The MSI GL66 has some impressive specifications, including that 8GB GDDR6 RTX 3070 running underneath the hood, making it significantly attractive from a price-to-performance ratio. The gaming laptop is available to purchase on Amazon for $1,199.99, making it one of the best prices that we have seen for this particular model. This machine is fairly larger than your average, typical gaming laptop and that is likely due to its powerful configuration.
Alongside the RTX 3070, which features an 85W power limit, is paired with an 8-core, 16-thread Intel Core i7-11800H CPU, along with 16GB DDR4 RAM and 512GB of PCIe Gen 3 M.2 NVMe storage. The build quality is an all-plastic affair, which MSI pursued for its Pulse GL66 to keep the cost down, but according to many reviewers, the gaming laptop is not cheaply made and is expected to hold out long-term. Both the RAM and storage can be upgraded in the future.
Battery life will not be exceptional on this RTX 3070 machine, thanks to two reasons. One, it is running an Intel processor, which tends to suck more juice than AMD-based laptops. Secondly, it houses a rather small 53.5Whr cell and depending on your usage, you might get between 3-4 hours of runtime between each charge, which is not a lot. If you intend to hook this gaming laptop up to an external monitor without having the intention to carry it around all the time, then that is what you should purchase it for.
If you require something with more CPU power, we recommend the model featuring Intel’s 12th-generation Intel Core i7-12700H, which is a monster of a laptop processor, sporting 14 cores and 20 threads. Out of those 14 cores, six are performance cores, while the remaining are power-efficiency ones. However, to experience that massive CPU performance uplift, you will have to pay a premium, bringing that price up to $1,499.99. If you want to save some money, we will strongly recommend getting this version.