MSI GE63 Raider RGB 8SF - Is RTX 2070 an overkill?

The MSI GE63 Raider RGB 8SF is a laptop for....well...people with deep pockets? Going into this laptop sure I was excited, I mean it costs A LOT!! Rs 2,92,900 is a serious amount of money to spend on a laptop, no matter the performance. So, if you are someone who's been eying this system, well, I have some good and a few bad news for you.

MSI GE63 Raider RGB 8SF Specifications:

• Design and Build: Metal body, plastic bottom panel, 38.3 x 26 x 2.9 cm, 2.5 kg
• Display: 15.6″ Full HD (1920 x 1080), 100% sRGB & 85% Adobe RGB, 94% NTSC Color Gamut, 250 nits peak brightness with Anti-Glare
• Keyboard: Steel-Series Engine 3 Keyboard, Per-key RGB backlighting, 16 million colors, 1.6 mm key travel
• Processor: Hexa-core 8^th gen i7-8750H processor, Base-Clock @ 2.2 GHz, Turbo Boost Clock up to 4.1 GHz
• RAM: DDR4 16 GB (2x slots, upgradeable up to 32 GB)
• Graphics: 8 GB NVidia GeForce RTX 2070
• Battery: 6-cell 51 Watt-hours (up to 3 hours of backup)
• Adapter: 230 Watts
• Storage: 256 GB SATA M.2 SSD (2 x NVMe slots) + 1 TB 7200 HDD
• Webcam: 720p Webcam (@30fps)
• Connectivity: Killer Gb LAN, 802.11 ac Wi-Fi, Bluetooth v4.0
• Ports: 3 x USB A 3.1, 1 x USB-C (No Thunderbolt 3 support), 1 x 3.5 mm headphone jack, 1 x 3.5mm microphone input, 1 x HDMI, 1 x Mini-display, 1 x RJ-45 Ethernet, 1 x SDcard slot
• Price: Rs. 292,900

Design and Build

If there is one thing that disappointed me was the design. I don’t mean it’s bad in any way, it’s just dated at this point. Practical? Yes, Played out? A big yes. The design language has its own moments, a few curves here, a few RGB there, but it’s come to a point of boredom. Apart from my personal preference, the back panel has two strips of RGB going through which are highly customizable. The Keyboard is RGB, and the USB As light up red. This laptop is sturdy from almost any angle. The only dissatisfaction was the hinge, which just feels flimsy and so easily breakable. Although I have seen the same hinge on numerous other laptops across my friend circle and theirs have been working fine for over 2 years now. So if you are doubtful about the hinge, I wouldn’t worry much.

Display

The display is pretty nice, sure, aesthetics wise, bezels could have been smaller, but as far as the actual panel is concerned, the resolution, refresh rate, and color accuracy are up there with some of the best. For starters, it’s not IPS, maybe it’s a really good TN technology, MSI does state it’s of “IPS level”. With near 100% sRGB color coverage and great viewing angles, you aren't compromising much (if at all). Since it’s not an IPS panel, you aren't bound by slow response rates. The specs sheet claims 3ms, which we assume is GTG, and that's pretty much the best for a portable PC. And thanks to that powerful GPU, the 144Hz refresh rate will be utilized to it’s fullest extent. For gamers, this is just the perfect laptop display, and anything more will see you pay a lot (and we mean an unreasonable amount). It’s also not bad for other tasks here, photo and video editing, media consumption or even just scrolling through your news feed is much more fun on this one. Brightness is also above average at around 250 nits.

Performance

An RTX 2070 and a Core i7-8750H, that's enough firepower to run any triple-A title out there, but with a 144hz display, any game that runs under the said max refresh rate feels like a waste of display power, but we will get into that later. I ran a couple of games on this one, take a look at the FPS numbers:

1. Battlefield V: 75-90 (Ultra settings); 50-55 (RTX enabled)
2. Fortnite: 100-120 (Epic settings)
3. CS:GO: Above 144 (Ultra settings)
4. PUBG: 100-130 (Ultra settings)
5. Fifa 19: Above 144 (Ultra settings)
6. Apex Legends: 100-120 (Ultra settings)

So, to compare, these are amazing numbers, some of the best I’ve ever experienced actually. Of course, the equation does not take into consideration the RTX 2080 mobile (which I haven't tested yet) or any desktop grade GPU (which would be an unfair comparison). As far as the 144Hz is concerned, you will be using it to the fullest.

Thermals

No matter how great the numbers are, if the laptop heats up, those are pretty useless. According to HW monitor, the internal temperatures rose up to about 90 degrees for the CPU and 85 degrees for the GPU, and that's after an hour of gaming. As far as my external heat gun was concerned, it failed to cross the 50-degree mark across the keyboard, top deck or the palm rest. Plus I would like to add that there was no significant drop in FPS, or at least I didn't notice any.

Keyboard and Trackpad

The Steel Series keyboard gets a big yes from my side. Call me biased but this could be one of the best keyboards on a laptop, it's fun to type, easy to game, the key travel is nice and long and the feedback isn't mushy nor is it harsh. Taking the game a step further are those individually lit RGB keys. What wasn't a fun experience was that trackpad. It's average at best, and that's just not acceptable for a laptop at this price point. The physical buttons are great, they are tactile and functional. But the actual tracking was just a disaster. First off, it is far from accurate, it skips every now and then and if you want precision, well good luck.

Battery and Storage

The battery life is below average, let's just leave it at that. It's a tiny 51Wh unit, and the laptop runs for around 3 hours of normal usage. As for storage, you get a really really fast NVMe SSD, with reading speeds of over 3500MBPS. The SSD is a 256GB unit while you also get a 1TB 7200RPM mechanical hard drive for faster storage.

Connectivity

As for connectivity, you get everything from USB As with red backlighting to individual audio jacks for headphones and microphones. You also get a USB-C port, a microSD card slot, a mini HDMI, full-sized HDMI, and an ethernet port. Then there is the Killer 1550i AC wifi for superb wireless connectivity, and a pretty nice sounding speaker system. MSI laptops have always had excellent connectivity options, and this one is no exception.

Conclusion

While all this is great, I feel that going for the RTX 2070 isn't a must. Sure, it's better than a GTX1070, but at a premium of over 50k, I don't think the added fps is worth it. The advantages of an RTX card are pretty much nonexistent here and since you will be playing at FHD resolutions, this GPU is hard to recommend unless your budget for a new gaming laptop actually hovers around 3 lakhs. My only complains were the trackpad, battery life, and the dated design, which most people should be fine with. Apart from that, it gets an excellent display, great, connectivity options, spectacular performance + thermals and a lovely set flow of RGB lights.

Pros

• Display
• Performance
• Thermals
• RGB Lights
• Connectivity
• Build Quality

Cons

• Battery Life
• Trackpad