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MSI GF65- The MacBook Decimator

The sub $1000 MSI GF65 definitely packs a punch and absolutely demolishes the competitors in this price range

INTRODUCTION

So this is the MSI GF 65 thin which is a very thin and light 15-inch gaming laptop that comes with a brand new Intel Core i7 10 750H CPU. Now the CPU is pretty much like the previous generation CPUs but with significantly higher clock speeds. The MSI GF65 thin series have always aimed at the affordable end of the market. This particular model comes with the Intel Core i7 10750H CPU, the Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 GPU with 16 gigs of ram(upgradable to 64 gigs), a lightning quick 512 gigabyte NVMe SSD and a great 120 hertz IPS panel for a buttery smooth FPS experience. I have personally used this laptop as my daily driver for about 60 days now and this laptop just feels FANTASTIC. From gaming to productivity, this laptop ticks all the things one looks in a laptop. This laptop will cost you $1000 so that’s pretty much the same as the AMD version, the MSI Bravo 17 and places in the same price range as the Asus G15.

DESIGN

The outer design of the GF 65 thin isn’t that different from the MSI Bravo series. It is fairly compact for a 15-inch laptop as it’s only about 2 centimeters high and it weighs a bit less than 2 kilos so it’s pretty much a bit lighter and more compact than the Asus TUF A15. I bought this laptop mainly to use it for University work and to be very honest, it is extremely easy to carry in your backpack and is the best option for students(please don’t buy a MacBook instead, you’ll definitely be shooting yourself in the foot). It has a brushed aluminum on top which very premium but does show fingerprints occasionally. The Build Quality is great. It’s definitely not typical for this price range but there is a bit of flex here and there. The overall look is a bit old school as MSI decided to stick to Reds details(catered to the hardcore gamers) The hinge feels pretty good and it is very easy to open with one hand, the display feels fairly sturdy. The inside has a metal layer as well and has a glossy yet matte finish. So overall quality and finish is quite impressive for this price range.

Keyboard and Trackpad

The keyboard of the MSI GF 65 is fairly typical at this price point. The actuation feels great and the key travel is a bit shorter, making it an extremely easy and swift typing experience. The backlighting of the keyboard is only red(a bit of a bummer for all the RGB fans), and the brightness can be adjusted through the macros provided by MSI on the left-side of the keyboard. The Trackpad on this thing is quite unique. It is equipped with windows precision drivers which is great for quick gestures, and the surface that MSI used is actually quite great. It is really smooth, the palm rejection is good and its overall nice to use for you. I mean it���s a touchpad you cannot really love a touchpad but unfortunately it does have a bit of a wobble so both tapping and pressing the corners to click does feel a bit awkward. A great addition would be to see added dedicated buttons.

Connectivity

Connectivity is pretty alright, on the left we have an HDMI port and the charging port, while on the right side there are two USB 3.0 gen1 type-c ports and two USB 3.0 gen one type-a ports. There is an Ethernet connection and a combined audio jack although there is no Thunderbolt support or USB3.2 gen 2 connections but considering the price of this laptop I think it’s really fair to assume that the buyers won’t really spend big cash on the fastest external storage and are pretty much more concerned with having enough USB ports instead.

Performance

Now off to the main part you all have been waiting for- the performance. Considering the fact how well the AMD Ryzen CPUs did, it is interesting to see that Intel is neck-to-neck, on its way to reclaim their crown in this mobile segment. In the single core Cinebench 15 benchmark, the 10750 H manages to stay ahead of the Ryzen CPUs by a mile, but in all other CPU benchmarks including the much newer single core Cinebench 20, the i7 10750H CPUs are just ahead and the jump from the 9th generation to the 10th generation of Intel CPUs looks quite promising for productivity. So now the question is what does the new CPU mean for gamers? And the answer to that is actually not that much.

Looking at raw gaming performance-The Division, Far Cry 5 and Assassin’s Creed Odyssey which are all fairly CPU heavy games and turned up to the highest settings, the MSI GF65 consistently demonstrated its prowess by maintaining an 80 FPS average at 1080p. If you’re more into FPS and multiplayer gaming, you can certainly take advantage of that 120 Hertz screen. The MSI GF65 pulls a 140FPS average on Call of Duty: Warzone on the highest settings. Tweak those settings and hitting 240 FPS wont be an issue but be prepared to invest in a 240 Hertz monitor!

Battery Life

Now lets take a look at the battery life of this thing. The GF 65 thing does a great job considering it’s a gaming laptop, with about six and a half hours in the heavy PC Mark 8 and just over nine hours of Netflix watching is not bad at all. It is considerably better than its counterparts, the MSI Bravo 17 which had a smaller battery so it could keep the 2.5 inch drive but at the same time it is a little worse than the Asus G15. Gaming on battery is not advisable as you will most certainly only get 3–4 hours of gaming out of this thing.thermals and noise

Thermals

If you’re into overclocking and undervolting, thermals are going to be very important to you and this is where the MSI GF65 proves to be impressive again! The MSI’s flagship cooler booster 5 does a fantastic job keeping this thing cool. After 9 hours of intense gaming, the peak temperature this machine hits is a 65 degrees Celsius and a 60 degrees Celsius for the CPU and GPU respectively. Now that’s a BARGAIN! The laptop the fans do have to work hard when running a CPU heavy game, it is coming in at around 50 decibels in extreme performance mode.

What’s Inside?

The bottom panel of the GF 65 is really easy to open and after removing the panel you can see a lot of copper heat pipes and you have access to all key components. You can easily clean the fans, replace the battery, upgrade the memory or change out the network card, however since this already has a Wi-Fi 6 chip there is no reason to do so. Most importantly you can add a second SSD as well with the second slot taking both nvme and SATA drives.

Display

The MSI GF65 comes equipped with a120 Hertz IPS panel. Now it is a cheaper gaming panel that we’ve seen in other laptops as well and it is better than having a 60 Hertz refresh rate panel but still the color gamut is barely mediocre and the other results are also averaged. But none of this matters unless you’re looking to do some color correction work. Now I’m into that sort of thing so I’ve simple connected this to my LG 24-inch display monitor via HDMI. Now the gamut percentage sounds worse than it actually looks in reality and it’s not something you have to worry about when watching Netflix or gaming, especially considering the other results like contrast are actually quite good.

Conclusion

Overall, the MSI GF65 Thin is a fantastic machine, capable of running modern AAA titles comfortably at high framerates. It is more than equipped for doing your daily tasks, and is a wonderful machine for productivity tasks such as video editing, programing, development and what not. A perfect MacBook alternative, crushing the Apple’s overrated laptop in all aspects. I highly recommend this laptop to you all, especially students like me who need all the power in a compact and light machine. Don’t forget to share this article if it helped you. Cheers!