Do not be fooled by its unchanged design; each year, Dell takes advantage of the arrival of a new generation of processors and graphics cards to refine its XPS range. The 2021 version of the XPS 15 (9510) is no exception to the rule, with the arrival of the Intel Tiger Lake chips now supported by a GeForce RTX 3050 (Ti). Enough to offer increased performance, but this is probably not the most significant change of this Dell XPS 15 vintage 2021.

Your ideas will become even brighter.

The 16:10 aspect ratio display with a 4-sided InfinityEdge bezel and 100% Adobe RGB color gamut makes your creations as vivid and colorful as you can imagine.

Redesigned InfinityEdge display.

Enjoy the convenience of a top-mounted camera and a 16:10 aspect ratio display with a gorgeous bezel-less panel for even more productivity.

Unrivaled picture quality.

Take full advantage of HDR content playback with Dolby Vision technology, which delivers colors previously unavailable on SDR displays on PCs. Dolby Vision can bring highlights up to 40 times brighter and low-light areas up to 10 times darker.

Deep contrast.

Immerse yourself in movies and games with vibrant, lifelike colors on the new 3.5K (3456 x 2160) OLED display. Superb blacks deliver a phenomenal 100,000: 1 contrast ratio so images come to life in stunning detail, especially in dark areas. Wide color gamut (100% DCI-P3) provides more realism and is excellent for content viewing.

Colors that stand out.

An optional 4K UHD + display with 100% Adobe RGB and 94% DCI-P3 color gamut produces rich colors, and 1600: 1 contrast ratio lets you see the brightest and darkest areas. The brightness of 500 nits ensures clear images in bright conditions such as outdoors.

Taking care of your eyes.

The Eyesafe display reduces harmful blue light emissions and maintains vibrant colors. It is the first panel to efficiently distribute the energy of a light source, selectively reducing harmful blue radiation and scattering it across the optical spectrum.

Great visuals for indoor and outdoor use.

A special coating with a reflectivity of up to 0.65% reduces glare when working outdoors and in bright light. Thanks to this coating, the surface of the screen remains shiny, and color saturation is maintained.

Get more done.

The 11th Gen Intel Core processor is more powerful with more cores and threads, supports fast Wi-Fi 6 and gigabit download speeds, and lets you move large files at ultra-fast speeds with Thunderbolt 4. you can enjoy what you love. An 11th Gen Intel Core processor with 8 cores and 16 threads delivers desktop-like performance, allowing you to work with demanding design programs (2D and 3D) in a comfortable laptop.

More creativity, less delays.

You can edit and export videos faster. AI effects improve the quality of projection and broadcasting. From ray tracing to AI-powered video editing, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 GPUs accelerate workflows and creativity.

Dell Power Manager.

This application allows users to control system characteristics such as noise (fan speed), battery life and performance according to their preference, and also select different modes: reduced noise, high performance, enhanced cooling or optimized mode. The selectable mode allows the user to change the performance of the system. This Dell-designed solution dynamically delivers optimal processor performance by setting the mode most suitable for the user and intelligently monitoring and adjusting system temperature.

Fast memory and capacious data storage.

The system boots and resumes in seconds with up to 2TB SSD storage. With up to 64GB of 3200MHz memory, you can multitask even the most demanding applications at lightning speed.

Killer Wireless Adapter.

Supported by cutting-edge Wi-Fi 6 technology with theoretical bandwidth up to 2.4Gbps, the Killer AX1650 is up to three times faster than the previous generation 80MHz 2×2 AC devices. The adapter prioritizes video streaming, data traffic and game traffic on the system appropriately, ensuring a fast and smooth Internet experience.

Advanced heat dissipation system.

With two separate high-volume fans, two heat pipes and a hinged exhaust vent, the heat dissipation system delivers optimal performance in the smallest form factor possible.

