We managed to get our hands on yet another one of MSIs gaming laptop models which is the Stealth A16 AI+, we’ve heard really good things about this years model and enquired about reviewing one for a while to see how MSIs budget range gaming laptops have been going for performance and specs lately, so today we’ll be running this laptop through our tests and benchmarks to see what sort of performance results we’ll get.

Take a seat, grab some popcorn – lets dive in!

They finally gave us the chance to review their Raider A18 HX laptop which is packed to the absolute brim with high caliber specs that’ll make any creator or gamer froth at, so today we’ll be reviewing every ounce of this laptop to see what it’s capable of like, so sit back, relax and enjoy the video.

Take a seat, grab some popcorn – lets dive in!

The MSI Titan Series Laptops have always been renowned in the industry as the absolute top of the line and completely speced out device on the computing market each year. This model I currently have with me today made me go through a whole heap of exciting emotions after finding out what specs it comes with for this year’s edition. we’ll be taking a quick look at everything from benchmarking, temperature readouts, and other aspects of the laptops to see how it performs overall.

Take a seat, grab some popcorn – lets dive in!

find out more at:
https://au.msi.com/Laptop/Titan-18-HX-AI-A2XWX

MSIs Raider lineup of laptops have been killing it in the laptop game ever since they debut in 2018, starting with their GE63 and GE73 along with several updates throughout the years – but recently MSI has released their brand new Raider 18 HX AI edition laptops that carry the latest and greatest of gaming related computer components. So today we’ll be running through what this laptop offers for specs and test how capable it is for our creators and gamer heads out there

Take a seat, grab some popcorn – lets dive in!

find out more at:
https://au.msi.com/Laptop/Raider-18-HX-AI-A2XWX

We’re diving deep into the world of high-performance laptops with the MSI Titan 18HX. Get ready to witness the raw power of the NVIDIA RTX 4090 and its gaming prowess.

Chef Jensen was bragging about the DLSS 3 technology at GTC, so let’s start with the RTX4090’s performance.

Before we announce the test results, let’s explain the specs and features of the RTX4090, as well as what DLSS 3 is and what the difference is compared to the previous generation flagship RTX3090Ti.

The RTX40 series uses for the new Ada Lovelace architecture, replaced by a 4nm process from Samsung 8nm to TSMC, compared to the GA102 core area from 628mm² down to 608mm², more integrated and the transistor count skyrocketed to 76.3 billion. However, the RTX4090, the first flagship graphics card in the 40 series, does not use the full version AD102 chip. NVIDIA has reservations about the RTX4090, meaning that higher end cards such as the RTX4090Ti will follow.

With the graphics architecture diagram, the full spec AD102 should be 12 groups of GPCs, 72 groups of TPCs and 144 groups of SMs with 18,432 CUDA cores with 144 3rd generation RT Core RT cores and 576 4th generation Tensor cores, 576 texture units, 192 ROP units, 18MB of L1 cache, 96MB of L2 cache, 36MB of registers. 96MB L2 cache, and 36MB register file.

On the other hand, the RTX4090 has been streamlined somewhat from the full AD102 core, with 1 group of GPC and 4 groups of SM units neutered, 2048 stream processors less compared to the full AD102 architecture, as a number of 16,384 stream processor units in total, and a slightly lower RT Core and Tensor Core count.

But even so, the RTX4090 still crushes the RTX3090Ti in every specification, especially in terms of stream processors, core frequency has been significantly increased, if only comparing the number of stream processors, the RTX4090 is 1.52 times higher than the previous generation RTX3090Ti, so the theoretical performance has been improved by at least 50-60%. Furthermore, the RTX4090 still maintains the same 450W as the RTX3090Ti, which is inevitably thanks to TSMC’s 4nm process.

In addition to the usual upgrades, the RTX40 series adds support for AV1 encoding, which will undoubtedly be a benefit to video creators with special needs. the RTX40 series cards have a new optical flow unit within the core, which, if enabled with the new DLSS 3, additionally allows for real-time frame fill for games in addition to the original multi-frame composite super resolution, bringing better silky-smooth gaming experience. Considering the extra latency that the frame fill process brings, NVIDIA has also introduced Reflex low latency technology to synchronise the CPU and GPU, eliminating useless frames from the GPU rendering queue to ensure optimal responsiveness. In addition, the RTX40 Series graphics cards have been upgraded to fourth generation Tensor units and third generation RT units which further enhanced the RT performance.

According to NVIDIA, the 3rd Generation RT Core, which is used in the Ada Lovelace architecture core, not only doubles ray and triangle intersection performance, but also more than doubles the peak RT-TFLOP performance. The 3rd generation RT Core also features the new Opacity Micromap (OMM) engine and Displaced Micro-Mesh (DMM) engine, which further improves performance and reduces computational overhead for better ray-tracing performance, and the 4th generation Tensor Core with the Ada Lovelace architecture core introduces the FP8 Transformer engine from the professional-grade H100 data centre GPU for even more Ai power.

The Ada Lovelace architecture core introduces Shader Execution Reordering (SER) on the SM unit for better shader work scheduling and sequencing, which allows rendering to be performed according to different load requirements, enabling more uniformly loaded images to be rendered and reducing work overhead.

This SER feature will be made available to developers as an API. NVIDIA also claim that the addition of SER will deliver up to twice the performance improvement of RT Core and an enhanced experience for ray-tracing games. According to NVIDIA, the new SM (Streaming Multiprocessor) can deliver up to twice the performance and power efficiency, which is a significant upgrade.

