Our Verdict
Although it has a good price for the spec, and it’s slim and light too, the Stealth 16 Studio A1V is somewhat disappointing. Its chassis is underwhelming, and CPU performance is lackluster at best. That said, its fast GPU and superb miniLED screen do pull it back from the abyss, and its battery life is out of this world. However, you can get a better balance of features, performance, and design elsewhere.
Reasons to buy
- Stunning miniLED screen
- Great 1080p gaming speed
- Massive battery life
Reasons to avoid
- CPU is seriously restricted
- Struggles to game at 4K
- Uninspired, plastic design
MSI might have shoehorned “AI” into the name of its latest 16-inch gaming laptop, but there’s a serious gaming spec under the slimline hood. The real key features in the MSI Stealth 16 AI Studio A1V are an awesomely powerful Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 GPU, and a stunning 4K+ miniLED display with a 120Hz refresh rate. That combo alone should be enough to make any PC gaming enthusiast weak at the knees, and it comes at what looks like a reasonable price of $3,299 as well.
There’s a lot to love about the MSI 16 AI Studio A1V, and although it doesn’t quite rank with the best gaming laptops around, it does bring a lot to the table for that initial outlay. So, who is this for? It can handle gaming, of course, but MSI is also targeting the professional, the creator, and the artist. It’s a studio laptop kitted with some serious firepower to really take advantage of Photoshop, Da Vinci Resolve, and other similar programs. That color-accurate display and GPU combo alone is enough to prove that point, but it also packs plenty of RAM to back it all up.
This is what piqued my interest in particular. As well as being a gamer, I’ve also spent many years dabbling in Photoshop, building everything from World of Warcraft interfaces, to websites, CVs, and even house designs. I’ve spent the last two weeks getting to grips with the Studio A1V to see whether it’s up to scratch, and if it’s capable of replacing my fully-fledged desktop in exactly those tasks. And of course, I wouldn’t be a 20-year World of Warcraft veteran without playing some games on it too.
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Specs
| MSI Stealth 16 AI Studio A1V (as reviewed) | |
| CPU | Intel Core Ultra 9 185H |
| GPU | Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 16GB 105W |
| Display | 16-inch, 3,840 x 2,400, 120Hz, miniLED |
| RAM | 32GB (2 x 16GB) 5,600MHz DDR5, SODIMM |
| Storage | 2TB Samsung PM9A1 PCIe 4.0 M.2 SSD |
| Networking | 2.5Gbps Ethernet, Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.4 |
| Ports | Right Side: 1x USB Type-C Thunderbolt 4, 1x 240W Power, audio jack, 1x USB 3.2; Left Side: Ethernet, 1x HDMI 2.1, 1x USB 3.2×2 Type-C, Micro SD Card Reader |
| Battery | 99.9WHrs |
| Operating system | Windows 11 Home |
| Extras | Per-key RGB gaming keyboard by SteelSeries, IR FHD type (30fps@1080p) with HDR webcam |
| Dimensions (W x D x H) | 36 x 26 x 2cm |
| Weight | 2kg |
| Price | $3,299 |
| Warranty | 12 months limited parts and labor |
The MSI Stealth 16 A1V has some serious hardware backing it up. MSI has paired one of Intel’s latest highly-efficient Core Ultra chips with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 laptop GPU and 32GB of DDR5 RAM running at 5,600MHz as well (you even get 64GB as standard in the US).
The CPU is the Core Ultra 9 185H based on the Meteor Lake architecture. It comes with a total of 16 cores, six of which are performance cores (P-Cores), which are the important ones for gaming. You also get eight efficient cores (E-Cores), and the remaining two are “lower-power” efficient cores. The idea is that each of these core types specializes in particular loads and applications, depending on priority, and Windows manages which coers do what, by allocating application threads to each one as it deems appropriate.
Theoretically, this CPU can hit a clock speed of up to 5.1GHz if the power draw and cooling system are sufficient enough, although in my experience this particular chip is quite demanding in terms of both power and cooling headroom.
