MSI GL75 9SD-015FR: Review, price and specification – Laptop

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As much to say right away, this 17 inch GL75 model arrives in a difficult context where laptops oriented video games and equipped with Nvidia GTX 1660 Ti graphics card regularly fall below the 1,000 € mark. However, the PC that interests us today is on a much higher niche, around € 1,300.

The gap with the competition is therefore considerable, and MSI will therefore have to accumulate the good points to justify its positioning. We can already note that compared to less expensive models, it offers a configuration in Core i7 and not i5, and a memory system in dual channel. It therefore seems armed to deliver better performance. It remains to be seen whether the exterior elements and general ergonomics will follow the same ambitions.

We had good memories of our handling of the GE65, also marketed by MSI, but responding to a 15 inch format and a more premium positioning. In comparison, this GL75 version disappoints and betrays an obvious desire for savings. If the screen retains a metallic coating, the rest of the chassis is plastic, and not of the highest quality. No texture or special treatment: the keyboard support is smooth and shiny, and in addition to being quite unsightly, it has a strong tendency to retain fingerprints. There are also some inaccuracies in the assembly of the external elements on the edges.

The first contact with the different buttons surrounding the keyboard and the touchpad don't put a lot more trust in them. The On / Off, Gaming Center, and Cooler Boost controls are very hard to activate, with little highlighting. They therefore prove impractical. And the same remark applies to the right and left clicks of the touchpad : they quickly make you want to plug in a mouse, even if the surface of the touchpad remains pleasant and effective in detecting finger movements.

Still compared to the GE65, MSI put the brake on the backlight. Point of RGB LEDs or USB ports that shine. The only lights that brighten up the nightlife are on the back of the screen, at the brand's logo, or on the keyboard. The latter lights up in effect with a solid red, a color that can be removed or adjusted to 3 intensity levels.

Clearly, the GL75 does not benefit from a very studied design. Fortunately, this does not affect the functional aspect of the machine much. As we said earlier, using a mouse is more natural for this PC which acts more as a portable workstation than a real portable device. Furthermore, even without RGB LEDs, the keyboard is efficient and is in line with the MSI gaming models that we have already crossed: the key spacing is optimal, the 17 inch format leaves room for the integration of a numeric keypad, and the typing quality is honest, with a sufficiently marked stroke and a well-dosed activation force (we are staying on a technology chiclet however).

On the side panels, there is also everything you need in terms of connectors: three USB 3.2 Type-A ports, a USB 3.2 Type-C port, an RJ 45 socket, a set of audio sockets (headphone output / input microphone), and two video outputs (HDMI and mini-DP), all complemented by an SD card reader. However, you have to settle for Wi-Fi 5 (802.11ac). Savings, again and again …

If the GE65 had surprised us by its cooling which had been able to tame a couple i7-9750H / RTX 2060, we feel once again here that the control is less assertive. Admittedly, the temperature of the chassis rises lower (between 36 and 40 ° C in intense play), but the noise nuisance gains in force (49.5 dB). Surprising in such a volume (remember that the GL75 is a 17 inch) with a "simple" GTX 1660 Ti.

On the other hand, GL75 and GE65 share the same weaknesses in software management. Thus, MSI integrates on its ranges of laptops gaming several operating profiles, the user being able to switch from one to the other on the fly; it's the system SHIFT. Unfortunately, out of the four available profiles, two have too similar CPU / GPU settings (we are talking about Sport and Comfort modes). Turbo mode is based on Sport mode, but allows overclocking CPU and GPU manual. As for the latter, the ECO mode, it is radical to say the least: it caps the CPU frequency at 800 MHz. Of course, this planing blow lowers the noise nuisance to 39 dB – nice! -, but the performances can then be divided by two or three on a game like Assassin's Creed Odyssey – less nice!

While browsing the MSI Dragon Center software suite, however, you end up on an interface that allows modification of ventilation settings, for those who are not satisfied with the default profiles. But then again, you can quickly see the limits of the cooling system. While we had found an optimal setting on the GE65, with noise pollution at 42 dB for minimal performance losses, the GL75 will not have allowed us to go below 45 dB. It's okay, but we expected more.

As often, we conclude this chapter with ease of maintenance. Difficult not to draw a parallel again with our past experience: GE65 and GL75 share the same weaknesses in terms of the plastic fasteners that hold the base of the chassis. After removing a few screws, these fasteners should bend under slight pressure to allow the hull to lift. However, they tend to break, leaving small pieces of material spinning. The opening operation is therefore delicate and in our case, it was not very positive: there is indeed a 2.5 inch slot with a SATA connector, but no support is provided to fix the disk to the motherboard. On the SSD side, there are two M.2 slots, one of which is occupied … except that the second has no associated connector. Finally, on our Review copy, the hardware update was limited either to replacing the two RAM modules, or to replacing the M.2 unit already present.

The quality of the chassis and the limits of the cooling system obviously annoyed us, but we can be pleased that these elements do not weigh on the performance of the processor. The Core Intel i7-9750H of the GL75 reaches an index of 94 points on all of our tests, which puts it at the top of the basket. This good result is largely explained by the frequencies that the processor manages to maintain under load: 3176 MHz on average on an H.265 encoding, 3876 MHz under Assassin's Creed Odyssey. It is obvious that its memory configured in dual channel gives it an advantage.

