MSI Brings the New Alpha Series, the First 7nm Technology Gaming Laptop

[AleksandarK]

MSI, the world's No.1 gaming brand, has just announced its latest Alpha 15 gaming laptop. Armed with the new AMD Radeon RX 5500M graphics, the Alpha 15 is the first gaming laptop to feature 7 nm technology, bringing cutting-edge hardware to the mainstream. MSI even created a dedicated category and a new logo for the unique yet innovative segment. The new logo takes form of a thunderbird with rising wings, representing strength, innovation and prosperity. Being the first and dominant of its kind, MSI has presented the new beast with the name "Alpha".

As typical MSI gaming tradition, the laptop also packs ample gaming features from powerful cooling system, per-key RGB keyboard, Giant Speaker, High-Res audio, and more. Gamers who purchase the Alpha 15 via selected channels will also be eligible for a complimentary copy of either Borderlands 3 or Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Breakpoint."


Budget gamers rejoice! The next level 1080p gaming.
Typically, "budget gaming" means made do with simply okay graphics and framerates. However, MSI is here to challenge that belief with the Alpha 15, proving that cutting-edge hardware doesn't always cost a fortune. Featuring the AMD Radeon RX 5500M, the 1st 7 nm gaming graphics, and Ryzen 7 processor, the Alpha 15 has made triple-digit framerates more accessible than ever. The new graphics also brings enhanced game visuals at virtually no performance cost with the new AMD FidelityFX technology. Paired with a 15.6" 144Hz Radeon FreeSync display, gamers will be able to enjoy smooth, tear-free, stutter-free experience within popular competitive titles like CS:GO, Dota 2, Overwatch, and more.

The secret behind the performance is the exclusive Cooler Boost 5. The 7-heatpipe cooling module has been redesigned to take full advantage of the new hardware. With full cooling capability combined, gamers can take on intense competition at their peak.


Topping off with audio immersion
Sound is crucial to completing the immersive gaming experience. Whether gamers prefer blasting out sound through speakers or closed off in their headphones, the Alpha 15 has both aspects covered. The Giant Speaker design shines where most laptops compromise by fitting 5x bigger speaker chamber, effectively taking up almost ¼ of the chassis, generating both higher volume and clarity. On the headphone side, the Alpha 15 also supports Hi-Res Audio for the best fidelity. In either case, gamers will be able to enjoy their battle at the fullest with both visual and audio immersion.

New game bundle for the first comers!
In celebrating the launch of the brand-new Alpha series, MSI has partnered with AMD to offer a blockbuster game bundle. Those who purchase before the end of 2019 (while supply lasts) will be eligible to choose between Borderlands 3 or Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Breakpoint.*
*Applicable in selected region/channel. Terms and conditions apply.

Specification


View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[ixi]

Nr.1 gaming brand. Ohh, jeez. . Since when there is nr. 1 gaming brand?

Anyone got info for price?

 

[BakerMan1971]

Pricing will be key here, at the moment, when I spec a "gaming" laptop it needs at least a Gtx1060 or 1660 if possible, around the £700 mark, if this one can come in a step cheaper it could clean up

 

[wurschti]

Nr.1 gaming brand. Ohh, jeez. . Since when there is nr. 1 gaming brand?

Anyone got info for price?

It's a PR post, they have to say stuff like "leading manufacturer", "no 1 brand" or "highest quality" lol.

This is a nice laptop, but I would say the price will be a bit overblown at first. I would say around 1k+.

 

[ixi]

It's a PR post, they have to say stuff like "leading manufacturer", "no 1 brand" or "highest quality" lol.

This is a nice laptop, but I would say the price will be a bit overblown at first. I would say around 1k+.

Budget gamer rejoice!

 

[Valantar]

Nr.1 gaming brand. Ohh, jeez. . Since when there is nr. 1 gaming brand?

Anyone got info for price?

Pricing will be key here, at the moment, when I spec a "gaming" laptop it needs at least a Gtx1060 or 1660 if possible, around the £700 mark, if this one can come in a step cheaper it could clean up

Hexus says the following:

it will cost $999 or $1099 when it arrives later this month, with 8GB or 16GB of RAM, respectively.

This doesn't mention the various display options (AnandTech says there's 120, 144 and 240Hz options, others only say 120 and 144) or variations in storage etc. Still, sounds like a decent enough deal, and pretty good with those display options. 144Hz FS for not far north of $1000 is not bad at all.

 

[RAINFIRE333]

Am I the only one to say anything about that GREEN Thunderbird? That's the color of the competition. Also on cooling . . . I'd wait for reviews. MSI on didn't do as well on cooling as others on recent sub-$300 AMD based X570 motherboards and just for that reason I'd wait for proper reviews. I like MSI . . . but $$$ say wait.

