MSI Prestige 16 AI Evo review: Trailblazing fast laptop thanks to Intel Core Ultra

Featuring a neural processing unit (NPU) under the hood for AI tasks, as well as boosted Intel Arc integrated graphics, the MSI Prestige 16 AI Evo does a lot of things that many other of the best laptops and productivity laptops with older Intel CPUs that I've used in the past simply aren't capable of. But that's just the performance. It's also a well-designed laptop for its big size, and it has a good port selection and a fantastic 4K resolution OLED screen.

As much of a punch as it packs, though, this laptop isn't perfect. The oversized trackpad takes some getting used to, and, depending on which task you're doing, the fans might kick in and end up sounding loud. Battery life also varies a lot, though it still excels beyond what I even expected. Even with that, this laptop is certainly worth buying if you're eager to jump into a new generation of laptops for light gaming and work.

About this review: This review was written after a week of testing with the MSI Prestige 16 AI Evo provided by MSI. The company did not have any input into the review's contents.

MSI Prestige 16 AI Evo: Price and availability

The MSI Prestige 16 AI Evo was announced in the middle of December 2023 and is now up for purchase at several retailers. Pricing on it starts at $1,400 at Best Buy and Newegg, though Best Buy doesn't appear to have stock of the unit just yet. My review unit is different from those introductory models. It is currently available at both Micro Center and B&H for $1,449. It has a few upgrades, including a 4K resolution OLED screen, and 1TB of storage.

Design

It has a magnesium alloy chassis

As a 16-inch laptop, you'd think that the MSI Prestige 16 AI Evo might be big and heavy, but it isn't. Though the laptop might feel like plastic to some more inexperienced, less tech-savvy people, it actually sports a magnesium-aluminum alloy chassis. This helps with the weight, with the device coming in at about 3.3 pounds, and a 0.75-inch thickness. That means that when I first held it, I was pretty impressed with how light this laptop felt. The top lid and keyboard deck are also all cool to the touch but silk-smooth.

It reminds me of another thin and light 16-inch laptop like the Acer Swift Edge 16 or even the LG Gram Style, though it's not quite as light and thin as that 2.73-pound and 0.60-inch Acer laptop. MSI claims that this laptop is 30% lighter than its competitors, which is strange since it is a tad bit heavier. Still, don't let it fool you. Magnesium aluminum alloy helps keep this laptop super light. I was able to travel with it over the weekend when I was visiting my cousins ahead of the holidays, and it didn't add any noticeable weight to my bag.

Interestingly, the bottom of the laptop has small raised feet. One in the middle, two on the bottom, and three along the top. This helps keep it elevated off your desk while you use it, and it helps disperse the heat from the dual fans more efficiently. I never felt this laptop getting hot, even when gaming on it.

If you're wondering about color, this comes in a single Stellar Gray option. It's also durable since the laptop is MIL-STD-810H. The lid on this laptop also opens down to 180 degrees, which is something that not a lot of other laptops in this class can do. I don't see that being useful. I would have liked to see this laptop in white instead, but if that's what you want, the smaller 13-inch version has that option.

A party of ports in the rear

Unlike on other productivity laptops, all the most important ports on the MSI Prestige 16 AI Evo are in the rear. Typically, laptops have ports on the left and right side, but the only ports on the right side of this device are the headphone jack, the full-size SD card reader, and the ethernet jack. This is yet another interesting design choice. I'm a fan of it since it means I don't have to route cables around the laptop. Everything I need is in the back.

More specifically, though, the port selection on the rear includes HDMI 2.1, USB-A 3.2 Gen 2, and two Thunderbolt 4 ports. It's nice to see that despite this laptop being so thin and light, there's still a good port selection onboard.

Keyboard and trackpad

A comfy keyboard and oversized trackpad

The keyboard on the MSI Prestige 16 AI Evo is the typical kind that's been shipping on their Prestige laptops for years now. It's nice and bouncy, and you really can feel how soft the membranes are whenever the keys retract into the chassis. There's also a number pad, and the keyboard has three levels of backlighting. I typed this entire review on this laptop with ease, sitting through a 4-hour writing session without feeling pains in my fingers.

MSI claims that the trackpad is 50% larger than the one on competing laptops, and I sure do agree

As for the trackpad, it is huge. MSI claims that it is 50% larger than the one on competing laptops, and I sure do agree. It's far off to the left side, though, which takes some getting used to. My palms accidentally moved the trackpad around in more than a few instances when I was typing, since it touched the top corner, but after a few days, I adapted to the location.