General Info

Design

The Dell XPS 9510 NVIDIA STUDIO laptop is equipped with a top-notch 15.6-inch display, a powerful Intel Core i7 11800H (Tiger Lake) 2.3 GHz processor, and a good NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050Ti graphics card for notebooks. The XPS 9510 has a stylish design that appeals to those who use their notebook often on the road or in the office. Dell XPS 9510 laptops are renowned for their wide range of colors, lightweight design and rich package options.

Display

Like the touchpad, the screen is the other distinguishing feature from the competition. Computer off, it is first the opportunity to admire its borderless frame with amounts reduced to the strict minimum: Less than 4 mm on the sides, barely more on the upper upright (5 mm) and a dozen millimetres at most the bottom of the screen. And again, with the hinges and the frame, visually, we are instead on 5 mm. In short, it’s beautiful, and the “wow” effect is confirmed as soon as you see the Windows desktop.

The UHD panel (Sharp SHP14D0 – LQ156R1) allows you to enjoy a beautiful display thanks to its 9 million pixels. The contrast ratio is excellent (1581: 1) and might even suggest an OLED panel. But no, it’s LCD. However, it is now possible for an XPS 15 equipped with an OLED panel for those who prefer depth and infinite contrast.

The maximum brightness is 425 cd / m2 and, combined with the effective anti-reflective coating, allows you to consider working outdoors without fear. Image professionals (or demanding amateurs) will appreciate the sRGB and Adobe RGB spaces (95% DCI-P3). The Dell Premium Color utility offers many possibilities of pre-settings to adapt the display according to its needs and uses by switching with one click from one profile to another. Even if for optimal fidelity, regular calibration using a probe remains essential.

In addition to the aesthetics with the absence of unsightly black borders, the 16:10 aspect ratio of the screen offers a little more height. The usable area will depend on the scaling factor chosen. Still, considering that most users opt for 200%, this allows to display 120 pixels more in height (i.e. 1920×1200 px)—a little more appreciable for browsing the Internet for retouching photos in Photoshop.

Finally, if the “classic” hinges do not allow this XPS 15 to be transformed into a tablet, the touch screen is a little extra to which you quickly get used to everyday life. To click on a dialog box, launch a program or even scroll through your photos in Capture One (or Lightroom), it quickly becomes more intuitive to interact via the screen than sliding your finger on the touchpad, as efficient as it is.

Performance

The Dell XPS 15 comes in different configurations. Choice of an Intel Core i5-11400H (Hexa Core), a Core i7-11800H, a Core i9-11900H processor, and two Octo Core processors.

In practice, the Core i7-11800H, which equips our model, is, in our opinion, the most interesting. More affordable and to simplify just as powerful as the Core i9 (the latter lacking space in the compact chassis of the XPS 15 to express its potential). The Core i5 could be interesting (since equivalent to the Core i7-10750H of last year), but it seems (for the moment at least) impossible to choose it with a dedicated graphics card.

Suppose the Intel UHD chip may be sufficient for office use. In that case, it will quickly show its limits with photo (Lightroom included) and video software, especially if you opt for a High Definition panel and an external screen.

Two options are possible on the graphics card side, a GeForce RTX 3050 or an RTX 3050 Ti. In practice, little different and once again, with the set of pre-configurations imposed, it is more interesting to opt for the latter. Still, if playing recent titles is possible (with an average of around 40-45 FPS in Full HD), this is not the area where this XPS is most comfortable.

An observation that could be extended to performance is where, more generally, the Dell XPS 15 does not particularly shine (but without being ridiculous). The fault is a cooling system below the competition (see the next part for more details), especially in the face of gaming laptops better armed on this point. The latter also sometimes take advantage of their more powerful graphics card, especially in photo and video, where software increasingly relies on the GPU to deport specific tasks and thus speed up renderings/exports.

Therefore, if every second counts for you, it is better to switch to another computer. On the other hand, if performance is one criterion among others, the XPS 15 remains in the race and will make up this (slight) weakness with different strengths.

Multimedia

Unsurprisingly, and like the other models in the range, the XPS 15 only offers USB-C ports. Three in number, the two located on the left of the chassis are now Thunderbolt 4 compatible. An asset for connecting a 4K screen, a docking station or even an eGPU.

