MSI - GS Series Stealth 15.6" Gaming Laptop - Intel Core i7 - 16GB Memory - NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660Ti - 512GB SSD - Matte Black With Gold Diamond Cut

From the moment I first handled this laptop, I could feel it was a premium product. It's much thinner/smaller AND more powerful than my previous gaming laptop, which I bought about 3 years ago. DESIGN: The GS65 has a simple and sleek aesthetic and the RGB keyboard is beautiful. The IPS-level screen is also a real treat, with great viewing angles and a good color gamut. My previous gaming laptop had a really bad, non-IPS screen and it was the worst feature for me, especially since I was used to IPS screens before that. The slim charger that comes with the GS65 is also a nice, understated perk. TRACKPAD: I am very impressed by the trackpad on the GS65. As someone who typically hates trackpads and almost always carries a wireless mouse to go with my laptop, I actually found myself willingly using the trackpad on this device because of how smooth and responsive it feels. Some people have complained that it's a bit too large, but I've not had any issues with it. Apparently, some people are concerned that a large trackpad might pick up movement when your palm brushes against the surface, but from my experience the trackpad is quite good at ignoring inputs caused by your palm instead of your fingers. CONNECTIVITY: I've had no issues connecting to the Wi-Fi with this laptop. I did however have issues with the Bluetooth. I play games on Steam and have four PS4 controllers which I connect to my laptop via Bluetooth to play local multiplayer games. I've had no issues with this on all my previous laptops and my desktop, but for some reason on the GS65 I have random unexpected moments while gaming where all four PS4 controllers disconnect from the laptop at the same time. I'm still trying to fix this issue. UPGRADING: The laptop comes with 2 M.2 SSD slots, one of which is already being used by the default factory-provided 512 GB SSD. My device's default SSD was a Toshiba. I purchased a 1TB Samsung 970 EVO NVME M.2 separately to add as a second SSD. I used Samsung Magician to clone the default 512 GB SSD to my newly-added 1TB Samsung SSD, configured the BIOS to boot from the Samsung SSD, and then wiped the disk drive partition on the default SSD (I did not wipe the partition for the BIOS). A major gripe you'll find in many reviews is that the laptop uses a flipped motherboard. This means that when you remove the bottom cover of the laptop to access the motherboard, the SSD and RAM slots are not immediately accessible, unlike most other laptops. Instead, you have to remove the entire motherboard so you can flip it around to access the SSD and RAM slots. Thankfully, there are several videos on Youtube that do a good job demonstrating how you can remove the Motherboard safely with the right tools. These two videos helped me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rehA0elife4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVtbOiRKvRY Just make sure you don't be an idiot like me and use the wrong screwdriver. Make sure you use a Phillips #00 (PH00) screwdriver to unscrew all the screws and not just a random screwdriver that resembles a Phillips head. I made this mistake and stripped some of the screws. Thankfully I could still remove the stripped screws by using the classic rubber band trick with a 1.0 or 1.5 flathead screwdriver. In case you have a problem with stripped screws too, here's a guide that helped me: https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/How+to+Remove+a+Stripped+Screw/13213 As long as you have the right tools and follow the videos carefully, you shouldn't have too much trouble upgrading the laptop yourself. Just be prepared to take some time. UNDERVOlTING AND TEMPERATURES: Another common complaint you'll find about this laptop is that it can get very hot when under load, especially the CPU. I read somewhere that Intel considers temperatures in the 90s (Celsius) to be acceptable. Using Throttlestop and MSI Afterburner to record my CPU temperatures, I found that my laptop's CPU would indeed heat up to the 90s when under load, such as when I ran the Cinebench R20 benchmarks. I looked up some online guides to undervolting using Throttlestop and found this one useful: https://www.notebookcheck.net/How-to-Lower-Temperatures-Stop-Throttling-and-Increase-Battery-Life-The-ThrottleStop-Guide-2017.213140.0.html Your mileage may vary, but I managed to bring down my peak CPU temperatures to the 85-ish range by using the following settings: CPU Core and CPU Cache Offset Voltage: -160 mV Turbo Ratio limits (6 Cores Active) : 31 (the laptop seems to always use 6 cores so I wasn't able to test the impact of tweaking the limits for fewer than 6 Cores Active) SpeedStep disabled Speed Shift enabled Set Multiplier disabled Part of the undervolting guide I shared will advise you to set up Throttlestop to run whenever Windows starts. Make sure you only do this AFTER you achieve a stable undervolt. If you're still pushing the limits of your undervolt and hit a bad value that causes your computer to crash, you will have to restart. If Throttlestop starts as soon as Windows starts and it saved the bad value, you could potentially get stuck in a crash loop. Hence, only follow the guide to have Throttlestop run at startup AFTER you're sure your computer can handle the undervolt settings you configured. PERFORMANCE: This game handles all my games smoothly. At 1080p resolution, the GS65 does just fine with the GTX 1660 Ti. So far, I've played Ni No Ku Ni 2, Rise of the Tomb Raider, Total War: Warhammer 2, Middle Earth: Shadow of War and Kingdom Come: Deliverance on high settings and they've all run smoothly (60 fps and above). The fans do get quite loud to keep temperatures down, but it doesn't bother me because I mainly use the laptop in the following settings: 1. Couch Multiplayer - the laptop is connected to the TV and I'm sitting at the couch with my friends, so the fan noise is far away and gets drowned out by the TV speakers anyway 2. Gaming with earphones - with my earphones on I barely notice the fan noise CONCLUSION: All in all I was very satisfied with my purchase and I highly recommend this laptop to anyone who wants a powerful mid-range gaming laptop that's slim and super portable. I plan to bring this laptop onto long haul flights. I'm yet to try it yet, but I'll have to find out whether this laptop can run on plugged-in power on the planes. I've had issues with my previous laptop in the past where it wouldn't always be able to charge using the power sockets beneath my seat in the plane. I'll see if this laptop has similar issues.

