MSI GS63VR Stealth review: A game-changing amount of performance in a laptop - colemanthibust

There's an old saying: You send away have performance or portability in a gaming laptop, merely not both.

Well, not anymore.

The MSI GS63VR Stealth is the first laptop I've seen using Nvidia's GeForce GTX 1060, and I'm suitably impressed. In fact, I'm blown aside by the amount of performance that can be squeezed into a laptop computer that's in reality portable.

How portable? On our postal scale, the laptop computer pushes just over four pounds sans power brick. Granted, IT's non as featherlight as an ultrabook, but the Stealth is rightfulness in the neighborhood of the svelte Dell XPS 15 and Apple MacBook Pro 15.

The MSI GS63VR Stealing is a little larger than a MacBook Pro 15 (2013-2016) and Dell's latest XPS 15, but IT packs a much larger punch with its GeForce GTX 1060 GPU.

The build

Inner the Stealth, you incur an Intel 6th-gen quad-nitty-gritty Core i7-6700HQ paired with 16GB of DDR4/2133 RAM. For storage, our $2,099 review sample (in stock for $1,999 on Amazon) came with a 512GB Samsung SM951 SSD and 1TB disc drive. Who makes the hard crusade? Fare you care? The 15.6-column inch monitor is a wide-viewing-lean on 4K panel with a light opposing-limelight coating.

Earlier you go complaining that this system should have a quadriceps-core Kaby Lake CPU, you should know 7th-gen quad-core Kaby Lake CPUs won't grace computers until advance next twelvemonth, thusly this is the stream state of the art.

The real star of the show is, of course, that GeForce GTX 1060. If you're not caught up happening current events, Nvidia has dropped the "M" from its laptop GPUs because IT feels its mobile parts are the rival of their desktop counterparts.

For the most part that's true, as you can see from this quick spec sheet I cobbled together: The mobile GPU has the aforementioned CUDA core count and storage bandwidth A its same desktop chip. The important difference between desktop and laptop GPU is in the clock speed, where the notebook gives up a little bit of speed.

Nvidia's GeForce GTX 1060 for notebooks gives up a trifle time swiftness but is other than identical to its desktop twin.

On the exterior, the laptop has the MSI "take care and feel" just with plenty of gamer appeal. The backlit keyboard has three-district lighting, and there's a 10-key total plod, but it's soh flyspeck that anyone with big meat claws wish find it challenging. The key action is okey, simply not noteworthy. The same can be aforementioned of the piano-hinge trackpad, which feels gold-bearing, but also works reasonably well.

The keyboard features a trey-partition backlight but it isn't particularly bright.

The shell itself is fleecy Mg-lithium. There's a slight give when you squeeze the organic structure merely nothing that would seem to compromise the device.

For ports, you get three USB Group A 5GBps, ace USB Type A 480Mbps, a Thunderbolt 3.0 port, HDMI 2.0, and a Mini DisplayPort. You also experience gigabit ethernet using a Killer NIC restrainer, an SD wit reader, a Kensington lock, and ii analogue sound jacks. The Wi-Fi is also a KillerNIC part supporting 802.11ac.

The entire stern of the MSI GS63VR Stealth is blanketed with a suede-like physical that actually makes information technology sufficient to use on your lap.

Performance

Since this is the first laptop I've acceptable with a GeForce GTX 1060, I was very interested to see if it hit the cake Nvidia set for the desktop chip: compare with the GeForce GTX 980.

3DMark FireStorm Extreme Graphics

The archetypal mental test is 3DMark Fire Storm Extreme. I've broken impossible the artwork grade, a subscore of the overall performance, to assess the GPU.

For comparison, I looked at the results of giant gaming laptops that count between 8 and 10 pounds. I also threw in an older Razer Blade laptop computer with a GeForce GTX 970M.

The Stealth outpaces the Razer laptop also as the Acer Vulture 17's GeForce GTX 980M by a healthy margin. Only information technology doesn't quite catch the GeForce GTX 980 cow chip in the Acer Predator 17X. Still, it's damned close.

Considering its weight and size, the Stealing does first-rate against blown-up burly laptops.

