MSI PS63 Modern review – hot out of the oven… literally

Content creation is so much hyped about lately, that there have been tech products released, just to satisfy this part of the market. And no, we are not talking about the “Pro” branded products. We are referring to the ConceptD lineup of Acer and the so-called Prestige line up of MSI. Today, we are going to take an in-depth look at the PS63 Modern (PS from Prestige) and what does it mean for the laptop market.

Taking a look at it and its specifications immediately spawn a competitor in our heads – the ASUS ZenBook 15 UX533. Quite similarly, it features a 1080p IPS panel, up to Core i7-8565U and an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Max-Q. If you want to completely max out the graphics power of this device, MSI offers you the opportunity to buy it with the GTX 1650 Max-Q. However, does this beautifully build laptop stay up to the promise to deliver everything you are going to need as a self-respecting content creator? We shall see…

You can check the prices and configurations in our Specs System: https://laptopmedia.com/series/msi-ps63-modern/

Contents


Specs Sheet

MSI PS63 Modern technical specifications table

Acer
Not available
Display
15.6”, Full HD (1920 x 1080), IPS
HDD/SSD
512GB NVMe SSD
M.2 Slot
1x M.2 SSD NVMe PCIe Gen3 / SATA; 1x M.2 SSD (SATA)
RAM
16GB DDR4, 2666 MHz
Dimensions
357 x 234 x 15.9 mm (14.06" x 9.21" x 0.63")
Weight
1.65 kg (3.6 lbs)
Body material
Plastic / Polycarbonate, Aluminum
Ports and connectivity
  • 1x USB Type-C 3.2 Gen 1 (5 Gbps), DisplayPort, HDMI
  • 1x USB Type-A 3.2 Gen 1 (5 Gbps), Sleep and Charge
  • 1x USB Type-A 3.2 Gen 1 (5 Gbps)
  • 1x USB Type-A 3.2 Gen 2 (10 Gbps)
  • HDMI
  • Card reader microSD
  • Wi-Fi 802.11ac
  • Bluetooth 5.0
  • Audio jack 1x Mic-in, 1x Headphone-Out
Features
  • Fingerprint reader
  • Web camera
  • Backlit keyboard
  • Microphone
  • Speakers 2x 2W
  • Optical drive
  • Security Lock slot

What’s in the box?

MSI is one of the best on the market when it comes to presenting their laptops – this device was placed in a sleek white box. In a separate (again white) compartment you are going to find the 90W power adapter (65W if you are opting for the iGPU version).


Design and construction

From a stylish point of view, this laptop is very well crafted. It has chamfered edges, a sleek blue stripe all around the lid and is mostly made out of metal. In addition to that, it is just 15.9 mm thick and weighs 1.65 kg. In our opinion, there is no reason to hate the design, whatsoever.

Additionally, the lid opens via a single hand very easily. MSI has probably tried to mimic another manufacturer by using the display to lift up the whole chassis by a couple of millimeters when the laptop is opened up.

Either way, further below we can see the keyboard, which the same exact, we saw on the MSI GS65 Stealth. Well… it lacks the RGB backlight, but it is still good to see a backlight, whatsoever. Its similarity to the GS65 Stealth has its pros and cons, respectively – first, it is pretty clicky (the keyboard) and the keys themselves are rather big. On the downside, however, the travel is very short and it will need some time to adapt.

Further below, there is a huge touchpad. It is centered to the body and has a glass cover on top of it. This results in a very pleasant feeling when in use and on top of that it is very accurate. We are certainly missing the 144 Hz display of the GS65 Stealth that makes the touchpad even more fluent.

On the bottom side, you’ll notice two very large intake grills, as well as the speaker cut-outs. Hot air, as expected, comes out of the back of the device in what it looks to be two very suttle grills, which get covered by the display as soon as you open it up, though.

