Verdict
The 2023 MSI Raider GE78 HX has most of the primal attribute needed for a great gaming laptop computer , from a high - quality video display and a top - nick keyboard to excellent performance . But , for the price , there ’s elbow room for melioration .
Pros
Cons
Key Features
Introduction
MSI ’s despoiler laptop sit below the impressive but rather impracticableTitan GT77 series . They do n’t have quite the carrying into action floor of their liberal siblings but the Raider automobile are cheaper , smaller , lighter and quieter .
The 2023 Raider GE78 ( officially the GE78 HX 13V ) is available in three flavours . The top model feature an RTX 4090 GPU and an Intel Core i9 - 13980HX while the chinchy expend the RTX 4080 and an Intel Core i7 - 13700HX . In between sits this machine with the RTX 4080 and i9 - 13950HX chip .
One retail merchant has the RTX 4090 mannikin on cut-rate sale at £ 3,519 and the RTX 4080 i9 - 13950HX machine at £ 3,499 . This may seem remaining until you notice that the RTX 4090 role model ships with 16 GB of RAM compared with 32 GB for the cheap models .
The Raider GE78 is going head - to - head with some very adequate to laptops , not least the newAcer Predator Helios 16,Asus ROG Strix Scar 17and theMedion Erazer Beast X40 , which have recently strike . It ’s also face competition from theAsus ROG Strix Scar 16which may have a smaller screen , but it ’s a Mini light-emitting diode affair that plays well with HDR content .
Design and Keyboard
The new Raider GE78 is a thoroughgoing redesign of the2022 Raider GE77model . There ’s a mysterious footprint to accommodate the newfangled 17 - column inch 16:10 display as well as beefed up hinges , which suffer the palpebra . The hinges on the 2022 model always felt a mo flimsy to me , so this is a welcome rise .
There ’s also some new detailing , including a gloss charge plate ridge feature article below the display and some red-faced piping at the backside . This all wee-wee the Raider GE78 more interesting visually than the frumpish Raider GE77 .
The star of the show is the young pixelated RGB ground substance light that runs across the front of the pack of cards . It sits under a transparent cover that wraps around the front , sides and top of the keyboard deck . Such things are a affair of taste ( as are the stylized graphics on the keycaps ) but it sure marks the Raider GE78 out from the herd .
The all - metallic element eubstance may not reckon or feel quite as gamy - last as the unibody design favoured by Razer but it ’s solid and racy .You have to be pretty brutal to make the lid or keyboard deck flex in any meaningful means . It ’s the best - made MSI laptop I ’ve follow across in many a year .
MSI has clearly settle that get room for two of the speaker to fire upward from the deck was more important than a full - width keypad . That ’s a decision I can go along with as the three - twenty-five percent width keys that make up the keyboard do n’t actually hamper operation . The only issue I have with the layout is with the Fn key being to the right rather than the left of the spacebar . It ’s not a unique position but it is one I just do n’t like .
The SteelSeries keyboard is as good as it gravel for a chiclet , rather than a mechanically skillful design , with a clean and precise action . It has a cooking stove of gamer - specific feature , like selectable per - key lighting , that you could manage via the SteelSeries GG control panel . There ’s also translucent WASD keys and Fn crosscut on the cursor keys , allowing you to superimpose a crosshair and shift the sports fan speed while in - game .
The 2022 Raider GE77 had a small 105 x 65 mm trackpad but the GE78 adds a larger 130 x 82 mm interlingual rendition . This is a self-aggrandising advance , even if it ’s still lowly than what ’s on the Medion Erazer Beast X40 . The plastic surface pop the question more resistance than the dear crank - covered pads at quicker swiftness but the click - action is well - calibrate and satisfying .
The Raider GE78 is well endowed with interface with a Thunderbolt 4 ports , two USB - nose candy , two USB - A 3.2 Gen 2 ports on the right , an South Dakota card reader , a 3.5 mm sound recording jack , an HDMI 2.1 and an Ethernet larboard .
The webcam can immortalize video at 1080p and makes a decent clenched fist of things , rendering a colourful and bright if fuzzy simulacrum in video chats . There ’s a manual privacy shutter too . It supportsWindows Hello IR facial realization , which is an improvement from the 2022 model .
have the bottom panel off the Raider is n’t the most straightforward problem . The pliant clips strike some persuasion to come away , to the full stop of me thinking that something was going to snap . Putting it back together again was even more of a challenge for the same reason . Once inwardly , there ’s easy access to both SODIMM mounts , the Killer AX1690i wireless card ( which supports6GHz Wi - Fi 6Eand Bluetooth 5.3 ) and both SSD slots which MSI sound out will support the latest PCIe 5 driving .
At 3.1Kg the GE78 is rather a heavy laptop and the dimensions of 380 x 298 x 28.7 mm mean you ’ll need a pretty big knapsack to lug it around . The office adapter impart another 1Kg to the minutes and cadence up at 195 x 95 x 40 millimetre which is very much on the large side .
Screen
The 17 - inch 2,560 x 1,600 IPS display do very well under the examination of my colorimiter immortalise a maximum luminance of 458nits and 98.8 % of thesRGB vividness gamut(as well as 93.4%DCI - P3and 82.6%AdobeRGB ) . The contrast ratio was less impressive at 945:1 , down in part to the high fateful luminance of 0.48nits , but those are not untypical numbers for an IPS panel .
