MSI

Continuing the AI trend in the laptop market last year, this year’s related products also emphasize that the combination and integration of hardware specifications can meet the high standards of performance for AI applications, including new functions of the operating system, e-sports games and professional content creation, which are closely related to the development of AI technology.

To cater to this trend, MSI’s laptop products have also been upgraded. In addition to the latest NVIDIA GeForce RTX 50 series independent graphics cards, AI processors with built-in NPUs are also selected. In addition to the Intel Core Ultra series, more models have recently adopted AMD Ryzen processors, bringing players more diverse choices.

This article will bring you the unboxing MSI Stealth A16 AI+, which can be said to be one of the thin and light flagship models!

Appearance design

The overall design of Stealth A16 AI+ continues the slim design and mobility of the Stealth series, combined with hardware specifications, and integrates the current market choice, including the latest AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 processor and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 laptop version GPU, which can perfectly run mainstream 3A-level masterpieces, and can also support related applications including Copliot+ PCs, various LLM local deployment and image-generating AI platforms.

MSI Stealth A16 AI+ uses a simple and neat style to create the overall appearance. The body is made of magnesium-aluminum alloy, which not only greatly reduces weight, but also further maintains the slim design while maintaining the sturdy and durability of the body. Except for the Dragon Shield logo in the center on the A side, there are not too many complicated lines, making it more refreshing and pleasing to the eye.

Although the Stealth A16 AI+ is an e-sports laptop with a 16-inch large screen, the body is less than 20mm and weighs only about 2Kg. It is better than other models of the same specifications. It can be said that it greatly improves mobility and get rid of the problem of the past high-efficiency laptops being too bulky and not easy to carry out for use.

The overall appearance style of Stealth A16 AI+ is closer to the professional business style. There are no RGB lighting or lines or styling embellishments except for the keyboard area, but the design still reserves the “e-sports atmosphere” for players – lift the cover of the body and you can see the full-size e-sports keyboard on the C side of the body. The right side provides a complete numeric keypad, and also supports the single-key full-color RGB backlight effect, bringing players a more dazzling visual effect.

In addition to the full-size keyboard, Stealth A16 AI+ also provides a large-size keyless trackpad, which can perform smoother cursor control, page scrolling, application switching, etc. At the same time, an independent fingerprint identifier is also installed at the lower right of the keyboard area to improve operational convenience for system unlocking.

OLED displays provide the best visual effect

Whether it is e-sports players or professional content creation, they all have extremely high requirements for the screen display specifications of the laptop. The 16-inch 16:10 OLED panel configured by Stealth A16 AI+ is also the best solution. The resolution of QHD+ provides excellent image quality presentation, and the 100% DCI-P3 color gamut display capability can faithfully restore the original color of the image. At the same time, this screen supports ultra-high update rate up to 240Hz, which can smoothly and clearly present high-speed dynamic screen content. It can be said to be a perfect match with the built-in high-performance independent display card of the laptop.

At the same time, the extremely narrow bezel design of the Stealth A16 AI+ screen further enlarges the display range, allowing players to immerse themselves in the game. The 16:10 golden ratio of the screen itself also makes the screen display space more abundant, and it can further improve the operating experience when running content creation tools or AI applications with complex interfaces.

Complete connection port configuration to meet the needs of external equipment expansion

The slim Stealth A16 AI+ still provides rich and fully functional connection port configurations in the limited body space. The left side of the body is equipped with a 2.5 GbE RJ-45 Ethernet port, HDMI 2.1 and a set of USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-A; the right side is equipped with a square power interface, a set of USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-A, a set of USB Type-C with USB4 specifications and a 3.5mm headphone microphone two-in-one interface.

Although the Stealth A16 AI+ has not many built-in ports, the specifications meet the current mainstream needs. USB4 not only supports high-speed transmission, but also has DP 1.4 video output and 100W PD 3.0 fast charging capabilities, providing more diverse application methods.

Hardware performance testing

Although it emphasizes slimness and lightness and easy portability, the MSI Stealth A16 AI+ is essentially a flagship-level e-sports laptop. The model we unboxed is A3XWIG, and the focus is naturally on the performance dual core – the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 laptop version GPU, both of which are the top specifications in the current laptop platform.

In addition, Stealth A16 AI+ is also paired with a high-performance LPDDR5X-7500 memory and PCIe Gen4 x4 SSD, which improves the overall performance of the system.

In terms of processor performance, AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 has excellent specifications of 12 cores, 24 execution threads and 24MB L3 cache memory. The single-core performance measured by Cinebench R23 is 2000 pts, the multi-core performance is 23458 pts, the Cinebench R24 is 114 pts, and the multi-core performance is 1159 pts. Through the Geekbench 6 test, the CPU single core scored 2890 points, the CPU multi-core scored 12050 points, and the OpenCL scored 31589 points.

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 laptop version GPU equipped with Stealth A16 AI+ is also top-notch, with 7,680 CUDA cores and 16 GB GDDR7 video memory, with an overall computing performance of 1334 AI TOPS. Through 3DMARK, it achieved 34885 points in the DirectX 11 standard Fire Strike, and 15746 points in the DirectX 12 standard Time Spy.

