MSI GS66 Stealth 10SFS Laptop Review: Visually subdued, acoustically conspicuous

The competitors of the GS66 Stealth include other 15-inch slim gaming notebooks with a similar graphics performance such as the Acer Predator Triton 500, the Gigabyte Aero 15 Classic, the HP Omen X 2S, and the Schenker XMG Neo 15. Those notebooks are listed as the comparison devices in the charts below.

Looking at the case, you can really see that MSI took the complaints about the predecessor to heart. Where we still complained about the mediocre resistance to warping in the GS65, the GS66 is now among the most robust representatives of the thin and light category. The case only shows some slight give in response to more forceful pressure.

The fact that due to the more robust material, the thickness has increased from 1.8 to 2.0 cm (0.7 to 0.8 in) and the weight from 1.9 to 2.1 kg (~4.2 lb to 4.6 lb), is completely understandable in our opinion. However, there is some slight room for improvement for MSI in terms of the workmanship, which turns out slightly weaker compared to most competitors, and the transitions between some elements are not quite clean. 

But from a pure quality stand point, there is no reason for complaint. The metal surfaces of the lid and base unit offer a high-quality impression, even though - also due to their dark color - they quickly tend to look messy (keyword: fingerprints). A singular characteristic of the case is the abundant opening angle: we hardly ever see 180° in a gaming notebook. MSI also deserves some praise for the simple design, which doesn't immediately make you think about a gaming platform and strikes a good figure in any situation.

Connections

As it should be for a current high-end notebook, the GS66 includes a Thunderbolt 3 port. This is accompanied by a "regular" USB Type-C port and three classic USB Type-A ports. While other manufacturers still use the USB-3.0 technology, MSI only uses USB 3.1 Gen2, which deserves some respect. In addition, there is an HDMI-2.0 port, an audio port, and – despite the slim build – a RJ45 LAN port. However, buyers have to make do without a card reader or a Kensington Lock.

We would call the positioning of the connections mediocre. Since the back half of the case is reserved for the fan vents and the connections are correspondingly placed towards the front, you can run into some space problems and cable collisions when using an external mouse.

MSI does not make any compromises in terms of the communication. While the 2.5-Gbit Killer E3100G controller handles the wired communication, the Killer Wi-Fi 6 AX1650i WLAN adapter, which brings all the features that you could expect from a gaming notebook in 2020, is responsible for wireless communication. Since we recently updated our router (Netgear Nighthawk AX12 instead of Linksys EA8500), the results in our WLAN test, which at more than 1300 Mb/s all turn our first-rate, are only comparable with those from the Schenker XMG Neo 15, which was also measured at a 1-meter (~3 ft.) distance.

In terms of accessories, MSI only includes a few info booklets (quick start guide, etc.) with the notebook. The size and power of the power supply depend on the graphics card used. Starting from the RTX 2070 Super Max-Q, a 230-Watt model is used (180 Watt @RTX 2060).

In addition to the stability of the case, the maintenance options have also improved significantly. Where in the GS65 only the fans, the Wi-Fi chip, and the battery were accessible, in the GS66 you can now also access the storage slots (2x M.2), the RAM slots (2x SO-DIMM), and the cooling system. The latter consists of one fan for the CPU and two fans for the GPU, with some heat pipes going across both components, so the cooling is not completely separated.

However, in order to remove the bottom of the case, a certain amount of skill and force is necessary. After you have removed 9 Philips screws from the bottom of the case, you have to pry it off its moorings with a fine tool such as a spatula, which might deter some non-professionals.

With the touchpad, MSI also stands out from the crowd. A width of 14 cm (~5.5 in) is extremely generous for a 15-inch device. This allows also longer traces across the display to succeed without having to re-position the finger. In terms of its height, the mouse replacement only measures 6.5 cm (~2.6 in), which is a bit meager. Since the touchpad offers a decent stability and accepts inputs relatively accurately (except for the edge areas), the lack of the dedicated mouse keys is not too grave. There was also nothing too conspicuous in terms of the multi-touch support. 2-finger gestures such as zooming and scrolling were mostly recognized reliably during the test.

After 144-Hz panels have dominated in gaming notebooks in 2019, the year 2020 is reigned by 240 and 300-Hz technology. Even though subjectively, these new frequency jumps are becoming less and less noticeable (the change from a 60-Hz to a 144-Hz display has a much more noticeable effect) and the graphics cards can only rarely supply the corresponding fps numbers, the 300-Hz screen of our test configuration still is some sort of purchase argument.

Regardless of whether it uses the RTX 2060, RTX 2070, or RTX 2080, the GS66 Stealth is part of the high-end segment. All three graphics cards bring more than sufficient power for the native Full HD resolution. A 1000 to 2000 GB SSD and 16 to 32 GB of RAM are also up to date. Not to mention the powerful hexa or octa-core processor.

So it is hardly surprising that the 10980HK only uses its Turbo to a limited degree. From the theoretically possible 5.3 GHz, only 4.3 to 4.9 GHz remain during single-core load. When all the cores are loaded, the clock speed drops to 3.6 - 3.9 GHz, which is not bad at all, but still falls behind the potential of the CPU. This makes the already meager price-performance ratio even more questionable, particularly since the performance in our Cinebench-R15 loop drops even further after the second run - like that of other notebooks. For this reason, we would recommend the also very fast but less demanding Core i7-10750H when buying the GS66.

