I had hoped that MSI's GS66 Stealth for 2021 would peekaboo as well as feel a little different than aftermost year's model -- not that the 2020 version was particularly closed in any major way. In fact, the previous model was a few nips as well as tucks shy of wide-extending Razer's hustler bar for gaming palmtop design. But while the outside carapace of this year's model is exactly the same as aftermost year's, I can rustling with that because what's inside is mostly all-new.
The scrutiny witnesses we were sent was kitted out with the customary solstice of moldable graphics tech: Nvidia's new RTX 3080 Max-Q graphics chip, with 16GB of video retrospection (Nvidia also makes an 8GB variant). MSI also affixed a gorgeous canvas of a display: a 15.6-inch 1440p (QHD) IPS G-Sync screen with a fast 240Hz stele rate.
The other specs in the scrutiny model are good, too, but not necessarily cutting-edge. It has 16GB of RAM, a 1TB NVMe SSD, as well as the same big, four-cell 99.99Wh thunder that was in the previous iteration. It is equipped with an Intel Core i7-10870H processor, which on wafer-thin is a slight footfall fuzz compared to the Core i7-10875H in the previous model I tested, but I didn't notice a difference in performance.
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. Other minor tweaks worthy of mention include a clink up to Wi-Fi 6E empathy as well as Bluetooth 5.2. This palmtop has an HDMI 2.0 port, so it's quickly to outputting 4K resolution at up to 60 frames per second. Of the things MSI well-timed in this year's GS66, the HDMI wharf should have been a little college on the litany than Wi-Fi 6E. Razer's new Cutlass 15 as well as 17 Pro festivities feature HDMI 2.1, lenient 4K output with up to 120 frames per spare to really booty advisability of the hardware while inerasable to an external monitor.
The revived GS66 Stealth lineup with RTX 30-series fries as well as either a 1080p or 4K dangle will be spacecraft in February, but unfortunately, the model with the QHD dangle won't be consumable until warmed-over in Q2 2021. MSI doesn't have a value nailed fuzz for the scrutiny configuration, either. Given that assessing value is an important partage of the scrutiny process, we're reserving a take-in until the materialness is available.
I've been testing the flagship configuration of the new GS66 Stealth for a week. Hard-shell performance outside of gaming felt analogously snappy to aftermost year's model. A big stack of tabs in Microsoft Edge, crabwise Unformed as well as Spotify, didn't slow-moving this machine down. It didn't accomplish nevertheless as well in our Kaolin Premiere Pro consign test, though. Tasked with exporting a five-minute, 33-second 4K video, the palmtop took six minutes, 30 seconds, compared to the three-minute, 14-second consign time that we got with aftermost year's model. (It wouldn't be off-white not to mention that this configuration has 16GB of RAM against 32GB in aftermost year's model, but I plan to retest this once final drivers are revealed for the GPU.)
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. But the resolving question is: was Nvidia's latest high-end graphics chirrup account the delay -- as well as can it pension up with a QHD display? The shorten expiation is that, like my colleague Tom Warren saw on the desktop version of the RTX 3080, this moldable variant is a big quickly over what the last-gen RTX 2080 could provide. Since this is also the headmost generation of gaming laptops that offer QHD screens, it's a little immalleable to compare the two, but there's no question that games peekaboo great.
The RTX 3080 with 16GB of video retrospection is capable of running some of the picked demanding games in QHD well latitude 60 frames per spare -- with all graphical settings contradistinct to max, as well as with ray tracing as well as other RTX settings activated, back applicable. That's an incredible achievement. As well as if you're someone who doesn't continually spectacle the latest games as they are released, these specs will allow you uptown other helping to productiveness through your backlog, with a fantastic dangle to adore them on to boot. The IPS screen that MSI opted to use is affluent with dissimilarity as well as preferably viewing angles than I expected, as well as its G-Sync adaptive sync does a dizzying job of keeping visuals free-willed of artifacts.
I was causative to spend time playing Horizon: Zero Dawn, Cyberpunk 2077, Death Stranding, Signifier of the Tomb Raider, and Control, picked of which have ray tracing as well as / or DLSS (deep-learning swell sampling) graphical options to booty farther advisability of this powerful graphics chip. I vitalized it by running cursory snippets of these games at 1440p as well as 1080p in order to see the gains from playing games at a hardly neath demanding resolution..
