I’ve been using MSI’s Creator Z17 for about a year now as my own personal laptop,
but this year’s newer model has some nice updates and I’m thinking it might be time to upgrade.
MSI have sponsored this video so I can show you all about it!
The Z17 has a clean lunar gray finish and a CNC unibody chassis, so it’s solid metal,
kind of like a Windows version of Apple’s MacBook Pro. The metal lid feels solid,
and the keyboard deck doesn’t flex much when pushing hard, overall build quality feels good.
It wouldn’t be a creator laptop without a great screen, and the Z17 does not disappoint here.
The 17” 165Hz QHD+ touchscreen provides accurate colors and gets fairly bright.
I really like that it’s 16:10, so it’s pretty much all viewable screen space without any bottom chin.
The screen has stylus support too with 4096 pressure sensitivity levels, so it’ll work well
with MSI’s Pen 2, and you can bend it right back either for drawing or sharing content with others.
My configuration has Intel’s Core i9-13950HX processor,
Nvidia’s RTX 4070 graphics and 32 gigs of RAM.
The MSI Center software lets us pick between these different performance modes. Higher modes offer
better single and multi core performance, but with more fan noise. The performance is actually
quite impressive compared to other MSI laptops that we’ve tested so far, only beaten by much
thicker models like the Raider GE68 or Titan GT77. This year’s newer model also offers a massive 63%
boost compared to my older Z17, as I don’t think they did the Z17 with an HX chip last year.
Performance is still great even if we unplug the charger and run on battery
power. Last year’s model dipped quite harshly in single core performance,
but the newer Z17 scored 111% higher here and just felt snappier to use without the charger.
That’s an awesome performance improvement considering that both laptops are the same
size and are on the thinner side at just 19mm or 0.75 inches. The newer one is a
little heavier though, which is because it's been upgraded to a vapor chamber cooler,
so there’s just more material to keep the CPU and GPU cool.
MSI says the new vapor chamber provides 76% more cooling area for a 4 degree Celsius
lower surface temperature, but I actually found the difference to be bigger than that.
This year’s newer model feels noticeably cooler comparatively while also performing much better.
GPU performance was in-line with other RTX 4070 laptops tested, despite the fact that
the GPU power limit is actually lower than the others. This is due to Nvidia’s voltage limit,
so the 4070 doesn’t really go above 90-100 watts in most workloads anyway, meaning
there’s no real downside to using the 4070 in a thinner laptop like this. In any case,
it’s 40% ahead compared to my older 3070 Ti model.
Although it’s not a gaming laptop, with these specs it’s absolutely possible to
get some gaming done after work. Games look great thanks to the bright, colorful screen.
The connectivity options are excellent for creators too, with the right having an SD
card slot, USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A port and HDMI 2.1 output, while the left has the
power input at the back, two Thunderbolt 4 Type-C ports, and a 3.5mm audio combo jack.
Both Type-C ports provide DisplayPort support, so you can connect an external screen to either,
and those as well as HDMI connect directly to the Nvidia graphics,
bypassing optimus for optimal performance.
There’s a 1080p camera above the display, and it has IR for Windows Hello face unlock.
Here’s how the camera and microphones look and sound, and the quality is
pretty decent compared to a lot of other laptops I’ve tested.
There’s also a fingerprint scanner just under the arrow keys, which I found accurate and fast.
The keyboard and touchpad worked well too, no problems there.
The four 2 watt speakers sound pretty good for a laptop too,
they get loud and remain clear with a little bass.
Unfortunately the motherboard is upside down, so upgrades are a bit more involved. We can
only access the Wi-Fi 6E card here, but on the other side there are two
memory slots and a PCIe Gen 5 M.2 slot, something most laptops don’t offer yet.
The speeds from the installed 2TB Gen 4 SSD were quite good,
but the SD card slot wasn’t able to get the most out of my V90 card.
The Z17 is powered by a 4-Cell 90Wh battery. Battery life lasted a little under 5 hours
while playing a video, and under 2 hours while playing a game. The charger for the i9 model
is larger at 280 watts compared to the smaller and lighter 240 watt one that comes with the i7
version as the higher tier CPU just needs more power, but with 100 watts of Type-C
charging you can get away with a smaller, more portable charger for lighter on the go work.
Just like all other MSI laptops, even this creator model has a crazy amount of customization
available through the advanced BIOS. It’s great to see that this isn’t only for the gaming models,
as it gives you the option to change pretty much anything you can imagine,
from memory timings, thermal limits, power limits and more.
If you’re after a laptop for content creation,
then MSI’s Z17 is worth considering, and I say that as someone that used last year’s model
for over a year. Before I recently bought my new desktop PC with Hardware Unboxed,
I was using the Z17 as my primary system to edit every video on this channel. And now
with newer hardware, it’s significantly faster at both gaming and content creator workloads.
There are plenty of other new MSI laptops this year, check out this video next to find out about
all their other options! Or the link below if you’re after more information on the Z17.