Port Royal, an instant ray tracing review, also received a good score of 11244 points. In addition, through the NVIDIA DLSS functional test, the average frame rate is increased by nearly 4 times when the grid is turned on and the average frame rate is increased by as much as 7 times when the grid is turned on and the average frame rate is increased by as much as 4 times.

In terms of the overall performance evaluation of the system, the measured scores through the three modes of PCMARK 10 are above the top 80% of all test models, proving the top performance of Stealth A16 AI+. The built-in PCIe Gen4 x4 SSD also has excellent performance. Through CrystalDiskMark actual measurement, the sequential read speed reaches 7027.40 MB/s and the sequential write speed reaches 4953.97 MB/s; the 3DMARK storage benchmark test also obtained 1983 points, with an average read and write bandwidth of 337.59 MB/s.

In terms of 3D image rendering performance, we tested it through Blender’s performance benchmark tool, and the CPU scored 302.47 points and the GPU scored 5652.70 points. Among them, the GPU ranked in the top 4% of the test, and the score was very top. In addition, through the actual test of the V-Ray Benchmark tool, the V-Ray mode scored 23,313 points, the V-Ray GPU mode scored 4,013 points, and the V-Ray GPU RTX scored 5,465 points, all of which were excellent.

Game performance test

In terms of game testing, we have selected a number of 3A-level game masterpieces and tested them with the screen native QHD+ as the benchmark. Among them, “Tomb Shadow” which supports DLSS 2 technology can reach an average frame rate of 135 FPS when the image quality and ray tracing are at the highest; “Forza: Horizon 5” which supports DLSS 3 technology can achieve an ultra-high frame rate performance of 190 FPS when setting the highest “extreme” on the screen and turning on DLSS balance and grid generation.

“Monster Hunter: Wilderness”, which also supports DLSS 3 technology, can get an average frame rate of 110.58 when the image quality is set at the highest and the ray tracing is also turned on to the highest. In “Singling Rebel 2077”, which already supports DLSS 4, when the material quality is set at the highest and the ray tracing is turned on to the highest, when the DLSS balance and 4x ray tracing is turned on, it can get an excellent result of 181.58 FPS.

It is also extremely effective and has also been updated to support DLSS 4. “Black Myth: Wukong” can achieve 142 FPS when setting the image quality level to the super high, turning on panoramic ray tracing to the ultra-high, starting DLSS to 60% and turning on the grid to become 4x.

Overall, whether it is the old 3A masterpiece that supports DLSS 2, DLSS 3 or DLSS 4, it has excellent smooth performance through Stealth A16 AI+, especially racing, FPS or action-type games that pursue smoothness. In the running mode of FPS of 100, the gaming experience can be greatly improved, and it can also be perfectly matched with the extremely high update rate of the built-in screen of Stealth A16 AI+.

AI application complete

The Stealth A16 AI+, which uses the AMD Ryzen AI 9 processor, itself complies with the performance standards of Microsoft Copilot+ PC. In addition to the standard Copilot shortcut keys on the keyboard, it can quickly call AI assistants, and can also create images through the new CoCreator tool in AI-assisted way, or use the Recall function to quickly browse system information, and also has Live Captions that support instant translation in multiple languages.

MSI has also incorporated AI technology into its own MSI Center, such as the “MSI AI Smart Engine” that can automatically optimize the system, and also has the “AI Smart Noise Reduction Professional Edition” module function that optimizes the quality of video conference calls, further improving optimization in different situations.

In addition, the official website also provides MSI AI ROBOT tools. Any MSI laptop equipped with RTX 50 series laptop GPU can be downloaded and installed by itself, allowing users to set the system’s function through dialogue, saving the hassle of manually searching for function menus.

Conclusion

The biggest feature of MSI Stealth A16 AI+ is “integrating top-notch hardware specifications into a slim body”. In addition to the powerful combination of AMD Ryzen AI processor and RTX 5080 graphics card, it is not difficult to find out from the previous actual test that the actual performance has not been discounted due to the thinner and thinner laptop itself.

This is thanks to the “dynamic cooling group” design of MSI’s powerful Cooler Boost 5 cooling system. The heat dissipation conduit is passed through the CPU and GPU at the same time, which not only improves the cooling efficiency, but also reduces the noise during full speed. Long-term high-load operation remains stable. Whether it is facing 3A-level game masterpieces, professional content creation, or various types of AI applications to accelerate operations, it provides stable performance output and smooth usage experience.

Of course, the e-sports-grade OLED screen used by Stealth A16 AI+ is also a major advantage. In addition to the 16-inch large picture and a wide display range of 16:10, the 100% DCI-P3 display capability meets the needs of gaming, entertainment and professional work, and the 240Hz ultra-high update rate also provides smoother dynamic visual effects.

Overall, Stealth A16 AI+’s excellent performance can be used as the main platform for e-sports players, and can also become a mobile workstation for content creators and professional AI applications. In addition to its excellent performance, MSI’s integration of AI at the software level also makes daily office, creation, conferences and entertainment more efficient and intuitive, making Stealth A16 AI+ a modern laptop flagship that truly connects all-round cross-border needs.