MSI’s CHEAPEST Gaming Laptop! Katana GF66/Sword 15 Review

I use the term "cheapest" loosely in the video, what I mean is "entry level" out of MSI's range of gaming laptops, as the price might not necessarily be amazing due to regional pricing/selected specs/current supply issues etc. The point was more about the GF series as a whole, so think that when I mention it throughout the video

Naur

I ordered this laptop yesterday with an i9 12900h and a RTX 3070ti. Mine also has a 240hz 1080p screen.

i bought this laptap and it exploded and destroyed my home.

Hey Jarrod. Need your help really man!! The same laptop with 12th gen I9 with RTX 3070TI but they are stating 40GB? is it even possible for this entry level laptop to have this much ram.. Also can I buy lap with this spec if what they are saying is true..

I have a question, which one is better? Asus Zephyrus GX701 32 Ram -2Tb ssd  2050 Rtx.   Intel core i7 9750H. Vs   MSI Katana GF76 2021 16 Ram 512 Ssd.  3050 Rtx.ti.  Intel core i7 11800H....Help plis.

This gonna keep me warm during winter; I'm getting it

Had this laptop for 4 months now, it is CRAZY, if you're upgrading to this from some basic office laptop, there is a huge difference. The ONLY downsides I have is that the fans, even on silent are pretty loud, don't expect to be that dude sneaking on your laptop in the morning, because your parents are gonna hear you. The other downside is that the sound quality is a bit off, but that can be changed with the Niahmic app. Other than that, if you can get the 12UE model of this (which usually releases at around usual sale times), then get it, it usually comes with a 12-700H and a 3060, and is usually cheaper than the standard models. Get it. Anyway, good laptop, and remember to install the drivers.

The specs are way better than it's competitors... but the screen and bulkiness look suspicious right off the bat

Been using my MSI Katana GF76 12UE daily for a myriad of tasks and it's a great little budget option (snagged on sale in Jan for 1450$ CDN):
Intel 12700k
RTX 3060
16gb ram 3200
1tb M.2 NVME
17" 1080p screen @ 144hz

Really not sold on gen 4, prices for budget level are just not there while previous gen (RTX 30xx and RX 6XXX) laptops are available with sales.

This is on sale ATM for $1349aus for i7 rtx3050 16gig. Would you consider this good value now?

Thanks

is it worth buying for 999€ with rtx 3070 105w gpu amd i7 11800h?

Straight to the point. No bullshit. I just subbed. ❤

I just found out within the past few days, this laptop outputs power through the power jack. I plugged in a different adapter, and when I unplugged it later on, there was still power getting to the adapter from the laptop. Now I wish I could find a battery mod that worked for me, then I can charge it up and be able to charge my other laptop with it on the go.

The fk is cheap about it? I bought it for 2000 dollars.
It have great specs
I9 GEN 12900H
NVIDEA RTX 3070TI
1 TB SSD NVME
144 HZ , 2K HDR
16 Gega Rams 4800MHz
SPECIAL BACKLIGHT RGB
FAST CHARGING

Laptop so far is a beast!

Can anyone tell me how this compares to the asus tuf 15 15.6 gtx 1650

I got real cheap: the i5 rtx 1650 with 17.3 screen at around 500 GBP. Already doubled memory to 16

I found this laptop on only 999$

who the hell puts lan cable on the side where you will have your mouse?

I own this exact laptop. I don't understand how your temps seem to be so much better than mine. In aida64 and cinebench my laptop is pinned at 96c on the cpu after a repaste with arctic mx4 and an undervolt (with a thermaltake massive cooling pad and cooler boost on too). my gaming temps in forza horizon 4 are around 75 - 85c which is nice. my cinebench score seems to be higher than yours at 12,400 multicore but only 1,450 single core. my gpu seems to draw over 90W even though the wattage limit is 85W. the cpu is stable drawing 67W at 3.6GHz all cores in cinebench.

it's $1000 at best buy rn, ty for the review!

Is it safe to use a travel adapter with this I plan to use it in asia

Tbh I never use gaming laptops for gaming or really much of anything not plugged in so to me the whole battery life argument is mostly pointless.

