9+ Best MSI Gaming Laptops of 2021 | Ultimate Guide & Reviews

Best MSI Laptops 2021

Equipped with the latest graphics cards and processors, MSI laptops will not leave you indifferent. They offer themselves the luxury of offering you an edge-to-edge panel with Full HD resolution, IPS technology, and a refresh rate of 144 Hz to 360 Hz. MSI laptops are true jewels of technology for gaming or office automation.

In this article, we offer 9 models of MSI gaming PCs, with prices varying from several hundred dollars from one model to another, so that everyone will find something to suit them.

Best MSI Laptops | Comparison Table 2021

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9+ Best MSI Laptops | 2021 Reviews

Why choose an MSI Gaming Laptop PC?

The laptop may not meet the requirements of the gamer, especially in terms of performance and power. Compared to a conventional tower PC, the laptop PC must face the imperatives of compactness and heating, while remaining easily transportable. 

Most mobile Gamers and wishing to carry their Gaming device with them (when traveling, with friends, on a LAN, or simply from the bedroom to the living room …) can now find their happiness among the gaming laptops that combine the best of the 2 worlds, power, and transport. For those who wish to personalize their laptop, you can configure your gaming laptop on certain strategic aspects (hulls, RAM, storage.

The MSI brand has specialized in particular with new ranges of laptops entirely devoted to gaming. MSI laptops are excellent compromises between weight, size, power, budget, quality, and additional features. However, gamers need more power to meet their demands and especially for the graphics card and processor.

Therefore, the problem that generally arises is the fact that gaming laptops consume more power than conventional laptops. So, they do not have a very long autonomy and are not very mobile due to their weight and more consequent dimensions. 

With its new range, MSI wanted to remedy these drawbacks while offering even more performance to avid gamers. In order to help you make your choice between the different models, we will now come back to the many essential criteria that you must take into account so as not to go wrong when choosing your MSI Gamer laptop.

The criteria for choosing your MSI Gamer Laptop PC 

Choosing a gaming laptop PC is really about selecting the components that suit your needs in the same way you would choose the components of a gaming tower. The types of games you play, the diagonal of the screen you want, your graphics requirements, and many other criteria come into play.

The graphics card

The graphics card remains the main component to be taken into account and determines the graphics performance and the final visual possibilities. Note that there is a link, all other things being equal, between the size of the laptop PC and the onboard power: the most powerful CPUs and GPUs with greater heat dissipation, therefore, need a laptop with better performance. enlarged dimensions.

The graphics cards we recommend for your gaming laptop are the high-end GeForce GTX and Radeon HD. Portable large size, that is to say, 17 inches and sometimes will possess an SLI or Crossfire X . 15.6-inch gaming laptops have a shrunk GPU to keep the heat in a smaller chassis. Nowadays, we can say that 1 GB per GPU for the graphics card is the union minimum in order to properly run a gaming laptop.

The GDDR5 memory is also the best compared to GDDR3. Note that the entry-level to ensure a correct gaming experience is from the GTX 1060M. Please note, the M means that the graphics chip is clamped, and cannot be compared directly to an equivalent desktop model. In order to find your way between the latest graphics cards, here is a comparison (many benchmarks are available on the internet):

The screen: diagonal, brightness, and resolution

The screen is obviously a crucial element since it is constantly in front of our eyes. During your long games, it is essential to have a good quality screen, that is to say, bright but with a matte finish in order to avoid unwanted reflections, especially outdoors. The size of the screen is very often determining its power and its resolution. In fact, 15.6-inch gaming laptops are found in simple HD, i.e. 1366 x 768 pixels, or Full HD, i.e. 1920 x 1080 pixels.

Today, almost all gaming laptops work in Full HD. The latter allows you to play and enjoy more of your video games with a higher level of detail. In terms of diagonal, the standard sizes are mainly 15.6 inches and 17.3 inches, denoted 15.3 “and 17.3.

Processor, storage, and RAM

Laptops intended for gaming often benefit from an Intel Core i7 Quad-Core (4-core) processor, tailored to the needs. However, this processor comes at a certain cost and if you have to make a choice between a powerful graphics card and an Intel Core i7 processor, go for the former and fall back on a Core i5. Note that Intel Core i7 processors are not synonymous with Quad-Core; there are Core i7 Dual-Core (two cores). However, Core i7 Dual-Core processors do not necessarily have more advantages over a Core i5.

We mentioned earlier that there is a correlation between the power of the gaming laptop and its size. A laptop of 15.6 inches and more facilitates the integration of many components such as the SSD and the hard drive. For example, two 2.5-inch bays allow you to opt for a hybrid system consisting of a hard drive supported by a mini SSD of around ten GB, often in mSATA. In the event that only one bay is available, you will have to choose between a 256 GB SSD or a good hard drive. In terms of optical units, the DVD burner is often included in gaming laptops, unless the diagonal of the screen is less than 14 inches.

The Blu-Ray or Blu-Ray DVD player-burner options are often intended for higher-end models. Finally, regarding memory, a minimum of 8 GB is essential if you want to run your games in good conditions. In MSI’s line of gaming laptops, models typically come with 16GB RAM as standard, so you don’t have to worry.

