MSI Sword 16 HX Review

This MSI Sword 16 HX review clearly shows that MSI’s optimization shines, delivering powerful hardware and performance perfectly tailored for gaming and professional graphics tasks.

MSI Sword 16 HX Review

The MSI Sword 16 HX 2024 earns its nickname as a “Little Titan,” delivering impressive power and robust hardware. It is lean, solid, and perfect in the low-cost segment. The quality and deliciousness are optimized with Max Ping in the price range, which few gaming laptops can do this year. It has a lean, thick, and sturdy design inspired by MSI’s premium Titan series.

MSI Sword 16 HX Review

Design

The thickness is up to 2.8cm, while this index only fluctuates from 2.5cm or less on other high-end and popular gaming laptops. However, the weight is something that MSI Sword 16 HX 2024 still has time to “stop” at the standard level before being considered “obese” like MSI Titan: 2.3kg.

MSI Sword 16 HX Review

Thanks to the standard weight of 2.3kg, I can still bring this laptop to the office or a coffee shop to work or entertain with my friends. When I put it in my backpack, it will take up a bit of space.

It has a new design; the screen is attached to two large hinges instead of the seamless style of previous lines, providing more stability and firmness. However, the A-side with the gray MSI logo and rounded edges makes the machine feel thick and outdated, not keeping up with the modern flat design trend.

MSI Sword 16 HX Review

Although made entirely of plastic, the MSI Sword 16 HX 2024 is impressive this year. The laptop is large, solid, and extremely sturdy. When you use your finger to type, the sound is “thunderous” without any creaking feeling, proving high perfection.

In addition, the rear of the device also has 2 small heat dissipation slots on the top, pushing hot air up, helping to circulate air better, ensuring superior heat dissipation performance.

MSI Sword 16 HX Review

A closer look at the rear of the MSI Sword 16 HX 2024 reveals two small heat dissipation slots at the top, designed to direct hot air upward. This design enhances heat dissipation efficiency and ensures that the airflow from the outside to the inside of the machine is circulated more smoothly and optimally.

The bottom has a new, unique, and eye-catching design language. It is sturdy and soft, with two trapezoidal areas on both sides containing two large cooling fans. It also has an impressive copper pipe system that can be seen through the mesh slots.

The spacious and airy grille areas help the laptop stay cool even when operating vigorously. The design prioritizes advanced cooling technology and performance instead of focusing on thinness or compactness.

Most of the MSI Sword 16 HX 2024’s important connection ports are located at the back, including USB, HDMI, LAN RJ45, and a power port with a 200W adapter. This helps hide cables neatly and increases the aesthetics of the working corner.

In addition, the device is equipped with a Type-C port (USB 3.2 Gen 2 / DP), 2 USB-A ports, and a 3.5mm AUX jack on both sides, meeting essential connection needs well. Although not too redundant, it is still enough for various purposes.

Display

In the $1,000 price range, competitors such as Asus TUF Gaming A15 or Lenovo LOQ 15IRX9 are only equipped with screens with a refresh rate of 144Hz. Meanwhile, MSI Sword 16 HX 2024 is superior with a 240Hz IPS screen, leading the segment and providing a much smoother visual experience.

MSI Sword 16 HX Review

The 2.5K (2560×1600) display with 100% DCI-P3 color coverage is an outstanding strength of this laptop. These parameters meet gamers’ needs when playing AAA games and satisfy the most demanding editors and designers in 3D graphics, photo editing, or video editing. That is an impressive surprise from MSI!

MSI Sword 16 HX Review

The screen’s surface is also covered with a moderate anti-glare layer. This does not affect the viewing experience of the person sitting opposite the screen. When others look at it from an angle, they will see this coating shining brightly. However, sitting opposite does not affect or reduce the display quality.

Keyboard and touchpad

First, the MSI Sword 16 HX 2024’s keyboard cluster stands out as one of the best gaming laptops with an RGB keyboard. It has a beautiful, neat design, no extra space, and spacious square keys. The A, S, W, and D key clusters will be transparent like the Asus TUF keyboard, and the arrow key cluster will have beautiful icons to create highlights and inspiration when playing games.

The touchpad on this year’s MSI Sword version has significantly changed, providing a smoother, more slippery touch and glide feeling instead of being sticky and rough like before. The touchpad area has also been expanded considerably, providing comfort when operating and using the laptop without needing a separate mouse.

MSI Sword 16 HX review test

Usually, we only see configurations with an Intel Core i7-13650HX CPU and RTX 4060. Meanwhile, our MSI Sword 16 HX review model uses the latest 14th-generation i7 and RTX 4060 8GB with a power consumption of 115W TGP.

MSI Sword 16 HX Review

The RTX 4060 is a high-end GPU version because of its performance and balance for PCs and laptops. The Intel Core i7-14650HX CPU, launched at the end of 2023, is still a potent high-end processor with 16 cores and 24 threads. It comes with 16GB of DDR5-5600 RAM, which is enough to use for a long time.

