MSI Katana 15 Series
Processor: Intel Alder Lake-P i7-12650H, Intel Raptor Lake-HX i7-14650HXGraphics Adapter: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5050 Laptop, NVIDIA NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4050 Laptop GPU
Display: 15.60 inch
Weight: 2.282kg, 2.4kg
Price: 1750 euro
Average of 2 scores (from 3 reviews)
MSI Katana 15 B12VEK
Specifications
Notebook: MSI Katana 15 B12VEKProcessor: Intel Alder Lake-P i7-12650H
Graphics Adapter: NVIDIA NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4050 Laptop GPU 6141 MB
Display: 15.60 inch, 16:9, 1920 x 1080 pixels
Weight: 2.282kg
Price: 1750 euro
Links: MSI homepage MSI notebook section
Price comparison
Reviews
The 15-inch Katana has only been slightly revamped and comes with a new graphics card from the RTX 40xx series. Unlike many competitors, MSI combines the new GPU with a Gen12 instead of a Gen13 CPU from Intel. The retail price of US$1,499.99 as a "budget" price tag is rather steep. Is the Katana still worth it?
Source: Hubwood
Single Review, online available, Very Long, Date: 03/04/2023
Source: Hubwood
Single Review, online available, Very Long, Date: 03/04/2023
MSI Katana 15 HX B14WEK
Specifications
Notebook: MSI Katana 15 HX B14WEKProcessor: Intel Raptor Lake-HX i7-14650HX
Graphics Adapter: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5050 Laptop 8192 MB
Display: 15.60 inch, 16:9, 1920 x 1080 pixels
Weight: 2.4kg
Links: MSI homepage MSI notebook section
Price comparison
Average Score:
Reviews
Source: CNet
If you want the best frame rates for the lowest price, then it's a solid pick. But you'll need to live with some budget touches, the worst of which is the dim display. If you can extend your gaming laptop budget from $1,000 to around $1,300, then the Acer Nitro V 16S AI or Lenovo Legion 5i provides a brighter display, lighter design, higher-resolution webcam and bump to RTX 5060 graphics along with double the RAM and storage.
Single Review, online available, Medium, Date: 08/21/2025
Rating: Total score: 72%
Comment
MSI: Micro-Star International (MSI) was founded in 1986 in Taiwan. MSI is especially known as a manufacturer of motherboards and graphics cards for PCs, but also offers computer accessories, complete systems, motherboards, graphics cards, laptops, desktop PCs, monitors and other components. However, the Microstar brand name in Germany belongs to the Medion company. MSI is known for its gaming products and has developed a wide range of gaming laptops and desktop PCs. The company is also active in workstations, servers and industrial automation. MSI has offices in North America, Europe, Asia and Australia.
With these GPUs you are able to play modern and demanding games fluently at medium detail settings and HD resolution.
NVIDIA NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4050 Laptop GPU: Mid-range graphics card for laptops based on the Ada Lovelace architecture. Offers 6 GB of GDDR6 VRAM (96 Bit) and is configurable with a TGP of 35 - 115W (+ Dynamic Boost).
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5050 Laptop: Entry-level graphics card from the Blackwell family for Laptops with 2,560 unified shaders (CUDA cores) and a clock rate of 1500 - 2662 MHz depending on the TDP setting. According to Nvidia, the performance without DLSS and frame generation should be comparable to an RTX 4060.
» Further information can be found in our Comparison of Mobile Graphics Cards and the corresponding Benchmark List.
Intel Alder Lake-P:
i7-12650H: Alder Lake based mobile CPU with 6 performance cores and 4 efficient cores. The performance cores offer hyper threading, leading to 16 threads that can be processed. The CPU clocks from 1.7 to 4.7 GHz and supports vPro.
Intel Raptor Lake-HX:
i7-14650HX: High-end mobile hybrid processor based on the Raptor Lake architecture with 16 cores (8 performance and 8 efficiency cores) and 24 threads. Based on the Raptor Lake S 13700K chip.
» Further information can be found in our Comparison of Mobile Processsors.
» To find out how fine a display is, see our DPI List.
No weight comment found (one expected)!
77.45%: This rating is not earth-shattering. This rating must actually be seen as average, since there are about as many devices with worse ratings as better ones. A purchase recommendation can only be seen with a lot of goodwill, unless it is about websites that generally rate strictly.
» Further information can be found in our Notebook Purchase Guide.
