Standing screen display size | 15.6 Inches |
---|---|
Screen Resolution | 1920 x 1080 pixels |
Max Screen Resolution | 1920 x 1080 Pixels |
Processor | 2.6 GHz corei7_10750h |
RAM | 16 GB DDR5 |
Memory Speed | 2.6 GHz |
Hard Drive | 512 GB SSD |
Graphics Coprocessor | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 |
Chipset Brand | NVIDIA |
Card Description | RTX 2070 |
Graphics Card Ram Size | 8 GB |
Wireless Type | 802.11ac |
Number of USB 3.0 Ports | 3 |
Average Battery Life (in hours) | 2 Hours |
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MSI GL65 Leopard 10SFK-062 15.6" FHD 144Hz 3ms Thin Bezel Gaming Laptop Intel Core i7-10750H RTX2070 16GB 512GB NVMe SSD Win 10
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Brand | MSI |
Model Name | GL65 Leopard 10SFKV-062 |
Screen Size | 15.6 Inches |
Color | Black |
Hard Disk Size | 512 GB |
CPU Model | Corei7-10750H |
Ram Memory Installed Size | 32 GB |
Operating System | Windows 10 Home |
Special Feature | Thin Bezel |
Graphics Card Description | RTX 2070 |
About this item
- 15.6" FHD IPS-Level 144Hz 72%NTSC Thin Bezel close to 100%Srgb NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 8G GDDR6
- Intel Core i7-10750H 2.6-5.0GHz Intel Wi-Fi 6 AX201(2 x 2 ax)
- 512GB NVMe SSD 16GB (8G*2) DDR4 2666MHz 2 Sockets Max Memory 64GB
- USB 3.1 Gen2 Type C 1 USB 3.2 Gen1 3 Steel Series per-Key RGB with Anti-Ghost key+ silver lining 720p HD Webcam
- Win10 Multi-language Giant Speakers 3W x 2 6 cell (51Wh) Li-Ion 230W
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This Item MSI GL65 Leopard 10SFK-062 15.6" FHD 144Hz 3ms Thin Bezel Gaming Laptop Intel Core i7-10750H RTX2070 16GB 512GB NVMe SSD Win 10 | Recommendations | dummy | dummy | dummy | dummy | |
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Price | — | $859.00$859.00 | -22% $699.99$699.99 List: $899.99 | -5% $617.83$617.83 Typical: $649.00 | $766.00$766.00 | $748.00$748.00 |
Delivery | — | Get it May 17 - 23 | Get it as soon as Friday, May 17 | Get it May 15 - 17 | Get it as soon as Thursday, May 16 | Get it as soon as Thursday, May 16 |
Customer Ratings | ||||||
For gaming | 4.8 | 4.1 | 4.3 | 3.8 | 4.0 | 3.9 |
Screen quality | 4.7 | 4.3 | 4.4 | 4.3 | 4.1 | 4.4 |
Battery life | 3.7 | 3.4 | 3.6 | 3.1 | 3.4 | 3.5 |
Value for money | 4.8 | 4.2 | 3.2 | 4.0 | — | 4.0 |
Sold By | — | QuickSpeed Tech-signature required at delivery | Amazon.com | May's Digital (Serial Number Recorded) | WL Distributors (SN Recorded) | Electronics Star |
display size | 15.6 inches | 15.6 inches | 15.6 inches | 15.6 inches | 15.6 inches | 15.6 inches |
hard disk size | 512 GB | 512 GB | 512 GB | 512 GB | 512 GB | 512 GB |
computer memory size | 16 GB | 16 GB | 16 GB | 16 GB | 16 GB | 8 GB |
cpu manufacturer | Intel | Intel | Intel | Intel | Intel | Intel |
cpu speed | 2.6 GHz | 1.7 GHz | 4.5 GHz | 2.7 GHz | 4.5 GHz | 4.5 GHz |
cpu model number | Core i7-10750H | Intel® Core™ i7-12650H | Core i5-12500H | 11400H | i5-12500H | Core i5-11400H |
operating system | Windows 10 Home | Windows 11 Home | Windows 11 Home | Windows 11 | Windows 11 Home | Windows 11 Home |
Product Description
MSI GL65 Leopard 10SFK-062 15. 6" FHD 144Hz 3ms Thin Bezel Gaming Laptop Intel Core i7-10750H GeForce RTX 2070 16GB 512GB NVMe SSD Win 10.