Meanwhile, the RTX 4090 Laptop GPU is very different from its desktop RTX 4090 cousin. Instead of featuring 16,384 CUDA cores, it has just 9,728. In fact, its core spec is identical to that of a desktop RTX 4080 in pretty much every aspect bar the thermal design power (TDP) being substantially lower. As a result, clock speeds here are fairly heavily reduced as well, with max boost clocks typically topping out at around 1,455MHz on MSI’s unit here. That said, you do get 16GB of VRAM, which is plenty for 1440p gaming and above.
You get a decent amount of storage space too, with the A1V featuring a 2TB drive, and while Samsung’s PM9A1 PCIe 4.0 SSD isn’t hugely well known, it can read at up to 7,000MB/s without overheating, which is just what you want in a laptop.
Features
The big selling point, and of course the main focus of the MSI Stealth 16 AI Studio A1V, is undoubtedly that screen. It’s a serious unit. With a 16-inch diagonal, it packs in a 16:10 aspect ratio, delivering a 3,840 x 2,400 resolution. That gives you around 11% more pixels than what you’d find in a traditional 4K display, and leaves you with a pixel density of just over 283 pixels per inch. For reference, a 32-inch 4K gaming monitor will give you about 138ppi, so this display looks super-sharp.
On top of that, it has a smooth 120Hz refresh rate, with minimal latency as well – it clocks in at 7.6ms on the Blur Busters’ MPRT test. That mini-LED backlight also delivers exceptionally punch color in pretty much every scenario. It doesn’t matter if you’re streaming YouTube HDR content, or watching Prime video, it seriously delivers. During my time testing, it was a real treat to use this screen, particularly when working on creative content.
The real caveat to that is that, even with an RTX 4090 at the helm, this laptop doesn’t quite have the clout to deliver 120fps in the latest AAA titles at that resolution, which we’ll cover in more depth later.
The keyboard, on the other hand, is fairly average for a gaming laptop, particularly at this price. Although it’s designed by SteelSeries, and features per-key RGB lighting, there are no mechanical elements here, or any form of tactile feedback. You do get the usual bevy of function keys, and a number of extras to control fan speed, on-screen fps reticles, and media playback, but that’s about it. The trackpad has a pretty decent size too, which is handy if you need to use this laptop when you’re out and about.
You’re spoiled for ports as well. There’s a dedicated 2.5G Ethernet port (along with Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4), and you also get HDMI 2.1, USB 3.2 Type-C, USB 3.2 Type A, and a Thunderbolt 4 connector, along with an audio jack. I was also really pleased to see a microSD card reader included as well, which I find useful for transferring files from my camera.
One word of advice though, wherever you buy this from, make sure your eseller has a decent warranty to back it all up. MSI technically does have a 12-month warranty for its laptops, but it’s fairly limited, with some serious caveats listed on the site. Fortunately, it does cover major hardware components, although there notably isn’t a zero-dead pixel policy.
Design
Physically, the biggest issue for this MSI laptop by far is the overall design, and MSI uses the exact same chassis across all of its Stealth 16 Studio laptops. That means the chassis on the $2,100 model is the same as the one used for its top-of-the-line variant as well.
That wouldn’t be a problem if the starting design was fantastic, and you were just paying more for the higher-spec components, but this chassis just doesn’t feel premium enough to warrant that price tag. Yes the screen is punchy and the hardware is solid, but the overall feel and quality of the build is massively underwhelming.
Don’t get me wrong, there are no obvious defects or panel gaps, but for over three grand, you expect more than a dark navy plastic finish and a slightly above-average keyboard. It just doesn’t feel like a solid unit for this price, especially compared to the likes of the Razer Blade 16 (2024). On the plus side, the MSI Stealth is genuinely slim and light for this spec, with its weight of just 2kg being a good 500g lighter than the Razer Blade 16.
Fortunately, the Stealth 16 does have some decent upgrade paths if you’re looking to expand its internal footprint later down the line. As standard it has two internal SODIMM slots, giving you the option to chuck in your own DDR5 RAM (the CPU itself will only support up to 96GB total). That’s a definite bonus over the Asus ROG Zephyrus G16, which has soldered memory, limiting your upgrade path, plus you get access to two PCIe 4.0 M.2 SSD slots here as well.
