The best MSI gaming laptop should prove a capable mobile PC that offers high gaming frame rates, outstanding build quality, and excellent all-around functionality. It's a name that's often associated with powerful gaming components and some of the best gaming laptops around. In fact, these notebooks appear so frequently in our list of favorites, it made sense to gather all the best MSI laptops for gaming, so you can see how they all stack up against one another.
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Best gaming laptop: perfect notebooks for mobile gaming
If you're after true portability without sacrificing performance, the Stealth Thin takes full advantage of Nvidia's Max-Q technology, with a slim-line chassis that weighs in at less than five pounds. You'd have a tough time finding a better gaming laptop that delivers the freedom you're after without a trade-off in terms of FPS.
If performance is your top priority, a heavier 'muscle class' laptop or 'desktop replacement' with more powerful components might be a better bet, such as the MSI GT75 Titan. And with a choice of full-fat GTX or RTX graphics, the aptly named Titan is easily capable of handling tasks such as recording, streaming, and editing too.
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The best MSI laptop for gaming 2021
Until the advent of the GS65 Stealth Thin, every thin and light gaming laptop was either too expensive or too inefficient to be a viable replacement for your desktop. Or even your existing clamshell, for that matter. In a way, the MSI GS65 Stealth Thin disrupted an increasingly complacent subsect of computing that, to this day, is in dire need of a revolution. Black with gold accents, it took the banal red and black gamer's palette of the past and subverted it. Its gold-trimmed lattice exhaust breathes opulence. It's economical at the low end, and its recent configurations are capable of raytracing in real-time.
Should you crave the Razer Blade's winning desktop-level performance, not to mention its narrow screen bezels, but all for a lower price, the MSI GS65 Stealth Thin is the best MSI laptop for gaming 2021 can afford. However, if it's (roughly 10 percent) weaker Max-Q graphics aren't for you; perhaps this next entry will be.
Read the full MSI GS65 Stealth Thin review.
At the cross-section between the MSI GS65 Stealth Thin and the GT75 Titan, the GE63 Raider RGB, a midrange gaming laptop that—while thin and light—foregoes shortsighted industry trends in favor of uninhibited balance. Despite its RGB surname, don't be confused: ostentatious lighting is not the real value proposition here. Performance is.
The Raider packs Nvidia's formidable RTX graphics; absent is the stifled Max-Q design of the GS65 Stealth Thin. In other words, the GE63 Raider's RTX 2080 is about 10 percent faster than its GS65 equivalent. If you care more about frames per second than cosmetic appeal, it might be for you.
As for the LEDs, yes, it's stacked. To no surprise, the keyboard is graced with per-key illumination, meaning you could theoretically assign a different backlit color to every key on the keyboard if you're a total sadist. The keyboard itself is rather deep for a gaming laptop of this stature, with 2mm of travel guiding each press.