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Technical Details
Brand | MSI |
---|---|
Series | GL65 Leopard 10SFKV-062 |
Item model number | GL65 Leopard 10SFKV-062 |
Hardware Platform | PC |
Operating System | Windows 10 Home |
Item Weight | 5.07 pounds |
Product Dimensions | 14.08 x 9.76 x 1.08 inches |
Item Dimensions LxWxH | 14.08 x 9.76 x 1.08 inches |
Color | Black |
Processor Brand | Intel |
Number of Processors | 6 |
Computer Memory Type | DDR4 SDRAM |
Flash Memory Size | 512 |
Hard Drive Interface | PCIE x 8 |
Voltage | 230 Volts |
Additional Information
ASIN | B085B3GFRL |
---|---|
Customer Reviews |
4.7 out of 5 stars |
Best Sellers Rank | #32,755 in Computers & Accessories (See Top 100 in Computers & Accessories) #5,977 in Traditional Laptop Computers |
Date First Available | April 2, 2020 |
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Customer Review: Compact and powerful
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Learn more how customers reviews work on AmazonCustomers say
Customers like the screen, performance, and frame rate of the laptop. They mention that it looks really good, performs well, and runs very well in high-ultra settings. They appreciate the decent rendering speeds and minimal simulation slowdown. Customers are also satisfied with value, gaming, and quality. However, some customers have reported issues with noise and battery life.
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Customers are satisfied with the value of the laptop. They mention that it's a pretty good laptop for the price, the price to part ratio is amazing, and the quality durable plastic is not cheap by any means.
"...I'd suggest it to anyone looking for both great performance and good price." Read more
"...It's fantastic, the screen butter smooth at 144hz and making me laugh manically as I stared in awe at how well it performed...." Read more
"...I paid about $1400 including taxes. I found this to be an excellent value. I will probably update this review in a few months...." Read more
"...BUILD QUALITY/AESTHETICS - 4/5Impressive for the budget. Very thin screen bezels. Almost all metal except for the bottom panel...." Read more
Customers are satisfied with the frame rate of the laptop. For example, they mention it has very decent rendering speeds, is Exceptionally fast, and runs smoothly. Some appreciate the 144Hz refresh rate and the 1080p low delay screen. Overall, most are happy with the performance and the fast startup.
"...full RTX 2070 and i7 have handled everything I've thrown at it with no stutters (both programs and games) with great performance, all on max..." Read more
"...running Ableton on this machine also feels amazing, and my interface was running great even at very low buffer rates...." Read more
"...RTS game that has fully rendered projectile physics with barely any simulation slowdown even after 30 minutes of gameplay...." Read more
"...144 hz refresh rate is buttery smooth to the eye and more than good enough for FPS and action games...." Read more
Customers like the screen of the notebook computer. They say it looks really good, has good brightness, and has a 144Hz monitor. Some say that the graphics are top notch, and the keyboard is beautiful.
"...Looks great, definitely one of my favorite features, even if it doesn't directly affect performance...." Read more
"...everything looked great, frames were smooth as Hades and the graphics were top notch. But let's be real, that wasn't pushing it to it's limits...." Read more
"...Design: Beautiful feeling and looking keyboard. The keys feel solid...." Read more
"...The keyboard has a good layout, slighly different from standard keyboards found on work computers and my one at home...." Read more
Customers like the gaming capabilities of the laptop. They mention that it is an absolute beast for gaming, with an RTX 2070 paired with the i7-10750h. They also say that it's a great gaming rig, capable of intense gaming while doing other tasks such as music. The screen and video card are nothing short of amazing, and it scores high on rendering the game.
