This is the cheapest RTX 5070 
Ti gaming laptop right now. But there’s a big problem that could 
make all that GPU power pointless. This is MSI’s Vector 16, and 
while there’s a lot to like, there’s also a lot you need 
to know before you buy. The Vector’s overall design hasn’t really changed, it’s still got a grey finish with metal 
lid, but plastic interior and bottom panel. It’s by no means a premium laptop, build 
quality is a solid average with only minor flex. These extra bottom feet underneath help the 
keyboard deck feel sturdier, but they also make the laptop a bit less grippy on the desk as 
they’re just smooth plastic. Even the front rubber feet don’t feel as grippy as the back, which 
makes it easier to slide towards the front. The lid hinges feel nice and smooth. No 
problems if I try pushing back too far, or if I rip open the lid way too fast, 
and the screen doesn’t wobble when typing. It’s easy to open, but the 
screen doesn’t quite go back as far as most other laptops. Still 
plenty for regular viewing though. It’s thicker towards the back, but overall still 
fairly portable for a 16 inch gaming laptop. The laptop alone weighs in 
at almost 5.8lb or 2.6kg, increasing to 8lb or 3.6kg with 
the fairly large 330 watt charger. It’s only slightly lighter compared to the 
previous Vector we tested with RTX 4080, but it’s not that much different compared 
to some of the heaviest 16” models. That’s the case with the charger included. There 
are plenty of 16 inch models that are lighter, it’s just that in most cases they’re going 
to cost more if you get similar specs inside. And speaking of specs, my configuration 
has Nvidia’s RTX 5070 Ti graphics, Intel’s Core Ultra 9 275HX processor, 32 gigs 
of RAM, and a 16” 2560 by 1600 240Hz screen. But you can get it with higher or 
lower specs with the link below, and if it has a good sale we’ll list it on our 
gaminglaptop.deals website so you can save money. The keyboard has 24 zones of RGB backlighting, 
which offers a lot of effects, but not as many options as per-key customization. All 
keys and secondary functions get lit up, and you can swap between 4 brightness 
levels with the function and F8 shortcut. MSI’s built in Mystic Light software 
lets you choose different effects and customize colors, speed and direction. The keyboard has 1.7mm of key travel and 
a clicky feel that I like to type with. But the touchpad on the other hand 
was annoying to use. I’m not sure if it’s just mine, but it feels loose, 
like there are two levels of click. So this is a normal click and then this is the 
weird half click that it does. Full click when you push down, half click, I don’t know it’s just 
like there’s two levels and it’s a bit annoying. Port selection is decent overall. I 
like that bulkier cables like HDMI, ethernet and power run out the back and stay 
out of the way, but it would have been nice to have a Type-A and Type-C on either side. 
I was surprised to see thunderbolt 5 here, considering the more expensive legion pro 
7i we reviewed last week didn’t have that. The ports on the back were annoying to use, because this bit of plastic above them 
sticks out, meaning you either have to bend really far over to see where the 
ports are, or just turn the laptop around. The display outputs are great for getting best 
performance in games with a monitor or running VR, but with no ports connecting to 
the integrated graphics it means warmer temps and louder fans if you’re 
doing light work on an external screen. Getting inside requires removing 
13 Phillips head screws, all the same length. It was 
extremely difficult to open, you’ll absolutely need pry tools. I’ll 
leave a link to these ones I use below. If you ever make it inside, 
the battery is down the front, two memory slots are just above 
near the middle, two M.2 storage slots are found to the left of that, and 
the Wi-Fi 7 card is to the left of those. Wi-Fi performance was great and in line 
compared to other laptops with Wi-Fi 7 cards. The speeds from the installed PCIe Gen 4 
drive were great, but my SD card is capable of speeds 2 to 3 times faster than this in 
other laptops. The card doesn’t click in, but it sits most of the way into the 
laptop, so less risk of bumping it. Both M.2 slots can easily fit drives with 
chips on both sides, and one of them supports faster PCIe Gen 5, but they haven’t labelled 
