The new generation of the GF65 Thin series is not much different from the previous ones. This time, the version we got comes with the Intel Core i7-10750H and the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 Laptop, 6GB GDDR6 VRAM and a 15.6-inch IPS-Level 144 Hz refresh rate gaming screen.

So let’s dig into the details.

Product Specification

MSI GF65 THIN Tech Specs from Official Website
https://www.msi.com/Laptop/GF65-Thin-10UX/Specification

Product Unboxing

Package Appearance
The outer packaging is the MSI classic black background with their logo

On the top of the box is the slogan of MSI “True Gaming”

Opening the package we can see the laptop main body directly

Underneath the laptop is a plastic bag with the user manual and warranty card etc.

The AC adapter has an output of 20V 9A, a total of 180W and manufactured by Delta

The weight of the AC adapter is 0.55KG plus the power cable

Product Analysis

The main look of GF65 Thin

The D-panel has large cooling openings, allowing a direct view of the internal cooler structure

The chamfered corners are slightly rounded and without sharp edges

The thin-bezel design

The single-coloured keyboard and touchpad

The keyboard backlight

The 10th Gen Intel and Nvidia RTX Logo badges

The 720p camera on the top of the B cover is next to the built-in directional noise reduction microphone

The laptop front side – Smooth design without any indicator

The laptop rear side – Semi-Symmetrical design with a large-sized opening area

The laptop left side – Power jack and an HDMI (supports 4K @ 60Hz)port

The laptop right side – 1 x Headphone/Microphone combo port, 2 x Type-A 3.2 Gen 1, 2 x Type-C 3.2 Gen 1, 1 x 1Gb LAN port and a Kensington lock port

The laptop weight: 1.94KG, around 2.5KG total with AC adapter and power cable

Screen Calibration
MSI GF65 Thin is using an FHD 144Hz IPS-Level, 45% NTSC panel, manufactured by AUO, model no. B156HAN08.4(AUOAF90)

Calibration result: Average △E≈0.17, Maximum △E≈1.86, RMS 0.39
After calibration, we have a 58.7% of sRGB, 40.4% of Adobe RGB and 41.6% of DCI P3 coverage

Calibration Curves

Gamut

Tone Response Curves

Hardware Introduction

HWiNFO64 System detail – Intel 10th gen i7-10750H with Nvidia RTX3060 Laptop version

HwINFO Network detail
WIFI Card – Intel Wifi6 AX201 with Bluetooth v5.1

LAN Card – Realtek RTL8111HS-CG 1Gb LAN

CPU-Z snapshots

16G(2x8G) DDR4 3200 So-DIMM memory

GPU-Z Snapshots
GPU-Z was not up to date at the time of our testing and was still at version 2.36 as of November 2020 and could not read all the information from the RTX 3060 laptop without problems, please refer to the details from HwInfo

HwINFO SSD Detail
2TB Samsung PM981 PCIe Gen3 SSD

HwINFO Battery Detail

Run-time Benchmark Test

Before the benchmark, we have changed the power plan to the ‘Ultimate Power Performance’ in Win10. All tests are based on the ‘Extreme performance’ mode in the settings of MSI Dragon Centre

Nvidia driver version has been updated to v461.40

Cinebench R15 Single & Multicore

Cinebench R20 Single & Multicore

Cinebench R23 Single & Multicore

PCMark10 | 4,794

3DMARK – Port Royal | 4,198

3DMARK – Time Spy | 6,974

3DMARK – Time Spy Extreme | 3,261

3DMARK – Fire Strike | 16,118

3DMARK – Fire Strike Extreme | 8,266

3DMARK – Fire Strike Ultra | 4,387

3DMARK – DirectX Raytracing feature test | 17.72 Average FPS

3DMARK – VRS: Tier 1 | OFF: 375.07 FPS, ON: 543.04 FPS

3DMARK – DLSS v1.3 | OFF: 31.42 FPS, ON: 69.83 FPS

3DMARK – Mesh Shader | OFF: 55.43 FPS, ON: 226.41 FPS

FURMARK FHD ｜ 100 Average FPS

CPU-Z Benchmark

BLENDER BMW27 & Classroom

7ZIP 128MB Dictionary Size

TxBENCH SSD Benchmark

Gaming Benchmarks
Final Fantasy XV | High-Quality @ FHD | 7,777

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided | Ultra @ FHD | 72.7 FPS Average

GTAV | Very High @ FHD | 4 x MSAA + TXAA | 89 FPS Average

The Witcher 3 | Ultra @ FHD | 83 FPS Average

CS:GO | Ultra @ FHD | 319 FPS Average

Cyberpunk 2077 FHD Settings

Cyberpunk 2077 FHD + DLSS Ultra Performance | 75 FPS Average

Thermal Tests

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

With Auto FAN profile and non-OC settings:
Test room temperature: 23℃±2℃
CPU Idle temperature: 50℃±2℃
GPU idle temperature: 45℃±2℃

Under AIDA64 Single FPU pressure test, this Intel i7-10750H is partial throttling down @ 3.13GHz
The CPU package temperature is around 66℃±20℃

Under AIDA64 Single CPU pressure test, the Intel i7-10750H is partial throttling down @ 3.86GHz
The CPU package temperature is around 88℃±8℃

Under AIDA64 CPU + Memory & Furmark GPU pressure test, the Intel i7-10750H is partial throttling down @ 3.59GHz
The CPU package temperature is around 86℃±11℃
The GPU temperature is around 74℃

The temperature control of this laptop is ‘Everything under control’, MSI’s Cooler Boost 5 cooling system has a 6 wide heatpipe design with a pair of large-sized fans. The FHD resolution also takes a lot of pressure off this machine and is largely stress-free when running AAA gaming such as Cyberpunk 2077 with reasonable effects + Ray Tracing, the CPU usage is about 77% and the video memory usage is 8.9G. The cooling pressure is completely suppressed, but the Cooler-Boost enabled fan noise is on the loud side.

