MSI GS76 Stealth 11UH gaming laptop review: GPU performance sacrificed for a slimmer build ^↺

The competitors of the GS76 11UH include other high-end gaming laptops with the GeForce RTX 3080 that are no thicker than 2.5 cm. Besides the Gigabyte Aero 17 HDR YD and the Asus ROG Zephyrus S17 GX703HSD, the Razer Blade Pro 17 2021 and the Medion Erazer Beast X25 should also be mentioned here. These laptops are listed in the tables as comparison devices.

Let's get straight to one of the biggest weaknesses: Although the GS series has become a bit sturdier over the generations, the current model still struggles with its stability and resistance to torsion. When strong pressure is applied, not only does the base unit flex noticeably in the area of the touchpad, but also in the center of the keyboard. Most manufacturers do a better job here despite the similarly thin designs.

Otherwise, there's hardly anything to criticize about the case. In comparison to the predecessor, the GS75, MSI doesn't use gold-colored elements, which makes the 17-incher look even more sober while also making a stylish and discreet impression in any situation or environment. Apart from the slightly rough transition between the C and D covers in some areas, the build quality is also able to impress. The GS76 is also pleasing in terms of quality. The dark metal surfaces are fingerprint magnets, but they feel very high-quality apart from their lack of stability.

With a weight of around 2.4 kg, the GS75 is also one of the lightest 17-inch gaming devices. With the exception of the Medion Beast X25, all competitors are a few hundred grams heavier (2.8 - 3.0 kg). In combination with its low build height (about 2 cm without the feet), the MSI laptop is quite comfortable to carry around.

Ports

MSI is up to date when it comes to ports. As you would expect from a modern gaming laptop, the GS76 offers a Thunderbolt 4 port that supports DisplayPort as well as Power Delivery. Together with the second USB Type-C port (also with DisplayPort support), and the HDMI 2.1 output (120 Hz @4K or 60 Hz @8K), up to three external monitors can be connected. In addition, there are two classic USB Type-A ports (3.2 Gen 2), a 2.5 Gigabit LAN port (Killer E3100G Ethernet controller), a 3.5 mm audio jack, a card reader (UHS-III), and a slot for Kensington locks.

Because the ports are crammed into the central area of the two lateral surfaces, motion limitations can occur when using a mouse, depending on the amount of cables involved.

The card reader delivers a very good performance. With 199 MB/s in sequential reading and 196 MB/s when transferring photos with our 128 GB AV Pro V60 reference microSD card, it ranks second in the test field. Only the Razer Blade 17 Pro 2021 performs even better.

The Wi-Fi 6E Killer AX1675x chip is responsible for wireless connections. It supports Bluetooth 5.2 and the WLAN 802.11b/g/n/ac/ax standard. The GS76 shows no weakness in the test with our Netgear Nighthawk AX12 reference router (1 m distance). 1,499 Mb/s (sending) and 1,328 Mb/s (receiving) are excellent rates, respectively.

The built-in 720p webcam proves to be less impressive. As with most rivals, it lacks color accuracy and image sharpness.

The box includes a 230-watt power adapter, which isn't particularly compact, and a few information booklets.

The maintenance options are rather disappointing. Those who break the factory seal on the case's bottom and remove the 15 cross-head screws can indeed lift off the entire bottom cover, but only the fans, the battery, the M.2 slots, and the wireless module are accessible inside due to the presence of huge, glued foil surfaces. The CPU's or GPU's cooling system and the RAM can't be accessed easily. This is unnecessary and is solved in a better way by other manufacturers.

The warranty period extends to 24 months (Pickup & Return service).

In general, the touchpad has some catching up to do. Due to the moderate stability, the mouse replacement can clearly be pushed down, and it quickly rattles with inputs, which is detrimental to the perceived quality. Accuracy could also be a bit better. At least the smooth surface provides a pleasant gliding experience. The dimensions leave mixed feelings. While the touchpad is pleasantly wide at 12 cm, the height of 6 cm is a bit low. There were no problems with gesture support (zooming and scrolling with two fingers, etc.).

