MSI Katana GF76 review: Gaming laptop with room for improvement

The MSI Katana GF76 comes in a jet-black design with a backlit keyboard that has red accents. If you don't like the somber look, the device is also available as the Sword 17 with a white chassis and blue keyboard backlighting.

Compared to some other gaming laptops, the design of the Katana GF76 is relatively modest. Fortunately, the laptop doesn't have sharp edges - as is the case with swords from which it borrows its name - but it does have an angular design. The most noticeable elements are the large air vents at the back and on the left side that are used for the "Cooler Boost 5" cooling system.

Despite the fact that the case is made of plastic, it makes a solid impression in terms of feel, and a decent one in terms of quality. As you would expect from MSI, workmanship regarding gap dimensions and the like is high quality. The hinges have been designed in such a way that the laptop can be opened with one hand, but the display remains firmly in place despite some slight wobbling.

If we include the other gaming laptops with 17.3-inch displays in our size comparison, the MSI Katana GF76 is quite compact. With its 39.8 x 27.3 cm footprint, it's smaller than the Aorus 17G YD and the MSI GP76 Leopard 10UG. Only the Schenker XMG Core 17 (Tongfang GM7MG0R) has a slightly smaller size, but it's much thicker than the Katana GF76 in exchange, which measures a good 2.5 cm.

Our test candidate weighs around 2.7 kg. This places it at the front of the 17.3-inch field, and it can even almost keep up with the 15.6-inch Alienware m15 R5 Ryzen Edition that is equipped with the same GPU.

MSI hasn't placed any ports at the back, so that everything is located on the left and right sides. Although the number of ports is relatively generous, connectivity could still be improved. There's only one USB-C port, and it doesn't support DisplayPort. Thunderbolt is not available either. External monitors can only be connected to the gaming laptop using the HDMI port that outputs 4K UHD content at up to 60 Hz.

The ports are all easy to reach, but they could have been provided with a bit more space between them on the right side of the case.

In addition to the Gigabit LAN port, the latest 802.11ax Wi-Fi standard is on board thanks to Intel's Wi-Fi 6 AX201 module. The Wi-Fi connection is very fast in the test, and it can position itself very far ahead in the comparison field.

The webcam serves its purpose, but that's it. It has a resolution of 720p and shows relatively large color deviations in the test (∆E of 13.15).

Apart from the 180-watt power adapter, which has sufficient capacity, MSI doesn't include anything else. No accessories tailored to the device are offered as an option either.

MSI offers the usual two-year manufacturer's warranty including Collect & Return. There's no warranty extension available.

The touchpad, which is only slightly recessed, is placed in the center under the space bar and measures 10.5 x 6.5 cm. It's comfortable to the touch, and the two click surfaces at the bottom left and right aren't noticeably loud. The touchpad works with pleasant precision, so there are hardly any points of criticism in our review of the Katana GF76 in this regard.

In addition to the powerful hardware, the 17.3-inch display is one of the Katana GF76's highlights according to the manufacturer. It refreshes at a fast 144 Hz, which provides for a smooth gaming experience combined with the performance level. The IPS panel with LED backlight has a resolution of 1920x1080 pixels and a matte surface.

MSI offers the Katana GF76 in many different configurations. In addition to two variants (11SC-081 and 11UC-210) with the Intel Core i5-11400H, most models are equipped with the Intel Core i7-11800H from the Tiger Lake generation. These include the Katana 11US-083 that comes with the GeForce RTX 3050 laptop GPU, various models with the GeForce RTX 3050 Ti laptop GPU, and finally, the top model with the GeForce RTX 3070 laptop GPU.

Our MSI Katana GF76 11UE-036 test device is one of the best configuration variants. It's equipped with the Intel Core i7-11800H Tiger Lake CPU, the GeForce RTX 3060 laptop GPU, 16 GB of DDR4-3200 RAM, and a 512 GB M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD.

Intel's Core i7-11800H is a CPU from the Tiger Lake generation specifically designed for gaming laptops and workstations. MSI makes maximum use of the 45-watt TDP and allows a short-term peak of up to 60 watts. The clock rate goes from a minimum of 2.3 GHz to a maximum of 4.6 GHz in single-core Turbo mode as well as 4.2 GHz for all cores. Thanks to the L3 cache that has increased to 24 MB, among other things, the new Tiger Lake CPU offers significantly more performance than the Intel Core i7-10875H (Comet Lake H) predecessor with clock speeds of 2.3 to 5.1 GHz and 16 MB of L3 cache.

In the benchmarks, the MSI Katana GF76 isn't quite able to keep up with the Aorus 17G YD, which has the same CPU but a higher PL2 value, or the CPU average. Thanks to the newer CPU, however, it positions itself clearly ahead of the competitors in our comparison field that are equipped with the Intel Core i7-10750H as well as the Intel Core i7-10870H. Here, the current Tiger Lake H generation shows what it's capable of and its considerable performance gain. Nevertheless, it's well known that the CPU has to give way to the AMD Ryzen 7 5800H from the Alienware m15 R5 Ryzen Edition in some cases. On battery power, the CPU only achieves a good 60% of its performance level when plugged in during the Cinebench benchmark.

System performance paints the same picture: The Aorus 17G YD usually performs even better, and the Katana GF76 doesn't entirely reach the CPU/GPU average, either. However, compared with the other devices, it performs well, which is mainly thanks to the new CPU generation. Therefore, there are no problems in everyday use, and the laptop runs at a fast speed.

The SSD installed in the MSI Katana GF76 is not really able to convince in the test. On one hand, it's relatively small for a gaming device with 512 GB. However, thanks to the free M.2 slot (NVMe PCIe Gen 3), an additional SSD can be added later if necessary. Furthermore, the device is also available with a 1 TB SSD and an otherwise identical configuration for an extra charge in the form of the Katana GF76 11UE-058.

The built-in model's operating speed is modest. In our benchmarks, it predominantly lands at the bottom of the list, it achieves significantly worse rates than most comparison models, and it also scores 10% worse than the average of all devices equipped with this SSD. It's not a clear performance bottleneck in everyday use though. However, copying operations and the like can sometimes take a bit longer than in other gaming laptops.

Compared with other gaming laptops using the GeForce RTX 3060 laptop GPU, the MSI Katana GF76 11UE-036 isn't quite able to keep up most of the time. It scores slightly less points in most benchmarks and also ends up below the GPU average. This shows that MSI isn't exploiting the full potential of the graphics solution but is keeping it on a tight leash instead with a TGP of a good 85 watts. MSI restrains the GPU even further on battery power (TGP of around 45 watts).

Needless to say, the Katana GF76 can't really compete with the even more powerful graphics solutions found in the other test devices. Users who need more graphics power than what is offered by the 11UE-036 configuration can get the GeForce RTX 3070 laptop GPU with the 11UG-090 version. If the Nvidia GPU is not needed, the CPU's integrated Intel UHD Graphics takes over.

When it comes to gaming performance, the device delivers an above-average performance under low load. The frame rate then drops below the GPU average as the demand on the GPU increases, which is due to the poor TGP.

The frame rates in The Witcher 3 are in the lower half of the test field, but they are constant and absolutely sufficient throughout the entire time. All the games that we tested ran without issues and very smoothly at the maximum supported resolution of 1920x1080 pixels and the highest settings. The MSI Katana GF76 doesn't show any weaknesses here yet, but it could eventually reach its limits in future and even more demanding games.