MSI GS76 Stealth review: big-screen gaming for a better price

theverge.com:

If you like the look of MSI’s powerhouse, RGB-packed GE76 Raider, but the price tag and the massive chassis are too much for you to stomach, the GS76 Stealth may be more your speed. This laptop is the GE76 junior, in specs, weight, and also price.

The GS76 is not the most powerful gaming laptop you’ll ever find, nor is it the quietest or most efficient. But it still brings a number of great features — including a superb QHD, 240Hz screen and a fun RGB keyboard — in addition to a powerful RTX 3070 GPU that can handle whatever games you need. While not the best 17-incher on the market, it’s worth considering if you’re looking for a big-screen gaming laptop and should serve plenty of people well, especially if you can find it at a discount.

Among 17-inch gaming laptops, this product is in an attractive spot price-wise. The configuration I have, with a Core i9, 1TB of storage, and 32GB of RAM, is currently going for $2,199 at Best Buy. The most comparable GE76 Raider model I can find is about $1,000 more — it has an RTX 3080 GPU and a higher refresh rate, but a lower screen resolution, which I don’t think is a great trade outside of fairly specific use cases. An Alienware X17 with similar specs (also with a lower-resolution screen, and with a Core i7 instead of an i9) is several hundred bucks more expensive than the GS76.

So, the frame rates. At the GS76’s native QHD resolution, Red Dead Redemption 2 ran at 55 frames per second on its maximum preset. Bumped down to 1080p (just for comparison’s sake — there’s no reason you’d actually need to do this), that frame rate rose to 70 frames per second. The benchmark looked fine in both cases, with no visible stuttering.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider registered 51 frames per second