The Cheapest 14” Gaming Laptop? MSI Cyborg 14 Review
14 inch gaming laptops are nice and portable, but the problem is they can get expensive. It costs more to cram a bunch of hardware into a smaller space, that’s just how tech works. But this is where MSI’s Cyborg 14 comes in, a lower end more budget friendly 14 inch gaming laptop option. But of course, a lower price means we should expect compromises. Which is why I bought the Cyborg 14, to see if it’s worth buying, and to find out what sacrifices have been made for the lower price tag. But first, this part of the video
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docks and chargers with the link below. Back to the Cyborg 14. It has a black plastic finish with translucent blue accenting all over. There’s some flex to the keyboard
goes back 120 degrees, less compared to most other laptops, but it’s still easily viewable at a desk. Overall build quality isn’t as nice compared to the more expensive 14” gaming laptops, but it’s not bad either. It’s quite similar in width and depth compared to other 14” gaming laptops out there, but the Cyborg is a little thicker at the back. It still feels quite portable though, at 1.6kg or 3.6lb, increasing to 2.1kg or 4.6lb with the relatively small 120 watt charger included. My Cyborg 14 has a 10 Core Intel CPU and Nvidia’s RTX 4050 graphics with
a 14 inch 144Hz screen. It’s also available with higher tier RTX 4060 graphics, you can check options and prices with the link under the video. The keyboard has 1 zone of blue backlighting with clear WASD keys and power button. All keys and secondary functions get lit up, and you can change between 3 levels of key brightness with the F8 shortcut. Typing on the keyboard felt surprisingly good, I really liked the clicky feel. The smaller arrow keys were annoying to press though. The touchpad is fairly big and works well too, no problems there. The power button
is right next to delete and backspace, but an accidental press doesn’t do anything. You have to hold it down for quite a while before Windows asks if you want to shut down. The left side has a Kensington lock at the back, a USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A port and an audio combo jack. The right side has another 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A port, a faster 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C port, an HDMI 2.1 output and the power input at the back. There’s a gigabit ethernet port on the back. This is the only 14 inch gaming laptop with
an ethernet port, which is one of the benefits of being thicker. Unfortunately the Type-C port cannot be used to charge the laptop, but it does have DisplayPort support so you can connect a monitor. And the Type-C port also connects directly to the Nvidia discrete graphics, bypassing optimus. HDMI on the other hand connects to the integrated graphics instead. We confirmed it could run a 4K screen at 8-Bit 60Hz. If you swap to the integrated graphics only mode, the software warns that HDMI might stop working. MSI’s higher tier laptops have the HDMI connecting to the Nvidia discrete
graphics. But that’s not the case here, so I’m guessing the software just isn’t aware of the device it’s being run on and it just says the same thing regardless. Because I confirmed the HDMI output still works perfectly fine on the integrated graphics mode, as you would expect. But it’s the Type-C port that stops working, as that connects to the Nvidia GPU. Getting inside requires removing 8 Phillips head screws, all the same length. It’s not too hard to open, but it definitely needed pry tools. I’ll leave a link to these ones I use below. Inside we’ve
got the battery down the front, two DDR5 memory slots above in the middle, the single PCIe Gen 4 storage slot to the left, and Wi-Fi 6E card on the far left. Wi-Fi speed was above average and a good result. As far as 14 inch gaming laptops go, the Cyborg is only beaten by ASUS’s more expensive Zephyrus G14. The speeds from the installed 512 gig PCIe Gen 4 SSD were decent. There’s room for a double sided M.2 drive, but you might need to remove or modify the included thermal pad. Despite being on the more budget friendly
end of the spectrum, the Cyborg 14 still has two memory slots for upgrades. Only MSI’s Stealth 14 and Razer’s far more expensive Blade 14 from 2023 onwards offer that. The Stealth 14 scores the same here, while the Blade lost half a point for its uncommon TR5 screws. Most other 14 inch laptops either have soldered memory or storage. The speakers are found down the front on the left and right corners. They’re fairly loud but don’t sound that good. They’re tinny without bass, and there’s a little wrist rest vibration with music playing. The latencymon results weren’t amazing,
