During CES 2021, MSI announced a slew of new laptops with the RTX 30-series Laptop GPUs. One of them is the MSI GE76 Raider – the company’s latest flagship gaming laptop, packed with the latest and greatest hardware that is available currently.
The GE76 Raider is essentially a larger version of the GE66 Raider that we reviewed last year but with quite a handful of changes, particularly in the hardware. And since it has the word “Raider” in its name, we can see that the GE76 Raider comes with an RGB light bar at the front of the laptop too.
Let’s start off with the specs. For us here in Malaysia, the new MSI GE76 Raider comes packed with:
- 17.6-inch IPS-level display
- 1080p resolution
- 240Hz
- Intel Core i7-10870H
- NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop
- 16GB (2*8GB) DDR4-3200 RAM
- 1TB PCIe Gen 3 NVMe SSD
- 99.9Wh battery
While there are variants with the RTX 3080 Laptop GPU, we’re not sure if it’ll be available as of now. And according to Notebookcheck.com, the RTX 3080 Laptop GPU in the GE76 Raider 10UH can go up to 155W – and that’s the highest performance that the RTX 3080 Laptop can go.
Also, the new RTX 30-series Laptop GPUs have Dynamic Boost 2.0 and allows the laptop to intelligently boost either the GPU or CPU, depending on which is more needed during that specific point in time. For example, CS:GO needs more CPU power, so Dynamic Boost 2.0 gives more power to the CPU instead of the GPU, whereby Cyberpunk 2077 needs more GPU power so the GPU gets boosted instead.
Thanks to MSI’s Cooler Boost 5, it can kick off the heat and gain about 10% gaming performance enhancement when compared to Dynamic Boost 1.0.
Of course, the RTX 30-series Laptop GPUs bring better ray-tracing and DLSS performance throughout the board as well.
And since it’s using the new NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30-series Laptop GPUs, it has PCIe resizable BAR technology as well – which means the CPU can fully access all of the GPU’s VRAM. For certain games, this can provides us extra framerates.
Resizable BAR is not exclusive to the GE76 Raider only. All of MSI’s latest laptops that are equipped with RTX 30-series Laptop GPUs will have resizable BAR. So, you can expect free frame rates on certain games that take advantage of resizable BAR.
It also has NVIDIA Reflex now, which reduces the response time between clicking on the mouse and when it shows up on the screen. For competitive gamers, this can be a gamechanger.
The MSI GE76 Raider also comes with a very generous slew of ports on both sides and the rear – including a high-speed UHS-II full-sized SD card reader for creators to quickly offload pictures and videos into the high-speed NVMe SSD without carrying a dongle.
MSI also included a bunch of high-speed USB ports so you can create backups of your important data even quicker than before.
By the way, if you want something more unique and fancy, MSI has you covered as well. During the CES 2021 announcement, MSI has a Mesopotamian-themed video and showed us the one-of-a-kind laptop design, inspired by the dragon Tiamat. Tiamat is known as the mother of all gods during the Mesopotamian era, which means anyone who sets their eyes on the MSI GE76 Raider Dragon Tiamat, knows that it means serious gaming performance.
Let’s not forget that the MSI GE76 Raider also comes with an FHD webcam for streaming or – in the case of the pandemic now – for online classes or meetings.
But of course, MSI also has other laptops that are powered by the latest RTX 30-series Laptop GPUs. We have the new MSI GE66 Raider which is similar to the one that we reviewed but with the new RTX 30-series Laptop GPU.
And if you want a thin and light yet powerful laptop, then MSI has the GS66 Stealth as well. As the name suggests, it’s a stealthy-looking laptop but comes with up to Intel Core i9 and also the latest NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Laptop.