Get this RTX 3060 gaming laptop for just £720 right now

Image of the MSI Katana on a green background.

(Image credit: MSI)

Gaming laptops generally hit specific price points and anything that deviates from the norm stands out, one way or another. This MSI laptop available over on Argos is so much less than you'd normally expect to pay that we couldn't help but start picking apart the specifications to try and see what massive compromises have been made to try and hit that price point. There's nothing obvious though, and from the specification, you'd normally have to hand over closer to £1,000 for such a machine, not the £720 being asked.

The good news is that the CPU and GPU are both quality items, and not at all what you'd expect to see at this price point. The GPU is obviously really important for a gaming machine, and here you're looking at an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 complete with 6GB of GDDR6. This is the 85W GPU, so not the fastest version of the 3060, but it's not bad by any stretch.

As for the CPU, you're looking at an Intel Core i7 11800H, which is an eight-core, 16-thread processor with a base clock of 2.3GHz and a boost of 4.6GHz. Yes, it's technically a last-generation CPU, as mobile Alder Lake chips are just starting to appear now, but it's still a quality processor, and an absolute steal at this price point.

What's most amazing about this build though is not the impressive CPU and GPU, but the fact that MSI has backed these up with a well-rounded overall specification. You get 16GB of DDR4 RAM for instance, as well as 512GB of NVMe storage. Even the screen is a cut above the norm with a 144Hz refresh rate.

If you look up this laptop elsewhere, you're looking at closer to £1,000, but right now you can enjoy a £280 saving over on Argos. For that, you get a powerful gaming machine that will handle the latest titles at the top settings. And you really can't ask for too much more in these silicon-starved days.

This is an absolute bargain basically. One that is tempting even if you're not in the market for a gaming laptop right now. I can't see this being beaten any time soon.

Alan has been writing about PC tech since before 3D graphics cards existed, and still vividly recalls having to fight with MS-DOS just to get games to load. He fondly remembers the killer combo of a Matrox Millenium and 3dfx Voodoo, and seeing Lara Croft in 3D for the first time. He's very glad hardware has advanced as much as it has though, and is particularly happy when putting the latest M.2 NVMe SSDs, AMD processors, and laptops through their paces. He has a long-lasting Magic: The Gathering obsession but limits this to MTG Arena these days.