Modern gaming laptops are lighter, thinner, and more powerful than ever. But how do we go from the bulky pioneers of portable gaming to today’s slim, stylish PC that boasts AAA-ready performance?
Gaming has changed dramatically over the past two decades, and new releases continue to challenge the recurring belief that graphics are the best they’ll ever be. In 20 years, we have seen a jump from Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas to Cyberpunk 2077of halo 2 to Black Myth: Wukongalong with many other examples.
While software developers and artists have continued to evolve their craft to produce incredibly realistic games like the ones we have today, so have hardware and system manufacturers. The evolution of laptops are the archaeological fossils of the gaming world, demonstrating how form factor, weight, volume and performance have evolved over time, making great strides for on-the-go gaming with each milestone. .
Today’s laptops can compete with their desktop counterparts, thanks to a combination of increasingly efficient graphics cards that use AI-enhanced technology to increase performance and visual clarity, along with carefully designed lightweight chassis and cooling systems. internal. As a prime example of this progress, MSI’s RTX-powered 40 series laptops benefit from sleek, lightweight portability and highly capable gaming performance, powered by performance-enhancing technology such as NVIDIA DLSS.
As the holiday season approaches, many of these powerful machines are on sale. here, with many options for every budget. With the best new releases like Indiana Jones and the Great Circle Recently launched, MSI’s RTX 40 series powered laptops are the perfect choice for those looking to experience cutting-edge gaming technology. With all the progress made this year, let’s take a walk through history to find out exactly how we got here.
Ready Player Fun
The story begins back in 2007 with the MSI GX600, the world’s first overclockable laptop with MSI’s exclusive Turbo Drive Engine technology; This gave gamers the choice between better battery life or additional performance with the push of a button. The system featured a GeForce GT8600M, which was housed inside a bulky, square chassis, emblazoned with the almighty red decal, a symbol that the laptop was primed and ready to play.
A complete demon in its prime (after all, it was the first overclockable gaming laptop) this old soul doesn’t have the same reputation today. It’s fair to say that its once almighty GPU is somewhat outdated, and with a chunky 32mm bulk weighing a whopping 2.8kg, it’s definitely not the ideal choice when travelling. Of course, it’s no surprise that a laptop released almost 20 years ago struggles with the latest AAA titles, and it still holds a place in our hearts.
Play with a ghost
Fast forward a few years, and the early 2010s saw a steady improvement in the performance of both CPUs and GPUs. The MSI GS60 2PE certainly marked this moment upon its release in 2014. Featuring the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 870M, which included 1,344 cores compared to the GT8600M’s measly 32, the system was quite a significant upgrade, especially at a time when it depended on the raw plot. performance was the only option.
Thanks to some really clever engineering, the Ghost Pro was as powerful as it was portable: it was the lightest NVIDIA 800 Series laptop on the market at just 1.96kg, and despite its enormous power, it wasn’t heavy; In fact, it was as light as many of the best ultrabooks that were built specifically for a light and thin size. Given that it was also only 19.9mm thick, it was a gaming wolf in fancy clothes and the 2010 equivalent of what modern gaming laptops can achieve.
Hiding in plain sight
In 2017, MSI pushed the limits once again with the MSI GE62 7RE Camo Squad Limited Edition. Taking its name from the distinctive camouflage finish of the case, a world’s first, MSI once again met the difficult challenge of packing high-end components into an easily portable laptop. Although it was a decent contender at the time, the 2.4kg and 29mm thickness is not a shining star by today’s standards. However, with the option of 15.6″ FHD or UHD displays, an optional M.2 SSD, and a GeForce GTX 1050 Ti inside, it offered an affordable and stylish option for the new generation of NVIDIA GPU systems.
The Camo Squad’s secret power wasn’t just in its display, however, as the GTX 1050 Ti was the first GPU series to support NVIDIA Reflex, a latency-reducing setup that would have a notable impact on gaming and sports. electronics in the years to come. This new architecture was a true upgrade, breaking records for both performance and efficiency and offering the best experiences available in the major versions at the time, especially with the growing rise of virtual reality.
The fighting titan
In 2020 MSI launched the MSI GT76 Titan with the amazing NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER. There was no camouflage this time, but the Titan was super stealthy in its sleek black casing, or at least it was until you turned on the lights to see its RGB keyboard and details. Made with an aerodynamic aluminum shell and carbon fiber-themed bodywork, it was absolutely stunning, although it came at a cost.
Including the powerful RTX 2080 SUPER in this system required some compromises, particularly its 4.2kg weight and 42mm volume. While it certainly made an impressive first impression and benefited from a sense of robustness, it wasn’t the ideal system to carry around.
However, the Titan had plenty of power to match the style, with an i9 10900K inside, with 20 threads and 10 cores capable of reaching up to 5.3 GHz in single core and 5.0 GHz with full core overclock . Along with the first of the RTX series graphics cards, the GeForce RTX 2080SUPER, it also delivered serious graphics power. This generation marked a milestone for laptop gaming, introducing AI-powered game enhancement technology such as DLSS to increase frame rates without compromising image quality. Using dedicated Tensor Cores, the RTX 2080 SUPER was the beginning of the current evolution in gaming. The challenge with all that power is how to keep it cool, and MSI covered it with an extreme cooling system that used four fans and 11 heat pipes to deliver 2.25 times the airflow of previous cooling systems. That allowed it to deliver massive performance without being held back by annoying thermal throttling.
The evolution of everything
Those years of evolution and revolution bring us to today, where MSI and NVIDIA have combined all the lessons of the last two decades to create a sleek, lightweight and incredibly powerful laptop: the MSI Stealth 14 AI Studio.
The first thing you’ll notice about the Stealth 14 AI Studio is the striking two-tone design available in Pure White or Star Blue. Beneath those colors is the super-light, super-strong magnesium alloy chassis, a premium material that helped MSI reduce weight to just 1.7kg in a case that’s just 19mm thick. That’s over a kg lighter than the 2007 MSI GX600 and almost half the volume, a pretty considerable improvement.
Don’t be fooled by that thin and light chassis: there’s a big engine room there, with an Intel Core Ultra 7 155H CPU, complemented by a powerful NVIDIA GeForce RTX™ 4060. Built on the basis of the 20 series GPU, the cards Series 40 supports the next generation of AI-enhancing DLSS 3 technology, which Frame Generation introduced to supported titles, further increasing performance by more than doubling frame rate compared to native cards. prosecution.
That performance would not be sustainable without MSI’s expertise in cutting-edge CPU and GPU cooling. The Stealth 14 AI Studio is designed with a dedicated vapor chamber cooler on the CPU and GPU, which can manage thermal flow and maximize performance. The increased heat capacity reduces noise and temperature, keeping performance stable even under exceptionally high demand.
With modern laptops sometimes weighing less than half as much as previous models, taking up a fraction of the space with significantly reduced volume, and housing GPUs five times more powerful than even the previous generation in certain titles, gaming on laptops has never They have been better.
MSI’s holiday sale is now live, so there’s never been a better time to pick up an RTX 40 series laptop. For the best gaming experience, click here to find out which MSI Series 40 laptop is perfect for you.