In addition to the 3rd gen RT Core, 4th gen Tensor Core and SM (Streaming Multiprocessor) upgrades, the Ada Lovelace architecture brings the new 8th gen NVENC dual hardware encoder, which integrates support for the AV1 video encoding format, allowing for the encoding and decoding of the AV1 format in addition to the traditional H.264 format. The new 8th generation NVENC Dual Hardware Encoder integrates support for AV1 video encoding format, allowing for encoding and decoding of the AV1 format in addition to the traditional H.264 format, effectively improving productivity for creative users and game streamers. According to NVIDIA, the 8th gen NVENC dual hardware encoder is 40% more efficient in AV1 than H.264, which is a significant improvement.

In terms of performance, the Ada Lovelace architecture(AD 102) has 96MB of L2 cache, which provides a significant increase in data hit rate. With the current stage of effective graphics memory bandwidth enhancement, the upgrade to a larger capacity L2 cache can further

improve data hit performance and bring about a performance upgrade. According to NVIDIA, the addition of a large capacity L2 cache brings about higher gains in a range of GPU operations, especially in ray tracing scenarios.

A series of upgrades to the Ada Lovelace architecture also brings new DLSS 3 technology exclusivity and experience enhancements in terms of NVIDIA Reflex.

DLSS 3 includes DLSS 2 (DLSS Super Resolution) and the new DLSS Frame Generation technology, which relies on the Ada Lovelace architecture’s independent optical flow and Tensor Core’s AI algorithm. During the operation of a technology, the Optical Flow Acceleration (OFA) is used to generate frame information from a series of data obtained from the optical flow processor, while the AI algorithm is responsible for further optimisation of the frames, thus adding more frames to the game and improving the frame rate.

DLSS 3 generates 3/4 of the pixels of the first frame of the game and the entire second frame of the game directly, which is equivalent to using 1/8th of the computing power to complete the entire calculation process, and by cycling through this process, the frame rate can be increased while saving resources overhead, further leading to a better gaming experience.

DLSS 3’s frame generation technology will also be used to reduce rendering and operation latency by integrating NVIDIA Reflex. According to NVIDIA, DLSS 3 will integrate NVIDIA Reflex and a range of other technologies to deliver a rendering and manipulation experience that matches or exceeds the native experience.

Let’s take a closer look at the performance of the RTX4090 graphics card through professional testing software, with the following test platform configuration.

Test Bench:

3DMark Performance test

The 3DMark includes include PortRoyal, TimeSpy and TimeSpy Extreme to test the performance of DX12 at 2K resolution, 4K resolution and ray-tracing performance respectively.

Through the 3DMARK benchmark can be seen, RTX4090 performance has been improved across levels, compared to RTX3090Ti in theoretical performance increased by about 40% respectively, this is only the theoretical performance difference under DX12 games, we are going to test the different game performance differences, let’s check it out.

Gaming test

As we know, the previous generation RTX3090Ti is a graphics card that cannot play Cyberpunk 2077 at 4K resolution without DLSS enabled, but if the RTX4090 can handle Cyberpunk 2077 at more than 60 fps under 4K, it means that the RTX4090 will fully open the 4K era. For this flagship graphics card, the game benchmark session was not considered at 1080p and 2K, but directly on 4K resolution for testing. The games we chose are CS:GO, Cyberpunk 2077, DOTA2, Monster Hunter: World, PUBG, Red Dead Redemption 2 and World of Tanks under 4K maximum graphics setting.

In terms of gaming, the RTX4090 has a larger lead in most 4K games compared to the RTX3090Ti. The reason for its modest improvement in individual games should be that the graphics card is less stressed, has a lower graphics card footprint, and the stress is all on the CPU. At 4K resolution, the RTX4090 is able to exceed 60 fps and reach close to 90 fps without DLSS, with DLSS 3.0 on it is even possible to reach more than 100 fps, while the RTX3090Ti is still unable to reach 50 fps and requires DLSS to be enabled.

DLSS 3.0 test

We have also tested the recently updated DLSS 3 project, and from the 3D Mark results, we can see that the ASUS ROG Strix RTX4090 OC can achieve a very noticeable improvement in performance thanks to the DLSS 3 technology. We have also obtained test versions of several games that support DLSS 3 and will be testing some of these games to experience the improvements that DLSS 3 technology can bring.

According to Nvidia’s official introduction, more than 35 games and apps have already announced that they will soon support DLSS 3 technology, including popular gaming titles such as Cyberpunk 2077 and RacerX. For this DLSS 3 game test, we will use Cyberpunk 2077, Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered and A Plague Tale: Requiem. Please notice that the DLSS version for RTX3090Ti is v2.5

As you can see through a range of figures, the ASUS ROG Strix RTX4090 OC we tested has very strong power and performs even better in a range of games.

Productivity performance benchmarks

AV1 codec

As AV1 has become the new standard encoding used for decent video content. And the reason is simple. It is because AV1 codecs can achieve the same picture quality as other mainstream codecs at a lower bitrate. AV1 codecs has higher video compression algorithm to enable creators saving a lot of space on their hard drives.

EPIC PC is currently uses DaVinci Resolve 18 for long video editing. This software supports Nvidia’s AV1 hardware-accelerated codec. A 4K MP4 video of around 10GB in size can be exported in around 40 seconds.

H.265 hardware accelerated codec

Also for this 10GB size 4K footage, encoded in H.264 and exported to MP4, this ASUS ROG Strix RTX4090 OC took roughly 35 seconds to process, while the RTX3090Ti took 70 seconds, which is twice as slow..

