MSI GS75 Stealth Gaming Laptop Review

Today we're checking out the pinnacle-of-the-line MSI GS75 Stealth 8SG, i of a number of new RTX-powered gaming laptops from MSI. As this brute fits into their Stealth line, it'due south designed to exist a slim and light portable gaming organisation, with the GS75 branding indicating information technology's their 17-inch model. Previously nosotros reviewed the GS65 and really liked it, and then nosotros were definitely keen to check out the larger model equipped with a new GPU.

The GS75 Stealth 8SG model we were sent for testing is the nigh powerful unit available equipped with an RTX 2080 Max-Q GPU. In that location are too models available with the RTX 2070 Max-Q and the RTX 2060. Each variant of this laptop with a different GPU is so bachelor with different RAM and storage configurations, in our example nosotros received 32GB of dual-channel memory and a dual 512GB SSD setup in RAID 0.

The rest of the hardware is shared amongst the configurations: yous go an Intel Cadre i7-8750H processor, the standard for gaming laptops. There's also a 17.3-inch 1080p 144Hz "IPS-level" brandish, and an 82 Wh bombardment.

The design of the new GS75 is about unchanged from MSI's previous versions, and that's a good thing.

It means nosotros're still getting the splendid metallic near-unibody build with beautiful copper aureate highlights. This is one of the all-time looking gaming laptops on the market, and then wholesale changes really aren't required. It's a sleek laptop with a nice minimalist manner.

We're still getting MSI's version of a slim-bezel laptop, even at 17-inches, with the tiny webcam positioned above the display. It's non the slimmest bezels available on any laptop but it certainly feels like the display is taking up most of the room bachelor to it, and it keeps the laptop meaty overall. In fact, at simply 19mm thick and 4.96 lbs heavy, it's a very portable chassis for a 17-inch animate being, coming in slimmer and lighter than your typical 15-inch arrangement.

The keyboard is the same SteelSeries unit equally previous MSI laptops. It's not one of our favorites, the tactile response is spongy and not peculiarly satisfying, although travel distance is fine. It does come up with a total numpad as we'd expect for a 17-inch laptop, although the inclusion of full size arrow keys has truncated the right shift key which may annoy some users.

The good news is yous do get per-key RGB backlighting, which is condign more widespread among high-terminate gaming laptops. You also go a sizable trackpad with excellent responsiveness.

I/O is the usual matter: three USB 3.1 gen2 type-A ports, two USB-C ports, ane is Thunderbolt 3 and the other USB iii.i gen 1. There's Ethernet, a microSD card slot and HDMI too plus dual iii.5mm audio jacks. Our simply business organisation here is the amount of ports on the right side of the laptop, such as HDMI, which makes information technology a little awkward to take a mouse there if several things are plugged in.

Functioning

Allow's talk nigh performance now, and as a quick reminder, everything here is based on our feel with the RTX 2080 Max-Q model. With that said, we do have comprehensive benchmark reviews of the RTX 2070 Max-Q and RTX 2060 that should apply to this laptop'due south other GPU configurations.

As with many gaming laptops, at that place are several performance modes and fan profiles to cull from. Throughout this review nosotros plant the height Turbo functioning mode to perform the best, because it overclocks the GPU by 100 MHz compared to the default Sport mode. We too found that while at that place are four fan modes, the auto mode performed just besides as the other performance-oriented modes, with very trivial change in fan speeds when gaming. This is great to see because car also quietens the fan significantly during less intensive tasks like web browsing.

Throughout this review we've used the combination of the Turbo mode and Motorcar fan mode.

The laptop comes with i of Intel'due south half-dozen-core Core i7-8750H processors, which is widely used beyond gaming laptops, especially in this form factor. We've tested this CPU many times earlier and so we're not going to rehash a ton of benchmarks for this laptop in item, if you're interested, go back and check out our original review of this mobile CPU.

In terms of CPU performance, all we're looking for is to encounter whether the MSI GS75 Stealth performs especially well (or non) compared to the average result from all the Core i7-8750H laptops nosotros've tested so far. Information technology does depend on the workload, but the GS75 is a niggling slower on average, especially in longer workloads like Handbrake and x264 encoding where it'south about 6 percentage behind. With that said, it's a little faster shorter tasks like 7-Zero and MATLAB then this isn't a bad result overall, it's merely can't sustain equally high performance for equally long as some of the beefier laptops nosotros've tested.

If you are coming from a quad-core laptop, something using a Cadre i7-7700HQ for instance, you can expect the GS75 to deliver pretty sizable gains: forty% in workloads like x264 encoding, and over fifty% in 7-Zip, with a handy 10% improvement in single-threaded tasks as well. Jumping up to half dozen-cores is a adept move, particularly if you do a lot of multi-threaded work, and it tin can aid alleviate a few bottlenecks in some games.