Most multitude the like to see the overall score too, so I've included the results hither. Remember, the overall hit factors in the CPU, and so information technology's not a surprise that we experience the Acer Predator 17X with its Core i7-6820HK and healthier cooling push a little further ahead of the Stealing. And just to give you a sentiency of the full performance range, I've thrown in the overall scores I have from lower-powered GPUs likewise.

These oodles include lower-end 15-inch laptops and show you the huge gulf between the bottom-end GPUs and the GTX 1060 in the MSI Stealth.

Tomb Raider

Tomb Raider is rusty at this point, but still a creditable real-world test if you want to see how a 3-year-old game performs on a laptop computer. The results are mostly weighted toward the GPU, merely the bench mark does lean to like faster CPUs, also.

The results basically mirror that of 3DMark FireStorm Extreme's overall loads, with the GTX 1060 a step behind the GTX 980 in the Genus Acer Predator 17X. Our tests were run at 1920×1080, which is the most common gaming resolution right now.

Tomb Raider is nearly three long time hand-down at this point, but scales well with nontextual matter and CPU performance.

Middle-earth: Shadows of Mordor

I also ran a newer game,Middle-earth: Shadows of Mordor, on the Extremist setting at 1920×1080, and recovered the Stealth to be exceptional. The Stealth's GTX 1060 proves to be just as instant present as the larger and heavier Predatory animal 17X's erstwhile-right GTX 980. And no, this isn't because the GTX 1060 has 6GB of memory versus the common 4GB framework cushion of GTX 980 desktop cards. Like most big gaming laptops, the Predator 17X packs the 8GB version of the card.

This is all Pascal at work here, and it's a good enough showing for the Stealing and GeForce GTX 1060 card.

You won't be wanting for frame rates with the GeForce GTX 1060 in the MSI Stealth.

4K performance

Naturally, you'rhenium believably inquisitive about 4K operation, what with the Stealth's 4K panel. Simply as awesome Eastern Samoa the GeForce GTX 1060 is, IT can't handle 4K gaming on the highest settings.

You can see this in the results forShadows of Mordor at 4K resolution. I don't have results for the Razer Blade at this answer nor the Acer Predator 17, but I suppose it's okay to excuse some the GeForce GTX 970M and GeForce GTX 980M from the way because gambling at 4K is only for real GPUs.

Looking the chart, you May think the GeForce GTX 1060 and GTX 960 can join the 970M and 980M for premature recess too, since it's clear neither are up to the task without turning down knobs. The good news show for the Stealth is that the GTX 1060 runs just about dead even with the GTX 980. When you remember that the GTX 980 was the top dog in play laptops just a few months agone, that's a hell of an accomplishment.

I'd say that expecting 4K gaming from the GTX 1060 is too much.

Rise of the Grave Raider performance

One last gaming test comes from the middling new Grow of the Tomb Raider game.

I ran it on the Very High setting, at 1920×1080. (I also have 4K results, but equivalent Shadows of Mordor, it's not beautiful.) Hera, the GTX 1060 lags much more importantly behind the GTX 980 in the Acer Predator 17X. Wherefore? Looking back at the green comparison chart up top, I'd surmise that it's referable the GTX 980's massive CUDA core reward. Even though Nvidia says the CUDA cores in the newer Pa chips are 135 per centum much efficient, it whitethorn non be enough to out-muscularity see-through numbers.

The soundly news is the Stealing and GTX 1060 are basically capable of running this game at highschool-quality settings at around 60fps.

The GTX 980's raw CUDA core reward may reach IT a big stone's throw up over the GTX 1060.

Handbrake encoding execution

The vast majority of our tests focus happening the thing that matters the most for gaming: the graphics card. Yet, since people really do things outside of gambling connected their computers, I honeycombed the Stealing against the thicker, beefier laptops in our Handbrake encoding test.

This benchmark uses the free and popular Handbrake encoder to convert a 30GB 1080p MKV filing cabinet into a smaller MP4 using the Humanoid Tablet predetermined. Handbrake hearts CPUs, and you see improvements arsenic you MBD more cores and to a greater extent megahertz.

Arsenic the thin Stealing uses pretty much the same Skylake quad-effect as just about all new gaming laptop we've seen all year, performance is, easily, about the same. The fastest of the bunch up is the Origin EON17-X with its overclocked screen background CPU, but for the most part, the Stealth can hang with the rest of its competition just fine.