Industrial design benchmarks

For a test that leans further towards the needs of professional users, we used SPECviewperf 13 for a comparison test of the two cards.

The comparison tests also show that the ASUS ROG Strix RTX4090 OC is an all-round improvement card in comparison to the RTX3090Ti. achieving an all-round advantage in a series of benchmark tests of the industrial needs.　　

Through hands-on testing in various aspects such as gaming, video creation and benchmarking with professional tools, we can see that the ASUS ROG Strix RTX4090 OC has the latest technological advantages and all-round performance improvements compared to the previous generation flagship model RTX3090Ti, and its strong performance also brings users excellent experiences.

Thermal and power consumption benchmarks

With a room temperature of 28±2°C and an open test bench, we tested this ASUS ROG Strix RTX4090 OC card and the temperature was stable at around 71°C at around 30 minutes, while the total power consumption of the card was around 440W, which is a relatively good performance.

Summary

As the flagship of the new generation card, the ASUS ROG Strix RTX4090 OC shows us very strong performance. With the new Ada Lovelace architecture of the AD 102-300 display core, it brings a full jump in gaming and productivity compared to the previous generation RTX3090Ti. The addition of new technologies such as DLSS 3 provides an immersive experience with clearer picture quality and smoother graphics, making it a must-have for enthusiast gamers.

For gamers, content creators and other users, the ASUS ROG Strix RTX4090 OC’s power and large 24GB VRam will enhance the experience and help users to create more creative inspiration.

The ASUS ROG Strix RTX4090 OC also has a very cool looking, with a semi-retro rounded enclosure and RGB glowing grille at the rear for a Cyberpunk industrial level design, as well as a decent cooling performance. If you’re thinking of upgrading your old graphics card, this is definitely a great choice.

EPIC PC RATE SCORE : 93/100

ASUS ROG STRIX GEFORCE RTX4090 OC OFFICIAL WEBSITE: HERE

The ROG Falchion wireless keyboard we got this time is an extremely simplified style product, with a compact style of 68 keys, light and easy to carry, 65% key arrangement compared to 60% arrangement style to increase the most important directional keys and Page up/down and other practical keys, the full keyboard is made of PBT material, support translucent RGB AURA SYNC, keycaps are PBT The keyboard supports N-key rollover and the biggest highlight is the touch volume bar on the left side, which can be edited separately for other functions to aid gaming.

So, let’s dig into the detail!

Package Appearance

Package Front

Package Back

Internal Package

The accessories are included a package content card, manual, sticker, a Type-C-A adapter and a Type-A-C cable

Product Analysis

Keyboard Main body looking. Also comes with a polycarbonate protection case

The polycarbonate cover front and back looking
An adhesive pad with the ROG logo on the inside

Staggered brushed design on the bottom with ROG eye logo

When the case pad is underneath, there are openings on the side at the volume slider

The bottom support foot is a single segment design

On the top side are the on/off switch, Type-C connector and 2.4G wireless receiver storage slot, the slot has the Magnetically-attached design to avoid the loss

The wireless receiver

Quad-sides view of the keyboard

Take off a keycap, we can find the actual Cherry MX RGB Red switch

The net weight of the keyboard is 525g

The full weight of the keyboard and back cover is 677g

The keyboard is connected by both wired (Type-c) and 2.4G wireless but unfortunately does not support Bluetooth for easy multi-platform adaptation. The volume slider on the left side is responsive and can also be set to match different sliders for different applications.

RGB Backlight effects

Software Usability

ASUS peripherals are integrated into the Armoury Crate, allowing you to change AURA SYNC, lighting effects, and keyboard-related settings via Armoury Crate

The Keys settings in Armoury Crate

The Touch panel settings, this slider bar supports four different actions, swipe up, swipe down, top tap and bottom tap, which can be tied to each of the four functions

The Power settings allow the user to adjust the on/off and sleep time of the light effects, as well as an instant battery level display

The usage experience

Let’s start with the key experience, Cherry’s MX Red has been around for a long time, and as a gaming keyboard, the lack of a paragraph feel to the strikes does feel like something is missing, but the silence does solve a pain point for many users, and the quick rebound, as well as the easy trigger, is really an easy way to increase hand speed. Secondly, from a gamer’s point of view, the 68-key configuration does meet most of the usage scenarios, but unfortunately, it is extremely unfriendly to users who use function keys in the office area, and symbols and functions that require 2-3 layers of key combinations to press out must take a long time to get used to, which is why keyboards like the HHKB are simply not suitable for the average user. Plus, Falchion’s keycaps are slightly higher than Cherry’s, making the overall keyboard taller, it is best used with a handrest, whereas the Asus does not come with it and users need to purchase one separately. Once again, as a portable gaming keyboard, it’s a real shame that there’s no Bluetooth, although the 2.4G wireless is effective in reducing latency, the good thing is that the hibernation wake up time is very quick. As for battery life, ASUS officially says it can last up to 450 hours with the lights off, but unfortunately, the 4000mAh battery really won’t last that long, after close to 2 months or so of testing we found that the real usage time is around 320 hours without RGB, turned RGB on and adjusted to a moderate brightness (50%), it will support about 1 week around of moderate use. When testing the key conflict, we found that the Falchion did not achieve N-key rollover, and under the game ‘DJMAX Respect V’, any combination of 7 keys could not be pressed at the same time, this means that the keyboard is very unfriendly to multi-key music games

Disassembling analysis

This time, we disassembled the Falchion keyboard. Compared to other brands, the Falchion does not have many locking screws, which makes it relatively easy to teardown, and we also found very interesting things, which will be explained below.

