In this article, we’re reviewing the MSI Alpha 15 with a Ryzen 7 5800H processor featuring 8 cores and an RX 6600M graphics card with 8GB VRAM. We’ll cover its specifications, display, ports, battery life, and gaming performance, and conclude with our thoughts on whether it’s worth it.
MSI Alpha 15 AMD Advantage Edition Ryzen 7 Octa Core 5800H
Price: ₹87,990
Unboxing
The laptop comes in a beautiful box and we can’t wait to see what’s inside. We can see that the laptop is well-protected with good packaging. We remove the white cover and reveal the laptop itself, which looks absolutely stunning. Along with the laptop, we find some user manual and the necessary accessories, including a 180W power brick and power cord. Overall, the unboxing experience was a success, and we’re excited to dive into the laptop’s features and performance.
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Specification
The MSI alpha 15 is a laptop with remarkable features. It has an 8-core and 16-thread Ryzen 7 5800H processor, as well as a Radeon RX 6600M GPU with 8GB VRAM and an 80W TGP. The laptop is also part of the advantage edition, which means it contains both an AMD CPU and GPU, which AMD claims provides additional benefits. Other noteworthy features include 16GB of dual-channel RAM with a 3200MHz clock speed, a 1TB PCIe GEN 3 SSD, and WiFi 6 and Bluetooth V5.1 support. The price is currently Rs 1,01,000, but this may change in the future, Overall, this laptop is a great option for individuals looking for high-quality features.
Upgrade Options
Let me tell you the upgrade options as well. It has 2 RAM slots which can be upgraded to a maximum of 64 GB. We get 2 SSD slots out of which 1 is occupied and 1 is free. I don’t know whether it supports a maximum of 1 TB or 2 TB. You can install a GEN 3 SSD at max.
Now, if you’re interested in gaming laptops, you might think of big names like Nvidia and AMD. This laptop has an AMD graphics card, and AMD has a reputation for innovation and improvement, whether it’s in processors or graphics cards.
Build & Design
The laptop has a metal top lid with medium flex, while the interior is made of plastic with almost negligible flex. The bottom is similarly composed of plastic and features numerous vents to allow for proper circulation. There are two air exhaust vents in the back. While the screen wobbles slightly more than usual, the hinge is strong.
Ports
The laptop’s left side has a power input port, an air exhaust vent, 1 USB 3.2 GEN 1 Type-A port, and 1 USB 2.0 port. On the right side, there is an RJ45 LAN port, one HDMI 2.0 port, one Type-C USB 3.2 GEN 1 port that supports display output, one Type-A USB 3.2 GEN 1 port, and a headphone/mic jack combo. With this configuration, you may use the laptop’s display, one from the HDMI port, and one from the Type-C connector to create a maximum of three displays.
Keyboard & Trackpad
The keyboard of the laptop has an RGB backlight, which means that the entire keyboard shines in a single layer of RGB lighting. This functionality can be adjusted via the MSI Centre programme. The trackpad, on the other hand, is relatively small, despite being completely clickable and functioning.
Speaker, Mic & Webcam
It contains two 2W down firing speakers with average sound quality. It’s neither that horrible nor that good. It is above average. This is the webcam and microphone test. This is a 720P webcam. The light is in front of me, but it will give adequate illumination for a standard room. If you have input on the mic quality, please leave it in the comments so that others can benefit from it.
Display
Let us now discuss the laptop’s display. The display is excellent. You get a 15.6-inch Full HD antiglare IPS display with 72% NTSC, which is roughly equivalent to 99% sRGB, so the colour gamut is fantastic. It boasts a 144Hz refresh rate, so you’ll have a good time gaming on it. It also supports AMD free sync and is an IPS level display. This is not quite IPS and is a hotly debated topic. It is stated in some places that this is a TN panel, and because the quality of TN is good, it is referred to be IPS level. I’m not going to say anything about it. It is up to you whether you believe this to be an IPS or TN level.
The display quality is excellent, and the colours are vibrant. Its brightness is never noted. I believe its brightness is 300 nits; unfortunately, I do not have an instrument to measure this. Please pray that we also purchase that equipment. The colours in this exhibit are stunning. You will enjoy its display if you want it for content creation and editing, if you are a designer, or if you do anything that requires colour accuracy. The only odd thing about it is that its bezels from the top and bottom look very classic. Bezels are becoming increasingly narrow. As a result, this thing may be tested. It will irritate you at first, but it will no longer annoy you.
Battery Backup
The laptop’s battery has a capacity of 90 Whr. In terms of battery backup, the laptop delivered a backup of 3-3.5 hours with the refresh rate set to 60Hz, keyboard backlighting off, screen brightness at 60%, battery saver mode on, and silent mode selected in the MSI centre programme.
Performance & Benchmarks
Let’s move on from the battery and discuss the benchmarks. You may see the Cinebench R23 multicore and single core scores, Geekbench 5 scores, and the extremely good PCMark 10 score of 6822. The results of the 3D Mark Time Spy test are also displayed on the screen. With its 8 GB VRAM GPU, you can accomplish 1080P and 4K video editing, music creation, and graphics design on this laptop. In terms of performance, it is exceptional given its Rs 87,990 price tag.
Gaming (RX 6600M vs RTX 3060)
Streaming and gaming? Let’s talk about the test results. First, we tested CS:GO on high settings, and I was able to obtain an expected 200-250 FPS. Following that, we tried Valorant on high settings and obtained 270-280 FPS, which is comparable to a 3060 graphics card. When we compared it to the Omen 15 with Ryzen 7 and a 100W 3060 graphics card, we saw that the performance was nearly identical.
Moving on, we played Warzone and obtained roughly 100 FPS on a mix of high and medium settings, which was comparable to the RTX 3060’s performance. Similarly, with high settings in Red Dead Redemption 2, we achieved the same FPS as with the RTX 3060, with just a few FPS less on the MSI Alpha. In GTA V, the FPS was nearly identical in both GPUs.
However, when testing Forza Horizon 5 on ultra mode, the AMD GPU delivered dismal results. I only got 40-50 FPS, when the RTX 3060 got 70+ FPS on average.
Streaming
We ran a streaming test with Windows capture at 15,000 bitrate and 1080P 60 frames per second. Our stream was up and running, and we accessed it via an unlisted link in the browser. Valorant was running on the stream, and the change was not considerable, with a difference of 20-30 FPS. We were receiving 250-260 FPS off stream and occasionally even 280 FPS, while on stream we were getting around 200 FPS. There was no loss in FPS in GTA V, both on and off stream. If you want to use this laptop for streaming and only use one laptop, this could be a fantastic option for you. However, if you use other features in OBS such as a webcam, microphone, and other sources, the FPS will drop. This is the game’s raw performance.
Conclusion
This concludes our examination of the MSI Alpha 15. The laptop offers excellent performance and scores and is well worth the Rs 87,990 asking price. Moving on to some of the misunderstandings and queries raised on Instagram, let’s begin with a comparison of the RTX 3060 and RX 6600M. Although the RX 6600M has 8 GB VRAM and the 3060 has 6 GB VRAM, wattage is also important, and performance is pretty close, except for Forza Horizon. Because performance varies from game to game, it’s difficult to establish a direct comparison.
Another point that was clarified was the lack of a MUX switch on this laptop. The main question was concerning DLSS vs Fidelity FX super resolution. Both are good for the price and the titles that accompany them. While DLSS is more widely supported in popular games, Fidelity FX super resolution is catching up.
