How well does MSI’s new 11th gen GS76 gaming laptop compare against others in games?
I’ve tested it in 13 different games at all setting levels to show you how it stacks
up.
These are the specs of my GS76, I’ve got the new 11th gen i7-11800H which is an 8 core
16 thread 10nm part, along with Nvidia RTX 3060 graphics, 32 gigs of memory and a 1080p
240Hz screen.
You can check out other specced models as well as updated prices down below.
The MSI website lists the GPU with a 95 watt power limit, and this seems to be the case
regardless of whether you go for RTX 3060 or RTX 3080.
In my own testing I confirmed that the RTX 3060 would run up to 95 watts due to dynamic
boost in a GPU only workload, but with the CPU also active it would max out at 80 watts.
The GS76 has a MUX switch, so you can disable optimus after a reboot which will give a speed
boost in games, however there’s no G-Sync or FreeSync.
Testing was done with the highest performance mode and fans set to maximum, and by default
this didn’t apply an overclock, so let’s check out gaming performance in 13 different
games at all setting levels.
Then afterwards I’ll compare the GS76 against other laptops as well as check out screen
response time, or you can time travel with those timestamps below.
Cyberpunk 2077 was tested in little China with the street kid life path.
Max settings with ray tracing was running at 30 FPS, but either medium ray tracing or
ultra with ray tracing off was much more usable, otherwise high settings was just below the
magic 60 FPS number.
Red Dead Redemption 2 was tested with the games benchmark.
This one is quite GPU heavy at higher settings too, however high settings was still able
to get us above 60 FPS, which is realistically still a great result for this test.
Call of Duty Warzone was tested with either all settings at minimum or maximum, as it
doesn’t have predefined setting presets.
There’s not much difference between them, so might as well play with good settings which
is well above 100 FPS.
For Control I’ve got ray tracing on results in the green bars, ray tracing on with DLSS
in the red bars, and just regular default gameplay in purple.
At high settings using DLSS and ray tracing is actually doing better than not using either,
though ray tracing without DLSS is a fair bit behind comparatively.
Assassin’s Creed Valhalla was tested with the game's benchmark, and we’re right on
60 FPS with max settings in this test, which looks like a decent result given this is another
title that doesn’t really need a super high frame rate.
Speaking of games that don’t need a super high frame rate, Microsoft Flight Simulator
was tested in the Sydney landing challenge.
This time 60 FPS wasn’t quite possible even with minimum settings, but this is standard
stuff for this game, and honestly even many higher specced laptops don’t do too much
better anyway.
Watch Dogs Legion was tested with the games benchmark, above 60 FPS was possible with
very high settings, while ultra dipped much lower compared to the other presets, but yeah
like most of these modern games you definitely don’t need max settings for things to look
great.
Battlefield V was tested in campaign mode, and the 1% lows are quite high here compared
to other laptops, perhaps as a result of the new Intel Tiger Lake processor, we’ll look
at how other laptops compare in this title and more soon.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider was tested with the games benchmark tool, still 100 FPS at
max settings here, though higher results are expected with next gen hardware as we start
to get into these older titles.
Fortnite was tested with the replay feature, and like most esports titles super high frame
rates are possible here, with medium settings reaching 1% lows that aren’t too far off
the screen’s 240Hz refresh rate, while even maxed out is running well too.
CS:GO is another esports title, and this one in particular is one I’ve found to see big
gains with optimus disabled due to the high frame rates that the test can hit, but even
so the results here are well above most other laptops I’ve tested which I suspect is due
to the 11th gen processor.
Rainbow Six Siege was reaching average FPS at max settings that are near the screen’s
240Hz refresh rate, so yeah no problems here either.
The Witcher 3 is an older game that I still test so that you can compare with my older
videos, still easily above 100 FPS at ultra settings, though we can boost average FPS
by 46% simply by lowering to high settings.
Now let’s see how well this configuration of MSI GS76 compares against other laptops,
but use these results as a rough guide only, as they were tested at different times with
different drivers.
I’ve tested Battlefield 5 in campaign mode at ultra settings, and the GS76 is highlighted
in red.
This is the first time I’ve had a laptop with RTX 3060 graphics, but it’s also 11th
gen, so two new things appearing in the comparison graph for the first time.
It seems to be performing close to 2070 and 2080 max-q machines with similar power limits,
though the 1% low is up substantially compared to most others, perhaps as a result of the
11800H.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider was tested with the games benchmark tool with the highest
setting preset, and the GS76 is still sitting in a similar position.
The 3070 in the Omen just above it was reaching 8% higher average FPS, though it has a lower
power limit too and no option of disabling optimus, and it’s coming out ahead of the
2070 Super with full power limit in the Scar 15.
Far Cry 5 was also tested with the games benchmark tool at max settings, and the GS76 is up a
lot here.
This test generally seems to favour Intel systems, so I’m guessing that’s why the
new i7-11800H is doing so well compared to other laptops with lower tier GPUs.
It’s kind of hard for me to say how well this stacks up to others because it’s both
my first RTX 3060 laptop and it’s also my first 11th gen 11800H laptop, so two things
I’ve never tested paired together.
In any case, for the most part the gaming performance does look pretty decent.
Tiger lake in particular does seem to be doing quite well in those CPU intensive games like
CS:GO or Far Cry.
I’ll cover thermals and everything else about this machine in the upcoming full review,
so make sure you’re subscribed for that.
Now let’s check out some screen response time.
MSI’s Dragon Center software lets you enable or disable panel overdrive, which should affect
screen response time, however I didn’t find it to make much of a difference, so not sure
if this is a bug.
The average grey-to-grey response time is a little lower with overdrive enabled, but
it’s much smaller compared to most other laptops that give you this option.
It’s not too bad compared to other laptops, but it’s also not below the 4.16ms for all
transitions of a 240Hz screen to occur within the refresh window.
There’s plenty more that we need to discuss about the GS76, so make sure you’re subscribed
for the upcoming full review video.
Come and join me in Discord and get behind the scenes videos by supporting the channel
on Patreon, and for now check out some of these other interesting videos, I’ll see
you in one of those next.