MSI Crosshair Laptop Review – For Gamers and Creators

MSI recently launched a box load of a new line of Gaming and Creator Laptops. The series we are going to talk about today is the MSI Crosshair Laptop series. These laptops are meant both for “Hardcore Gamers and Creators”. There are two laptops in this series namely the MSI Crosshair 15 and the MSI Crosshair 17. Powered by Intel Core i7 11th Gen Processor and RTX 3000 Series Graphics.

We can see it advertised as “Aim to Perform” and it should pretty much do as it is advertised for sure! Not only for Gamers, but the creators can also take full advantage of a color-calibrated display as well as a better battery backup than the MSI GL Pulse Series laptops. The MSI Crosshair Laptop 15/17 would also have a high refresh rate display which would enable gamers to take the full potential of the RTX hardware.

MSI Crosshair Laptop Review - For Gamers and Creators

Specifications – MSI Crosshair Laptop 15/17

MSI Crosshair Laptop 15

Up to 11th Gen. Intel® Core™ i7 Processor
Windows 10 Home
15.6″ FHD (1920×1080), 144Hz, IPS-Level
15.6″ QHD (2560×1440), 165Hz, IPS-Level
Intel® HM570
NVIDIA® GeForce RTX™ 3060 Laptop 6GB/3050Ti 4GB/3050 4GB
Up to 1927MHz Boost Clock, 85W Maximum Graphics Power with Dynamic Boost. (RTX 3060)
DDR4-3200 Memory Type
2 Slots Number of SO-DIMM Slot
Max 64GB Max Capacity
2x M.2 SSD slot (NVMe PCIe Gen3)/ 1x M.2 SSD slot (NVMe PCIe Gen3)
HD type (30fps@720p)
RGB Backlight Keyboard
Gb LAN
802.11 ax Wi-Fi 6 + Bluetooth v5.2
1x Mic-in/Headphone-out Combo Jack
1x Type-C USB3.2 Gen1
2x Type-A USB3.2 Gen1
1x Type-A USB2.0
1x RJ45
1x (4K @ 60Hz) HDMI
53.5 Battery (Whr)
180W adapter
359 x 259 x 23.95 mm
2.3 kg
Titanium Gray

MSI Crosshair Laptop 17

Up to 11th Gen. Intel® Core™ i7 Processor
Windows 10 Home
15.6″ FHD (1920×1080), 144Hz, IPS-Level
15.6″ QHD (2560×1440), 165Hz, IPS-Level
Intel® HM570
NVIDIA® GeForce RTX™ 3060 Laptop 6GB/3050Ti 4GB/3050 4GB
Up to 1927MHz Boost Clock, 85W Maximum Graphics Power with Dynamic Boost. (RTX 3060)
DDR4-3200 Memory Type
2 Slots Number of SO-DIMM Slot
Max 64GB Max Capacity
2x M.2 SSD slot (NVMe PCIe Gen3)/ 1x M.2 SSD slot (NVMe PCIe Gen3)
HD type (30fps@720p)
RGB Backlight Keyboard
Gb LAN
802.11 ax Wi-Fi 6 + Bluetooth v5.2
1x Mic-in/Headphone-out Combo Jack
1x Type-C USB3.2 Gen1
2x Type-A USB3.2 Gen1
1x Type-A USB2.0
1x RJ45
1x (4K @ 60Hz) HDMI
53.5 Battery (Whr)
180W adapter
359 x 259 x 23.95 mm
2.3 kg
Titanium Gray
MSI Crosshair Laptop Review - For Gamers and Creators
MSI Crosshair Laptop

Design & Aesthetics

The laptop is Titanium Grey in color over the last year’s GL65 black color variant. The Titanium color suits the look of both Gaming and a Creator as well. The aggressive styling and the two body lines are very much distinctive bumps at the bottom but soften towards the top of the lid. There are sharp-edged but rounded corners.

With the Content Creators in mind, MSI chose the Titanium Grey color for both Crosshair 15 and Crosshair 17 to give it a subtle look. The Metallic grey Dragon logo complements properly with the rest of the body.

The top lid looks super edgy and mimics the look of a sports car. The design & aesthetics wise of the laptop at this price point is extremely hard to beat by any other competitors. Although MSI didn’t confirm the build most likely it would be an aluminum body.

The laptop is very portable with the difference between the 15.6″ Crosshair 15 weight and the 17.3″ Crosshair 17 is most likely to be 200gms.

MSI Crosshair Laptop Review - For Gamers and Creators

MSI Crosshair Laptop Display

Both the MSI Crosshair 15 and Crosshair 17 have identical displays on them but the only difference is the size i.e 15.6″ and 17.3″. Both the laptops will come ship with two variants. One with a Full HD 1080p at 144Hz and the other one being 1440p at 165Hz Refresh Rate.

Both the panels cover close to 100% sRGB Color Gamut. The display will be a bright Antiglare Display which will help to prevent reflection when working directly under hard light.

MSI Crosshair Laptop Review - For Gamers and Creators

ALSO READ | MSI GL66/76 Pulse Gaming Laptop Review

MSI Crosshair Laptop Thermals

They have redesigned the Thermal cooling solution. They have also upgraded the copper pipes and made them much thinner and enlarged the inner diameter so that there can be more heat transfusions.

The Coolerboost 5 Thermal Solution on the MSI Crosshair Laptop will have 6 heat pipes over the CPU and GPU and is guaranteed to keep the temperatures down even under extreme load.

The massive radiators at the back of the laptop speak volumes of what this cooler can do!

MSI Crosshair Laptop Review - For Gamers and Creators
MSI Cooler Boost 5

MSI Crosshair Laptop Performance

The MSI Crosshair 15 and Crosshair 17 will feature the Intel Core i7 11th Generation H Series Processor. It is a quad-core processor with Hyperthreading and 12MB Intel Smart Cache.

This processor has over 40% performance benefit over the last year’s Intel 10th Generation processors. With a maximum boost frequency of 4.8GHz, we can pretty much run everything.

On the other hand, we will get to see the newer version of the RTX 3060 MaxQ Graphics Card on this laptop as well. This newer generation MaxQ Graphics not only keeps the power consumption low & the temperatures down but also delivers the same amount of performance using the Resizable Bar Feature where the CPU will have full access to the GPU memory thus enriching performance. Although other lesser-priced variants are available with RTX 3050 & RTX 3050Ti respectively.

MSI Crosshair Laptop Review - For Gamers and Creators

Conclusion

The MSI Crosshair laptop is one of the best laptops in the mid-range segment as it perfectly blends the Content Creation aspects with Gaming. A honeycomb mesh bottom and a rugged aggressive look give this laptop a perfect choice for all types of users out there.

MSI Crosshair 15 Rainbow Six Edition 2022

Thats all folks!

5 thoughts on “MSI Crosshair Laptop Review – For Gamers and Creators”

  1. This isn’t really a review. It’s more like a press release. If you are truly doing a review you need to describe how the laptop stands on it’s own, how well it works doing any tasks it would normally do, what it does great, and what flaws or needed improvements you encountered.

    Then you ought to discuss this laptop versus it’s primary competitors, so someone who is shopping for a new laptop could compare features and prices, so they would know whether to buy this laptop, or one from the competition. That’s how a real review is written.

    Reply

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