Gaming Laptop Analysis

Is the MSI GE66 Raider i7-10875H RTX 2070 Mobile 16GB RAM 512GB M.2 good as a gaming laptop? Excellent

Processor - The Core i7-10875H 8-Core 2.30GHz is an excellent gaming CPU for 2021. Loaded up with plenty of processor cores, this CPU has 8, which is excellent for AAA gaming that wants extra cores for processing.

Graphics Card - With the GeForce RTX 2070 Mobile graphics card this is an excellent gaming GPU for 2021 AAA gaming Modern AAA gaming can lean on GPU VRAM and this graphics solution comes with 8GB. This makes it excellent for gaming.

System Memory - Our review laptop here has an excellent quantity of RAM for 2021 AAA games. The 16GB of RAM will meet the game requirements of the foreseeable future as well.

Screen Size - This laptop screen (15.6") in 2021 offers up a good amount of gaming screen real estate for gamers on the move, while keeping the physical laptop footprint portable. In games the physical size of the screen can help with being able to read in game menus without squinting. For the optimum gamer laptop we aim for 17 inches to deliver better in-game viewability. But of course that makes the laptop physically bigger and less portable. The choice, is yours.

Refresh Rate - A gaming laptop wants to have a higher refresh rate to accommodate more frames per second(FPS) in the games it runs. The refresh rate is like a hard cap on the games deliverable FPS. The better the refresh rate the more FPS the laptop can deliver in games, up to the panels refresh rate hertz, and then the sharper the in game play is when the player moves about. And so considering that, this laptop is available with up to 240Hz as its refresh rate. This high refresh rate would be an excellent choice in a gamers laptop, but anything over 60Hz would be suitable.

GeForce RTX 2070 Mobile graphics card gaming performance in the MSI GE66 Raider i7-10875H RTX 2070 Mobile 16GB RAM 512GB M.2 laptop

Gamers looking at laptops will be needing to carefully consider the performance of the machine in relation to modern, often demanding, games. So getting the mobile graphics selected correctly is key to identifying the best price-to-performance laptop for you. We will take a look at the hardware and graphics card in this laptop in relation to how well it can deliver frame rates when running modern demanding or popular games like, Far Cry 6 or New World. We will consider the laptop when it runs these games in ultra graphics settings while gaming at its native 1080p screen resolution. Now this comes with the GeForce RTX 2070 Mobile installed as the mobile graphics card, and at the moment it is capable of running 495 games at their minimum graphics system specs and then running 425 recommended specs of today’s top 500 most demanding games.

Comparing MSI GE66 Raider i7-10875H RTX 2070 Mobile 16GB RAM 512GB M.2 to today’s best price to performance laptop ranges

We really want to see how the MSI GE66 Raider i7-10875H RTX 2070 Mobile 16GB RAM 512GB M.2 will compare across all permutations of the GE66 Raider model range. This will give us a good sense of how well it sits in terms of cost to performance within its own lineup, and will better help us decide if this laptop represents good value to us today.

With a P2P rating of 8.4 today the MSI GE66 Raider i7-10875H RTX 2070 Mobile 16GB RAM 512GB M.2. Our value to performance rating score will auto adjust as new hardware capability improves and prices drop. This GE66 Raider configuration is placed at 1st position, when we order the range by their price to performance ratings. Those getting closer to the 1st position in this list will be better gaming laptops for their price.

Lets now see how our MSI GE66 Raider i7-10875H RTX 2070 Mobile 16GB RAM 512GB M.2 laptop compares to the best P2P laptop, which is currently the ASUS TUF A15 R7 4800H GTX 1660 Ti 16GB RAM 512GB M.2. Our review laptop has 87% worse rating in price to performance and the best laptop for P2P has a listed price of $999. How about we also look at the 2nd ranked laptop for excellent Price/Performance ratings, which is the MSI Bravo 15 R7 4800H RX 5500M 16GB RAM 512GB M.2 and has a recorded cost of $1049. We see our GE66 Raider laptop scores 63% worse against it for price to performance.

How does the MSI GE66 Raider i7-10875H RTX 2070 Mobile 16GB RAM 512GB M.2 laptop compare to the best CPU performance focused laptops and today’s most popular games?

As a point of benchmark lets see how well our laptop looks when directly compared on processing performance against the top CPU focused laptop currently available. So the laptop we have chosen for its CPU performance is the ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 R9 4900HS RTX 2060 Mobile 16GB RAM 1.0TB M.2, which comes with a Ryzen 9 4900HS 8-Core 3.0GHz processor. That processor performs 20% better compared to our review laptop’s Core i7-10875H 8-Core 2.30GHz.

The Core i7-10875H 8-Core 2.30GHz processor found in this machine can currently run 478 games of the top 500 most demanding games right now. This is basically how many recommended game system requirements our laptop cpu beats in performance today, but we will update this figure as new games come out. This is 500 games when looking at beating minimum system requirements.

Games these days have a range of processor requirements so let's look at a few popular games of today, and check our laptop CPU against the games recommended requirement. First off, Far Cry 6 and our laptop processor gets 19% better performance rating. Next we have New World where our CPU gets 47% better performance and finally another popular title at the moment is Battlefield 2042, which has a performance difference of : 37% better, when put against our laptop’s Core i7-10875H 8-Core 2.30GHz.

How does the MSI GE66 Raider i7-10875H RTX 2070 Mobile 16GB RAM 512GB M.2 laptop compare to the best graphics card performance focused laptops and today’s most popular games?

Now lets see how well our review laptop holds up compared against graphical performance with the top performing GPU laptop available today. A top tier graphics focused laptop is the MSI GT76 Titan i9-10900K RTX 2080 Super 64GB RAM 2.0TB M.2 4K. Housing a GeForce RTX 2080 Super 8GB GPU that performs 35% better when compared to our review laptop’s GeForce RTX 2070 Mobile.