The top model is equipped with the sharpest of the available displays. The 4K display has the AUO B173ZAN06.1 designation and offers a resolution of 3840x2160 pixels.

An octa-core CPU, 16 GB GPU, and a generous 64 GB of RAM: The GS76 11UH-074 falls into the absolute high-end range - not surprising considering the hefty price of 4,400 Euros (~$5,159).

MSI chose one of the strongest processors from Intel's current Tiger Lake generation for its top model. The Core i9-11900H offers 24 MB of L3 cache and eight cores, and up to 16 parallel threads are possible via Hyper-Threading. The base clock speed of the 10 nm chip is 2.5 GHz. Under load - depending on the application and stress - up to 4.9 GHz can be reached. The TDP of 45 watts is in line with most other mobile CPUs with six or eight cores. The HWiNFO tool indicates a PL1 value of 90 watts and a PL2 one of 109 watts.

The GS76 excels with a very high speed in our benchmark course, but its performance drops a bit over time as our Cinebench loop shows. The comparison laptops based on the 11900H/11980HK or the 5900HX tend to gain a bit of ground in the long run. Older Comet Lake counterparts (e.g. with the Core i7-10875H) fall considerably behind, on the other hand.

The system performance of the GS76 11UH meets the high expectations, despite it only being sufficient for the second-to-last place in PCMark 10. The differences in the overall score are marginal, though.

Things really take off when it comes to storage. MSI provides the 17-incher with an extremely fast PCIe 4 SSD that significantly outperforms older PCIe 3 drives (at least on paper). The 2 TB version of the Samsung PM9A1 was also installed in our test device of the Asus ROG GX703HSD, and as expected, it performed similarly well there. If you want to expand the storage space, there's still an empty M.2 slot inside the case (but only PCIe 3.0).

Estimating the performance of current Nvidia graphics cards is not an easy task due to the strongly differing TGPs. In the case of the GS76, the GeForce RTX 3080, which theoretically reaches up to 165 watts (incl. Dynamic Boost), only runs with a TGP of 95 watts; this can lead to the top model from Nvidia's Ampere series performing slower than a much cheaper RTX 3070.

Correspondingly, it's hardly surprising that the GS76 finishes last in the synthetic graphics benchmarks. Despite its comparable height, the Asus Zephyrus S17 is partly over 20% faster. No wonder, since Asus allows the RTX 3080 to consume 140 Watts. Whether the emissions are at least lower in return than those of the competition is something that we'll analyze shortly.

The weak TGP has a negative impact on the gaming benchmarks as well. The GS76 often has to admit defeat to its rivals here too. Nevertheless, performance is sufficient to run all the latest games smoothly in FHD or QHD with maximum details. However, things can get a bit tight at the native 4K resolution and/or when ray tracing is enabled, which is shown by our benchmarks. In this case, Crysis Remastered drops below the 30 FPS mark, for example. If the resolution is reduced when necessary, passionate gamers will still be satisfied with the 3D performance of the GS76 11UH.

We tested how the graphics performance behaves over a prolonged period of time with the role-playing game The Witcher 3 for a good 60 minutes (FHD/Ultra). Similar to the CPU, the GPU performance also decreases a bit after a while, but we can't say that there are major performance drops.

According to our emission measurements, the cooling system of the GS76 11UH can't keep up with the Zephyrus S17. Although the MSI laptop has a lower TGP and a lower graphics performance as a result, it often gets louder than its Asus counterpart in 3D mode. We measured an average of 48 dB(A) instead of 45 dB(A) when playing The Witcher 3 - a high level, but not (yet) extremely loud. The GS76 still deserves credit for the fact that many competitors surpass the 50 dB mark here and are therefore annoyingly loud.

In idle usage, the 17-incher is usually silent, but it occasionally ramps up unnecessarily.