016 is a year of opportunity for various PC makers. With the rapid development and maturity of e-sports industry, players have also mentioned new heights in their game experience requirements. This undoubtedly requires strong support from PC hardware. It has to be said that after Nvidia introduced the GTX 10 series new card this year, it will bring closer the performance gap between notebooks and desktops. It will also provide excellent conditions for the integrated machine to enter eSports. After the first release of a large wave of GTX 10 Series new card game titles, "MSI" has not stopped and began to force the "e-competition machine." One of the high-end flagships is today's protagonist - MSI "Apollo G34CQ." Then the question is: As an all-in-one machine, where does "Apollo G34CQ" come with courage and games and desktops to seize the market? Don't worry, look down. ● First look at the MSI "Apollo G34CQ" hardware configuration MSI "Apollo G34CQ" is equipped with an Intel Core i7-6700 processor, 16GB of memory, 2TB mechanical hard disk + 240GB SSD solid state drive and NVIDIA GTX 1060 enthusiast-class graphics. Product configuration MSI Apollo G34CQ gaming machine processor Intel Core i7-6700 3.4GHz RAM 16GB DDR4 2400MHz Video card NVIDIA GTX 1060 6GB GDDR5 hard disk 2TB HDD+240GB SSD monitor 34.4 inch curved screen resolution 3440×1440 Pre-installed system Windows 10 power supply 450W Amazing curved screen camera is very interesting Unlike the all-in-one machine, the first impression of MSI's "Apollo G34CQ" added more to the beauty of the "curved screen" screen. As you can see, if you look at the past positively, you will find that its lines are very smooth and it looks very slender. The sharp and angular approach gives it a tough element, which is consistent with the positioning of its own "e-sports". Of course, the screen portion is one of the biggest highlights of the MSI "Apollo G34CQ". It uses a 34-inch "curved screen" with a resolution of 3440 x 1440 and a screen ratio of 21:9. Mentioned curved screen, I believe we are not unfamiliar, including smart phones and television products are doing. So why has it been so venerated by vendors in recent times? "Without contrast, there is no harm," and curved screens have been favored by more and more new products. Compared with traditional displays, many of its own advantages are obvious. First, the visual appearance of the arc-shaped appearance is more outstanding, in line with the modern aesthetic. Second, the curved surface structure can obtain a larger display area in a limited space, and at the same time provide a wider viewing angle, even if you can see the screen display from an appropriate angle from the side. More importantly, the curved screen can bring a more realistic picture to the field. Putting aside the surprise of the "Apollo G34CQ" screen body, in fact, MSI has done a lot of things that make people feel "somewhat interesting" in the details. Look at the lower part of the front of the fuselage and see where the "Apollo G34CQ" shines. Continuing the tradition that MSI has always advocated red and black body color matching, apart from the fact that the main body uses black as the main color, the "Apollo G34CQ" adds a red strip at the bottom of the screen. It was also the addition of red to this “smoke” that made it appear to be full of movement. If you look at it a little distance away, you will find it is very good. As a high-end e-sports machine, the "Apollo G34CQ" is also full of effort in the details. Its bottom border has not been chosen to be integrated with the front, but it has been done specially. It can be seen that the lower frame “Apollo G34CQ” is made of metal material and is treated with a conspicuous metal wire drawing process to show a full sense of high-end. The "Apollo G34CQ" camera is very "interesting." Due to the narrowness of the top border, MSI chose to move the camera to the bottom frame just like the Dell XPS series. However, the point is that its camera is not placed horizontally, but with an upward angle to improve the imaging effect of the video chat. I deliberately tried it and I feel pretty good. The control button has no choice but to put it on the side of the fuselage, but it does the bottom. The advantage of this is that it guarantees the integrity of the fuselage and is more beautiful. However, from the actual use of the effect of view, placed on the side of the fuselage control buttons, easier to operate. There are advantages and disadvantages, see which side you pay more attention to. However, if it is not too harsh, this approach is still OK, not as imaginative as it is. Interface settings are rich enough for back design near vacuum "Apollo G34CQ" has no interface design on the left side of the fuselage, so skip here. Let's look at the right side. The red bar we see above is its headset hanger, which is also a small object that an e-sport should have. The operation is very simple, just use it to dial out. Two USB 3.0 ports, microphone input, and headphone output are located below the headphone hanger. The right way to use → → I don't know if you noticed a problem. Both the USB headphone hanger and the side USB ports are on the right side and the headphone mount is on. When you plug in a U disk that is slightly larger than the "head", the headphone