but still better compared to a lot of more expensive laptops we tested last year. The Cyborg 14 is powered by a 3-Cell 53.5Wh battery. Display power saver is enabled by default, which automatically lowers the screen’s refresh rate to 60Hz when you unplug the charger to save power. This is why the screen flashes black, and it goes back to 144Hz when you plug back in. Battery life was ok considering the smaller size of the battery, lasting for over 5 hours in the YouTube video playback test. Almost the same as MSI’s higher tier Stealth 14 with a
larger battery, and close to a number of more powerful gaming laptops with bigger batteries. The 14” gaming laptops with AMD processors generally last much longer though. Let’s check out thermals next. The Cyborg 14 only has 1 fan, with heatpipes shared between the CPU and GPU. There are plenty of holes underneath for air intake, and air gets exhausted out the back and on the left side, so no hot air on your mouse hand. As long as you’re right handed. The MSI Center software allows us to change between different performance modes, which from lowest to highest are
silent, balanced and extreme performance. Extreme performance mode gives you the option to overclock the GPU, but there’s no overclock enabled by default, so we haven’t tested with one. The fan speed tab lets you enable cooler boost mode, which sets the fan to full speed, or you can customize the fan curve in advanced. You can also max the fan out at any time with the function and up arrow key shortcut. The internal temps were fine when just sitting there idle. The rest of the results are from combined CPU and GPU stress tests which aim to represent
a worst case full load scenario. The internal temps are all running cool in this workload, regardless of the performance mode in use. Closing the lid didn’t change the temperature, so no problems if you want to dock the laptop. The cooling pad I test with, linked below, was able to lower temps by about 5 degrees Celsius. You can get a similar dip by setting the fans to full speed, but that’s louder too. The clock speeds were more or less the same with or without the cooling pad and fans maxed out, and that’s because thermals were nowhere
near being a limit in this workload. Clock speeds lowered a bit with the lid closed for some reason, which was strange considering the temps were fine, and that the CPU was still hitting the same 24 watt power limit in all but silent modes. Nvidia’s RTX 4050 graphics can max out at 90 to 100 watts, but MSI’s Cyborg 14 limits GPU power to just 45 watts. Considering how cool the temperatures are, they probably could have increased these power limits a bit to offer improved performance, granted that may also require a larger charger with more juice. The
power limits in balanced mode are the same as extreme mode, so in a game you might as well play in balanced mode to keep the fans quieter. The FPS difference was only minor in Cyberpunk 2077, and still close to 60 FPS at 1080p high settings without DLSS or frame generation. But we’ll see how this compares with other laptops soon. The CPU can use more power if the GPU is idle, like in Cinebench, and performance was better in the higher modes, as expected. Multicore CPU performance isn’t as good compared to the other 14 inch laptops tested
over the last year, but single core performance was comparable. To be fair, the Cyborg 14 should also be cheaper too, though as we’ll see later, that depends on sales. CPU Performance lowers if we unplug the charger and instead run off of battery power. Single core performance didn’t change much, but the dip in multicore score puts it further behind now. That said, there are far more expensive laptops scoring similarly in this test, so the Cyborg shouldn’t be too embarrassed.. Most laptops I test are in the low 30 degrees Celsius range on the keyboard at idle, and
most of it was fine, but it was a little warmer in the middle. It’s fairly warm in the middle with the stress tests running in silent mode, but it’s only right in the center. It’s similar in the higher balanced mode, but the middle doesn’t feel too hot because the hot points are in between the keycaps. Extreme mode with the fans on auto was much the same, but the WASD area and wrist rest is cold if you’re gaming. Setting the fans to full speed lowered the temps a little, but the fan is fairly loud now, let’s
have a listen. The fan was audible at idle, but it was fairly quiet. The fan speeds up in the higher performance modes, as expected. Setting the fan to full speed is quite loud, and definitely not required considering the temps were still cold without it. Using a cooling pad allowed the fan to run quieter, while still lowering the temperature just as much as setting the fan to full speed. Alright, we really need to talk about the screen, because this is one of the first areas that gets cut in a lower end more budget friendly gaming laptop.