All parts after disassembly

The main control board front and back

The Touch panel part is a touch-sensitive strip that often used on monitors for menu adjustment

The STM32L412 from STMicroelectronics is used as the main control chip

The wireless chip is one of the interesting things we found, the CC2640R2F from Texas Instruments. This chip is actually a Bluetooth wireless MCU and supports Low Energy BT version 5.1. But for some reason, Asus has not enabled all the features of this chip

Very sexy white PCB

The second very interesting point is the lithium-ion battery used in this keyboard, model C11P1707, 4000mAh, which is actually used for Asus  ZenFone Max M1, and this battery has not been modified at all for any connection, directly using the original BTB interface, we tested replacing a battery of the same model, the keyboard can light up and successfully identify the power in Armoury Crate. In other words, if the battery decays after more than 1 year of use, it is possible to solve the problem of lack of battery life by replacing it with customers themself. In theory, a C11P1706 battery with the same interface but a higher capacity of 5000mAh may also be directly replaced, but unfortunately, we did not have this battery and were unable to test

SUMMARY

Overall, this keyboard stands out in its category and is very well positioned in the market. In this current climate, more users prefer a lightweight and portable keyboard design language, and ASUS’ move into the 65% size at this time is indeed a major trend, after all, the bar for custom keyboards is now getting lower and lower, and pricing at around AU$239 is not stable in the Australian market, but this wireless keyboard competing with the Razer BlackWidow V3 Mini does have some price advantages. In terms of portability, the use of a 4000mAh battery and the support of fast charging does greatly extend the usage time, which really dispels the blind distrust of many users towards wireless keyboards and breaks the spell of “not only office peripherals deserve to have long battery life”.

EPIC PC RATE SCORE : 96/100

EPIC REWARD: EPIC RECOMMENDED, DESIGN AWARD

ASUS ROG FALCHION OFFICIAL WEBSITE: HERE

So, let’s dig into the detail!

The Package Appearance

Package Front

Package Back

Package Sides

The internal packaging
The black and red colour scheme is still covered in Mayan patterns, complemented by the ROG logo that can be seen everywhere

The design of the opposite door is still the flagship, with the product placed in the middle

The space in the middle of the headset body is made with a monument-like design, on which players are welcomed into the elite community, full of ceremony

The contents of the accessories – includes 2 x D-shape lightweight earmuffs, a 3.5mm detachable microphone, a Type-c extension cable, an instruction manual and a warranty card

The main body of ROG Theta 7.1
The overall design combines the previous flagship ROG Centurion and ROG Delta

Front of the headset with microphone

Two sides of the headset with microphone

The headset weighs 604g, about twice as much as the Delta and 1/3 as much as the Centurion

The Left and right symmetrical design

5-levels Headband expansion arm

The rotating structure of the headset and its extension length

The extra-soft headband inside is a padded foam mesh fabric similar to the ROG Hybrid ear cups, which breaths well

The famous ROG logo on the headband

The headset is complemented by a cooling grid on both sides

At the bottom of the right side of the headset, there is a slider for switching between PC and phone and a 2-in-1 microphone volume potentiometer

On the bottom left side of the headset, there is a separate microphone jack

The D-shape earmuffs have a ROG logo integrated

The ROG logo with RGB translucency design

Software Analysis

Asus has integrated their peripheral controls into the ROG Armoury II software, if users are using an Asus motherboard, they can also use the Armoury Crate directly to control.

The main page of the control panel
Users can utilise this software to adjust almost all functions including Sampling options, EQ adjustment, bass boost, sound selection, virtual surround, channel selection and microphone AI noise reduction options

The RGB settings of the headset can also be adjusted under the Lightning tab

The AURA Sync settings

Disassembling Analysis

The greatest selling point of these headphones is the true 7.1 + separate DAC design. To see what’s inside, we decided to take it apart

The headphone unit part has to be disassembled from the inside of the rotating structure

Snap-in construction of the headset section, locked by a Phillips screw

The headband part

The extra pair of lightweight D-shape earmuffs

The body of the headphones, with the 8 units clearly visible. These are 40mm front units, 30mm centre units, 30mm left and right units and 30mm rear surround units. As all units are independently driven, the subwoofer section could be simulated by an algorithm, meaning that it is also sounded by these units

Remove the headset casing to reveal the motherboard components. The headset is a semi-modular design with relatively neat internal routing

Disassembly of the right half part includes rotating structure, motherboard and housing

Disassembly of the left half part

The motherboard model name and version number

The AURA 82UA0 RGB controller chip

Potentiometers and diverter switches side

The SupremeFX CODECs S1220 conroller chip, Realtek ALC4042H QFN Audio CODEC IC and Wolfson WM8960G stereo audio codec driver chip

ESS Sabre 9601K amps

The Hearing Analysis

Test premise: EPIC PC does not compare the listening experience of PC peripheral headphones with Hi-Fi/Hi-End or Monitor-grade headphones. All comparative terms used in the test are comparisons between PC peripherals.

Compatability
This headset has excellent support and compatibility with the new generation of gaming consoles and mobile devices due to its Type-c interface.

On the Android platform, we tested with the ROG Phone 3. Because they are Asus’ own products, Theta 7.1 can be directly recognised by the ROG Phone 3 and automatically optimised to the game. Although PUBG Mobile does not support a 7.1 soundtrack, in-game footsteps are slightly amplified, making it easy to determine the location of enemies, and the reverberation of gunfire is great in terms of distance and proximity. And in ‘Genshin Impact’, players can enjoy the game’s high-quality music, vocals and effects. Theta 7.1 performs impeccably in both ‘Deemo’ and ‘Cytus II’, as well as ‘Lanota’.