"...SSD is nice though for energy savings, durability, and access speed...." Read more
"...- The screen and video card are nothing short of amazing. 144mhz? Best screen I've ever used. No jaggies, no pauses, no split-screens...." Read more
"...This is probably the best Intel mobile CPU you can currently have for gaming, as the i5 series is a little weak with only 4 cores and no "K" level..." Read more
"...surrprised its actually lasted me this long and is still capable of playing newer AAA games...." Read more
Customers are satisfied with the quality of the laptop. They mention that the construction seems to be solid and firm. The CPU is robust, and the graphics card is solid. The hardware is unbeatable, and it runs all of their games with the highest settings. The laptop is very fast and reliable, and has great specs. The keys feel solid, and is in perfect condition.
"...The build is sturdy, but the materials are a fingerprint magnet. Without a doubt you'll be cleaning this computer constantly...." Read more
"...Design: Beautiful feeling and looking keyboard. The keys feel solid...." Read more
"...There isn't a thick border to the edge of the laptop, and it feels very sturdy at every point of rotation along the hinge...." Read more
"...Also being able to upgrade the RAM and HDD is a nice bonus..." Read more
Customers are satisfied with the performance of the notebook computer. They mention that it is well-made, runs well in high-ultra settings, and has zero problems when playing demanding games. The gen Intel Core and RTX 2070 work amazing for heavy games, providing nice and flowing gameplay. It is powerful enough to run all triple A titles at max settings, as well as Xbox controllers.
"...Overall, I'm very happy with this computer and has run with zero problems, both when playing demanding games and running multiple programs...." Read more
"...and Valorant on this thing so far as to test the graphics, but both run great...." Read more
"...Somehow, MSI made it work with a super powerful gaming machine that kicks ass and...." Read more
"...Raytracing? Wasn't any hesitation. And it runs flawlessly! I'm running all of my games in Ultra mode and still getting a steady 60+ FPS...." Read more
Customers are dissatisfied with the noise produced by the laptop. They mention that the fan is loud, the sound is terrible, and the speakers are not great for music. Some customers also report an internal fan failure that causes horrible rattling. Overall, some customers are disappointed with the laptop's noise level.
"...As others have said, fans can get very loud when playing demanding games (especially when using the Cooler Boost option), but with headphones you'll..." Read more
"...They don't sound cheap or anything, just sound isn't as good without some bass and it's a laptop so don't expect a surround sound experience...." Read more
"...The clicks on the 2 touchpad buttons is noticeable but not super annoying. 3 USB ports, ethernet port, mic connection, wifi card, bluetooth...." Read more
"...The fans are LOUD. When gaming, air blasts out the back and right side. Hot air blasts out the left side...." Read more
Customers are dissatisfied with the battery life of the laptop. They mention that it goes down quickly, it fluctuates often, and it constantly needs charging. Some say that the hardware is power hungry and causes a noticeable dip in performance.
"...Battery life isn't exactly great, especially when gaming without a cord. But this isn't really a problem if you just take the cable with you...." Read more
"...With battery alone, it ran it decent but with a noticeable dip in performance while maintaining the high visual quality...." Read more
"...It's normal.- Low battery life-- It feels like the words "desktop replacement" have vanished from the PC gamer vernacular...." Read more
"...If it's good for gaming, it's good for anything else.Likes: POWER. Scores high on benchmarks. Is fast and snappy in real use...." Read more
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In the meantime the full RTX 2070 and i7 have handled everything I've thrown at it with no stutters (both programs and games) with great performance, all on max settings.
The Steelseries RGB keyboard has mutiple preset / default options however you can also create new ones and customize them. Looks great, definitely one of my favorite features, even if it doesn't directly affect performance.
As others have said, fans can get very loud when playing demanding games (especially when using the Cooler Boost option), but with headphones you'll be fine. However, this is expected for gaming laptops. I haven't tested how hot it gets, but overall you might think about getting a cooling pad.
It does come with 512GB NVMe SSD, so if you keep lots of files on your computer or play games that occupy lots of storage, you'll probably need to increase space, for which fortunately there is.
The build is sturdy, but the materials are a fingerprint magnet. Without a doubt you'll be cleaning this computer constantly.
Battery life isn't exactly great, especially when gaming without a cord. But this isn't really a problem if you just take the cable with you.