which is which like they did in their Titan. The upgrade score would have been about as 
good as most other 16 inch laptops at 6, but I took off half a point for 
how hard it was to actually open and upgrade. But if you can open it, 
there are decent options available. The speakers are found towards the 
front on the left and right sides, and they sounded much better than I 
was expecting. They’re actually pretty decent with some bass and still clear at higher 
volume, but there was some wrist rest vibration. Unfortunately the latencymon results 
weren’t great in our 5 minute idle test. The Vector is powered by a 4-Cell 90Wh battery. The MSI Center software has display 
power saver enabled by default, which automatically lowers the 
screen’s refresh rate to 60Hz when you unplug the charger to save power, 
and it goes back up when you plug back in. Battery life was pretty good for a 
laptop with an Intel HX processor inside, lasting for 6 and a half hours in our 
YouTube video playback test, or more than 20% better compared to the last Vector 
we tested, which had the same sized battery. It lost 17% of its battery charge while 
asleep for 24 hours, but this isn’t a fair comparison with the other laptops as it 
depends on the size of the laptop’s battery. Here’s how much battery power was lost on 
average per hour, which is a fair comparison, and again it’s one of the better results 
compared to others tested so far. Let’s check out thermals next. The CPU 
and GPU are covered by a standard cooler with 3 heatpipes shared between the CPU 
and GPU. Air comes in through holes on the bottom panel and gets exhausted 
out of both sides towards the back, and out of the back towards 
the left and right corners. The MSI Center software lets us change between 
these different performance modes, which from lowest to highest are Eco Silent, Balanced and 
Extreme performance. There’s also the AI Engine mode, but we found that pretty useless as power 
limits just adjust based on the window you’ve got in focus, regardless of what background tasks are 
running. Extreme mode lets you overclock the GPU, but by default there’s no overclock, so that’s 
how we’ve tested. You can also enable cooler boost, which maxes out the fans, or use 
advanced mode to customize the fans a bit. There’s also the function plus up 
arrow key shortcut which can be used to turn on max fans at any 
time in any performance mode. The internal temperatures are cold at idle. The 
rest of the results are from combined CPU and GPU stress tests, which aim to represent a worst 
case full load scenario. If we use the best extreme mode, setting the fans to max speed didn’t 
actually help much, and that’s because they’re already quite loud, which you’ll hear soon. 
Closing the lid to dock the laptop was fine, and strangely using a metal stand to raise the backup 
was slightly warmer, which is something I’ve seen from a few laptops this year. Even the cooling 
pad I test with, linked below, was warmer with its fan at 800 RPM, while 1400 RPM was needed just 
to get it in line with not using a pad at all. It was possible to lower temps quite a bit by maxing 
out the cooling pad, but it’s ridiculously loud. Thermal throttling wasn’t happening in this test, so CPU and GPU clock speeds aren’t really that 
different in extreme mode no matter what we do. GPU clock speeds tend to increase 
slightly with better cooling though. The RTX 5070 Ti in the Vector can run up 
to 140 watts with Nvidia’s dynamic boost, so it’s a full powered part, however we found 
it to run around 110 watts with the CPU loaded up at the same time in extreme mode. Well, 
it’s kind of weird, because extreme mode with the fans on auto initially ran closer to 
120 watts, but then any time we played around with the cooling the laptop instead shifted 
power away from the GPU towards the CPU. Here’s how an actual game performs with 
the different performance modes in use. The native results at ultra settings 
without any upscaling are in purple, while red shows DLSS set to balanced. The AI 
engine was basically the same as balanced mode, while extreme mode doesn’t really offer 
that much better FPS. Gaming on 140 watts of Type-C power was actually usable, 
that’s not the case on others we’ve tested. The CPU can use more power in a CPU only 
workload like Cinebench where the GPU is idle, and this time the AI mode basically replicated 
