If you’re after a thin, light, stealthy all black metal gaming laptop. Well MSI’s
GS66 and Razer’s Blade 15 are pretty much the only options out there. The GS66 is cheaper,
so let’s find out if it’s worth paying more money for the Blade 15.
When it comes to build quality, both laptops have an all metal design
and feel good, but Razer’s Blade is on another level.
The Blade’s materials and finish just feel more premium compared to the GS66,
and even simple things like how it feels to open and close the lid just feel better with the Blade.
There’s less flex to the lid and keyboard area with the Blade,
it just feels stronger and more solid all round.
Just like the name implies, the lid logo on MSI’s Stealth is, well, stealthy. You can only see it
from certain angles with the right lighting. The Blade on the other hand has Razer’s green logo in
the middle and it lights up. You can turn the light off in software or set it to a breathing
effect, but the green logo is still far more visible compared to the stealthier look of the
GS66. Lid logo aside, both have a very stealthy look compared to all other gaming laptops.
The Blade is more portable because it takes up less space.
It’s smaller in every dimension when compared to the GS66,
though it’s not that big of a difference. Both are still thinner 15” designs after all.
The Blade was also lighter too, though the difference in weight between them gets much
closer together once we include their slightly different wattage power bricks.
The screen on the GS66 goes the full 180 degrees back for sharing, while
the Blade’s stops at around 125 degrees, which I still found to be enough for normal viewing.
Both laptops have a camera above the screen in the middle, 720p for MSI and 1080p for Razer,
so another benefit to the more expensive Blade, but both have IR for Windows Hello face unlock.
This is how the camera and microphone look and sound like on the MSI Stealth GS66, and
then this is how the camera and microphone look and sound over on the Razer Blade 15.
The GS66 also has a fingerprint scanner in the touchpad if you prefer not to use the camera,
something the Blade does not have.
I preferred the touchpad on the Blade. It just felt smoother and
nicer to click. I liked the additional vertical space compared to MSI’s narrow
touchpad. The clicks were a bit quieter with the Blade as well.
Both keyboards have per-key RGB backlighting, but the lighting on Razer’s Blade gets brighter and
looks nicer to me because it’s more evenly lit. The MSI key lighting looks a bit patchy
in comparison, some parts of the same key just aren’t as bright as others.
I preferred typing on the Blade as well. The keys on the GS66 felt a little shallower to press,
and I know the shorter right shift key on the MSI will annoy some people.
Both laptops have front facing speakers. Personally I preferred the location of
the Blade’s because they’re on either side of the keyboard, there’s far less chance of covering them
with your hands compared to MSI who have them down the front corners. When resting my hands normally
on the GS66 I don’t cover the speakers, but it can happen when I move which makes them sound worse.
After listening to both side by side, the Blade definitely sounded clearer to me,
but the GS66 had a little more bass, but also more palm rest vibration.
Both laptops have their power input on the left and a Type-C port,
Thunderbolt 4 for the GS66 and just USB 3.2 Gen 2 for the Blade. They both have a USB
3.2 Gen2 Type A port too, one for the GS66 and 2 for the Blade. The Blade
has its 3.5mm audio combo jack here while the GS66 has its HDMI output.
The GS66 has its 3.5mm audio combo jack on the right side while the Blade has
its HDMI output here. Both laptops have another USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A port on this
side. The GS66 has a 2.5 gigabit ethernet port, something the Blade doesn’t have,
though the Blade has an SD card slot, something the GS66 does not have.
The Blade has its Thunderbolt 4 Type-C port here while the GS66 has two USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C ports.
So to summarize the port situation, the Blade has an SD card slot which the GS66 does not have,
but the GS66 has a 2.5 gigabit ethernet port and that’s something the Blade does not have.
The Blade has two USB Type-C ports but three Type-A ports,
while the GS66 is the opposite, so three Type-C ports but only two Type-A.
