About this item

• LATEST GEN - 13th Gen Intel Core i7 Processor: Elite gaming and professional content creation, anywhere. Game, stream, and record without interruption.
• Simplistic Design: Enjoy the latest generation Windows 11 Home for your everyday needs. MSI recommends Windows 11 Pro for business use.
• Beyond Fast: The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 GPU powered by the Ada architecture unleashes the full glory of ray tracing, which simulates how light behaves in the real world.
• FHD Display: The 15.6" 16:9 144Hz display delivers fast refresh rate for better immersive experience
• High-Speed Data: Thunderbolt 4 and DDR5-4000 memory for the fastest data transfer, system speed and responsiveness.

I purchased the Katana 15 B13V laptop with 16GBGB of DDR5 RAM, an RTX 4070 GPU, and an i7-13620H CPU on Prime Day, marked down to $1,349 from its original price of $1,599.

My main reason for purchasing this laptop was because my current desktop's motherboard is using DDR4 technology and is becoming outdated. I wanted to be able to play Baldur's Gate III at maximum settings, and I thought this would be a good option. I also wanted to build another desktop in the future, but I decided to wait until DDR6 becomes more widely available before making that investment. That would be several years away.

Overall, this purchase is great for my needs. It offers desktop-level performance in a portable form factor at a mid-range price.

Let's talk about the downsides and why they don't bother me:The display is not the best. I don't mean to say that it is bad, as it is great, but it is not something special. That does not bother me, as it is connected to my external monitor. Who cares about laptop screens, anyway? 4K resolution does not make a significant difference on a small screen. The costs were definitely reduced. The battery life is probably also reduced. It does not last long when not plugged in for normal usage, and it is probably not even possible to use it while gaming without being plugged in. This would be a problem if I planned to use it without a power source, but again, it does not matter to me. There is also a feature called Cooler Boost 5, which is necessary for running newer games at maximum settings. It makes the PlayStation louder. If you are an audiophile, you will need good noise-canceling headphones to truly enjoy anything on this device. This does not concern me, as I am not an audiophile and even if I were, I have several great sets of noise-canceling headphones. It also doesn't bother me, because without it, all the great things about this product wouldn't matter at all... Let me explain...

Now, for the pros: This product runs great without any load on balanced power settings. Without Cooler Boost, it's about as quiet as it gets. I only use it for browsing the internet and listening to music, not for gaming. It performs great in those tasks. I haven't tried watching 4K videos on it yet, but I imagine it would perform well on balanced power settings in that regard as well. Remember when I mentioned the noise level of the Cooler Boost 5 as a potential downside? Well, the cooler boost is probably just as important as any other hardware feature in this machine. Gaming laptops have a bad reputation, mainly because they burn out much faster than desktop computers and are difficult and expensive to repair when they do. This is because of inadequate cooling. A laptop needs to be a small box to fit all those heat-producing components inside. Getting desktop-level CPU and GPU temperatures in a laptop is a pipe dream. Temperatures in the 85-90 degrees Celsius range or higher are just part of the deal. With the Cooler Boost on, this device stays in the 60-75 degrees range with BG3 on maximum settings. That's about as good as or better than what my desktop can do. Have you heard of thermal throttling? That only happens if you let it happen with this machine. That said, without Cooler Boost active while running BG3 on max settings, I see those temperatures move to the upper 80s and lower 90s, as one would expect with this type of hardware in such a small case. It is worth the noise to have a machine with an i7 13th generation chip and an RTX 4070 GPU that can maintain desktop temperatures while actually using the hardware to its full potential. This machine is fantastic for anyone looking to replace their desktop with a laptop that is likely to last. All the right corners have been rounded off. Due to the temperatures sitting at desktop levels, I expect the hardware components to potentially last forever. This will still be a highly serviceable and much more portable machine once I have my desktop built.

The potential issues I see include needing to replace the fans at some point due to Cooler Boost. These could also last, it's just a possible consequence of running fans at high speeds. I imagine the most significant issue I'll encounter is replacing the battery. Batteries always go bad eventually, but they can deteriorate more quickly if there is high humidity in the gaming area. Consider spring or fall when the AC is not running. Years of this will destroy a battery.