MSI GS75 Stealth Review: This light 17-inch laptop packs a wallop with GeForce RTX 2080 Max-Q - ruizdrecandlere

At a Glance

Expert's Rating

Pros

Information technology's five pounds and fast!
Very respectable battery life
GeForce RTX 2080 Max-Q offers owing performance in today's games

Cons

Odd trackpad location
Hybrid Ray Tracing performance is slower than expected
Expensive

Our Verdict

MSI's GS75 Stealing offers performance and battery life antecedently undetected at this weight, thanks in large part to its RTX 2080 Max-Q graphics.

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The MSI GS75 Stealth challenges that old PC laptop saw that says you privy have commanding performance, and you can consume a 17-edge screen, and you can have light weight—but you can single pick two. Sure, at five pounds GS75 is hardly "light." But along with its 17.3-inch display IT packs an 8th-propagation 6-core Processor and Nvidia's brand-lively recent GeForce RTX 2080 Max-Q graphics inside.

To put it in context: Blood line PC's EVO-17S is considered pretty portable for a 17-column inch laptop computer, and IT weighs about seven pounds, with a GeForce GTX 1070 inside.

Meanwhile, Razer Blade Stealth, the self-anointed "smallest 15-inch gaming laptop computer," is meet slightly smaller and barge than the MSI GS75 at 4.6 pounds.

The MSI GS75 is one of the first laptops to debut with Nvidia's RTX graphics for laptops, proclaimed earlier in January at CES. This review focuses a bit more connected graphics than usual as a solvent—and as you'll figure in our benchmarks, the MSI GS75 is a (comparatively) unimportant laptop computer with a heavweight wallop. As we test more laptops with the freshly technology, we'll add that information to an accompanying news report discussing whether Nvidia RTX for laptops is worth it.

msi gs75 stealth 8 — MSI's 17-edge GS75 Stealth (midriff) is so compact, it's closer in size here to the 15-edge in Razer Blade (top) than the 17-in Line of descent PC EVO-17S (bottom).

MSI GS75 features and spectacles

Let's part with with the basic internal glasses for the MSI GS75. A we said, it's an lofty list:

CPU: 8th-gen Intel Core i7-8750H
Memory: 32GB of DDR4/2667 in dual-channelize mode
Storage: 512GB Samsung PM981 NVMe SSD
Display: 17.3-inch 144Hz wide-aspect ratio proctor without G-sync or FreeSync
Graphics: Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 Max-Q
82-watt-hour battery

In real time that you bed what's wrong, here's to a greater extent about the outside. Every bit with the 15-column inch GS65, the GS75 features an all-aluminum trunk that's anodized black. The sinister is emphasised by tan, which gives it a very "grown-functioning" feeling. MSI has endeavored to pee-pee its laptops visually standard in corporate conference rooms, lest your boss suspect you're fragging bots on the clock.

msi gs75 stealth 5 — The hinges features bronze accents, which give the laptop a formal full-grown-up feel.

Ports still matter for those who actually do forg, and MSI is generous. The left pull of the GS75 features 3.5mm analog headset and mic ports, a microSD time slot, USB 3.1 Type A, a Killer Play Network E2500 gigabit port, and a votive major power port.

Happening these terminal 2 points we should mention that the Killer NIC E2500 is Atheros ironware, and the Wi-Fi portion is the company's new 802.11ac that's founded on Intel ironware. MSI includes a fairly slim 230-watt power brick with the GS75 Stealth. Information technology's notwithstandin brick-ugly, simply leastways it's not as large as some.

msi gs75 stealth 2 — The left side of the MSI GS75 Stealth includes superpowe, ethernet, USB-A, microSD, and headphone and mic jacks.

Wiggly connected to the right side of the GS75 we experience two more USB 3.1 Type A ports, and ii USB 3.1 Case C ports. One is just USB-C 3.1 Gen 2 at 10Gbps, while the other adds Thunderbolt 3. Finally, the laptop as wel features a full-sized HDMI 2.0 port.

msi gs75 stealth 11 — The right side of the MSI GS75 Stealing offers USB-C, USB-A, and HDMI.

The keyboard on the GS75 Stealth carries SteelSeries branding and features per-Key RGB lighting. The keyboard is a cartilaginous-dome type with N-key rollover endure. The keyboard is decently bright and features translucent skirts to emphasis the RGB look of it. MSI jams in a small 10-key along the right incline, which still oddly follows a phone-style layout for the 0 key. Every bit we've whined about before: Anyone with an accounting desktop knows the zero key should actually be under the one key instead of the ii key, Eastern Samoa IT is hither. Phooey.

Perhaps the most unaccustomed choice is the placement of the trackpad. It's beautifully glass-satiny and responsive, with support for Microsoft's Precision Driver gestures. The medal rejection is excellent, too. But it's so huge, you'll constantly place your right articulatio radiocarpea happening it spell typing, and likely trigger the trackpad's physical click mechanism.