Gaming Performance

We're certain most of you reading this review will be more interested in gaming performance though, given that'due south the fundamental selling betoken of getting a unit with a GPU as fast as the RTX 2080 Max-Q. If you're subsequently a detailed functioning breakdown of this GPU, please check out our total review that focuses on the RTX 2080 Max-Q, where you'll come across some individual game breakdowns and discussion. It'southward rubber to say this GPU is very capable of gaming at 1080p at high frame rates, which makes employ of this laptop's 144 Hz display.

The GS75 Stealth uses the regular 80W configuration of the RTX 2080 Max-Q, not the faster 90W version, so the data to expect at in our GPU review is for the standard configuration. But that data only refers to how this laptop performs in the default Sport performance mode, if you enable the Turbo mode, the GPU gets a 100 MHz factory overclock of sorts, which improves performance over the 'standard' RTX 2080 Max-Q configuration.

Nosotros're certain almost gamers will want the best operation straight away, so this mill OC mode is something you lot should use to get the most out of the laptop. Every bit far as thermals and noise are concerned, the Turbo mode didn't bear upon either significantly, so nosotros don't come across a reason not to apply information technology for gaming.

The best reason to utilize Turbo mode is that it improves gaming functioning by 3 percent on average. Information technology's not enough to get the RTX 2080 Max-Q in its standard 80W config to reach the operation levels of the 90W version, but it's a handy boost over stock performance that y'all can essentially access with a single click. And depending on the game y'all play, you could see upwardly to a 10 percent improvement, which is impressive.

How does this Turbo functioning stack up to other GPUs? Well, let'due south take a look. Equally we mentioned, we're sitting virtually three percent behind the 90W configuration of the RTX 2080 Max-Q, not a massive gap just laptops that do include the higher TDP variant deliver better performance. Unfortunately, there's no like shooting fish in a barrel manner to tell which laptops are 90W models.

We're getting 12 percentage more performance from the GS75 than a standard RTX 2070 Max-Q laptop without any factory overclocking. Some games are heavily constrained past the CPU or other hardware, like Hitman 2, while other such equally Metro Exodus deliver 17 percent more than performance. You're not getting desktop-like margins here, but low double digit gains from the same cooler design isn't bad.

How does 27 percent more performance than the GTX 1070 Max-Q sound? That'south a very healthy improvement assisted by the pocket-sized factory overclock provided by the GS75. We're not comparison the same price bracket, merely we suspect some people with a GTX 1070 Max-Q laptop might be considering spending a bit more cash on their next upgrade.

You'll also get eighteen% more performance than an RTX 2060 laptop. This is another GPU that's available in the MSI GS75, and then which GPU is best might come up downwardly to the pricing you can go for each variant. The RTX 2080 Max-Q is a decent corporeality faster.

And finally a comparison to the Pascal GTX 1070 for laptops, which wasn't usually establish in laptops of this size and weight, merely nevertheless is a relevant comparison. The RTX 2080 Max-Q is merely providing 9% more performance on average, and doesn't win in every championship, though in some titles information technology is significantly faster. It'south not a bad upgrade, simply it's not near the performance gain you can expect moving from a desktop GTX 1070 to a desktop RTX 2080.

Cooling

MSI'due south current-generation triple-fan cooling solution is very skilful, it's definitely one of the better designs nosotros've seen for this sort of portable gaming system. Even when using the overclocked Turbo way, the GS75 is quieter than your average gaming laptop, at 44.5 dBA. And it does this while keeping the GPU around 75 degrees C, which is cooling performance y'all'd ordinarily expect from a chunkier laptop like the ROG Strix Scar II, not a slim system like this.

In fact, the GS75 is significantly amend it this regard than the GS65 with the GTX 1070 Max-Q, although it is slightly louder, it's also a larger system so there's more than room for heat dissipation, and the GPU is dissimilar. More impressively, it'due south quieter and cooler than the Gigabyte Aero 15 X9, which uses the slower RTX 2070 Max-Q. Notwithstanding, this does come at the price of CPU cooling, which is right at its limit, hitting 91 degrees C under a gaming load.

Surface temperatures equally well were manageable, the laptop gets quite hot above the keyboard where in that location is some ventilation, however the keyboard area and wrist rests were comfy to use during an extended gaming session. Just make certain you don't place anything that melts around the dorsum or sides of this laptop, because the all-encompassing venting holes practise push out a fair book of hot air.

Storage Functioning

Looking at storage performance, the GS75 we received with 1TB of SSD infinite was configured with two Samsung PCIe NVMe drives in RAID 0, so naturally it delivered extremely good sequential speeds. Random functioning is at the limit of these drives but is even so fantabulous for a gaming laptop, and it's safe to say this SSD is much faster than what you lot need for game loading.

