This year, MSI’s Vector series replaces the GP66 and GP76 Leopard. In addition to a Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 Ti (8 GB VRAM) with a TGP of 150 watts and an increased Boost Clock to 1,585 MHz, which is also fully utilized in gaming, the gaming notebook is powered by an Core i7-12700H this time around. Although limited to 45 watts, the CPU performs similarly to the competition and is twice as powerful as its predecessor.
Another highlight is the matte FHD display, which has been boosted from 144 Hz to 360 Hz and also offers the best-in-class response times with a measured 4ms gray to gray. A coverage of 99% of the sRGB color space together with a solid contrast ratio, black level and rich, bright subpixel rendering make for clear, colorful images. However, the luminosity of 264 cd/m² is still somewhat low, which is not a problem when used indoors.
The wayward fan control caused us some problems but this should be fixed after a future BIOS update. In general, the MSI notebook operates very quietly. Even during gaming the fans are not bothersome as long as you use the well-implemented "Silent" mode, which only minimally reduces graphics performance.
The notebook has two SODIMMs with up to 64GB of DDR4-3200 RAM, plus two M.2 slots with PCIe4 x4 specification (RAID 0,1). The small 2 x 2.5 watt sound system is the best in its range, producing very good quality sound. Moreover, the Vector has an adequate keyboard with individually configurable RGB key backlighting.
The extremely stable case remains fundamentally the same, except for the positioning of the USB-C port, which has been moved from the back to the left side, thus making room for a dedicated mini-DisplayPort at the back. The USB-C port itself also supports DisplayPort but not Power Delivery or Thunderbolt. You also have to do without internal G-Sync and higher resolution, brighter display options.
Lastly, the 280-watt power supply has become even bulkier at 800 grams, which fully recharges the 65-Wh battery in a slow 2.5 hours. The battery life, on the other hand, has improved with over 5 hours in the WLAN test, but GPU performance suffers badly as soon as you unplug it.
More information and benchmarks can be found in our full review of the MSI Vector GP76 12UGS.
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