Our laptop Graphics Card, the GeForce RTX 2070 Mobile, can currently meet the recommended system requirements of 425 games when compared against the top 500 most demanding games right now. This number changes to 495 for the top 500 most demanding minimum system requirements.

But the real test is seeing how well the laptop GPU performs against today's popular games. Our GeForce RTX 2070 Mobile compared against recommended graphics requirements for Far Cry 6 delivers 5% worse performance while against New World it’s 53% better and finally compared to Battlefield 2042 it has a performance difference : 17% worse.

The MSI GE66 Raider i7-10875H RTX 2070 Mobile 16GB RAM 512GB M.2 has a 1080p screen resolution, should I get a 4K resolution gaming laptop instead?

This laptop’s panel has a physical 15.6" screen that delivers 1920x1080 pixels natively. But should you consider moving from this 1080p laptop and searching for a 4K laptop instead, with the intention of getting better visuals for your games or movies? We normally see a 60Hz screen refresh rate accompanying most 4K laptop panels. Which means a game would reach a top 60 FPS before it maxed out, even if the laptop’s hardware was powerful enough to deliver frame rates that were better than that. Today’s AAA games are usually too demanding for a 4K resolution anyway. With higher the better refresh rates for your laptop monitor, this particular MSI GE66 Raider i7-10875H RTX 2070 Mobile 16GB RAM 512GB M.2 laptop is available in 240Hz variety.

We can always lower the game’s displayed screen resolution to something like 1080p or 1440p which is below the 4K laptop’s native pixel count. This will get a more stable game experience, increasing a game’s FPS that might be needed across a number of modern AAA games on a 4K laptop. However, getting away from the laptop’s more native 4K resolution, will take away in-game graphics definition. Not an ideal situation, playing blurry games on your new 4K laptop. If your 1080p laptop has the hardware to run today’s AAA games comfortably at 4K, then plug your laptop into your desktop 4K monitor, when you are at home for some serious gaming sessions. As that desktop monitor probably isn't 60Hz restricted and is physically larger than the relatively small 17inch laptop screen size. We do just that here, with a 27inch 144Hz Nvidia GSync 1440p desktop monitor and an Alienware 51M laptop sporting a desktop RTX 2080.

So why would you get a 4K capable laptop? If you enjoy movies or Netflix at 4K and have access to 4K content via those types of services then perhaps the quality of 4K resolution on a 17inch panel would be a great experience, but we still think you wouldn't miss that 4K.

At the moment our advice would be, stick to the 1080p laptop panels for now. Your laptop remains portable and 4K laptop’s just aren't quite there yet. The 4K needs to be a no brainer but at the moment you will still have to lower resolution in game to get playable but sub par visuals that still can't raise above 60FPS.

Today’s best 1440p desktop monitor for a laptop is - ASUS ProArt Display PA278QV 27 inch 1440p 75Hz 5ms IPS

If you are looking for a desktop monitor with a reasonable refresh rate to accompany the well priced MSI GE66 Raider i7-10875H RTX 2070 Mobile 16GB RAM 512GB M.2 laptop, then the 1440p ASUS ProArt Display PA278QV 27 inch 1440p 75Hz 5ms IPS is our favourite today. It has a 75Hz refresh rate and is currently priced at $311.99. We like to review tracked prices for our suggested hardware and this 1440p monitor is no different. We spotted its lowest price, recorded on 9th Mar 2021, where it cost $229.99.

Today’s best 4K desktop monitor for a laptop is - Asus Predator XB273K 27 inch 4K GSYNC IPS 1ms 144Hz

The 4K Asus Predator XB273K 27 inch 4K GSYNC IPS 1ms 144Hz display is our current suggestion if you wanted to grab a desktop monitor. With a $618 price at the moment it also has a 144Hz refresh rate. We have noticed that this 4K monitor has raised its price by $618 recently. And while it is a good 4K monitor even at this current price, it could probably be found for a bit cheaper. Interestingly we spotted this 4k monitor at its lowest recorded price on 13th Nov 2020, where it was priced up as $549.99.

[Note - check that monitor display connectors are compatible between a monitor and a laptop before purchase]

So why would you get a 4K capable laptop? If you enjoy movies or Netflix at 4K and have access to 4K content via those types of services then perhaps the quality of 4K resolution on a 17inch panel would be a great experience, but we still think you wouldn't miss that 4K.

We think don't spend your extra cash on getting a 4K laptop to game on, as it's likely to feel disappointing to buy a super shiny new 4K laptop, then have to lower the resolution while playing your games, delivering a blurry in-game experience, and only getting up to a maximum 60FPS due to the usual 60Hz 4K panel restriction.

Today's Best Priced Mouse and Headset for MSI GE66 Raider i7-10875H RTX 2070 Mobile 16GB RAM 512GB M.2 laptop

Incidentally our price track research shows us that a good gaming mouse is the Kayinuo M738 Gaming Mouse 3200DPI wired 6 Buttons. Its price tag today is $12.99 and is topping our price tracking charts as a best value mouse. Our suggested mouse has actually lowered its price during these past two weeks, dropping by $32.26. This was part of the reason we selected it as a good mouse for the price and a great accompanying peripheral for this laptop. Further to our mouse information, this mouse had a lowest price recorded by us of $11.99 dated on 15th Aug 2020.

Of the headset we monitor and price track, today’s top headset is the Corsair HS45-7.1 Surround, priced at $36.99. Checking our records our lowest tracked price for this headset was on 28th Nov 2019 which had it priced at $34.99.