TAIPEI, TAIWAN –– Most people don’t have the room or the funding for a desktop replacement, but don’t want to give up any performance when it comes to gaming and multitasking. MSI might have the answer to your problems with the new GE65 Raider.
Available sometime in Q3 (pricing to be determined), the gaming laptop gives you the power of an Intel Core i9 processor and a full Nvidia RTX GPU in a relatively slim chassis.
Design
Not much has changed on the GE65 Raider. The 4.5-pound system still sports the black aluminum and plastic chassis with red accents, that has become synonymous with MSI.
Flanking the red dragon logo in the middle of the lid, the two long accents are reminiscent of bloody dragon fangs –– at least that’s what they look like to me.
The notebook is lighter than the Gigabyte Aero 15 Classic (4.6 pounds), Razer Blade 15 (4.7 pounds) and Lenovo Legion Y740 (5 pounds).
Display
The Raider will come equipped with a 15.6-inch, 1920 x 1080 display. However, consumers can choose between a panel with either a 144 or 240-Hertz refresh rate. I’m also hoping MSI will offer a 4K option down the line.
From my brief demo with the system, the FHD screen seems bright with rich color and sharp detail. But, we won’t know for sure until we get the system into the office.
MORE: Best MSI Laptops
Specs
For such a relatively lightweight system, the Raider has some mighty beefy specs. The laptop can be configured with up to a 9th Gen Intel Core i9 processor with 1 hard drive, 2 PCIe NVMe SSDs and a full Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 GPU with 8GB of VRAM. With that combo, multitasking and gaming at higher settings should be a breeze.
In terms of networking, the system has Wi-Fi 6, which will deliver faster connection speeds and a more stable network.
Bottom Line
Even though its basically a refresh, the MSI GE65 Raider checks off a lot of boxes. Thanks to its Intel Core i9 processor and Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 GPU, the gaming notebook is still a powerful system in a slim, lightweight chassis. The 240-Hz display will keep your games as pretty as the developer intended while the Wi-Fi 6 will help keep your network bandwidth nice and stable. All in all, the Raider looks to be a solid contender in the mid-to-high level gaming space.