Overall, I'm very happy with this computer and has run with zero problems, both when playing demanding games and running multiple programs. I'd suggest it to anyone looking for both great performance and good price.
Now for the juicy, seasoned, succulent details. Food remarks are weird for tech reviews, right? Wrong, because with the amount of power this bad boy has it'll cook anything in the way of those heat exhaust fans. Friends have told me, "there's now way that thing has a full rtx 2070 in there. It HAS to be throttled back." Wrong. The amount of heat this thing dishes out is enough to make my ever freezing, anemic girlfriend comfortably warm. That's saying a lot. Not so much as con as to be expected but just to point out the obvious, where shorts at the least or make sure there's some thick material between the Leopard and your skin. And gentlemen? Keep it away from your junk area.
Now, for the reason it's putting out so much heat, starting from the top.
Game 1: Hades.
Supergiant's colorfully bombastic and wonderfully artistic game was the perfect warm up for the Leopard. With battery alone, it ran it decent but with a noticeable dip in performance while maintaining the high visual quality. But plug in that power supply and the heavens themselves seem to reach down and fill the Leopard with holy powers, purging the evil in all who gaze upon it. It's fantastic, the screen butter smooth at 144hz and making me laugh manically as I stared in awe at how well it performed. So, completely satisfied, I moved onto putting it through it's first REAL task.
Game 2: Monster Hunter: World w/ Iceborne
Was a little worried when it first loaded up and I noticed my character was slightly blurry, but that's just from the resolution scaling (I think) than anything else. Because going back to settings, I made sure everything was on high and/or max. Loading up into the Selliana gatthering hub, everything looked great, frames were smooth as Hades and the graphics were top notch. But let's be real, that wasn't pushing it to it's limits. Not really. I did what every Hunter does in their sacred quest of slaughtering innocent hulking beasts minding their own business.
I travelled to the Ancient Forest and slayed the shit out some poor Great Jagras, all for the sake of limit testing. Everything was smooth, creatures in the distance flapped their wings without pixelating. My cloak trailed behind me casting shadows as I ran. The crisp outlines of the grass and leaves brushing against my skin or bobbing gently in the wind was when I realized that the power the Leopard has is beyond incredible. When that Jagras died on the shore, I thanked it for it's sacrifice for progress and exited my game for quiet contemplating.
Monster Hunter is a poorly optimized game. It does NOT run well on most people computers, and certainly not 60 frames per second. The Leopard roared at the shitty engine implantation and forced the game itself to bend to it's will, forcing it run better than it had any right to. But, there's one more game I wanted to test, just in time too...
Game 3: Baldur's Gate: 3
Wow. Just... wow. Character look fantastic, the moment to moment character interactions looked like cutscenes with the excellent amount of mo-cap and an extraordinary high quality voice acting. Even in Early Access, it looks fantastic and runs melted butter smooth. Except for when there's bugs and right now there's a lot of 'em, but no fault on the computer itself.
I can't say anything bad about it, other than the speakers but c'mon, that's what headphones are for! They don't sound cheap or anything, just sound isn't as good without some bass and it's a laptop so don't expect a surround sound experience. Honestly, I just giggle and appreciate the fact that the LED lit keyboard is in itself a audio visualizer. Totally unneccessary features like that just goes to show how much fun this thing is and I haven't had my inner child squeal in such excitement since the day I bought my first 4k TV 3 years ago when it was on sale.
Leopard > 4k TV
Not much else to say after all that. If you have the money and were hesitating on whether it was worth the purchase price, I'll tell you they should be charging more and I wouldn't blame them. This has the power of something that should be almost $1700 or more, but you're getting a steal so strike while you can!
Performance: I have only run Apex and Valorant on this thing so far as to test the graphics, but both run great. Apex on full graphic settings feels buttery smooth and the 144hz monitor has made moving and turning in Valorant feel amazing compared to the old 60hz I have been used to. I am excited to test this out also on RS6 Siege, Total War Three Kingdoms, Black Ops, and CSGO. And it seems to dissipate heat MUCH better than my older model gl62m aswell. I would see averages inside the 90s 95-98 sometimes on my old one. I haven't seen this go over 75-80 degrees so far whilst playing. Just did some undervolting as well to see if that keeps it even cooler!