Display

OLED and 4K will blow you away

I love laptops with OLED displays, and that's exactly what the MSI Prestige 16 AI has as an option. Though it isn't standard, and my model was bumped from the standard QHD+ IPS panel, the 4K 3840x2400 resolution HDR OLED is worth the upgrade.

Compared to some competing Core Ultra laptops like the Acer Swift Go 14, the refresh rate on this MSI might be capped at 60Hz, but it's not all a loss. Anything you have on the screen will come to life and make the laptop a joy to use, especially since this screen is glossy.

In my case, for productivity, I adjusted the scaling on the display and stacked all my open windows side by side. I was able to work on this laptop free from my monitor thanks to the high screen resolution. Web pages looked crisp and clear, too, especially images in articles at XDA. I noticed extra details in the photos attached to news articles here at XDA.

The 4K 3840x2400 resolution HDR OLED screen is worth the upgrade

When not working, the laptop became my new Netflix machine. I enjoyed watching Sam Esmail's new movie Leave the World Behind. When HDR was enabled, scenes were super bright and vibrant, especially in the iconic segment where the oil tanker washed ashore.

Other than that, when I watched a 4K YouTube video of a holiday fireplace scene, every single detail came to life. The reflection of the flames in the white tops of the stockings, the orange reflection of the flame from the fireplace on the marble and glass flower vase, and even the sparkle in the lights on the Christmas tree.

The numbers I put up with my colorimeter can speak for that experience. It's impressive across the board. It's 100% sRGB, 90% P3, 97% Adobe RGB, and 91% NTSC. Brightness came in at 362 nits, and contrast was a crazy high 35,000:1. These numbers are exactly what OLED panels are known for. You get excellent color accuracy and contrast compared to IPS or LED screens, where numbers might be in the 60% or 70% average range.

The NPU is useful

You can see it in action when video-calling

One of the highlight features of this laptop and the new Intel Core Ultra CPUs is the new NPU onboard. Called Intel AI Boost, it powers this laptop's AI features. The NPU functions with the CPU and the GPU together. Intel even worked with independent software vendors to enable their applications to use that NPU to its full advantage. Examples include Adobe Lightroom Classic, GIMP, and XSplit VCAM. Windows Studio Effects are also optimized for the NPU. The Windows Studio Effects feature was once only available on some AMD and Qualcomm-powered systems, so it's nice to see it on Intel machines now too.

That NPU can offload certain tasks from the CPU for better efficiency, essentially making it future-proof, per se. Though I didn't dive too deep into the NPU aspect, there was one easy way for me to see that NPU in action every day. I enabled Windows Studio Effects and then opened Camo Studio, which is an app that can be used to mix webcam feeds on top of custom images.

Paying attention to the Windows 11 Task Manager and CPU usage graphs before Windows Studio Effects was on, and after, I could see a difference. With the Studio Effects off and Camo Studio open, the CPU was pegging at 34% usage, and the NPU was at 0%. Once I turned on Windows Studio Effects, I could see CPU usage drop to nearly 11%, and NPU usage rise to 30%.

Paying attention to the Task Manager and CPU usage, I could see the differences the NPU makes in performance.

All of that is pretty nifty. It makes the 1080p 3D noise reduction camera on this laptop even better to use. You'll look better on calls and sound better, too, especially considering that MSI has put 3 microphones onboard, and even a proximity sensor integrated with Tobii Aware.

MSI also has integrated an updated version of its own AI software onboard, which can sense how you use the laptop and tune it accordingly automatically. I was provided a beta version of the app, and it's fairly impressive. The MSI AI Engine actively sensed what I was doing. Previously, you had to manually choose usage modes. For example, the AI Engine knew I was using Teams and Office, and switched into Intelligent Meeting mode, turning on features like noise cancelation, and putting the laptop into silent mode.

Performance

Explaining Intel Core Ultra

Finally, what you're probably here to hear, and I'll give you all the details. The performance of the MSI Prestige 16 AI Evo is no joke. Thanks to Intel Core Ultra CPUs, this laptop went well beyond my expectations. Powered by the Intel Core Ultra 7-155H and 32GB of RAM, it's a beast of a productivity laptop, mainly thanks to the new Intel Arc graphics.

If you're wondering, the new Intel Core Ultra 7-155H sports a modular design using Intel 4 and Foveros 3D packaging. It is still a 7nm CPU, but Intel claims the technology is just as good as the 4nm technologies that competitors are using. As examples of why, it has a SoC tile with Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, NPU, and the new Low-Power E cores. There's also a CPU tile for the high-performance P-cores and the energy-efficient E-cores that we've come to know. It also has an I/O tile for USB, PCIe, and Thunderbolt. Finally, there's the graphics tile, which now features Intel Arc graphics.

