Over the past six months, we have already managed to talk about two laptops MSI : GF66 Katana And GE76 Dragon Tiamat. We liked them to the best of restrained design, assembly, materials, organization of cooling systems, and in the case of the top Dragon Tiamat, what its built -in sound is capable of. We included only harsh energy consumption restrictions – and noted that we would like to see similar laptops with more balanced configurations (in particular, with six -core processors). Well, MSI Sword A11ue– This is exactly what we asked for.
Design, materials, assembly
The design here is one to one like GF66 Katana – even the location of ports and connectors is the same. Only colors differ: the backlighting of the keyboard is blue instead of red, and the laptop itself is white, with the exception of the pallet and the display frame. In general, Sword has the same restrained and pleasant appearance almost without hints of belonging to the game segment.
The materials have not changed either: everywhere matte, easily cleansed plastic of high quality, on which there are no fingerprints. There are no differences as an assembly: the display is thrown back with one hand, is well fixed in place and does not hang out, the fitting of the parts is close to the ideal, there is no creaks, the keyboard under the palms is almost not bending. In general, here, as before, no problems.
Ergonomics
Ergonomically MSI Sword – the same as Katana: since they have an identical case, then the pros and cons are the same. The screen is thrown back 180 degrees and falls into the level with the main part of the laptop, and soft rubber linings are glued to the edges of the display, which protect it from shocks.
The keyboard is full-size, with a digital unit, arrows, ANSI-plating with a long SHIFT left key, one-story Enter and a mass of “hot” keys and their combinations. They control multimedia, regulate the brightness of the display, turn on the forced cooling mode at maximum fan speeds, turn off the webcam, microphone and backlight. They can take the sight on the screen – it can be useful for those who like to shoot from sniper rifles from the hip, say, in CS: GO.
There is a backlight, but not RGB – only blue. But there are no complaints about the readability of the Cyrillic and Latin symbols: due to the white keyboard substrate, the glow of the diodes is uniform and the moderately bright – the eyes in the dark do not get tired, work comfortably. Everything is also good in games: nkro is complete, and you can press at least ten keys at the same time.
The touchpad of the model is relatively large – 10×6.5 cm – and is located directly under the "space" key. It works for sure: the left and right buttons are pressed independently of each other, the touch zone is well outlined and is felt without problems in the dark.
As for the entrances and outputs, there are seven of them, like Katana: HDMI, gigabit Ethernet, USB Type-C, three USB Type-A, 3.5 mm headphone output and a nest for an external power supply.
Another small difference of Sword is weight. The 200 g laptop considered today is easier than Katana, but not because of some special internal layout, but simply because it has less battery. In comparison with Katana, it is shorter than 7 cm, so that the manufacturer even had to install a rubber gasket in the resulting cavity so that the case does not bend in this place. The results of such savings are disappointing: in F1 2021 The laptop lasted only 30 minutes, when working with the text – 2 hours 50 minutes.
Display, sound, webcam
Sword has a 15.6-inch Full HD IPS matrix with a matte coating and PPI about 141. Apart from the pronounced Glow effect, which is characteristic of IPS, then the picture is generally pleasant: due to the wide viewing angles, very small grain and contrast almost 1000: 1 watch movies, play and work with the text comfortable. But for working with photo and video, the laptop is not suitable, too low color coverage: 60% SRGB, 41% Adobe RGB, 42% DCI-P3. White balance is slightly displaced in a cold spectrum: color temperature – 7535k. The maximum brightness is 245 threads, which is enough to work in the office, but not enough to kill the bright sun.
As for the games, the matrix shows itself better in them, but not without flaws. On the one hand, it has a deposit of 144 Hz and a relatively fast pixel response – in the vast majority of games, lubricants are invisible. On the other hand, in particularly dynamic shooters like Quake Live The picture is still "floating". In addition, Sword does not support the G-Sync, but for laptops that most often cannot hold a stable framework, the technology would come in handy.
Webcam here is quite ordinary: 720p and 30 frames per second. With good lighting, the picture is clean and pleasant – for video calls in Telegram or WhatsApp and conferences c Zoom The option is acceptable. But in bad light, the image inevitably crumbles into digital noises and artifacts, so getting an artistic picture, like top streamers, will not come out.
Sound with a 3.5 mm output is a traditionally strong line of MSI laptops (at least those that were in our hands). The same can be said about Sword: its built -in DACs and amplifier give a sound without aggression, sybilyans and crying, with a large margin of volume, dense and fast tonal balance. Even paired with capricious audiophile headphones Sennheiser HD 660S On 150 Ohms, we did not have any questions to the integrated tract – neither in terms of music, nor even in games.