cable will "fight" with the USB flash drive when you hang the headset. However, the impact is not great. It can only be said that this situation will happen. At the beginning of the article, we talked about the "Apollo G34CQ" equipped with Intel Core i7-6700 processor and NVIDIA GTX 1060 graphics card. Both of these are undoubtedly big fevers, which also imposes higher requirements on the heat dissipation of the machine. On the back it uses an "exaggerated" large-area grille design to meet the thermal requirements of the fuselage. In terms of actual results, it is also possible to continuously run large-scale test games without dropping frames due to overheating. In order to be able to provide a good display effect under different desktop height conditions, whether it is a monitor or an all-in-one machine, manufacturers often set the pitch and elevation angles when designing. Looking at the "Apollo G34CQ" may take into account the stability of the fuselage body. Truthfully speaking, the screen angle is not large, but the elevation angle is just good and there is no problem. As with many similar products, the main interface of the "Apollo G34CQ" is also placed on the bottom of the fuselage. The left area is DP, HDMI, and DVI interfaces; the center area is DVI, HDMI, 2×USB 3.1 Gen1 Type-A, RJ45, mouse/keyboard interfaces, and audio interfaces, which are rich enough. It is worth mentioning that its video signal source is connected to the DP interface on the left side through the exposed cable. This is not common. Finally look at the power interface. This part of the "Apollo G34CQ" has chosen the same practice as many desktop computers. It is specifically designed to have a power-off switch. Here is a brief explanation of its role. In fact, after we shut down the system, the computer did not completely power off. If we did not have this switch, we had to turn off the power switch on the power socket if we wanted to completely power off. With this switch, shutting it off allows a complete power interruption to protect the power supply and delay the life of the power supply. Near the power interface, we found a very small design for combing the power cord. Because it is a buckle design, you can freely adjust the degree of tightness according to your needs. This can not help reminding me of the camera that we talked about earlier. I have to say that MSI has made a lot of efforts on the Apollo G34CQ. Take a look at the inside of the curved screen machine Compared to the overall appearance that can be seen at a glance, the inside of the slightly sinuous body is even more curious. Here we also have a simple dismantling of it, to see what is the structure of such a large curved screen integrated machine. It is worth mentioning that its entire dismantling process is not as complicated as it seems. Unscrew the screws used to secure the fuselage and the back shell and remove it easily. As you can see, the important components of the "Apollo G34CQ" are basically central. To be honest, its overall alignment is indeed not satisfactory. The summary leads to the overall cluttering of its overall appearance. One is that the overall space is small and there is not much room for manipulability. More importantly, the "Apollo G34CQ" graphics card, motherboard, and power supply occupy most of the area, further compressing the overall space and increasing the number of cables. The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 powered by the "Apollo G34CQ" is located on the left side of the processor, and is equipped with an independent cooling fan to ensure that heat dissipation can keep pace. According to the data obtained from the evaluation articles we have done before, compared to the previous 9 Series graphics cards, the performance of this new generation of cards is quite large, which also provides a powerful image processing capability for the “Apollo G34CQ”. support. (PS: We got the engineering machine, the graphics card is a single fan does not shine, and the actual production machine graphics card is equipped with dual fans and aurora effects.) The center of the motherboard is the Intel Core i7-6700 processor. In terms of parameters, the Intel Core i7-6700 is quad-core, eight-threaded and clocked at 3.4GHz (overclocking is not supported). It is worth mentioning that the B150 is on the Apollo G34CQ motherboard. If you regularly install the board, you should be familiar with the midrange product. From a DIY perspective, this combination is very cost-effective. The memory is provided by V-Color, with a capacity of 16GB and a type of DDR4 2133MHz. "Apollo G34CQ" is designed with two memory slots, one of which is occupied by the body of the memory module, and the other one can be installed according to your actual needs. Personally, however, 16GB of memory is sufficient for normal use. The "Apollo G34CQ" SSD has a capacity of 240GB, which is provided by DINGGE (top grid) and has an interface type of M.2 2280. In this part of the story, if the 240GB capacity is not used to store large stand-alone games, it is sufficient. In addition, from the perspective of price, this choice is also more reasonable, if the 512GB SSD, then the overall price will rise a lot. Its mechanical hard disk is located in the far right area of ​​the back and has a capacity of 2TB. When the "Apollo G34CQ" SSD capacity was just mentioned, there may be a friend who is concerned that it is not enough. The size of the 2TB of the mechanical hard disk is a good solution to this problem. You can throw a variety of large games into a mechanical hard disk. The power supply is the basis for the normal operation of the entire machine, and is often a source of concern for everyone. The power supply of the "Apollo G34CQ" is supplied by Quanhan, one of the world's five largest power suppliers, and has a rated output of 450W. On the whole, Han's power supply is still quite good, but there are few domestic agents and it is difficult to buy. Run points test results show ● CPU-Z test CPU-Z is a well-known CPU detection software, it supports a very comprehensive type of CPU, software startup speed and detection speed are very fast. In addition, it can also detect the main board and memory related information, which we have commonly used memory dual channel detection. Through it you can see parameters such as CPU name, vendor, kernel process, internal and external clocks, and local clock monitoring. ● CINBENCH R15 test CineBench is a very convincing set of CPU and graphics test systems, the latest is the R15 version. Compared to up to 16 cores in R11.5, the R15 version can support up to 256 logic cores. In addition, the new version also enhances the investigation of shaders, anti-aliasing, shadows, lights, and reflection blur, and the performance of CPUs. The test is more accurate. The test includes two items, each for the performance indicators of the processor and the graphics card. ● GPU-Z test GPU-Z is a GPU recognition tool, green free installation, intuitive interface, running after you can detect the graphics card GPU model, step, manufacturing process, core area, number of transistors, manufacturers, detection grating and shader processing unit number, DirectX supports versions, GPU cores, shaders and memory clocks, video memory types, sizes, bandwidths, pixel fill rates, and material fill rates. And can detect real-time GPU temperature, GPU usage, memory usage and fan speed and other related information. ● 3DMark testing In order to better test the performance of the GTX1060, we used the Fire Strike Ultra and Fire Strike Extreme benchmarks in 3DMark. The test result screenshot is as follows: The Fire Strike Ultra test gives a score of 3020, Fire Strike Extreme has 5794. ●PCMark 8 test PCMark 8 is a benchmark performance testing software for Windows system. Home testing is one of the testing modes (5 types in total). It mainly simulates the use environment of common users. The testing project covers web browsing and document processing. Pictures, video chat, light load games, etc., and include both OpenCL accelerated and traditional test modes. ● AS SSD test AS SSD Benchmark is an SSD test software from Germany that can test continuous read and write, 4K alignment, 4KB random read and write and response time performance, and give a comprehensive score. At the same time, the software also comes with the Compression Benchmark project, which can give a curve describing the transformation of performance as the compressible data occupancy (compression ratio) in the data model increases. ●HD TUNE test HD Tune Pro hard disk detection tool is a small and easy-to-use hard disk tool software, its main functions are hard disk transmission rate detection, health status detection, temperature detection and disk surface scanning. In addition, the firmware version, serial number, capacity, cache size, and current Ultra DMA mode of the hard disk can also be detected. Although there are other softwares for these functions, it is commendable that the software integrates all these functions, and it is very compact and fast. More importantly, it is free software and can be used freely. Large stand-alone/online test ● GTA 5 "Grand Theft Auto V" is a crime-themed open-air action adventure game published by Rockstar Games. The game background is based on Los Angeles in the real region and Southern California. Produced, the game has almost the same world view as the real world. Players can play three protagonists and switch at any moment. Each protagonist has his own unique personality and story background, as well as intertwined story. ● Game settings 1. Resolution: 3440×1440 2. Vertical sync: off 3 quality effect: the highest Since "GTA 5" comes with BENCHMARK, it still chooses to use the game's own scene as a test material. In order to allow everyone to see the performance of the "Apollo G34CQ" frame for a period of time, here we used Fraps test software to obtain data. From the following graph of the number of frames, the total number of frames during the 18s period is maintained at more than 60 frames, and the actual running screen is smooth enough. ● "Wizard 3" "Witcher 3: Wild Hunt" is a role-playing stand-alone game created by CD Projekt RED and adapted by the same name novel by WB Games (NA) and Spike Chunsoft (JP). Released on May 19, 2015, it is the third installment of the "Wizard" series of games. In October 2015, he won the 33rd Golden Rocker Award for Best Drama, Best Visual Design, and Best Game Time. He won the Best Game of the Year award and won IGN 2015 Best Game of the Year. ● Game settings 1. Resolution: 3440×1440 2. Vertical sync: off 3 picture quality