MSI GS66 Stealth

The pinnacle of power squeezed into an ultrabook.

MSI’s website only list the GS66 Stealth’s Intel Core i9-10980HK models, so you’d be forgiven for thinking that that is the only CPU this device ships with, but the more common variation sold in Australia actually comes with a Core i7-10750H CPU, the same one that’s in most of the laptops here. The most affordable variation we could find was an i7, 16GB, RTX 2060 with a 240Hz 1080p panel and 512GB SSD for $3,498 (which was on sale for $2798.40 at the time of writing). If you do want the wildly powerful Core i9-10980HK CPU with 32GB of RAM, an RTX 2080 GPU, 1TB of storage and a 4K screen, you’re looking at a hefty $6,999. In terms of raw performance only the AMD Ryzen 9 4900HS on the Zephyrus G14 and the MacBook Pro 16’s Intel Core i9-9880H got close on cross-platform benchmarks. MSI’s GS66 was actually outperformed by the Zephyrus G14 on Cinebench multi-threaded CPU tests and was almost matched by it in media encoding, but it took the lead in other general benchmarks. Graphically this laptop benefited from additional RAM and CPU so it beat the only other device in the roundup with a 2080 Super in 3DMark.

At 2cm thick and 2.1kg, the GS66 is one of the largest devices in the roundup, but considering the power you are carrying it’s still perfectly portable. We wouldn’t choose a 1080p screen on a $7K laptop, and you can easily swap out the 300Hz display for a 4K panel, but for professional gamers this isn’t really an option.

A supremely powerful portable workstation that is also capable of commanding games, for a price.