On the right side, a faster UHS-II SD card reader. Photographers and videographers will appreciate it. A headphone/microphone jack is also included.

A USB-C to HDMI and USB-C adapter is also included in the packaging.

With its speakers located on each keyboard side, the Dell XPS 15 enjoys excellent sound quality. It thus stands out from the competition with rather convincing restitution for a laptop, on condition, however, not to push the volume beyond 50/60%.

The sound becomes more nasal and loses precision. The spatialization is satisfactory with the bonus of the possibility of activating the follow-up of the face via the utility MaxxAudio to benefit from an optimization of the sound according to your position about the screen.

The result is not always convincing, but it sometimes brings a little more during certain action scenes when the computer is not ideally positioned in front of the user.

Keyboard 

If the absence of a numeric keypad may make some teeth cringe, for the rest the keyboard of this XPS 15 9510 borders on perfection. Typing is very comfortable, even after several hours of intensive use, thanks to its large keys (16.5×15.4 mm) with a (very) soft touch, despite a stroke (1.4 mm) and spacing (2, 9 mm) in the low average.

The backlighting of the keyboard can only be adjusted in two intensities. Although calibrated, they nevertheless offer good readability during the day or once it gets dark.

The power button hides a Windows Hello compatible fingerprint reader. One of the most discreet integrations that some competitors would do well to learn. And if you prefer the simplicity and speed of facial recognition, no problem, the Dell XPS camera is also compatible with Windows Hello.

The webcam “does the job”, on the other hand for videoconferences it would be appreciated to have a better definition on a computer of this range. It’s a shame that you still have to settle for an average 720P camera.

As for the touchpad, it’s impossible not to notice it with its XXL dimensions (15×9 cm!). It turns out to be very pleasant to use even if it clicks. Good point; it no longer “sounds” hollow (at least on our copy) as it was on the previous generation.

Battery

The 130W power supply unit measures 143x66x22mm for a weight of 270g. It offers a cable length of 2.7m. Like the other models in the XPS range, the Dell Power Manager utility provides access to many settings to extend battery life by setting a maximum charge threshold. Convenient when the computer is used on the mains most of the time. Other setting options, in particular, according to the days of the week, are available if necessary.

Conclusion!

With an unchanged design, the freshness of this Dell XPS 15 9510 seems to be sought in updating the processor and the graphics card. Admittedly often more imposing and less elegant but which can nevertheless constitute alternatives.

But after ten days spent with the XPS 15 2021, it is not the Intel Tiger Lake processor or the NVIDIA Ampere graphics card that has marked us the most.

Others will be more seduced by its UHD screen, among the best currently available on a laptop—a powerful ally for designers, photographers and videographers. Image lovers may also be sensitive to the presence of an SD card reader. This detail has become so rare that it should be emphasized, even more so when the latter supports the UHS-II standard.

Among its other strengths, let’s mention its comfortable keyboard, its large touchpad, its contained weight without forgetting an autonomy compatible with a nomadic use and an audio system above the average. The possibility of installing a second SSD and upgrading the RAM may end up convincing.

The manufacture of a computer is often relatively energy-intensive. The materials used are often aluminum, magnesium, something solid certainly, but which uses many resources. The Acer Aspire Vero completely changes the situation by utilizing recycled plastic.

General Info

Design

It is a bit special indeed, aesthetically speaking. The Aspire Vero does not go unnoticed with its all gray side adorned with small, clear yellow/green dots. The PC is also not very soft to the touch, completely matt like a Swift 5, for example, but very grainy, not discreet if you inadvertently run a fingernail or any other object that could rub against this computer.

However, it is the manufacturer’s approach to using 30% post-consumer recycled material for the PC itself and 50% for the keyboard’s design. The latter, however, remains more classic in its design, adopting a pleasant touch and entirely black keys, without fancy colors such as the shell.

