MSI WS66 Series

MSI WS66 10TMT-207US

The WS66 is MSI's latest ultra-thin mobile workstation derived from the GS66 gaming laptop as a successor to last year's MSI WS63 and WS65. It is definitely a complete redesign compared to the last generation model, as the intention was to create great competition for other sleek Nvidia Studio workstations like the Razer Blade 15 Studio, the Asus ProArt series, the HP ZBook Studio or even the Dell Precision 5550. This laptop shares a similar design with the GS66 model, being a robust representative of the thin and light category. Overall, the case only shows some slight give in response to more forceful pressure, which is definitely great. The metal surfaces of the lid and base unit give a rather high-quality impression. However, owing to its dark colour, the surface tends to quickly pick up fingerprints, which creates a rather messy look. A singular characteristic of the case has to be the abundant 180 degrees opening angle, as it is quite rare in gaming notebooks. It is worth noting that MSI absolutely deserves some praise for the simple design, since it does not immediately make anyone think about a gaming platform when looking at it, striking a good figure in any situation. In terms of its keyboard, it is a known fact that MSI does not follow the German standard for the layout, but it was optimized for gaming. The fact that Insert and Delete share a single key is less than optimal. These peculiarities do require quite some time to get used to.

As for the trackpad, the wide Precision click pad (14 x 6.5 cm) is smooth with only a little sticking when gliding at slow speeds. However, the integrated mouse buttons are quite soft in feedback with shallow travel, leading to an overall unsatisfying user experience. As far as connectivity is concerned, the distinguishing factor between the WS66 from the GS66 are their USB-A ports: While the WS66 has only one USB-A port, the GS66 has three. In addition, the WS66 gains a full-size SD-card reader. The AU Optronics B156HAB03.0 IPS panel offers contrast and brightness that are both good for the category at about 900:1 and 363 nits, respectively. However, it is worth noting that other ultra-thin workstations like the Precision 5550 are brighter, more colourful and have deeper black levels for superior image quality. In addition, the black-white response times are average, which is to be expected since this is not a gaming machine. As for the processor, unlike the Razer Blade 15 Studio which is fixed at the Core i7-10875H, the WS66 offers Xeon and Core i9 options for ECC RAM support and faster raw computing power, respectively. On the other hand, the RAM is configurable up to 64GB as opposed to 128GB on full-size workstations like the Dell Precision 7550. In a nutshell, this is a great laptop to be explored, depending on the need and preference of the user.

Hands-on article by Jagadisa Rajarathnam

Specifications

Pricecompare

Average Score: 90% - very good

Reviews

90% MSI WS66 10TMT review
Source: Laptop Mag Archive.org version
The problem? That hurdle I mentioned requires a run and jump in your budget to get over. The WS66 isn't the sort of laptop most consumers will buy with their own hard-earned cash. It's made so companies can buy them for engineers, data scientists, content creators, or anyone in a field that requires intensive processing or graphics performance. Anyone lucky enough to end up with one of these on their desk will be grateful.
Single Review, online available, Long, Date: 12/12/2020
Rating: Total score: 90%

90% MSI WS66 10TMT review
Source: Laptop Mag Archive.org version
The problem? That hurdle I mentioned requires a run and jump in your budget to get over. The WS66 isn't the sort of laptop most consumers will buy with their own hard-earned cash. It's made so companies can buy them for engineers, data scientists, content creators, or anyone in a field that requires intensive processing or graphics performance. Anyone lucky enough to end up with one of these on their desk will be grateful.
Single Review, online available, Long, Date: 12/12/2020
Rating: Total score: 90%

MSI WS66 11UMT-220US

Specifications

Pricecompare

Average Score: 70% - average

Reviews

80% MSI WS66 Mobile Workstation review
Source: Techradar
We can’t fault MSI’s ambition, but this CPU and GPU in a portable system results in excessive fan noise and less performance than a desktop workstation. It’s also heavy and saddled with a mediocre SSD.
Single Review, online available, Medium, Date: 03/04/2022
Rating: Total score: 80%

60% MSI WS66
Source: PC Mag
The 15.6-inch flagship workstations from HP, Lenovo, and Dell are expensive, exotic laptops that deliver topmost performance for demanding professionals. The MSI WS66 isn't in their league, partly because of a somewhat subdued Core i9 CPU but mostly because of an unimpressive screen. If you have $4,000 to spend, you can do better.
Single Review, online available, Long, Date: 01/08/2022
Rating: Total score: 60%

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 Quadro RTX 5000 Max-Q: Professional high-end laptop graphics card based on the TU104 chip with 3,072 shaders and 16 GB GDDR6 VRAM. Compared to the normal mobile variant, the Max-Q variants are clocked lower and work in a more efficient state. Currently, we know of three variants with different clock speeds and power consumptions (80, 85 and 90 W).

These graphics cards are able to play the latest and most demanding games in high resolutions and full detail settings with enabled Anti-Aliasing.

NVIDIA RTX A5000 Laptop GPU: High-End professional laptop graphics card based on the Ampere GA104 chip. Based on the consumer GeForce GTX 3080 with certified drivers. Available in different performance variants ranging from 80 - 165 W TGP (max. power consumption).

» Further information can be found in our Comparison of Mobile Graphics Cards and the corresponding Benchmark List.

Intel Comet Lake:

i9-10980HK: On Comet Lake architecture based processor for big and heavy laptops. Integrates eight processor cores clocked at 3.1 - 5 GHz that support HyperThreading. Manufactured in an improved 14nm process (14nm++). At the time of announcement, the i9-10980HK is the fastest Comet Lake-H CPU and fastest laptop CPU on the market. Thanks to the free multiplicator, the CPU can also be easily overclocked (but may not have much headroom).

Intel Tiger Lake:

i9-11900H: Tiger Lake (H45 series) based high end octa-core SoC for gaming laptops and workstations. The eight CPU cores clock with 2.5 - 4.9 GHz. The integrated UHD Graphics GPU offers 32 cores at up to 1.45 GHz. The chip is manufactured in the 10nm SuperFin (improved 10nm) process.

» Further information can be found in our Comparison of Mobile Processsors.

» To find out how fine a display is, see our DPI List.

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80.68%: This rating is slightly above average, there are somewhat more devices with worse ratings. However, clear purchase recommendations look different.

» Further information can be found in our Notebook Purchase Guide.

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