We told you a little earlier that the Comfort and Sport operating profiles did not imply real changes in the management of environmental constants. We can better understand why by analyzing the frequencies of the components. On two games (The Witcher 3 and AC Odyssey), Sport mode offers on average 50 MHz of gain on the CPU, and barely 10 MHz on the GPU. Nothing notable therefore.

For the record, it took us a while to understand the almost too good video game results of this GL75 model compared to those of other PCs previously tested and equipped with the same GPU (a GTX 1660 Ti). As an example, our GL75 reaches an average of 60 fps on Assassin's Creed Odyssey, while its competitor, the Asus RoG G531, only increased to 47 fps. Sure Far Cry 5, rebelotte! 81 fps for the GL75, and only 59 fps for the Acer Nitro 5. At the same time, some games did not show significant differences between the three PCs: in this category The Witcher 3 or Monster hunter world. A real headache that reminds us that a powerful graphics card needs strong companions to express themselves.

The GL75 has no problem at this level, since it ships 16 GB of DDR4 RAM in dual channel, and a high performance i7 CPU (6 cores / 12 threads). Opposite, the Nitro 5 is limited to an i5-9300H on the CPU part (4 cores / 8 threads), while the RoG G531 only has 8 GB of memory in single channel. These may seem anecdotal, but in games that are very demanding on CPU resources or memory bandwidth, they can be a bottleneck and limit graphics performance. The curves below show this well: in practice, this translates into a GPU that no longer works at 100% of its capacity.

All that said, remember that the GL75 exploits its graphics card perfectly, which allows it to display slightly lower performance than an RTX 2060. Of course, the latter retains a real advantage in accelerating calculations in ray tracing.

The GL75 panel is based on a technology similar to IPS, called AHVA. And overall, it displays a satisfactory image, without it becoming a real highlight. The brightness, measured at 286 cd / m², is a bit weak, as is the contrast ratio which only goes up to 1025: 1. Fortunately, the colorimetry is quite fair: com average of 3.8 for a temperature of 6,868 K, knowing that these results were obtained on the so-called Standard profile. MSI provides 4 others, which are unfortunately much too oriented to be useful on a daily basis. The remanence and reflectance are also in the middle of what we usually measure. Note the effort made by MSI to reduce the side edges of the screen, which ensures that the display has an occupancy rate of 83% (the average is currently 80%).

A remark all the same on the purpose gaming GL75: we can only regret the choice of a refresh rate of 60 Hz, where the standard slowly begins to position itself on higher values: 120, even 144 Hz. The gain in visual comfort is however undeniable, and even if we often tend to highlight the performance of components before any other criterion, the quality of the display is never an element to underestimate.

On a 17-inch model, one would expect the speakers to benefit from a more favorable area of ​​expression than on more compact products where the available space is necessarily more limited. The GL75 proves to us that this is far from being an established rule. To begin with, the two speakers broadcast sound through two openings under the chassis. This implies that the rendering is often muffled, and very dependent on the surface on which the laptop is placed. More generally, the sound quality remains well below that expected: our different listening sessions betray a very nasal rendering to which is added a very unpleasant plastic resonance effect.

Like all MSI systems in recent years, the GL75 comes with a Nahimic audio processing solution. And although the latter is of quality, it can not do miracles either if the material part does not follow. In our opinion, the most appropriate setting still remains to activate Nahimic in its entirety, then to deactivate the sub-processing aimed at amplifying the voices, the bass and the treble. The resonance effect is then less pronounced, without however drastically changing the quality of the whole.

Those who opt for headphones – and we can not blame them – will console themselves by learning that the available jack output is good, even if the power (100 mVrms) is rather in the lower range of PC gaming current.

The GL75 is what we call in our technical jargon "a beautiful baby": with a weight of 3.2 kg, including power supply, and a thickness of almost 3 cm, this laptop fits more in the category of play stations that will be moved from one drop point to another, from time to time. It is clearly not cut for real nomadic use. Moreover, if we take care to mention its weight with charger, it is because its autonomy remains limited in absolute terms: 5 h 28 min. However, it should be noted that this figure remains honorable, if we consider what the competition offers and the particular target that the GL75 aims, namely the players.

Strong points

• Very good CPU performance.

• A perfectly exploited GTX 1660 Ti.

• Temperature controlled at the chassis.

• Complete inputs / outputs.

Weak points

• 60 Hz screen for a gaming laptop.

• Very poor quality of the speakers.

• CPU / GPU operating profiles not different enough from each other.

• Noise under load.

• Low scalability.

• General quality of the chassis.

• No Wi-Fi 6.

If we only base ourselves on its 3D performance, the GL75 is undoubtedly a good choice which lets its GTX 1660 Ti express itself fully. Unfortunately, at a time when competition is fierce in the market for laptops dedicated to gamers, this simple argument is no longer enough. In return for its computing power, the GL75 remains a noisy, inelegant machine, impractical even in certain aspects, and endowed with an audio solution that can be greatly improved. Admittedly, this does not make it a product to be advised against, but it is very difficult to distinguish itself in the face of much cheaper or better quality models with equivalent power. 

• Construction

• performances

• Games

• Screen

• audio

• Mobility / Autonomy

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