MSI has announced new Prestige professional laptops in two sizes, headlined by the inclusion of the AI-centric Intel Core Ultra "Meteor Lake" processors just unveiled by the chip maker.
The MSI Prestige 13 AI Evo and the Prestige 16 AI Evo lead the charge for MSI on the business and professional fronts, making use of the Core Ultra chips’ on-die neural processing unit (NPU) for AI tasks. MSI also has the Prestige 16 AI Studio, which includes a discrete Nvidia GPU upgrade. The Prestige 13 AI Evo starts at $1,049, and the Prestige 16 at $1,399, available now at Newegg.
We were able to check out these laptops prior to their public reveal, so watch the video up top for a closer look at the features and design, with more details below.
The Meteor Lake Difference: Introducing Core Ultra AI
We’ll get to the laptops themselves, but Intel’s new silicon and its on-board NPU is the real story here. It’s a lot to summarize: You can read our standalone Core Ultra coverage for the full details on this “Meteor Lake” architecture, what an NPU can do, and the purported features of this platform. See also our initial tests of the first Core Ultra laptop we received in PC Labs, an update of the Acer Swift Go 14.
(Credit: Intel)In shorter terms, the “Core Ultra” brand of mobile processors (of which Meteor Lake is the first generation) will live alongside Intel’s more traditional “Core i” lineup, currently at 13th Gen “Raptor Lake” in laptops. These new chips include dedicated NPUs that handle AI tasks at the system level, rather than processing them in the cloud.
Local AI processing can be faster and more efficient than a server running the request for you remotely, but you need this new bespoke architecture to handle it locally in a workable manner. It’s also meant to be power efficient; the NPU will have relatively low draw to handle these tasks in the background rather than bring your laptop to a halt, or kill your battery. Expect the chips to first appear in thinner, lighter systems, though more widespread adoption is inevitable.
(Credit: Intel)What are the use cases for this? As the video mentions, we're seeing an increasing range of major applications that include AI features. These can be media processing, applying filters, creating images, managing background blur or eye-contact correction on webcams, and much more.
These tasks will be handled by the NPU, so your CPU can stay focused on crunching data and running software. The idea is that, with these burgeoning features available, offloading them on to the NPU doesn’t over-burden the CPU (or GPU, depending on the task), which would slow down your computer. The NPU is optimized to run these workloads in an efficient manner, as well, taking the load off the less-optimized CPU or GPU portions of the silicon. Adding features shouldn’t reduce performance, so this dual solution is the way forward for Intel.
On top of the general independent software vendor (ISV) support, each PC maker is putting its own spin on AI features. For MSI, on these Prestige laptops, the company's AI Engine software can detect which application you have focused on the screen, and switch the hardware tuning accordingly. I tested this out first-hand, and it worked pretty seamlessly.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)Pulling up an application causes a notification to pop up on screen from the MSI Center software, telling you the AI has adjusted the settings to fit that application. Changing your focused window to something like Zoom will prompt AI Engine to switch to a communications-focused Intelligent Meeting mode, optimizing the camera and microphone, while switching to a more productivity-minded and processing-centric program will prompt AI Engine to ramp up the system fans and performance modes in Intelligent Work mode. You'll also find Intelligent Gaming and Intelligent Entertainment modes.
These are just some scenarios in which the hardware AI in the Core Ultra platform can help your workflow, with many more to come as individual applications adopt these features. Microsoft Co-Pilot built into Windows, once it’s more ubiquitous, will also benefit greatly from local AI hardware in the future.
The Laptops! Bringing Prestige to the Office
As for the actual laptops on hand here, the Prestige 13 AI Evo and 16 AI Evo are slick professional systems. These are both thin-and-light machines; even the 16-inch model measures 0.74 inch thick and 3.3 pounds—showing some heft for professional work, yes, but still quite portable. The 13-inch model is only 2.18 pounds and 0.66 inch thick, two aspects qualifying it as an Intel Evo laptop (hence the name). Both feel well made and totable in hand, with restrained, office-friendly styling.
The Prestige 13 AI Evo features a 13.3-inch display that comes as either an 1800p OLED panel, or a 1200p FHD+ LCD panel. The Prestige 16 AI Evo’s 16-inch screen can be either a QHD+ display, or an OLED UHD+ panel. You'll notice a generous screen-to-body ratio on these systems, and the displays look bright and sharp in person, maximizing the impact on that screen size while keeping the bodies compact.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)The two differ on components and connectivity, too, though they share the same DNA and general audience. The Prestige 13 runs Intel’s new Core Ultra 7 H-series processor and Intel Arc Graphics, with no options for a discrete GPU. You'll find DDR5 memory on board (up to 32GB of it), as well as up to 2TB of SSD storage.
The system features Wi-Fi 7, and on the physical port side, includes two USB Type-C ports with Thunderbolt 4 support, a USB Type-A port, an HDMI connection, a headphone jack, and a micro SD card reader. You'll also find a full HD IR webcam and a fingerprint reader.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)The Prestige 16, meanwhile, has a higher overall ceiling. It runs up to Intel’s Core Ultra 9 H-series processor, the top of the line for the new Meteor Lake stack. The base Prestige 16 tops out at Intel Arc graphics, and includes two USB Type-C ports (one with Thunderbolt 4 support), a USB Type-A port, an HDMI connection, a headphone jack, and a full-size SD card slot.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)The 16-inch model doesn’t stop there, though. MSI is also offering a Prestige 16 AI Studio variant. It's the same core system, but technically a separate offshoot with a different name, meant for the most demanding users in this category. It can support Nvidia GeForce RTX 4050, RTX 4060, and RTX 4070 GPUs—which is to say, so much more graphics power than the base model. It has the same port layout, but two of its USB-C ports support Thunderbolt 4, and it has two M.2 slots rather than just one. Both support Wi-Fi 7 and come with a fingerprint reader and an IR FHD webcam.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)In addition to the launch stock on Newegg, models will also be available at Costco, Best Buy, B&H, and Micro Center soon. Check back for full reviews when units become available, in which we'll get more time to thoroughly test MSI's AI Engine tools and how the Meteor Lake chips perform in the real world, both for AI and "classic" tasks.