The GL66 Pulse is MSI’s latest midrange gaming laptop for 2021, offering Intel “Tiger Lake-H” processing and Nvidia GeForce RTX 30 series graphics for as low as $949 in the base configuration. (See our one-on-one interview with MSI about this model.) Though our $1,499 test unit produced good gaming performance thanks to its eight-core CPU and GeForce RTX 3060, it’s a tough sell when the Lenovo Legion 5 Pro costs about the same with a faster AMD Ryzen processor and GeForce RTX 3070. Our top 15.6-inch value pick remains the $1,349 Acer Predator Helios 300, which delivers similar frame rates, more than double the battery life, and superior features. Overall, the GL66 Pulse struggles in too many areas to warrant more than a passing look, and even that only if you can find a discount.
MSI’s New Game Face
The GL66 Pulse makes a good first impression with its gunmetal gray aluminum lid, a refreshing departure from MSI’s historically all-black gaming notebooks. The laser-etched shield logo and angled lid corners give it an upscale, modern appearance. MSI has also updated its logo lettering as seen just below the screen.
Everything except the lid is plastic. That’s acceptable for the Pulse’s $949 base price (though I couldn’t find that model for sale at this writing) but is harder to accept at $1,499. The Acer Helios 300 uses more metal and feels considerably more solid despite weighing just a few ounces more (4.83 versus 4.63 pounds). And at 0.94 by 14.1 by 10.2 inches (HWD), the MSI isn’t as trim as others in this price range such as the HP Omen 15 (0.89 by 14.1 by 9.4 inches).
Budget, Though Not Ultra-Budget
A metal lid and RGB keyboard backlighting elevate the GL66 Pulse above MSI’s ultra-budget GF Katana line, which we also previewed in our video interview with MSI. You can configure the keyboard backlighting in the MSI Center app, though personalization is limited to one color or lighting zone. Other gaming rigs at this price offer four zones.
This keyboard lacks the SteelSeries branding and accompanying app found in MSI’s pricer GS66 Stealth, but it keeps the aggressive typeface on the keytops. I almost wish MSI hadn’t squeezed in a tiny number pad; unless you turn off Num Lock, the keyboard’s lack of dedicated Home, End, Page Up, and Page Down keys is a downer if you’re editing text. At least the soft keypresses deliver pleasing tactile feedback.
I can’t say the same about the buttonless touchpad; its physical clicks require unusually high pressure. I suspect this may prevent accidental presses while gaming, but external mouse users can simply disable the pad with the Fn+F4 keyboard shortcut.
Average Input and Output
Dotting the GL66 Pulse’s sides are three traditional USB Type-A ports (two USB 3.2 Gen 1 and one legacy 2.0), one USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-C port, a headset jack, Gigabit Ethernet, and an HDMI 2.0b video output (good for 4K at 60Hz). The 180-watt power adapter connects at the back left. A familiar Intel AX201 Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5 card provides wireless connectivity.
MSI could have done better with its USB selection. There’s no good reason to include a legacy USB 2.0 port on a modern laptop, and the version 3.2 Gen 1 rating of the others only provides up to 5Gbps of throughput. Ideally, the USB-C port would have supported version 3.2 Gen 2 (10Gbps) or, for extra points, 3.2 Gen 2×2 (20Gbps) or Thunderbolt 4 (40Gbps).
Biometric support, such as an IR webcam or a fingerprint reader, is missing, though that’s not unusual since even many pricier gaming laptops leave it out. The 720p webcam, properly located above the display, delivers average video quality for a gaming laptop. It would have been nice to have a privacy shutter.
144Hz for Good Measure
The 144Hz high-refresh-rate screen of my test unit is an ideal pairing with its 6GB GeForce RTX 3060, a dedicated GPU that produces close to or just above triple-digit frame rates at the laptop’s native 1,920-by-1,080-pixel resolution. (See the benchmarks in the next section.)