Compared to the old Core i7-9750H, which offers 6 cores and runs all the listed competitors, the performance plus of the i9-10980HK is still considerable. In the multi-core test of Cinebench R20, the advantage is between 52 and 62%.

Not the least because of the powerful processor, the GS66 leaves the competitors behind in the application performance. With 6490 points, the overall score in PCMark 10 is between 8 and 18% above that of the competitors. The operating system boots up fairly quickly and otherwise also responds comfortably fast (load times, installations, etc.).

For storage, there is an NVMe model from Samsung, or to be exact, the PM981 MZVLB1T0HARL. This M.2 drive definitely does not need to hide behind the competitors from Intel (Aero 15 Classic), Seagate (Schenker XMG Neo 15), and WDC (Predator Triton 500 & HP Omen X 2S) during reading as well as writing. Those who want to expand the storage space will find an empty M.2 slot under the hood.

The GeForce RTX 2070 Super Max-Q is a slightly tuned version of the old 2070 Max-Q (also Turing architecture). For example, Nvidia has increased the number of shaders from 2304 to 2560. The amount of GDDR6 video storage is 8 GB again and connected via 256-bit interface. The basic clock speed is specified by the manufacturer as 930 MHz, with significantly higher values achievable via automatic GPU boost. We evaluated how the clock speed behaves under load using the Ungine Heaven 4.0 benchmark and the role-playing game "The Witcher 3." Around 1300 to 1400 MHz are a decent value.

Apropos "The Witcher 3": In contrast to the processor performance, the graphics performance remains relatively constant. The 60-minute endurance test did not reveal any fps drops or anything like that. You only have to watch out during battery operation. As in most other laptops, the frame rate drops massively without the charger (-85% @ GS66), since the CPU and GPU are throttled significantly.

Connected to the power supply, the RTX 2070 Super Max-Q is able to make use of its power quite well, as our GPU benchmarks also confirm. Although the performance in 3DMark 11 and 3DMark 13 is slightly worse than that of the Aero 17 HDR XB we recently tested, the GS66 still sprints ahead of the competing laptops with the "regular" RTX 2070 Max-Q by several percentage points. 

As long as you don't connect a QHD or UHD monitor, the RTX 2070 Super Max-Q displays all the current games smoothly at maximum details. It only drops below the 60-fps mark in very computing-intensive and/or less-optimized games such as "Borderlands 3." Well optimized and/or less demanding games (FIFA 20, Apex Legends, Doom Eternal, etc.), however, run at more than 100 fps on average. 

The noise development is not really a strong suite of the GS66, to say it gently. MSI takes the bad example from the competitors, letting the fans run at a very high speed under load. 48 to 53 dB(A) are annoyingly loud without a headset and should deter some interested buyers from the purchase.

Even though the GS66 does better during idle mode, we weren't really satisfied with the performance here either. The fact that the fans are never turned off in the Dragon Center settings we tested isn't even the real problem. What turns out much more annoying in practice is the intermittent revving up of the fan, the cause of which often remained a mystery to us. Supposedly simple tasks such as video, web, and installations/updates also tend to force the fans to produce their sudden noise. 

A solution would be to use Silent mode, but according to our experience with other MSI laptops, this will only help to a limited degree with some problems and will also limit the performance by a lot (stuttering Youtube videos). By the way, the fan noise of the MSI GS66 is not one of the more pleasant fan noises, regardless of the fan speed.

Things look worse for the processor. Although the Turbo hardly gets to do its work, the Core i9-10980HK settles at around 90 °C (194 °F) in the stress test. This is another indication that the CPU is not quite suitable for the case – particularly if you also consider the noise development, which is primarily due to the 10980HK in our experience. 

The 2.0 system of the GS66 is positioned on the left and right edge of the palm rest and offers a loud maximum volume (91 dB(A)). According to our audio analysis and subjective impressions, the sound leaves something to be desired. As typical for notebooks, it mainly lacks the bass. But the sound did not really impress us in other areas as well (dull, muddy sound spectrum). So for music, movies, and games, headphones are recommended.

In order to keep the power consumption as low as possible, you should use graphics switching, which is activated by default (MSHybrid Graphics Mode @Dragon Center). Depending on the demands, Nvidia's Optimus technology switches between the dedicated GeForce GPU and the graphics unit integrated in the processor (Intel UHD Graphics 630). Thanks to these power savings, the GS66 only uses 13 to 27 watts during idle operation. Under load, our measurements showed between 109 and 236 watts, which is also acceptable for a high-end notebook.

Where the GS65 still had to be content with an 82-Wh battery, the successor offers a huge 99.99 Wh. Even the Gigabyte Aero 15 Classic, which has been trimmed for mobility, is unable to reach this value (94 Wh). Most of the gaming laptops are only accompanied by 80 Wh. However, considering the ample capacity, the battery life is a bit disappointing. Okay, up to 8.5 hours under ideal conditions (no load, minimum display brightness) and about 6 hours of Internet surfing via WLAN at medium brightness level are still respectable for a high-end notebook, but the competitors achieve similar or in parts even better values with weaker batteries. So apparently the power management of the GS66 isn't quite optimal.