Performance
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Let’s move on to performance now, and I’m not going to spend a lot of time on this as I’ve previously covered a lot of this system’s hardware in other reviews. The Core i7-8750H and GeForce GTX 1070 Max-Q combination I’ve covered extensively in previous stuff, so if you’re interested in both CPU and GPU performance I’d suggest checking out my original coverage of the i7-8750H.
However it is still important to benchmark the GS65 specifically to see if there are any performance anomalies or other interesting talking points relative to original results we got for this CPU and GPU. And there’s one that sticks out immediately: the fact this system has single channel memory compared to the dual-channel configuration we used in our initial i7-8750H benchmarks.
As I showed in my review of the Gigabyte Aero 15X, which also uses single-channel memory, the reduced memory bandwidth provided by this sort of configuration does hurt both productivity and gaming workloads in some instances.
This chart shows the performance difference between the MSI GS65 and our original dual-channel memory i7-8750H benchmark results in a range of productivity tests. Some workloads, like encoding, rendering and Excel, are largely unaffected by single channel memory. Others like the Adobe suite, compression and MATLAB are more heavily influenced by reduced memory bandwidth, and as such can be up to 29 percent slower. If you plan on using apps that are memory bandwidth sensitive, I’d suggest chucking in an extra stick of RAM to get dual-channel bandwidth.
How does the GS65 Stealth Thin fare in a direct comparison with the Gigabyte Aero 15X? Well, both of these laptops have single channel memory, and in most tasks you can see the GS65 is slightly slower. For the most part we’re only talking about a five percent performance difference or less, and this down to a simple hardware difference: the Aero 15X uses DDR4-2666 for its single stick, which is the maximum DDR4 speed Coffee Lake supports, while the GS65 uses DDR4-2400. Again this is something you can address yourself with a RAM swap.
If you’re thinking of upgrading from an older laptop with the i7-7700HQ inside, you can expect to see hefty gains in productivity workloads. The i7-8750H provides an upgrade from four to six cores plus clock speed boosts in every situation, which allows it to provide huge improvements in multi-threaded tasks. Cinebench R15, Excel, 7-Zip Decompression and x264 encoding all benefit the most, with gains up to 64 percent and typically at least 50 percent. More single threaded tasks tend to see single digit gains, but that’s still an improvement so we’ll take it.
Here’s a Cinebench R15 chart that shows how the Aero 15X stacks up in more concrete numbers rather than relative terms. Again if you want to see more charts like this and more in depth discussion on the i7-8750H, check my original coverage of that CPU and keep in mind the relative differences we’ve looked at so far.
As for gaming with the GTX 1070 Max-Q, in general this GPU when paired with the 8750H is quite capable of 1080p Ultra gaming at around 60 FPS in the latest titles. Obviously the most punishing games will tax this GPU a bit harder than that – as its performance sits between a GTX 1060 and fully-flegded GTX 1070 – but overall it provides a decent experience.
Again, as we’re looking at single-channel memory, some games don’t perform as well as an equivalent system with dual-channel memory. Games like Assassin’s Creed Origins, Battlefield 1, Prey and Mass Effect Andromeda are hit to a noticeable degree looking at 1% low results, with typical performance drops around 20 percent though it can be as high as 40 percent. Other games like Rise of the Tomb Raider, Star Wars Battlefront II, Dirt 4 and GTA V are less heavily impacted, with either no performance drop or just single digit drops.
When comparing the GS65 to the Aero 15X, performance is pretty close on average, though the slower memory speed of the GS65 does have a small impact across the board. Some games exhibit a double digit performance loss relative to the Aero 15X, while others are either equivalent or slightly faster. On average we’re looking at about a 3 percent difference which isn’t much at all.
Msi Gs65 Stealth Thin 8rf Manual
We’ve found previously that in a like-for-like system configuration, you’ll get around a 10 percent performance boost from the 8750H when moving from a Core i7-7700HQ, at least when the GPU is a GTX 1070 Max-Q. However again memory bandwidth does have a say in this: if you’re moving from a dual-channel 7700HQ system to a single-channel 8750H system, you’ll actually see a performance loss on average, or at the very least, no significant gain in most games.
If you’re deciding what GPU is right for you, here’s a quick breakdown of how the GTX 1070 Max-Q slots in among other popular laptop GPUs. It’s around 20 percent faster than the GTX 1060, but upwards of 12 percent slower than a full GTX 1070. The GTX 1080 Max-Q tends to be around 25 to 30 percent faster.
Msi Gs65 Stealth Thin Webcam
MSI has joined the Coffee Lake laptop party with a brand new gaming laptop designed to take on the likes of the Razer Blade, Gigabyte Aero 15X, and Asus ROG Zephyrus. This laptop’s arrival has been hotly anticipated as it brings new internal hardware along with a full refresh of MSI's gaming line build and design.