Then there’s the cooling, and the good news is that this MSI machine is relatively quiet. For a gaming laptop that’s seriously high praise. Pretty much every gaming laptop I’ve tested over the last eight years (including some funky liquid-cooled ones) has been ridiculously loud when you fire up a game. Don’t get me wrong here either, you’ll still want a headset to enjoy gaming on this machine without being irritated by the noise, but it’s at least somewhat quieter than other high-spec gaming laptops on the market.
The bad news is that the cooling system does seem to negatively impact performance compared to some of its cheaper competition that runs with far more aggressive fan speeds. The impact is keenly felt when it comes to the CPU performance, as you’ll see in the benchmarks, where this machine is out-classed by systems with lesser CPUs. That either indicates some serious CPU throttling going on behind the scenes, or a lack of power being supplied to the CPU, pulling down those clock speeds.
Benchmarks
The Stealth 16 AI Studio A1V is a tale of two cities, with an amazing GPU, but a disappointing implementation of its CPU. The Intel Core Ultra 9 185H should be a formidable beast of a processor. With 22 threads and 16 cores, plus a max CPU frequency of 5.1GHz, it’s powerful, but it’s also hot-running and power-hungry when it’s running at full load.
I ran two sets of benchmarks for gaming. One at this machine’s native resolution of 3,840 x 2,400, and one at 1,920 x 1,080. In a similar vein, I’ve recently been testing the Alienware M16 R2 for review as well (watch this space), which likewise features a Core Ultra chip but this one is the Ultra 7 155H. Despite the naming conventions, the Ultra 7 is a similar CPU, differing only in max turbo speed, base frequencies, and minimum power draw, with the 7 losing out by about 300 MHz across most of those specs. In theory, that should make it quite a bit slower than the Ultra 9 185H.
However, Cinebench R24’s single-core and multi-core tests revealed the telltale signs of throttling on the MSI machine. The Stealth scored just 785 points in the multi-core test, while keeping a consistent 102 points in the single-core test. However, the Alienware M16 R2, with its theoretically slower chip, landed a 981 score in the multi-core test, and 104 single-core result.
Both the single-core and multi-core results are disappointing for MSI here – with its 300MHz extra turbo frequency this CPU should have faster single-core performance than the Alienware. Comparably, that to the Asus ROG Zephyrus G16, which is based on the same Core Ultra 9 185H as the MSI, but scores 1,049 in the Cinebench multi-threaded test, which is massively higher than the Stealth’s 785. You can also really see the benefit of the monstrous 24-core Core i9 14900HX in the Razer Blade 16 (2024) here, which scores a huge multi-threaded result of 1,473 here.
On the plus side, the MSI Stealth can handle gaming well at 1,920 x 1,080, although the lack of CPU pace does give it a bottleneck once it hits high frame rates. At this resolution, the MSI averaged a fantastic 112fps in Total War: Warhammer 3, compared to 93fps on the Alienware. It also produced a great average of 72fps in F1 23 at Ultra High settings, which includes ray tracing. Comparatively, the Alienware only averages 43fps in this test.
With its Nvidia RTX 4090, the MSI Stealth can also make use of DLSS 3 with frame generation to get a helping hand. Running Cyberpunk 2077 at 1080p with the Ultra ray tracing preset, and with frame generation enabled and DLSS Super Resolution set to Quality, the MSI Stealth averaged a massive 102fps, compared to just 45fps without DLSS. Intriguingly, though, while the Alienware only averages 29fps in this game without DLSS, it hits 102fps when you enable DLSS, which is in the same ballpark as the MSI.
However, while the MSI Stealth’s screen has a native resolution of 3,840 x 2,400, and that’s great for a sharp image while you’re working in Windows, you’ll struggle to get demanding games running at that resolution. Total War: Warhammer 3 ran respectably, with an average of 56fps in our test, but our other game tests struggled at this resolution.
All is not lost, though – with its 3,840 x 2,400 resolution, if you set your games to scale using integer scaling (you’ll find this setting in the Nvidia driver), and then run them at 1,920 x 1,200, you’ll effectively have a native 1,920 x 1,200 screen for gaming, and decent frame rates.