Also see: MSI Raider 18 HX Review

The gaming laptop comes with 16GB Dual Channel RAM (2x 8GB), but to upgrade to 32GB or up to 96GB, you must remove both RAM sticks and replace them completely, which is quite inconvenient. The upgrade will be more straightforward if you use a single 16GB RAM stick from the start.

Performance Benchmarks

Through the two benchmarks, Cinebench R23 and R24, the CPU temperature of the MSI Sword 16 HX 2024 remained stable, from 73°C to a maximum of 79°C, even when the Intel Core i7-14650HX consumed from 87W to 110W, close to the maximum TDP threshold.

This proves the laptop operates terrifically and efficiently, even at high capacity. With a single-core score nearing 2,000 and a multi-core score exceeding 20,000, the Intel Core i7-14650HX processor demonstrates near-perfect optimization on this laptop.

Geekbench 6 and PCMark10 comprehensively examine the MSI Sword 16 HX 2024’s processing capabilities in everyday tasks and long-term multitasking. The laptop confidently runs multiple background software at the same time without experiencing overload.

MSI Sword 16 HX Review

The CPU scored around 2,500 points in single-core and 15,000 in multi-core on Geekbench 6, confirming its position in the high-end performance segment. The RTX 4060 GPU scored nearly 100,000 points, demonstrating its superior power and good optimization. With 7,400 points on PCMark10, the device is on par with high-end CPUs such as Intel Core Ultra 2 or AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370, standing out in the office performance and content creation segment.

The 3DMark Time Spy, Time Spy Extreme, and Speed ​​Way scores are optimal. The Geekbench 6 benchmark shows that the RTX 4060 GPU score at full power is outstanding.

Pugetbench also has excellent graphics processing capabilities, as shown by two popular Adobe software programs, Photoshop and Premier Pro. The RTX 4060’s fantastic performance makes everything on this device easy to handle.

Benchmark comparison

In the Cinebench R23 comparison, I will compare the MSI Sword 16 HX 2024 with three laptops: the Acer Nitro V 16 2024, the Asus TUF Gaming A14, and the Zephyrus G16 2024. The price of all these may vary, but I will use them to compare mainly because the CPU models are in the same performance segment.

First are the single-core and multi-core scores of the Acer Nitro V 16 2024. The graphics performance of the Ryzen 7 8845HS is only strong enough and good enough to meet the needs of gaming and general work. Meanwhile, with the Intel Core i7-14650HX, the power is close to the TUF Gaming A14 and Zephyrus G16 with a gap of over 3000 CPU multi-core points.

With Geekbench, the MSI Sword 16 HX 2024, TUF Gaming A14, and Zephyrus G16 perform excellently in mixed everyday workflows, with scores close to each other. This shows how well MSI has optimized performance for core tasks, which is on par with much higher-end devices. On the other hand, Acer is still lagging because it has not optimized CPU power.

With the 3DMark Time Spy score, I only compared the MSI Sword 16 HX 2024, Acer Nitro V 16 2024, and TUF Gaming A14 because they all use the RTX 4060 GPU but have different TGP. However, although the Nitro V has the highest TGP of 140W, it still cannot reach the maximum gaming performance threshold. The TGP of the RTX 4060 on the Sword 16 is 15W higher than the TUF Gaming A14 so that the gaming score will be 300 points higher for an excellent real-life gaming experience.

To summarize the performance comparison, MSI Sword 16 HX 2024 offers great value for under $1,000, with optimized hardware and power across all aspects to reach the perfect threshold in 2024. This is rare for a gaming laptop to do because almost all other gaming product lines have to trade off between display and performance.

Gaming

I have clearly and quite detailedly stated the performance aspects, analysis, and comparison above so you can also know how good the MSI Sword 16 HX 2024 is at playing games. I have tested many games below with Full HD and 2K resolutions. Of course, the FPS index between the two resolutions will differ, but they all share one thing: no game can make it difficult for this laptop.

League of Legends:

PUBG:

Space Marine 2:

Black Myth Wukong:

Players enjoy these games at Full HD resolution with a higher FPS. But they are all the same in smoothness, and they never experience lag during gameplay. The temperature is also very cool. The laptop sometimes heats up a bit, and the fan is noisy, but not often.

The system optimizes the smooth display and power throughout the game as effectively as possible, a feat rarely achieved by gaming laptops. This is also why the MSI Sword 16 HX 2024 is the best gaming laptop and the most worth buying this year for gaming and high-end graphics needs.

Final line

The perfect combination of powerful hardware, a beautiful 2.5K screen, and a dual configuration with Intel Core i7-14650HX and RTX 4060 8GB has created an extremely sharp “Sword”. Slashing all games, heavy graphics tasks, and high-end requirements like chopping bananas for only $1,000 is a bargain for a heavy-duty laptop with perfect power in the segment.

Also see: MSI Titan 18 HX Review

Our MSI Sword 16 HX review model with Intel Core i7-14650HX, RTX 4060, 16GB RAM, and 1TB SSD is available on Amazon for $1,068.49 / £1,349. The high-end version with Intel Core i9-14900HX, RTX 4070, 32GB RAM, and 1TB SSD is also available for $1,799.

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