A high-performing budget-gaming laptop whose foibles are generally forgivable.
Fast 2D and 3D performance.
The screen and hinges are a bit mediocre.
There’s a slew of new 13th-Gen laptops on the way and many are gaming models with Nvidia’s new, 40-series graphics chips. The first in our hands is the MSI Pulse 17,: the latest, 17-inch update to MSI’s ‘budget’ gaming laptop range. We hoped for generational improvement in performance, but what did we get?
Design and build quality
The Pulse 17’s aluminium lid adds a veneer of quality that one wouldn’t typically associate with budget laptops. It also now has a large, stylish, MSI logo taking up one side, in addition to the Dragon-shield logo in the middle. It looks good but will raise eyebrows in work environments if you were wanting to use it in an office as well. The rest of the laptop is plastic, but it both looks and feels better-than-average in terms of quality. The four-zoned RGB keyboard backlighting will ensure it looks good in LANs, but the jury’s still out on the aesthetics of translucent WASD keys, in our opinion.
Features
The Pulse’s 17.3-inch, IPS screen is surrounded by a medium-sized bezel, and has a Full HD, 1,920 x 1,080 resolution. It’s got a 144Hz refresh rate, which helps keep fast moving objects looking smooth, although the pixel response time isn’t the fastest, which can cause a minor smearing that competitive gamers might gripe about. Colours are somewhat muted and washed out, but both colourful and monochromatic transitions are rendered relatively smoothly with minimal banding.
Contrast is acceptable, but blacks are a little washed out and details can get lost in highlights. At least the former helps prevent enemies hiding in shadows. It’s capable of displaying a crisp and clear Windows Desktop and the lid can fold down flat so you can show people opposite what you’re looking at. Just note that the hinge isn’t the strongest and the screen can wobble a bit when knocked.
The keyboard is comfortable and accurate to use for both typing and gaming, and we’re pleased to see full-sized arrow keys and a (slightly reduced-width) number pad included. The trackpad is smooth and accurate but the buttons on it are a little stiff for our liking.
There’s an HD webcam above the screen, which operates reasonably well in both bright and low light. The dual-array mics that partner with it pick up audio well but aren’t the best at cancelling out background noise. The twin, two-Watt speakers get reasonably loud but there’s not much bass.
Performance
Our review unit had a speedy 3.5GHz Intel Core i7-13700H processor, which has 6 Performance cores, 8 Efficiency cores and a 5GHz Turbo Boost. This is partnered by 16GB of speedy DDR5-5200 RAM plus a 1TB hard drive. Our performance tests put it well ahead of everything that had come before it that didn’t have a 12th-Gen Core i9 processor.
For example, it scored 8,155 in the PCMark 10 benchmark, which is 7% higher than a super-premium, last-gen MSI GS77 Stealth with a Core i9-12900H CPU and an Nvidia RTX 3080 Ti GPU. It was even 3.6% faster in the (raw-processor-horsepower) Cinebench CPU rendering tests!
3D Performance comes via Nvidia’s new GeForce RTX 4070 GPU (with 8GB of GDDR6 RAM), which represents either the upper-mid range or lower top-range depending on your mindset. It smashed through our tests to the point where it rivalled some last-gen RTX 3080 Ti rivals.
For instance, in the difficult 3DMark Time Spy test, which apes AAA-gaming titles for graphics quality, it scored 12,389, which is an average framerate of 75fps. That’s a 13% increase over the Stealth (note: other, last-gen, overclocked, premium, gaming laptops are still faster). There’s going to be very little it can’t play at maximum settings on its Full HD screen.
It’s also worth mentioning that the cooling system has been upgraded with MSI’s Cooler Boost 5 technology, which uses two fans and five heat pipes. When manually dialled-up (for maximum performance) they can certainly get loud but, for the most part, they only ramped up to a quiet whoosh when under very heavy load. That’s impressive compared to most, older gaming laptops.
Ports and connections
The MSI Pulse 17 has two USB-A 3.2 Gen 1 ports, a USB-C 3.2 Gen 1 port (with DisplayPort) and a USB-A 2.0 port. There’s also a 3.5mm audio jack, a Gigabit Ethernet port and an HDMI 2.1 port. Inside there’s Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.2 for wireless connectivity.
That might not be a cutting-edge collection, but it’s a broad, very useful complement that few will grumble about.
How portable is the MSI Pulse 17?
Inside the Pulse 17 is a 90WHr battery which ran our PCMark 10 Modern Office test for an impressive 10 hours, which is more than a day out of the office.
Being a 17-inch hulk means it was never going to be the lightest machine, and, indeed, it weighs a hefty 2.7KG. The power brick and cables add an extra 745g, which is significant, but we’ve seen much worse.
The aluminium lid helps protect the large screen, but we’re not convinced the hinges will survive a long life on the road without extra TLC.
Overall
It feels a little strange calling the MSI Pulse 17 a budget gaming laptop when it has an RRP of $3,699 but that’s the reality for the latest and greatest tech. We’re already seeing it discounted to $3,299 so shop around.
Ultimately, it’s a decent budget gaming laptop that’s got it where it counts in terms of performance and ergonomics. Premium rivals will cost a lot more, meaning the Pulse 17 is well worth adding your shortlist – so long as you’re prepared to look after it.
A high-performing budget-gaming laptop whose foibles are generally forgivable.
Fast 2D and 3D performance.
The screen and hinges are a bit mediocre.