I'm currently running this machine in win 7, with an SSD upgrade, and she's screaming fast. Haven't been able to throw anything at her that she couldn't handle at well over 50 FPS. Played world in conflict's graphics demo and smoked it, not even dropping below 40 FPS when they detonated a nuke, and dropped 3-4 dozen airstrikes. It doesn't do so hot on battery, even with one of the GPU's removed, however does fine for light duty on battery. Just make sure to turn the GPUs off.
I don't mind the touchpad for regular use, I disagree with the review and find its a perfectly normal touchpad, and better than most.
One other unique thing to point out: the default configuration for the hard drives can be changed dramatically. the M2 SSD can be turned into a second regular hard drive, although the M2 form factor struggles with capacity, I managed to find a 128 GB M2 SSD and used it to install and run Linux Mint on a second drive. It boots just fine from both. Considering I bought the laptop refurbished for 900 bucks, its a good upgrade. I now have a gaming machine that will smoke most MSI rigs sold at 1200 for a hair over 1 grand. Best purchase ever.