Core Ultra is something you have to try to believe.

This is a 16-core CPU, with 6 performance, 8 efficient, and 2 low-power efficient cores. It can run up to 155W, though the base speed is 28W, and there are 22 threads and a 24MB cache. All that jargon aside, Core Ultra is something you have to try to believe. My usual productivity tasks with Edge, Chrome, Photoshop, and Telegram, were all fine on this laptop, not pushing the fans too loud.

You can see my benchmarking results in the table below. These were done on the same Best Performance settings, as all those other devices were, too.

In the provided reviewer's documents, Intel compared the new Core Ultra 7 in this laptop to a 13th-generation Core i7-1370P series chip. Looking at all these benchmarks, you can see that all the gains Intel has mentioned, and you've probably heard of, are true between the old 13th-generation H-series and the U-series. Intel even manages to outscore the AMD Ryzen 7 7840U CPU on the Acer Swift Edge 16.

This MSI laptop scores about 839 points ahead of the old P-series on PC Mark 10 and 1,012 points ahead of the Ryzen 7, showing its boosted power for everyday productivity. Beyond that, for gaming, the 3DMark: Time Spy scores also impress for the graphics power, with a 1,000-point lead over the Ryzen 7, and nearly double-digit gains over the old P-series and H-series. Perhaps, thanks to those low-power E cores, you can see that the Geekbench and Cinebench numbers are up too.

All in all, Intel didn't lie. This is a powerful new CPU generation and the MSI Prestige 16 AI Evo shows it.

Surprising gaming performance

Pushing things into gaming, meanwhile, is where I was shocked and where I saw the real power of the processor. Mind you, this laptop is still using integrated graphics, which are now built on Intel Arc technology, offering 2 times the performance per watt over the last generation, and up to 8 Xe graphics cores.

I fired up Forza Motorsport, with all the settings turned to low, the maximum resolution set to 1920x1200, and I easily got to 30 frames per second. In another game, like Project Cars 2, I got similar 30 FPS gameplay at that same resolution with medium settings. Even Mafia Definitive Edition ran smoothly at a solid 30FPS on medium settings and 1920x1200 resolution. 4K resolutions were unplayable, but I still had my mind blown away when lowering resolutions.

Sure, gaming makes this laptop sound like a jet engine, but previous laptops with Intel iris Xe integrated graphics were never capable of pushing out these kinds of frames in games. You normally only see this on AMD Ryzen 7 laptops powered by the RDNA3-based Radeon 780M graphics. This MSI laptop could be the perfect light gaming machine.

This MSI laptop can be the perfect light gaming machine

Some other games I tried and the resulting frame rates on similar settings are below. With these games, I played at 1080p resolution on medium settings with VSync off. These results line up with what Intel shared in their Core Ultra reviewer's guide.

Most of my testing was purposely done with the laptop plugged into power, though. I had it set to Best Performance, and I used the MSI Center to overclock the CPU and change the User Scenario for Extreme Performance. Off power on Balanced in the MSI Center, I did get the same frames, but switching between the other more battery-optimized modes, significantly changed the gaming experience to unplayable levels. You'll still have to be plugged in if you want to game.

Hit and miss battery life

MSI claims that this laptop's 99.9Wh battery can last for 16 hours. The new Core Ultra CPUs also promise to bring battery life gains as well thanks to the new low-power E-cores. While I didn't quite hit 16 hours, I did get close to that.

For web browsing and office work with the screen at 30% brightness and Windows optimized for battery life, I managed to squeeze out about 11.5 hours before I needed a recharge. That's impressive when you consider that this laptop has a power-hungry OLED screen. For streaming, meanwhile, I managed to watch three 2-hour long movies on Netflix before the battery cranked out, for a total of six hours of battery life. Mileage might vary, but I do feel like battery life is still within the range of laptops with previous-generation Intel chips.

Should you buy the MSI Prestige 16 AI Evo?

You should buy the MSI Prestige 16 AI Evo if:

• You want a cutting-edge laptop with the latest Intel CPUs
• You want a future-proof laptop ready for the future of AI computing
• You want a productivity laptop capable of light gaming

You shouldn't buy the MSI Prestige 16 AI Evo if:

• You are annoyed by laptop fan noise
• You're used to laptops with a trackpad in the middle of the chassis

There's no doubt about it, the MSI Prestige 16 AI Evo is worth buying. It's a seriously powerful laptop thanks to the new Intel Arc graphics. It's also future-proof since it has an NPU on board that will be useful once app developers optimize their apps for it. It also has a great display and keyboard and is backed by MSI's own unique MSI Center. You'll just have to keep in mind that this laptop gets loud.