The MSI GS65 Stealth Thin is the successor to the company's previous slim gaming laptop, the GS63, which we’ve looked at previously. The GS63 design was in use for a couple of generations and now it's been upgraded in many areas. It still uses a 15.6-inch 1080p display, but we’re now looking at slimmer bezels and an upgrade to a 144Hz refresh rate.
Hardware-wise you get typical high-end laptop internals for 2018. The CPU is Intel’s Core i7-8750H that we’ve tested previously, and the GPU is the GeForce GTX 1070 Max-Q. There’s also 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD in my review unit, though that combination can vary depending on the region and what you want.
MSI clearly wasn’t happy with Gigabyte claiming all the accolades for its slim bezel gaming laptop, the Aero 15X, so they too have taken the slim bezel approach here. The GS65’s bezels aren’t quite as slim as we see with the Aero 15X, but they are much slimmer than on the GS63, and crucially MSI has achieved this without giving us a nostril-vision webcam. As you can see the top bezel is slightly thicker than the sides, and in there MSI has managed to fit in a webcam.
With slimmer bezels comes a smaller laptop, and comparing dimensions reveals the GS65 to have a slightly smaller footprint than its predecessor. About 22mm has been shaved off the width with a similar depth, all while maintaining the same 17.9mm thickness. These aren’t massive reductions but every bit helps and keeps the laptop as portable as possible. Plus it’s still reasonably light at just 4.1 lbs (1.88kg).
I always liked the GS63 design but this new GS65 Stealth Thin is simply a class above. It’s by far the best looking MSI laptop ever, with an excellent metal shell and subtle yet attractive gold highlights around the lid, trackpad, vents and more. Almost every area of this slim chassis has been refined; it now exudes premium quality. Small touches like simplifying the logo on the lid and removing other ‘gamer’ elements have worked wonders, and if you remove the annoying stickers below the keyboard, the minimalist design only becomes more impressive.
The key thing with this GS65 design is despite opting for a high-quality metal chassis, MSI hasn’t compromised the cooling solution. There are still a ton of vents on this system, including the sides, rear, top and bottom. We’ve seen with laptops like the Razer Blade that a metal design is good but it can limit the cooler quite significantly, however this doesn’t appear to be the case with the GS65.
Despite a significant amount of edge space going to cooling vents, there are plenty of ports on this laptop. Three USB 3.0 Type-A ports, Thunderbolt 3 USB-C, Ethernet, HDMI 2.0, Mini-DisplayPort and two audio jacks. Unfortunately there’s no SD card slot, which would have been handy for professionals, however I am glad MSI moved the position of the power button back to a more sensible location above the keyboard.
Speaking of the keyboard, MSI has used their standard SteelSeries design with per-key RGB LED backlighting. Notably, there’s no numpad on the GS65, which I tend to think should come with a 15-inch laptop. The Aero 15X, for example, does manage to cram a numpad into a similar chassis. Not a big deal for gamers though, it’s mostly a nitpick.
The travel distance from this keyboard is rather unimpressive. MSI has opted for an ultrabook-style switch with a shallow, rubbery response. I prefer a more clicky design and I know it’s possible with a laptop keyboard, but the limited about of space MSI has allocated to the depth of these switches has no doubt constrained this keyboard’s performance. On the other hand, the trackpad is very responsive and an improvement on the old ELAN days, though mostly you’ll want to use a proper mouse for gaming.
Removing the bottom panel of the GS65 reveals… a flipped motherboard, unfortunately. While you can see the battery and cooling components to a small extent, any access to the RAM and M.2 slots is fairly difficult as you have to remove the entire motherboard and cooling assembly first. There are a lot of small, fragile connectors along the way, so it’s not something I’d advise for the casual user. However if you do go down that path, you will find a spare M.2 slot and a spare DIMM slot.
Interestingly, MSI has used a triple-fan cooling design, with a single cooler on the left for the CPU, and a dual fan cooler for the GPU on the right. The extra fan for the GPU is a bit unique, though the heatsink design isn’t anything usual and provides a good amount of finned area. Certainly a lot more than the Aero 15X.
Before heading into performance I did want to touch on the display. As I mentioned earlier it’s a 1080p 144Hz display, and while it doesn’t include G-Sync, I do appreciate the high refresh rate; I hope this becomes standard in gaming laptops.
Like with the bezel size, it’s clear that MSI are targeting the Aero 15X with this display’s calibration. While not X-Rite Pantone certified, the GS65’s display is much more accurate than any MSI laptop I’ve reviewed in the past. It’s not perfect, but an average CCT of 6804K is decent, to go along with average deltaEs of 2.2 in greyscale, 2.22 in saturation and 2.73 in ColorChecker. For the best results these figures should be below 2.0 at least, however considering past efforts this is a decent improvement.
Unfortunately, perhaps as a result of tighter calibration, brightness and contrast are unimpressive. Reaching just 248 nits of peak brightness is not great, and neither is a sub 1000:1 contrast ratio. Both of these areas are handily beaten by the Aero 15X which packs a similar display and somewhat superior calibration.