MSI Prestige 15 A10SC Review (i7-10710U, GTX 1650 Max-Q).

Reliable. Intel’s energy-efficient processor. And Nvidia’s cost-effective graphics card is firmly rooted in the new high-performance and thin MSI laptops. If the manufacturer manages to withstand strangulation. The Prestige 15 will be a more attractive option compared to other 15.6-inch Albuquerque from Dell, HP and Asus.

What do you think the Dell XPS 15 Intel Core U-Series processors will look like instead of Intel Core H? Funnily enough, the MSI Prestige 15 can safely be called the lighter and more energetic version of the XPS 15 with a more powerful graphics card than the Ultras Box. Unlike the MSIW workstation and the popular G-series gaming solutions, MSI Prestige laptops are of the highest class and are designed for entrepreneurs and employees who need high-performance graphics in a miniature element.

MSI Prestige features 15 latest six-core IntelCamet Leak U Core i7-10710U processors, an exclusive Nvidia GTX 1650 Mx-Q graphics card, 4K IPS display, 32 GB of RAM and 32 GB of top-class configuration. 1 TB SSD came to us – Beauty Salon for all this wants 1800 dollars. The smaller version with an FHD display, half the size of the memory and drive, sells for $ 1,400. Interestingly, the 14-inch Prestige 14 is sold in the same order as its older brothers.

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Costs have not yet been announced. Summary table for MSI Prestige 14 and Prestige 15 notebook technical specifications:

Model	MSI Prestige 14	MSI Prestige 15
Screen	14 ”True Pixel, up to 4K Ultra HD, 180 ° opening angle	15.6 ”True Pixel, up to 4K Ultra HD, 180 ° opening angle
CPU	Intel Core i7-10710U (6/12 x 1.1 – 4.7 GHz)
Video card	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 16
RAM	up to 16 GB	up to 64 GB
Storage device	up to 512 GB SSD	up to 1 TB SSD
Network modules	Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5
External interfaces	2 x Thunderbolt 3 HDMI USB 3.2 Gen 2
Battery life	until 10 o’clock	up to 16 hours
Weight	1.2 kg	1.6 kg

As soon as Intel introduced the line of 14nm Comet Lake mobile processors, notebook manufacturers immediately began to announce their own models based on them. One of the first was MSI. At the IFA 2019 exhibition (September 6-11), she will show the laptops Prestige 14 and Prestige 15.

New items aimed at professionals and fans of content creation. They are based on a bunch of 6-core Intel Core i7-10710U processor and a video card of the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 16. They do an excellent job with photo editing or video editing.

MSI Prestige 14 and Prestige 15 received MSI True Pixel screens with a maximum resolution of 4K Ultra HD, 100% coverage of the Adobe RGB palette, high fidelity of colours and shades (ΔE <2) and CalMAN certification. At the same time, the novelties turned out to be thin and light, with excellent indicators of battery life and relevant interfaces.

Design

Unlike the MSI P65 Creator, which was almost reissued in the MSI GS65 white, it changed the gaming features of the GS65 to shiny bevels for a more elegant and more sophisticated design.

In terms of attractiveness, the novelty is on par with the HP Specter x360 15, Asus ZenBook 15 and Dell XPS 15, but in terms of strength, it is still inferior to the indicated alternatives. It feels like the body material is thinner and not so good at resisting deformation. When twisting, the design is more malleable, as is when punching. The hinges, according to subjective sensations, are also inferior in reliability to those installed in the mentioned HP and Dell models.

The MSI laptop is also 100-200 grams lighter than other multimedia models, including the XPS 15, MacBook Pro 15, ZenBook 15, and HP Specter x360 15. However, in the end, the Prestige 15 turned out to be not as durable as mentioned above.

Equipment – Not a Good Port Locat

The set of ports on the Prestige 15 is the same as on the Prestige 14, but with the addition of full-size HDMI. Among the shortcomings, I would like to note the absence of a slot for a Kensington lock and the presence of USB Type-A only on the right side of the case.

