MSI Thin GF65 9SD-837 15.6" 144 Review

The MSI GF65 Thin is a bit of a time capsule. It's a gaming laptop built around specs that were solid a few years ago, like the GTX 1660 Ti and a 9th Gen Intel i7. If you're looking for a budget-friendly way to play games at 1080p without maxing out every setting, this could be your ticket. It's surprisingly light for a 15.6-inch machine, and that 144Hz screen is a nice touch for smooth gameplay.

But here's the thing: you have to know what you're getting into. This isn't a powerhouse for the latest AAA titles with ray tracing cranked up. It's more for esports titles like Valorant or CS2, or older single-player games where you can hit high frame rates. The thin-and-light design is a plus for portability, but it comes with some trade-offs we'll get into.

Honestly, this laptop sits in a weird spot. It's not cheap enough to be a true budget king, and its core components are a few generations old. Its main appeal is for someone who wants a dedicated gaming GPU in a relatively portable package and doesn't mind making some compromises to get there.

Let's talk numbers. The GTX 1660 Ti lands in the 70th percentile for GPU performance. In plain English, that means it's still decently fast for 1080p gaming. You can expect to play most modern games at medium-to-high settings and hit 60+ frames per second. That 144Hz display won't go to waste in well-optimized competitive games, either. The CPU, however, is a different story. The i7-9750H is in the 3rd percentile, which is basically the bottom of the barrel for modern chips. It'll handle gaming fine, but don't expect snappy performance in heavy multitasking or CPU-intensive creative work.

The real-world takeaway is this: gaming performance is good for the price, but everything else feels sluggish. That 8GB of RAM is a huge bottleneck, landing in the 10th percentile. Just having Windows, a game, and Discord open will push this system to its limits. You'll see stutters and slowdowns in everyday use because of it. The 512GB SSD is okay, but it's also below average (34th percentile), so you'll be managing your game library carefully.

At $1083, the GF65 Thin is in a tough spot. On one hand, it's cheaper than a brand-new laptop with an RTX 4050 or 4060. On the other hand, you're buying older tech with some serious flaws, mainly that 8GB of RAM. For just a bit more money, you could find a refurbished or sale-priced model with a newer RTX 3060 and 16GB of RAM, which would be a massively better experience.

The value proposition only works if you absolutely need a thin-ish laptop with a discrete GPU right now, and your budget is rigid. Even then, that 8GB of RAM is a deal-breaker for many. You could upgrade it yourself, but that's an extra cost and hassle on top of the purchase price.

This laptop has some fierce competition, even in its own family. The MSI Vector 16 HX, for example, is a completely different beast with much newer CPUs and GPUs, but it also costs a lot more. A more direct rival might be a Lenovo Legion 5 from a previous generation, which often pops up on sale with an RTX 3060 and 16GB of RAM for a similar or slightly higher price. That would be a much smarter buy for most people.

Then you have the Apple MacBook Pro and ASUS Zenbook Duo on the list, which are weird comparisons. They're in a different league for productivity and design, but they cost two to three times as much and aren't gaming machines. The real takeaway is that the GF65 Thin is competing against last-gen clearance models from other brands, and it often loses that fight because of its skimpy RAM and aging CPU.

So, who should actually buy this? If you're a student on a tight budget who only wants to play esports and older games, and you understand you'll need to upgrade the RAM immediately, it's a passable option. The portability and 144Hz screen are genuine perks for that use case.

For literally everyone else, I'd say look elsewhere. Casual gamers should consider a more powerful used or refurbished model. Anyone needing to do schoolwork, stream, or have more than three browser tabs open will find the 8GB of RAM infuriating. In 2024, 8GB just isn't enough for a Windows gaming machine, and that single flaw overshadows the decent GPU performance.