effect: the ultimate 4. Frame settings: no restrictions "Wizard" series needless to say, a real hardware killer. In the above settings, you can see that the official gives a limit of 60 frame options, but in the actual game process, to achieve 60 frames is not an easy task, many players choose to lock 30 frames. Due to the high resolution of the "Apollo G34CQ", it can be seen that the change in the number of frames in a period of time is maintained between 25-35 frames. The actual test screen will show a slight nuisance, but it's OK and acceptable. ● Nobody Deep Space Unmanned Deep Space is a game based on the theme of space exploration adventure survival. Theoretically, there are 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 planets in the game that can be explored by players. It can almost be seen as infinite. At the same time, because the game uses algorithms to generate the planet, the game itself is small and can be played entirely offline. In August 2016, it was formally put on the Hong Kong service PSN store. The Chinese version was priced at HK$398 and included early purchase codes. August 13 landed in the Steam Country, priced at 158 ​​yuan. The game product page has been updated to support Simplified Chinese and Chinese voice. ● Game settings 1. Resolution: 3440×1440 2. Vertical sync: off 3. Quality effect: high 4. Frame settings: maximum This work, which was born in many people's eyes, deservedly became the king of the game circle. On the Steam platform, "Unmanned Deep Space" maintained its three-week sales championship, and sold nearly 700,000 copies in just four days after its official launch, making it the first ever highest-selling game on the 2016 Steam platform. From the results given by the Fraps test software, the performance of the "Apollo G34CQ" in the 22s for more than 50 frames is satisfactory. ■ Popular Online Games Test ● Watching the Pioneer "Overwatch" (OW) is a first-person shooter game developed by Blizzard Entertainment, which was launched on May 24, 2016. Netease is the agent of mainland China. The game is based on the future of the Earth and tells about the entanglement of humans, watchful pioneers and intelligent machinery. The game has 22 heroes, each hero has its own signature weapons and skills. ● Game settings 1. Resolution: 3440×1440 2. Vertical sync: off 3 quality effect: high 4. The number of frames: 300 From the test results given by the Fraps below, it can be seen that the average performance of more than 100 frames means that the "Apollo G34CQ" is very smooth when the game is actually run. The first thing I have to say is that such test results are indeed a very good result. However, because I'm dizzy in 3D, it's hard to take a fast turn direction. If you want to enjoy playing Hanzo, "Apollo G34CQ" won't disappoint you. ● League of Legends "League of Legends" (abbreviated as lol) is an online game developed by Riot Games in the United States and operated by Tencent Games in mainland China. In addition to real-time strategy and team operations, "League of Legends" also has more than 100 unique heroes, rich maps and gameplay, and an automatic match of battlefield platform, including talent tree, summoner system, rune and other elements. LOL has become one of the most popular and influential online games in the world today. ● Game settings 1. Resolution: 3440×1440 2. Vertical sync: off 3. Quality effect: very high The first thing to note is that the "League of Legends" game does not eat the hardware configuration, but considering the huge number of gamers, I chose to add it to the game test section here. It may be that for some large stand-alone games, more than 40 frames can run smoothly, but if League of Legends is lower than 60 frames, you will be stuck in the basic team battle. "Apollo G34CQ" performance over 150 frames, running LOL without any pressure, can support you show up. ● Tank World "World of Tanks" is a war online game launched by Wargaming in 2010. Players will play chariots (PvP) from the 1930s to the 1960s, highly demanding strategies and cooperation. At present, vehicles from the Soviet Union, Germany, the United States, the United Kingdom, France, China, and Japan are available for use by players. It is expected that future versions will launch chariots from countries such as the European Union, Italy, and Israel, and the chariots in the game will be restored according to history. It is estimated that there will be a total of about 500 chariots. The game was first launched in Russia on October 30, 2010, launched in North America and Europe on April 12, 2011, and was represented by the air network in China. It was launched on March 15, 2011. ● Game settings 1. Resolution: 3440×1440 2. Vertical sync: off 3 quality effect: the highest As a large-scale 3D game, "Tank World" can be said to have been quite a lot of players in the war in the green. In order to be able to test the performance of "Tank World" in the face of large-scale 3D games, this game was selected again. It should be noted that the following test results are obtained after entering the game, and I have continuously performed various operations such as straight-line travel, forward-turning, and stationary firing. It can be seen that during the 18s test period, the "Apollo G34CQ" basically remained within the 85-97 frame