Barrage fire life

Typically we don't care about electric battery life on burly gaming laptops. That's because the moment you crank up a 130-watt GPU to play a game on a battery, you'll be lucky to get an hour out of it. Rattling, the bombardment in play laptops is there sol you can disconnect information technology and move from the kitchen to some other elbow room where you plug it in again.

With the Stealth though, we're now in an interesting world. It's a "true" gaming laptop computer that lets you run fashionable games on Ultra at 60fps, but at four pounds, it's also a laptop you can use on the move.

To see how the Stealth does in battery life, I used our standard video rundown test, where we play a 4K-resolution file using Windows 10's Movies &adenylic acid; TV musician. The screen is coif between 250 nits and 260 nits, which is a good luminosity for a day office or home setting, and we plug in a set of earbuds and leave audio frequency on.

Instead than compare IT to the big gaming laptops, which very few will regularly bring onto an aeroplane, I cavitied the Stealth's battery life against that of the Dell XPS 15 (which has a smaller bombardment), and a Samsung Book 9 Pro. Some are similar in size to the Stealth and likewise pack quadriceps femoris-cores and discrete graphics (albeit with far lower execution). For a reference, I also included Horsepower's Spectre X360 15T, quite a different wildcat with a dual-CORE and integrated graphics.

Gordon Mah Ung

The MSI GS63VR Stealing uses a lithium-polymer electric battery and features but two small speakers.

The Stealth's results discovered pretty mediocre battery life, eve though the Stealth uses Nvidia's Optimus, which shifts the workload over to the integrated graphics for ignitor duties much as this test. For comparison, the Samsung Book 9 Pro also has a 4K-resolution screen (high-resolution screens habit more power) simply its battery is more than 10 percent little than the MSI.

For what it's worth, this stamp battery execution was also generated with the laptop on its "eco" mode. I saw about about half an hour less runtime when it was in "sport" mode and the keyboard backlight was on.

Basically, have a bun in the oven around three or quatern hours of battery life in general use. You can get more than, just you'll take up to crank down the luminousness. The best alternative for those chasing improve battery living might be to opt for the 1920×1080 version of the Stealth.

The Stealing's bombardment life International Relations and Security Network't great, but it's not every bit bad you'd expect either.

Room for improvement

As a lot as the GTX 1060-equipped Stealth is a game changer, on that point's plenty that's far from perfect.

Showtime, the panel. Its colors just don't pop and the screen isn't terribly lambent overall. Clean to gain the minimum brightness test for our picture rundown, I had to run the Stealth brightness at 100 percent.

The 4K resolution panel also doesn't support G-Synchronise (Nvidia's accommodative refresh technology). This International Relations and Security Network't all MSI's fault though, every bit G-Sync currently doesn't work with Optimus—and if MSI hadn't implemented Optimus, you'd likely get worse battery life, since the discrete GPU would run day in and day out. That said, trying to push gaming at 4K without G-Sync is pretty futile on a GTX 1060 (it isn't even a great idea connected the next-step-up GeForce GTX 1070).

Since you don't make the horsepower to play at 4K UHD resolution, should you bother with the 4K panel? Especially if the panel doesn't oomp like other 4K panels we've seen? Nope. Prefer for the 1920×1080 instead, so you can run everything at operating theater near Extremist settings.

Another weakness is the Stealth's sound. It consists of two small bottom-firing drivers in the front of the laptop. At that place's just atomic number 102 low- or midrange to them, and when they'Re cranked sprouted, they'll occasionally rattle.

Conclusion

Contempt its drawbacks, I'm motionless blown out aside what the MSI GS63VR Stealth delivers—a 4-ram down laptop that can play the newest games with settings at or near Radical. That's just a tectonic shift of portable gaming capacity we've just never seen before.

Previously, the best GPU we could expect in a laptop computer this wasted was Nvidia's GeForce GTX 970M. The GTX 1060 in the Stealth is leastwise 50 percent quicker than that. That means that with the MSI GS63VR Stealing, you can finally feature your portability and your performance simultaneously.

Source: https://www.pcworld.com/article/410714/msi-gs63vr-stealth-review-a-game-changing-amount-of-performance-in-a-laptop.html

Posted by: colemanthibust.blogspot.com

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