This new gaming laptop is kind of insane! Let’s find out what Intel’s best laptop
CPU and Nvidia’s best laptop GPU can do when combined together in games!
I have MSI’s highest specced GE76 gaming laptop with an Intel Core i9-12900HK
processor, Nvidia RTX 3080 Ti graphics with up to 175 watts of power and 32 gigs of new
DDR5-4800 memory in dual channel, and this one also has a 17.3” 1080p 360Hz screen,
but you can check other configurations with the links in the description.
Just before we get to the benchmarks, here’s a quick run down on Intel’s new 12th gen hybrid
architecture. Basically the processors now have both P and E cores. P cores,
or performance cores, are basically your regular cores as we’ve had before with hyperthreading,
while the new E cores, or efficient cores, are smaller lower powered cores that handle
less important background tasks, and these do not have hyperthreading.
The Core i9-12900HK is Intel’s most powerful laptop processor this generation.
With 6 P cores and 8 E cores, it’s a 14 core 20 thread part with 24 megs of cache and a
5GHz single core turbo boost. This is quite a lot more processing power compared to the best
8 core 16 thread parts of last generation, but does it actually matter for games?
Well, just before we get to the games, I can show you that 12th gen does make a big difference in
CPU heavy workloads. The 12900HK is easily able to claim the top spot out of any gaming
laptop tested so far in Cinebench R23. We were of course expecting the multi core score to be ahead,
but 22% higher compared to any previous 8 core laptop is still impressive,
not to mention the 17% boost to single threaded score.
As for the RTX 3080 Ti graphics, we’re looking at a 21% increase to the CUDA cores compared
to the best option from last year, the RTX 3080. The power limit range is the same,
though the new Ti doesn’t end up reaching as high clock speeds. The new Ti has 16 gigs of VRAM,
while the 3080 had both 8 or 16 gig options, however the Ti’s memory is also faster.
I’ve also got MSI’s last gen GE76 here with 11th gen i9-11980HK CPU, RTX 3080 graphics and
DDR4-3200 memory, and it’s been freshly tested too so we can see what the differences are
between a best case gaming laptop from last year against a best case gaming laptop from this year.
Both laptops also have a MUX switch so I’ve tested with optimus disabled for
best performance results. Both of these laptops were also tested with Windows 11,
however Core Isolation was off by default.
We’ll start out with some 1080p results then look at higher resolutions after as
this hardware is certainly capable of playing games at higher resolutions,
but that said both of these models did come to me with a 1080p screen.
Alright let’s get into some game benchmarks!
Let’s start out with Cyberpunk 2077, which was tested exactly the same on
all 18 of these laptops. I’ve got data from most recent laptop GPUs here so we
can really get an idea of where the new hardware fits in. In this game,
we’re seeing a 9% higher average FPS with the new top end GE76 compared to the best
GE76 that was available last year, though there’s a larger 15% boost to the 1% low with 12th gen.
But wait, it gets better! Microsoft Flight Simulator was tested in the Sydney landing
challenge and we’re seeing a massive 20% boost to average FPS this generation compared to last gen,
with a similar 19% higher 1% low as well - quite good for a single generation jump.
This was the biggest difference out of all 12 games tested though,
unfortunately it’s not all massive gains this year.
Rainbow Six Siege was one such result. It was tested with the game’s benchmark,
and while the average FPS from both of the GE76 laptops was essentially the same, the newer 12th
gen model had a lower 1% low result. I’m not exactly sure why, perhaps there’s some confusion
with the P and E cores, but this was the only game out of 12 titles tested where this happened.
Red Dead Redemption 2 was tested with the game’s benchmark,
and the 12900HK and 3080 Ti combo is again at the top of the graph as expected,
reaching a 7% higher average frame rate compared to the best on offer last year.
Of course these changes aren’t nearly enough to justify an upgrade if you already have
the best from last gen, but it’s cool to see how far top spec hardware can go now.
Control is generally fairly GPU heavy at the maximum high setting preset, even at 1080p,
though we’re only seeing a 6% boost to average FPS compared to last year’s 11980HK
and RTX 3080, though there was a larger 13%
increase to the 1% low, so a more stable experience with the newer hardware.
Watch Dogs Legion was tested with the game’s benchmark and had one of the smaller differences
out of the games tested, just a 2% higher average FPS compared to last year’s GE76,
though both were a fair bit ahead of other lower spec laptops.
Metro Exodus was also tested using the game’s benchmark,
but this time the 12th gen i9 and 3080 Ti combo was offering a 10% higher average
frame rate compared to 11th gen i9 and 3080, only just shy of 100 FPS at ultra settings.
Death Stranding on the other hand was basically the same as last year’s GE76 when it came to
average FPS, though there was slightly more of a difference in the 1% lows. That said,
the 1% lows from the all AMD Advantage laptop with RX 6800M graphics were ahead of both of these.
Make sure you’re subscribed for when I get the new RX 6850M XT in for testing.