range. The actual game operation was very smooth, and there was no case where it became a "living target" because of Caton. The correct use of MSI Apollo G34CQ ■ What is the feeling of playing a game with a 34 inch curved screen? Since MSI "Apollo G34CQ" is positioned in the e-commencement machine, then we come to experience using such a "big guy" game with a screen size of 34 inches, in the end do not fly. The game tested this time was "League of Legends." In order to obtain more accurate feedback from players on actual use, the Pacific Ramp's "First Raven/Compression" @ flash was hit to hit the wall for real game experience. ● The game process of @ flashing students hitting the wall is like this In order not to disturb other colleagues, we moved the "Apollo G34CQ" to a relatively quiet meeting room. Throughout the game, @ flashed the wall to play very errant. It really was an "old driver." We will later see how he would give feedback on the actual performance of the MSI "Apollo G34CQ." ● If such a large screen is placed on the game, will the field of vision fail? First of all, we must pay attention to: Will 34-inch screen size "Apollo G34CQ" put on the desktop to play the game, after the full screen, whether it can guarantee the integrity of the vision? This point is believed to be the concern of the majority of gamers: If I start, then in the actual game, will the screen size not be too large, resulting in the display screen can not be very easy to see it? @ The student who flashed the wall hit the answer is not. Thanks to the unique curved screen structure of curved screens, it can provide a wider field of view than traditional displays. In addition, in the course of your game, you can also have an "enveloping" audiovisual experience, so cool! In the blinking wall crashing @, I specifically captured the "Apollo G34CQ" game frames. As you can see, the performance of 180 frames is still quite awesome. In the case of network speed power, you can show off all sorts of small operations with boldness. The configuration of i7-6700+GTX 1060 is completely stress-free. ■ What does it feel like to use an all-in-one machine with a 34-inch curved screen? Of course, although "Apollo G34CQ" is more inclined to the gaming experience, it is also a good choice for office use. 21:9 screen ratio, 34-inch large size, very suitable for multi-tasking window display, can greatly improve work efficiency. Another point is that such a screen parameter can bring a larger horizontal display area, especially for a writing person, an article code down, will reduce the complexity of many folding lines, the entire page is also more tidy . Still want to say more about the screen ratio. If you let go of the screen size, the ratio of 16:9 and 21:9 on the two different screens, the former may be more coordinated overall visual experience, while the latter looks flat. But specific to the "Apollo G34CQ", to know that its screen size reached 34 inches, to put the game on the desktop, the screen and the player's distance may not be too far, if made 16:9. Imagine that the upper and lower screens are hard to take into account, but it's made to be 21:9 with a curved screen, which makes it possible to bring a great visual experience to the player in such a large size. ■ It can actually play like this In daily life, many people often choose an external monitor when using a laptop. One is to make up for the small size of the notebook screen and the bad visual experience; the other is to be able to get more desktop task displays. The MSI "Apollo G34CQ" also has an external display experience. Due to its large screen size, we chose a smaller display. In this way, you can fully take into account more tasks at the same time. Simply put, for example, some online games require long-term online fixed tasks, but what do you need to do with your work? At this time, an external monitor can be attached to the device. While working at the same time, it does not affect the acquisition of game pages. Of course, this is just an example. You can also choose to display the content of different webpages on two monitors, which is very practical. Written in the last words The article is almost here to come to an end. Looking back at MSI "Apollo G34CQ" as an all-in-one machine, it perfectly integrates the superiority of such PC space usage compared to traditional desktop computers. And its biggest feature is undoubtedly the 34-inch large-size curved screen, while bringing a powerful visual experience at the same time, it is more realistic that its display effect is quite amazing. Of course, performance is an important criterion to measure whether it is good enough or not. In terms of hardware configuration, the combination of the Intel Core i7-6700 processor, 16GB of memory, 240GB SSD+2TB HDD body storage, and the NVIDIA GTX 1060 alone provide strong support. In the face of most of the mainstream games on the market today, they are able to demonstrate their performance. If you want an all-in-one machine, MSI "Apollo G34CQ" is a good choice. Product configuration MSI Apollo G34CQ gaming machine processor Intel Core i7-6700 3.4GHz RAM 16GB DDR4 2400MHz Video card NVIDIA GTX 1060 6GB GDDR5 hard disk 2TB HDD+240GB SSD monitor 34.4 inch curved screen resolution 3440×1440 Pre-installed system Windows 10 power supply 450W