MSI GS66: All black razor with Core i9 and RTX 2080 Super

Memory and storage tests

GS series includes a stylish and compact family of high-performance MSI laptops and the GS66 Stealth is its latest addition. I’ve always had a weakness for thin but powerful devices and that’s exactly what GS meets. However, with the high performance of Core i9 and RTX 2080 Super, the question arises as to how thermal management is handled. In less than 2 cm thin and about 2.1 kg body, it is really a challenge to deal with such powerful components.

Basic specs

Details

The traditional MSI dual-use cardboard package hides a minimalist matte box with the MSI logo, where you will find only the laptop and documentation.

The charger is located in the second compartment of the main carton.

The GS66 Stealth belongs to the GS family of devices, which are primarily focused on high portability and compact dimensions. An example from the mentioned series is the GS75 Stealth tested last year. Despite their compactness, these laptops offer the highest possible component equipment available on the market. The tested piece therefore has the highest 8-core Core i9-10980HK with a clock speed of up to 5.3 GHz, similar to the ROG Zephyrus Duo 15. Gaming performance is ensured by the refreshed RTX 2080 Super Max-Q in 80 W version with 1080 MHz boost. There is 32 GB 3200 MHz RAM and 1 TB SSD. You can also reach for units with Core i7 and RTX 2070 Super Max-Q, RTX 2070 or possibly RTX 2060.

This year, MSI decided to design the GS6 series with a very discreet and inconspicuous design for a gaming laptop. The whole laptop is black, without any additional colors. It’s usually red, or in the case of MSI, we’ve already seen gold accents. However, the GS66 is “black on black”. This can be an advantage if you need to carry your laptop for business meetings. You will definitely not have to be ashamed of this piece there. I also experienced situations where the presenter pulled out Alienware or a similar gaming savvy piece at the meeting, and among all those ThinkPads and MacBooks, it looked at least entertaining. The GS66 is therefore also intended for representational use.

The back is therefore also in a decent black design, only with a slightly glossy black MSI logo, which does not disrupt. Perhaps the only two negatives that such a color decision brings are: 1. prints, 2. scratches. As you can see in the photos, avoiding fingerprints is quite difficult, even after thorough cleaning. The second concern with any colored metal is that it’s prone to scratches and bumps. From a practical point of view, I personally always choose silver versions, if available, because even with such unwanted signs of wear, it is not visible on the natural silver base.

The GS66’s port selection is really great. On the left side there is a power connector, Thunderbolt 3 port with video output and at the same time with the possibility of charging, HDMI 2.0b and 10 Gb USB-A. On the other side is an audio connector, another three 10 Gbps USBs, of which one is a type C and there is also an Ethernet port for wired internet connection. The only complaint is the absence of an SD card reader, which we saw recently in OMEN 15.

At the back you can see only the massive holes of the cooling system, but no control elements or branding.

Although there is no obvious notch on the front to make it easier to open the display lid, you can easily open it with one hand. The upper edge of the chassis is slightly chamfered, which makes it easier to feel the lid.

The view from above shows the black lid again, but the lower part is more interesting, where we see a massively perforated part for cooling. I commend the use of Phillips screws, which ease access to components.

After removing the bottom cover, you get to the components. Compared to the GS75, one fundamental change can be seen. The motherboard is no longer covered with insulating foil and, more importantly, is no longer inverted, as was usual with MSI. I’ll explain what that means.

The tested configuration offers the highest possible GS66 Stealth configuration and thus the Intel Core i9-10980HK processor with 8 cores and a clock speed of up to 5.3 GHz for 1 core or 4.4 GHz for all-core turbo. It’s nice to see 32 GB of 3200 MHz RAM in SO-DIMM format. There is also a pair of slots for PCIe NVMe M.2 SSD, one of which is occupied by 1 TB SSD. You can use the second slot to expand the internal storage. The graphics performance is taken care of by the latest mobile RTX 2080 Super Max-Q in 80 W design with a base clock speed of 735 MHz and Boost to 1080 MHz. It is therefore not the same design as the Zephyrus Duo 15 with 90 W and Boost 1330 MHz. So it can be expected that Asus will have an advantage in the tests, but only in practice will we see how big.