MSI fit out its high - final stage laptop computer with a ready to hand display control condition control panel called dependable Color which includes the Display P3 and AdobeRGB profile as well as an sRGB clamp . beat against the Display P3 profile the Raider recorded a Delta E coloring material variation of just 1.4 which is an passing good issue and make water the Raider a bully selection for out - of - the - box seat colour - critical work . tintometer results aside the Raider ’s screen is impressively vivid with saturated colour and a warm tone .
The display is good at move handling too . The 240Hz refresh pace is nothing out of the ordinary in this Mary Leontyne Price reach but the low level of fuzz and ghosting is rather telling once you ’ve engaged the overdrive setting in the MSI Centre control instrument panel .
There are two issues with the display . foremost there ’s no bread and butter for Nvidia G - Sync and second , you do n’t getNvidia ’s Advanced Optimusauto - MUX which means to switch between the MSHybrid GPU and discrete GPU options you need to reboot which is a chip of a palaver . I ’ve no idea if MSI and Nvidia are having a strop with each other but for this sort of money , I expect all the Nvidia bells and whistle .
There are six speakers buried inside the Raider and they really get home the Viscount St. Albans . At 77dB(A ) there ’s quite a little of volume available as well as a large old poor boy of freshwater bass and ample detail . Turn the volume up all the way to 11 and the Raider ’s well-grounded arrangement can easily satisfy a great room and is one of the good speaker array I ’ve find in any laptop computer .
Performance
My review sample packs the Nvidia RTX 4080 GPU with a TGP of 175W and anIntel Core i9 - 13950HXCPU . That ’s a sweet place for a latest - gen gambling laptop computer because the RTX 4080 gives lilliputian away to the RTX 4090 in performance but is cheaper , while the 13950HX is a monster C.P.U. with 24 cores and a maximal boost speed of 5.5GHz .
Combine that with 32 GB ofDDR5 RAMand a 2 TB Samsung SSD with decent read and write speeds of 6,681 MB / sec and 4,921 MB / sec and you are quick to shake .
Running our usual natural selection ofTriple - A gamesat the highest point configurations , the Raider GE78 is right up with the good of the new generation RTX 4080/90 simple machine . Horizon Zero Dawnran at 138fps , Metro Exodusat 58fps , cyber-terrorist 2077at 94fps andBorderlands 3at 107fps . That ’ll do nicely .
productiveness examination tell apart a similar tarradiddle with the Geekbench 5 and Cinebench R23 multi - core CPU tests scoring 21,245 and 30,213 severally , both very impressive issue . wrap up the celluloid benchmark , the PCMark 10 score of 8,488 and 3DMark Time Spy solvent of 19,154 are neck opening and neck opening with the ring leader .
The cool organization inside the GE78 is sure-enough school . You ’ll seek in vain for the Liquid Metal or Vapour Chamber solution , favoured by the the like of Asus ROG and Alienware , and just determine six heat pipes and two large fans .
The fans do make a bit of a racket when run at full hurrying . It ’s not an unusually tatty disturbance for a high - ending gaming laptop running its sock off , and the Titan is much brassy , but it is noisier than the Asus ROG Strix Scar 17 and the Medion Erazer Beast X40 .
Battery Life
Battery life is traditionally an Achilles bounder of MSI ’s gaming laptop but the Raider GE78 did n’t do seriously at all , no doubt down to the whopping 99.9Wh stamp battery . The PCMark 10 Office rundown test drain the battery in five hour and 29 minutes while the companion Gaming test did the same in one hr and 10 . The latter is actually not truly representative because , in dGPU mode and playing Cyberpunk 2077 , I only make 52 mo of plot fourth dimension before it all go away gloomy .
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Should you buy it?
The tone of the display , the performance , the SteelSeries keyboard and the excellent speaker organisation are amongst the best you could get on a high - remnant gaming laptop and commingle to make the Raider GE78 a very tasty machine .
If you are drop over £ 3,000 on a gaming laptop with a high - ending Nvidia GPU you have every right to expect all the Nvidia extras like G - Sync and Advanced Optimus as well as the option for a Mini LED panel .
Final Thoughts
The Raider GE78 is MSI ’s more convincing gaming mathematical product of late and both looks and performs the part of a thoroughbred high - goal gaming laptop . None of the distinctive MSI weakness such as miserable barrage animation and suspect thermal management is in evidence . That makes the one serious daub on the GE78 ’s copybook – the absence seizure of G - Sync and Advanced Optimus – all the more annoying . If those two features were present the 2023 Raider would be an unequivocal testimonial .
Acer’sPredator Helios 16is cheaper and offers a Mini LED option , while Medion’sErazer Beast X40offers strong challenger and mob Advanced Optimus . TheROG Strix Scar 16is perhaps the nonremittal selection if you ’ve draw £ 3,500 to splash on a gaming laptop but itisnoisy under freight . The Mini LED display is brilliant though .
Not one of these machine is much less than first-class and all of them will provide a great gaming experience . It ’s a will to the MSI Raider ’s tone that it can stand tall in such an illustrious company .
Trusted Score
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Every gaming laptop we review goes through a serial publication of uniform cheque design to approximate key things including build quality , performance , screenland quality and assault and battery life .
FAQs
The MSI Raider GE78 HX gaming laptop can be equip with up to a maximum of 64 GB RAM , with configurations available up to this amount .
The received wisdom is that MSI machines be given to be more sometime - school and less refined than the competition from the likes of Asus ROG , Alienware and Razer . That enunciate , they use the same element and are often available for a humiliated price with matching specification to Asus ROG devices and there ’s no question that the room decorator and railroad engineer at MSI recognize what hard-core gamers desire .
Test Data
Full Specs
