If you‘re in the market for a sleek, portable, and powerful gaming laptop, the MSI GS65 Stealth deserves your consideration. Originally released in 2018, this machine made huge waves as one of the thinnest and lightest gaming laptops ever produced at the time, while still packing some serious hardware under the hood. Years later, is the GS65 Stealth still worth buying? As a laptop enthusiast who has owned one myself, I can confidently say yes – and I‘ll tell you why in this detailed review.
First off, let‘s talk about the design, because that‘s arguably the most standout aspect of this laptop. Measuring just 0.69 inches thick and weighing a mere 4.14 pounds, the GS65 Stealth is impressively compact for a 15-inch gaming machine. The black aluminum chassis looks and feels premium, with subtle gold accents adding a touch of style without being overly flashy. Slim screen bezels allow for an immersive display experience while keeping the overall footprint small. There‘s even enough room to fit a webcam above the screen, which is a feature many other thin-bezels laptops omit.
However, this sleek design does come with some practical drawbacks. With such a thin profile, the cooling system is rather limited, so the fans tend to get quite loud under heavy loads and the chassis can get pretty toasty, especially above the keyboard. But that‘s the price you pay for portability in a gaming laptop. As long as you‘re using it on a desk or table and not directly on your lap, it‘s generally not a big issue. And if it bothers you, investing in a good cooling pad can help a lot.
Port selection is thankfully very good despite the limited space. You get three USB 3.1 Type-A ports, a Thunderbolt 3 USB-C port, HDMI 2.0, mini-DisplayPort, Ethernet, a microSD card slot, and dedicated microphone and headphone jacks. That‘s pretty much everything you could ask for, and I appreciate the inclusion of a high-bandwidth Thunderbolt 3 port for connecting an external GPU or high-speed storage.
The keyboard, a collaboration with SteelSeries, is another highlight. It features customizable per-key RGB backlighting and has a great tactile feel while keeping a very low profile. The glass touchpad is also excellent – spacious, responsive, and with a satisfying click. Above the keyboard are dedicated buttons for power, GPU mode, and fan control.
But of course, what really matters in a gaming laptop is the performance, and the GS65 Stealth definitely delivers on that front. The model I tested came equipped with an Intel Core i7-8750H 6-core CPU, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 Max-Q graphics, 16GB of DDR4 RAM, and a 512GB NVMe SSD. That‘s an incredibly powerful hardware combo that‘s more than capable of running most modern games at high to ultra settings at the native 1920 x 1080 resolution.
The GTX 1070 Max-Q in particular is a beast, roughly equivalent to a desktop GTX 1070 but with lower clock speeds and power consumption to make it suitable for a thin laptop. Paired with a 144Hz refresh rate IPS display, games look absolutely gorgeous on the GS65 Stealth. I was consistently getting over 100fps in fast-paced shooters like Overwatch and Apex Legends, and a steady 60fps or more in graphically intensive single-player games like Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Assassin‘s Creed Odyssey, all with settings maxed out.
The 512GB SSD is a nice touch for fast boot and load times, though serious gamers will likely want to add a secondary high-capacity drive for their library. Luckily, that‘s very easy to do yourself by removing the bottom cover. There‘s even a second M.2 slot if you want to add a blazing fast secondary NVMe SSD. RAM is also upgradeable to 32GB. I really appreciate that MSI kept their thin laptop serviceable, as that‘s often not the case with ultraportables.
The 15.6-inch display itself is a real treat, bright and vibrant with a wide color gamut and excellent viewing angles thanks to the IPS panel. The 144Hz refresh rate makes high-fps gaming incredibly smooth and responsive. Once you game on a high refresh screen like this, you won‘t want to go back to 60Hz. The 7ms response time is also quite good, minimizing ghosting and blurring in fast motion. I didn‘t notice any deal-breaking issues like excessive backlight bleed or dead pixels on my unit.
