Some gaming laptops are all about performance, pushing the bounds of high-powered graphics in the least possible space.
Others simply aim to deliver good value.
The MSI GF63 8RD (starts at $899; $999 as tested) is all about the latter, but masks that intent in a slick-looking chassis.
Looking much like MSI's more premium GS65 Stealth Thin, the GF63 flaunts nifty, narrow bezels, key backlighting, and a brushed-aluminum finish.
Inside, its components are tamer than the look suggests: You'll get a Intel Core i5 or i7 processor, along with Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 or GTX 1050 Ti graphics.
It's not the cheapest among budget models, but the GF63 8RD does strike a commendable balance between slick and speed for the money.
Meet MSI's Stealth Twin
From the moment I opened up the lid, everything about the MSI GF63 8RD reminded me of the GS65 Stealth Thin($1,999.00 at Amazon).
With its brushed-aluminum, all-black finish, the GF63 looks and feels more upscale than its spec list suggests it should.
One of the main differences you'll notice between it and the GS65 Stealth Thin, however, is the color scheme.
While the Stealth Thin is black with gold accents, the GF63 8RD is black with red ones.
The dragon logo on the lid was palette-swapped to match what MSI perceives as a more conventional gamer aesthetic.
The keyboard, too, gets a splash of red around the edges of the keys, as well as on the keys themselves.
Red and black, alas, is 2018's cliche code for gamer hardware.
(Myself, I much prefer the black and gold of the Stealth Thin.) Because it's all decked out in red and black, the GF63 bears a striking resemblance to other budget gamers, including the Asus TUF Gaming FX504G, the Acer Predator Helios 300, and the Acer Nitro 5($1,199.11 at Amazon).
Another difference between MSI's GF63 8RD and G65 Stealth Thin: The GF63's rear vents are not surrounded by cross-hatched metal material.
The heat sinks are guarded instead by a layer of plastic.
Otherwise, there's little difference in the appearance of these two systems.
The GF63 8RD is slightly heavier, at 4.1 pounds versus 3.9 pounds.
The GF63 8RD is also thicker and larger in general, at 0.85 by 14.13 by 10 inches (HWD); the Stealth Thin is thinner at 0.69 inch.
That said, the GF63 8RD beats many competing gamers in its price range on thickness and weight.
The Asus TUF Gaming FX504G($897.00 at Amazon), for one, measures 0.98 inch thick and weighs 5.1 pounds, while the Acer Nitro 5 is 1.05 inches thick and weighs 5.95 pounds.
The Lenovo Legion Y530, another entry-level gaming laptop, measures 0.95 inch thick and weighs 5.01 pounds.
The MSI GF63 8RD is the thinnest and lightest of this bunch.
Like the GS65 Stealth Thin, the GF63 8RD uses Nvidia's Max-Q Design at its graphics heart, trading in a bit of graphics performance for a thinner chassis.
Back to the inputs.
The MSI GF63 8RD's keyboard is par for the course.
It has a decent amount of up/down travel, and monochromatic red backlighting (which, thankfully, can be turned off).
I found the GF63 8RD keyboard to be comfortable and snappy enough, but it's a standard laptop keyboard that's ultimately nothing special.
The same goes for the 2.5-by-4-inch touchpad, which you can tap, or press down and click, to carry out mouse commands.
Per usual, you can also tap the touchpad with two fingers to right-click.
Though it's suitable for everyday productivity tasks, such as web browsing and word processing, you're better off buying a real gaming mouse than relying on a touchpad for gaming.
Looking at the ports, the MSI GF63 8RD certainly has enough of 'em.
On its left side is a single USB Type-A 3.1 connection…
The right side is home to the lion's share.
Here, you'll find two USB Type-A 3.1 ports, a USB Type-C 3.1 port, an RJ-45 Ethernet jack, and discrete 3.5mm audio-out and mic-in jacks...
Roughly centered on the very back edge of the laptop chassis is a full-size HDMI output, as well.
The Component Lowdown
Inside the GF63 8RD that I'm reviewing here is a 16GB Intel Optane Memory module and a 1TB hard drive with a 5,400rpm spin rate.
The Optane Memory helps accelerate booting up, caching parts of the Windows 10 operating system for faster startup times than a traditional hard drive would deliver.