 

[micropage7]

No.1 gaming brand

Coz the only one brand that release stuff like that

 

[Chrispy_]

I can't wait for someone like Notebookcheck.net to do a review of this so that we can get an idea of power consumption and cooling requirements of Navi 14.

I like 14" 1080p laptops with adequate gaming performance but currently that's limited to Vega IGP and MX150/MX250 models at stupid cost. Neither of those are AAA 1080p gaming solutions unless you really dial back the details and can live with 'cinematic' 24 frames a second.

Meanwhile, the GTX 1060 Max-Q is both long in the tooth, and at 80W it's a little too hungry for the cooling systems of even the real chonker 14" laptops. Realistically, you can cool a 50W chip in a sensibly-thick 14" laptop before it becomes too noisy or hot to make sense.

 

[las]

Wow words first 7nm laptop! Yet worse performing than current 14nm/12nm laptops.

There's is nothing cutting edge about this laptop

It's really missleading that AMD markets their mobile Zen+ parts as 3000 series.
They have nothing to do with desktop 3000 series aka Zen 2.

The CPU is 12nm GloFo.

 

[Valantar]

I can't wait for someone like Notebookcheck.net to do a review of this so that we can get an idea of power consumption and cooling requirements of Navi 14.

I like 14" 1080p laptops with adequate gaming performance but currently that's limited to Vega IGP and MX150/MX250 models at stupid cost. Neither of those are AAA 1080p gaming solutions unless you really dial back the details and can live with 'cinematic' 24 frames a second.

Meanwhile, the GTX 1060 Max-Q is both long in the tooth, and at 80W it's a little too hungry for the cooling systems of even the real chonker 14" laptops. Realistically, you can cool a 50W chip in a sensibly-thick 14" laptop before it becomes too noisy or hot to make sense.

Yeah, there's an odd lack of mid-powered thin-ish <15" laptops out there. The new Razer Blade with the 1650 Max-Q is one of very few, and it's not exactly affordable. Hopefully this changes things and heats up the small gaming laptop market.

 

[yotano211]

If only AMD has something over 2070+ laptop performance

 

[MKRonin]

Tired of seeing this "IPS-Level" display marketing bs. Totally misleading, and all the manufacturers are doing it. Is there some kind of IPS display shortage going on I haven't heard of?

 

[yotano211]

$999 for the 8gb ram and $1099 for the 16gb ram version, I'll pass for that price. I can get a 6 core intel cpu and 1650 for less than $900.

 

[Deleted member 158293]

Am I the only one to say anything about that GREEN Thunderbird? That's the color of the competition.

Yeah it definitely looks funny...

It just signals MSI didn't want to invest in new marketing and just using what they already had for nvidia.

 

[CrAsHnBuRnXp]

It's a PR post, they have to say stuff like "leading manufacturer", "no 1 brand" or "highest quality" lol.

But when it's said about literally every manufacturer, it holds no value.

 

[danbert2000]

It's a great sign that AMD has so many launch partners for its first competitive mobile GPU in years. I have a 1050 Ti laptop that is entirely serviceable for playing the games I usually play in 4k on a 2070 Super in 1080p with reduced settings. This should be able to do that and better. That's kind of the sweet spot for laptops now, 1080p at 60 fps. Anything more is stretching into money better spent on a desktop.

 

[Chrispy_]

Tired of seeing this "IPS-Level" display marketing bs. Totally misleading, and all the manufacturers are doing it. Is there some kind of IPS display shortage going on I haven't heard of?

Indeed. What the actual F does that even mean?! IPS-Level corner glow? IPS-Level colour accuracy? IPS level contrast levels?

IPS, TN, VA, and OLED are four very different technologies with completely different strengths and weaknesses. Is it actually IPS, or is it one of the other types? MSI marketeers are indeed some truly infuriating bufoons.

IMO the best qualities of IPS are kinda irrelevant for gaming, where contrast level, response time, and minimal backlight bleed are a goddamn priority above colour accuracy which is arguably the one thing that makes IPS worth it over all of the downsides. IPS has meh contrast of about 800:1 on most laptop panels. It's generally quite slow in the response time department, it is extremely sensitive to bending and that results in backlight bleed and panel uniformity issues, and the viewing angle advantage is almost useless in a laptop where you can only really use it in the one "directly in front of it" position anyway.

Gimme a decent 144Hz VA please. I don't want to pay the OLED tax and I value the bend-resistance, contrast levels, and panel uniformity of VA over the response time advantage of TN.

 

[BakerMan1971]

Hexus says the following:

This doesn't mention the various display options (AnandTech says there's 120, 144 and 240Hz options, others only say 120 and 144) or variations in storage etc. Still, sounds like a decent enough deal, and pretty good with those display options. 144Hz FS for not far north of $1000 is not bad at all.