I mentioned that MSI in this novelty abandoned the traditional inverted layout. This meant that the motherboard used to be turned “upside down” and the SO-DIMM slots were directly below the keyboard. If you wanted to increase the RAM capacity, it meant a lengthy, complicated and for the inexperienced user a relatively risky intervention with the device. You had to disassemble practically the whole laptop and take out the motherboard. Fortunately, the GS66 already has a traditional layout and all replaceable components are easily available.

You can replace RAM and install a maximum of 64 GB, or add a second M.2 SSD and increase the capacity. The WiFi card is also replaceable, but it already supports the latest WiFi 6 802.11ax standard, so it will not need to be replaced in the near future.

Cooling, which is really fascinating, definitely deserves attention. The three fans, which the manufacturer refers to as Cooler Boost Trinity+, have only 0.1 mm thin blades. They dissipate heat in practically all directions with the help of 7 heatpipes, as we saw when viewed from behind and both sides. I must note that at the maximum cooling mode, you can really feel the amount of air that the fans are pushing through the heatsinks. The whole cooling system is really respectable and MSI definitely took good care of it.

Opening the lid is possible up to a straight angle, i.e. to the full plane with the base, which is my favorite feature, which is not quite common with gaming notebooks.

The keyboard has a very good response and also individual backlighting of all keys with a number of RGB effects. There is also a large number of multimedia keys. However, you will have to get used to the less traditional layout, which I struggled with a bit. The left Control is as long as Shift, you will find Function only on the right, where it is half the width again. Controlling Fn shortcuts is thus a bit complicated. Also, the traditional volume and brightness controls are not on the function keys at the top, but on the arrows at the bottom right. The right edge is occupied by the Home, PgUp, and PgDn keys, which made me often mistaken since I used to have Enter at the very edge. In addition, it is one-line and, as you know, I prefer two-line. To sum it up, you will have to get used to the layout, which I didn’t quite succeed in a short time. However, when you use your laptop on a daily basis, it should only be a matter of a few days.

I was very interested in the touchpad. Its dimensions are definitely above average, although the width dominates and height is not that spacey. It is more of a long “noodle”. What fascinated me is not the glass surface, which must be a matter of course at this price, but the response to press. It’s not the classic blunt touchpad as usual, but the delicacy of the click is significantly better than usual. Still feel that the buttons are as if on a hinge located at the top edge, i.e. it’s almost impossible to be pressed at the top and it’s easy at the bottom, but distributing the force to say 4/5 the height of the touchpad is very nice. Of course, it’s not the level of MacBook I’m used to, but it’s definitely one of the best, if not the best touchpad in a gaming laptop I’ve come across.

I won’t spare praises even with the camera, which offers a lousy 720p resolution and inadequate quality like practically all laptops on the market, but it hides one hidden feature that you might not even notice. This is the support of the IR camera and thus the face recognition using Windows Hello! Finally, someone did what I’ve been saying for a long time. Biometric security also on gaming laptops. I don’t know why manufacturers are so reluctant to fingerprint readers, which we can already find in mainstream laptops under 1000 euros, but high-end gaming devices completely forget this area. Although there is no fingerprint reader, its functionality is fully taken over by the IR camera, which in my view is an even better and more convenient solution than the fingerprint reader. This is especially true if your laptop is docked like mine. You don’t have to reach for the reader, as the camera recognizes your face from a greater distance. I’m really giving a thumbs up for this.

I praise the speakers only a little, I like their user-facing location and the associated volume. However, the sound is no longer out of the ordinary, it lacks a bit of bass, which is to be expected without a subwoofer.

Another surprise is hidden inside the GS66. It is a huge 99.9 Wh battery, which is the maximum device battery level that you can board a plane with. The notebook comes with a 230 W charger, which is connected to the left side via a circular connector. However, charging is relatively slow. After an hour only 45% and a full charge takes 3 hours. A bonus is the possibility to charge via USB-C Thunderbolt 3 port. However, you will need at least a 65 W charger and you cannot count on full power as with a classic adapter.

Although the battery is the largest you can get in a laptop, the battery life is not surprising. The reason is the extremely powerful and therefore energy-intensive components, which include not only the CPU and GPU, but also a 300 Hz display. In our demanding test on YouTube, we measured 3 hours and 43 minutes, which is not a bad value, but maybe you could expect more with almost 100 Wh battery. For comparison, the OMEN 15 offered only 10 minutes longer life, but it contains a 30 Wh smaller battery. However, you will definitely not buy the GS66 because of its battery life, other devices are designed for that, not ultra-powerful gaming machines.

