I was trying to decide between this, the Asus Zephyrus M, and the new Razer Blade 15 Advance. After going back and forth, I decided to try out the MSI GS65 and I think this trial phase is on its way to being permanent. I am a long time Mac user and my current laptop is a MacBook Pro 13 2018 and I game on a PS4 and an Xbox One X. Wanted to get back to the PC Master Race and I wanted the flexibility to play at home, in between offices while I'm on the road as well as have a great dedicated PC that will run my Windows applications for work. I've been using Parallels for years, while it does work... it's just not the same. Out of the box, the GS65 has decent build quality with its aluminum casing compared to most PC laptops you see at Best Buy but this is nowhere near the level of quality of a Mac and even a Razer. The GS65 doesn't feel as solid and I would have expected a little more after shelling out $2000 for this thing. I really appreciate the engineering of the Mac and Razer on how they were able to build something so thin, yet extremely solid. The build of the MSI screen was disappointingly flimsy and I feel that I could one day break this thing if I opened the screen the wrong way, especially with one hand. Performance however is where this laptop really shines. I have thrown every game I had at High to Ultra settings and it handles them with ease. Crysis 3 (yeah it's a 2013 game) was at Ultra and it looked amazing. Overwatch was at Ultra and the frame rates just flew and the same with Apex Legends. The GS65 also handled Shadow of Tombraider like a champ. I played through Tombraider on the Xbox One X and I had to sacrifice frame rates for quality and that just wasn't the experience I wanted for such a visually stunning game. On the GS65, Tombraider was absolutely beautiful and it easily maintained a 60 fps frame rate without issues. Sure the fans were blowing but that is to be expected from a thin and light gaming laptop. Oh did I mention that this thing is only a little over 4lbs? Other things to note: - The speakers were loud but base is weak. - Battery life at Battery Saver or Better Battery setting will get you through 4-6 hours for work applications such as MS Office - The trackpad is much better than last years, but it's no MacBook or Razer - This has a generous amount of ports, USB 3.0, HDMI, Audio, Mini Display, Thunderbolt - Wish it had one more thunderbolt port instead of that mini display port - NO USB-C Charging - Inverted motherboard makes upgrading a pain, seriously MSI what were you thinking? - keyboard is a breath of fresh air coming from the stupid butterfly switches of the Mac. - 240hz screen is fantastic Overall I think this is a better buy dollar for dollar if you want to compare similar specs to the Razer, you save about $400-$500. The performance alone on this for the size and weight is a huge selling point for this. My only ask is that they step up the build quality a few more notches on this will be an easy winner.

I am a long time Mac and PC user. But I have chosen to travel with a Mac for a long time. I decided that Macs were just not worth the price of admission anymore and started to look a PC that could do everything my Mac could do and also game. For the price, you would be hard pressed to find a similarly spec'd thin and light gaming laptop. MSI has done a good job of making this laptop thin and light. In terms of power and thermal management, it does a good job for its class. I ran GeekBench and consistently got 5000 single core and 20000 multicore scores. Cinebench is scoring in the 2000's. I didn't get much thermal throttling when running back to back benchmarks. The fans are not quiet but they are not loud either under load. With 32GB of DDR4 RAM and a 9th gen Core i7 9750H, this is a capable machine that could be used for gaming and video editing. The RTX 2060 is not of the Max Q variety, so you get close to RTX 2070 Max Q speeds. The screen is good but not great. Color accuracy is decent, but the monitor shouldn't be used for color correcting. The max brightness is fine for indoor use, but you will have a hard time seeing what you are doing outside on a sunny day. This screen comes in at under 300 nits of brightness. On the other hand, it is 240Hz, which is amazing for gaming. I purchased this laptop while also considering Razer, Lenovo, Asus and Acer. I went with this one because I wanted a thin and light laptop that I could use for productivity, video and photo editing, and also to play some games. I also didn't want my laptop to look like a gaming laptop. Save for the MSI logo on the lid, it doesn't give away it's gaming DNA. The per-key RGB lighting is nice and you have a good level of control with the Steel Series software. The black anodized finish is pretty delicate and will definitely scratch off with light use. There is definitely flex in the body and screen of the laptop, but I am coming from the Mac unibody world, so everything except for Razer feels flimsy to me. I would just get a skin or maybe a case. Otherwise, this laptop is great for what I need it for. If I had all the money in the world, I would go with the Razer Blade, but I don't feel like I am giving up much by going with the MSI GS-65.

Pros: Monitor is superb, especially for a laptop, having the high refresh rate is fantastic. System is responsive, my boot up time is less than 7seconds. Games play very well at frame rates significantly higher than gaming consoles, and with higher graphics settings. Cons: My number one complaint is the very faint "ticking" sort of noise that seems to occur during boot and sometimes when the hard drive is working. It is a solid state drive m2ssd but something is noise. Obviously it's a gaming laptop and while gaming the fans can be loud, but that is a compromise to have such a thin machine. Be sure to buy a cooling laptop platform for it to sit on especially if using it on your lap or in bed, otherwise the temps with get higher, even on a flat hard surface, that should be common sense but I'm putting out here anyway. Top of lid gets smudges even from the tiny amounts of natural oils produced by your skin even if they are clean and recently washed. Overall: Excellent machine for the price, I spent MONTHS researching and trying to find the perfectly balanced gaming laptop for my budget and as soon as this hit the shelf, it cost the same or less than machines that were significantly less powerful. 10/10 Would purchase again. Also worth noting, but not really a con is the harddrive is low capacity for a gaming machine in my opinion, and according to my research there is a slot for another m2ssd but it appears to me that you would have to take the whole laptop apart (take the board out of the chassis) to get to it.

Great laptop, amazing 6 core performance, just enough cores, anymore would be too many. It's a great laptop once you repaste it, add an additional ssd and add throttle top and undervolt the living crap out of it. Thing isnt designed for more than 6 cores and operates as hot as a tea kettle, but you can get it decently cooled and with some mild down clocking you can have her running as cool as an arctic cucumber. Shes a mini beast and I love using her as my daily driver.

This is a very powerful machine. No doubt with that. But thinness comes with a price. It gets super hot. The 9th gen of i7 just makes it hard for this computer to maintain a below 90 temperature. Undervolting would help but not very much. So if you're a gamer and want this product, I suggest of getting a cooling pad. Not a cheap one.

I don't play computer games, but this gaming laptop is perfect for the computationally intense data processing and analysis that I need it to do. Few portable workstations come with this amount of RAM or the latest processors, but this one does. It was on sale, and I jumped at this. It's worked great.

This laptop is the best and nicest I have ever owned, and I have owned. Lot of them over the years. The display and graphics is excellent. Videos, like movies, are in an obvious quality HD. The sound is also good without the need to always add an external speaker. All in all this is great.

Very easy to set up but we barely used it and within an hour the battery was dying, we plugged it in and it said not charging.... which didnt make sense because we DID plug it in. But we returned it.