At a Glance: MSI GE65 Raider Review

MSI is one of the most active companies in the gaming laptop market. With a half-dozen ongoing product lines and multiple products in each, MSI’s approach is to flood the market with tons of choices for gamers to choose from. In general, this is great, as it often helps to have plenty of options. But it can also create some confusion as to which system is best, and some laptops such as MSI’s GE65 Raider get left without a clear position in the market.

Design

In terms of its size and design, the GE65 Raider sits directly between MSI’s more compact GS65 Stealth and more powerful GT63 Titan notebooks. Aesthetically the Raider looks like the Titan’s little brother, with the two systems looking quite similar overall. The Raider at 26.9mm thin is significantly smaller than the Titan (39.8mm), giving it a clear advantage in portability. The Raider, in turn, is considerably thicker than the 17.9mm-thin Stealth.

So far then the Raider looks to be targeted as a solution between these other two systems, but this doesn’t hold true when we and components into the mix. All three systems support processors up to Intel Core i9 9th Gen, but the best GPU you can get in the Raider is an Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070. Both the Titan and the Stealth support RTX 2080 graphics cards though, which gives them an advantage in their top-tier configurations.

The Raider does have one advantage over the Stealth, however: It features better cooling hardware, thanks in part to its larger form factor.

Test Model & Benchmarks

Our sister site PCMag got hold of one of MSI’s GE65 Raider notebooks and tested it against several other systems including the aforementioned Stealth. The system tested came equipped with an Intel Core i9-9880H processor with eight CPU cores and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 graphics card as well as 1080p 240Hz display. As configured, this system sells for $2,699. The rest of the system specs, as well as the specs of the other tested notebooks, can be found in the chart below.

As the only octa-core processor in the group, the MSI GE65 Raider blows everything else out of the water when tested with Cinebench R15.

We see the same results when testing with Photoshop CC. It’s clear that these six-core processors simply can’t stand up against the bigger eight-core CPUs in a head to head competition.

This trend continues when we turn our attention to synthetic gaming benchmarks. Although the GPU in the MSI GE65 Raider is outclassed by the GPUs inside of the Acer Predator Triton 500 and the Gigabyte Aero 15-Y9, the Raider still pulls ahead in these tests thanks to its more powerful processor. It’s possible that the Raider’s thermal solution is also helping to improve the notebook’s performance relative to the other systems, but we don’t have sufficient evidence to know this for sure.

What’s even more surprising is that the RTX 2070 inside of the Raider continues to run laps around the RTX 2080s inside of the Acer Predator Triton and Gigabyte Aero 15-Y9. This is especially noticeable on Rise of the Tomb Raider, which shows the Raider with between a 13 and 31fps lead over the Acer Predator Triton 500.

Conclusion

According to PCMag, while performing these tests the CPU and GPU maintained average temperatures of 83C and 80C, respectively. At the same time, the GPU reportedly maintained an average core clock of 1,630MHz, which is significantly higher than the RTX 2070’s stock clock speed of 1,440MHz. This indicates it has been factory overclocked by MSI to improve performance. Clearly the thermal solution also performed exceptionally well during these tests, as thermal throttling was not a noticeable issue.

Thanks to its exceptional performance against the competition as well as its high-end specs, I’d recommend the MSI GE65 Raider as an excellent solution for those in need of a powerful gaming laptop. You can get it now from Amazon for $2,699.00.

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