But the Cyborg 14 surprised me! The colors were decent. Not amazing for content creation, but plenty for gaming and better compared to most other lower end budget focussed gaming laptops. The screen gets quite bright too, just shy of 500 nits at full brightness. This actually puts it ahead of most other more expensive 14 inch options, only beaten by Razer’s far more premium Blade 14. Backlight bleed was only very minor and not noticeable during normal use, but this will vary between laptops. Screen response time wasn’t bad at all either. For a 144Hz screen we want transitions
to occur within the 6.94ms refresh window, and on average we’re not far off this. Yeah, it’s not quite as fast compared to the more expensive 14” gaming laptops out there, but it’s more than twice as fast compared to a few larger budget friendly options. This is a decent result and won’t be a problem for most people when gaming. The total system latency is the amount of time between a mouse click and when a gunshot fire appears on the screen in Counter-Strike 2. It’s a decent result here too, not as good as this year’s G14, but
better than the Legion Slim 5 14 inch and MSI Stealth 14 with higher specs. Unfortunately the Cyborg 14 does not have a MUX switch, you only get the option to swap to the integrated graphics to help save battery, which requires a reboot. Honestly, this isn’t that big of a deal since the CASO update anyway, and it’s definitely not what’s holding this laptop back, as we’ll see shortly in the game benchmarks. There’s a 720p camera above the screen, but there’s no IR for Windows Hello face unlock. Here’s how the camera and microphones look and sound, and
this is what it sounds like while typing on the keyboard. Now let’s find out how well MSI’s Cyborg 14 performs in games. We’ve tested with these settings for best results. Cyberpunk 2077 was tested with our own custom test run, and I’ve got the Cyborg 14 shown by the red highlight. At 1080p it’s matching Alienware’s far more premium x14 with RTX 3060 graphics from a couple of years ago, and it’s also about the same as MSI’s GF63, a larger but even cheaper laptop. The full powered 4050 laptops, like Acer’s nitro 5 or HP’s Victus were able
to reach a 25% higher average frame rate, because the Cyborg 14’s GPU power is limited to just 45 watts. Red Dead Redemption 2 was tested with the game’s benchmark. Again at 1080p it’s near that older Alienware x14 with RTX 3060 graphics and a little ahead of MSI’s cheaper GF63 with same 45 watt RTX 4050 graphics. The higher powered 4050 laptops were 15% ahead this time, but you could also boost performance even further on all of them by turning on DLSS. Meanwhile the RTX 4060 in a more premium laptop like Lenovo’s Legion Slim 5 was 35%
faster than the Cyborg 14. It’s a similar sort of deal in Control. This game still ran above 60 FPS with the highest setting preset, so not a bad result, it’s just that other laptops with the same GPU but worse CPU were up to 34% faster. Here are the 3DMark results for those that find them useful, now for some content creator tests. Like the game tests, the results are lower compared to other similarly specced laptops due to the laptop’s lower CPU and GPU power limits. MSI’s advanced BIOS provides you with almost unlimited customization once you enter
the usual cheat code to access it. There’s just one problem. This laptop doesn’t have a right control key, because they’ve replaced it with Microsoft’s new dedicated copilot key, so you also have to press and hold the function key then hold down copilot as control. Making it a five key shortcut now. Once you can get in, you can change things from power limits, temperature limits, and way more. This is something MSI does better compared to any other brand, and is an awesome resource if you like tuning your system. Linux support was tested with an Ubuntu 23.10
live CD. By default the keyboard, touchpad, camera, speakers, ethernet and Wi-Fi all worked. Keyboard shortcuts for adjusting volume, keyboard brightness, screen brightness, and turning on max fans all worked, an excellent result. Pricing and availability will change over time, so check the link below the video for updates and current sales. And if the Cyborg 14 does have a good sale, we’ll be sure to add it to our gaminglaptop.deals website. We update that everyday to include all of the latest sales, so make sure that you check it out regularly to save money on your next gaming laptop.
At the time of recording, the higher tier configuration with RTX 4060 goes for $1100 USD, but it’s currently out of stock, so again you’ll have to check the links below the video for updates. Honestly that’s not great, considering on our gaminglaptop.deals website, link below, we have last year’s ASUS Zephyrus G14 for $100 less on sale with the same GPU with more than double the GPU power limit – so better gaming performance, in other words, and with more premium features. Of course the Cyborg 14 will probably be cheaper once it goes on sale too, it only
just launched. But yeah, right now at the time of launch it’s not looking that competitive compared to last year’s cheaper options. So I suspect it might not be too long before it starts going on sale, it’s just going to need it to compete. Ultimately, assuming a competitive price, I think that MSI have made a pretty competitive lower end 14 inch gaming laptop. The screen is fairly good, you get upgradeable RAM and storage, the keyboard and touchpad are decent, and I’m pretty sure it’s the only 14 inch gaming model with an ethernet port. Which I know
is make or break for some people. More premium features like a G-Sync, Type-C charging, and MUX switch are missing, as they increase the cost – but to be fair, the MUX switch isn’t as useful as it used to be since the CASO update anyway. If you don’t know what I’m talking about I’ll leave a link to that CASO video in the description. The main downside is just the lower CPU and GPU power limits. Despite the 1 fan cooler, temperatures remained fairly cool in a combined CPU and GPU stress test. But that’s due to the lower
power limits. The point is there is thermal headroom available in this thing. I think that MSI could pretty easily increase the power limits which would result in higher FPS in games. They just might need to give it a slightly bigger 180 watt charger instead of 120 watt. And if I was to put my tin foil hat on I’d say that MSI might not want the Cyborg 14 sales to start cannibalizing their higher tier Stealth 14. Which does have a higher 90 watt GPU power limit, double the Cyborg. But who knows, I’m just speculating. If you’ve
made it this far but decided that you want a better 14 inch gaming laptop then check this video out next where I’ve gone in depth with ASUS’s latest Zephyrus G14. It does cost more money, but on the other hand it is better in most regards, so I’ll see you in that one next!