On the back of the screen, computer shell, to limit as much as possible any overlay, printing, light, Acer has chosen to engrave its logo in the material. That way, no alloy has to be made, and we only have recycled plastic. This is a slight advantage, which allows you to remain more discreet, to avoid the letters of the logo of the brand, which can fall at times (yes), or unnecessary backlights that would consume more energy than anything else.

When you open the PC, the screen is opposite. Here, the Acer Aspire Vero offers a matte panel, but the manufacturer has not made much effort on the borderless side of the panel, especially at the top. Indeed, we do not find a notch, unlike the new MacBook Pro. However, the whole thing seems not crude but lacking in refinement. The same goes for the bottom; the lower edge is also very thick. We see that Acer does not play on the elegance of its PC as the manufacturer can do on its ultrabooks.

However, that’s okay in the sense that you want a working PC, not a work of art. There are pads all around the screen, distributed to rest the cover gently on the frame.

Let’s talk about the chassis, with a design exactly like the hood, all in mostly recycled plastic. We notice on the upper part an air outlet allowing to expel the air blown by the ventilation; this is also one of the reasons why the screen’s lower edge is so broad, so as not to blow hot air on the screen directly. We also find here the keyboard, with the integrated numeric keypad, even if the latter remains very compact and thin, it is indeed present. The PC start button also blends into the mass, top right, perfectly well integrated.

Lower down is the touchpad, with the fingerprint sensor inside, as well as the PC’s palm rests still with “PCR Post Consumer Recycled” and “Intel Core” logos engraved. The trackpad is large enough to use it and not have to plug in a mouse or use a wireless mouse systematically.

On the sides, we find the connectors, on the front edge moreover, more engravings with “Aspire Vero” engraved on it, the computer’s reference. Finally, let’s go under the beast now.

Below the computer, we find the small Intel Core i5 and Intel Iris X stickers. It would have been even greener not to put them on, but Acer hid them; not sure that it was so much in the process, but we always appreciate seeing them present. There are also two speakers on the sides under the PC to deliver the sound of the computer. Finally, the pads of a very light green-yellow border are present, with the ventilation grid allowing the flow of air expelled by the two fans to exit.

Display

The Acer Aspire Vero has a 15.6-inch screen like many laptops these days; it’s a relatively standard size for a laptop that isn’t an ultrabook. However, we only benefit from a Full HD resolution here, i.e., 1920 x 1080 pixels. No 4K Ultra HD like on a Dell XPS 15.

The screen is an IPS panel, allowing you to see it perfectly well with ultra-wide angles, up to 178 ° as most IPS screens. It’s indeed very nice on a laptop to have wide viewing angles, depending on how you orient the screen. More and more laptops are now equipped with an IPS screen, allowing increased visual comfort.

In addition to this, Acer offers its ComfyView technology, allowing a pleasant and comfortable display, without too much blue light, harmful to our eyes. However, we notice that the screen offers beautiful colors, although a little transparent for my taste. The panel is slightly lacking in contrast, but it’s not dramatic either, far from it. The colors as they remain beautiful and pleasant that is the main thing. On a computer sold at such a price, nearly 1000 dollas when it was launched, a more beautiful screen would not have been refused, however.

Regarding the brightness, the latter is somewhat decent. Still, once again, we would have appreciated the 15 to 20% of additional brightness on such an expensive computer, which would not have hurt, especially for use on a full day. For example, the ambient light is not exceptional, a cloudy day in a room exposed to the north, the screen is; however, my eyes don’t hurt at the maximum brightness level.

Performance

The Acer Aspire Vero is equipped in our version, with an Intel Core i5 1155G7 processor clocked at 2.5 GHz. This CPU is a quad-core, which offers hyperthreading, ie 4 cores, and 8 threads. With this, we find 16 GB of RAM, in DDR4 of course and dual-channel clocked at 3200 MHz.

For the graphics part, there is no dedicated GPU here; it is an Intel Iris X that takes care of it, a chip that is not bad, does not offer the thunderbolts of performance war, but allows you to play a few small games or at least work in peace. Finally, the SSD is an M.2 PCIe NVMe model, which certainly knows how to perform but does not offer breathtaking speeds, as on the Predator Triton 500 SE.