When removing the lesser comprehend y'all become easy access to the two loaded SSDs as well as an additional tertiary M.2 slot, which was complimentary in our unit of measurement, so there's further room to upgrade the storage in the hereafter. This is as well a improve internal design than the last-gen GS65 nosotros looked at, which had no admission to storage without further deconstruction.

However at that place are a few disappointing aspects to the internal layout here. Because MSI is still using a flipped motherboard, you can't admission the RAM without taking the entire motherboard out, which is tricky and time consuming. Hopefully the models that come up with 16GB of RAM include it in a dual-channel configuration for the all-time functioning, because if it's single channel, it volition be difficult to fix.

There'south also no ii.5-inch bulldoze bay so you're stuck with just Yard.two slots for storage upgrades. Possibly non the biggest deal given this is a high-end laptop and at that place'due south a generous three M.2 slots, just it would take been nice given this is a 17-inch notebook.

Battery Life & Display Quality

Bombardment life is pretty good from the 82 Wh battery, despite the apply of a 17-inch high refresh display. In our video playback test it performed around the aforementioned mark as other 15-inch laptops of this type, which I'd say is a skillful result.

The brandish is 17.3-inches in size, it packs a 1080p resolution and it has a 144 Hz refresh charge per unit. You don't get adaptive sync, which is a merchandise-off to allow better battery life through GPU switching, only the quality of this panel is bang-up and the high refresh rate is a perfect pairing for this GPU that frequently pushes frame rates above 100 FPS at 1080p with Ultra settings.

Brightness is very proficient, at over 400 nits, while the contrast ratio of g:1 is typical for a laptop IPS. And considering it's IPS, you go cracking viewing angles with acceptable response times. But what we experience is the best attribute to this display, is MSI'south color scale. When using the sRGB mode available through MSI Truthful Color, yous're getting an accurate white signal effectually 6500K, plus strong deltaE averages in our saturation and ColorChecker tests, where the display falls under two.0. It's not perfect due a greyscale deltaE average a trivial above 2.0, but otherwise this is an excellent issue for a gaming laptop display.

Endmost Remarks

Overall the MSI GS75 Stealth 8SG is an excellent portable gaming laptop. There'south not a lot to complain well-nigh in regards to the hardware package. We absolutely love the metal chassis, the xv-inch display is very skilful, information technology's cooler and quieter than an average gaming laptop despite the size and powerful hardware within, and there'due south skilful I/O.

It's fifty-fifty better from a performance perspective. Surely nosotros've criticized the RTX 2080 Max-Q on a number of fronts like the naming confusion, how it stacks up to desktop parts so on. Merely purely looking at its standalone performance, it'south impressive what it can do in this sort of form factor.

Information technology's great for 1080p high refresh gaming and very solid for higher resolutions using external displays, in the latest games at Ultra settings. The Core i7-8750H is also perfect for productivity tasks on the get similar video editing. Right now, this is the fastest hardware you lot can get in this form factor.

Virtually of our criticisms of this laptop feel similar minor nitpicks relative to the overall quality of the arrangement. The keyboard is a little spongy, the I/O layout isn't the best, and the 8750H is a petty slower than average in longer workloads. But overall, looking just at the hardware, at that place'southward no dubiousness this is a great gaming laptop and 1 we'd recommend.

Unfortunately, this hardware comes at a toll, and it'due south a high one. To get superlative-end functioning in this size, you're going to need to fork out $two,800, and that's just for the GS75 with a 256GB SSD and 16GB of RAM. For the configuration nosotros reviewed, with a 1TB SSD and 32GB of RAM, it'southward closer to $3,000.

It'due south difficult to justify spending that sort of money on the RTX 2080 Max-Q, because yous're paying a massive premium to get this flagship-level operation. The RTX 2070 Max-Q version of the aforementioned laptop is $400 cheaper, meaning it delivers about 10% less performance for a 14% lower toll. The RTX 2060 model is even meliorate relative value at $two,100, and then 25% cheaper for 14% less performance. Whether spending an extra $700 is worth it to get 10 to 20 FPS more is up to you.

The value state of affairs is further muddied past Pascal laptops, which admittedly are getting harder to find equally stock clears out. Correct now yous tin go a GTX 1070 Max-Q organization like the Asus ROG Zephyrus South for around $1,800, which is slightly amend value than the RTX 2060 GS75, given the 1070 Max-Q is also slower.

It's an interesting market, because for regular laptops – meaning, non the slim and light variants we've been talking about so far – nosotros wouldn't recommend a more than expensive RTX 2060 laptop over a cheaper GTX 1070 laptop right now. Simply for slim and calorie-free systems, the GTX 1070 Max-Q and RTX 2060 are fairly priced given their performance differences. What is the better option will be down to your upkeep, though we tend to like a lot the value offered by the RTX 2060 GS75 just because we dear this MSI design and its 17 inches for playing games.