Both laptops have one Thunderbolt 4 port, and both HDMI ports can support
an external 4K 120Hz 8-bit screen with G-Sync.
Both of the Type-C ports on the Blade can be used to charge it,
while only the one on the left side of the GS66 is supposed to be able to charge it. I
actually found that it didn’t charge with my eGPU enclosure and I’m not sure why.
Inside both have the battery down the front, two M.2 storage slots,
two memory slots and a removable Wi-Fi card. The Blade only appears to have one M.2 storage slot
at first glance, but there’s room to install a second. Unfortunately the
compromise of the Blade’s design that stacks the drives on top of each other
is that you can only install a second SSD that doesn’t have chips underneath, as it won’t fit.
MSI’s GS66 had a higher upgradeability score. Although both laptops have 2 M.2 slots,
2 memory slots and upgradeable Wi-Fi, I took half a point off the Blade due to
it being limited in the SSD you can fit in the second slot. Another half
point was removed from ease of access due to the uncommon TR5 screw type,
though the tools I use linked below the video can open either of these laptops no problem.
Both laptops came with the latest Wi-Fi 6E.
Razer’s Blade 15 was a little faster in my testing,
though this difference isn’t something most people are too likely to actually notice in practice.
Both of my laptops had a 1TB PCIe Gen 4 SSD installed,
and although the read speeds from both were excellent, the sequential write speeds coming
from my Blade 15 were honestly pathetic. They’re about 10 times slower compared to the GS66,
and way lower than even a PCIe Gen 3 SSD. I’m not sure if it’s this model of SSD,
just my laptop or what, because the other write speed tests were all looking good.
Despite both laptops having the same i9-12900H processor, MSI’s GS66 was ahead, both in terms
of single core performance and especially when it came to multi core performance. The single core
scores are within the margin of error, that honestly comes down to the silicon lottery,
it could go either way when we’ve got the same processor in both laptops. The GS66 was able to
score 24% higher in multi core because Razer limits the processor to 65 watts, while MSI
prioritizes power at the expense of heat and runs at above 85 watts. Basically the GS66 can use more
power to perform better, but the internals run hotter, it’s a trade off. More on thermals soon.
Both laptops lose performance when running on battery power, however the Blade 15 takes a
massive loss to single core performance for some reason. Razer’s larger Blade 17 also suffers a
similar fate, so I’m guessing that’s a result of some sort of Razer specific configuration,
because other i9 laptops from MSI are still achieving good single core performance.
Now my first thought was maybe the Blade will last longer when running on battery
power if it’s being limited, but that wasn’t the case due to the battery size difference.
MSI’s GS66 has a 25% bigger battery inside, which allowed it to last for
about 19% longer compared to Razer’s Blade 15 in my YouTube playback test.
Both were tested with Optimus on with the screens at 60Hz and 200 nits brightness.
The GS66 was one of the higher results I’ve recorded so far from an Intel 12th gen laptop,
only being beaten by 2 other machines, while the Blade is a lower middle of the pack result.
The BIOS of the GS66 is so much better that it’s not funny. MSI gives you the option of entering
advanced mode which lets you change basically any power or thermal limit you can dream of.
The Blade on the other hand has an ancient looking BIOS with only very basic options,
there’s nowhere near as much customization compared to MSI.
Linux support was tested with an Ubuntu 22.04 live CD. The keyboard, touchpad,
camera and speakers worked on both out of the box. Ethernet worked on the GS66,
but Wi-Fi didn’t work on either by default. Keyboard shortcuts for adjusting screen
brightness worked on the Blade, but not the GS66. Other than that, I found them fairly equivalent.
Just before we get into things like game benchmarks, thermals and screen differences,
I need to note some differences with the specs in my two laptops here.
Although both laptops have the same 12th gen i9 processor and 32 gigs of DDR5 memory,
unfortunately my Blade 15 has RTX 3080 Ti graphics, while my GS66 has 3070 Ti graphics.