Cheers for that, well the pricing is a little steep considering the competition, I have seen 120Hz machines for less and they should be enought to please budget conscious gamers. Once you go over $1k you start to see some very impressive machines.

 

[potato580+]

i loved used msi product, but by the time goes this brand start to costing product, ignored mid/lowend user and just focus on expensive highend tech, its a sad story for a big known brand, no longer efforable anymore, might switch back to acer/lenovo again

 

[Valantar]

Indeed. What the actual F does that even mean?! IPS-Level corner glow? IPS-Level colour accuracy? IPS level contrast levels?

IPS, TN, VA, and OLED are four very different technologies with completely different strengths and weaknesses. Is it actually IPS, or is it one of the other types? MSI marketeers are indeed some truly infuriating bufoons.

IMO the best qualities of IPS are kinda irrelevant for gaming, where contrast level, response time, and minimal backlight bleed are a goddamn priority above colour accuracy which is arguably the one thing that makes IPS worth it over all of the downsides. IPS has meh contrast of about 800:1 on most laptop panels. It's generally quite slow in the response time department, it is extremely sensitive to bending and that results in backlight bleed and panel uniformity issues, and the viewing angle advantage is almost useless in a laptop where you can only really use it in the one "directly in front of it" position anyway.

Gimme a decent 144Hz VA please. I don't want to pay the OLED tax and I value the bend-resistance, contrast levels, and panel uniformity of VA over the response time advantage of TN.

There are a lot of bad IPS panels, sure, but there are also quite a few good ones - recent XPSes and the Surface lineup all have contrast ratios around 1400-1800:1, and while response times for these panels are nothing to write home about, there are IPS panels doing that well too. Still, I don't think I've ever seen a laptop with a VA panel - do they exist? The complete absence makes me think there's an issue with power draw or some such.

More to the point, don't underestimate the value of a wide color gamut on perceived display quality. Sure, the main drawback of TN is the terrible viewing angles, but narrow color gamuts are at least tied for second place (tied with terrible contrast, that is). Richer color, even if it's not calibrated, makes whatever you do look better. Of course high contrast further enhances the perceived intensity and richness of color, so that matters a lot, but IPS is nonetheless far superior to TN. Not to mention that VA has plenty of issues of its own. No display tech is perfect.

Cheers for that, well the pricing is a little steep considering the competition, I have seen 120Hz machines for less and they should be enought to please budget conscious gamers. Once you go over $1k you start to see some very impressive machines.

True, but don't confuse MSRP with retail pricing - retail pricing is often quite a bit lower. These will no doubt drop once they've been on the market for a month or two, if not less.

 

[Chrispy_]

I don't think it's power draw that prevents market penetration of VA panels in laptops. With desktop monitors and large TVs, there's no obvious power difference between VA and IPS of similar resolution and brightness.

I'm guessing here, but perhaps it's pixel density. A lot of VA panels for TVs and desktops fall in the 80-120 DPI range (or strictly PPI, if we're talking about LCD pixels). At 14", 120 PPI is only good for about 1440x800 which is pretty low-end for a laptop. People want 1080p which needs closer to 160 PPI and perhaps VA doesn't scale down that small?

 

[Valantar]

I don't think it's power draw that prevents market penetration of VA panels in laptops. With desktop monitors and large TVs, there's no obvious power difference between VA and IPS of similar resolution and brightness.

I'm guessing here, but perhaps it's pixel density. A lot of VA panels for TVs and desktops fall in the 80-120 DPI range (or strictly PPI, if we're talking about LCD pixels). At 14", 120 PPI is only good for about 1440x800 which is pretty low-end for a laptop. People want 1080p which needs closer to 160 PPI and perhaps VA doesn't scale down that small?

Considering IPS and other advanced LCD technologies can be made in densities beyond 5-600PPI, I doubt this is an actual technical limitation - though it might of course be that the fabs making VA panels aren't outfitted for high-DPI production for some reason (such as, like you say, them being geared mostly towards TVs and so on). Then again AFAIK they make 27" UHD VA panels, so higher density than TVs are definitely doable with current production. Perhaps VA panels are thicker than IPS or TN? I definitely wouldn't mind a 3000:1 panel on my next laptop.

 

[Chrispy_]

I definitely wouldn't mind a 3000:1 panel on my next laptop.

My experience of IPS panels is good (Dell Ultrasharps and Apple Retina displays) but I'm a VA convert.

Even my gaming monitor (which is only 2000:1) seems way nicer to use than my work monitors or my Lenovo 14" laptop which was tested as a 1018:1 panel.