The apple platform lives up to its nobility. To hear quality music on the iPhone with Theta 7.1, we not only need an expensive Hub with a Lightning connector that comes with a chip and has Apple certification, but we also need to purchase Apple’s hi-res lossless music service. With all these front-end items taken care of, we finally got a taste of the quality of these headphones on the iPhone, which actually doesn’t sound much different from the Android platform. Incidentally, the iPad Pro, which comes with a Type-c port, is also directly compatible with this headphone.

Listening experience
The audition tracks include popular male/female voices, rock music, small compilation strings, and large-scale symphonies. All Hi-Res quality 88200Hz 24bit, around 4kbps. This headphone is very well tuned to music, the high frequencies are not sharp and harsh but slightly softer, the sense of transparency is perfect, no EQ adjustment, the mid-range is rich and the resolution is very strong; the low frequencies are simulated but surprisingly thick and layered, good sinking, and no sense of passage and fading. Without EQ on, the vocals are relatively forward and the nasal resonance is very well reproduced; for pop songs, the vocals are slightly overshadowed by the instruments and seem underpowered; in classical music, the beautiful vocal performance in opera is outstanding, especially in the baritone, tenor and florid soprano, and in Mozart’s “der höllerache”(from “die zauberflöte” K. 620 II), Diana Damrau’s florid part brought me goosebumps, very stunning!

On Desktop/Laptop during gaming
To know that the ROG Centurion is already outstanding. Keep in mind that the ROG Centurion was already very good, while the Theta 7.1 upgraded the rear and side speakers to 30mm, but neutered the original 40mm subwoofer and changed it to a virtual approach, making the bass, while present, underpowered by its shorter duration. In the FPS genre, the headset reinforces the weighting of footsteps and players can reinforce their judgement with the ability to adjust the position of the surround points in the software, while the AI noise-cancelled microphone does filter out the noise of keyboard taps to ensure efficient communication between players. This is equally suitable for RTS and MOBA games. In theory, larger units can improve the quality of fine sound, but in games, it actually has very little impact, as the sound is calculated by simulation and is a collaboration between several units, the difference is actually minimal when distributed evenly. To sum up, if you already have a true 7.1 headset like the ROG Centurion or Razer Tiamat, the relative improvement of the Theta 7.1 is considerably limited.

Overall

Overall, Theta 7.1 doesn’t bring a quantum leap in the gaming experience because its predecessor, the ROG Delta, was already quite good and because most current competitive games don’t support 7.1 surround sound. Since Virtual 7.1 was already at the top of its game a few years ago, the upgrade to Theta 7.1’s DAC is only icing on the cake. The relatively heavy weight also reduces the player’s immersion, increases fatigue, and puts pressure on the cervical spine. It also means that Theta 7.1 will not be chosen by true gaming players at all.

When it comes to the price, the AU$549 “price tag” will dissuade the majority of consumers, and perhaps the quality of this extreme material build-up will be perfectly unleashed in a AAA gaming masterpiece. Even though Theta 7.1 has great compatibility and can be used across multiple platforms, it is still a wired product. As the quality of this headset is already top of the line in the PC peripheral world, with luxurious materials, multiple device support, a high price tag and ROG’s faith added, limiting the users to high-end gamers with deep wallets. Asus has rarely innovated in terms of peripherals anymore, will such a ROG series continue to capture the hearts of all gamers or will it gradually fall by the wayside with the brand premium? It’s up to the gamer to choose in the future.

EPIC PC RATE SCORE: 92/100

EPIC REWARD: EPIC DESIGN AWARD, EXTREME POWER AWARD

 
 
 

ASUS ROG THETA 7.1 OFFICIAL WEBSITE: HERE

This time, the Keris mouse focuses on a lightweight design, with no external holes but honeycomb support inside to reduce the weight, and a sensor fitted with a maximum of 16,000 dpi and a 1000Hz polling rate. It also inherits the same interchangeable Micro switch design(push-fit switch sockets) as the Gladius II series, and the interchangeable magnetic side buttons allow for more personalisation of the mouse. The mouse comes with RGB lighting effects and supports Asus AURA Sync. The included cable uses a Type-C connector and the Asus’ own ultra-soft ‘Paracord'(similar to Razer’s SpeedFlex cable).

So, let’s dig into the detail!

Package Appearance
The outside packaging
New mouse features are printed on the back of the packaging

The inside packaging

The mouse, connection cable and the replacement side buttons

Instructions menu, ROG stickers, replacement feet pads and Omron switches

Product Analysis
In terms of size, this mouse is a medium-small, mid-rear bulge setting and is only suitable for right-handed grips, which will take some time to get used to in larger hands

In terms of materials, the mouse has a zoned setting, with a matte finish on the PBT polymer buttons and left/right side grips and a smooth surface on the rest of the mouse

The scroll wheel is made of translucent plastic and the RGB light effect can be projected directly through the wheel

The ROG logo on the back has the same effect and brightness is guaranteed

The mouse feet pads have a novel design, with a triangular design spread over the four corners, the reflective prism is in the middle, the DPI toggle button on the upper left and the pairing button is next to it; the switch on the right is responsible for switching between wireless and Bluetooth modes, at the bottom is the USB receiver storage slot, a very thoughtful design

The front looking – Cable connection with Type-C connector

The back looking

The side-looking
The included side keys have a black translucent design and are magnetically replaceable. But the keys feel very loose in the hand

