The Best Gaming Laptop of 2023 - MSI Raider GE76 2023 Full Review
At
first look and touch, it looks and feels almost exactly the same as the previous
MSI GE76 Raider that I reviewed before which is made out of a combination of
aluminum and hard plastic materials with an accent RGB light bar on the front side
looking above. We have a pleasantly looking cool-toned aluminum cover with subtle
chrome MSI logo right here and some interesting polygonal design around the
hinge.
Looking
on its front side, we have the said RGB light bar that spans across the entire
width of the laptop and has this soft and diffused illumination on the left side,
we have exhaust ventilation, a small LED indicator, a Type A USB 3.2 Gen2 port,
a Type C USB 3.2 Gen2 port that also doubles as a display port 1.4 port, a 3.5mm
audio combo jack, and the side-firing speaker on the other side, we have another exhaust ventilation,2 Type-A USB 3.2
Gen1 ports for peripherals, an SD card
reader, and another side-firing speaker for a total of 4 including 2 on each side of the
keyboard.
And
what I like about this is that most of the longer and thicker cables are
located at the back like the mini Display port, thunderbolt 4, the Ethernet
port, HDMI, and the power port. It makes cable management and ease of use a lot
better. I also appreciate that it has an SD card reader and pretty much all the
necessary IOs for productivity and content creation.
In
terms of cooling solution, we have a total of 4 exhaust ventilation around the
corners of the laptop and a bunch of intake ventilation at the bottom speaking
of the bottom. We have the iconic dragon armor carving design with the said
intake ventilation and you can see a little bit of the fan blades and heat
pipes inside here for the cooler boost technology that allows the MSI Raider
Ge76 to perform at its highest peak during load. We also have a good amount of rubber
feet to keep this thing stay in place and a nifty reset pinhole right here.
Going
back on top, the lid can be opened easily using one hand thanks to the sheer
weight of the bottom half of the laptop upon opening the lid, you'll see the full-size
keyboard with dedicated arrow keys, Num-pad, and function rows albeit smaller
than the other keys. The control key is also wider than usual targeted towards
gaming as well as the overall fonts and look of the keyboard. It features per-key
RGB lighting and is highly customizable via the Steel Series GG application.
The
keys themselves have a decent amount of tactile and bouncy feedback and it also
has a substantial amount of travel for the actuation and doesn't feel that mushy
or particularly loud either. I also like the design of the illumination here compared
to their older pudding-like key caps, albeit quite dim for my preference as you
can see here in a fairly dim environment. I also would have preferred if we have
a dedicated power button with an integrated fingerprint reader here. Now on the
sides of the keyboard, we have a couple of upward-firing speakers that when partnered
with the side-firing speakers make up for a full listening experience for both
media consumption and gaming. Here's a quick sound test for you guys, The track
pad is kind of small for my liking but
at least it has a solidly built surface with a good amount of tactile
feedback and is quite accurate and
reliable.
Now,
moving towards the display, what we have here for this particular variant which
is the MSI Raider Ge76 12UHS to be exact is a 17.3" UHD 120 Hz IPS level
panel, that's portable 4k gaming for you guys. Depending on your region this
should also be available in QHD 240hz and FHD 360hz variants. As you can tell,
the bezels are quite thin especially on the sides with a thick bottom bezel.
Up
top, we have a fairly thin bezel while also accommodating the microphone array and
the Full HD webcam. Here's a quick look at the webcam's quality. Now, as per
testing, the display has 98% SRGB coverage, 67% NTSC, 73% Adobe RGB, and 72% p3
color gamut. In my opinion, that is good enough for most productivity
applications, especially for web and social media postings. The display has
good colors, contrast, and sharpness and can get substantially bright with
decent viewing angles. Unless you force yourself to look at a very extreme angle
like this, for the most part the 4k display panel is pretty good.
Although
honestly, if I have to pick again, I would rather go for the QHD 240hz variant for
a good balance between resolution and refresh rate for both productivity and
gaming.
Thanks
to the powerful hardware inside and the crispy 4k resolution display,
I've
actually never seen Cyberpunk 2077 this good. so I really had a great time
gaming on this laptop with a very
outstanding visual experience.
Now,
as we move towards the hardware under the hood, let me break down the
key
specifications of the top-of-the-line 2023
variant of the MSI raider Ge76 gaming laptop.
What
we have here for the 12UHS variant is a 12th gen intel core i9-12900HK processor
with an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080Ti graphics card, 32GB of DDR5 4800 Memory, 2TB
of super-fast Samsung Gen4 NVME SSD, 17.3" 4K 120hz IPS-level panel, wifi
6E, a bunch of necessary input and output ports, 4-cell 99.9 whir battery with
a 240 or 240W AC adapter though what I have here is actually a 330W power brick.
So as you can tell, the MSI Raider GE76 2023 variant is definitely one of the
top gaming laptops this time of the year and with a good amount of input and
output ports partnered with a fully unlocked processor and graphics card in
terms of power draw, this is definitely an uncompromised piece of technology.
Now, what I like about the MSI Raider GE76 software-wise is the revamped MSI
Center which is a sort of all-in-one application to fully take advantage of
this laptop's performance.
Not
a lot of people that will get this are very technical so I appreciate the fact
that it has a smart auto feature that will automatically adjust the performance
modes depending on the demand and unlike previous versions of the Silent mode, which
just keeps the fan at its slowest speed compromising performance, the new ambient
silent AI mode matches the level of the ambient noise allowing the laptop to
perform better while still relatively quiet given the amount of ambient noise
around. So if it's noisy, the fan can ramp up the speed to match that. Now, there
are still a lot of features this gaming laptop has that I can't possibly tackle
moving on, let's finally head into our performance benchmarks so that you can have an idea of how this top-of-the-line gaming laptop from MSI performs.
