The MSI GF Series is the company’s answer to users wanting a product that is multi-functional and can easily transition between use in their professional and personal life simultaneously. However, the GF Series at its core is very much game-centric and features hardware that matches its tagline. As fellow professionals and gamers, we wanted to try the line out for ourselves and grabbed an MSI GF65 Thin laptop. And safe to say, we were impressed by everything MSI has to offer.
Who Is the MSI GF Series Meant For?
The MSI GF Series is one of the newest additions to the company’s laptop portfolio. Created to meet the needs and demands of modern working professionals while appealing to casual gamers, the GF series strikes the perfect balance between design and portability. And it does that while being a pocket-friendly solution. However, the beauty of the MSI GF Series is that it fits a wide variety of users without being a generic template.
The reason for this level of customization is because every profession is different. The modern world demands different things from all of us. Your work may range from creating presentations and rendering videos to coding entire websites or organizing live streams. While the digital creators will love the MSI GF75 Thin for its big screen, coders will appreciate the sleek profile and portability of the MSI GF63 Thin. However, since the MSI GF Series is an audacious mix of work and play, it’s natural that gamers have not been left behind.
While you can see that the GF series does not offer a flashy and over-the-top design with an RGB logo or light strips and strikes a beautiful balance, there’s no compromise on the hardware front. You have models like the MSI GF65 Thin that boast 10th-Gen Intel Core CPUs and up to NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 GPU with a higher wattage to host your gaming sessions. Gamers on a tighter budget will find solace in models like the MSI GF66 with 11th-Gen Intel CPU and NVIDIA RTX 3050 laptop GPU.
As even seen from a glance, the MSI GF Series contains a wide variety of laptops created to fit anyone and every use case while retaining its core individuality. So no matter if you are an office worker or coder going about your day or a hardcore gamer playing for hours at a stretch, there’s something for everyone’s needs in this lineup. Having said that, let’s talk about the design and performance of the MSI GF series in detail here:
MSI GF Series Boasts a Modern Low-Profile Design
Design aesthetics are always a hard concept to perfect, especially when you are working on a product that should appeal to the student and working-class. Make the laptop’s design too minimalistic, and you ward off gamers. Make it too flashy, and it doesn’t appear professional at client meetings or college presentations. However, the MSI GF series treads the road rarely traveled and comes out on top with a fabulous product lineup.
Taking a design philosophy made for gamers but blending it with the intricacies of a subtle urban design wanted by professionals, the MSI GF Series proves to be the best of both worlds. The asymmetric structure of the MSI GF 65’s body gives it a distinctive yet sleek look, whereas the aluminum alloy with hair brushed texture lends it a level of sophistication.
The clean and subtle design elements continue inside as I lift the lid adorned with the Ferrari Red Dragon logo. The MSI GF65 Thin’s 144Hz display and ultra-thin 4.9mm bezel are not only trendy but also offer an immersive viewing experience. The interiors match the outside without being too flashy. The keyboard inside features single-color backlighting and a beautiful shade of red at that. The backlit keyboard will ensure you can see the keys even in the darkest rooms, while the red hue will appeal to the gamer inside you.
The gaming laptop market in the modern world is chock full of laptops that try to stand out. Whether it is models that have hyper-styled displays, laptops with RBG strips running around the edges, or laptops with dual displays, it can all get overwhelming. As a gamer who prefers to immerse himself in the games rather than flashy lighting, I appreciate the MSI GF series’ commitment toward its clean design aesthetic. It pays homage to the more classic times while still melding it with the future.
The design of the MSI GF series aesthetic provides a dual-edge advantage. While professionals and creators can take the GF65 Thin or any other laptop in this product lineup to work without it being too distracting, gamers can easily immerse themselves in long sessions without any worry about performance woes.
The clean design is coupled with a form factor that feels almost unbelievable to hold. On the go creators looking for mobility can rely on the MSI GF series to be extremely lightweight, with the GF65 Thin weighing at just 1.86 kgs. This fact becomes all the more surprising when you realize the GF65 Thin features a 10th-Gen Intel Core i7 processor, up to NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 laptop GPU, and a 51Whr battery pack.
While we can go on to describe the MSI GF Series’ design endlessly, you will learn to appreciate it better when you see it in person and realize how the scales have been tipped.
Performance Check: Can MSI GF Series Handle Your Workload?
No matter if you are out and about presenting creations to clients or sitting at home rendering videos, performance is paramount. Nobody likes a laptop that starts stuttering after opening more than two-three applications. The MSI GF lineup fortunately is power-packed to its brim to counter situations like that. Featuring 10th-Gen Intel Core i7 CPU and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 GPU, the GF65 Thin delivered an outstanding performance in our testing, no matter what the usage scenario.
Because your level of laptop usage may vary, I tested the GF65 Thin across different categories to properly gauge its capabilities. And here’s what I found:
Scenario 1: Daily Office Work
As a writer dishing out thousands of words on a daily, my usual workflow involves multiple tabs, videos, a text editor, along with image editing software when needed. To test if the MSI GF65 Thin could actually manage all this in one go, I decided to use it as a daily driver while sparing nothing. The GF65, unsurprisingly, pulled through everything without any lag or slowdown.
