While waiting for the kick-off of CES 2024the Taiwanese manufacturer offers us a fairly exhaustive overview of its catalog for the coming year, and we can already say that it has left no one behind.
Schoolchildren are not the only ones to have finally returned from their Christmas vacation. The tech world is also ending its winter break to usher in a year 2024 that we hope will be full of pleasant surprises.
There will be numerous announcements in the coming weeks, and it is logical that MSI sends us its wishes with new features which, without being totally surprising, will bring the brand into the era of artificial intelligence.
Pack sturdy backpacks: MSI thinks big
This year, the Taiwanese manufacturer joins the competition with not one, but three models of gaming laptops equipped with a rather large panel. Indeed, the Titan, Stealth and Raider ranges will benefit from 18-inch mini-LED 4K 120 Hz screens, with the added bonus of DisplayHDR 1000 certification.
To take advantage of this, the Titan 18 HX and Raider 18 HX will be equipped with Intel Core i9 14900HX processors, associated with NVIDIA GeForce RTX 40 graphics cards. The Stealth 18 AI Studio will be distinguished by its CPU, since this is a question of an Intel Core Ultra 9 185H, which will emphasize artificial intelligence. However, we will return to this last point later.
The Titan 18 HX will have four RAM slots, allowing RAM capacity to be expanded up to 128 GB, and three M.2 slots, offering up to 12 TB of storage. In terms of design, the device will have a haptic touchpad with RGB backlighting, and the classic mechanical keyboard of the model with its switches provided by Cherry.
Some improvements will be noted on the cooling side, which should allow certain CPUs to reach a clock frequency of 5.8 GHz, according to the Taiwanese manufacturer. On the chassis side, we will also find some new features. For example, the Titan 18 HX and Stealth 18 AI Studio will be built with a magnesium and aluminum alloy, making the latter “ the lightest 18-inch gaming laptop on the market », according to MSI (2.79 kg all the same).
Something to satisfy all players, and not only
MSI is not putting aside its other ranges. The Vector 16/17 HX, Crosshair 16/17 HX and Pulse 16/17 AI will see their specifications updated, but will also benefit from some tweaks. To provide more power, the cooling systems will also be improved, with more air outlets and inlets on the Crosshair and Pulse models, for example. The latter will also benefit from a small facelift, the first displaying “ reminiscent of a futuristic spaceship ”, while the second will rather refer to a “ electromagnetic pulse “.
For more modest budgets, the Sword, Cyborg and Thin ranges will be updated and can be equipped with processors up to Intel Core i7 of 14e generation for the first two, and 13e generation for the third. The Cyborg 15 AI will be an exception, with an Intel Core Ultra 7 155H chip specialized in artificial intelligence.
The design of these models will also be changed. While the Sword 16/17 HX will be partly made of recycled plastics and a 24-zone RGB LED backlit keyboard, the Thin 15 will have an improved design and blue backlit ZQSD keys. Finally, MSI announced that the Cyborg will once again feature a translucent chassis, but also a 14-inch variant that we can’t wait to see in the flesh.
If we will not return to the new features that we have already mentioned about the Prestige range, we will however be able to discuss the changes made to the Content Creation series. The Creator 16 AI Studio will particularly stand out, because in addition to its 16:10 OLED screen, it will be equipped with an Intel Core Ultra 9 185H chip. In 2024, artificial intelligence will therefore make its appearance among graphic designers, editors and other designers of all kinds.
Unsurprisingly, AI will be there
By choosing Intel Core Ultra CPUs accompanied by an NPU (Neural Processing Unit for short), MSI is following in the footsteps of Microsoft and many other manufacturers on the subject of artificial intelligence. Here, the goal is to take advantage of the machine’s capabilities to run AI programs internally.
For this, the Taiwanese manufacturer has developed a number of dedicated applications, including AI Artist, intended to generate images from text commands, for example. It remains to be seen how the tool will fare against solutions like Midjourney or DALL-E 3. In any case, MSI wants to emphasize confidentiality here, ensuring that no data will need to be accessed. be transferred to servers external to the user’s machine.
The company will also offer AI Noise Cancellation Pro, which will cancel ambient noise picked up by the user’s microphone during voice conversations. The idea is close to what NVIDIA is offering with Broadcast, but it is not yet known whether MSI’s technology will use the same components to power its solution.
Finally, more anecdotally, the AI Engine software will have to optimize “ automatically adjust laptop settings such as display, audio, power profiles, and keyboard backlight based on the application in use “. Let’s hope that it will be a truly innovative tool, and not one of those AI-powered gadgets that are likely to become widespread in 2024.
In any case, we will have the opportunity to show you all this in detail throughout CES. In addition, MSI will hold its own conference to tell us about it in person on Wednesday, January 10 at 4 p.m.
Source: MSI press release
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