You got a like just by wearing a t-shirt of one of my favorite bands! ENSIFERUM

Thank you for the review !

This might be an obvious answer, but I'm deciding whether to get MSI sword a12ue, with i7 12650H , 16gb, 3060, 1tb ssd or Acer Helios 300 ph315-55 with i712700H, 16gb, 3060 rtx and 512ssd. I love the sword design not gonna lie, but it seems that objectively speaking I should choose Acer, btw both are at the same price. What should I do?

This was a really detailed awesome review! I didn't see something this high quality content in a while, please keep up the good work!

I cost 36000twd for Katana GF66 with i7 12650h and 105w 3060 Maybe it'll be better than in the video?

I got it at 1000$

It is not even cheap

How does this compare to the victus 15 or tuf f15?

The laptop is great performance wise, but the lcd screen for mine cracked and I have no idea what happened. The crack is a side to side line in the bottom-left corner of the screen. Funny thing is, I couldn’t feel any cracks on the surface. Any info on what happened will be very useful. And no, I did not drop anything on it.

Hey Jarrod, I just wanted to say thank you for doing what you do. You save us a lot of time in our research and help strengthen our decision to spend our hard earned money. You're probably never gonna see this, but I still wanted to thank you from the bottom of my heart. You helped me buy my recent laptop upgrade; a 12th Gen GF66 Katana with 3060. It made the most sense for my use and my budget.

Thank you again, for all your time and effort. We love you!

I've had this laptop for a year now and run it through the ringer. 3d modeling in blender/3d printing, video editing with DaVinci Resolve, tons of browsing, and game with it long hours including VR. My ONLY complaint is that I've had to repaste a few times and I keep the laptop on a fan platform because the laptop runs HOT in almost every situation. 90+ in Temps even with cooler boost activated. The fans when in boost mode are loud but I dont really care about that so much. Otherwise it exceeded all expectations for the price I paid. (BTW I know you can underclock for better Temps but I'm not going to do that.)

I bought this laptop with the rtx 3060 for $800 at microcenter last year

To budget friendly gamers I think it’s decent for gaming but there are better other gaming laptops. I think its really meant for people that dont play competitively on games and just want to have fun with friends or others. I think its not so bad I tried using it for 2-3 months it has decent performance not the best tho. If using you need a mouse and charge when ever playing because theres less performance when playing games with out charging. To me its a decent loptop at a price that is attracting. To be honest im also just fine with a loptop that can play overwatch, minecraft, valorant well or with decent fps and I tried its not to bad in game.

This or Lenovo IdeaPad Gaming 3 15ACH6 R5-5600H/8GB/512GB/GTX 1650 4GB

does anyone know that if the new drivers are installed does the fps in games go up?

You say there are better laptops for less money? Can you tell me what are better?

Does it come with windows 10 already installed?

Can the msi sword 15 a11ud bypass Optimus by a external moniter?

Its actually crap don't buy it for Minecraft or Roblox stuff it may be good at running loads of games but anything to do with physics in Roblox lags it and it just suffers with Minecraft java. Waste of money.

whats the program name? I wanna test my pc to XD

Is this a good laptop for rn for gaming planning on maybe getting kinda on a budget rn

MY GUY I JUST GOT THIS, 500 FPS ON A TEST AND AFTER A DAY NO PROBLEMS (apart from the fan being so LOUD)

Hello guys, i have the msi katana laptop with 12500h but in task manager i only have 4 cores and 8 treads. Is that normal? Where are those 8 ecores?

I just picked up a version of this laptop with the same 11th-gen i7 and 16GB RAM, but with RTX 3060 and a 1TB SSD for $749 during a MicroCenter sale. At that price, I think it's an excellent deal. I always have spare parts lying around here, so I immediately upgraded it to 64 GB DDR4 3200 RAM and 2 2TB 970 Evo Plus SSDs and am extremely happy with the performance for the price. I don't know that I'd want this to be my primary laptop, but if you can get it on sale, I do think this is a great little laptop, even with the stock configuration I mentioned.

Man you make really comprehensive reviews on tech thank you for doing this

Worst accent of all time???

Thank you very much, this video helps me a lot.. keep going with this kind of stuff