Gaming innovations from MSI at CES 2026 — VGTimes report from Las Vegas (Part 2)

This article continues our coverage of the MSI exhibition area at CES 2026. While the first part of the report focused on Prestige laptops designed for business and productivity, this article is dedicated to the new gaming systems showcased to us by MSI representative Andy Chu.

From a hardware perspective, this year turned out to be rather unusual, as Intel was the only company to introduce a truly new platform — Panther Lake. NVIDIA and AMD currently have no fully new solutions: AMD’s Gorgon Point is still based on Zen 5, just like Strix Point and Hawk Point. Nevertheless, MSI has refreshed its entire lineup of 16-inch gaming laptops — from flagship models to thin and light systems in the mid-range and entry-level segments.

The company’s flagship gaming device for 2026 will be the Raider 16 Max. MSI positions it as the most powerful gaming laptop in the world, delivering up to 300 W of combined CPU and GPU power.

The engineers have completely redesigned the cooling system: it now includes six heat pipes and three fans. The idea is that the additional fan improves airflow inside the chassis and helps reduce overall noise levels, effectively turning the motherboard into a kind of heat buffer, allowing the fans to ramp up to high speeds less frequently.

Other companies that also use three fans in their devices often remove rear ports altogether, turning the entire back of the chassis into a continuous exhaust zone. This approach is effective for cooling, but it reduces convenience when connecting thick cables such as HDMI or RJ-45 LAN at the rear.

To combine the advantages of both approaches, MSI designed a separate exhaust channel for the third fan. This allows heat to be expelled efficiently while still preserving rear I/O ports.

In addition, the company significantly simplified the upgrade process for Raider 16 users. MSI developed a quick-access panel: you only need to remove two screws, lift a latch, and you immediately gain access to the RAM and SSD. There is no longer any need to remove the entire bottom cover.

The design of the new version of the Stealth 16 — MSI’s thin gaming laptop — has been significantly reworked:

Despite its reduced dimensions, the new-generation Stealth 16 delivers 20 W more GPU power than the previous model. With top-end RTX 5090 or RTX 5080 Laptop GPUs, it supports up to 125 W. With RTX 5060 or RTX 5070 Laptop GPUs, it goes up to 150 W, which is effectively full power.

Since this is a thin and lightweight model, MSI opted for Panther Lake rather than Arrow Lake Refresh in order to improve energy efficiency and battery life. It is also equipped with a large 90 Wh battery, making the Stealth 16 one of the longest-lasting thin gaming laptops.

Notably, even with its more compact form factor, MSI did not sacrifice upgradeability or connectivity. The laptop still offers two RAM slots, two SSD slots, and a full set of ports: HDMI, two USB-A ports, two USB-C ports with Thunderbolt 4 support, and even an RJ-45 LAN port, which is increasingly rare in thin gaming laptops.

As for the mid-range segment, MSI refreshed the Crosshair lineup with a new design and chassis. In addition, to reduce confusion caused by overlapping model names, Crosshair is being moved up to replace more expensive models, while Katana will be gradually phased out and replaced by Crosshair in the lower segment.

All Crosshair models deliver up to 200 W of combined CPU and GPU power, with 115 W allocated to RTX 5060 or RTX 5070 Laptop GPUs, and the remaining 85 W reserved for Arrow Lake Refresh processors.

These laptops offer everything gamers expect: a keyboard with 24-zone RGB backlighting, a wide selection of ports — three USB-A and two USB-C (one with Thunderbolt 4) — and rear-mounted I/O, which MSI quite reasonably considers important for convenient cable management.

The budget Cyborg laptop lineup has also received updates.

In addition, MSI has set a new minimum display quality standard: Cyborg laptops now come with panels offering at least 100% sRGB color coverage, even at a price point of around $1,000.

For an entry-level gaming laptop, connectivity is also excellent: three USB-A ports, a USB-C port with up to 100 W PD charging support, and rear-mounted ports — a rarity in this segment.

Finally, Andy Chu showed us MSI’s current lineup of handheld PCs, including the Claw A8 based on AMD Ryzen Z2 Extreme and the Claw 8 powered by Intel Lunar Lake. Traditionally, the company used white and sand color schemes for these devices, but this year at CES it also introduced two new color options for the first time: Glacier Blue and Void Purple.

Article by Rodion Ilin and Fazil Dzhyndzholiia.

VGTimes has been operating since 2011 and during this time has attended dozens of exhibitions and festivals where our journalists gathered numerous exclusive materials. For example, in 2019 we attended a closed Cyberpunk 2077 showing at gamescom, in 2017 we prepared a photo report from WG Fest, in 2020 we were at Central Asia's largest gaming event CAGS, and we also visited "IgroMir" several times, where we saw Hideo Kojima and other famous developers. Last year, we traveled to the land of the rising sun for TGS 2024, where we were amazed by the scale of the event. And this year we saw with our own eyes one of Asia's major gaming exhibitions — ChinaJoy in Shanghai and gamescom asia in Bangkok.