MSI has a solid reputation to uphold when
in comes to cramming a lot of power inside sleek compact bodies. The new GS66
Stealth seems to live up nicely to that reputation. With a sandblasted body,
and a total weight of just 2.1kg, including a 99.9W hour battery, pushing right
against the legal limit for taking on a plane, it is certainly impressive if
not exactly an ultrabook. That battery capacity is a major improvement over the
GS65 Stealth generation. And MSI hasn’t skipped on the bells and whistles
either, like the excellent SteelSeries RGB keyboard or Thunderbolt 3.
In the CPU department, you can get either
then new 10-th Gen Intel Core i7-10750H, or the Core i9-10980HK. The former
packing 6 cores and 12 threads, while the latter – a whopping 8 cores and 16
threads, with an insane max single core turbo of 5.3 GHz. Our first-hand
experience with the last GS65 Stealth and its 6-core 9th-gen i7 would suggest
that the lower tier might make more sense here, since we doubt even MIS’s
advanced Cooler Boost Trinity+ simply will be able to keep up with this 14nm
Intel beast. A concern apparently MSI shares to at least some degree, since it
decided to opt for the Max-Q version of Nvidia’s new RTX 2070 Super and 2080
Super GPU’s for the GS66 Stealth. You can also get the older RTX 2070 Max-Q to
save a few bucks or the still capable RTX 2060. The latter is the only
non-Max-Q, full-fat card that fits in the laptop’s chassis.
You get a choice of three panels on the
GS66 – a 144Hz IPS unit, a 240H one or one of those new 300Hz screens.
Resolution is 1080p regardless of refresh rate chosen. The MSI GS66 Stealth is
now up for pre-order for US$ 1,599 and will be shipping on April 15.
Alternatively, if you aren’t quite as concerned about weight and prefer the
over-designed gaming aesthetics, there is the GE line, which got the new 2.4kg
GE66 Raider. Visually, it’s quite a departure from the Stealth, with plenty of
harsher angles and a huge MSI Mystic Light panoramic RGB light bar on the
front. Not too much difference between the two in terms of power, though. You
get the choice between the same two 10th Gen i7 and i9 CPUs, 16GB RAM in base,
upgradable up to 32GB, 512GB base and up to 1TB of NVMe storage.
You also get the same 99.9W battery and
two of the display choices. The GE66 can’t be specked with the 144Hz sRGB panel
of the GS66, though. That’s just one of the creative market segmentation points
MSI decided on. Another one is the interesting choice to skip on a Thunderbolt
3 port for the GE66 and instead opt for a simpler Gen2 USB Type-C, along with a
dedicated mDP 1.4 port.
With the larger chassis comes more thermal
allowance, which is why the GE66 can be specked with the older RTX 2070 or the
2070 Super, both in non-Max-Q variant. You can get an RTX 2080 Super, but this
one is Max-Q. Just like the GS66, pre-orders for the GE66 Raider are already
open, starting at US$ 1,799 and units will start shipping on April 15.
Finally, there is the 17-inch MSI Creator
17. A slick and clean unit, with nearly the same proportions and horse power as
the GE66, but on the polar-opposite in terms of aesthetics. Clearly an offering
geared towards creators, it can be had with either a 1080p sRGB IPS panel or a
4K mini LED unit. The latter offers 240 local diming zones, up to 1,000 nits of
brightness, 100,000:1 contrast ratio and a user-selectable choice of either
DCI-P3 or P3 D65 color calibration. Both will be factory pre-calibrated and
verified by CalMan for every unit.
The Creator 17 can only be had with the
Core i7-10875H, but has the same selection of GPU’s from the GS66. That means
RTX 2060, RTX 2070 Max-Q, RTX 2070 Super Max-Q or RTX 2080 Super Max-Q. RAM and
storage options are the same and battery is a bit smaller at 82W. Just like the
others, availability for the MSI Creator 17 will kick-off on April 15, with an
asking price of US$ 1,799.