WidthLengthHeightWeight
MSI PS63 Modern357 mm (14.06″)234 mm (9.21″)15.9 mm (0.63″)1.65 kg (3.6 lbs)
ASUS ZenBook 15 UX533354 mm (13.94″)220 mm (8.66″)17.9 mm (0.70″) (+13%)1.59 kg (3.5 lbs) (-4%)

Ports

On the left, there is the barrel-style charging plug, an HDMI connector, as well as a USB Type-C 3.1 (Gen. 1) port, USB 3.1 (Gen. 1) port with Qualcomm QuickCharge 3.0 support and an audio jack. On the other side, there are another two USB Type-A ports – one 3.1 (Gen. 1) and one 3.1 (Gen. 2). The I/O ends with a MicroSD card slot.


Display quality

MSI PS63 Modern is equipped with a Full HD IPS panel with a model number Innolux N156HCE-EN1 (CMN15E8). Its diagonal is 15.6″ (39.62 cm), and the resolution 1920 х 1080 pixels. The screen ratio is 16:9, and we are looking at a pixel density of – 142 ppi, and a pitch of 0.18 х 0.18 mm. The screen turns into Retina when viewed at distance equal to or greater than 60cm (24″) (from this distance one’s eye stops differentiating the separate pixels, and it is normal for looking at a laptop).

As expected, viewing angles are excellent. We offer images at 45° to evaluate image quality.

The measured maximum brightness of 334 nits in the middle of the screen and 318 nits as an average for the whole area, with a maximum deviation of 10%. The Correlated Color Temperature on a white screen is 6750K – slightly colder than the optimal for the sRGB standard of 6500K. The average color temperature through the grey scale before profiling – 6770K.
In the illustration below you can see how the display performs from a uniformity perspective. In other words, the leakage of light from the light source.

Values of dE2000 over 4.0 should not occur, and this parameter is one of the first you should check if you intend to use the laptop for color sensitive work. The contrast ratio is good – 1160:1 (1000:1 after profiling).

To make sure we are on the same page, we would like to give you a little introduction to the sRGB color gamut and the Adobe RGB. To start, there’s the CIE 1976 Uniform Chromaticity Diagram that represents the visible specter of colors by the human eye, giving you a better perception of the color gamut coverage and the color accuracy.

Inside the black triangle, you will see the standard color gamut (sRGB) that is being used by millions of people in HDTV and on the web. As for the Adobe RGB, this is used in professional cameras, monitors, etc for printing. Basically, colors inside the black triangle are used by everyone and this is the essential part of the color quality and color accuracy of a mainstream notebook.

Still, we’ve included other color spaces like the famous DCI-P3 standard used by movie studios, as well as the digital UHD Rec.2020 standard. Rec.2020, however, is still a thing of the future and it’s difficult for today’s displays to cover that well. We’ve also included the so-called Michael Pointer gamut, or Pointer’s gamut, which represents the colors that naturally occur around us every day.

The yellow dotted line shows MSI PS63 Modern’s color gamut coverage.

Its display covers 90% of the sRGB/ITU-R BT.709 (web/HDTV standard) in CIE1976.

Our “Design and Gaming” profile delivers optimal color temperature (6500K) at 140 cd/m2 luminance and sRGB gamma mode.

We tested the accuracy of the display with 24 commonly used colors like light and dark human skin, blue sky, green grass, orange, etc. You can check out the results at factory condition and also, with the “Design and Gaming” profile.

Below you can compare the scores of MSI PS63 Modern with the default settings (left), and with the “Gaming and Web design” profile (right).

The next figure shows how well the display is able to reproduce really dark parts of an image, which is essential when watching movies or playing games in low ambient light.

The left side of the image represents the display with stock settings, while the right one is with the “Gaming and Web Design” profile activated. On the horizontal axis, you will find the grayscale and on the vertical axis – the luminance of the display. On the two graphs below you can easily check for yourself how your display handles the darkest nuances but keep in mind that this also depends on the settings of your current display, the calibration, the viewing angle, and the surrounding light conditions.

