MSI GS75 Stealth: At First Glance
MSI wowed the gaming world when it released the 15-inch GS65 Stealth in 2018, which is the GS75 Stealth’s predecessor. GS65 Stealth had it all: slim bezels, impressive gaming performance, an unbelievably thin chassis, stunning design, just name it.
A year later, MSI brought the same design to the 17-inch GS75 Stealth. Along with its larger size are updated components such as NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti graphics.
However, coming with an updated component and larger screen size, you wouldn’t expect MSI to sell the GS75 Stealth at a cheap price. The laptop starts at $1,199.00 in September 2021, at the time this review was published.
However, the price might not be the problem for most people, but would its performance match its price? Let find out!
MSI GS75 Stealth: Design, Dimension & Weight
As I already hinted, the MSI GS75 Stealth follows in the footsteps of its predecessor, the GS65 Stealth, in terms of design. It isn’t flashy, but it stands out.
With the exception of the narrow bezels around the screen, which are normally plastic, this laptop’s body is entirely composed of aluminum. Furthermore, the laptop’s lid is sturdy, with a sleek black texture that is complemented by MSI’s dragon logo in the center.
The edges of the lid are also outlined in gold, giving the laptop a luxurious appearance. Moreover, the hinges are also in gold and are very thick and durable to support the laptop’s huge display.
However, there is a little bit of flex on the lid as well as the hinges, which you wouldn’t notice unless you apply pressure. The laptop can also be opened using one finger and has a little lip to help pull it open.
However, the hinges close a little too quickly. It slams shut once you get it 75% closed, which could result in a number of unintentional shutdowns.
Gaming laptops do come with subpar displays, but that has changed in recent years. The GS75 Stealth’s screen is excellent: it’s fast and responsive for gaming, and it has good contrast and color accuracy.
Specifically, the GS75 Stealth features a 17.3-inch Full HD (1920 x 1080) display screen. This screen boasts a 144Hz refresh rate, which means it supports frame rates of up to 144 fps without screen distortions.
Furthermore, the screen is quite smooth and attractive. Additionally, the screen’s maximum brightness is 345 nits, which is quite high for a non-reflective matte display.
Moreover, colors are vibrant yet clear, and the screen’s thin bezel eliminates any distractions while gaming. However, it isn’t quite as vibrant as a MacBook Pro’, but it’s good enough for video and photo editing.
Moreover, the screen also is an in-plane switching (IPS) screen with a 3ms response time for greater viewing angles and colors. The time it takes for a screen to change colors is known as screen response time.
Furthermore, with an 85 percent screen-to-body ratio, the super-thin 5.2mm bezels make the screen look futuristic. Despite the tiny bezels, MSI manages to embed a 720p webcam in the top bezel.
Moving on, the MSI GS75 Stealth comes with a Steelseries keyboard. With 1.5-millimeter key travel and 71 g of actuation force, this keyboard is quite comfortable to use.
As a Steelseries keyboard, each key on the keyboard is individually lit with RGB backlighting, giving them a pleasing appearance. Additionally, the SteelSeries Engine 3 app allows you to personalize all of the backlighting.
A huge touchpad is located beneath the keyboard, which is bordered in gold. Furthermore, the touchpad is really responsive and offers plenty of room for fingers to roam.
Therefore, performing Windows 10 gestures like two-finger scrolling and three-finger tabbing will be easy and responsive.
The GS75 Stealth is quite slim and lightweight despite featuring a 17.3-inch display screen. Specifically, it measures 395.9 x 259.5 x 19 mm and weighs 2249.8 g.
Comparatively, the GS75 Stealth is lighter than high-end laptops such as the Aorus X9 and Alienware 17 R5. The Aorus X9 weighs 3674 g while the Alienware 17 R5 weighs 4445 g.
The GS75 Stealth features a good number of ports for a gaming laptop this thin. On the left side, you’ll find the power jack, one RJ45 port, one USB 3.1 port, and a microSD card slot.
Still on the left side, there are separate headphones and microphone jacks. The right side houses an HDMI port, security lock slot, a USB Type-C port, Thunderbolt 3 port, and two USB 3.1 ports.
MSI doesn’t have a lot of its own branded bloatware, but the ones it includes in the GS75 Stealth are quite useful. For instance, MSI preinstalls the MSI Dragon Center app which allows you to keep track of your GPU, memory, and processor.
The MSI Driver and Application Center is another useful app for keeping all of your graphics drivers and MSI-related apps up to date. In addition to its useful bloatware, MSI sells the GS75 Stealth with a one-year warranty.
In conclusion, the GS75 Stealth boasts a sleek design and besides that, it is also lightweight. Additionally, it comes with a good number of ports – something unusual in gaming laptops.
As a result, there is nothing stopping the GS75 Stealth from getting a nine out of ten in this design review section.
