Gaming Laptop Analysis

Is the MSI GF65 Thin i5-9300H RTX 2060 Mobile 8GB RAM 512GB M.2 good as a gaming laptop? Ok

Processor - This laptop processor runs some 2021 game releases, making it an OK CPU choice for gamers, but it will very soon struggle with meeting some of the bigger system requirements that future game releases will expect. This laptop has 4 processor cores, which can really help towards modern games to avoid processor bottlenecks. This CPU core count is good, considering the modern multithreaded activity games can utilise with today’s hardware.

Graphics Card - A good graphics card for gamers, capable of running titles during this 2021 gaming year. This GPU has 6GB of VRAM. This is considered a good amount of VRAm for modern games but some graphics solutions have more.

System Memory - This laptop system memory is capable of meeting the latest game requirements of 2021, making it a step closer to being a good laptop for gamers.

Screen Size - The screen on this laptop is certainly a good option for game releases in 2021, but there is room for better, should your budget allow. But sometimes larger than this 15.6" is too big and this is definitely a good, portable option for some gamers. Look to the 17 inch laptops for a better physical screen size, so you can enjoy the games more clearly. That is our normal ideal gaming laptop screen size.

Refresh Rate - Look for higher refresh rate hertz for a gaming laptop. Ideally around 120Hz or more refresh rate on a gaming laptop screen. The laptop can only deliver FPS(frames per second) up to the listed refresh rate. So if you have hardware in your laptop that can turn out awesome frame rates on all the latest AAA titles, but a 60hz refresh rate, your laptop will be stuck at a maximum of 60FPS in all games. Our review laptop can support gaming refresh rates with the 120Hz version laptop screen. This refresh rate for modern gaming would be considered good.

GeForce RTX 2060 Mobile graphics card gaming performance in the MSI GF65 Thin i5-9300H RTX 2060 Mobile 8GB RAM 512GB M.2 laptop

Getting a good price to performance gaming laptop is what we are all trying to do when looking for our next mobile machine. The key component in this is usually the graphics card. So we will of course be considering this hardware setup and how well it could run modern popular games like Far Cry 6, New World and Battlefield 2042 to help us know if this graphics card and laptop is a good price to performance point. We do this by considering the gaming frame rates achieved at its native 1080p resolution while the games would be running at Ultra video settings. With the GeForce RTX 2060 Mobile inside this laptop, this graphics card solution will be capable of meeting 491 games at their minimum system requirements and 296 games at their recommended system requirements of the top 500 most demanding games around today.

Comparing MSI GF65 Thin i5-9300H RTX 2060 Mobile 8GB RAM 512GB M.2 to today’s best price to performance laptop ranges

We really want to see how the MSI GF65 Thin i5-9300H RTX 2060 Mobile 8GB RAM 512GB M.2 will compare across all permutations of the GF65 Thin 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 8.2 today the MSI GF65 Thin i5-9300H RTX 2060 Mobile 8GB RAM 512GB M.2. Our value to performance rating score will auto adjust as new hardware capability improves and prices drop. Here we look at how our version of this GF65 Thin laptop compares against the other laptops in the range. This laptop is currently 6th in this range for hardware value. Laptops closer to the 1st position of the model range represent the better gaming performance bang for your buck.

Our GF65 Thin laptop should also be compared to today’s best Price to Performance model, the ASUS TUF A15 R7 4800H GTX 1660 Ti 16GB RAM 512GB M.2. When stacked up against this, our laptop has 97% worse rating difference on its P2P. It's worth noting that the very best P2P model has a recorded price of $999 to consider and of course this is purely a value for performance basis. Again only comparing against Price to Performance we can see that the second best model in today’s P2P ranking list is the MSI Bravo 15 R7 4800H RX 5500M 16GB RAM 512GB M.2 laptop, and our laptop is 72% worse when compared against this price to performance rating. The price of the 2nd best laptop is listed as $1049.

How does the MSI GF65 Thin i5-9300H RTX 2060 Mobile 8GB RAM 512GB M.2 laptop compare to the best CPU performance focused laptops and today’s most popular games?

Now we will see if our laptop compares favourably against the top CPU performance focused mobile PC that is currently available. The ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 R9 4900HS RTX 2060 Mobile 16GB RAM 1.0TB M.2 is today’s best performer in the laptop CPU department. It has a Ryzen 9 4900HS 8-Core 3.0GHz processor in it, which currently has 131% better performance than our laptop’s Core i5-9300H 4-Core 2.4GHz.

A quick review of the number of games our laptop processor can run at recommended requirements is 0, taken from the top 500 most demanding games today. For min cpu specs this figure for number of games it can run is 393.

Today’s games are getting more demanding so let's see how our gaming laptop performs against their recommended cpu system requirements. First off we have the New World which currently our Core i5-9300H 4-Core 2.4GHz is 1% worse next let's see how well it runs against Battlefield 2042. We can see it is 22% worse. Ok finally lets see it against Far Cry 6. Here our laptop is 56% worse.

How does the MSI GF65 Thin i5-9300H RTX 2060 Mobile 8GB RAM 512GB M.2 laptop compare to the best graphics card performance focused laptops and today’s most popular games?