Response time (Gaming capabilities)

We test the reaction time of the pixels with the usual “black-to-white” and “white-to-black” method from 10% to 90% and vice versa.

We recorded Fall Time + Rise Time = 25 ms.


PWM (Screen flickering)

Pulse-width modulation (PWM) is an easy way to control monitor brightness. When you lower the brightness, the light intensity of the backlight is not lowered, but instead turned off and on by the electronics with a frequency indistinguishable to the human eye. In these light impulses, the light/no-light time ratio varies, while brightness remains unchanged, which is harmful to your eyes. You can read more about that in our dedicated article on PWM.

MSI PS63 Modern’s panel uses PWM to adjust the brightness of its screen up until 90 nits. Above that, we didn’t detect any flickers. Additionally, the ones below 90 nits were with a very high frequency – 26 kHz, which makes it relatively safe in this aspect for longer periods of use.

Blue light emissions

Installing our Health-Guard profile not only eliminates PWM but also reduces the harmful Blue Light emissions while keeping the colors of the screen perceptually accurate. If you’re not familiar with the Blue light, the TL;DR version is – emissions that negatively affect your eyes, skin and your whole body. You can find more information about that in our dedicated article on Blue Light.

Conclusion

MSI PS63 Modern’s display has an IPS Full HD panel with comfortable viewing angles, good contrast ratio, and pretty good color coverage. Additionally, its backlight doesn’t flicker above 90 nits and with the help of the Gaming and Web design profile its colors are able to almost match the standard for Web design.

Buy our profiles

Since our profiles are tailored for each individual display model, this article and its respective profile package are meant for MSI PS63 Modern configurations with 15.6″ FHD IPS Innolux N156HCE-EN1 (CMN15E8).

*Should you have problems with downloading the purchased file, try using a different browser to open the link you’ll receive via e-mail. If the download target is a .php file instead of an archive, change the file extension to .zip or contact us at [email protected].

Read more about the profiles HERE.

In addition to receiving efficient and health-friendly profiles, by buying LaptopMedia's products you also support the development of our labs, where we test devices in order to produce the most objective reviews possible.

Office Work

Office Work should be used mostly by users who spend most of the time looking at pieces of text, tables or just surfing. This profile aims to deliver better distinctness and clarity by keeping a flat gamma curve (2.20), native color temperature and perceptually accurate colors.

Design and Gaming

This profile is aimed at designers who work with colors professionally, and for games and movies as well. Design and Gaming takes display panels to their limits, making them as accurate as possible in the sRGB IEC61966-2-1 standard for Web and HDTV, at white point D65.

Health-Guard

Health-Guard eliminates the harmful Pulse-Width Modulation (PWM) and reduces the negative Blue Light which affects our eyes and body. Since it’s custom tailored for every panel, it manages to keep the colors perceptually accurate. Health-Guard simulates paper so the pressure on the eyes is greatly reduced.

Get all 3 profiles with 33% discount


Sound

Despite sounding rather good, this laptop’s speakers are pretty quiet and they lack the punch in the lows. On the bright side, the mid and high frequencies are clear of deviations.


Drivers

You can find all of the drivers and utilities for this laptop here: https://www.msi.com//Laptop/support/PS63-MODERN-8RC

Battery

Now, we conduct the battery tests with Windows Better performance setting turned on, screen brightness adjusted to 120 nits and all other programs turned off except for the one we are testing the notebook with. MSI PS63 Modern is equipped with a behemoth 82Wh battery pack.

We were able to get around 14 hours of web browsing and video playback time on battery power. You can absolutely go through an entire workday on this laptop and still have some juice left for an episode or two of your favorite show.


CPU options

MSI PS63 Modern is currently available with two processors – Intel Core i5-8265U and the Core i7-8565U – both quad-core ULV CPUs.


