Review of the MSI Bravo 15 gaming laptop with RTX 4060. Won’t break your budget

Together with you, we have already studied several models of MSI gaming laptops, including Katana, Vector, Raider, Leopard and others. This time we received a laptop from the Bravo series with an AMD processor for review – the first in our editorial office.

The modern MSI Bravo series with 15.6-inch displays and a 53.5 Wh battery is presented in different configurations: on AMD Ryzen 7 7735HS or Ryzen 5 7535HS processors, NVIDIA RTX 4050 and 4060 video cards for laptops , with DDR5 8 or 16 gigabytes, with 512 GB or 1 TB SSD.

Our version of the MSI Bravo 15 C7VF-038RU is equipped with an AMD Ryzen 7 7735HS and an RTX 4060 video card with a maximum TDP of 105 W. Let’s take a closer look at the laptop.

The casing of the MSI Bravo 15 model is made in black. The lid is made of smooth plastic. It feels quite pleasant, although it still leaves slightly noticeable fingerprints. In the center of the lid there is a textured logo of the Bravo line without additional lighting.

At the bottom of the case you will see a large number of ventilation holes, made in the company’s classic honeycomb pattern. Behind it you’ll see the laptop board and the Cooler Boost 5 copper cooling system, which uses a common tube for the processor and video card.

On the left side there is a power jack, a USB 3.2 Type-A and USB 2.0 Type-A port. Here, closer to the screen, you will see a ventilation hole through which warm air is removed.

On the right side there is a charging indicator, a USB 3.2 Type-A port, a USB 3.2 Gen1 Type-C port, HDMI 2.1 and RJ45. Unfortunately without Power Delivery support.

The rear section is completely dedicated to blowing out warm air and contains no ports.

The lid opens easily and with little effort. The screen can be opened completely 180 degrees. The hinges work smoothly and the screen does not attach to the main body. The frame cannot be called thin: on the sides the width is 6.5 mm, on the top up to 13.9 mm (instead of the 720p webcam with indicator and microphones), on the bottom – 20 mm.

The model uses a 15.6-inch IPS matrix with a resolution of 1920×1080 pixels and supports a refresh rate of up to 144 Hz. The maximum brightness is about 260 cd/m², which seems insufficient for using the laptop on a sunny day. In all other cases, the brightness of the display is sufficient. The matrix cannot be called fast, but there is no significant loop in games.

The laptop does not have RGB lighting. The full-size membrane keyboard with a three-row numeric keypad offers only three brightness settings for the cyan backlight. The WASD keys are individually marked and made of translucent plastic. The power button is also highlighted, it is located in the right corner. The small touchpad has been shifted from the center to the left, without separate keys.

The battery capacity is 53.5 Wh. The kit includes a non-bulky 200W Chicony power supply.

We tested the MSI Bravo 15 C7VF-038RU laptop in synthetic tests Cinebench R23, CPU-Z and CrystalDiskMark. In this review we also added Cinebench 2024. The results are in the screenshots.

We also assessed the laptop’s power in 3DMark: Time Spy, Time Spy Extreme, CPU Profile and Storage Benchmark tests to check the speed of loading games on the SSD.

All gaming tests were performed in maximum performance mode. The measurements were taken in a room where the temperature was approximately 24 degrees. The laptop was placed on a table without a stand or additional cooling.

The temperature of the AMD Ryzen 7 7735HS processor with a declared maximum TDP of 54 W reached 80 degrees in gaming tests in very rare cases. The temperature of the RTX 4060 video card for laptops with a TDP of 105 W remained around 72 degrees. Good result with relatively bearable noise from the cooling system. You have to play with headphones, but there is no discomfort from the sound of the fans.

Alan Wake2. We used DLSS with frame generation at 1280×720 resolution (quality), maximum settings and ray tracing enabled. In this case, only the average 50 frames per second were visible. For stable 60 FPS you need to lower the quality or resolution to scale.

Without ray tracing we got 90 FPS and a smooth image.

Starfield. Maximum settings without upscaling technology and frame generation: average 65 frames per second, with drops up to 45-50 FPS. With FSR scaling enabled at 75% – 80 FPS. If you install a third party mod with DLSS you can add another 30-35 frames.

Cyberpunk 2077. Maximum ray tracing with path tracing (Overload mode) and ultra-graphics settings with DLSS and frame generation demonstrated 50 FPS in the built-in benchmark. It is difficult to call such a frame rate playable, especially in large urban scenes with many objects and NPCs.

On ultra-tracing settings without path tracing, you can already see an average of 70 frames per second. Without ray tracing – 110 FPS. A pretty worthy result.

The Witcher 3. Ultra settings and maximum ray tracing only showed 45-50 FPS. Therefore, for a comfortable game you will have to sacrifice quality.

MSI Bravo 15 C7VF-038RU is a gaming laptop from the budget series for those who want to relax while playing a AAA blockbuster, but are not looking for maximum graphics settings.

It can also be recommended for not the most demanding online games, because here you can get a high frame rate for a 144 Hz screen and enjoy a smooth image. As a bonus, there is a one-year manufacturer’s warranty, technical support in Russian and official service centers in many major cities of the country.

Guardian of the treasury! An ideal option for gamers with a small budget by modern standards.

Perfect installation. Normally we give this award for a strong and high-quality housing that does not make or play strange noises. And the MSI Bravo 15 can also boast of this, but I would like to separately mention the cooling system, which works like a clock and ensures that the laptop does not overheat even the slightest.