I recently reviewed the MSI GE63 gaming laptop with 8th gen CPU, but how much of an improvement
is it over the older 7th gen model?
Let’s find out how they differ through some benchmarks to help you pick which one to get,
or find out if it’s worth upgrading.
In terms of specs both laptops are essentially
the same for the most part, except for the difference in CPUs.
The older 7th gen model has the Intel i7-7700HQ quad core CPU, while the newer 8th gen model
has the i7-8750H, a 6 core chip with higher clock speeds.
Based on these specs, we of course expect the newer 8th gen model to come out ahead
in benchmarks, but by how much, and how does the increased performance affect battery life
and thermals?
In terms of overall design and build, they’re again extremely similar, same sizes and weights.
The lids are both black brushed metal, however the newer 8th gen version has RGB light strips
on the left and right, and these can be controlled through the included steelseries software.
The interiors are basically the same, more brushed metal and both have the same RGB keyboard
with individually lit keys, and same touchpad.
Underneath the panels are basically the same, except the older 7th gen model has the MSI
dragon logo, while it’s missing on the newer version.
Opening the laptops up they both again look very similar.
They have the same heatpipe design, so we’ll see how thermals compare soon.
The only difference that I found is around the memory and M.2 slots.
The memory slots on the newer 8th gen model are stacked up to save space, and it also
appears to have 3 M.2 slots rather than 2 on the 7th gen model, however the 3rd slot
on the 8th gen doesn’t actually have a connector, so despite this different layout they both
have 2 usable M.2 slots out of the box.
Both laptops have the exact same I/O on the left and right hand sides, and are also the
same on the front and back as well.
Both also have the exact same 15.6” 1080p 144Hz display with a 3ms response time, no
differences there either.
So as we’ve seen there have only been very subtle differences so far, now let’s take
a look at the more obvious changes that result from the CPU difference.
Both laptops have the same 6 cell 51 watt hour battery, and this is how long each lasted
in various tests.
Starting at the top of the graph in the yellow bar I’ve run the Aida64 stress test on both,
so a CPU only workload, and as expected the 8RF is running out of battery quicker as it’s
got those extra two cores to power.
Next in the green bar was gaming, the 8RF again ran out of battery a little sooner than
the 7RF.
Finally down the bottom in blue was just watching YouTube, both laptops had keyboard and lid
lighting disabled, and screens were on 50% brightness, despite this the 8RF was a little
ahead in this test, not too sure why as both CPUs seem to have the same Intel integrated
graphics.
In general though the 8RF is burning power quicker as expected under an actual workload,
this was made clear especially in the CPU only stress test, and with more power comes
more heat.
Thermal testing was completed with an ambient room temperature of 18 degrees Celsius, and
as we’ve seen both laptops appear to have the same cooling solution, same heatpipe configuration.
Basically in almost all tests the 7RF is running slightly cooler, most notably in terms of
the CPU, which is where we’re seeing the biggest differences.
For example, while gaming in the yellow bar the 7RF is about 6 degrees cooler on the CPU,
but with the same -0.150v undervolt applied to the CPU and the fans maxed out this increases
to an 8 degree difference while gaming.
With the stress tests running at stock speeds, shown by the purple bar, the CPU temperatures
are very close together and there was some thermal throttling on both, however with the
same CPU undervolt applied and fans maxed out the CPU in the 7RF is now 17 degrees cooler
than the 8RF, which is still experiencing both thermal and power limit throttling with
those 6 cores maxed out.
These are the average clock speeds for the same tests just shown, in general the speeds
of the graphics are very close together in these tests as expected, they’re both Nvidia
1070 graphics cards.
The biggest changes were seen between CPU clock speeds.
In all tests the 7RF was maxed out at its 3.4GHz all core turbo speed, while the 8RF
wasn’t quite able to reach its 3.9GHz limit due to the aforementioned throttling.
That said, with undervolting applied, shown in the red and black bars, it does get quite
close.
Only in the stress tests at stock speed, shown in the purple bar, is the 7700HQ matching
the 8750H clock for clock, again due to the thermal and power limit throttling on the
8RF, however keep in mind it does have two more cores processing data at the same time.
Here are the average CPU clock speeds while under a CPU only load, again no change on
the 7RF as there was no throttling, while the 8RF was reaching power limits at stock,
but with the undervolt applied it was able to reach its full 3.9GHz multicore boost speed.
To try and demonstrate this practically, here’s how both laptops scored in Cinebench, a CPU
benchmark.
There’s no change on the 7RF as we’re getting full performance prior to undervolting,
but we can see how this improves multicore performance on the 8RF by reducing the power
limit.
Here are the average GPU clock speeds while under a graphical only workload, there’s
not much difference, but the 8RF did seem to boost up a bit more with the same 220MHz
core overclock applied.
Despite the 7RF running cooler when it came to CPU temperatures the external temperatures
of the keyboard area weren’t much different, perhaps just a touch warmer on the 8RF by
a couple of degrees.
Fan noise between both laptops during these tests was also basically the same.