Card reader

The laptop has a microSD card slot with a spring-loaded locking mechanism. The speed is high, in the tests we got almost 200 MB / s with our reference memory card of the UHS-II standard. The inserted memory card protrudes slightly from the case

Communication

By standard, in all configurations, the Intel AX200 wireless adapter is installed, which supports Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.0. We did not fix any problems with the connection during the testing.

Service

The bottom cover of the laptop is held in place by 11 Philips bolts, one of which is sealed with a factory seal. The laptop is easy to disassemble and maintain, inside the owners are waiting for two RAM slots, two slots for drives, a removable Wi-Fi adapter and a battery.

Accessories and Warranty

A leatherette case and a USB Type-C hub with two USB Type-A, a full-size card reader, Ethernet and micro-USB are supplied with the laptop. We are pleased to see such a nice addition to the laptop, as others to the manufacturer often complete the kit with a power adapter and user manual.

The warranty period from the manufacturer is 1 year.

Input Devices – Short and Uninformative Stroke

Keyboard

The layout and size of the keyboard are almost the same as the GS65, but with a couple of differences. So, we used a slightly different font for the labels on the keys, and the power button is now located in the upper right corner of the keyboard, like the Asus VivoBook. We liked that the keyboard is large enough and therefore comfortable, but the response of the keys is uninformative. For the same XPS 15 and Specter x360 15, keystrokes are accompanied by clearer feedback. However, if you are used to a “standard ultrabook keyboard,” you won’t experience discomfort with the Prestige 15.

Touchpad

The dimensions of the touchpad are 14 x 6.5 cm – the GS65 9SG had exactly the same touchpad. As you can see, its width is greater than that of most laptops, which makes it more convenient to use. True, the definition of false palm presses (when typing on the keyboard) is not ideal and this should be taken into account. The keys embedded in the touchpad are pressed quietly, the stroke is short and soft. Naturally, individual touchpad keys are more convenient to use.

Display

For the Prestige 15, MSI offers FHD and 4K displays. In our test sample, the Sharp LQ156D1JW42 IPS panel was equipped with a resolution of 4K, which we have never seen in laptops before. However, before that, we came across the Sharp LQ156D1, which is installed on the Lenovo ThinkPad P50 and Dell XPS 159570, the characteristics and colours of which are similar to the test laptop from MSI. points to those aspects. Do you agree? We’ll see.

The quality of the display is excellent, the colours are saturated and juicy, there is a minimal hint of a crystalline effect, due to the presence of a matte finish. In brightness, this display is on par with the XPS 15, whose performance is considered one of the best among ultrabooks. The biggest drawback of this display is its high response time, which is why loops behind moving objects are noticeable.

The colour gamut is almost exactly the same as the P65 Creator and wider than other laptops with a resolution of less than 4K, including the Microsoft Surface Laptop 3 15. MSI claims full coverage of AdobeRGB and our independent tests confirm this.

Also, MSI indicates that the DeltaE levels of this display below 2 are a serious request, especially against the background of the fact that for most laptops this indicator is worse in the factory. If you believe our measurements, then everything is true: the levels of DeltaE in shades of grey and colours are 1.3 and 1.57, respectively. It turns out that additional calibration, in this case, is absolutely not needed.

Display: response time test

Response time shows how quickly the device’s display is able to change the colour of the image from one to another. An insufficiently fast response can lead to deformation of moving fragments of the image, the appearance of shadows and blur. The absence of such problems is especially important for watching movies and for games.

Performance

Despite the rather small case thickness, the Prestige 15 is still aimed at advanced users, as it carries onboard the Core i7-10710U and GeForce GTX 1650 Max-Q. There are no options with Core i3 / i5 and integrated graphics.

The system supports Nvidia Optimus technology, which allows you to automatically switch between discrete and integrated video cards. LatencyMon does not have DPC delays even when Wi-Fi is on. That’s why the XPS 15 can’t do the same?

CPU

The performance at CineBench is impressive: multi-core performance is almost on par with the Core i7-8750H and Core i7-9750H. Long-term performance is also excellent: the results in the CineBench R15 multi-threaded test run in a circle are better than the Dell XPS 13 7390 with the same processor. Overall, performance is 30-35% higher than the Core i7-1065G7, Core i5-8300H and Core i5-9300H, and also 60% higher than the Core i7-8565U.

