The MSI GS30 Gaming Shadow notebook is a 13.3 inch device that works with a very substantial dock that supplements the notebook’s Intel Iris graphics with a much more powerful PCIe discrete graphics card. Nicole Scott got hands on with the MSI GS30 at IDF in San Fransisco.

MSI’s gaming notebooks have been improving and gaining in stature for several years now, extending the same MSI Dragon branding to mobile segment, that we also see on their enthusiast motherboards, graphics cards, gaming keyboards and mice. The MSI GS30 is fitted with a fantastic looking QHD 2560 x 1440 display and a very powerful Intel Core i7 that also features the best integrated GPU that Intel can muster with Intel Iris Pro graphics.

Watch Nicole show us the MSI GS3 Shadow in all its glory, in the video below:

The system also boasts up to 16GB of DDR3 RAM, a dual SSDs in a RAID 1 configuration for blisteringly fast read and write speeds. Other details include a back lit keyboard, HDMI out, Bluetooth, WiFi n/ac plus a 720p front web cam.

Of course the really unique thing about the MSI GS30 Shadow is that it can interface with a docking station when you are at home to provide real desktop-class gaming performance. The docking station is fairly substantial, in fact it’s not much smaller than a mini-tower PC, and that is because it contains some very serious horse-power. The Dock supports multiple outputs via DVI and HDMI ports so that up to two additional displays can be connected, and that is in fact because the dock offers a full PCIe x16 slot that can support very high-end discrete graphics cards that bring plenty of raw gaming performance. No word on pricing just yet.