extreme performance, while Eco Silent mode felt super sluggish and might not work well for getting 
work done. Performance on Type-C charge was decent here too, so that could be used on the go if you 
don’t want to carry around MSI’s chonky brick. CPU performance is on the lower side when 
compared to other laptops we’ve tested with the same processor, but it’s also not really that 
different, most of them are in the same ballpark, and 56% higher compared to the last Vector 
we tested 2 years ago isn’t bad at all. Unfortunately performance drops like 
a brick when we unplug the charger and run the test on battery power, where that 
older Vector is now basically matching it. As for keyboard temps, most laptops I test 
are in the low 30 degrees Celsius range on the keyboard at idle, and the Vector was 
below this as its fans are always active. It’s warmer with the stress tests running, but 
it’s nowhere near hot as silent mode limits the GPU to about 50 watts and the CPU to just 15 
watts. It’s a fair bit warmer in balanced mode, but the wrist rest is still cold and WASD isn’t 
hot. Only the back is hot, but you don’t need to touch there. It’s cooler in extreme mode, but 
as you’ll hear shortly it’s much louder too, even without manually setting the fans 
to max speed, so that’s the tradeoff. The hottest point of the keyboard 
near the backspace key wasn’t too bad when compared to most other laptops tested, but that’s because the fans run much louder 
than most others – let’s have a listen. The fans were always audible when doing nothing 
at idle, which is why it was so cool at idle. The fans get louder in the higher modes, as expected, 
but extreme mode with the fans on auto was very loud, so much so that setting them to maximum 
with cooler boost barely made a difference. It’s actually the loudest laptop we’ve 
tested in the last couple of years when not including manually setting fans 
to full speed. So yeah, not amazing, but don’t forget that balanced mode just below 
it runs significantly quieter, and that gaming in balanced mode doesn’t really lose that much 
performance compared to extreme mode. So you can absolutely still get good gaming performance 
without getting blasted by a jet engine. Alright, we need to talk about the screen, as it 
was one of the worst parts of the Vector last gen. I’ve got the 2560 by 1600 240Hz panel option, and it looks decent for something 
that’s neither OLED or Mini-LED. But the problem is MSI are still offering 
this thing with a low quality 1080p panel option with just 45% NTSC coverage, which 
is technical speak for shit colors no one should be dealing with in 2025. And assuming 
it’s the same budget panel in the Vector I tested a couple of years ago, it’s not as 
bright and has a very slow response time. The better 240Hz panel I’ve got on the other 
hand goes up to 500 nits at full brightness, and is a fair bit brighter compared to the 
lower quality option. In fact there aren’t really that many other laptops brighter 
than it unless you step up to Mini-LED. The MSI Center software has display overdrive 
enabled by default, which makes the screen faster. With overdrive enabled, we’re looking 
at a 3.8ms average grey-to-grey response time, but if you turn it off things are a bit 
slower. Doing this does remove the small amount of overshoot and undershoot, but 
for most people, just leave overdrive on. It’s a great result when compared against other 
laptops, only significantly beaten by faster OLED panels. And just look at how it compares to 
that lower quality 1080p version in the last gen Vector. If you’ve got the option of both, 
get the better screen, you won’t regret it. It’s quite fast in the total system latency test, which is how long it takes between clicking 
a mouse and when a gunshot fire shows on the screen in Counter-Strike 2. It’s only 
beaten by laptops with higher tier GPUs, and it’s more than twice as fast compared to 
that last gen Vector with the slower screen. The Vector has a MUX switch so you can 
disable optimus to get better FPS in games, but it needs a reboot to apply, because MSI are 
still the only company who haven’t embraced the future of advanced optimus. Adaptive sync is 
available with optimus on, but there’s no G-Sync with optimus off, which means you may experience 
screen tearing with optimus off, not ideal. There’s a 1080p camera above 
the screen in the middle, and it has IR for Windows Hello face unlock. 