Assassin’s Creed Valhalla was tested with the game’s benchmark,
and also had fairly small differences between the best of 2021 and best of 2022 - we’re talking just
a couple of frames difference on average, honestly not something you’re likely to notice in practice,
hopefully the difference at the higher 1440p resolution is larger. We’ll test this soon.
I’ve included Shadow of the Tomb Raider for an older game as I’ve got plenty of data from it
for comparison. The top spec 2022 GE76 was reaching 5% higher average FPS compared to
the 2021 model this time, and again both had a fairly big lead over the others.
Battlefield V is an older one too, I haven’t yet bought the newer 2042 but based on how that
launch went I’d be interested in hearing if you think I should even bother getting
it for testing. Anyway a 5% boost with the new GE76 compared to last year here.
Last game before we look at 1440p, The Witcher 3 is the oldest game we still test,
and there was about a 5% gain with the new hardware here vs last gen too.
These are the average frame rates from all 12 games that we’ve just looked at,
so as expected the 12900HK and 3080 Ti were giving the best result, with an average FPS
above 150 in these specific titles. Given this puts it about 50% ahead of mid range
options like the RTX 3060 or 6600M which were around 100 FPS, I think it really goes to show
that you definitely don’t need this maxed out hardware to have a good time, at least at 1080p.
Here’s how this year’s new top end configuration of MSI’s GE76 compares against
last year’s best configuration in these 12 games just tested.
On average in these 12 games at 1080p, this year's Intel Core i9-12900HK
plus Nvidia RTX 3080 Ti is about 6% faster compared to the Intel Core i9-11980HK plus
Nvidia RTX 3080 from last year. Results of course depend on the specific game, but a few modern
titles could see a 10% or more boost with the new hardware, while others had basically no change.
Now obviously with this more powerful hardware gaming at higher resolutions
is certainly possible, so let’s also test out 1440p
and see what happens when the 3080 Ti can stretch its legs.
Cyberpunk 2077 was doing the best on the new hardware, though the average FPS was only just
slightly ahead of the desktop replacement Clevo machine which has a desktop processor
and 3080 graphics. The last gen GE76 wasn’t too far behind that either.
The selection of laptops is different here compared to 1080p as I’ve only been
collecting 1440p data on laptops that actually stand a chance of running it.
Control was similar in that the desktop replacement Clevo machine was very close,
while the 11th gen GE76 wasn’t too far behind the newer 12th gen version,
we’re talking like 3 frames difference on average, though both were still a fair bit ahead of other
thinner 3080 gaming laptops. Honestly I was expecting a bigger difference from the 3080 Ti.
The Red Dead Redemption 2 results have some potential problems. The 11th gen machine is
higher here, but this is with the original data that was collected when it was originally reviewed
last year. We retested the 11th gen machine for this video and it was more like 88 FPS,
which seems too low compared to a number of higher results that would be above it.
Basically I’m not sure if the game has been updated some time in the last couple of months
that affects the performance, so these may not be comparable and I might have to dump the data
collected for this game going forward which is super annoying. The 1080p data looked ok though.
Although we are getting chart topping gaming performance with the 12th gen i9 processor
and new 3080 Ti graphics, it wasn’t always a smooth experience. We had a number of random
issues while testing games on the 12th gen laptop that just didn’t occur on the 11th gen model,
so I’m not sure if this is due to the new 12th gen hybrid architecture or something else.
This is still only the first 12th gen laptop that I’ve personally used so far,
so I just don’t have a whole lot of other information to go on right now.
Basically a number of games like Battlefield, The Witcher and Microsoft Flight Simulator just had
problems opening, though often this was fixed simply by rebooting the machine. But still,
not something that I really should have to do, or that I’ve had to do on any other laptop.
A number of games also just crashed or ran at otherwise unplayable frame rates
when connecting an external screen to this laptop so that I could collect the 1440p
data. Now I have seen this strange behavior before with a last gen Alienware laptop, so I
suspect it might be some other weird Nvidia issue rather than being specific to this new model.
Basically the problem only happens when you have optimus disabled and an external
screen connected to one of the ports on the back. The fix is to enable optimus and
then the ports on the back still connect directly to the Nvidia graphics anyway,
so it shouldn’t really matter that optimus is on or not. Anyway I have no idea why it’s the
case but given I’ve seen that same problem with last gen hardware I wouldn’t say that
those crashing issues at 1440p with the external screen and poor performance was
due to 12th gen. Maybe it’s just some other yet to be uncovered optimus bug.
Overall things weren’t too bad in terms of stability, but I do hope things improve over time.
Now I’ve focused this comparison on gaming performance, however I do plan on comparing
the 11th gen i9 against the 12th gen i9 in an upcoming CPU comparison video. So
make sure you’re subscribed for that one, I’ll compare things like battery life there as well,
I just didn’t have time for this video as I’ve only had this new laptop for 2 days so far.
Until then you can check out the rest of the new gaming laptops coming out this year
in this video over here next, I’ll see you in that one.