The interchangeable side keys are available in two colours: grey and pink

The weight of the mouse is 115g with cable, the weight of the mouse itself is only 81g

Software Analysis
The ROG products are now managed by Armoury Crate
Button settings

Performance settings
Users can change the 4 DPIs up to 16000, Polling rate, Button response time and turn Angle snapping on/off

Lightning settings
The mouse supports ASUS AURA SYNC and the brightness can be adjusted here

Calibration settings
This setting allows users to calibrate the lift gap between mouse and mousepad

Power settings
This allows users to monitor the battery level and set up the power saving profile

Firmware update
this allows users to keep the latest firmware of this mouse

Performance Test
The Teflon footpad provides an ultra-smooth feeling, but they are not as comfortable to use as the larger ones, and had it not been for the included set of replacements, we would have thought for a moment that this was the result of Asus saving cost.

We have tested the mouse on the most popular mouse pads: Fine coated pad, aluminium, soft silicone pad, fine fabric cloths thin/thick pad and coarse fabric cloths thin pad.

The tests are based on the mouse’s start, Smoothness, Brake, and Transparency.

Fine coated pad
Start: Medium level on both Static friction and dynamic friction
Smoothness: Very smooth
Brake: Very easy to brake and good positioning accuracy
Transparency: Very good contact, no heightened sense of passage that results in misalignment on the Z-axis

Aluminium pad
Start: Very low level on both Static friction and dynamic friction
Smoothness: Extremely smooth, but the maintenance is relatively difficult. The Teflon feet skates will be frayed quickly by the aluminium surface
Brake: Very easy to brake and good positioning accuracy
Transparency: Very good contact, no heightened sense of passage that results in misalignment on the Z-axis

Soft silicone pad
Start: This textured pad makes the higher static and dynamic friction feeling
Smoothness: Very smooth
Brake: Very easy to brake and good positioning accuracy
Transparency: a relatively thin thickness of the cushion, the material is quite solid and the permeability is good

Fine fabric cloths thin pad
Start: Low static friction and very high dynamic friction
Smoothness: Extremely smooth
Brake: Very easy to brake and good positioning accuracy
Transparency: A thin pad with soft material and good permeability

Fine fabric cloths thick pad
Start: Very low level on both Static friction and dynamic friction
Smoothness: Very smooth
Brake: Easy to brake, positioning is accurate after calibration, the resistance is light. Muscle memory is easier to form and more friendly for novices
Transparency: A thick pad with soft material and good permeability

Coarse fabric cloths thin pad
Start: Very low level on both Static friction and dynamic friction
Smoothness: Extremely smooth
Brake: Easy to brake and relatively accurate positioning
Transparency: A thin pad with soft material and good permeability

This mouse is powered by the PAW3335 optical engine, still one of the mainstream solutions in wireless gaming mouse today, and it also has the ability to compete with Logitech’s HERO 12K. Some may question why the PAW3399 was not used, after all, Logitech’s HERO and Razer’s FOCUS+ series use the PAW3399 as a custom engine with 20,000 ultra-high DPI which is not that particularly practical.

Disassembling Analysis
The backplate is locked with only two screws to reduce weight, under the round rubber plugs on each side

The inside looking of this mouse

The mouse bottom case & inside after decomposition

The main left/right button switch board

Microswitch
The two main buttons are using the ROG Micro Switch which has a 70 million click lifespan with a gold-coated mechanical structure, this micro switch comes in a cool red translucent case with the ROG logo on it. The sound is crisp and clean with a clear sense of passage and great feedback from the switch bounce.

The interchangeable design

The complimentary interchangeable microswitch from Omron

The mainboard with side button micro switches
The 2 blue-dots microswitches used by the side buttons are from Kailh, the model is ‘CMI126603D09’ with 30 million click lifespan and 60 ± 15 gf operation force

The roller encoder comes from Kailh’s 12mm series (CEN981212R01), 10-25 gf.cm, 800,000 lifecycles

The roller

The sensor is PAW3335 from PixArt, which has 16000 cpi, 400 IPS and 40 G acceleration speed

The ultra-low-power microcontroller chip STM32L412 from STI

The CC2640 SimpleLink Bluetooth Wireless MCU from Texas Instruments

Usability Analysis
To test the line correction, frame loss, and smoothness, we are using the mouse test from Areson

This mouse without line correction function enabled

This mouse with line correction function enabled

The Frame loss control and the smoothness control are also quite good

Enotus Mouse Test

Finally, we are using the powerful MouseTester v1.5
By using its powerful plot function, we are tested several mouse performances

xCounts vs Time
While the average line is smoother, which means it’s more linear on the mouse track movement; while the points of the counts are much closer to the line, which means the jitter of the engine is lower. As the graph shows, the result of this performance is acceptable in different CPIs

1600 cpi is under a normal use level, jitter is not large and relatively stable

800 cpi, jitter is low

800 cpi, jitter is low

1600 cpi, jitter is a little bit unstable

3200 cpi, jitter is average

6400 cpi, jitter is under control

12800 cpi, jitter is surprisingly under control

16000 cpi, jitter is still under control

X vs Y
This function is to detect mouse frame loss, As the graph shows, the result of this performance is good

xyVelocity vs Time
The unit of velocity is m/s. This test is mainly to look at the acceleration of the mouse. As the graph shows, the point of ROG Aeris is better for curve fitting, which means the jumped-like rapid acceleration rarely appears, The line of fit is coherent and also has a dense distribution

If there is a good device that allows the mouse to move at a constant speed, in this case, the speed line is straight, if the engine has acceleration, it will fluctuate, so this is the most ideal test method. The result of this performance is quite good

Summary
As a mid-sized wireless gaming mouse, the Keris Wireless is more suitable for FPS design type games. The lightweight design and excellent hardware quality bring players a very smooth and comfortable experience, and the interchangeable micro-action design can meet the different needs of users. The Bluetooth and wireless connections are responsive and stable, and the battery life, while slightly lower than the official claims, is still reasonable.