I'm a gamer, and have been my entire life. I have been around since before the internet was available to many people and still remember the dial up internet tone before playing Age of Empires online. I have always built my own PC's and have very high standards for technology. I worked on a submarine in the Navy, used and repaired computers, communications, and high tech equipment, yet am still very impressed with this notebook. It is not without its trade-off's, but overall its a fantastic value for the price given its performance. Here's what you should know If your thinking of buying it. First off, go look up the benchmarks of a 1660ti and appreciate the difference in performance that it has over all other notebook graphics cards except for the 2080 mobile and 2080 max-Q. An impressive feat considering the price of notebooks that house those cards. Aside from full desktop level GPU's (and their relative size and power consumption) it is in the top 3. It also has a i7-9750H CPU that has 6 cores, yet is still power efficient enough to be inside a notebook. It has 16gb of ram via 2 8gb sticks running in dual channel. Both are removable and up-gradable albeit after having to basically remove the motherboard (more that most people are comfortable / trained to do without causing damage). Lastly the 512gb of SSD that come in the form of one MVME m.2 drive, and an additional slot for another NVME drive. Remember there are certainly more powerful notebooks with higher performance, but none at this price (currently 1700 here on Best Buy, I got mine for 1300 double dipping on sales), and certainly none with this price and form factor combined. However therein lies the problems with this notebook. The form factor is so small heat is an issue. Also because the GPU and CPU are so good, kiss your battery life goodbye if you plan on going full gaming mode without being plugged into the wall. I have personally squeezed about 2 hours of gaming from full battery to shutoff, but that was my record. I have read of people using low power modes and managing 4 hours of just watching movies on airplanes though. So despite the 82 watt-hour battery, it doesn't stand much chance against the impressive hardware this machine houses. Which brings us to talk about the heat issue. Heat is the enemy of performance, and in the wrong situations this laptop will throttle from lack of airflow. Without adhering to a more aggressive heatsink/pipe and fan strategy we see on some of the MUCH larger desktop replacement laptops, this is kind of expected. I have been able to maintain reasonable temps playing most games on just a flat surface, but my cooling pad provides the most notable improvement. If your serious about mobile gaming, I recommend getting a cooling pad. Lastly is the build quality. The original version of the gs65 stealth (the ones with 10 series GPU's) had some build quality issues in the form of to much flexibility in the chassis. The entire notebook weighed a measly and impressive 4 pounds. This newer version (the ones with 1660ti and 20 series GPU's) have made vast improvements to the structural design and all the problems with flexibility have all but vanished. To accomplish this, they only increased the weight by 6 ounces. This is a trade-off I gladly accept after being scared away from the prior version because of that issue. I personally love the design of this laptop that is WAY more classy than most "gaming" RGB unicorn vomit notebooks. I do still appreciating the RGB Steel Series keyboard that is a dream to type on. If your still reading this review, I hope I have lead to a more informed decision that enabled you to decide to buy this beast or not. If you did, welcome to the party. If not or are looking for something slightly less expensive / slightly less performance, I recommend looking into the ASUS GA502DU-BR7N6. Its about $1100 and as good as a notebook can get at that price point. This one is just better in every way, but slightly more expensive when on sale. Be well, pwn noobs, and thanks for reading.