Basically, the MSI Stealth can handle gaming fine as long as you don’t expect to play at its native resolution, but the performance is often disappointing for the high spec and price here, particularly when it comes to the CPU. This is shown up really well in 3DMark Time Spy, which gives you a rundown of CPU, GPU, and overall performance. In this test, the MSI’s GPU score of 14,866 is fantastic, but its CPU score of 7,102 is poor, bringing the overall down to 12,711.
Compare that to the Alienware, which only gets a GPU score of 12,195 with its RTX 4070, but its superior CPU implementation means its ostensibly lesser chip gets a much better CPU score of 11,402. The result is an overall score of 12,066, which isn’t much slower than the MSI’s overall result, but the MSI clearly has a huge disparity in CPU and GPU performance. Again, the same CPU does much better in the Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 here, with a Time Spy CPU score of 15,060.
Battery
One area where the Stealth truly does shine, however, is its battery life, and oh boy this machine is a king among kings here. In fact, I’ve only seen laptops based on Arm processors outperform this machine when it comes to battery life. We run two primary tests when it comes to judging battery life (outside of subjective day-to-day use and feel), both of which reside in PCMark 10’s benchmark suite. Namely, we run the Gaming Test, with 50% brightness, along with the Modern Office Test.
When it came to that gaming result, the Studio lasted for an incredible 122 minutes. Any result over an hour is generally considered decent, and 90 minutes is impeccable, so to hit two hours is just out of this world. Likewise, Modern Office blew me away even further, with the Stealth lasting a phenomenal 365 minutes, over six hours. In comparison Lenovo’s Legion Slim 5, complete with RTX 4060, 16GB of DDR5, and a Ryzen 7 7840HS managed just 53 minutes in gaming, and 218 minutes in the office test.
Price
So, onto the big question. Is the MSI Stealth 16 AI Studio A1V worth that outlay? On the one hand, the internal spec is incredibly well-rounded. You get decent memory, a solid processor in the right applications, a good GPU, and a phenomenal screen. However, the CPU setup really lets it down, with the machine clearly unable to hit high clock speeds.
The Core Ultra 7 155H in the Alienware M16 R2 is substantially quicker in our CPU tests, meaning you’re wasting money by paying for this CPU in this machine. For the money you’re paying, the physical experience just isn’t there either. The chassis is underwhelming, the keyboard is average, and it just needs a bit more spark and flair to really make it stand out from the crowd.
Verdict
MSI’s on the right track with the Stealth 16 AI Studio A1V. It has some serious hardware under the hood, the screen is purely awesome, and from a certain point of view, it does look like a solid pick. The pricing isn’t horrendous for that spec, and the expandability is definitely there too (although a 12-month warranty is somewhat underwhelming). That said, this machine is sorely let down by its underwhelming physical design and its limited CPU performance.
That RTX 4090 and Core Ultra 9 combo has huge potential, but it just doesn’t deliver here. To be fair, the MSI’s low-noise operation and long battery life would take a hit if the CPU wasn’t throttling, but the CPU is so restricted here that the balance is lost.
Plus, let’s be fair, if you’re going to be gaming on this machine, you may well prefer to have it plugged into the mains anyway, and with a headset on, making that achievement an entirely moot point. And if you’re one of the creators at whom MSI is targeting this laptop, you really want your CPU to be working at its top game.
All of which makes it hard to justify the MSI Stealth 16 AI Studio A1V with this spec, particularly when it’s up against such strong competition. If you want a high-performance 16-inch gaming laptop, the Razer Blade 16 (2024) is more powerful, while the Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 offers a better all-round balance.
Alternatives
Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 (2024)
For a cheaper price than the MSI Stealth 16, the latest Asus ROG Zephyrus G16 manages to get a decent pace out of its Core Ultra 9 185H CPU, and it has plenty of gaming power too, as well as a fantastic OLED display. The only big downer about the Zephyrus G16 is its use of soldered RAM, which can’t be upgraded, so we recommend buying a version with at least 32GB of RAM to start.
Razer Blade 16 (2024)
Razer’s luxurious 16-inch gaming laptop offers a stylish and well-built chassis, along with a gorgeous 240Hz OLED screen and an enormously powerful Core i9 14900HX CPU. Its fans can get noisy at full load, though, and the screen is overly reflective, but this is otherwise an immensely powerful gaming laptop with a truly premium look and feel.