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日本MSI Sword 17 (A12UD) – Top 5 Pros and Cons
We do realize that we’re a bit late to the party when it comes to reviewing the MSI Sword 17 with Alder Lake hardware, but more often than not, budget machines can be great even if they are from the previous generations, as the performance doesn’t go anywhere. The Sword 17 keeps its stunning white color, which really sets it apart from the crowd. Undoubtedly, this is a budget machine that has made some sacrifices to be as affordable as it is. Let’s check out some of its best qualities now, as we give you a rundown of our top 5 picks about the MSI Sword 17.
MSI Sword 17 (A12UD): Full Specs / In-depth Review
2 reasons to BUY the MSI Sword 17 (A12UD)
1. Design and build quality
Due to its affordable nature, the Sword 17 is made entirely from plastic. However, due to the thicker chassis and the increase in weight that a 17.3-inch laptop unfortunately gets, the laptop is durable. It stops the scales at 2.60 kg and has a profile of 25.7 mm, which is still on the lower side for a big gaming laptop. The white finish is by far the thing that’ll capture your attention, especially with the blue backlight of the keyboard. The bottom panel and bezels are black, which makes for an interesting Stormtrooper aesthetic.
The lid also opens with one hand. While there’s plenty of space on the base for front-firing speakers, they are still mounted on the bottom. The keyboard also could have taken a bit more space, resulting in smaller arrow keys. Nevertheless, it’s good for gaming. The touchpad is small as well, but works really well, being smooth and accurate. With the 144Hz screen scrolling around and using the pad feels buttery smooth.
2. Upgradeability
The upgradeability of the device is one of its saving graces. There are two SODIMM slots for up to 64GB of DDR4 RAM. For storage, there’s only one M.2 slot for SSD expansion.
Here is our teardown video, which shows how to access both the RAM and SSD slots.
3 reasons NOT to buy the MSI Sword 17 (A12UD)
1. Cooling
The cooling setup looks good when looking at it, with four copper heat pipes, two for the CPU and GPU each. The pipes also spread to cover the VRMs and GPU memory.
Max CPU load
| Intel Core i7-12700H (45W TDP) | 0:02 – 0:10 sec | 0:15 – 0:30 sec | 10:00 – 15:00 min |
|---|---|---|---|
| MSI Sword 17 (A12UD) | 3.03 GHz @ 2.60 GHz @ 87°C @ 89W | 2.80 GHz @ 2.46 GHz @ 88°C @ 75W | 2.94 GHz @ 2.52 GHz @ 88°C @ 79W |
| ASUS Vivobook Pro 15 OLED (K6502) | 3.08 GHz @ 2.69 GHz @ 89°C @ 85W | 2.65 GHz @ 2.43 GHz @ 90°C @ 63W | 2.34 GHz @ 2.22 GHz @ 74°C @ 50W |
| ASUS Vivobook Pro 14X OLED (N7401) | 3.00 GHz @ 2.61 GHz @ 76°C @ 80W | 2.99 GHz @ 2.59 GHz @ 84°C @ 80W | 2.60 GHz @ 2.37 GHz @ 72°C @ 60W |
| HP Envy 16 (16-h0000) | 3.40 GHz @ 2.63 GHz @ 74°C @ 115W | 2.36 GHz @ 1.96 GHz @ 62°C @ 61W | 2.29 GHz @ 1.91 GHz @ 67°C @ 55W |
| Dell G15 5520 | 3.62 GHz @ 2.78 GHz @ 90°C @ 111W | 3.41 GHz @ 2.68 GHz @ 91°C @ 98W | 3.18 GHz @ 2.49 GHz @ 83°C @ 87W |
| Lenovo Yoga Slim 7i Pro X (14″) | 2.26 GHz @ 2.05 GHz @ 68°C @ 60W | 0.97 GHz @ 1.29 GHz @ 60°C @ 21W | 1.48 GHz @ 1.33 GHz @ 66°C @ 34W |
| HP Victus 16 (16-d1000) | 3.72 GHz @ 2.85 GHz @ 76°C @ 115W | 3.33 GHz @ 2.58 GHz @ 78°C @ 96W | 2.37 GHz @ 1.89 GHz @ 65°C @ 45W |
| Dell Vostro 16 7620 | 2.83 GHz @ 2.38 GHz @ 64°C @ 71W | 2.73 GHz @ 2.24 GHz @ 70°C @ 66W | 2.42 GHz @ 1.80 GHz @ 72°C @ 52W |
| Dell XPS 15 9520 | 3.18 GHz @ 2.56 GHz @ 95°C @ 87W | 2.52 GHz @ 2.10 GHz @ 92°C @ 57W | 2.11 GHz @ 1.70 GHz @ 81°C @ 45W |
| Dell Precision 17 5770 | 3.34 GHz @ 2.69 GHz @ 78°C @ 95W | 3.30 GHz @ 2.66 GHz @ 87°C @ 92W | 2.54 GHz @ 2.10 GHz @ 75°C @ 55W |
| MSI Pulse GL76 (12Ux) | 3.29 GHz @ 2.76 GHz @ 77°C @ 97W | 3.27 GHz @ 2.75 GHz @ 83°C @ 95W | 3.14 GHz @ 2.68 GHz @ 86°C @ 85W |
| MSI Crosshair 15 (B12Ux) | 3.27 GHz @ 2.67 GHz @ 84°C @ 97W | 3.19 GHz @ 2.65 GHz @ 91°C @ 94W | 3.05 GHz @ 2.47 GHz @ 88°C @ 80W |
| Acer Predator Helios 300 (PH317-56) | 3.39 GHz @ 2.84 GHz @ 64°C @ 103W | 3.53 GHz @ 2.76 GHz @ 71°C @ 100W | 2.66 GHz @ 2.86 GHz @ 87°C @ 102W |
| MSI Stealth GS66 (12Ux) | 3.84 GHz @ 2.82 GHz @ 83°C @ 124W | 3.55 GHz @ 2.67 GHz @ 85°C @ 107W | 3.19 GHz @ 2.42 GHz @ 83°C @ 85W |
| MSI Vector GP66 (12Ux) | 3.81 GHz @ 2.91 GHz @ 81°C @ 116W | 3.54 GHz @ 2.72 GHz @ 83°C @ 98W | 3.30 GHz @ 2.57 GHz @ 79°C @ 86W |
| Acer Predator Triton 500 SE (PT516-52s) | 3.25 GHz @ 2.52 GHz @ 89°C @ 80W | 3.10 GHz @ 2.46 GHz @ 90°C @ 73W | 2.93 GHz @ 2.38 GHz @ 91°C @ 66W |
The MSI Sword 17 definitely isn’t the best-performing laptop with the Core i7-12700H, it’s not the worst either, as the cooling can definitely squeeze out good clock speeds and wattage.