GS series includes a stylish and compact family of high-performance MSI laptops and the GS66 Stealth is its latest addition. I’ve always had a weakness for thin but powerful devices and that’s exactly what GS meets. However, with the high performance of Core i9 and RTX 2080 Super, the question arises as to how thermal management is handled. In less than 2 cm thin and about 2.1 kg body, it is really a challenge to deal with such powerful components.

Testing methodology

We tested the laptop at home, not in a laboratory environment. Nevertheless, the effort was made for the most accurate results. These are therefore the average of the measured values from repeated tests.

The tests include synthetic benchmarks to compare the performance of both the processor and the graphics card. We also measure storage speed, battery life, charging speed and in-game performance. The goal is to test laptops and desktops in various scenarios and get a comprehensive overview of their performance and operating characteristics.

GS series includes a stylish and compact family of high-performance MSI laptops and the GS66 Stealth is its latest addition. I’ve always had a weakness for thin but powerful devices and that’s exactly what GS meets. However, with the high performance of Core i9 and RTX 2080 Super, the question arises as to how thermal management is handled. In less than 2 cm thin and about 2.1 kg body, it is really a challenge to deal with such powerful components.

Gamut, brightness and color difference

We measured the image qualities of the display using the Datacolor Spyder5Elite color analyzer. The display is one of the key features of gaming laptops for a full-featured travel experience. The recently tested pair of Asus laptops chose a graphical rather than a gaming approach, just a 60 Hz 4K display with ultra-accurate colors is not the first thing that comes to mind when you say a gaming display after all. MSI did not make this “mistake” and fitted the tested piece with a real gaming panel as it belongs to a gaming laptop. It’s a 15.6″ IPS display with Full HD resolution in 16:9 aspect ratio (1920 × 1080 px) and incredible 300 Hz. It’s the fastest panel I’ve ever seen live, and I’ve just recently been enjoying 240 Hz monitors. However, the display doesn’t offer G-Sync, which is a bit of a shame, other configurations offer either a 240 Hz display with the same resolution or a similar Asus 60 Hz 4K display, but for me the best choice is the 300 Hz piece just tested.

The manufacturer does not specify any parameters for the display on the website, except for the refresh rate. They only mention the thin 4.9 mm edges on the sides and the 84% display to body ratio, which is spoiled mainly by the lower bezel. I am happy to forgive the slightly thicker upper edge of the notebook due to the presence of IR camera.

Although the manufacturer does not specify any parameters in the specifications, the display definitely has nothing to be ashamed of. 100% sRGB coverage, 81% AdobeRGB, 83% DCI-P3 and 77% NTSC are really respectable values for a gaming 300 Hz panel. Sure, it’s not 100% AdobeRGB as the Asus pieces had on 4K panels, but those didn’t have the same refresh rate as this one from MSI, and I think that’s more important in gaming. Gamma exactly copies the value of 2.2. The uniformity of colors and brightness is relatively good, although we see a slight color difference in the upper right corner. Delta-E is also very good with an average of 1.06, although we see a relatively large difference in turquoise. Perhaps the only disadvantage is the lower brightness, which reached a maximum of 260 nits at a maximum, which is not enough in the competition of 400–500 nit displays. However, this will limit you more or less only when used outdoors.

The MSI True Color application is used for display controls, where you can switch between several modes or adjust the color parameters accordingly. There are also options for calibration, crosshair display or division of the screen into partitions.

GS series includes a stylish and compact family of high-performance MSI laptops and the GS66 Stealth is its latest addition. I’ve always had a weakness for thin but powerful devices and that’s exactly what GS meets. However, with the high performance of Core i9 and RTX 2080 Super, the question arises as to how thermal management is handled. In less than 2 cm thin and about 2.1 kg body, it is really a challenge to deal with such powerful components.

Rendering, Geekbench

The tested GS66 configuration is equipped with an 8-core i9-10980HK, similar to the Zephyrus Duo 15. It is the fastest mobile chip from Intel with a maximum clock speed of 5.3 GHz for one core and 4.4 GHz for all-core Turbo. Like the competing Asus, MSI offers 32 GB of 3200 MHz RAM. So it will be interesting to see what the differences in performance will be between the slim GS66 and the robust Duo 15 with special AAS cooling.