Another nice feature of the display is the inclusion of MSI True Color technology, which lets you switch between different color profiles (like sRGB, Designer, Office, Movie, Gaming, and Anti-Blue) depending on your usage. As someone who also likes to do photo and video editing on my laptop, I found this really handy to have.
Battery life is about what you‘d expect for a gaming laptop with these specs – okay for general productivity tasks but not mind-blowing. You can get through a typical workday of web browsing and document editing if you keep the screen brightness low and stay on the integrated graphics mode. But for gaming, you‘ll definitely want to stay plugged in, as the GTX 1070 Max-Q is a huge power hog. Expect only 2-3 hours of battery life while gaming, less if you crank up the settings. The included 180W slim power brick does a good job of quickly charging the laptop.
Other features worth mentioning are the HD webcam, which produces a decent image under good lighting, the downward-firing speakers (which are mediocre, as with most laptop speakers), and the Killer 1550 802.11ac Wi-Fi adapter for fast and reliable connectivity. MSI also includes some handy software like Dragon Center for system monitoring and Steelseries Engine 3 for customizing the keyboard lighting. For the $1899 MSRP, you‘re really getting a lot of premium features here.
Of course, no laptop is perfect, and there are a few things I wish MSI had done differently with the GS65 Stealth. The biggest one is the lack of G-Sync support, which is a strange omission considering the high-end NVIDIA graphics and 144Hz screen. The fans, while doing a decent job of keeping things cool, are quite loud at high speeds and have an annoying high-pitch whine. A fingerprint reader for quick Windows Hello login would have been nice too. And this is more of a personal preference, but I think the gold accents look a bit tacky and clash with the RGB keyboard.
Still, those are relatively minor complaints compared to everything the GS65 Stealth gets right. It really hits the sweet spot of performance, portability, and price, even here in 2023. With an 8th gen Intel 6-core CPU and GTX 1070 Max-Q graphics, it‘s still very much capable of running the latest AAA games and demanding creative applications without breaking a sweat.
A few different configurations are available, so you can find the right price/performance balance for your needs and budget. The most common ones I‘ve seen have either a 256GB or 512GB SSD, and the higher-end models include a larger 1TB SSD and 32GB of RAM. There‘s even a version with an NVIDIA RTX 2080 Max-Q GPU if you really need extra graphics horsepower. The chassis and overall design remain consistent between models.
The biggest downside is that the GS65 Stealth is getting increasingly harder to find new, having been supplanted by the updated GS66 Stealth in 2019. The GS66 features Intel 9th gen CPUs, NVIDIA RTX graphics, an extra M.2 slot, and a larger battery, but is also considerably more expensive, with an MSRP starting at $2,999 for the RTX 2070 model. In my opinion, the performance gain isn‘t enough to justify the higher cost for most users, especially since the original GS65 can now be found for as low as $1,099 on the used/refurbished market.
So, who is the MSI GS65 Stealth for? If you‘re a gamer, creative professional, or power user who wants a stylish, portable, and powerful 15-inch laptop that can handle almost anything you throw at it, this machine is tough to beat. The winning combination of an Intel 6-core CPU, NVIDIA GTX 1070 Max-Q graphics, 144Hz display, and slim all-metal chassis still holds up remarkably well today, and represents an excellent value on the secondhand market.
Yes, it gets a bit hot and loud under load, and the battery life is nothing special, but those are trade-offs I‘m willing to accept for this level of performance in such a sleek package. The GS65 Stealth is a laptop I can easily recommend to any of my gamer friends who are looking for a high-end portable experience without breaking the bank.
If you do decide to pick one up, I highly suggest springing for a configuration with at least a 512GB SSD and 16GB of RAM, as modern games can be quite storage and memory intensive. And be sure to snag a good cooling pad to help with the heat, as well as a gaming mouse for the best experience. With those upgrades and accessories, the MSI GS65 Stealth will serve you very well for at least the next few years before you start to feel the need to upgrade. Happy gaming!
