We don't mean to disparage the MSI GF65 THIN 9SEXR, but if you look at its technical specifications, it uses the same parts that have been powering our machines for over a year. However, this announcement is part of one of the few compelling developments in gaming laptops beyond AMD's Ryzen 4000 APUs.

With the release of the RTX 2070 Super and RTX 2080 Super mobile super GPU silicon, Nvidia has also promised to bring the RTX 2060 GPU to gaming laptops for under £999. This could be important for customers who are more savings-minded than high-end GPUs, and gaming laptops are rarely on par with their DIY PC counterparts; MSI's GF65 is the first of a handful of gaming laptops to deliver on that promise. In the UK, though.

It's powered by an RTX 2060, a step up from the top-of-the-line GTX 1660 Ti for 2019. It now features a Turing GPU with 6GB of GDDR6 and 1,920 CUDA cores, as well as the added potential of portable AI acceleration and Nvidia's updated Turing encoder in creative applications, facilitate entry into real-time ray tracing and Nvidia's AI upscaling technology, DLSS 2.0.

At first glance, the GF65's appearance has not changed much from its predecessor. Both use the same thin 21.7 mm thick chassis, and the largely plastic construction leaves something to be desired. The GF65 is definitely a bit on the large size, especially since we have seen some incredibly thin gaming laptops so far this year. However, it weighs in at 1.86 kg, which is at least lighter than comparable laptops in this price range.

The 15.6" 1080p panel is surrounded by a bezel that is only 0.7 mm at its thinnest point, but reaches 2.7 cm near the hinge. At the very least, it has a 120Hz panel, fast enough to deliver on the promise of the RTX 2060. It's also an IPS type, which is a good assessment of the GF65's all-around decent panel pair for an entry-level RTX GPU.

Intel's Core i7 9750H also joins the fray, even though the first wave of Intel 10th generation Comet Lake H-series laptops are starting to ship from Intel's partners (including MSI's own GF63 Slim in the same guise as the GF65). ), Intel has instead made the decision to stick with the older, less expensive Core i7 9750H; the relatively familiar specifications of the 14nm family and the obvious price premium of the 10th generation chip, by Intel's own admission, have to be seen as the right choice.

The Core i7 9750H tops out at 4.5GHz, considerably lower than its 10th generation siblings, but most importantly, it can maintain its rated clock: in Cinebench R15 single-core tests, it maintained 4.4GHz, the chip's rated limit of 4.5GHz boost.

So even with my cosmetic misgivings about the chassis, it is capable enough to sustain adequate performance Three long marathons of the Metro Exodus benchmark at Ultra showed no significant performance degradation. CPU temperatures were up to 97° C and GPU temperatures up to 81° C. Fortunately, we were able to avoid severe throttling by working with fan speeds.

Throughout our gaming benchmarks, the MSI GF65 performed well, albeit a bit below the Asus TUF FA506IV with RTX 2060 and AMD Ryzen 4800H. This is true in all but Far Cry New Dawn, where the TUF inexplicably outperformed the others on numerous occasions.

A potential boon for the GF65 (and for TUF) is the growing prevalence of DLSS in modern games; DLSS has the ability to increase frame rates, and the second generation of DLSS 2 offers few disadvantages. 0, the jump to RTX 2060 brings the potential for significant performance gains over the 16 series cards beyond what the silicon technically allows. But to take advantage of that performance, one has to trust that Nvidia and game developers will do more than that, at least for older games, which is by no means a guarantee.

And while an RTX 2060 under £1,000 sounds like an attractive offer, MSI has made some sacrifices to get below that mark with the GF65 2020 model.

With the move to RTX 20 series GPUs, both memory and storage were reduced to keep the balance sheet of parts in good shape. Unfortunately, this meant replacing the 512GB SSD with a 256GB one, and after installing the OS, the SSD was horribly out of space with only a few benchmarks installed. This also places severe limitations on game (play) selection. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare is absolutely out of the question without an upgrade.

The decision to reduce memory to single channel will also strike fear into the hearts of many PC builders; 8GB of dual channel memory is more than enough for most titles, especially at 1080p on a laptop like this one. However, for single channel only, that 8GB is very short. Memory bandwidth is severely hampered, so while using the GF65, you may find yourself dropping frames in heavily loaded games or being incredibly conscious of your apps' RAM usage.

The previous generation GF65 (2019) does not suffer the same fate. For a similar price, last year's model comes with a GTX 1660 Ti, 16GB of dual-channel memory, and a 512GB panel, as does the Asus TUF FA506IV. 300 pounds is not small, but the Ryzen 4000 mobile/RTX 2060 combo is a bargain. It has all the memory and storage you could want at this price and form factor. By comparison, the GF65 THIN 9SEXR feels like a partially incomplete product, lacking what is needed to get maximum performance.

The models available in the U.S. have been slashed especially hard to keep them under $1,000; to get the RTX 2060 for $999, you'll have to use Intel's Core i5 9300H instead of the Core i7 9750H found in the UK model. At least the storage is back to a healthy 512GB SSD.

To achieve specifications roughly equivalent to the UK model's £999, one would have to spend $1,099. Today's exchange rate is rather favorable against the dollar, and the 512GB SSD is still available, but it does not quite live up to Nvidia's $999 promise.

Oddly enough, the MSI GF65 THIN 9SEXR will be available exclusively at Curry's PC World in the UK starting May 4. Residents in the US can find a similar configuration at major retailers for $1,099.

The spec list for the UK model leaves us wanting more from the GF65. Performance is there for today's games, but we are not at all convinced how well it can handle ray tracing with specs that are just barely hanging on without shattering performance with cutting-edge rendering techniques.

However, I usually recommend overspending on a graphics card to make up for less storage space if you can afford it. The upgrade procedure is at least a simple one. Remove the frightening number of screws and open the underside to find a spare NVMe slot and a spare SODIMM slot. Both can be fitted with off-the-shelf parts whenever the budget allows; the two NVMe slots make transfers easier if you decide to replace the boot drive.

Just as it is important to point out what was lost to achieve £999, it is equally important to quantify what was gained as a result of offering RTX at this price point. You cannot upgrade a laptop GPU yourself. Therefore, a shift to the RTX 2060 may make the most financial sense for those who are looking to purchase an RTX laptop without the means to immediately purchase something high-end in all respects, even if at a cost.