Overclock test
With Cooler Boost FAN profile and OC settings:
Test room temperature: 23℃±2℃
CPU Idle temperature: 44℃±2℃
GPU idle temperature: 38℃±2℃

Under AIDA64 Single FPU pressure test, this Intel i7-10750H is partial throttling down @ 3.17GHz
The CPU package temperature is around 79℃±17℃

Under AIDA64 Single CPU pressure test, the Intel i7-10750H is running normally @ 3.89GHz
The CPU package temperature is around 80℃±8℃

Under AIDA64 CPU + Memory & Furmark GPU pressure test, the Intel i7-10750H is partial throttling down @ 3.71GHz
The CPU package temperature is around 83℃±10℃
The GPU temperature is around 66℃

The overclocking options in MSI Dragon Center really add to the gaming performance of this Laptop, and with Nvidia’s 3rd generation Max-Q technology, Dynamic Boost 2.0 dynamically adjusts the power between the CPU and GPU to give the GPU the power it deserves, this resulted in a significant increase in the score we got in 3DMark.

3DMARK Port Royal OC | 4,539 +7.5%

3DMARK Time Spy OC | 7,457 +6.4%

3DMARK Time Spy Extreme OC | 3,471 +6.0%

3DMARK Fire Strike Extreme OC | 8,959 +7.7%

3DMARK – DirectX Raytracing OC | 20.03 Average FPS +11.5%

The thermal snapshots under the MAX pressure test(AIDA64 + Furmark)
Front – Top of the C panel | It’s around 54.6℃ on the side of the left vent and 40.1℃ on the middle of the keyboard

Bottom – D panel | It’s around 39℃ crossing the CPU and GPU between the two exhausting fans and around 60-62℃ around the fans

Rear – Left and Right vent temperature | It’s around 66-76℃ on both sides of the vents

Sides – Left vent temperature | It’s around 70℃ on the left sides of the vents

AC adapter | It’s around 50℃

Under Cooler Boost mode, the noise level is around 59.5dBA

Overall, we have to say that the cooling efficiency of the Cooler Boost is not particularly strong, mainly because the two 5V fans are a bit weak and cannot be compared to the two violent 12V fans of the GE76, and most of the heat is not discharged in time, resulting in the upper part of the keyboard on the C side being extremely hot. According to the benchmark, the main source of heat comes from the CPU, while the graphics card does not generate much heat.

Disassembling analysis

After removing all the screws that lock the D-cover plate, use a pick to slide into the backplate along the gap at the IO part, please note that the backplate needs to be flipped from the HDMI IO side, otherwise the USB IO side of the backplate will be damaged

The D-Panel front and back

The main inside look

The intuitive design makes it extremely easy to upgrade, just disconnect the battery and handle a few screws to easily add a hard drive and replace the ram

The C-Panel inside looking

2 x 2W Speakers

The Touchpad inside looking, the controller is using S910ZB from Synaptics

Battery, 4500mAh manufactured by Getac, 4-cell 51Wh

The powerful 6 heat-Pipes Cooler Boost 5 heatsink
The exhausting fans are PABD08008SH(DC 5V 1A) and PAAD06015SL(DC 5V 0.55A) manufactured by Aavid Thermalloy

The Motherboard front and back main looking

The M.2 NVMe only SSD Slots

The Intel i7-10750H CPU

The GPU chip from Nvidia, GN20-E3-A1 which is the Nvidia RTX 3060 Laptop with 6GB GDDR6, based on GA106M die

The PCH chip

The ENE KB9028Q Keyboard controller IC

The ALC233 Audio chip from Realtek

The 75DP159 HDMI IC Control Chips by Fortune Cats

SSD: 512GB Micron MTFDHBA512QFD NVMe SSD (PCIe Gen3 x 4)

Samsung DDR4 3200 2 x 8GB: M471A1K43DB1 – CWE

WIFI & Bluetooth card: Intel AX201NGW, Wifi6 2.4G/5G, 160MHz channels, Bluetooth v5.1

SUMMARY

Overall, the GF65 Thin is an entry-level gaming laptop with a 10th gen i7, 16GB DDR4 and Nvidia’s latest 30-series graphics card, which can handle basically all competitive FPS and MOBA games without any problem, and most AAA games can be played smoothly under FHD resolution. Although this screen with only 58% sRGB colour gamut limits the productivity of many image and graphics processes, it can be solved by connecting an external professional monitor. In terms of cooling, although this GF65 overheated several times under stress testing, it didn’t actually affect gaming performance as the graphics card wasn’t hot. For the price, the $2,199 price tag is a bit high, and we wonder if it is influenced by cryptocurrency, but laptops with the new generation of graphics cards are generally more expensive. According to the latest news from Nvidia, they’ll be doing some restrictions on drivers and vBios to stifle hashing power to combat malicious snapping, so hopefully, that will end up improving the pricing of the laptop market.

EPIC PC RATE SCORE: 85.5/100

MSI GF65 THIN OFFICIAL WEBSITE: HERE