We did a comprehensive performance test using PerformanceTest software, which showed us the following scores:

The Intel Core i5 Aspire 1155G7 present in that Vero is very good; it is one of the most powerful Core i5, the 11 th generation of Intel processors. Indeed, the GeekBench score of the Acer Aspire Vero is 5163 points, which is correct. As a reminder, it takes as good a score as some stationary computers of not so long ago, while everything is condensed here in a laptop.

We note that the processor is far from bad, I did not expect such a score from an Intel Core i5, but this specific model is excellent. It is only on the graphics part in the end that it will have a little trouble; obviously, it is a bit complicated to offer extreme performance without a dedicated graphics card. RAM is also good but not as high as expected; let’s see all of this in more detail.

Considering that the CPU has 4 cores, this makes a bit compressed score for all cores simultaneously, compared to what a single core can do. But that is not abnormal; all the cores used in the chorus tend to heat up much more and, despite the excellent ventilation, reduce the performances somewhat not to start to overheat.

RAM- The Aspire Vero has 16 GB of RAM in DDR4 here. This is 3200 MHz RAM, but I must admit that I am disappointed here. Indeed, the speeds do not go beyond 36 Gb / s in reading and 37 Gb / s in writing, all with latencies of nearly 103 ns; for the announced RAM, it is somewhat disappointing.

However, we have 16 GB of DDR4 clocked at 3200 MHz (1600 MHz x2) thanks to Dual-Channel technology. However, pure use will be made of this PC; one can be satisfied with the quantity of RAM that one finds there because it is not a machine that will be used to make 3D rendering.

SSD- The Acer Aspire Vero is equipped with an M.2 NVMe SSD allowing perfect speeds. Despite everything, the model that was put in this PC is not a beast of war. Its performance is correct, but nothing more for this type of SSD; we would have appreciated a storage medium a little more ferocious in terms of speed.

Graphics- To have also carried out some benchmarks using 3DMark, the performance is not optimal. Indeed, the Intel Iris X chip does not show such fierce performance as the Nvidia graphics cards. Indeed, our benchmarks on Battlefield show us less than 30 fps in all cases, sometimes even less than 20 fps.

It is not a PC to play, as we can see here. However, some small games will pass without too much problem, like RuneScape, or other games that do not require too much graphics performance. Forget GTA V and different Flight Simulator right away, though.

Multimedia

The Acer Aspire Vero has the latest wireless connection standards or almost. We find Bluetooth 5.0, which is not the last standard, we are at 5.2, but the PC is indeed compatible with Wi-Fi 6, which is excellent. 

The Wi-Fi speeds are excellent; for information, the router to which I am connected can send up to 1 Gbit / s in Wi-FI 6; it is the Asus XT8. 

The power port is proprietary, however. We may be surprised the presence of a USB 2.0 port, while this connection has been outdated for years now. The explanation is undoubtedly to connect a wired or wireless mouse in 2.4 GHz; however, a USB 3.0 port would have allowed better speeds and would especially have cost hardly more expensive.

In terms of sound quality, the speakers of this Acer Aspire Vero deliver decent sound. It’s a bit like the PC itself, like the keyboard, the screen, the overall performance… The whole thing is not extravagant, but for the price, it’s still correct.

The bass is not dazzling but is present, the treble and mids are not the most balanced, but overall, it is audible without worry. The sound is not aggressive and does not break the ears, which is an advantage over other computers we had previously tested. In terms of sound power, that’s okay too, but putting the sound too loud will quickly hurt your ears if you’re too close.

Keyboard 

The Acer Aspire Vero has a reasonably classic chiclet keyboard, as can be found on all laptops in this category. There are two notable things. First, the E and R keys are upside down to mark the eco-responsible side of the PC. These are Acer’s arguments; I am not inventing anything. I must admit that it does not keep me more than that, but Acer seems to stick to it. The keyboard is backlit across its entire surface this time around, not like other computers where the keyboard is backlit on just parts of each key. There is only one level of brightness, however, which illuminates quite well though.