However, excellent performance at CineBench is not the whole story. As the stress test in Prime95 shows, the frequency of the processor becomes unstable and sags very much at 100% load.

More information and other tests of the Core i7-10710U are collected on a separate page of this processor in our database.

Overall performance

In PCMark, test results are excellent and higher than typical office laptops with energy-efficient processors, including the Lenovo ThinkPad T590 and Microsoft Surface Laptop 3 15. During the test, we did not encounter software or hardware problems. We recommend that all owners of the laptop understand the manufacturer’s proprietary utilities – Creator Center, True Color, Driver and App Center – as they greatly affect how your laptop will work and contain many functions.

Inside the laptop, there are two M.2 2280 slots. One of them is occupied by the factory, in our case, it is Samsung SSD PM981 for 1 TB. We draw your attention to the fact that the manufacturer most likely uses SSDs from different suppliers in different samples of the same model. The sequential read / write speed of 1300 MB / s, which is less than the Toshiba XG6.Data Storage

Video Card

Nvidia GeForce 1650 Max-Q is rather poorly distributed among laptops, but we believe that it deserves to be more popular. In 3DMark, her grades are only 15% lower than the desktop GTX 1650 and 15-50% higher than the mobile GTX 1050 Ti. The architecture of Nvidia Turing is optimized for DX12, which means that you will get the greatest performance boost in games with DX12 support. Just for reference: the exact same graphics card is installed in the latest Razer Blade Stealth.

The rating in Cloud Gate has been reduced, most likely due to the use of an energy-efficient processor. Nevertheless, most laptops with GTX / Max-Q graphics cards are equipped with Intel H-series processors.

Games

In modern games, the laptop provides stable 30 or more frames per second in 1080p at high and maximum settings – very good, as for a laptop with an energy-efficient processor and Nvidia Max-Q series graphics card. Achieving a stable 60 fps is possible, but in less demanding projects like Rocket League, Overwatch, LoL and Fortnite.

More information and other tests of the GeForce GTX 1650 Max-Q are available on a separate page of this video card in our database.

Heat

The maximum temperature of the hull in the idle state is 31 ° C; the heat spot is located near the centre of the deck. In games, the case warms up to 55 and 60 ° C, but the hottest zones are not located at all where the user’s palms are usually located.

Stress Test – Very Weird Throttling

We conduct a stress test on laptops to identify problems in work and the presence of throttling. In Prime95, the CPU frequency initially reaches 3.6 GHz, while the temperature rises to 92 ° C. Upon reaching the indicated mark, the frequency decreases to 3.2 GHz in order to keep the chip heating within 90 – 95 ° C. After 4.5 minutes, the frequency starts to jump sharply from 0.8 to 3.3 GHz, and the temperature, respectively, from 67 to 90 ° C. This is a rather strange behaviour, since nothing like that happened during testing in Cinebench and it only repeats in Prime95.

We will soon have another Prestige 15 test sample in our hands, so we will run the test again and update this review.
In Witcher 3, the temperature of the processor and graphics card is stable and is at 85 and 80 ° C, respectively. For comparison, the XPS 15 in a similar situation, the indicators are lower. In short, CPUs and GPUs belong to the class of energy-efficient ones, but they are “fried” like adult desktop chips.

When running on battery power, performance decreases. In Fire Strike, we got a score of 8865 7323 points, while when working on the network, they reached 15892 and 7774 points.

Acoustic system

The sound quality is decent, the only bass is poorly reproduced, which means the speakers are good enough for conference calls, but not for playing multimedia content. At high volume, the case starts to vibrate noticeably.

Battery Life

Energy consumption

In the idle state, the system consumes from 6 to 20 W, depending on the set brightness and the active power supply circuit – approximately like the P65 Creator. We obtained more interesting results under load. In Witcher 3, the laptop consumes 74 watts, while the Dell G3 3590 with GTX 1650 requires 93 watts, while the Lenovo Legion Y7000 with GTX 1060 pulls 124 watts from the outlet. It turns out that the performance per watt of a bunch of GTX Max-Q and an energy-efficient Intel chip is simply prohibitive.