How can you make a small form factor (SFF) PC unique enough to grab consumers' attention? There are three key aspects that define a SFF PC: internal hardware, size, and thermal/acoustic performance. The Trident 3 Arctic is MSI's attempt at striking that perfect balance.
Do you want the most powerful gaming laptop money can buy? Do you also have a spare $5,000 just lying around? Look no further than the MSI GT83VR 7RF Titan SLI, a monster gaming laptop with dual GeForce GTX 1080s inside. This is, quite simply, the most powerful gaming laptop we've tested at TechSpot.
There are many reasons why you might need to find your motherboard's brand and model number. Looking to update drivers or the BIOS is most common, but you may also want to check compatibility, discover specs, or look for a replacement. And with OEM PCs and laptops, it's not always as straightforward as checking the box of your motherboard's box.
MSI's GE62 7RD Apache is an entry-level gaming notebook powered by Intel's new Core i7-7700HQ processor and a GeForce GTX 1050. It should provide budget-conscious buyers with a wallet-friendly option that's capable of playing today's games, albeit at reduced quality settings.
The MSI GT73VR Titan Pro is a beast. This powerful gaming machine can technically be classified as a laptop, but it's so large it'll stay desk-bound for most of its working life. What you get for the size and price is simple: MSI's most powerful 17-inch gaming laptop. From a hardware perspective, there are no compromises here.
MSI is the master of product naming. Their gaming laptops follow a well-established nomenclature where a random collection of numbers and letters is not at all confusing and certainly easy to remember. Hence why "GS63VR 6RF" is a great name for a powerful 15-inch notebook.
The MSI GS43VR 6RE Phantom Pro is a compact a 14-inch gaming laptop powered by a GeForce GTX 1060 GPU. This is Nvidia’s latest upper mid-range discrete graphics chip that succeeds and should significantly outperform the aging GTX 970M, narrowly beating the GTX 980M too at a lower power cost and with a less beefy cooling solution.
Initially just a rumor, the 3GB version of the GTX 1060 is now something you can buy starting at $200 -- but should you? It comes down to the games you play, the resolution you run them at and how picky you are about quality settings.
Intel has been a real champion for small form factor computing, recently introducing three new types of mini PC designs in addition to the NUC: the Compute Stick, Mini Lake and 5" × 5", or mini-STX as it is now commonly referred to. One of the first companies to adopt the new mini-STX form factor is MSI with its new Cubi 2 Plus, a tiny 1.3L computer that not only supports a desktop Skylake Core i7 processor but also accept up to 32GBs of DDR4 memory and a high-speed NVMe SSD for good measure.
Building a new PC is all about choices and tradeoffs. Picking between AMD and Intel is usually the first choice you have to make, but it certainly isn’t the most complicated. Instead, that honour goes to the motherboard, with each board maker typically offering at least half a dozen different models based on a single chipset. We've done a lot of the homework for you to save you some time, money, and/or regret. Here's what we believe is the very best out there.
The GS40 Phantom is loaded up with a 14" 1080p display, a Core i7-6700HQ CPU, GeForce GTX 970M graphics, 16 GB of RAM, and a combination of a 128 GB SSD with a 1 TB disk drive. It also packs the latest connectivity, including a USB Type-C port sporting Thunderbolt 3 and USB 3.1 gen 2. When it comes to looks the GS40 Phantom's design is both understated and nice enough to stand out from the pack.
Launched alongside new Skylake processors are accompanying motherboards using the Intel Z170 chipset that go from $100 right up to $500. Having that said, most capable Z170 motherboards can be had for around $200 to $250 and today we'll be looking at six options in this bracket.