As far as workstation performance is concerned running Ableton on this machine also feels amazing, and my interface was running great even at very low buffer rates.
Design: Beautiful feeling and looking keyboard. The keys feel solid. The lighting has different modes, though the solid color available from the Steelseries engine doesn't look as great as the different flowing gradient options. The screen is nice and bright. The size is great and it doesn't actually feel very heavy and is very easy to take with you to a different room, on the go, etc.
Overall: Love this thing. For the price I don't think you could beat it, even building your own PC with these specs would come close to the 1400$ I spent to get it all in a laptop! Love it, thanks MSI for this great deal.
Top reviews from other countries
So let’s get started with what’s new, and that’s the all-new Intel 10th-gen H-series processor, that’s still based on the 14-nanometre process and still part of Comet-Lake.
The Leopard that I have right here is rocking the Intel Core i7-10750H processor, and comparing that to the previous Core i7-9750H… there are basically just two key differences. A higher max turbo clock speed of 5.0 GHz compared to 4.5 GHz, and support for faster RAM out of the box.
That’s pretty much it. Honestly, you can even just say it’s basically a better-binned 9750H. You’ll even be able to see it in the benchmarks later on. To say it simply, it’s a refresh.
But since we’re talking about specs, let’s move on to the rest of it.
As mentioned, it has the Intel Core i7-10750H, an Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060, 16GB of RAM, and a 1TB NVMe SSD.
If you’re familiar with MSI, you’ll know that their Leopard lineup is aimed towards entry-level gaming in general, and that’s also a decision which influenced the overall design.
It’s definitely not a thin-and-light, coming in at about 2.3 kilograms, and it’s primarily made up of hard plastics. As you can tell, the laptop is chunky, and the whole design aesthetic is very gamer-ish. The lid and keyboard deck does make use of aluminium however, so it helps to make it look slightly more professional in a way. Though I’ll leave it up to you if you like that huge MSI dragon on the lid.
In essence, it does look and feel like your typical MSI gaming laptop, and if you haven’t noticed, the design hasn’t really changed since 8th-gen Intel models.
For the display, you get two options. You can choose between a 1080P 120Hz IPS or a 1080p 144Hz IPS. For my review unit, it comes with the 144hz option.
I would say it’s not the best 144hz display out there, but it’s definitely above average. You get, of course, that buttery smooth 144Hz refresh rate, which is great for not just gaming, but general use as well. It covers nearly 100% sRGB and about 65% AdobeRGB while pushing a max brightness of around 320 nits.
It’s basically great for content consumption and definitely for gaming. As for creative work, as long as you’re not doing any kind major colour correcting or grading, it’ll do you fine.
The bezels are quite thin all around, except for the chin, which is quite large, and just a little thicker at the top for the webcam.
Anyways, it’s a standard webcam, that’s enough for video calls and such, and the microphone is decent enough.
Moving down, we have a full-sized keyboard, complete with a numpad and like most MSI laptops, it’s made by Steelseries. You can choose either a single colour red-backlit keyboard or a full per-key RGB keyboard.
Overall, it’s a good enough keyboard with a good amount of key travel and tactile feedback. In fact, I felt right at home when gaming on this machine with this keyboard.
For typing, on the other hand, it wasn’t as great. But I would say that it’s mainly because I prefer a 15-inch laptop without a numpad, so the entire keyboard is centralized.
However, there are a couple of things I don’t like on this keyboard. The first is the position of the function and windows key. I understand why it’s like this, to prevent the accidental press of the windows key while gaming, but when I do want to use the Windows key, I found myself pressing onto the alt key or the function key rather frequently because of habit.
The other thing, the functions are kind of all over the place, or I guess in 3 separate zones. Yet, the ones that I’ll use the most, being volume and brightness, are located on the arrow keys. So now, instead of being able to change those settings with one hand, I have to use both.
To me, it’s just a weird layout. A good enough keyboard, but a really weird layout.