Let’s start with traditional Cinebench R15 for a first look at the processor’s raw performance. Compared to the single core performance of MSI and ASUS, we see a slight 2% lead of GS66. Also interesting is the comparison with the Zephyrus M15 in a similarly thin body or last year’s GS75 model, but both of these models have only a Core i7. Clearly, the GS66 offers higher performance by 9 and 14%. In the multi-core test, the AAS cooling probably already shows up, as the Duo 15 achieved a 6% higher score. The difference compared to the i7 models is of course large, the M15 loses by 28% and the GS75 up to 33%, which is expected due to the difference in the number of cores/threads.

The newer R20 already shows an even smaller 1% lead of the GS66 over the Duo 15 in single-core, but an increase in multicore difference to 9% in favor of Asus.

Practical Cinebench and POV-Ray tests will be affected by the capabilities of the cooling system, so it can be expected that Duo 15 will have an advantage over GS66 in this area. The measured values are practically identical to the CB R20 multi-core test and thus GS66 is 9% slower than Duo 15. However, it is still faster than M15 or GS75 by 26 and 43/35%.

The single-core results in Geekbench 3–5 are similar to Cinebench and thus a 3/4/2% lead over Duo 15 and a 12/13/11% over M15. Multi-core is -5/2/1% compared to Duo 15 and 35/33/31% to M15. It follows that the GS66 has a slightly higher single-core performance than competing models, but multi-core is highly dependent on the length of the test. With short loads, it is equal or even slightly beats the Duo 15, but as soon as the test is longer, Asus has the upper hand, by up to 9%. Compared to the model with Core i7, we see a stable 10% higher single-core and 30+% higher multi-core.

Compute graphics test shows slightly strange results. In GB4, the performance difference is minimal, only at the level of 1%. In GB5, however, the GS66 loses 13% to the Duo 15 and is only 3% faster than the M15. This is not an ideal result due to the use of the same graphics and higher model as in the M15. We will see if this trend will continue in graphics and gaming tests.

GS series includes a stylish and compact family of high-performance MSI laptops and the GS66 Stealth is its latest addition. I’ve always had a weakness for thin but powerful devices and that’s exactly what GS meets. However, with the high performance of Core i9 and RTX 2080 Super, the question arises as to how thermal management is handled. In less than 2 cm thin and about 2.1 kg body, it is really a challenge to deal with such powerful components.

3D/PC Mark a Unigine Heaven/Superposition

The combined PCMark 10 test shows a slightly lower performance of the GS66 by 5% compared to the Duo 15 and surprisingly also to the GS75 by 6%. However, the M15 is 12% slower.

Gaming-oriented 3DMark Firestrike and Time Spy show lower GS66 performance compared to Duo 15 and even M15. The Duo is 12/16% faster, M15 2/4% faster. On the contrary, the Sky diver is fully lead by the GS66 with a 38% lead over the Duo 15 and 78% over the M15. However, this test shows really special results on Asus devices, so it should be taken with a grain of salt. In contrast, Firestrike and Time Spy are beginning to confirm unflattering results from Geekbench Compute tests.

Tests focused on RTX and DLSS again show measurable differences between the GS66 and the competition. In Port Royal, MSI is 8% slower than M15 and 20% slower than Duo 15. In the DLSS test, the differences are 19/22 with M15 and 24/25% with Duo 15 for DLSS off/on. Thus, the undesirable trend we have seen in previous tests is confirmed again.

Unigine Heaven gaming tests again show higher performance of the competition compared to GS66. In Full HD it is 15% in favor of M15 and 24% for Duo 15. At 2K the difference between Duo 15 and GS66 is only 5%, on the contrary M15 increased the lead to 23%.

The latest graphic tests of Unigine Superposition do not change the situation. GS66 in Full HD loses 9% on M15 and 20% on Duo 15, in 4K the differences are even higher, 11 and 23%.

GS series includes a stylish and compact family of high-performance MSI laptops and the GS66 Stealth is its latest addition. I’ve always had a weakness for thin but powerful devices and that’s exactly what GS meets. However, with the high performance of Core i9 and RTX 2080 Super, the question arises as to how thermal management is handled. In less than 2 cm thin and about 2.1 kg body, it is really a challenge to deal with such powerful components.

Gaming tests – dedicated graphics

In the gaming tests, there is again an interesting difference between the GS66 and the Duo 15, which are both equipped with the RTX 2080 Super Max-Q and also the M15. Although it has a weaker RTX 2070 Super Max-Q, its external dimensions and slim body are more similar to the GS66, while the Duo 15 has an obvious advantage due to its larger dimensions and AAS cooling.