As for typing comfort, it is pleasant to enter text on this keyboard. However, we note that when you strike a little hard on it, it produces a bit of plastic noise from the shell; this is the weak point of many computers with a plastic shell; however, it is not reserved for this Aspire Vero. However, we get used to the feeling of these keys very quickly, which we note, reasonably spaced, something which is not too fashionable these days, where the large and thin keys have taken over.

The second notable thing, moreover, is the presence of the numeric keypad. Where a large number of manufacturers have abandoned it, even on reasonably large laptops, precisely because of the large keys, Acer maintains it here. Admittedly, the latter remains relatively thin and not like all the numeric keypads of an actual full layout keyboard, but it is still pleasant to enter a series of numbers in Excel; nothing beats a good Numpad.

As for the trackpad, Acer has given way to the significant trackpad standard on its eco-friendly laptop, which is much nicer than a small trackpad as we could find before. Plus, clicks are built into the trackpad, with no external clicks with buttons, which we don’t need on a computer like this. The trackpad is fun to use, but for my part, my passion for mice (wired or wireless) will conquer me. However, this touchpad embeds the fingerprint sensor, which is fast and efficient, like all physical sensors in general.

Battery

After an hour and a half of using the computer, with no power save mode activated, with keyboard and screen brightness at maximum, I still have 69% charge left. I had put the PC in optimal performance mode, which also consumes quite a bit of power. In all, we can last about 6 hours maximum, with the small 48 Wh battery installed in the computer. It is quite little indeed, which is a shame and even disappointing.

I would have expected a much longer battery life, in energy-saving mode or not, but you can push the PC to around 6.30 am if you are careful, but that’s not my type. If I want to use my PC, I use it however I want and exploit its performance as much as possible to get the most out of it. Here, you might as well not control its performance too much so as not to end up with 4 hours of battery life; for such a high price.

Conclusion!

The Acer Aspire Vero is a computer with an eco-friendly design, which adds a touch of recycled content in a world where everything is often new for no clear reason. Indeed, a computer does not undergo extraordinary physical constraints, which does not mean it needs ultra-resistant aluminum or the most robust materials. Performance is far from bad, but the price seems steep for what the PC offers overall. Despite everything, it is a good machine that does not heat up too much.

Having a PC to play is, in my opinion, the best gaming option. Nevertheless, buying a tower requires space; shortages of graphics cards do not make the task easy or economical. That’s why the option of a laptop and the best compromise. MSI offers powerful gaming-oriented laptops to counter these different concerns. This MSI GP76 Leopard is an example of an excellent big gaming laptop, which runs very well!

General Info

MSI GP76 Leopard is made of good quality magnesium and black plastic. However, the hull takes fingerprints and dust too quickly, which means that you have to wipe the cloth often.

The top of the shell is black with the MSI Gaming logo in its center; discreet and straightforward, well-encrusted. The two hinges on the bottom stand out in reinforcements with a rather lovely geometric design.

Just below this part, you will have the ventilation part of the lower shell of the PC, or you will find the ventilation grilles on both sides. In the center and on the left and right sides, you will find the different ports, which include:

• 1 USB Type-C / DP 1.4 port
• 1 Gigabit Ethernet port
• 1 HDMI 2.1 port
• The power port
• 3 USB-A 3.0
• 1 Jack 3.5 port

On the sides, you will also find additional ventilation grilles and the ports that will allow better airflow in this MSI GP76 Leopard, but I will cover this in detail a little later.

You will see a black plastic strip that reveals the MSI logo just below the screen on the front of the screen. The screen is borderless; it only leaves room for integrating the webcam on the top part. In itself, a reasonably standard format but pleasant.

The trackpad keyboard part is also quite simple. The keyboard is backlit by SteelSeries and configurable in Full Layout format, placed in a slight recess in the shell. In addition, the font of the keys on the keyboard is signed MSI. I’m not a big fan because I have a hard time getting used to it, yet it’s pretty well integrated. The trackpad is not centered; it is placed more to the left, which I don’t like; I’m used to large Dell XPS type centered trackpads.

