MSI GV62 8RE Review

👤by Vortez Reviews Comments 📅07-08-18
Conclusion

As is customary for MSI, with the launch of next-gen products they are keen to revamp product lines and the MSI GV62 8RE is one such laptop which now benefits from Intel’s 8th Generation (Coffee Lake) CPUs.

Very little has changed between this year’s 8RE and last year’s 7RC models, but with the upgrade in platform/chipset, we now have access to more USB 3.1 connectivity, HDMI 2.0 over 1.4 and faster clock speeds. MSI has also redesigned their cooling solution inside this new model, now opting for a 6 copper heatpipe design with twin fan configuration – a vast upgrade from the 7RC’s 2 heatpipe and single fan solution. While this comes as an upgrade, temperatures are still difficult to stomach and noise is definitely on the louder side of the scale unfortunately.

Gaming performance from the GTX 1060 is as expected, very good. Choosing maximum detail on the native 1080p resolution does admittedly apply strain on the system with most games able to achieve up to 40-50fps, it’s therefore advisable to nudge down the detail to “high” in order to allow these figures to climb. Overall performance is great from GV62 8RE but it could be better – opting for single channel DDR4 rather than dual-channel DDR4 is likely to be a cost saving exercise but we regard it as an oversight as dual-channel will evitably deliver superior performance, even in games.


Another area which has seen a cut-back, (especially when we look at last year’s model) is the SSD solution, last time we were able to benefit from a PCIe drive, but this time we’re limited to a SATA-based M.2 SSD. There is quite a big performance difference between SATA and PCIe SSDs – SATA is limited to 500MB/s (and sometimes much lower write transfer rates) and PCIe SSDs can soar right up to 2000MB/s. We’d have liked to see the latter included.

It should be noted that GV62 8RE is available in a number of different configurations. The display is one area which has three options – all 1080p but TN, IPS or 120Hz. Our configuration with the i5 CPU, arrives with a price-tag of £1299 GBP - $1996 AUD (Harvey Norman are the exclusive sellers of this specification in Australia). To remain competitive, we feel this model should see a minor price-drop.

MSI’s new GV62 8RE is a stylish laptop which offers good overall performance. There are however a few areas which could be improved.

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Pros
+ Classic, stylish design
+ LED backlit keyboard
+ Decent audio
+ Good overall performance
+ Offers 4K60 output port
+ Includes card slot reader

Cons
- CPU temperatures get rather high
- SATA-based SSD (500MB/s)
- Only single channel 8GB DDR4
- Only red backlighting available on keyboard
- Loud under load

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