Other laptops with the RTX 3070 perform nearly as well.

Had hoped that MSI’s GS66 Stealth for 2021 would look and feel a little different than last year’s model, the previous model was a few nips and tucks shy of reaching Razer’s high bar for gaming laptop design. But while the outside shell of this year’s model is exactly the same as last year’s, I can live with that because what’s MSI inside is mostly all-new.

The review unit we tested is the current pinnacle of mobile graphics tech: Nvidia’s new RTX 3080 Max-Q graphics chip, with 16GB of video memory (Nvidia also makes an 8GB variant). MSI also added a gorgeous canvas of a display: a 15.6-inch 1440p (QHD) IPS G-Sync screen with a fast 240Hz refresh rate. The price for this configuration will be $2,599 when it releases in June.

The other specs are good, too, but not necessarily cutting-edge. It has 16GB of RAM, a 1TB NVMe SSD, and the same big, four-cell 99.99Wh battery that was in the previous iteration.

On the other side of that coin, the RTX 3080, like the one you’ll find in this laptop, is good at getting you a few extra frames per second over that. But most gamers, especially ones who are trying to save money when possible, will likely still be happy with the performance of a more affordable laptop. 

Back to the specs, this year’s GS66 Stealth makes the jump up to Wi-Fi 6E compatibility and Bluetooth 5.2. This laptop has an HDMI 2.0 port, so it’s limited to outputting 4K resolution at up to 60 frames per second.