MSI Aegis RS 14th Gen Desktop Review: Well-Balanced PC Gaming
MSI Aegis RS 14th Gen Gaming PC: Power, Acoustics And Our Review Conclusion
MSI Aegis RS 14th Gen Gaming Desktop: Power and Acoustic Performance
For power and noise testing, we ran the Aegis under its tweaked settings, which is the experience users should have with Aegis units that have the proper BIOS version. Under full CPU and GPU load when running both Prime95 and 3DMark Time Spy Extreme graphics test 2 at the same time, the Aegis gets decently loud at around 49 dBA. Given that the noise floor in the testing environment was 40 DBA, an extra 9 decibels isn't that bad, especially when the power-hungry Core i7-14700KF was paired with a 240mm AIO cooler. If you're wearing headphones and listening to anything, from music to in-game audio, you'll hardly notice the Aegis.
The machine's fan curve also seemed to be set up well, with rising temperatures being matched equally with rising fan speeds. This is an unusually frequent area where many PCs falter, with fan curves that are sometimes far too aggressive, or too lax, or even very inconsistent. The Aegis at idle never rose above the 40 dBA noise floor, meaning it should be hard to hear, unless you're deep into heavy duty workloads or gaming.
When it comes to gaming PCs, by far the most power hungry components are almost always the CPU and GPU regardless of the workload (or lack thereof). While running Prime95 and Time Spy Extreme at the same time, the average power draw was 270 watts on the CPU and 195 on the GPU, for a total of 465 watts. This is about what we would expect given that the Core i7-14700KF has a max TDP of 253 watts and the RTX 4070 has a typical TDP of 200 watts. We don't have total system power consumption figures, but it probably landed roughly at 500 watts, meaning the 850 watt PSU has plenty of room left for upgrades.
Idle power, another area that can be challenging to get right, was also very good with the CPU drawing about 20 watts and the GPU just over 9. Combined, that's only 29 watts of power, and total system power was probably 50 watts or less. This was certainly one of the reasons why the Aegis was so quiet at idle.
Of course, low noise tends to come at the expense of temperatures, especially when you're pairing a CPU that can easily consume 300 watts or more with a relatively modest 240mm liquid cooler. In Prime95, Cinebench R23, and other CPU intensive workloads, it was common to see the 14700KF hit its throttling temperature of 100 degrees Celsius, even though the chip is designed to tolerate this. Meanwhile, the GeForce RTX 4070 VENTUS 3X levelled out at just 65 Celsius, which is really cool for a current-gen graphics card, and a testament to MSI's chassis cooling in general.
MSI Aegis RS 14th Gen Gaming PC Review Summary
With the launch of NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 40 Super series, we're hopeful MSI will bring this new GPU options to its Aegis RS 14th Gen gaming desktop. Regardless, we were able to spec out a similar machine as our test config, with as many identical components as possible for about $1,750. For about $2,100, you could upgrade the cooler to a 360mm model, the RAM to something in the ballpark of 6,400MHz and CL32 timings, the SSD to a 2TB PCIe 5.0 model, and the GPU to MSI's own VENTUS 3X OC RTX 4070 Super. That price even includes a Windows 11 Home key at its nominal cost of $125.That being said, a premium of about $300 or so is pretty competitive for a pre-built desktop PC these days. After all, you didn't have to put it together yourself, and if any component inside fails, you only have to go through MSI instead of figuring out what's wrong and who to call for warranty support of a certain part. In other words, bang for buck with the MSI Aegis RS 14 gaming desktop is fairly solid, and that's offset even more by a centralized warranty.
Disregarding value though, there is much to like about the new Aegis. Perhaps its biggest strength is the fact that it's built with off-the-shelf retail parts, something that isn't always guaranteed, especially if you shop from brands like Dell and HP. While custom desktops like the Alienware R16 certainly have their advantages as well, its upgrade path is limited in spots versus the MSI Aegis. Unlike the R16, the MSI Aegis RS 14th can accept RAM faster than 5,600MHz, is guaranteed to be compatible with standard CPU coolers, uses a case and motherboard that are compatible with other standard parts, etc.
The MSI Aegis RS is put together very well, with great cable management in the motherboard-side of the case and reasonably clean cable management on the back side. The integrated GPU support bracket is also a nice touch. And of course, if you like RGB, you'll definitely like the six RGB fans that the Aegis comes with, though MSI could have afforded to put a flashier motherboard or GPU in there as well. The sole problem we encountered with the Aegis was its initial older BIOS that was delivered with our machine. Thankfully, that's not too hard to fix even for a casual user, and it didn't really hurt performance in games as far as we could tell.
Overall, the MSI Aegis RS 14th is a solid gaming desktop when it comes to value and build quality. Hopefully it'll also see a graphics upgrade option soon, given the recent launch of the GeForce RTX 40 Super series. However, even if it doesn't, our config is still a good option, if you want a balanced a desktop with plenty of horsepower. If you're set on the Aegis RS 14th Gen, just be sure to do your software and firmware updates and enable XMP if it's not already turned on. Obviously, you want all the performance you can get out of the strong specs this machine can deliver.