I was considering this laptop or the razor blade 15 I kept flip flopping when this one went on sale for 1300$ USD so I pulled the trigger and have never been so happy. Seeing it in the store and taking it home are completely different love the gold finish looks classy and not so red rgb like other laptops of this type. Pros Cpu- it has the 9th generation 6 core and it shreds through everything I’ve thrown at it. I can game and stream from the laptop at the same time and get consistent frame rates. I’ve just been keeping the battery on balanced mode when plugged in not performance and the laptop games just like my desktop rig. GPU- this gpu is amazing. It runs through everything and performs just like my desktop gtx 1070. Fans- the fans turn on every once in a while when browsing when they are set to auto. It comes with software where you can turn them off completely comes in handy in class. The laptop speakers are pretty loud and when gaming you’ll hardly notice the fans. If you have headphones you won’t even know their on. The laptop gets warm but that’s to be expected with the hardware it’s packing. Think of your Xbox does it get warm when you play it for a long period of time of course. Same thing here. Not insanely burn through your lap hot. Battery- school wise I turn the screen down to 60hz and brightness to whatever is comfortable so anywhere from 20% to 50% brightness and I get about 5 and a half hours. That’s without under volting which I haven’t done yet but am considering. Also turn battery manager to best battery. 144hz screen- coming from a 75hz monitor wow I’m blown away and haven’t even been touching my desktop and am now looking to upgrade my monitor after seeing true 144hz Touchpad- the large touch pad is an amazing feature that is great for editing and dragging files around nice touch and very responsive. Keyboard- I’ve never gotten used to a keyboard so fast. I like it better than the one I use on my own desktop rig. Feels great to type on. CONS Screen- although the 144hz is amazing the amount of backlight bleed on the unit I received was insane very noticeable but I don’t mind all that much when everything else is so great. You’ll only ever see it when in dark scenes but all the other colors are vibrant and smooth. Bloatware- tons of msi and other random bloatware come installed on the machine some are cool though try out the msi app player and you can play android apps from the google play store on the laptop. Battery management bug- I’ll turn my battery mode to balanced and it’ll say 5 hours of battery life then I’ll turn it to battery saver which is supposed to save more of your battery then it switches to 2 hours and 30 minutes I don’t understand what’s going on lol. But those are the only true cons I could find about this unit and I really had to think about it to come up with downsides to the amazing laptop. If anything happens or stops working I’ll be sure to update my review thanks for reading and buy this laptop you won’t regret it!