MSI GS75 Stealth: Processor (CPU) Performance
The MSI GS75 Stealth comes with a six-core (Hexa-core) Intel processor which is mostly found on high-end productivity and gaming laptops. Specifically, it features an Intel Core i7-9750H which has a cache memory of 12 MB.
Additionally, this processor runs at a base frequency of 2.60 GHz and a maximum frequency of 4.50 GHz. Moreover, this processor is based on the Coffee Lake architecture, which is the codename for Intel’s eighth-generation Core microprocessor series.
Furthermore, the Coffee lake architecture is the successor to the Kaby Lake and differs only in the number of cores. Kaby lake processors come with either a two-core (dual-core) or four-core (quad-core).
Due to the additional cores, the Intel Core i7-9750H’s performance will be better than a similar clocked Kaby Lake processor such as the Core i7-7820HQ. In addition to its performance increase, the Intel Core i7-9750H is capable of running demanding applications or games.
This is evident as the GS75 was able to run demanding applications such as Photoshop and Corel draw without any problem. Also, while running these applications, the MSI GS75 Stealth didn’t slow down and continue to perform smoothly like nothing ever happened.
The MSI GS75 Stealth continues with this exceptional performance as it excelled on a Geekbench 4 test. Geekbench 4 is a benchmark test that assesses how well a computer’s processor can handle real-world tasks and applications.
On this Geekbench 4 test, the MSI GS75 Stealth recorded a score of 20,921 points. Interestingly, the MSI GS75 Stealth recorded a slightly higher score than the Alienware 17 which uses a more powerful processor.
Specifically, the Alienware 17 with an Intel Core i9-8950HK processor scored 20,890 points on the Geekbench 4 test.
To further determine how well the GS75 Stealth can perform in a real-life scenario, I conducted a HandBrake benchmark test. HandBrake benchmark test involves transcoding 4K video to Full HD (1080p), with shorter time meaning better performance.
So, on the HandBrake test, it took the GS75 Stealth 11 minutes to transcode a 4K video to 1080p. Unfortunately, this time is longer than the category average of 9 minutes and 50 seconds.
Also, the Alienware 17 performs better, taking only 9 minutes and 10 seconds to transcode a 4K video to 1080p.
In conclusion, for a gaming laptop, the Intel Core i7-9750H processor is more than capable. Therefore, I will rate MSI GS75 Stealth a nine out of ten in this processor review.
MSI GS75 Stealth: Memory (RAM) Performance
Based on my CPU review, I believe you must be impressed with the GS75 Stealth’s processor performance. I assure you, you will be even more impressed with its memory performance.
The GS75 Stealth features two 2666 MHz DDR4 RAM slots with a standard memory of 16 GB. However, the memory can be increased to a maximum of 32 GB on each slot – a maximum of 64 GB RAM altogether, impressive right?
My review laptop came with 32 GB RAM on one slot, which I think even for gamers should be sufficient. Moreover, with 32 GB RAM, most laptops as well as the GS75 Stealth should be able to multitask efficiently without hindrance.
Therefore, I was able to open 30 tabs on Chrome browser while playing Battlefield and streaming a song on Spotify. First off, launching the tabs, game and application were swift, and besides that, the GS75 Stealth didn’t lag a bit.
To further assess the memory performance of the GS75 Stealth, I conducted a PCMark 10 test. PCMark 10 determines how well a laptop functions when performing tasks such as video conferencing, word processing, and web browsing.
Based on the PCMark 10 test outcome, the GS75 Stealth scored 4995 points. Comparatively, the ASUS ROG Zephyrus S scored 5241 points on the PCMark 10 test.
Apparently, the ASUS ROG Zephyrus S has a better performance than the GS75 Stealth. Regardless, GS75 Stealth has an outstanding performance and its memory capacity is also impressive.
All things considered, the GS75 Stealth deserves a nine out of ten in this Memory (RAM) review section.
MSI GS75 Stealth: Options & Performance
The MSI GS75 Stealth comes standard with a 512 GB NVMe SSD. However, you can increase the storage space to the maximum capacity of 1 TB.
Additionally, the GS75 Stealth features a microSD card reader for extra storage expansion. However, for a gaming laptop, a maximum storage capacity of 1 TB is insufficient.
This is because most games nowadays require a lot of storage space before installation. Take, for instance, COD: Modern Warfare requires 231 GB of storage space before installing.
Therefore, if you are planning on playing a lot of games on the GS75 Stealth, an external storage drive is highly recommended. To determine the speed of the MSI GS75 Stealth’s SSD storage, I carried out a Crystaldiskmark test.
Crystaldiskmark is a benchmarking tool used to measure the read and write speed of an SSD or HDD storage. The GS75 Stealth has a sequential read speed of 3387MB/s and a sequential write speed of 2703MB/s according to the Crystaldiskmark test.