Real-life Gaming
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 Ti | GPU frequency/ Core temp (after 2 min) | GPU frequency/ Core temp (after 30 min) | GPU frequency/ Core temp (Max fan) |
|---|---|---|---|
| MSI Sword 17 (A12UD) | 1699 MHz @ 74°C @ 60W | 1669 MHz @ 81°C @ 60W | 1723 MHz @ 66°C @ 60W |
| ASUS Vivobook Pro 16X OLED (M7600) | 1630 MHz @ 82°C @ 59W | 1598 MHz @ 86°C @ 59W | – |
| ASUS Vivobook Pro 14X OLED (N7401) | 1577 MHz @ 69°C @ 50W | 1586 MHz @ 66°C @ 50W | – |
| Dell G15 5520 | 1802 MHz @ 73°C @ 90W | 1800 MHz @ 74°C @ 90W | – |
| Dell Vostro 16 7620 | 1631 MHz @ 76°C @ 63W | 1602 MHz @ 84°C @ 63W | – |
| ASUS Zenbook Pro 14 Duo OLED (UX8402) | 1701 MHz @ 80°C @ 64W | 1694 MHz @ 82°C @ 63W | – |
| Dell XPS 15 9520 | 1168 MHz @ 74°C @ 30W | 1380 MHz @ 75°C @ 38W | – |
| Dell XPS 15 9510 | 1187 MHz @ 74°C @ 40W | 1293 MHz @ 75°C @ 44W | – |
| Microsoft Surface Laptop Studio | 1610 MHz @ 73°C @ 49W | 1629 MHz @ 70°C @ 50W | – |
| ASUS ROG Flow Z13 (GZ301) | 1299 MHz @ 62°C @ 40W | 1285 MHz @ 62°C @ 40W | – |
| Lenovo ThinkBook 15p Gen 2 | 1539 MHz @ 69°C @ 50W | 1536 MHz @ 69°C @ 50W | – |
| HP Omen 16 (16-b0000) | 1781 MHz @ 68°C @ 80W | 1767 MHz @ 71°C @ 80W | – |
| HP Envy 15 (15-ep1000) | 1681 MHz @ 87°C @ 75W | 1376 MHz @ 74°C @ 48W | – |
| ASUS ZenBook Pro 15 OLED (UM535) | 1530 MHz @ 66°C @ 50W | 1529 MHz @ 68°C @ 50W | – |
| HP Pavilion Gaming 15 (15-dk2000) | 1613 MHz @ 65°C @ 60W | 1576 MHz @ 73°C @ 60W | – |
| MSI Sword 15 | 1633 MHz @ 73°C @ 60W | 1605 MHz @ 79°C @ 60W | 1644 MHz @ 69°C @ 60W |
| Dell G15 5511 | 1882 MHz @ 71°C @ 88W | 1878 MHz @ 72°C @ 89W | – |
| Dell G15 5515 | 1857 MHz @ 76°C @ 80W | 1850 MHz @ 77°C @ 80W | – |
| Acer Nitro 5 (AN515-57) | 1616 MHz @ 70°C @ 66W | 1607 MHz @ 72°C @ 65W | 1632 MHz @ 69°C @ 66W |
| MSI Katana GF76 | 1619 MHz @ 76°C @ 60W | 1594 MHz @ 82°C @ 60W | 1632 MHz @ 70°C @ 60W |
The RTX 3050 Ti isn’t difficult to keep cool and the cooling manages to keep up with its 60W TGP.
Comfort during full load
The base heats up significantly, reaching 54°C.
2. Battery life
The 53.5Wh battery also feels very small. It doesn’t last for long, offering just 4 hours and 3 minutes of Web browsing, or 4 hours and 1 minute of video playback. Now, we conduct the battery tests with the 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.
3. I/O
The laptop brings two USB Type-A 3.2 (Gen. 1) ports, one USB 2.0 port that’s best left for a mouse, a USB Type-C 3.2 (Gen. 2) port with no extra bells and whistles, a LAN port, an HDMI 2.0 port, and a 3.5 mm audio jack.
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