GPU options

On the GPU side, your first option is to stick with the integrated graphics card – something rarely seen on an MSI device. If you need the extra graphics power, though, there are the GeForce GTX 1050 Max-Q and the GeForce GTX 1650 Max-Q, either of which is housing 4GB of GDDR5 memory.


Gaming tests

cs-go-benchmarks

CS:GOFull HD, Low (Check settings)Full HD, Medium (Check settings)Full HD, MAX (Check settings)
Average FPS156 fps140 fps103 fps

DOTA 2Full HD, Normal (Check settings)Full HD, High (Check settings)Full HD, MAX (Check settings)
Average FPS77 fps73 fps63 fps

GTA-V-benchmarks

Grand Theft Auto V (GTA 5)Full HD, Normal (Check settings)Full HD, High (Check settings)Full HD, Very High (Check settings)
Average FPS111 fps58 fps31 fps

Temperatures and comfort

Max CPU load

In this test we use 100% on the CPU cores, monitoring their frequencies and chip temperature. The first column shows a computer’s reaction to a short load (2-10 seconds), the second column simulates a serious task (between 15 and 30 seconds), and the third column is a good indicator of how good the laptop is for long loads such as video rendering.

Average core temperature (base frequency + X); CPU temp.

Intel Core i7-8565U (15W TDP)0:02 – 0:10 sec0:15 – 0:30 sec10:00 – 15:00 min
MSI PS63 Modern3.17 GHz (B+76%) @ 95°C2.56 GHz (B+42%) @ 95°C2.32 GHz (B+29%) @ 95°C
ASUS ZenBook 15 UX5333.92 GHz (B+118%) @ 65°C3.82 GHz (B+112%) @ 79°C2.71 GHz (B+51%) @ 75°C
HP Spectre x360 15 (15-df0000)3.10 GHz (B+72%) @ 69°C1.92 GHz (B+7%) @ 61°C1.88 GHz (B+4%) @ 64°C
Dell Inspiron 14 5482 2-in-13.12 GHz (B+73%) @ 96°C2.56 GHz (B+42%) @ 94°C2.01 GHz (B+12%) @ 76°C

In order to provide the user with the maximum available power of the processor, MSI has approached aggressively at its thermals. First of all, let’s note that the fans themselves are not very loud at all. This partially explains the results we achieved in the torture test. From around the 5-second mark – to the end of the test, the temperature didn’t drop below 95C. In fact, recently we saw an article about 5 ways to perfectly cook eggs. Tell us in the comments below if you are an owner of MSI PS63 Modern laptop and we are going to send you the link for the article, right away. Jokes, aside, this laptop is nowhere near its renowned competitor – the ZenBook 15 UX533.

Real gameplay

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Max-QGPU frequency/ Core temp (after 2 min)GPU frequency/ Core temp (after 30 min)
MSI PS63 Modern1613 MHz @ 84°C1439 MHz @ 84°C
ASUS ZenBook Pro 14 UX4801441 MHz @ 80°C1358 MHz @ 80°C

A similar picture here. The GPU is able to reach a relatively high frequency, however, the temperatures are scorching hot.

Gaming comfort

Overall, the entire keyboard was a little warm to the touch. Our IR readings show 51C just beneath the “F10” button. What is more concerning, however, is that the heatsink on the right is extremely close to the display. We were able to measure a temperature on the heatsink of 73.5C – imagine air with a similar temperature hitting the display for extended periods of time. Poor thermal solution with this one, MSI.


Verdict

As much as we wanted to love this device, it just didn’t let us to. That’s a pity, especially given the fact that it is one of the prettiest laptops you can find on the market right now. Additionally, it checks all the boxes in theory – it has capable hardware, huge battery, and an attractive display, so … what went wrong?

Before we answer that question let’s first talk about what actually went right – the biggest superlative about this laptop we can say is the battery life. How often do you see a laptop with these capabilities to be able to last for 14 hours straight on battery power?