Pricing is a little on the expensive side for a mid-sized mouse at AU$139 – after all, the Glorious Model O Wireless is only AU$129 in Australia at 69g – and gamers may prefer to spend a little more on a larger, two-handed mouse like the Logitech G Pro wireless or Razer Viper Ultimate.

In terms of overall quality, the Keris wireless has improved the internal structure of the buttons to avoid the springing sound caused by reverse vibration, removed the non-slip rubber pads like the Gladius II which were very prone to ageing and breaking on the left and right sides, and replaced them with a frosted PBT design to reduce the likelihood of oiling. These details really bring this mouse to the next level of quality.

For a more detailed hands-on experience with this mouse, check out our review video below

EPIC PC RATE SCORE: 91.5/100

EPIC REWARD: EPIC DESIGN AWARD

ASUS ROG AERIS WIRELESS GAMING MOUSE OFFICIAL WEBSITE: HERE

Product Specification

MSI GS76 STEALTH 11UE Tech Specs from Official Website
HERE

Product Unboxing

Package Appearance
The insider package is the general GS series black box with thick form protection

The AC adapter is 20V 11.5A, a total of 230W and manufactured by Delta

The weight of the AC adapter and power cable is around 755g

The pure black internal box

The main body is warped by a double-layered suit which has an anti-static layer and a black fabric layer

Product Analysis

The main look of GS76 STEALTH

The thin-bezel design

The Steelseries Keyboard with per-key backlight

The Dynaudio audio system

The laptop front side – Smooth design without any indicator

The laptop rear side – Semi-symmetrical design with MSI logo and a large opening area

The laptop right side – 1 x battery charging indicator, 1 x Type-C(USB3.2 Gen.2 w/DP), 1 x SDXC Card Reader, 1 x Thunderbolt™ 4, 1 x (8K @60Hz / 4K @ 120Hz) HDMI 2.1

The laptop left side – Power jack, 1 x 2.5Gb LAN, 2 x Type-A(USB3.2 Gen2), 1 x Mic/Headphone combo jack

The laptop weight: 2.33KG, around 3.1KG total with AC adapter and power cable

Screen Calibration
MSI GS76 STEALTH 11UE is using a 17″ FHD Sharp LQ173M1JW05(SHP14EC) IPS-level panel

Calibration result: Average △E≈0.10, Maximum △E≈1.57
After calibration, we have a 108.0% of sRGB, 74.4% of Adobe RGB and 76.5% of DCI P3 coverage

Calibration Curves

Gamut

Tone Response Curves

Software & Hardware Introduction

The new looking MSI Center laptop management software
Monitor section

Features section – User Scneario selection

Features section – General Settings

Support section – Live Update

Support section – System Info

Support section – Backup

Feature sets page

Settings page

My Device page

HWINFO System detail – Intel 11th gen i7-11800H 8-cores 16 threads with Nvidia RTX3060 Mobile Graphics card

HWINFO WIFI & LAN detail
WIFI Card – Killer Wifi6E AX1675x(Intel AX210NGW) with Bluetooth v5.2
LAN Card – Killer E3100G 2.5Gb(Intel i225-V)

HWINFO SSD detail – Kingston OM8PCP3512F-AI1 512G PCIe Gen3

HWINFO Smart battery detail

CPU-Z snapshots

GPU-Z

GPU-Z PWR (70W around)

Run-time Benchmark Test

Unfortunately, we cannot change the power plan to the ‘Ultimate Power Performance’ in Win10. All test are based on the ‘performance mode’ in the settings of MSI Center.

Cinebench R15 Single core & Multi core

Cinebench R20 Single core & Multi core

Cinebench R23 Single core & Multi core

PCMark10 – | 6,065

3DMARK – Time Spy | 6,938

3DMARK – Time Spy Extreme | 3,273

3DMARK – Port Royal | 3,644

3DMARK – Fire Strike | 14,481

3DMARK – Fire Strike Extreme | 8,359

3DMARK – Fire Strike Ultra | 4,500

3DMARK – DirectX Raytracing feature test | 18.35 Average FPS

3DMARK – Mesh Shader feature test | OFF: 62.26 FPS, ON: 242.3 FPS

3DMARK – VRS: Tier 1 | OFF: 414.47 FPS, ON: 602.59 FPS

3DMARK – DLSS 2 v1.3 | OFF: 27.28 FPS, ON: 44.54 FPS

FURMARK FHD ｜ 78 Average FPS

CPU-Z Benchmark | Single-Thread: 566.6, Multi-Threads: 4514.7

BLENDER Benchmarks

7ZIP 128MB Dictionary Size

VRAY Benchmark

X264 Benchmark

TxBENCH

Thermal Tests

We are pressure testing this laptop by using AIDA64 and FURMARK.