Reasonable brightness and contrast create a satisfactory picture, if not an overly colorful one. MSI rates this screen for 45% NTSC color coverage, though the priciest GL66 Pulse models hike that number to a more vibrant 72%. Only the 60Hz screen of the entry-level $949 model is likely to disappoint; even its 4GB GeForce RTX 3050 should be able to top 60fps in many games, especially esports. Sensibly, all the screen choices are IPS panels with wide viewing angles and anti-glare treatment.
Caution: The Laptop You Are About to Enjoy is Hot!
The GL66 Pulse deserves credit for its even-toned speakers beneath the palm rest. They do a reasonable job with music, but more important, they have enough volume to be heard over the system’s loud cooling fans. Airflow through the vents, two on the back and one on the left, is plainly audible across a living room.
Unfortunately, the cooling system struggles to keep the GL66 Pulse’s thermals in check. A half-hour Shadow of the Tomb Raider session saw the GPU top out at 85 degrees C, which is barely acceptable. (It would likely thermally throttle at around 90 degrees C, leaving little overhead.) However, the Intel Core i7-11800H processor routinely reached the mid- to upper-90-degree range, which is too hot and likely resulted in CPU performance throttling in our benchmark testing.
The laptop’s outsides fared little better; this image from a FLIR One Pro shows the chassis exceeded 120 degrees F at its hottest point.
At least the WASD key cluster stayed relatively cool (around 100 degrees F). Surprisingly, the bottom of the notebook was barely above room temperature.
Pulse/Performance Ratio: Benchmarking the GL66
The MSI GL66 Pulse tested here (model 11UEK-034) is the only configuration with a 6GB GeForce RTX 3060. It’s teamed with Intel’s eight-core Core i7-11800H processor, 16GB of memory, a 512GB solid-state drive holding the Windows 10 Home operating system, and a 1TB hard drive. The standard warranty is one year.
The SSD follows the PCI Express 3.0, not the newer 4.0, standard; the real-world gaming difference is debatable, but it’d be nice to see the new technology embraced. The hard drive provides practical room for today’s games. I also like that this notebook has upgradable memory; two SO-DIMM slots under a bottom panel allow up to 64GB (two 32GB modules).
Still, $1,499 for the above specs is a bit pricey. As noted, the Acer Predator Helios 300 is $150 cheaper at Amazon, albeit with a six-core (yet still quite capable) Core i7-10750H CPU. The MSI GF65 Katana also offers a GeForce RTX 3060 for less ($1,299 on Newegg), as does Dell’s G15 Ryzen Edition (successor to the G5 15 SE), which I found for just $1,253 with an eight-core AMD Ryzen 7 5800H on Dell.com. And again, Lenovo’s Legion 5 Pro offers RTX 3070 graphics, a 165Hz display, and four-zone keyboard backlighting for about the same money as the GL66 Pulse.
The only other GL66 Pulse I found for sale online was the $1,299 model 11UDK-076, which is also pricey considering it steps down to a GeForce RTX 3050 Ti. The $949 base model not only sports a non-Ti GeForce RTX 3050 but a humble 60Hz screen and 8GB of memory, though it would probably run cooler with its six-core Core i5-11400H. Interestingly, MSI lists a $1,799 model with a GeForce RTX 3070 GPU and a higher-color-gamut screen, but it’s hard to be enthusiastic about that one since my $1,499 model is already too ritzy for its kit.
As for performance testing, I compared the GL66 Pulse to the 15.6-inch gaming laptops listed below. The two I haven’t already introduced are the AMD-powered Alienware m15 Ryzen Edition R5 ($1,649 as tested) and the trim MSI Stealth 15M ($1,699). These are all mid- to upper-midrange models that are well suited to modern gaming. (See more about how we test laptops.)
Storage, Media, and CPU Tests
Our tests start with UL’s PCMark 10, a general system performance suite that simulates office-centric tasks such as word processing, spreadsheeting, web browsing, and videoconferencing. We informally consider 4,000 points a sign of excellent productivity, so the Pulse’s score of 6,623 is outstanding. It wasn’t enough to catch the Legion 5 Pro, but its newer “Tiger Lake-H” chip and two extra processing cores propelled it far ahead of the Predator Helios 300. Meanwhile, as expected, the contenders’ speedy SSDs aced PCMark 8’s storage subtest.