In GTA we see a huge difference between the GS66 and the two Asus models. MSI loses by 36 and 52% to M15 and Duo 15, which in practice means 30–45 fps on average.

We see a surprising result in Far Cry. The situation has flipped here and the GS66 is 6% faster than the M15 and 10% than the Duo 15. In practice, however, it is a difference of 6 and 10 fps, which is less than in GTA.

Odyssey shows very tight results in the range of only 4 average fps, where all three laptops fit. The Duo 15 has a slight advantage of 5%, GS66 and M15 give practically the same result.

SOTTR is very balanced in the case of Duo 15 and GS66, with a difference of only 2% for Asus. On the contrary, the M15 did not pass this test and the GS66 is 42% faster.

In Metro, we return to most of the graphic results, so the GS66 loses 9% to M15 and 18% to Duo 15.

When RTX was on, the difference in Metro was reduced to 4% compared to M15 and to 15% for Duo 15.

GS series includes a stylish and compact family of high-performance MSI laptops and the GS66 Stealth is its latest addition. I’ve always had a weakness for thin but powerful devices and that’s exactly what GS meets. However, with the high performance of Core i9 and RTX 2080 Super, the question arises as to how thermal management is handled. In less than 2 cm thin and about 2.1 kg body, it is really a challenge to deal with such powerful components.

Encryption, encoding

In encryption, the GS66 loses only 4% on Duo 15, and this difference has been reduced to only 1% in decryption. But it is surprising how this test suits the M15, which beats both higher models – GS66 and Duo 15.

Working with videos shows small differences between the Duo 15 and the GS66, which is again most likely due to cooling. In both cases the difference is 6%, in practice 3 and 6 seconds. Compared to the M15, MSI is 30/32% faster.

GS series includes a stylish and compact family of high-performance MSI laptops and the GS66 Stealth is its latest addition. I’ve always had a weakness for thin but powerful devices and that’s exactly what GS meets. However, with the high performance of Core i9 and RTX 2080 Super, the question arises as to how thermal management is handled. In less than 2 cm thin and about 2.1 kg body, it is really a challenge to deal with such powerful components.

Memory and storage tests

The GS66 offers slightly higher speed than the Duo 15 by 3/6/9% at the same memory frequency and also more or less the same latency.

The SSD speed is very good, almost 3.5 GB/s read and 2.4 GB write. In the case of the Duo 15, we achieve slightly higher speeds, especially when writing, which is a consequence of the RAID 0 configuration on this model. However, MSI uses only one M.2 disk and the second slot is free for either storage expansion or RAID configuration if speed is your priority.

GS series includes a stylish and compact family of high-performance MSI laptops and the GS66 Stealth is its latest addition. I’ve always had a weakness for thin but powerful devices and that’s exactly what GS meets. However, with the high performance of Core i9 and RTX 2080 Super, the question arises as to how thermal management is handled. In less than 2 cm thin and about 2.1 kg body, it is really a challenge to deal with such powerful components.

Heating and battery life

Maximum temperatures are relatively high, especially 101 degrees for the CPU, but even 80 degrees Celsius on the GPU is not the lowest. Again, however, these are maximum values, which are mostly the result of a rapid increase in performance and then fall slightly. We will look at a more detailed analysis when comparing the modes and extended tests of Blender. It will interest us mainly due to the results of rendering tests but also graphics and gaming benchmarks.

Battery life is the same as the older GS75 Stealth model. This is a few minutes less than the recently tested OMEN 15. Compared to the Duo 15, it is 20–30 minutes better, on the contrary, the M15 can last an hour longer.

GS series includes a stylish and compact family of high-performance MSI laptops and the GS66 Stealth is its latest addition. I’ve always had a weakness for thin but powerful devices and that’s exactly what GS meets. However, with the high performance of Core i9 and RTX 2080 Super, the question arises as to how thermal management is handled. In less than 2 cm thin and about 2.1 kg body, it is really a challenge to deal with such powerful components.

Blender – comparison of CPU and GPU

We are introducing a new type of test in which we want to show you the differences between CPU and GPU rendering and at the same time take a closer look at thermal management, clock speed and power draw in practice and not just the maximum or average values as in the previous pages.