Moving down, we have the trackpad, and it’s fairly large. It runs Precisions, and it feels great, and it works, gestures and everything. It’s also one of the few trackpads where the left and right-click have dedicated buttons.
They do feel tactile and have a satisfying click. I also do find that dragging and dropping files is easier with such a design. All in all, no qualms about it.
You get two 2 watt speakers that are located on the bottom of the unit, and they sound average at best. Get a pair of headphones.
Moving to I/O, you get a healthy amount. On the left, you’ll have your RJ45 ethernet port, HDMI 1.4, Mini-Display Port, a standard USB 3.2 and a Type-C port along with dedicated headphone and mic jacks.
On the right, you have your power jack right in the middle, an SD card reader, and two more standard USB 3.2 ports right at the edge.
While I do appreciate the number of ports, I do have to question putting the USB ports right at the edge, and also, why only HDMI 1.4, and not 2.0? An oversight by MSI in my opinion.
With all that out of the way, it’s time for the performance. There are several profiles to choose from using the MSI Dragon Centre, but most of our results were done on the Custom User setting with the performance set to high and the fans to auto.
First up, as usual, is Cinebench R20.
Here, the Core i7-10750H scored a Multi-Core of 2773 and a single core of 443, which is a slight improvement from the Core i7-9750H that I previously tested with the Razer Blade 15. Granted, it’s not that fair of a test, considering the two very different thermal solutions, but in general, you get about 10% more performance with the 10th-gen chip.
But I also did run the test on the Turbo profile with the fans on CoolerBoost mode. Surprisingly, there wasn’t much difference with the results, being within the margin of error.
In both tests, the CPU hovered around the 95 degrees celsius mark, which is not great, given that the fan is actually spinning really fast and getting very loud, but it does so without dropping the boost.
Moving on, we have DaVinci Resolve.
The 1080P edit took 8 minutes and 57 seconds to render, while the 4K edit took 23 minutes and 45 seconds. Compared to the 9750H on the Razer Blade, the render times are also, within the margin of error, pretty much the same.
Now, as you might know, DaVinci does favour a powerful GPU and with the MSI Dragon Centre, you can actually activate Extreme Performance mode, and you can overclock the GPU for both the core and memory.
Naturally, I maxed it out and let it render once more.
This time, the 1080P edit took 8 minutes and 38 seconds while the 4K edit took 22 minutes and 47 seconds. So it was roughly an average of 45 seconds faster to render with the overclock.
The main difference, however, was the temperatures. With the high-performance mode and fans set to auto, the CPU temperatures hovered in the mid-80s, whereas with the turbo mode, with an overlock on the GPU and CoolerBoost active, the CPU hovers in the mid-90s instead.
In short, for creative work, I suggest just leaving the performance set to high, and the fans on auto, as you don’t really get that much of a benefit, and yet it was at the cost of immense noise. Like it’s really loud with the CoolerBoost turned on.
The NVMe drive on this machine pretty fast, with extremely good sequential read and write speeds, although 4K random is a little lacking.
We now touch on gaming, and to be frank, it’s a very capable gaming machine. Not only do you get great frame rates playing eSports or triple-A titles, but it’s also enjoyable as well, thanks to that 144Hz display.
Temperatures are not that great, but the performance is there. The CPU was pushing nearly 4GHz on all cores with temperatures around 93 degrees celsius, while the GPU was boosting up to 1830MHz with the temperatures around 82 degrees celsius.
Now you can still further tweak the profiles using the MSI Dragon Centre to find the right balance between performance and thermals, and you can also actually do your own custom fan curve, which is quite neat.
Also to mention is that due to the thickness of the laptop itself, you’ll also be able to game for long hours at a time, as despite the somewhat high temperatures, the keyboard only gets slightly warm.
It is a comfortable gaming experience on all fronts.
As for battery life, it’s pretty average for a gaming laptop, coming in at around 4 hours of actual usage in my use case.
In terms of upgradability, you get access to two RAM slots, so you can upgrade to 64GB of RAM should you so desire, a single slot for an NVMe drive, but also a 2.5-inch drive on the other side, for another SSD or HDD if you want to.
