One of the great things about trade shows like Computex 2023 is that they sometimes showcase products that haven’t been fully officially announced yet. Case in point: the upcoming version of MSI’s Prestige 16 Studio laptop. It was powered by Intel’s upcoming 14th Generation Meteor Lake processors and was on display in the company’s demo suite.
MSI had announced the Prestige 16 at CES 2023 earlier this year and that unit would be leveraging the 13th Gen Core i7 Raptor Lake chip. The Computex 2023 variant appears to be leveraging Intel’s upcoming Meteor Lake parts, although the spec card states that it will feature “the latest Intel Core i7 processor.”
The Prestige 16 has a mysterious Intel Core i7 processor with 22 threads. Considering the thread count, the processor could be a Meteor Lake part with 6 P-cores, 8 E-cores, and 2 E-cores within the SoC tile. Only the P-cores feature hyper-threading, so the processor achieves a 16-core, 22-thread configuration. Additionally, Device Manager confirms that the chip has his Movidius VPU. This is a distinctive feature of Meteor Lake. The 16-core chip would feature a clock speed of 3.1 GHz, but it’s unclear if that’s the final spec.
The Prestige 16 is a lightweight laptop weighing 3.3 pounds (1.5 kilograms) with a magnesium and aluminum alloy body. The previous version weighed him 4.6 pounds (2.1 kilograms), so the Meteor Lake-based version lost about 29% of his weight.
The 16-inch display outputs 2560×1600 resolution and offers an IPS-level viewing experience. The panel specifications are the same as the conventional product. However, MSI has not confirmed whether the new model will still feature a 165 Hz refresh rate. Nevertheless, the panel is 100% DCI-P3 color space certified, which is a must for video and photography professionals.
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Consumers can choose from two versions of Prestige 16. The Evo version is Intel Evo certified, the standard model with Intel Iris Xe integrated graphics. The Studio version, on the other hand, binds Intel’s Meteor Lake processor and his Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 4060 laptop GPU with Nvidia Studio-validated drivers. This is certainly a significant upgrade over the Raptor Lake version which was housed on top of the GeForce RTX 2050 laptop GPU which was limited to a 45W power target.
MSI claims that the Prestige 16 has excellent battery life, targeting around 24 hours. However, the vendor didn’t explain how it tested battery life. This laptop supports USB PD Revision 3.1 which can charge up to 140W. Connectivity on the Prestige 16 includes 1 HDMI port, 2 USB Type-C ports and 1 USB Type-A port.
The laptop also features an integrated SD card reader and Ethernet port. Additionally, unlike the previous Prestige 16 model, the newly added fingerprint sensor is integrated into the power button instead of being on the touchpad.
According to MSI, the Prestige 16 Studio/Evo will be available in the fourth quarter of this year. This timing coincides with Intel’s plans to launch Meteor Lake in the summer.