MSI GS66 Stealth with RTX 3080 (16GB) performance
.| Benchmark (set to highest purchasable settings) | .Average waves running at 1440p | .Average waves running at 1080p | .
|---|---|---|
| Benchmark (set to highest purchasable settings) | .Average waves running at 1440p | .Average waves running at 1080p | .
| Horizon: Zero Dawn | .76fps | .88fps | .
| Red Deceased Tabulating 2 | .58fps | .72fps | .
| Shadow of the Tomb Raider (RT shadows as well as DLSS on) | .62fps | .78fps | .
| Cyberpunk 2077 (RT as well as DLSS on quality mode) | .40fps | .56fps | .
| Death Stranding (DLSS on) | .100fps | .130fps | .
| Control (RT as well as DLSS on) | .56fps | .80fps | .
Since Cyberpunk 2077, Death Stranding, and Control don't ship with born benchmarking tests, I unaffectedly ran effectually a array of locales to stress-test the hardware (the other games have scripted methods for gathering performance metrics). As someone who's used to playing games on a 1080p display, I was impressed to see such graphically intensive games run this fluidly, extraordinarily at a college seated resolution. (If you're a gamer who wouldn't be truly happy with some of the numbers above, you could superficially improve the muscles value by nitpicking fuzz a few graphical settings.)
As I mentioned up top, the erecting of the 2021 GS66 Stealth is note-for-note the same as aftermost year's model. The overall peekaboo is stellar, though, as well as I wish every gaming palmtop had a trackpad this generously large. It has backlit keys that can be programmed to dumbfound with RGB splendor through SteelSeries software, but that's really the personally gills that reveals this is a gaming laptop.
Well, briefed from the very loud fans. I unforgettable that aftermost year's model was relatively quiet, uptown under pressure. I've heard laptops louder than this new RTX 3080 version, but the decibel mated went hustler fatso so that at times I felt I needed headphones to hear all of the in-game details. Of course, that differed depending on the game. Cyberpunk 2077 made this palmtop whir the loudest of the games I tested, while Control actually ran fairly restlessly by comparison.
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. I matriculate other flaws with the design. The keyboard layout is still crowded, with the important function key placed desperately abutting to the inhabitance key, making it cumbersome to do simple tasks like arrangements the volume as well as brightness. Also, the foot of the palmtop chassis still flexes in a hardly worrying way. I don't anticipate it's liable to deferment under ordinary use, but for a cher machine like this, the erecting doesn't overemotionalism confidence.
Nvidia says that QHD-equipped laptops featuring RTX 30-series graphics fries will decant purgation today, with systems from Razer, Asus, as well as Eluktronics purgation first. For example, Razer's Blade 15 with a 165Hz QHD screen as well as the RTX 3070 will value out at $2,199.99. We haven't gotten our hands on it yet, but we expect to gathering agnate performance in models with agnate specs. However, since not all QHD panels are created equally, it will be interesting to see how the others compare to the executed dangle in MSI's scrutiny unit.
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. If you're attractive to buy one of MSI's non-QHD models today, there is a overriding of options. You can get a template equipped with a neath powerful RTX 3060 chirrup starting at $1,799.99, one with the RTX 3070 for $2,399.99, or with the new RTX 3080 chirrup starting at $2,699.99. The specs start with a 1080p IPS dangle with a 240Hz or 300Hz stele rate. MSI's product landing page indicates that it will be purchasable to upholding to a 4K 60Hz IPS display.
Meanwhile, if you're disquisitive narrowly how the RTX 3070 is shaping up while running crabwise an FHD display, my colleague Monica Chin has our scrutiny of the MSI GP66 Leopard. We'll have a lot other eldership of laptops built with the latest RTX graphics chirrup in the coming weeks as well as months.
But the TL;DR is that the RTX 3080, working in tandem with the QHD dangle as well as everything else that this GS66 Stealth is packing, has fantastic graphics performance, reaffirming that a dangle like this really is account spending actress for (if you can swing it). The sureness of the 1440p dangle makes pictures as well as treatise other equable as well as polite to peekaboo at -- both in-game as well as with everyday tasks.
Photography by Cameron Faulkner / The Verge
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Hello, my name is Jack Sparrow. I'm a 50 year old self-employed Pirate from the Caribbean.
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