Much of the problem stems from MSI's decision to center the trackpad on the keyboard tray (roughly between the 'I' and 'O' keys), rather than center it low the QWERTY keyboard (between the 'T' and 'U' keys). Your wrist good naturally falls where the trackpad lies. The alone advantage we can see is that it's whole exculpate of the WASD keys, so your left wrist probably won't pip the trackpad while gaming.

msi gs75 stealth 6 — The MSI GS75 features per-key RGB lighting and a beautifully aerodynamic glass trackpad with a possibly annoying placement.

MSI GS75 Stealth CPU Performance

We know, we know, the tremendous intelligence is how this laptop performs with the brand-new RTX graphics inside. At the risk of spoiling your fun, let's support up front that it's fast. But there's hatful of nuance from test to test. Clench onto your hats atomic number 3 we give the CPU its due.

First prepared is Maxon's Cinebench R15. Based on the companion's rendering engine from its Cinema4D product, IT's a multi-threaded test that loves CPU cores. The result is basically in line with what we've seen from a stack of 8th-gen Core i7 CPUs. We'd actually put the MSI somewhat before of the plurality, simply let's meet call IT a tie. The good news is there's no sign of carrying into action loss from shrinkage this laptop.

msi gs75 cinebench nt — The 8th gen Kernel i7-8750H CPU at bottom of the MSI GS75 Stealth compares favorably with the competion in multi-rib work.

Because few workloads use all the cores of a CPU, we also look at Cinebench's exclusive-threaded performance, which is Thomas More indicative of what you'd see in Authority surgery browse the Internet. The termination is again eligible with what we've seen with other laptops with the unvarying CPU.

msi gs75 cinebench 1t — The GS75 Stealth pushes its Core i7-8750H at a good clip and is among the faster 8th-gen based laptops we've seen.

Our last CPU benchmark examines how a laptop handles workloads that melt the CPU hard and for a long full point of time. We take a 30GB 1080p video single file and transcode IT with the popular and independent HandBrake app, using the Android tablet planned. What this typically reveals is a performance souse as the laptop heats up.

You'd recollect the sick and thin MSI GS75 Stealth would suffer performance loss Oregon spin its fans to annoying levels under heavy loads, only all is good. In fact, acoustics on the GS75 Stealth were truly amazing. During a looped graphics load punctuate test, the GS75's fans spun up, merely we'd swear information technology was quieter than some 13-inch laptops under load. In fact, it may be the quietest gaming laptop computer we've e'er detected.

msi gs75 handbrake — The 8th gen Core i7-8750H CPU inside of the MSI G75 Stealth performs as you'd expect information technology to, which is good.

Exactly how fast is that GPU? Keep reading to detect out.

MSI GS75 GeForce RTX 2080 Max-Q privy really be fast

If you've read our GeForce RTX reviews (here) you probably have it off what to await of a background chip at. Nvidia has basically taken the RTX lineup and packed them into laptops. The measure of CUDA cores are the same, as are the amount of memory, the type of memory, and the memory bus speed. What changes are the clock speeds of the GeForce RTX choke-full functioning parts and the GeForce RTX Max-Q parts, which crank downbound to save on power and heat waste.

The question is, just what do you yield up? In conventional gaming, it doesn't attend comparable much. Remember: You can buoy't detached any laptop computer design from the existent GPU (or CPU) performance, but we're seeing pretty stellar performance from the GS75's GeForce RTX 2080 Max-Q chip.

Our first test is Ascending of the Tomb Pillager carry on the Very High setting at 1920×1080 resolving power. We unravel this particular test in DirectX11 manner, because DX12 drivers and sustenanc was beautiful spotty when we get-go adopted it.

The result is about 17 pct high performance than larger and heavier laptops with GeForce GTX 1080 laptops, and about 15 percent more than the GeForce GTX 1080 Grievous bodily harm-Q chip in the original Asus ROG Zephyrus GX501.

msi gs75 rise of the tomb raider 19x10 very high dx11 — Despite organism antitrust nether 5 lbs. the MSI GS75 and its current GeForce RTX 2080 Goop-Q graphics chip easily outpaces laptops that weigh far Thomas More than it.

Aflare on to Middle-earth: Shadows of Mordor on Extremist, the full-contention GeForce GTX 1080 Saratoga chip in the older Alienware 17 R4 rightful edges come out the GS75 and its RTX 2080 Max-Q chip. The more comparable Asus ROG Zephyrus GX501 and its GeForce GTX 1080 Max-Q squeaks in behind it, though—the RTX Liquid ecstasy-Q part is about 10 percent faster.

msi gs75 shadows of mordor 19x10 ultra 4k textures — Midsection-earth: Shadows of Mordor shows that a full-tilt GTX 1080 laptop computer is slightly faster than the RTX 2080 Max-Q—simply that leader is a much larger and thicker laptop.

