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REVIEWS: MSI ALPHA 15 B5EEK – AMD RADEON RX 6600M 8GB IN ACTION – NOTEBOOK, BIOS
AND SOFTWARE INTRODUCTION

December 9, 2021

The MSI Alpha 15 may remind some readers of an older model, also called the MSI
Alpha 15, which I tested last May. The older model was one of the first laptops
to carry an AMD Radeon RX 5500M 4GB graphics card and also used an AMD Ryzen 7
3750H processor. This model received a significant upgrade for this year in the
form of notebook processors AMD Ryzen 5000 series, specifically it is possible
to choose a configuration with a six-core Ryzen 5 5600H or with an eight-core
Ryzen 7 5800H. The graphics card used here is the Radeon RX 6600M, which has an
8GB GDDR6 VRAM on a 128-bit bus, while it is primarily a competition to the
GeForce RTX 3060 6GB (but it depends a lot on power limits). The configurations
are completely identical outside the processor, currently the version with the
six-core Ryzen 5 5600H is very interesting, as it sells for some 32,000 CZK with
VAT, while the higher model with the Ryzen 7,589H has a price tag of 39,990 CZK
with VAT.

The hardware of the piece tested today looks like this:

 * AMD Ryzen 7 5800H – 3,2GHz, Turbo až 4,4GHz, 16MB L3, 54W TDP, 7nm, 8C/16T
 * 2x8GB RAM DDR4-3200 CL-22-22-22-52 1T
 * AMD Radeon RX 6600M 8GB 65-75W
 * AMD Radeon RX Vega 8 Mobile (iGPU)
 * 15,6“ AU Optronics B156HAN08.0, 1920×1080, IPS, FreeSync 48-144Hz
 * Kingston OM8PCP3512F-AI1 512GB M.2 2280 PCIe NVMe Gen3 x4
 * Intel AX200 WiFi 6 (802.11ax + Bluetooth 5.2)
 * 4 cell 90Wh baterie
 * 180W adapter
 * Windows 10 Home v21H1






The notebook has a relatively reasonable configuration, especially the cheaper
model with a six-core, but for an eight-core I would appreciate at least 1TB
SSD, the surcharge for two extra cores seems too high. The notebook arrived in
its sales package directly from the distribution and it was not a special piece
for reviewers. Inside the MSI box we find the second MSI box, in which we find
the notebook itself, a 180W power adapter (it has surprisingly reasonable
dimensions and looks more like a slightly wider 90W adapter from Lenovo) and
manuals.



The notebook itself weighs 2.35 kilograms and measures 359 x 259 x 23.95
millimeters. MSI doesn’t try to make a super thin razor, which is good. The top
cover of the logo display is metal, similar to the previous Alpha 15 model,
however the palmrest and the bottom cover are made of plastic, which does not
necessarily matter. The laptop has no ports in the back, only two cooling vents.



On the left side we find a DC barell plug connector for the charger, cooling
outlet and two USB-A ports, one providing only USB 2.0 connectivity and the
other 5Gb / s.



On the other side of the laptop we find the rest of the port equipment, there is
a gigabit RJ45 connector, HDMI 2.0 output (connected to Radeon RX 6600M), USB-C
providing 5Gb / s USB connectivity and DisplayPort 1.2 (connected to Radeon RX
6600M). The equipment is completed by a second USB-A 5Gb / s port, a 3.5 mm
audio combo jack and an LED indicating the battery status.



Compared to the older Alpha 15 model, some ports have been reduced on the new
model, which is a pity in my opinion. We lost one 3.5mm jack, miniDisplayPort,
SD card reader and one USB 5Gb / s port was reduced to the older USB 2.0. We can
still connect three external monitors to the laptop, but you must use a dock
that supports DisplayPort, or a monitor that supports at least DisplayPort 1.2
and allows other monitors to be daisy-chained. The Kensington lock socket has
also disappeared, but I don’t consider it a serious problem.



Opening the laptop will show us the fabric protection of the keyboard. The
keyboard on the old Alpha 15 was quite decent, but the new model was inspired by
the competition and someone decided to rearrange some characters in the numeric
keypad. The right part of the keyboard is so strangely pressed, instead of the
Delete key we have a power button and overall I am not completely happy with the
layout and I do not know if I could get used to it in the long run. It would be
much better to install the keyboard without a numeric keypad. The keyboard has a
configurable RGB LED backlight. I like the presence of Num Lock and Caps Lock
LEDs right in the keys.



Below the keyboard you will find the classic multi-touch full-click touchpad,
which also supports gestures within Windows 10 (probably also in Linux, but I
personally do not use the touchpad unless it is absolutely necessary, so I did
not try it).



The notebook also has a pretty decent AU Optronics B156HAN08.0 display with
standard 1920×1080 resolution, less standard is the support of FreeSync
technology in the range of 48 to 144 Hertz, which is not bad. The display itself
indicates MSI as IPS level with a color coverage of 72% NTSC and a brightness of
up to 300 nits. So this is not a great panel for graphics, but it is quite OK
for some of the gaming. The display is connected directly to the integrated
Radeon RX Vega 8 in the processor and since the notebook does not have a MUX
chip, we must expect some reduction in performance due to data transfer from
dGPU to iGPU.



A standard 720p 30FPS webcam with two microphones on the sides also sits above
the display.



Traditionally, I couldn’t resist looking inside the laptop, I’m always
interested in how the manufacturer handled the cooling and placement of
components, and I try to estimate the possibilities of possible repairs.