Now the differences between the 3070 Ti and 3080 Ti aren’t actually that big,
as I’ve already shown in this video. But when they’re in these lower power limit machines
the difference seems to be even smaller. So although both of these laptops two have different
GPUs inside, with that in mind I thought it was still interesting to share the results.
Take Cyberpunk 2077 for example. Both laptops are reaching basically the same frame rates
at 1080p. The Blade appears ahead in terms of average FPS, but it’s within the margin of error
and absolutely not a difference that you’re going to notice when playing the game.
The gap only increases slightly at the higher 1440p resolution,
perhaps the double VRAM available to the 3080 Ti is able to help it out a bit more now.
Regardless it’s still not enough of a difference to justify spending more money on the 3080 Ti.
It’s a similar deal in Red Dead Redemption 2,
whether we’re looking at 1080p or 1440p results, the 3080 Ti is like 1-2 FPS ahead,
definitely not worth spending the extra cash for such a small difference.
I think our third game, Control, is enough to really drive this point home. Both laptops are
performing about the same at 1080p and 1440p resolutions regardless of the GPU difference.
I wouldn’t really expect this to change much if it was instead the Blade with the 3070 Ti
and the GS66 with the 3080 Ti. I just think you need higher GPU power limits
to fully take advantage of these top-end options.
So not going above the 3070 Ti in thinner laptops like these
definitely seems to be the move in terms of bang for buck.
Now although both laptops do have a MUX switch, only the Razer Blade with 1440p
has both G-Sync and Advanced Optimus, and Advanced Optimus basically just means that we
don’t have to reboot in order to swap between integrated graphics and discrete graphics.
But again this only exists with the 1440p version of the Blade for some reason.
It’s not available with the 1080p or 4K configurations. But at least it’s
an option at all there, because the GS66 doesn’t have either of these features.
Honestly at this smaller 15 inch size I think it makes much more sense to pick either a 1080p
or 1440p high refresh screen compared to the 4K panels that both of mine have.
I’m not going to spend much time comparing my screen’s because unfortunately
MSI sent me a 4K 60Hz panel for some reason, so the response time is much slower compared
to what Razer’s Blade 15 with 4K 144Hz screen is capable of, but I’d expect a higher refresh
GS66 to be closer. Both are available with a number of high refresh options.
Let’s check out thermals next.
The Blade 15 has a vapor chamber for cooling, while the GS66 has a standard
heat pipe design with a third fan. Both laptops have holes directly above the fans
for air intake. The GS66 also brings air in through the vents above the keyboard,
while the Blade brings air in through the keyboard. The GS66 exhausts air
out of both sides and the back, while the Blade only exhausts air out of the back.
Both laptops have software that lets you adjust performance modes between different levels. The
Blade has more customization in terms of different modes that affect power limits,
but the GS66 has more fan control built in. Just comparing the software control panels in general,
Razer’s was better to use and feels more polished.
These are the temperatures reached by both laptops under combined CPU and GPU stress
tests to represent a worst case full load scenario. Yeah we have different GPUs here,
but even though the Blade has the higher tier 3080 Ti, its GPU is running cooler when
under load. So is the CPU actually, the GS66 was constantly warmer. The only exception is at idle,
and that’s because the GS66 always had audible fans while the Blade was quiet.
These are the clock speeds being hit during the
same tests. The Blade was reaching higher GPU clock speeds, as per the green bars,
however the GS66 was reaching higher CPU speeds, as per the blue bars.
In their highest performing modes, the CPU power limit was actually quite close together
despite the GS66 reaching higher speeds. The Blade seems to prioritize GPU power though,
reaching more than 10 watts higher compared to the GS66. It’s possible that this is just
a result of the different GPUs in each laptop, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the power limits
were the same even if both have the same GPU. Despite the Blade’s GPU using more power,
don’t forget it was running cooler too. Let's check out the fan noise difference.