Next up is a pair of CPU-crunching tests: Cinebench R15 stresses all available processor cores and threads while rendering a complex image, while in our Handbrake test, we time how long it takes to transcode a 12-minute video clip from 4K down to 1080p.
Though rounded to the nearest minute, the Handbrake numbers are sensitive enough to indicate that the eight-core units (the Stealth 15M and Helios 300 have quad- and six-core CPUs respectively) rule. However, Cinebench R15 shows the GL66 Pulse landing well behind the AMD-powered Alienware and Lenovo, as well as the 2,124 points that the Aorus 17G YD scored with the same Core i7-11800H. Based on that and my high CPU temperature readings, it’s almost certain that the Pulse loses some CPU performance to thermal throttling. That’s not unusual for a notebook, but it is more pronounced on some models.
The final test in this section is photo editing. We use an early 2018 release of Adobe Photoshop Creative Cloud to apply 10 complex filters and effects to a standard JPEG image, timing each operation and adding up the totals. This test is not as CPU-focused as Cinebench or Handbrake, bringing the performance of the storage subsystem, memory, and GPU into play.
Laptops with “Tiger Lake-H” chips produce consistently low times in this test thanks to their excellent single-threaded performance, and the GL66 Pulse is no exception. Its CPU likely didn’t throttle much or at all in this test since Photoshop tends not to fully stress all CPU cores. The AMD laptops also did very well.
Graphics and Gaming Tests
Our first two benchmarks in this section use gaming simulations to measure a PC’s graphics performance potential. In UL’s 3DMark, we run two DirectX 11 tests, Sky Diver (lightweight, capable of running on integrated graphics) and Fire Strike (more demanding, for gaming rigs). Another test, Unigine Corp.’s Superposition, uses a different rendering engine to produce a complex 3D scene.
The Pulse produced satisfactory numbers, though driver issues prevented it from completing Superposition’s 720p test. That said, its GeForce RTX 3060 is rated for just 85 watts; the Alienware’s higher scores indicate that its RTX 3060 has a higher power rating. Our explainer article on this is a must-read if you’re buying an RTX 30 series laptop.
To test systems’ real-world gaming prowess, we use the built-in 1080p benchmarks of Far Cry 5 (at its Normal and Ultra presets) and Rise of the Tomb Raider (at its Medium and Very High presets). The first uses DirectX 11, while we flip the second to DirectX 12.
These games are somewhat CPU-limited at 1080p resolution on these laptops, but not to the GL66 Pulse’s disadvantage. It kept up with the Alienware and traded blows with the Legion 5 Pro. For 1080p gaming, the Pulse’s performance ought to stay relevant for some time.
Battery Rundown Test
For our last benchmark, we measure a laptop’s unplugged runtime while playing a locally stored video with screen brightness at 50% and audio volume at 100%. We use Windows’ energy-saving rather than balanced or other power profile where available, turn off Wi-Fi, and even disable keyboard backlighting to squeeze as much life as possible out of the system.
The GL66 Pulse’s dismal time won’t even get you through half a day’s classes. We like to see at least six hours from modern gaming laptops, even budget models. Expect to tote the Pulse’s power brick with you for all but the shortest trips.
Not Enough Value for the Money
MSI’s GL66 Pulse churns out smooth 1080p gaming frame rates and looks every bit as a gaming laptop should. But other positives are scarce, with its mostly plastic build, single-zone keyboard lighting, and general lack of special features at odds with its $1,499 tested price. A sizable discount would take the sting out of those complaints, but you’d still have to deal with the Pulse’s hot running temperatures and scanty battery life.
Overall, the GL66 Pulse misses the mark in too many areas for us to recommend it. You can find many better midrange 15.6-inch gaming rigs to choose from, notably the latest refresh of the Acer Predator Helios 300 and (for a bit more money) the Lenovo Legion 5 Pro and Alienware m15 Ryzen Edition R5.