So we compare the course of the BMW test in the latest version of Blender, where in addition to the classic CPU and GPU render using CUDA, we also have the opportunity to use the new Nvidia OptiX, which uses new hardware resources of RTX graphics cards. While CUDA works with shaders, OptiX also uses RT cores and tensor cores to accelerate. Such a more complex involvement of computing units brings higher performance and efficiency is at a better level. At the same time, the application support is already quite decent and comprehensive. For an overview of the editors supported by the Optix API, see the Nvidia website. Nvidia is serious about this interface and has been developing “studio” drivers in addition to gaming drivers for some time now, which are better and faster optimized for changes in supported applications.

In the first graph, you’re looking at the evolution of processor clock speed during rendering. The classic CPU mode starts somewhere around 4400 MHz and decreases towards 3600 MHz, and then we see a drop to 3.3 GHz. Cuda has a similar curve until 3.6 GHz, but it ends sooner, so the clock speed then climbs back. With OptiX no drops are visible, we are still around 4.4 GHz.

Power draw of the CPU Package shows that the CPU and CUDA modes make full use of the processor and it thus consumes up to 100 W at maximum. With the CPU, we see a decrease to 65–70 W, which was also reflected in the clock speed, as we saw above. In OptiX mode, the consumption is not so high, it moves around 30–35 W.

Processor temperatures copy the consumption graph, and in the first part, the CPU and CUDA modes rise rapidly to about 95 degrees. After a decrease in clock speed and consumption in the CPU mode, the temperature also decreases only slightly by 5 degrees to 90 °C. OptiX again shows a significantly better result with temperatures around 70 to a maximum of 80 degrees Celsius.

The load of the GPU in the CPU mode is practically minimal, on the contrary in CUDA and OptiX you can see the full load.

The clock speeds also correspond to the load, where it is interesting that at OptiX they stay at 1900 MHz, while in Cuda you can see lower clock speed around 1.7 GHz. Of course, CPU mode is at a minimum, as it is not used.

Power consumption of the GPU copies the load and clock speed graphs, but with one difference. Both CUDA and OptiX are equally around 80 W. In CPU mode, power consumption is practically zero.

Finally, a look at GPU temperatures. A straight line without large fluctuations of 50 degrees is visible with the CPU. A large part of the chip works in CUDA and therefore the temperature rises above 65 degrees. In contrast, with OptiX, the curve stops just above 55 °C and the temperature curve itself is less steep. This is logical, as a smaller part of the chip is used, which does not create such a load.

The differences between the modes in Blender are considerable. The fastest is OptiX as expected with a value of 43 seconds. For comparison, both Asus had 42 and HP 47 seconds. CUDA is 51% slower with a time of 65 seconds. The Asus models took 60 and 61 seconds, so the MSI lags slightly behind. HP with a six-core took 72 seconds. CPU render is, of course, the slowest with 251 seconds. Here, too, there are differences compared to the competition. Duo 15 had 214 s, M15 285 s and HP up to 367 s. MSI with an eight-core is therefore faster than the six-cores, although it is not as fast as the Duo 15.

GS series includes a stylish and compact family of high-performance MSI laptops and the GS66 Stealth is its latest addition. I’ve always had a weakness for thin but powerful devices and that’s exactly what GS meets. However, with the high performance of Core i9 and RTX 2080 Super, the question arises as to how thermal management is handled. In less than 2 cm thin and about 2.1 kg body, it is really a challenge to deal with such powerful components.

Performance modes

The laptop offers a choice of Extreme Performance, Balanced and Silent modes in the MSI Dragon Center.

All the tests were performed in Extreme Performance mode, but it’s worth looking at what differences the individual modes offer. Therefore, we compare the performance curves of the combined load using 3DMark in the Fire Strike benchmark.

The processor clock speed shows a relatively stable curve in Extreme Performance mode, which moves around 4.3 GHz with milder drops. Balanced and Silent are no longer so stable and fluctuations between 4.0–4.3 GHz are common. However, the drops at the end of the test are much more dramatic than in the EP. Silent drops to 2.7 GHz and Balanced to 3.3 GHz. The names of the modes thus correspond to the course of performance.

Power consumption also shows the difference between the individual modes. Silent moves around 30 W, Balance has 45 W, but in the half of the test it drops and calls Silent. On the contrary, Extreme performance still holds about 45 W throughout the entire course. At the end of the test we see a big jump in consumption. In Silent it goes to 45 W, Balanced 50 W and EP up to 70 W.