I could barely hear the fans on the Blade when it’s just sitting there idle, but the fans on the
GS66 were always going and audible. The GS66 can also get louder if you set the fans to max speed,
but they are similar if we just use the highest performance modes without any fan modifications.
This is why I used auto fans at max settings in the thermal comparisons, as both laptops sound
similar. If you boost the fan higher on the GS66 the CPU actually gets hotter because MSI boosts
the power limit higher, so even more performance is possibly be, but also even more heat.
Despite the audible fans in the GS66 giving it an advantage,
both were quite cool at idle. The colors look different, pay attention to the temperature
numbers. The Blade was warmer to the touch with the stress tests going and the fans
running at a similar volume, but again keep in mind my laptops have different GPUs,
though similar GPU power limits. The WASD area on the Blade was cooler than
the GS66 though as it brings air in through here, so it felt cooler there while gaming.
All things considered, I think Razer’s Blade 15 is a much better gaming laptop out of these two,
but it does also cost quite a bit more money.
At the time of recording, the cheapest GS66 I can currently find with RTX 3060 graphics
starts around $1900 USD. Razer’s Blade 15 on the other hand starts at $2500 USD with the 3060,
so $600 more for similar specs or 30% more money in this case.
If we instead step up the GS66 to a higher tier configuration with
RTX 3070 Ti graphics, like the one I’ve tested here, we’re looking at $2500 USD right now.
Razer’s Blade 15 with 3070 Ti starts at $3000 USD, though it has half the memory and an i7
rather than i9 processor. This is $500 more for Razer compared to MSI, or 20% more money.
If you’re looking at a maxed out GS66, then it’s currently $3300 USD for the RTX 3080
Ti configuration at Best Buy, though this has a small $100 sale right now. They often run sales,
so again check those links below the video for current deals. Razer’s 3080 Ti Blade
15 on the other hand starts at $3700 USD. This is $400 more compared to MSI, or $300
more without the current GS66 sale, so 12% or 9% more money for Razer respectively.
So as we step up to higher configurations,
the price difference between these two laptops gets smaller and smaller.
With that in mind, if you are actually someone looking to buy a max spec configuration,
then it probably makes more sense just to spend the bit extra and get the Blade.
When you’re spending over $3000 USD on a gaming laptop,
at that point it probably doesn’t really matter and for a machine that you’re going to use for
probably years, I think it just makes sense to spend the extra money.
Now that said, we’ve just seen how closely the 3070 Ti performs compared to the 3080
Ti. Honestly for most people, I wouldn’t suggest going above the RTX 3070 Ti in
either of these laptops. It’s just diminishing returns at the top end of a product stack.
If money is tight, or if you’re looking for a more reasonable lower configuration,
then the GS66 does definitely offer better value. It really comes down to how much you personally
value the differences that I’ve shown between these two laptops. Actually on second thought,
if money is tight then you probably shouldn’t be considering either of these laptops.
You can easily get a slightly larger and thicker plastic laptop for less
money that will outperform both the GS66 and Blade 15. It really just depends how
much you care about the whole thin black stealthy all metal gaming laptop design,
because ultimately that’s what you’re paying a premium for with both of these laptops.
Just to be clear, I don’t think the GS66 is a bad laptop,
it’s just that when put side by side to the Blade 15, it’s difficult to compete.
MSI’s GS66 does offer better battery life,
better CPU performance but at the expense of higher temperatures,
better performance on battery, and more tuning through the BIOS. In pretty much every other
way though, Razer’s Blade 15 is just objectively a superior gaming laptop. If you can afford it!
If you still need more information on either of these two gaming laptops,
then check out my full review videos over here next. Although this is a comprehensive comparison,
there are still a number of things that I wasn’t able to fit into this video.
So yeah if you want absolutely all the details I’ll see you in one of those videos next.