First,
I set the power mode in windows to Best performance and turn off battery saver
and sleep. Next, since I want to push this laptop to its peak, I chose to use
the Extreme Performance Mode, Crank up the graphics core clock and VRAM clock
offsets to 200mhz and enable the Cooler boost option. I also made sure that the
discrete graphics card option is enabled to take full advantage of the RTX
3080Ti. This should allow this gaming laptop to perform at its highest but in return,
will get super loud like a jet engine with that being said, let's head into the
results of our benchmarks 3DMark, and PCMark that you can possibly compare with
your system if you're interested. I also did a couple of benchmarks for the 2TB Samsung Gen4 NVME which is absolutely
snappy when opening applications, transferring files generating thumbnails, and scrubbing through the timeline when editing videos.
Speaking
of editing videos, the MSI Raider GE76 2023 edition was able to export our
standard 4k 13.92-minute project using the Adobe Media Encoder for just under 8
minutes which is quite fast especially, if you want to edit videos on the go.
When
it comes to gaming, as expected, it wasn't a slouch either, well, if you have the
top of the line NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080Ti and a 12th-gen Intel Core i9 processor
you shouldn't expect less than a smooth gaming experience even at 4k resolution
which our variant definitely support at
120hz. I'm not going to lie, I definitely enjoyed my time playing valorant on
this laptop at any resolution even at 4K, but I tend to lower it down to 1440p
for that sweet spot between performance and visual fidelity. Besides, most
competitive FPS gamers still prefer lower resolution either 1080p or 1440p
that's why I mentioned earlier, that If, I have to choose again, I'd rather get
the 1440p 240hz variant of this laptop. As you can tell, the MSI Raider GE76 2023
edition is kind of overkill for valorant at any resolution even at 4K. So even
if you choose the 1080p 360hz variant this laptop can definitely handle that
high refresh rate display. The same story can be said in CSGO with up to 557 FPS in Full HD resolution and even at 4k, we're getting around 302 FPS.
Pretty
much most competitive FPS esports games are playable at 4k resolution including
Rainbow Six Siege which is not a surprise since these games are quite easy to
drive. I don't think you'll have to worry about competitive gaming here. Except
maybe for ergonomics given the form factor of a laptop of course, not everyone
likes competitive FPS games, some just like a more laid-back adventure or
strategy games enjoying some visual fidelity.
And while cyberpunk 2077 isn't necessarily the most laidback RPG game,
it is definitely one of the most gorgeous looking games ever produced with
crispy details, high definition visuals, and effects as long as your computer
can handle it, especially with Ray tracing and as you can tell, the MSI Raider
GE76 can fairly keep up with it with Ray Tracing Ultra and DLSS. Granted the
FPS is below 100 in any resolution but
with the right tweak on the settings, you can definitely enjoy 4K gaming with Ray Tracing enabled in Cyberpunk
2077.Overall, it's safe to say that gaming with the MSI Raider GE76 should not
be a problem at all. Again that should
be expected given the top-of-the-line specifications.
Moving
on to the thermal performance, while our 12th-gen intel core i9-12900HK spike a
bit hot, for the most part, it is
relatively cool averaging around 37 to 53
degrees while maintaining the expected
benchmarks results. The same thing when it comes to gaming for our CPU. It was
able to average around 57 to 67 degrees while maintaining competitive frame
rates at all resolutions.
The
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti is also relatively cool throughout all our testing. Averaging
only around 48.2 to 64.7 degrees and like I said earlier, the MSI Raider Ge76 2023
edition's processor and graphics card are fully unlocked when it comes to power
delivery allowing its full potential to
be unleashed.
Using
a dedicated wattmeter in between the 330W power brick and the power outlet,
we're drawing around 234 to 254 watts depending on the load and lastly, in
terms of battery life, with a 4-cell 99.9 whir battery, we're getting about an hour
when gaming and extreme performance mode is enabled, just short of 3 hours for productivity
applications, 2 and a half hours for video playback, and around "to follow"
when idle but the display is turned on. So around 1 to 3hrs gives or takes depending
on the use case. Now, to wrap this up, let me give you a breakdown of all the
things that I like and didn't like about the MSI Raider Ge76 2023 edition.
I
like the fact that you can take full advantage of the hardware inside especially
the CPU and GPU and that you have a very nifty MSI center that includes some. Start
auto features for those who don't like to tinker much about the technical stuff.
I also like the fairly large 17.3 inch 120 Hz IPS level display with decent color
reproduction. I also appreciate the overall design and construction of this laptop
has a good balance between gamer aesthetic and minimalism that you can even
bring to professional meetings and stuff. The RGB lining in front is also a
nice accent which compliments well with the RGB of the keyboard, albeit quite dim
and lastly, I also appreciate that we pretty much have all the input and output
ports that every gamer and creator needs including a full-sized SD card reader on
the other hand, I don't like that we don't have a dedicated power button with a
fingerprint reader, I don't like that the full HD webcam doesn't support
windows hello.
While
the thermals are pretty decent and still allow the laptop to perform well at everything,
it could've been better to be honest, especially during prolonged load other
than that, I strongly feel that the MSI Raider GE76 2023 edition is one to beat
at this point of the year when it comes to top-of-the-line gaming laptops. I think
this is good for those who really need a powerful desktop replacement computer
for on-the-go gaming and productivity like seafarers, work-from-home professionals,
overseas workers, and the like.