The MSI GP76 Leopard is a reasonably large laptop PC. It sits on a 17.3-inch panel, 384mm wide, 284mm high, and 25.9mm thick, so it’s not a notebook with its size and weight of 2.9 kg. In my opinion, it is not an easily portable PC; I do not see myself carrying it everywhere, given its size.

This MSI GP76 Leopard laptop PC is a gaming laptop with an elegant and sober design. Nevertheless, it remains very imposing by its size and weight, making it especially a PC to play at home.

Display

The screen of the MSI GP76 Leopard has a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels. Until then, it is banal, plus the refresh is 144 Hz, so very classic. I must admit that I would have liked a QHD 1440p panel given the configuration that this PC embeds.

Talking about the performance of this screen, however, it is a flat slab, ideal for playing without having reflections of the sun, which are reflected in the screen. The screen is IPS LCD, no OLED or other more advanced technology here, not necessarily necessary anyway. However, it is still an excellent compromise. The colors are beautiful, very fair.

Of course, it is a gaming screen, so it is not a slab of Dell XPS or MacBook Pro 15. Although, it is perfect and will allow you to enjoy your triple-A or your competitive games in an optimal way. The screen covers 100% of the sRGB range, which is classic but very good for gaming.

The brightness is good, which in addition, coupled with the IPS panel and the contrast of it, offers an optimal rendering for the use that is intended for this computer, that is to say, gaming.

Performance

From a performance point of view, this MSI GP76 Leopard is no exception. It comes equipped with a more than solid hardware configuration that will allow you to run the most recent games at peak performance without experiencing any slowdown issues. The configuration is as follows:

• Intel Core i7-10870H processor
• GDDR6 RTX 3070 8GB
• 16 GB of DDR4 RAM clocked at 3200 MHz
• 1TB NVMe PCIe storage

This PC is quite good in most areas, especially video games which is his favorite field. The graphics card is powerful, although it is not equivalent to the dedicated version you might find in a tower. The SSD might be its weak spot, but we’ll get to that later. As you can see from the PassMark result, the overall score is quite good, although not the best either; it shows perfect capabilities for 1080p Gaming and worry-free productivity.

In addition, coupled with its 144Hz screen, you can enjoy a perfectly optimal gaming experience. Its processor is a Core I7-10870h with 8 cores and 16 Threads, offering good performance in all areas. Indeed 8 CPU cores can be clocked at 5GHz under heavy load; it is a godsend for a laptop PC, it offers a rather satisfactory GeekBench score, it will defend itself very well in whatever you ask of it.

As for the RAM, we have 2 × 8 or 16 GB of DDR4 clocked at 3200 MHz, which is the performance found in most stationary PCs dedicated to Gaming. I must admit that I am more comfortable with 32 GB, but it is perfectly sufficient for Gaming. Note, however, that it is possible to expand the RAM to 64 GB if you wish.

The performance of the RAM is satisfying. We find speeds of 38,740 MB / s in reading and 44,062 MB / s in writing with a latency of 66.7 ns, which is sufficient for this PC, especially in games, but also in productivity, or he will be able to do what you ask him to do. It is a portable PC, therefore less powerful than a tower. 

As I mentioned earlier, the SSD is undoubtedly the weak point of this MSI Leopard GP76; it remains more efficient than a SATA SSD. Nevertheless, I admit to having been disappointed with the performance for NVME, CrystalDiskMark did not output the scores that I could have hoped for from this PC.

As you can see, with 1970MB / s read and 959MB / s write, this is not exceptional. He makes the coffee, but I must admit that I am a little disappointed on that side. The vital point is that there is a second port to install a second NVMe SSD like a WD Black 750, for example, if you want excellent performance and boost your PC thoroughly.