A good comparison in terms of graphical power for our review model would be to compare it to one of the most powerful GPU focused laptop’s around today. This type of comparison can show us what another laptop, with a top end graphics hardware solution, can deliver and in turn provide us a relative point of laptop Graphics Card cost comparison. The GPU focused laptop we picked for our comparison is the MSI GT76 Titan i9-10900K RTX 2080 Super 64GB RAM 2.0TB M.2 4K. Its got one of the best graphics cards found in laptops at the moment, which is the GeForce RTX 2080 Super 8GB. It delivers 59% better performance when benched against our own review laptop’s GeForce RTX 2060 Mobile.

Today’s performance comparison for all games shows our laptop GPU can currently meet or beat 296 game’s recommended system requirements when we put the 500 most demanding games into a list. With a list of 500 Minimum system specs put ina similar most demanding order this changes to it being able to run 491 games.

Recommended graphics requirements for modern games increase all the time, so we thought we would compare the performance of our laptop graphics card to some popular games of today. First off there is New World and our laptop GPU delivers 31% better performance compared to that game’s requirement. Next we have Battlefield 2042 in which we see our laptop graphics has 29% worse performance compared to the game's video card specs. And then there is 19% worse performance when we put our laptop gpu against Far Cry 6 recommended specs.

The MSI GF65 Thin i5-9300H RTX 2060 Mobile 8GB RAM 512GB M.2 has a 1080p screen resolution, should I get a 4K resolution gaming laptop instead?

With a 1080p native screen panel our MSI GF65 Thin i5-9300H RTX 2060 Mobile 8GB RAM 512GB M.2 has a 15.6" physical screen size. This inch panel size is measured starting in one corner, say the top corner and then across the middle of the screen down to the bottom corner on the other side. And in our case it has a fixed number of pixels in that screen that are 1920 pixels wide by 1080 pixels tall, or 1080p resolution. The refresh rate of a 4K laptop panel is often 60Hz. This figure sets a 60 frames per second cap that locks a game to no matter the capability of the hardware in the 4K laptop. However, today’s AAA games, when running at Ultra graphics settings and 4K resolution, usually require hardware that we don't see in laptops or desktops to even reach that 60FPS cap. With a bigger refresh rate helping your FPS this MSI GF65 Thin i5-9300H RTX 2060 Mobile 8GB RAM 512GB M.2 has 120Hz screen refresh rate variants available.

So lowering a game’s screen resolution down to 1080p or 1440p during your gaming of modern AAA games will help get more frames per second. But in doing so, by down scaling the game resolution will then make the game look blurry on a native 4K laptop panel. So the purpose of getting a 4K laptop monitor for gaming maybe lost at this point. 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.

If you are looking to view 4K streaming content, while keeping yourself mobile with your laptop, then maybe a 4K resolution panel would be a better experience than the normal 1080p. In general, we think it's probably not worth the extra money for any visual gains you might not spot, without a direct comparison, especially if you are thinking to game on your laptop as well.

As you can probably gather from the information above, its probably not worth the extra cash for a 4K laptop if gaming is your Laptop purpose. 1080p is likely plenty and has enough alternative gaming options for when you want better resolution. It feels like you might not get what you were after if you picked up a shiny new 4K laptop, then was needing to lower game resolution, while getting blurry in-game experience and achieving a max 60FPS when you could push the hardware into better frame rates.

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

If you wanted a desktop monitor to go with the MSI GF65 Thin i5-9300H RTX 2060 Mobile 8GB RAM 512GB M.2 laptop then this ASUS ProArt Display PA278QV 27 inch 1440p 75Hz 5ms IPS would go well and has 75Hz and today’s price of $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

Here is a 4K monitor to compliment any laptop - Asus Predator XB273K 27 inch 4K GSYNC IPS 1ms 144Hz. We watch a handful and it is currently the best priced at $618. It has a 144Hz refresh rate as well. During these recent weeks we have price tracked this 4k monitor and noticed that it has increased its price by $618, so keep an eye out for deals, as this great value monitor might still be found for cheaper. For some extra info about this 4k monitor, during our price tracking we can see the lowest price recorded by us was $549.99, which was on 13th Nov 2020.

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

Maybe you are hoping to enjoy your 4K streamed movies and TV shows while on the move. And if you have access to this 4K content and it's your prime use for your new laptop then perhaps it's worth considering a 4K panel, rather than this 1080p.

Paying extra for 4K gaming in a laptop is not really a good investment of your cash at the moment. We would put our extra cash in to a 1080p with better graphics card or maybe a nice mouse or headset. Because with the 4K laptop you may be sad when having to drop your favourite modern games screen resolution to get an ok frame rate. Or perhaps lowering the graphics setting to increase 4K FPS up to a stable and playable amount, only to hit a 60FPS ceiling due to the 60Hz 4K panel limit.

Today's Best Priced Mouse and Headset for MSI GF65 Thin i5-9300H RTX 2060 Mobile 8GB RAM 512GB M.2 laptop

You could pick up a mouse to go with the MSI GF65 Thin i5-9300H RTX 2060 Mobile 8GB RAM 512GB M.2. In our spotlight at the moment is the Kayinuo M738 Gaming Mouse 3200DPI wired 6 Buttons, which today is $12.99. Today's best value and good quality mouse has enjoyed a price reduction of $32.26, and provides another reason for us to suggest it to compliment this laptop. Another point of reference for this mouse, is that our lowest recorded price for this mouse was on 15th Aug 2020 where it was costing $11.99.

Of the headset we monitor and price track, today’s top headset is the Corsair HS45-7.1 Surround, priced at $36.99. For reference, the lowest price recorded by us so far for the headset is $34.99 on 28th Nov 2019.