If you suffer from OCD, the lower lid will probably not please you at all, as we
will find some elongated hexagonal ventilation vents with various
permeabilities, some of which are completely closed and thus airtight, and this
whole treatment is somewhat crooked, which can affect people suffering from OCD.
cause discomfort. That in itself doesn’t matter, it’s just design, and I
actually like it because I don’t suffer from OCD (or not enough to bother me).
The fact that both fans are covered with plastic and perforations can be found
all around. Of course, it can be argued that it is deliberate for the airflow to
cool the components around, which is something some older business class laptops
did, but it could help if the perforations were directly under the fans.

The lower lid holds in place thirteen screws, one of which is very, very short,
the others are the same. After unscrewing, the bottom lid can be carefully
snapped off, I recommend the classic plastic “pick” or “plastic pry tool”. The
bottom lid is all plastic and we won’t find anything special inside.



However, the insides of the laptop are a bit more interesting. And I’m a little
happy, most important components like RAM, SSD, WLAN, the battery is
user-replaceable, which is unfortunately not standard nowadays. I am also very
pleased with the fact that the laptop’s power connector is not soldered to the
motherboard, but is located separately and connected to the board with a cable.
So if the user totally grunts this connector, the repair is extremely easy and
you don’t have to solder anything. Here, MSI has a big plus for me from the
point of view of a service technician who sometimes repairs such things. The
lower parts of the laptop are dominated by a four-cell battery with a capacity
of 90 Wh, here I already feel very good battery life even without testing
(unless the laptop has crazy power management).



The notebook has a WiFi module Intel AX200 from Intel with WiFi 6 support, if
the user wants, he can change the card over time (for example, for a successor
with WiFi 6E support).



The notebook also has two M.2 slots, each of which provides four PCIe Gen3 lines
directly from the processor. The original Alpha 15 had one M.2 slot and a
position for a 2.5 “SATA drive, personally nowadays I prefer M.2 SSD, but
enthusiasts of hot disks will not be pleased. In the first M.2 slot we will find
the SSD Kingston OM8PCP3512F-AI1 512GB, it’s a pity that MSI didn’t install a
1TB SSD in this price range, fortunately we can relatively easily add a second
NVMe drive, which I did, because the Steam library on the 512GB SSD somehow
doesn’t fit in. So many things I let go of the Samsung 970 EVO 2TB in the second
slot.



Two slots on DDR4 SODIMM memory will also please, we will find a completely
standard 8GB 1Rx8 3200 MT / s modules manufactured by SK hynix. Fortunately,
trolling in the form of 1Rx16 chips does not take place. Performance would
probably be increased a little by using two 16GB dual-rank modules, but that
would increase the price.



Cooling looks quite reasonable on a 45W CPU and 65W GPU, however in reality the
power limits are rather higher. The processor has one circuit with two passives
and one fan, while the Radeon RX 6600M has two fans and its own extra passives.



Now a little about CPU and GPU configuration, AMD CPU and GPU support SmartShift
technology, although it is not entirely clear to me what the combined limit of
both components is. Namely, the processor itself can consume 80 watts of energy
in the short term and up to 54 watts in the long run. The AMD Radeon RX 6600M
graphics card then fluctuates in the range of 65-75 Watts depending on the type
of load, when playing games it is rather around 65W, in the intensity load of
the GPU itself it is then 75 Watts stably. This sounds pretty good in terms of
efficiency, I also tested the performance of the processor in the Cinebench R23
with different power profiles. I will immediately reveal that the Extreme mode
does not make much sense to me, cooling has a problem cooling the processor and
the laptop is very noisy. The Balanced profile with 54W long-term TDP is
switched on by MSI at the factory, so I test in this mode. The Super Battery
mode is also interesting, which will make the Ryzen 7 5800H something like the
Ryzen 7 PRO 5850U.

graph-6






Windows 10 Home was installed on the laptop, which I upgraded to version 21H1,
because at the time of testing it was the latest version of Windows 10. I also
upgraded the drivers of both graphics cards to the latest version Adrenalin
21.11.2, which went smoothly and everything worked as he has.













SOFTWARE



In addition to drivers and MSI utilities, I found the obligatory Norton
Antivirus on the laptop, which committed Sudoku and was not present during
testing. OneDrive and Office 365 did the same.





MSI CENTER



MSI Center is such a default program in which we find many configuration
options. We can set power profiles here (this can also be done using a keyboard
shortcut), how both fans should behave, disable the webcam, set the RGB LED
backlight of the keyboard, download drivers and so on. The program is quite
clear and minimalist, which I perceive as a positive thing.














BIOS

I will mention the BIOS very briefly. MSI laptops have one interesting feature,
and that is a special keyboard shortcut that unlocks normally locked BIOS
options. The shortcut must be used directly in the BIOS and its wording looks
like this:

pravé Ctrl + pravý Shift + levý Alt + F2

After using this shortcut, many options will be unlocked for us. First, look at
what the BIOS looks like without unlocking.





And this is what the BIOS looks like after unlocking, we suddenly have a lot of
options that come in handy if we want to somehow tune the performance of the
laptop, or set up a SR-IOV for virtualization and so on. I tried to overclock
the memory from 3200 MT / s to 3333+, but nothing above 3200 was stable, so I
quit. Likewise, changing the power limits of the processor does not make much
sense, as they are still quite high. Even so, I really appreciate this choice
and I hope that MSI will keep this functionality on newer notebooks.





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