Overall, this has been a pretty enjoyable laptop to use. As mentioned at the start, I do look at laptops with a creative standpoint in mind, and this laptop was not too bad in that regard. But to be fair, this laptop was designed for gaming in mind, and in my opinion, with a little bit more tweaking to the profiles and stuff, it definitely offers a great gaming experience, especially if you’re looking for something that’s more of a desktop replacement.
Reviewed in Singapore on July 5, 2020
So let’s get started with what’s new, and that’s the all-new Intel 10th-gen H-series processor, that’s still based on the 14-nanometre process and still part of Comet-Lake.
The Leopard that I have right here is rocking the Intel Core i7-10750H processor, and comparing that to the previous Core i7-9750H… there are basically just two key differences. A higher max turbo clock speed of 5.0 GHz compared to 4.5 GHz, and support for faster RAM out of the box.
That’s pretty much it. Honestly, you can even just say it’s basically a better-binned 9750H. You’ll even be able to see it in the benchmarks later on. To say it simply, it’s a refresh.
But since we’re talking about specs, let’s move on to the rest of it.
As mentioned, it has the Intel Core i7-10750H, an Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060, 16GB of RAM, and a 1TB NVMe SSD.
If you’re familiar with MSI, you’ll know that their Leopard lineup is aimed towards entry-level gaming in general, and that’s also a decision which influenced the overall design.
It’s definitely not a thin-and-light, coming in at about 2.3 kilograms, and it’s primarily made up of hard plastics. As you can tell, the laptop is chunky, and the whole design aesthetic is very gamer-ish. The lid and keyboard deck does make use of aluminium however, so it helps to make it look slightly more professional in a way. Though I’ll leave it up to you if you like that huge MSI dragon on the lid.
In essence, it does look and feel like your typical MSI gaming laptop, and if you haven’t noticed, the design hasn’t really changed since 8th-gen Intel models.
For the display, you get two options. You can choose between a 1080P 120Hz IPS or a 1080p 144Hz IPS. For my review unit, it comes with the 144hz option.
I would say it’s not the best 144hz display out there, but it’s definitely above average. You get, of course, that buttery smooth 144Hz refresh rate, which is great for not just gaming, but general use as well. It covers nearly 100% sRGB and about 65% AdobeRGB while pushing a max brightness of around 320 nits.
It’s basically great for content consumption and definitely for gaming. As for creative work, as long as you’re not doing any kind major colour correcting or grading, it’ll do you fine.
The bezels are quite thin all around, except for the chin, which is quite large, and just a little thicker at the top for the webcam.
Anyways, it’s a standard webcam, that’s enough for video calls and such, and the microphone is decent enough.
Moving down, we have a full-sized keyboard, complete with a numpad and like most MSI laptops, it’s made by Steelseries. You can choose either a single colour red-backlit keyboard or a full per-key RGB keyboard.
Overall, it’s a good enough keyboard with a good amount of key travel and tactile feedback. In fact, I felt right at home when gaming on this machine with this keyboard.
For typing, on the other hand, it wasn’t as great. But I would say that it’s mainly because I prefer a 15-inch laptop without a numpad, so the entire keyboard is centralized.
However, there are a couple of things I don’t like on this keyboard. The first is the position of the function and windows key. I understand why it’s like this, to prevent the accidental press of the windows key while gaming, but when I do want to use the Windows key, I found myself pressing onto the alt key or the function key rather frequently because of habit.
The other thing, the functions are kind of all over the place, or I guess in 3 separate zones. Yet, the ones that I’ll use the most, being volume and brightness, are located on the arrow keys. So now, instead of being able to change those settings with one hand, I have to use both.
To me, it’s just a weird layout. A good enough keyboard, but a really weird layout.
Moving down, we have the trackpad, and it’s fairly large. It runs Precisions, and it feels great, and it works, gestures and everything. It’s also one of the few trackpads where the left and right-click have dedicated buttons.
They do feel tactile and have a satisfying click. I also do find that dragging and dropping files is easier with such a design. All in all, no qualms about it.
You get two 2 watt speakers that are located on the bottom of the unit, and they sound average at best. Get a pair of headphones.