But the quality isn’t anything special, and here’s how it sounds while typing on the 
keyboard. And it also has a privacy shutter. Alright, let’s see how well MSI’s 
Vector 16 performs in games. We’ve tested it with these settings for best results. Cyberpunk 2077 was a little behind the only 
other 5070 Ti laptop we’ve tested at 1080p, but hey, it’s ahead of Razer’s far more 
expensive Blade 16 with 5090. At 1440p it’s close to the RTX 4080, so similar 
performance is possible from the 5070 Ti. Alan Wake 2 was close to that 
other 5070 Ti laptop at 1080p, and not far behind the last gen 
4080, and then similar deal at 1440p, where we’re still able to surpass 60 FPS at 
max settings without even using any upscaling. Black Myth Wukong was a few frames 
ahead of the other 5070 Ti laptop, and again slightly behind the 4080, and then 
same deal at 1440p, but again the Vector still managed above 60 FPS at high settings, so 
the 5070 Ti is definitely quite capable. We’ll just quickly skip through the results with 
ray tracing and DLSS upscaling enabled. In most cases frame rates actually end up better with DLSS 
on despite the extra resources required to trace those sweet rays, but at the end of the day the 
5070 Ti is generally a little behind the 4080. I’m working on a 25 game comparison 
between the 5070 Ti and 4080, so make sure that you’re subscribed for that. Here are the 3DMark results. Content creator results are decent. This is 
the first 5070 Ti laptop review we’ve done, so it’s expected to see most 5080 and 5090 
results ahead, but that’s not always the case. Oh, and forget about content creation if you 
get it with the low quality 1080p screen. MSI’s advanced BIOS can be accessed 
by entering the usual cheat code, and it gives you an insane amount of 
customization that no other laptop brand offers. If you’re a tuner or a tweaker, pretty 
much any option you can imagine can be found here. Linux support was flawless with the latest 
version of Ubuntu, everything I tried worked fine. we’re looking at $1625 USD for the RTX 5070 
Ti version with the best sale we’ve seen so far. Unfortunately this one has the lower 
quality 1080p screen, so watch out for that. The higher tier RTX 5080 version goes for $2250, which is one of the cheaper 5080 laptops 
we’ve seen so far. But what sucks is you’re forced into spending more for the 5080 if 
you want the higher quality QHD+ screen. That might not be the case in other regions, 
I think here in Australia for instance you can only get the QHD+ 240Hz panel. But right 
now in the US, at least at Best Buy, if you want the 5070 Ti they’re forcing you to get that 
lower quality 1080p screen, which really sucks. Especially as people are considering 
the 5070 Ti laptop GPU with 12 gigs of VRAM as it’s a good sweet spot for 
1440p gaming. But then it’s kind of pointless if they’re making you buy it 
with a 1080p screen, and then it’s just salt in the wound that the 1080p screen 
they’re selling it with kind of sucks. The only positive would be for people 
who just want a cheap 5070 Ti and plan on docking the laptop and connecting it to 
a higher quality monitor. So it depends on your use case, I suspect a whole lot 
of people won’t be doing that though. So then, is MSI’s Vector 16 worth considering? Let’s quickly summarize the good 
and the bad to help you decide. Starting with the good, build quality isn’t 
terrible for a cheaper laptop, the keyboard feels nice to type on, battery life is well above 
average for a laptop with an Intel HX processor, Linux support was excellent, the BIOS has plenty 
of customization, the lower price means good value for the performance on offer, and it’s actually 
got Thunderbolt 5 despite being a cheaper laptop. Of course, as usual, nothing is perfect. I can’t believe MSI still aren’t using 
advanced optimus. The weird double click issue with the touchpad was annoying, but that 
might just be our laptop. I don’t understand why they’ve got plastic extruding over the 
rear ports, it just makes them harder to use. It is towards the heavier side 
as far as 16 inch gaming laptops go, and the fans are much louder than others 
in extreme mode, though as mentioned you can still get a good balance of performance 
and fan noise with the lower balanced mode. But the main problem for me 
is that lower quality 1080p screen option that Best Buy in the US 
seems to be forcing with the 5070 Ti. Seriously, if you’ve got the 
option between those two screens, I would be willing to spend $100+ more to 
get the better quality 1440p option. It’s just going to be worth it for something that you 
literally look at every time you use the laptop. To be clear, I think this is a pretty decent 
gaming laptop overall considering the price point, and it is worth considering with the better 
screen. It really sucks that at least through Best Buy you’re forced into spending more money to 
get the RTX 5080 if you do want the better screen. But if the 5080 is within budget and you 
want better gaming performance then find out how much better it is compared to the 
5070 Ti over here. I’ve compared both GPUs in 25 games at 3 different resolutions 
to find out if the 5080 is worth it.