Another gaming laptop has fallen below $500 for Cyber Monday. The MSI GF63 Thin is $449.99 at Walmart, dropping to an extremely rare price point for dedicated gaming hardware.
This configuration, with an Intel Core i5-11400H, Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 Max-Q GPU, 8GB of RAM, a 15.6-inch, 1080p display and a 256GB SSD, is the one we reviewed earlier this month.
The GF63 is thin and lightweight, but still partially metal, which is a surprise to see at this price. That being said, the 1080p screen is nothing to write home about, and at just 256GB of storage, you'll want to consider upgrading the storage to fit more games. Consider checking out the Cyber Monday deals on SSDs to go along with it.
The system comes with a modest 8GB of RAM, which is usable, but less than ideal. Fortunately, the two DDR4 DIMM slots are accessible so you can swap out the existing memory for a 2 x 8GB (16GB) kit down the road.
The GTX 1650 in the GF63 isn't going to run all of the latest games on high settings, but it should be just fine for older ones, as well as esports, which aren't terribly intensive. But for the latest big releases, consider dialing down the settings on this one. But the Core i5 is a decent part, especially for productivity.
As you can see in the chart below, the GF63 managed a very-playable 35 fps in Grand Theft Auto V at very high settings. That's lower than competitors with better GPUs but still a smooth experience. On more demanding titles, expect to drop your settings to high or medium.
As we put it in our review: "if you put performance first and everything else a distant second, it’s a lot of laptop for the money." Maybe some of those savings can go to RAM and SSD upgrades to build something even more capable.