There is nothing special to say about cubstere acoustics. This is a stereo system of two speakers directed down, and it is enough for YouTube and background music. She even knows how to create a wide panorama, so sometimes it may seem that the sound is not come from a laptop, but from somewhere out of the outside. But if you find fault, I would like more power: at the peak it is only about 3-4 watts (a little louder than a standard tablet).
Iron and cooling system
MSI Sword cooling system
MSI Katana cooling system
Disk performance in Crystaldiskmark
At the heart of MSI SWORD – six -core Intel Core i5-11400h with 12 streams and video card Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 Laptop. The memory subsystem is typed by two interchangeable modules of 8 GB with a frequency of 3200 MHz and with timings 22-22-22-52 CR1 (Gear 2). As a drive, a model from Kingston 500 GB with interface m.2 PCIE 3.0 and four -channel controller PHISON PS5012-E12. High -speed indicators of linear readings and records – 2 GB/s and 980 MB/s. The module is responsible for network capabilities Intel AX210NGW With support Wi-Fi 6.
Cooling system – an exact copy of what we saw with MSI Katana. Crystals of the GP and CPU cover the copper heating sections, to which three and two thermal tubes are soldered, respectively. From memory chips, the heat is diverted with a separate aluminum radiator with its own heat pipe. The ends of the tubes, in turn, are soldered to two qualitatively soldered radiators on the sides of the case, on each of which is installed according to a high -speed fan with a diameter of 40 mm. The minimum noise in downtime amounted to about 36.5 dB, in a balanced mode of operation the bar rose to 39 dB, in extreme – to 49 dB. The spent air is thrown out through the holes in the back and left parts of the laptop, and the touchpad and the keyboard are noticeably warmed up to 40 ° C.
Surprisingly, with such a powerful cooling system, Sword received very tangible TDP restrictions. IN Metro: Exodus CPU consumes only 40 W and fixes the frequencies of nuclei at a mark of 4 GHz, heated to 84 ° C. GPU is content with 80 watts, holds 1300-1490 MHz by the nucleus and reaches the same 84 ° C.
And now the most interesting thing: even with such a modest general TDP, Sword performance is almost the same as MSI Sweety Win Casino Katana with Core i7-11800h And RTX 3070. However, this is logical, since the 80 watts limit affects RTX 3070 much more than on RTX 3060, and the results in games confirm this.
Without tracing rays ( Total War: Three Kingdoms , Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla , F1 2021 , Horizon Zero Dawn , Watch Dogs: Legion ) MSI Sword stably gives about 50-60 FPS on maximum shoes. In network shooters ( Call of Duty: Warzone ) With minimal settings, 90-120 FPS is released depending on the scene. But RT is already worth it only in pairs with DLSS (APSKIL IMASICS on the tensor nuclei of the video card): without it above 20-30 frames, do not rise either Cyberpunk 2077 , neither in Metro: Exodus, nor in fresh Far Cry 6.
Full HD
But in the working programs lying on the processor, Katana and Sword are approximately equal, although the first model has Core i7 with two “extra” nuclei. It's all about the frequencies that Sword is expected to. For example, c Prime95 (Small FFT’s) and Linx 0.9.3 The difference has reached almost 1 GHz: Core i5-11400h stably held 2.9 GHz on all nuclei. In visualizers on the basis of V-ray, the picture is the same: reinforced concrete 3.6 GHz instead of 2.6-3.3 GHz, as was the case with MSI Katana.
Conclusions
To summarize. A six -core processor and video card of the level of RTX 3060/3070 – a golden middle for this kind of devices. It is a pity that the manufacturer “calmed down” such a good configuration with a modest TDP and installed a very weak matrix. Otherwise, we liked the model: a pleasant and restrained design, excellent build quality, good sound, fast network controller, full -sized and functional keyboard. You can buy msi sword a11ue by link.
Technical characteristics:
CPU : Intel Core i5-11400h, 6 nuclei, 12 flows, 2.2–4.5 GHz, 10 Nm Video card : Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 Laptop, 8 GB, 8 Nm RAM : 16 GB, 3200 MHz CL22, expanded to 64 GB Chipset : Intel HM570 TDP central processor : 45–65 watts TDP graphic chip : 80 watts Display : IPS, 144 Hz, 15.6 inches, 141 ppi Sound : 3.5 mm combined mini-jack Net : LAN 1 Gbit/S, Wi-Fi 6 802.11AX, Bluetooth V5.2 Entrances And Exits : Type-C USB 3.2 Gen1, Type-A USB 2.0, 2x type-a USB 3.2 Gen1, HDMI 2.0b Battery : 52 W/h power unit : 180 watts Drives : Kingston Nvme Pcie 3.0, free seat for m.2 nvme pcie 3.0 Webcam : 720p, 30 fps Dimensions : 3.6 x 2.6 x 2.5 cm Weight : 2.2 kg Price For November 2021 : 105,000 rubles ($ 1418)