When I timed it using a stopwatch, the MSI GF63 8RD took 8 seconds to reach the Windows 10 login screen after powering it on.
In addition to its storage wares, the GF63 I'm reviewing leverages 8GB of DDR4 RAM clocked at 2,400MHz.
Other GF63 configurations contain as much as 16GB of RAM clocked at up to 2,666MHz.
MSI's configurations with this machine range from $899 to $1,299, with the top-end option using an 8th Generation "Coffee Lake" Intel Core i7-8750H (2.2GHz; 4.1GHz with Turbo Boost), Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 Ti graphics, 16GB of 2,666MHz RAM, and 256GB of M.2 SATA SSD storage paired up with a 7,200rpm 1TB hard drive.
That highest-end model is, oddly, exclusive to Office Depot—not what I would consider a first shopping source for a gaming laptop.
The review unit in my hands costs $999 and comes outfitted with the same Core i7-8750H processor and GTX 1050 Ti graphics, but with 8GB of 2,400MHz memory.
This model is available for purchase only on Newegg.
All of the MSI GF63 8RD models use a 15.6-inch, full HD (1,920-by-1,080-pixel) IPS display surrounded by a 4.5mm bezel.
For more information on the eight variants of the MSI GF63 8RD, see the laptop's official website.
Dragon Center: Now With Gaming Mode
As for the MSI GF63 8RD's software, Dragon Center remains MSI's custom go-to dashboard for its PCs, and it hasn't changed much since the last time I got my hands on it.
At its core, it's still a system monitor that allows you to see how much CPU/GPU power, memory, and disk performance are being used up by running applications.
Unique to the new Dragon Center 2.0 is a Gaming Mode that automatically tweaks graphics and audio settings, along with keyboard lighting, to correspond with certain titles.
To name a few, Dragon Center Gaming Mode is compatible with Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS: GO), PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds (PUBG), and Overwatch.
MSI claims that enabling Gaming Mode results in a 5 to 7 percent frame rate increase in PUBG.
Otherwise, Dragon Center is largely the same as it was when we reviewed the MSI GS65 Stealth Thin.
Its user interface is modern and transparent, and inside Dragon Center you can modify the display coloration, set fan speeds, and free up system memory with the single click of a button.
You can also toy around with VoIP settings by toggling on VoiceBoost, a facet of Dragon Center that lets you change the "Volume Ratio" of game audio versus the sound of communication applications including Skype and Discord.
What's more, in Dragon Center, you can swap the Fn and Windows keys, or disable the Windows key altogether, and you can compile your settings into neatly organized profiles.
Performance Testing: The Basics
Given what it costs, the MSI GF63 8RD I'm reviewing here is furnished with a relatively beefy processor.
The six-core, 12-thread Intel Core i7-8750H is potent enough but standard fare for a gaming laptop in this price range.
In fact, the Core i7-8750H is the same CPU wielded by the Acer Predator Helios 300 I mentioned earlier.
The Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 Ti GPU, on the other hand, is weaker than what I would normally recommend for playing AAA games at 1080p, unless you don't mind turning down some of the graphics settings.
Typically, the GTX 1050 Ti is best when paired with less-demanding games, such as MOBAs and esports titles.
On its website, MSI cites PUBG and World of Warships as examples of games you can run well on the MSI GF63 8RD.
See How We Test Laptops
Our first benchmark is UL Benchmarks' (formerly Futuremark's) PCMark 8, which simulates real-world productivity tasks and weighs performance as a proprietary score.
In PCMark 8, the MSI GF63 8RD scored 3,653, topping the Asus TUF Gaming FX504G, the Acer Nitro 5, and the Lenovo Legion Y530 (though the difference between the MSI and Lenovo machines was minimal).
The GF63 8RD closely trailed the Dell G7 15 in this test, as well as on our Handbrake video-conversion test, in which the Dell G7 15 emerged on top with a run time of 42 seconds, versus the 45-second MSI GF63 8RD result.
Measuring CPU power in rendering a photorealistic 3D scene, Maxon's Cinebench CPU test saw the MSI GF63 8RD garner a score of 1,052.
The Dell G7 15 came out negligibly ahead, with the classy-looking Lenovo Legion Y530 in the lead.