Comparatively, the Dell G7 15 has a sequential read speed of 2924MB/s and a sequential write speed of 2821MB/s. Therefore, the GS75 Stealth has a faster read speed but a slower write speed compared to the Dell G7 15.
You must be thinking “what do I mean by read and write speed”, now let me explain. Read speed simply means the amount of time it takes a device to open a file on its storage.
Write speed, on the other hand, means the amount of time it takes the device to save a file on its storage.
Moving on, I also performed a file transfer test on the MSI GS75 Stealth to further determine its storage speed. On this test, the GS75 Stealth duplicated 4.97GB of multimedia files in 6 seconds at a transfer rate of 848 Mbps
Moreover, this transfer rate surpasses the category average of 554 Mbps. Also, it surpasses the 424 Mps transfer rate achieved by the Aorus X9.
In conclusion, despite the fact that the GS75 Stealth’s SSD is really fast, I believe the storage capacity is insufficient. As a result, I will be rating MSI GS75 Stealth an eight out of ten in this storage performance review.
MSI GS75 Stealth: Graphics Card Performance
As expected from a gaming laptop, the GS75 Stealth comes with a discrete graphics card. Discrete graphics are independent graphics cards that are separate from the CPU.
Moreover, discrete graphics feature dedicated VRAM, so they don’t have to share the memory with the CPU – resulting in excellent graphics and gaming performance. However, discrete graphics consumes more energy and generates a lot of heat.
In terms of graphics, the GS75 Stealth comes with an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti graphics card with a 6 GB dedicated VRAM. This graphics card has a 1500 MHz base GPU frequency and 1770 MHz boost GPU frequency.
As a means of determining the graphics performance of the MSI GS75 Stealth, I performed a 3DMark Skydiver test. 3DMark Sky Diver is an innovative DirectX 11 benchmark test for assessing mobile GPUs, discrete graphics cards, and integrated graphics performance.
On this 3DMark Sky Diver test, the MSI GS75 Stealth scored 38915 points. This score is higher than the scores received by the Alienware 17 and ASUS ROG Zephyrus S.
On the 3DMark Sky Diver test, the Alienware 17 scored 36761 points while the ASUS ROG Zephyrus S scored 38127 points.
I also put the MSI GS75 Stealth to a real-world gaming test to further determine its graphics capabilities. For the gaming test, I played Shadow of the Tomb Raider.
While playing this game, the MSI GS75 Stealth delivered a smooth frame rate of 90 frames per second (fps). This frame rate is better than the Alienware 17’s 76 fps.
Unfortunately, on playing the game for 15 minutes, underneath the MSI GS75 Stealth reached 135 degrees Fahrenheit, which is quite hot. However, it is expected, due to the fact that I already mentioned that discrete graphics generates a lot of heat.
In conclusion, the MSI GS75 Stealth graphics performance is superb but it runs hot after playing a game for few minutes. For this reason, I will rate MSI GS75 Stealth an eight out of ten in my graphics review.
MSI GS75 Stealth: Battery Life & Performance
For battery, MSI offers the GS75 Stealth with a 4-cell 82 Whr, Lithium-ion battery. According to MSI, the GS75 Stealth should be able to last 6 hours with this battery.
However, that is just another manufacturer’s claim which I have learned not to trust. Therefore, I put the GS75 Stealth on a battery test to determine its actual battery runtime.
The battery test involves setting the laptop’s display brightness to 150 nits and browsing the internet via WIFI until the battery runs out. The MSI GS75 Stealth lasted only 2 hours and 29 minutes on this test – not even up to half of MSI’s 6 hours claim.
This battery runtime is about an hour below the category of 3 hours and 17 minutes. To be fair, the Eon17-X had shorter battery life, lasting only 1 hour and 52 minutes.
Regardless, the MSI GS75 Stealth’s battery life is very disappointing for a gaming laptop. Therefore, in this battery performance review section, I will rate the MSI GS75 Stealth a six out of ten.
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes. The MSI GS75 Stealth is an exceptional gaming laptop with lots of power and excellent graphics performance. However, the only downside is that its battery life is very poor and it gets hot easily when gaming.
The MSI GS75 Stealth is quite expensive, with a starting price of $1,199 in September 2021 – at the time this review was published.
Definitely Yes. MSI is a popular and reputable brand that offers a wide range of gaming laptops. If you’re a gamer who wants the best gaming experience, get your hand on an MSI gaming laptop fast!
MSI stands for “Micro-Star International”
NO, it isn’t. MSI, located in New Taipei City, Taiwan, is a Taiwanese multinational information tech company.
Conclusion
The GS75 Stealth has a gorgeous look and packs a ton of power into its tiny chassis. Moreover, the GS75 Stealth’s display, graphics, and processor performances are especially spectacular.
All of that power, though, comes at the expense of good battery life, and the laptop gets hot underneath quickly. Asides from those few flaws, the MSI GS75 Stealth is one of the best light and thin high-performance gaming laptops out there.
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