Silent has lower temperatures due to lower clock speed, but during the test the temperature gradually rises until it almost matches the other modes. The EP remains at 90 degrees, while in Balanced the temperature dropped during the test.

How’s the graphics card? No differences in the load as with Blender, so the GPU always works at full speed.

Only a minimal difference can be seen in clock speed, Silent has a tad lower clock. Balanced and EP are almost identical.

Power consumption corresponds to the clock speed and therefore the differences are not visible here either.

But where the differences can be seen are temperatures. Silent grows faster and higher than the other two modes. Temperatures in this mode exceed 80 degrees, while with Balanced and EP they stop at about 70 degrees Celsius.

Differences between modes are also noted in the overall test results. There is a 6% difference between Balanced and Extreme Performance and an 8% difference between Silent and Balanced. Compared to the competition from Asus, these are smaller differences, but the results are clearly distinguishable, not as with OMEN 15, where the modes did not deliver expected results.

GS series includes a stylish and compact family of high-performance MSI laptops and the GS66 Stealth is its latest addition. I’ve always had a weakness for thin but powerful devices and that’s exactly what GS meets. However, with the high performance of Core i9 and RTX 2080 Super, the question arises as to how thermal management is handled. In less than 2 cm thin and about 2.1 kg body, it is really a challenge to deal with such powerful components.

MSI Dragon Center

The already known MSI Dragon Center application is used for controls.

Here you can manage your game library, activate performance profiles or overclock the GPU. There are also backlight and display settings.

The application is also used to update drivers and there is also the option to connect the application with a smartphone. It is interesting to limit the charging of the battery to prolong its life.

In addition to the ability to switch between performance modes, you can monitor the status of the processor and GPU, or clear the storage and RAM.

The application is also used to update the switching between hybrid and dedicated graphics mode.

perex
GS series includes a stylish and compact family of high-performance MSI laptops and the GS66 Stealth is its latest addition. I’ve always had a weakness for thin but powerful devices and that’s exactly what GS meets. However, with the high performance of Core i9 and RTX 2080 Super, the question arises as to how thermal management is handled. In less than 2 cm thin and about 2.1 kg body, it is really a challenge to deal with such powerful components.

Rating

MSI GS66 Stealth 10SGS-256CZ is a compact but powerful notebook that hides more than it may seem given the ordinary exterior. However, the inconspicuous design somehow belongs to the Stealth name, although previous models from this series did not indicate it much. GS66 with a “black on black” color theme will be a good partner for work and not only for LAN parties. I was very pleased with the IR camera, as biometric security is the exception rather than the rule on gaming laptops. Connectivity is also great and I can also praise the 300 Hz display. I also have good impressions from the touchpad and although I didn’t quite like the keyboard layout, I have nothing else to blame it for.

The main question, however, is whether MSI managed to tame the most powerful components in such a thin body. The answer is not entirely clear, as the competition offers the same configuration, but the at least the graphics in the GS66 is a lower 80 W version with lower clock speed, which was automatically reflected in poorer results in gaming tests. The processor was even a bit faster than the competition in short tests, but in longer tests it was also limited by cooling and the scores were lower. We have seen in the flow charts that although the CPU can rise to values ​​around 100 degrees Celsius, especially in the Extreme Performance mode, the performance is stable and does not decrease. The GPU had surprisingly good temperatures in Firestrike, better than we saw with the opponents. Still, I think the GS66 will be more sensible in a different configuration, as the i9 and 2080S do not have enough space in this thin body to show their full performance. I would therefore recommend reaching for the i7 and 2070(S) versions, which will not be so limited. However, if you really want the best, the GS66 surprisingly also offers a relatively bearable price tag of around 3,600 euros, which is about 1,000 euros less than the Zephyrus Duo 15, which is, however, unique with two displays. The 1000 euro difference is really enough and for a few percent of the performance and the second display may not make sense at all. Of course, it depends on the preferences of each of you.

You can buy this laptop at our partner’s website czc.cz for 97,990 Czk/3,600 Eur

• Contents
• Specs and details
• Testing methodology
• Display tests
• Rendering and Geekbench
• 3D/PCMark and Unigine Heaven/Superposition
• Gaming tests – dedicated graphics
• Encryption, encoding
• Memory and storage tests
• Heating and battery life
• Blender – test of CPU, CUDA and Optix
• Performance modes
• Utility app
• Rating