Sound capacities

In your choice of a gaming laptop, you must not ignore the quality of the sound! And for good reason, the latter will allow you to fully appreciate the atmosphere of your video games! The best option is the subwoofer integrated into the underside of the computer. However, due to the bulk of this type of sound system, it is only present on machines 15.6 inches and larger. While the microphone and webcam are still included in MSI’s notebook PC ranges, you should also be careful about the number of audio jacks so that you are not limited in the event that you need to plug in multiple headsets. Finally, also think of the digital sound output which may be essential for gamers connecting their laptop to a 5.1 system.

MSI offers gold-plated audio jack connectors with some laptops for minimized distortion, as well as MSI Audio Boost technology. The latter will allow a breathtaking finesse and subtlety of sound, by boosting the sound by 30%: spy on the footsteps of your enemies, the reloading of their weapons, in order to detect them even before seeing them. Dynaudio speakers reproduce sound in high definition and are sometimes spatialized in 4.1 (subwoofer and 4 speakers).

True Color technology 

MSI integrates many features into its laptops, whether or not they are present depending on the range and model of the gaming laptop. We present the most important to you. True Color promises you, for example, unparalleled color fidelity with a calibration ensuring your screen project more precise and detailed colors by reproducing almost the entire sRGB profile.

Together with Portrait Display Inc., MSI provides high-quality display technology that far exceeds current standards. True Color simply strives for perfection in terms of reliability and color realism.

A very fast wireless connection 

To allow fans of online games and LANs not to be frustrated by slowdowns or connection lag, many MSI gaming laptops have the Killer Double Shot Pro feature on board. Wireless (Wifi AC) and wired (Killer Gb LAN) connections are boosted by this modern and reliable chipset which sets as a priority the data related to the video game on which you perform.

The bandwidth is thus optimized to obtain a stable and smooth connection. With Smart Teaming (optimization of the bandwidth of the Wi-Fi and the LAN at the same time), we observe a decrease of up to 3 times in latency compared to competing laptops supporting the Wi-Fi AC standard.

Stream your games easily 

With Xsplit Gamecaster, you no longer have to keep your skills to yourself. This application allows you to easily record and broadcast your video game sessions from your equipped MSI gaming laptop on Ustream, Youtube, or even Twitch, even live.

Very practical for presenting a new opus, giving practical lessons to other players, streaming duels online, XSplit Gamecaster presents many tools to facilitate the life of the connected Gamer: face on webcam, annotations.

Cooler Boost 4: efficient cooling 

The new Cooler Booster 4 technology takes care of your computer by integrating two fans and heat pipes dedicated to the GPU and the CPU. This new installation is ideally suited to your PC. Cooler Boost 4 optimizes the performance of your gaming PC to its maximum by reducing heat and avoiding uncomfortable overheating for both the user and the hardware.

Other important points 

You don’t have to expect a gaming laptop to be as thin as an office laptop. And for good reason, the thickness of the machine is often necessary in order to operate the ventilation correctly. In the MSI range, laptops have many air inlets intended to prevent overheating, while providing a certain aestheticism to the model. In terms of design, MSI usually offers a black or black and red chassis.

Another point that can be important for your games is the presence of LEDs. These are used not only for the backlighting, sometimes customizable, of the keyboard but also to illuminate certain areas of the computer. So your laptop is visible even in the dark! In addition, laptops from 15.6 inches often have a numeric keypad which becomes practically essential when using certain games. The presence of programmable function keys is also a big advantage when you need to be fast and efficient. As for the multi-point touchpad, it is ergonomically advantageous but cannot replace a mouse, especially for gaming. Finally, a wheel or a button will allow you to switch between the multiple predefined profiles in Windows. MSI equips many gaming laptops with mechanical SteelSeries keyboards.

The last important criterion is that of the connection. Any good self-respecting gaming laptop must contain a rich enough connection in order to meet the demands of gaming. So don’t skip the essential Ethernet port, USB 3.0 ports, or even the digital HDMI and DisplayPort output. With the MSI Matrix Display feature, you can connect the laptop PC to up to 3 monitors without latencies.

What components are in MSI laptops?

Ranging from professional Quadro graphics cards to the RTX gaming generation, MSI laptops offer graphics components to meet every need. Embedding recent processors, the machines deliver high computing power to allow you to multitask without slowing down. The SSD storage present on several models ensures responsiveness when starting your computer or applications.

The choice of the panel on MSI laptops

As with the graphics card, you will need to choose your screen according to the use that will be made of your MSI laptop. For more gamer use, opt for an IPS panel which will blow you away with the quality of its colors and its contrast.

Bothered by the sun or other large light sources? Prefer a matt IPS or TN panel which will limit unwanted reflections on your screen. It will also be important to choose your laptop according to the size of the diagonal, for example, a 17-inch laptop Under 1000 will be preferable if you want a laptop for gaming. Smaller sizes like 14 and 15 inches will be preferred for office automation.

What storage capacity for an MSI laptop?

One of the last things to see before your purchase, how do you plan to use the available disk space? If you want to store a lot of heavy data try to provide an inexpensive HDD that saves a lot of space.

If you just prefer the use of applications and large files are not plentiful on your computer, then a simple SSD will suffice and bring you the speed of execution and silence.