Finally, the centerpiece of this MSI Leopard GP76 remains the graphics card. It is his central argument and not the least. An RTX 3070 Laptop with 8GB GDDR6 will allow you to play all your favorite games without worry. Note that this is not a fixed PC card, but a laptop PC; the performances will not be absolutely the same, which is in itself normal.

However, we tested it on different games, and, unsurprisingly, everything works wonderfully at 1080p. We tried DOOM Eternal and held 144 FPS the entire way without any issues; we tried Dark Souls 3 in 4K on the MSI Summit MS321UP display, and no problem, the game is consistently at 60 FPS in super high quality. To test what this MSI Leopard GP76 was capable of, we put it under the stress of good old 3DMark, and I must admit that it did very well.

All in all, results that meet our expectations for a configuration like this one. Indeed, these are not the highest results that I have seen personally; nevertheless, it is correct because of the configuration that this PC embeds. Don’t expect results from an RTX 3090, be aware of that, but to do what this MSI GP76 Leopard is made for is clear enough. In addition, as this is an RTX 3070, you will, of course, be able to take advantage of Ray Tracing and DLSS to have the most optimal gaming experience possible. A top configuration.

Multimedia

The keyboard of the MSI GP76 Leopard is a backlit LED keyboard key by key with Silver Lining Print typing technology, all done by SteelSeries, which offers good typing feedback and excellent writing comfort. Indeed the backlight is assignable key by key, which allows you to customize thoroughly and to your taste.

The keys of the keyboard are, as I said, excellent in black ABS, nevertheless do not expect a real mechanical keyboard as you could have on a real desktop keyboard like the Logitech G915; for example, nevertheless, it remains good in this use.

On the other hand, the font of the keys is quite disturbing; as I said before, I am not a fan, I have trouble finding my way around. In addition, the arrangement of the FN keys is quite strange, there are many, and they are not placed as on most laptop keyboards that I was able to test; it requires a time of adaptation.

On the side of the trackpad, it is not exceptional; it is fundamental anyway. We do not expect wonders on a gaming laptop. It makes coffee but is not optimal for productivity.

The sound of this MSI GP76 Leopard uses the Hi-RES 96 kHz 24-bit standard, which allows a better sound immersion in the game as in movies, videos, and music. It also uses cd standard as well as MP3. The speakers are two in number and offer a power of 2X2 Watts, which is more than enough for a laptop.

The concern at stake is the omnipresence of the ventilation that I would deal with a little later, which spoils the sound immersion; it makes far too much noise, which pushes me personally to wear a headset. On the other hand, the speakers do their job well; the sound is clear and pleasant.

Of course, don’t expect high-flying Hi-Fi, but it’s honest for a laptop. They will essentially make coffee for the use of this pc.

Connectivity

This MSI PC is exceptionally well supplied; it offers most of the ports beneficial to a gaming PC. Moreover, they are pretty well implanted in the chassis, which is advantageous for ergonomics. So we find as I quoted above:

• One DP1.4 USB Type-C port
• One 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet port
• One HDMI 2.1 port
• The power port
• Three USB-A 3.0
• One Jack 3.5 port

The USB Type-C port and HDMI port allow you to connect two displays to resolutions up to 8k, which is pretty good for content creators. The rest of the ports are pretty classic for a PC Gamer.

For wifi, it works in wifi-6 and offers stable and optimal network performance for online gaming and streaming.

I must admit that I would have liked to have had a Full Displayport 1.4 port in addition to USB Type-C because not all monitors have USB Type-C, and I’m not too fond of the idea of having to take an extra adapter. Nevertheless, the PC is well supplied with connectivity and will allow you to connect all your devices without worries.

Battery

On the side of battery life, it has a capacity of 4160 mAh four cells for consumption of 65Whr; it is not exceptional, but anyway, who plays on battery.

Although the battery did not need, in my opinion, to be powerful in a Gamer laptop given the weight and size of it, I do not see the point of carrying it in a bag. If it’s your everyday work PC, the battery is still pretty good.

Conclusion!

The MSI GP76 Leopard is an excellent gaming laptop with a robust and modular configuration. Although, it is difficult to transport and makes a lot of noise.