With Auto FAN profile and non-OC settings:
Test room temperature: 18℃±2℃
CPU Idle temperature: 43℃±2℃
GPU idle temperature: 42℃±2℃

Under AIDA64 Single FPU pressure test, this Intel i7-11800H is partial throttling down @ 2.51GHz
The CPU package temperature is around 90℃±6℃

Under AIDA64 Single CPU pressure test, the Intel i7-11800H is partial throttling down @ 3.70GHz
The CPU package temperature is around 88℃±7℃

Under AIDA64 CPU + Memory & FURMARK GPU pressure test, the Intel i7-11800H is partial throttling down @ 2.58GHz
The GPU clock is average @ 947.9Mhz
The CPU package temperature is around 94℃±4℃
The GPU temperature is around 74.6℃

Overclock test
Test room temperature: 21℃±2℃
CPU Idle temperature: 37℃±2℃
GPU idle temperature: 36℃±2℃

With Cooler Boost FAN profile and Full OC settings:

Under AIDA64 Single FPU pressure test, this Intel i7-11800H is partial throttling down @ 2.83GHz
The CPU package temperature is around 79℃±17℃

Under AIDA64 Single CPU pressure test, the Intel i7-11800H is partial throttling down @ 4.06GHz
The CPU package temperature is around 88℃±7℃

Under AIDA64 CPU + Memory & FURMARK GPU pressure test, the Intel i7-11800H is partial throttling down @ 3.45GHz
The GPU clock is average @ 1038.4Mhz
The CPU package temperature is around 90℃±7℃
The GPU temperature is around 60.6℃

3DMARK Time Spy OC | 8,176 +15.1%

3DMARK Time Spy Extreme OC | 3,928 +16.7%

3DMARK Fire Strike OC | DID NOT PASS THE TEST

3DMARK Fire Strike Extreme OC | 9,600 +12.9%

3DMARK Fire Strike Ultra OC | 5,179 +13.1%

3DMARK Port Royal OC | DID NOT PASS THE TEST

3DMARK DirectX Raytracing OC | 21.14 Average FPS +13.2%

3DMARK Mesh Shader OC | 265.94 +8.9%

3DMARK VRS Tier 1 OC | 682.61 FPS +11.7%

3DMARK DLSS 2 v1.3 | DID NOT PASS THE TEST

The thermal snapshots under the MAX pressure test(AIDA64 + FURMARK)
Front – A panel | Left vent temperature is around 70.4℃ | Right vent temperature is around 58.3℃

Front – Top of the C panel | It’s around 56.8℃ in the middle of the vents and 40℃ on the average of the keyboard

Bottom – D panel | It’s around 64℃ crossing the CPU and GPU between the two exhausting fans

Sides – Left vent temperature | It’s around 50.9℃ at the Left vent and the hottest spot is 70℃

Sides – Right vent temperature | It’s around 45.6℃ at the Left vent and the hottest spot is 63.1℃

AC adapter – It’s around 45.4℃ average on the surface and the hottest spot is 49℃

Under Idle mode, the noise level is around 37.7dBA

Under normal fan mode under pressure, the noise level is around 51.4dBA

Under Cooler Boost mode, the noise level is around 61.7dBA

We only got the Engineering Sample this time, so the cooling solution may not be the final solution, but it still holds up well to the latest 11th gen i7-11800H, especially when the fan is running at full speed, and the overclock can actually reach an average of 12% performance increase. After all, this 45W TDP, 8-core, 16-thread CPU is far more powerful than the i7-1185G7. Unfortunately, a few of the 3DMARK tests did not pass because the card was overclocked and needed to be turned off to run properly, so we did not test the gaming performance in detail. Also, the fan is as noisy as ever with Cooler Boost on.

SUMMARY

The design is the same as before but with a few modifications, the sturdiness is guaranteed and at the same time it is as thin and light as possible. And for a 17″ laptop, the weight is close to that of the Razer Blade 15, proving that MSI has compressed the weight to the extreme. And the A-panel with the Dragon Shield design remains and has not been replaced with The MSI text logo is also a testament to the pedigree of its gaming series.

Instead of a 2K resolution screen, the GS76 STEALTH 11UE uses a 240Hz high refresh rate gaming screen with over 100% of the sRGB colour gamut (the official description is ‘close to 100%’) seems modest), with a much-higher 300Hz upgraded version available. The full-size per-key RGB Steelseries keyboard will satisfy most people’s pain points, while the full-size SD card reader is a favourite among office users. 16G of 3200Hz DDR4 and a 1TB NVMe SSD are enough for everyday applications and entertainment, and MSI hasn’t forgotten about those gamers and corporate users who need high-speed and stable Internet. The 2.5Gb LAN port is perfectly suited for these activities. Meanwhile, the Thunderbolt 4 interface, Type-C connector with DP protocol and the deployment of HDMI 2.1 allow the machine to be connected to three monitors with up to 8K resolution for Matrix Display.

Performance-wise, the new standard voltage laptop CPU does bring more performance, even MSI’s proprietary cooling is not able to fully suppress this CPU, but the reduced voltage overclocking through MSI’s own control does have a good effect. As we didn’t take any screenshots of the game scores, the overall frame rate is much better than the previous model STEALTH 15M, especially for very CPU-intensive games, such as GTAV, Total War series, etc.

Thermal dissipation is, as expected, MSI’s best item. But without being able to take it apart, according to MSI’s official figures, the cooling system used on the GS76 is a triple-fan, 6 heat pipes ‘Cooler Boost Trinity+’.

Price-wise, the pre-order price is roughly AU$3,499 and the GE76 Raider 10UE, also powered by the RTX3060 Mobile, is priced at AU$3,099, so users can take a little reference. Of course, we can’t rule out some price adjustments, but everything will be based on the retail version once it is listed.

MSI GS76 STEALTH 11UE OFFICIAL WEBSITE: HERE