Finally let’s take a look at some gaming benchmarks, all games were run at 1080p, the
native resolution of the displays, with the same Nvidia drivers and Windows updates installed.
Given all specs are the same except the CPU, we’re expecting the 8RF to come out ahead
due to the faster CPU.
Fortnite was tested using the same replay, and straight away we’re seeing a little
boost with the 8RF laptop, shown in the blue bars, over the 7RF shown underneath in pink
and purple.
At max settings we’re looking at a 10% improvement with the 8RF in this title.
CS:GO was tested with the Ulletical benchmark, and this time there’s a much larger difference
between the two in the averages, with the 8RF 21% ahead of the 7RF in this test.
Overwatch was tested in the practice range with the same pass done on each laptop, and
this was another game that saw a big difference between the two laptops, with a 21% boost
to average frame rates at epic settings on the 8RF laptop.
Rainbow Six Siege was tested using the built in benchmark, and the results are interesting.
This is the only game that saw negative performance on the 8RF, I’m not really too sure why
that was the case, but at max settings it’s only a very slight difference.
Assassin's Creed Origins was also tested with the built in benchmark, and the 8RF was 10%
ahead of the 7RF in average frame rates at max settings here, though the game is still
completely playable with either.
Far Cry 5 was again tested with the built in benchmark, this time with a larger 15%
improvement to average frame rates with the settings maxed out while using the 8RF over
the 7RF.
Dota 2 was tested using an intense replay, note that this benchmark does not represent
real game play, you'll see higher performance while actually playing a game, it's meant
to represent a worst case scenario.
At max settings the 8RF was a massive 28% better than the 7RF, which makes sense as
I’ve found this to be a more CPU sensitive test.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider was tested with the built in benchmark, and much less of a
difference between the two laptops this time around, with the 8RF performing just 6% better
than the 7RF on average with the highest setting preset.
Shadow of war was also tested with the game’s built in benchmark, and at ultra settings
the 8RF was around 10% ahead of the 7RF here in terms of average frame rates.
Ghost Recon is a fairly resource intensive game and was also tested with the built in
benchmark, at ultra settings the 8RF was still 8% ahead of the 7RF, though you’ll probably
want to play the game with lower settings on both of them.
Watch Dogs 2 is another demanding game, and at ultra settings there was a much larger
20% improvement with the 8RF over the 7RF, which was expected as this game is basically
always maxing out the CPU, especially at 1080p.
The Witcher 3 resulted in the 8RF performing just under 10% better than the 7RF, but again
nice results on either laptop and absolutely no problems playing the game on either.
Overall both laptops are performing quite well in all games, realistically they’re
both great gaming laptops, but as we’ve seen the higher clocked 8750H is giving us
a nice improvement, performing around 13% above the 7700HQ in the 7RF in the games tested.
These results should kind of be worst case scenario too, you’ll probably see larger
percentage differences between the same games at minimum settings, as there’s less work
offloaded to the GPU, and I’ve only compared max graphical settings here.
Additionally if you’re playing on an external monitor at higher resolutions then the differences
between the two CPUs would also be less, as the GPU would start to reduce any CPU bottleneck.
We’ll just quickly look at the hard drive speeds, as this may be irrelevant as both
laptops are available with different drive configurations.
In this case the 8RF actually has an NVMe SSD while my 7RF has a SATA SSD, so yeah not
really a fair comparison as you can get either with NVMe or SATA drives.
Both 1TB hard drives report as being the exact same model though, but for some reason I got
better results in the newer 8RF even though nothing else was using the drive at the time.
Now perhaps the most important difference, the price.
This will change over time, so check out the links in the description for up to date pricing.
At the time of recording though, the 7RF with these exact specs goes for around $1800 USD,
while the newer 8RF is around $1930 USD, so around $130 more, or 7% more money for, on
average with the games I tested, 13% more gaming performance, so based on these prices
the 8RF does seem to be worth picking.
If you’ve already got the 7RF or a similarly specced laptop there’s no real reason to
upgrade to the 8RF, replacing an entire laptop is pretty expensive unless you’re able to
sell the old one for a good price, or you really need those extra two cores.
Despite the throttling issues with the 8RF I’d still pick it, as we’ve seen it’s
performing quite a bit better than the older 7RF for not too much more money.
The throttling issues with the 8750H aren’t unique to this MSI laptop anyway, they’re
pretty standard in almost all 8th gen laptops I’ve tested, so I wouldn’t let that turn
you off too much, but with that said there are similarly priced and specced laptops that
run cooler with less throttling, such as the Acer Helios 500.
If you’re after more information on either laptop check the links in the description
to the full reviews, I haven’t discussed a lot of the other features unless I felt
it was either important or relevant to this comparison.
So which of these two laptops would you guys pick?
The older but still capable 7th gen 7RF model or newer 8th gen 8RF version?
Let me know what you guys thought down in the comments, and let me know what other laptops
you want to see compared.
Thanks for watching, and don’t forget to subscribe for future comparisons and tech
videos like this one.