Moving to I/O, you get a healthy amount. On the left, you’ll have your RJ45 ethernet port, HDMI 1.4, Mini-Display Port, a standard USB 3.2 and a Type-C port along with dedicated headphone and mic jacks.
On the right, you have your power jack right in the middle, an SD card reader, and two more standard USB 3.2 ports right at the edge.
While I do appreciate the number of ports, I do have to question putting the USB ports right at the edge, and also, why only HDMI 1.4, and not 2.0? An oversight by MSI in my opinion.
With all that out of the way, it’s time for the performance. There are several profiles to choose from using the MSI Dragon Centre, but most of our results were done on the Custom User setting with the performance set to high and the fans to auto.
First up, as usual, is Cinebench R20.
Here, the Core i7-10750H scored a Multi-Core of 2773 and a single core of 443, which is a slight improvement from the Core i7-9750H that I previously tested with the Razer Blade 15. Granted, it’s not that fair of a test, considering the two very different thermal solutions, but in general, you get about 10% more performance with the 10th-gen chip.
But I also did run the test on the Turbo profile with the fans on CoolerBoost mode. Surprisingly, there wasn’t much difference with the results, being within the margin of error.
In both tests, the CPU hovered around the 95 degrees celsius mark, which is not great, given that the fan is actually spinning really fast and getting very loud, but it does so without dropping the boost.
Moving on, we have DaVinci Resolve.
The 1080P edit took 8 minutes and 57 seconds to render, while the 4K edit took 23 minutes and 45 seconds. Compared to the 9750H on the Razer Blade, the render times are also, within the margin of error, pretty much the same.
Now, as you might know, DaVinci does favour a powerful GPU and with the MSI Dragon Centre, you can actually activate Extreme Performance mode, and you can overclock the GPU for both the core and memory.
Naturally, I maxed it out and let it render once more.
This time, the 1080P edit took 8 minutes and 38 seconds while the 4K edit took 22 minutes and 47 seconds. So it was roughly an average of 45 seconds faster to render with the overclock.
The main difference, however, was the temperatures. With the high-performance mode and fans set to auto, the CPU temperatures hovered in the mid-80s, whereas with the turbo mode, with an overlock on the GPU and CoolerBoost active, the CPU hovers in the mid-90s instead.
In short, for creative work, I suggest just leaving the performance set to high, and the fans on auto, as you don’t really get that much of a benefit, and yet it was at the cost of immense noise. Like it’s really loud with the CoolerBoost turned on.
The NVMe drive on this machine pretty fast, with extremely good sequential read and write speeds, although 4K random is a little lacking.
We now touch on gaming, and to be frank, it’s a very capable gaming machine. Not only do you get great frame rates playing eSports or triple-A titles, but it’s also enjoyable as well, thanks to that 144Hz display.
Temperatures are not that great, but the performance is there. The CPU was pushing nearly 4GHz on all cores with temperatures around 93 degrees celsius, while the GPU was boosting up to 1830MHz with the temperatures around 82 degrees celsius.
Now you can still further tweak the profiles using the MSI Dragon Centre to find the right balance between performance and thermals, and you can also actually do your own custom fan curve, which is quite neat.
Also to mention is that due to the thickness of the laptop itself, you’ll also be able to game for long hours at a time, as despite the somewhat high temperatures, the keyboard only gets slightly warm.
It is a comfortable gaming experience on all fronts.
As for battery life, it’s pretty average for a gaming laptop, coming in at around 4 hours of actual usage in my use case.
In terms of upgradability, you get access to two RAM slots, so you can upgrade to 64GB of RAM should you so desire, a single slot for an NVMe drive, but also a 2.5-inch drive on the other side, for another SSD or HDD if you want to.
Overall, this has been a pretty enjoyable laptop to use. As mentioned at the start, I do look at laptops with a creative standpoint in mind, and this laptop was not too bad in that regard. But to be fair, this laptop was designed for gaming in mind, and in my opinion, with a little bit more tweaking to the profiles and stuff, it definitely offers a great gaming experience, especially if you’re looking for something that’s more of a desktop replacement.