MSI GE62VR 6RF Apache Pro Review: A Pascal-Powered Gaming Laptop

In the following benchmarks we employ two very different battery life tests--Battery Eater Pro and a custom 1080p HD video loop test--to prove out battery life with our test group of machines and the Apache Pro. In all tests, Windows 10 Quiet Hours have been enabled and displays are calibrated with lux meters on pure white screens to as close to 115 lux as possible. For the average notebook this is somewhere between a 45 - 60% brightness setting.

Since notebook displays significantly affect power consumption and battery life, it's important to ensure a level playing field with respect to brightness of the display for battery testing. However, since many notebook displays vary in brightness at each respective brightness setting in Windows, this calibration with the meter is also critical to ensure all displays are set to as near identical brightness as possible before testing.

Battery Life Testing Heavy-Duty Workload And Light-Duty Battery Life Performance Tests

Battery Eater works all subsystems including processor, graphics, memory and storage in its efforts to exhaust a battery as soon as possible. We have lots of legacy comparison data on this test, so we have a wider swath of numbers to compare to.

The HD video loop test, however, is new for us here, so we're still compiling reference numbers from a variety of different systems and notebook products.


As is often the case when evaluating gaming laptops, battery life tends to be the Achilles' heel. That's the case here with the Apache Pro just 72 minutes of run time when battered by Battery Eater Pro, and about 2 hours and 16 minutes in our home brewed video loop test. The latter is the lowest of the bunch out of the systems we compared it against.

Word to the wise, make sure you're near a power outlet. That should be obvious when gaming, but it's also sound advice even when performing lightweight chores.

Acoustics:
Despite all the power the Apache Pro is packing, it's not a noisy machine in most instances. There's not much to be heard from the laptop unless you really tax the CPU and GPU, at which point the cooling fans kick on and ramp up depending on thermals. However, even when fully taxed with the fans blowing out hot air, the noise level isn't egregious—we've certainly heard louder gaming laptops.