I've been using laptops for almost 18 years( Yes I feel old as I type this). Most recently, I had a custom built Dell XPS 15 9550. I had the SSD replaced with a nvme and went with a FHD screen. This allowed me to choose the huge 96 whr battery. Anyway, it was a i7 6700H series. 16gb ram. 512 nvme ssd, and 2GB GTX 960M. I've had it since release, and while a great business grade laptop, the gaming sucked, bad. I've been looking for a lightweight laptop with decent GPU to play and work. This laptop definitely hits all the spots. I've been doing research for about 2 years waiting to hop on a good deal. This GS65 is fantastic. The build is really good. Almost as light as my XPS15. The screen is really nice. The computer boots and responds ridiculously fast. While the battery isnt quite as good as my super battery (7-8 hours), this is still great at around 4ish. I still have to do some tweaking that I saw online, and hopefully I can get it to about 5-6. 5/5. Fantastic laptop especially if you need a mix of work,play, and portability.

I've had my MSI GS65 for over a year now so I believe I can provide a semi-long term review. For the first 7 months, the laptop was amazing. Besides the hot temperatures out of the box that I eventually fixed with an undervolt and an underclock the laptop was blazing fast and reliable. That was until 7 months in. Around that time the problems began. It started seemingly out of nowhere when the CPU fan began making buzzing/grinding noises at every rpm. I ignored it because I was hesitant to send the computer in for warranty work. I didn't fix it myself due to the inverted motherboard design along with the voided warranty if I decided to do my own work. However, once I read other customer's stories of how the CPU fan might outright die if it is making noises I decided to RMA the computer. 2 weeks later I received the computer and the noise was fixed. That was until 3 hours later when the same noise (although not as loud) returned once again. As you might expect I was really annoyed because the laptop was literally just sitting on a desk (not dropped or damaged) when it began to make the noise again. It is a terrible design flaw and very common with other users so I just decided to just live with the noise at this point. Only one week later did the laptop fail to power on completely. I tried everything; reset the battery, hold the power button, charge it, Nothing worked. The laptop was dead and I had to RMA it once again. That's where it is at the time of writing this review. The frustrating part is that I practically babied the thing. Every night I would shut it off in an effort to cut back on fan wear and tear. For 95% of its life, it was docked on a laptop cooler pad, not moving around. No food or water was ever spilled on the thing. Sometime's I'm left shocked that other MUCH cheaper laptops that I had bought in 2012 are still working flawlessly and the $1700 MSI died before even lasting a year! Overall this laptop is the definition of a mixed bag. When the laptop works it is truly amazing. It is the fastest computer I have ever owned and for 1700 dollars the price to performance ratio made sense. However, I just can't recommend buying this laptop unless you are willing to sacrifice reliability for a reasonably priced, good looking, and fast performing laptop. It's a shame really. If this laptop was designed with reliability in mind along with better fans it might just be one of the best gaming laptop bargains ever made.

This laptop meet all requirements for a college student. First, it can run games effectively. Second it’s very light, and I can use it in the class. Third, MSI can make this with high quality. My previous laptop is Acer Predator Triton 500, I sold it because it’s a litter heavy for me. 1660ti video card has similar performance with Rtx 2060. I also bought ASUS gug 502 glacier blue from amazon, but the quality is too bad. Speakers and fans don’t seem like gaming laptop, therefore, I returned it, and purchased this from bestbay. GS65 is worth to buy. If don’t mind large fan noise at all

Very sleek. Very stylish. I love it. Only 2 problems: One is the cooling system MSI designed. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say they want their computers to overheat and break down so people can buy more of their products. It’s seems like an attentional designed flaw. It’d be better if they made cooling pads specifically for these laptops. Second problem is the side lid is curved. Idk if it’s normal or not

Aesthetically it is amazing very thin, light and elegant. The image quality of the screen is very sharp and the edges are very thin The touch pad is amazing and very sensitive and the sound is excellent With the graphics card installed you can play in excellent resolution and graphic quality