This all-purpose laptop handled multiple tabs of Google Chrome, running YouTube videos, Slack, and a boatload of other websites. On the side, I had privacy-centric browser Brave running for my work and personal communication with image editing. Since I need to have this level of multitasking for things to work, I was impressed with how the CPU took it, with utilization capping at around 47%. The 10th-Gen Intel Core i7 processor handled everything thrown at it with ease and still had room to spare for more. Since creators and coders alike are usually on the move, I performed my testing with the MSI GF65 Thin unplugged as well.
The 51 Whr battery easily lasted me 3-4 hours (in Performance mode) under my normal usage before I had to charge up the laptop. Now, changing the power mode settings to Battery Saver or Balanced added another hour and a half to the backup, which was useful. Moreover, the tactile backlit keyboard felt butter smooth to my fingers while I was typing away. Professionals in a similar business who are used to traveling can pick up the GF Series products to get an all-in-one machine.
Scenario 2: Content Creation
While typing articles on a laptop is one thing, editing and rendering videos is a whole another ballpark. Since rendering videos take up a fair chunk of a system’s resources, I decided to test the GF series’ prowess in this department as well.
My encoding and rendering journey for the GF65 Thin started with converting a webM 4K video to MP4 using Handbrake. While the CPU was naturally utilized at 100% by 3.40Ghz, I could easily still open additional browser tabs and work. The entire conversion process lasted an average of 7 minutes for a 20 minute 4K @ 60Hz video, which is pretty good.
The next pass was using the famous Adobe Premiere Pro video editing software. Again. Rendering the same 4K/ 60FPS video to an MP4 format took the same time, and I could continue to use the laptop without worries. I performed the rendering test with multiple videos to test the GF65’s endurance, and it took them all on the chin every time.
Moreover, modern productivity often means creators have to take their work along, hence, a lack of desktops is common. Well, the MSI GF Series takes that into account with a careful I/O port selection and placement. The GF65 Thin has multiple Type-C ports for connecting your modern devices and peripherals. Other peripherals can be connected using the USB 3.1 Type-A ports as well. And for creators wanting to connect a monitor for an extended working environment, you can use the built-in HDMI port that supports up to 4K@60Hz for UHD editing. While I could not find an SD card slot on the GF65 Thin, which is a bummer, it compensates that fairly by having the latest Wi-Fi 6 and Gigabit Ethernet for endless data transfer.
Having a GF series laptop by your side means one can rely on your machine without worrying about downtime. However, if you are a video creator with even stronger rendering needs, the MSI GF66 with its higher variants features an 11th-Gen i7 Intel Core processor with even higher clock counts.
MSI GF Series Makes No Compromises on Gaming Front
At the end of the day, there is a bit of gamer inside every one of us. Since the GF65 Thin easily doubles up as a play laptop once work hours come to a close, I decided to put this thin laptop through its paces. My current gaming schedule sees me invest an hour each in Doom Eternal and Cyberpunk 2077. Booting up Doom immediately set the pre-set to Ultra at 1080p with RTX enabled. All the while I was on Mars, killing demons left and right, the FPS on GF65 Thin did not drop below 95. While the GeForce RTX 3060 GPU is capped at 75 Watts, which is something I’m not a fan of, I did not face any lag whatsoever playing Doom Eternal.
Cyberpunk 2077 was a bit more punishing to the GF65 Thin, with the laptop dishing out 40-55 fps at Ultra graphics settings and RTX on. While these games tried to heat up the laptop, the performance remained unaffected, thanks to MSI’s Cooler Boost 5 technology that encases the internals with 2 dedicated fans and 6 copper heat pipes. The fans did get a bit too loud, but that was because I used the extreme performance settings using the MSI Dragon Center, which acts as a one-stop solution for customizing the laptop’s settings.
One thing that needs to be said about gaming and streaming movies on the GF Series is that I absolutely loved the speakers. It is probably the first time I had to turn down the volume because a laptop’s speakers were too loud while outputting good quality audio. Making them a set of front-firing speakers was the right call, good job MSI!
Rounding everything up, my gaming experience on the GF65 Thin was a pleasant one. While I would certainly love more wattage power (higher TDP) when it comes to the RTX GPUs, MSI has put some serious thought into balancing the power that each part gets, thereby delivering an amazing experience. As a person who is a writer by day and gamer by night, the MSI GF65 Thin proved to be a perfect fit for my needs. The MSI GF Series offers a plethora of variants, featuring GPUs from NVIDIA’s RTX 30-series to GeForce GTX 16 series. Now, all I have to do is wait for these best upcoming games.
Create the Perfect Balance with the MSI GF Series
With the gaming market is expanding faster than ever, having powerful hardware is almost a need at this point. While it’s easy to think that everything out there is expensive, consumers with mixed utility can relax, knowing that the MSI GF series is out there. With the GF65 Thin available at just Rs. 1,23,990 for the 10th-Gen Intel Core i7 CPU and RTX 3060 GPU variant, it’s easier than ever before to get your hands on a capable gaming machine. And if you ever feel like you need another system for work, well, think again.
However, if you feel that’s a bit pricey, MSI will soon run some amazing Diwali festive discounts, offering up to 35% off on all their gaming and work laptop series. You will be able to get your hands on the Core-i7 variant of MSI GF65 for under Rs. 90,000 during the sale. So, keep your eyes peeled, and don’t miss the chance to own this ultimate workhorse.