One issue with trying to judge laptop GPU performance for graphics is it's hard to rule out CPU differences. That's especially true for games which may be particularly sensitive to clockspeeds.

Fortunately UL's 3DMark is designed to break out graphics performance from CPU public presentation influences. Maiden up is 3DMark Fire Strike, which puts the MSI GS75 Stealth with RTX 2080 Liquid ecstasy-Q ahead of complete laptops, except for the large-and-in-charge Alienware 17 R4.

msi gs75 3dmark fire strike graphics — In 3DMark Fire Strike, we deal the graphics subscore to geld proscribed the CPU from performance. As you can see, in this old test, nearly a full-tilt GeForce GTX 1080 can stand out it.

Granted, 3DMark Fire Strike is a somewhat older test well-stacked to stress DirectX 11-vintage hardware. UL's 3DMark Time Spy is furthermost newer and tests DirectX 12 with a big step up in graphics work lading. For example, it throws close to 10 times more tessellation and tetrad time as many shaders at the GPU than Fire Strike does.

With the many modern workload run, we at present fancy the MSI GS75 Stealth prevail. Although the full-tilt GeForce GTX 1080 is abysmally stuffy, the more comparable Asus ROG Zephyrus GX501 with its GeForce GTX 1080 Max-Q comes up almost 20 percent short.

Compared full-speed GeForce GTX 1070 in the Bloodline PC EVO-17S, the GS75 Stealth is a goodly 29 percent faster. When you reach down to a GeForce GTX 1070 Max-Q chip, you're looking at at more than 58 percent. So, yes, it's pretty durn fast.

msi gs75 3dmark time spy graphics — Different 3DMark Fire Strike, 3DMark Time Stag uses 10 times the vertices, almost 3 times American Samoa many triangles, 10 multiplication more tessellation, and 4 multiplication as many another shaders.

Of course, the one thing Nvidia wants you to recognize is the selective information in the next chart. This is UL's new 3DMark Port Royal, which measures ray tracing functioning exclusively. If you believe in Nvidia's visual modality for the future of PC gaming, then it's the only thing you care roughly, because of all the previous laptops we've reviewed, it's the only one that can ladder crossed ray tracing games.

This isn't the last word in hybrid ray tracing performance, of course. As a matter of fact, while we think the boost in non HRT-games is actually decent, the performance of the GeForce RTX 2080 Grievous bodily harm-Q brings improving very much of questions.

msi gs75 port royal graphics — Hera's the disceptation for why the GeForce RTX 2080 Max-Q is infinitely better than laptops using last generation GeForce graphics cards.

For example, we ran tests using EA's Battlefield V, the lonesome game available with crossbred ray tracing. When EA first turned on ray tracing, performance actually dropped with RTX enabled. In our own tests at 1920×1080 resolution with the game set to Ultra character mode, we saw the RTX 2080 Max-Q in the GS75 achieve 90 frames per second in default mode, and drop to 45 frames per second with DirectX Ray Tracing turned on. Oof. Piece some of this Crataegus laevigata asymptomatic be fixed by further number one wood tuning and game tuning, we're allay pretty uneasy about how the Max-Q RTX laptops can run these games at their highest setting.

MSI GS75 Stealing Barrage fire Execution

Our last tryout is perhaps the most important in any true laptop: barrage fire performance. For this we loop a 4K video in aeroplane mode with the sieve down to a relatively bright 250 to 260 nits, with ear buds connected.

While the GS75 Stealth doesn't win any ribbons, IT's actually extremely good bombardment performance from a 17-edge gaming laptop. Some of that comes from the decision to ditch Nvidia's G-Sync applied science, which forces the GPU on the least bit times; and some of information technology comes from the relatively large 82-Watt-hr battery.

What we fanny enunciat is that for a 17-inch gambling laptop that is essentially unrivaled of the quickest laptops we've seen, that's outstanding. For context, if you look at the event and then coup d'oeil down at the bottom—they'atomic number 75 almost totally 17-inch high-great power gaming laptops too.

msi gs75 4k video playback — With its decently-ninepenny 82 W-hour battery and 1080p screen, the MSI GS75 Stealth gets really good life despite being a powerful gaming laptop computer.

Finish

We have a fantasy. If we could take an MSI GS75 Stealth back soon enough to 2008 or even 2012, we're fairly foreordained we could walk into any PC gaming LAN political party and declare ourselves a minor deity. "Behold: I carry a laptop more effectual than whatsoever of your gaming computers, and it weighs less than five pounds! Grovel ahead me!"

And to be honest, we think with the sheer performance and portability of the amazing GS75 Stealing, that's entirely possible. This is reasonable the first of many benchmarking opportunities we hope to have with Nvidia's new RTX graphics for laptops, but the initial signs seem to point toward a lighter, faster future for Mobile River PC gaming.

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Unrivalled of founding fathers of hardcore tech reporting, Gordon has been covering PCs and components since 1998.