In our Photoshop CS6 test, in which the laptop runs through a series of effect transformations, the MSI GF63 8RD lagged this pack a bit, taking 3 minutes and 8 seconds (3:08) to complete our string of test filters.
For the sake of comparison, the leading Dell G7 15 took 2:45, while the runner-up, the Lenovo Legion Y530, took a second longer.
In our synthetic graphics tests, the MSI GF63 8RD's Max-Q edition of the GTX 1050 Ti proved itself comparable to the full-fat GTX 1050 Ti in our testing.
In UL Benchmarks' 3DMark Cloud Gate, a relatively lightweight, DirectX 11-based test of strength, the GF63 8RD outran the Asus TUF Gaming FX504G, the Lenovo Legion Y530, and the Acer Nitro 5.
While it didn't lead the pack in the more demanding Fire Strike Extreme test, the MSI GF63 8RD scored roughly the same as the Lenovo Legion Y530.
As you'd expect, the Dell G7 15, thanks to its Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 (Max-Q) GPU, was the frontrunner on both trials.
Beyond 3DMark, in Unigine's Heaven gaming simulation benchmark at Ultra quality, the Dell G7 15 nearly doubled the score of the MSI GF63 8RD.
The results were a little closer in Unigine's Valley benchmark (also at Ultra settings), but it's safe to say that the MSI GF63 8RD's graphics capabilities are about the same as other GTX 1050 Ti-based portable machines, while there's a small, ahem, valley between the Max-Q versions of the GTX 1050 Ti and the GTX 1060.
More Tests: Real-World Games, Battery Life
Some benchmarking with recent games illustrates that the MSI GF63 8RD is not quite equipped for top-shelf AAA gaming at a steady 60 frames per second (fps) at its native resolution of 1080p and topmost detail settings.
Even at its very ordinary screen resolution of 1,920 by 1,080, the machine ran the 2015 action-adventure game Rise of the Tomb Raider at an average of 54fps, at Medium settings in DX12.
Cranking up the graphics option to Very High, the frame-rate average plummeted to 35fps.
In 2018's Far Cry 5, the MSI GF63 8RD reported even lower frame rates.
At Normal-quality graphics settings, the average frame rate was 45fps and, at Ultra settings, 39fps.
In short, you'll need to dial back the detail at 1080p in the latest titles to make them playable.
MSI claims that the GF63 8RD's battery life lasted more than 7 hours by its measure (using BAPCo's MobileMark 2014).
In PC Labs testing, we play a 24-hour loop of The Lord of the Rings trilogy until the laptop runs out of steam.
In that exercise, the GF63 8RD lasted 4 hours and 10 minutes off the charger.
The Asus TUF Gaming FX504G lasted 10 minutes longer.
Although some avid gamers would argue that gaming laptops aren't designed to be used detached from the cord, I would contend that one of the main benefits of using a gaming laptop, as opposed to a gaming desktop, is the unplugged/portability factor when you're not gaming.
So draw your own conclusions: At 6:22, the Acer Nitro 5 lasted more than two hours longer, and even that's short by mainstream-laptop standards.
Therefore, the MSI GF63 8RD's battery life leaves something to be desired, if runtime matters to you.
For a Budget Gamer, Right on the Money
All the major laptop makers are doing budget gaming models now, so the MSI GF63 8RD has some tough competition.
At $999 as tested, this machine will set you back a litle more than the Asus TUF Gaming FX504G, but with the GF63 8RD you're getting a stronger processor (an i7 versus an i5), along with the Max-Q variant of Nvidia's GeForce GTX 1050 Ti, making it thinner and lighter as well.
Better yet, despite using a Max-Q GPU, the MSI GF63 8RD performs on par with some laptops toting the full-force GTX 1050 Ti.
That said, if what you're after is running the latest AAA blockbusters at 1080p and 60fps, with the graphics settings cranked to the top, you should notch up to a GeForce GTX 1060-based unit, such as the Dell G7 15.
And, if battery life is key, you can do better.
But if you'll be mostly on-plug and the look grabs you, this is a solid budget gaming option that gives you a lot of eye appeal for the bucks.
Pros
The Bottom Line
Inspired by MSI's slick GS65 Stealth Thin, the GF63 8RD is a one-cut-above budget gaming laptop with a trim chassis made possible by Nvidia's Max-Q tech.
Only battery life keeps it from top marks.