Next, there is the fairly bright (330 nits) Full HD IPS panel (Innolux N156HCE-EN1 (CMN15E8). It covers 90% of sRGB and has a very good contrast ratio. Additionally, it doesn’t use aggressive PWM to adjust its brightness levels (it just uses a high-frequency one up until 90 nits). Moreover, if you pair this panel with the Gaming and Web design profile, you can get close to the dE of 2.0 that you need to qualify for the Web design standard.

Continuing with the kinship between the similarly priced $1200+ ASUS ZenBook 15 UX533, there is the performance itself. While the ZenBook was the first laptop to truly max out (in our perspective) the Core i7-8565U, the MSI PS63 Modern doesn’t lack a lot behind it.

The time has come now, we are not really happy with the fact that this laptop doesn’t have a Thunderbolt 3 support. We are also not happy to see the smaller Micro SD card reader, instead of the full-blown one. However, what made us most unhappy was the thermal design of the MSI PS63 Modern. It ran extremely hot, both on the CPU and on the GPU and additionally, threatens the longevity of its display, since the heat is blowing right at it, at any point of hard work. In our opinion, the large keys on the tactile keyboard are just not enough for you to consider this laptop over the ZenBook 15 UX533.

Pros

  • Beautiful design with a thin and light body
  • Adequate screen with 90% sRGB coverage and no harmful flickering (Innolux N156HCE-EN1 (CMN15E8)
  • Backlit NumPad-equipped keyboard appealing to fast typers
  • Fairly bright and punchy panel (Innolux N156HCE-EN1 (CMN15E8)


Cons

  • Gets very hot under load
  • A lot of heat may expose the display for preliminary issues
  • Micro SD instead of a full-sized SD card reader
  • Lacks a Thunderbolt support

You can check the prices and configurations in our Specs System: https://laptopmedia.com/series/msi-ps63-modern/

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aaa
aaa
4 years ago

pffffff sshould have read this b4 buying mine.
I love this computer, except for the HEATTTT and the weird fn keys vol/screen brightness – i wish it was on the functions keys.
did anyone find any fix for the thermal issues ?

Aquila Imperiale
Aquila Imperiale
4 years ago
Reply to  aaa

Try to undervolt, use ThrottleStop to disable Turboboost

Bodo
Bodo
4 years ago
Reply to  aaa

Does it always get hot? Simply while web-surfing?

juho
juho
4 years ago
Reply to  Bodo

I read this too late also :’), just to answer you Bodo this computer gets really hot only when you play games (I dont edit videos so cannot tested in that way but probably is the same result), with web-surfing I don’t have any trouble

vince
vince
4 years ago
Reply to  Bodo

no just while playing heavy games. i currently play assassin s screed odyssey, and i run it at 60-70 degrees for 30fps.. Final fantasy 15 gets it very hot .. like 90-95.. . While surfing the web or other not heavy software, the computer stays around 35-40 degrees.
I love this computer overall

Wolverine
Wolverine
3 years ago
Reply to  vince

Don’t play games on Ultrabooks. They were not designed for that. A gaming laptop is for that

Harish
Harish
4 years ago

When you say the display can get damaged due to the position of the heatsinks, what type of problems would it be? Discoloration on the portion of the display that’s directly in contact with the hot air from heatsinks?

Bodo
Bodo
4 years ago

Thanks for this test I am exactly stuck in between Asus UX533 and MSI Modern. I heard the MSI won a “Quiet Mark” award for the silent fan / overal noise. Would you say it is much more quiet than the ASUS, under load, or just when surfing? Otherwise, they are quiet the same? I can not find a 16GB anti-glare version of the ASUS on the market (in Germany..as usually, we have to stay with 8GB and pay the same price hahaha), so thats why I have to look for alternatives. What I dislike about Asus is that their… Read more »