MSI Cyborg 17 B2RW (2025) 17.3" VS MSI Katana 15 HX B14W (2025) 15.6" (Core i7-14650HX / RTX 5050 Laptop / 32GB RAM / 1TB)

The MSI Cyborg 17 B2RW (2025) and the MSI Katana 15 HX B14W (2025) both fall into the gaming laptop category, but they have some differences in design. The Cyborg 17 is slightly heavier, weighing 2500 g, while the Katana 15 is a bit lighter at 2400 g. In terms of size, the Cyborg 17 is also larger, with a width of 399 mm compared to the Katana's 359 mm, and a height of 258 mm versus the Katana's 262 mm. However, the Katana 15 is slightly thicker, with a thickness of 25 mm, compared to the Cyborg 17's 21 mm.

Both laptops have a backlit keyboard, but neither features a fanless design. Neither model is weather-sealed (splashproof), and neither has a rugged build. The internal volume of the two models also differs, with the Cyborg 17 having a volume of 2161.782 cm³, while the Katana 15 has a slightly larger volume at 2351.45 cm³.

Overall, the MSI Cyborg 17 B2RW (2025) is larger and heavier, while the MSI Katana 15 HX B14W (2025) is more compact and slightly thicker. Both share similar design features, with backlit keyboards and no rugged build or weather sealing.

The MSI Cyborg 17 B2RW (2025) and MSI Katana 15 HX B14W (2025) have distinct differences in their displays. The Cyborg 17 features a larger 17.3″ screen, while the Katana 15 has a 15.6″ screen. In terms of resolution, the Cyborg 17 has a 1920 x 1080 px display, whereas the Katana 15 offers a higher 2560 x 1600 px resolution, resulting in a sharper image on the Katana 15. This difference also affects the pixel density, with the Cyborg 17 at 127 ppi and the Katana 15 at a much higher 193 ppi, making the Katana 15's display notably more detailed.

Both laptops use an LCD, LED-backlit, IPS display type, ensuring vibrant colors and wide viewing angles. Neither model has a touch screen or an anti-reflection coating. The Cyborg 17 supports up to 4 displays, the same as the Katana 15.

In terms of refresh rate, the Cyborg 17 offers 144Hz, while the Katana 15 has a slightly higher 165Hz, providing a smoother experience for fast-moving content. Both displays have similar features, with differences in size, resolution, pixel density, and refresh rate.

The MSI Cyborg 17 B2RW (2025) and MSI Katana 15 HX B14W (2025) both offer strong performance, but they have some key differences in their specs. The Cyborg 17 comes with 16GB of RAM, while the Katana 15 has a larger 32GB. Both use flash storage with an NVMe SSD and have 1024GB of internal storage. The Cyborg 17's CPU operates at 6 x 2.5 GHz and 4 x 1.8 GHz, while the Katana 15’s CPU is slightly slower, running at 8 x 2.2 GHz and 8 x 1.6 GHz. The Cyborg 17 has 16 CPU threads, compared to the Katana 15's 24 threads.

In terms of graphics performance, both laptops are equipped with 8GB of VRAM and use GDDR7 memory. The Cyborg 17 has a GPU clock speed of 952 MHz and a GPU turbo speed of 1455 MHz, while the Katana 15 has a significantly higher GPU clock speed of 2235 MHz and a GPU turbo of 2520 MHz. The floating-point performance also differs, with the Cyborg 17 offering 9.684 TFLOPS and the Katana 15 delivering 12.9 TFLOPS. The texture rate and pixel rate also show noticeable differences: the Cyborg 17 has a texture rate of 151.3 GTexels/s and a pixel rate of 46.56 GPixel/s, while the Katana 15 improves to 201.6 GTexels/s and 80.64 GPixel/s.

Both models support multithreading and have the same maximum memory amount of 96GB, DDR memory version 5, and turbo clock speed of 5.2GHz. Additionally, they both use a 5 nm semiconductor size and support DirectX 12 Ultimate and 64-bit systems. However, neither model features XeSS (XMX) support.

The MSI Cyborg 17 B2RW (2025) and MSI Katana 15 HX B14W (2025) show some differences in benchmark results. The Cyborg 17 has a PassMark result of 24546, while the Katana 15 performs better with a PassMark result of 34910. Both laptops have similar performance in the single-core test, with the Cyborg 17 achieving a result of 3821, and the Katana 15 scoring slightly higher at 3862.

These results suggest that while both models perform well, the Katana 15 has a clear advantage in overall processing power based on the PassMark scores, although the single-core performance is quite close between the two.

Both products show solid performance in their respective benchmarks, but the Katana 15 edges out the Cyborg 17 in multi-core performance, while the single-core performance difference is relatively minor.

The MSI Cyborg 17 B2RW (2025) and MSI Katana 15 HX B14W (2025) have similar connectivity options, with both offering a USB 3.2 Gen 2 USB-C port and a USB 3.2 Gen 2 USB-A port. However, the Cyborg 17 provides two USB 3.2 Gen 2 USB-A ports, while the Katana 15 offers three. Neither laptop has any USB 4 ports, Thunderbolt ports, or RJ45 ports. Both support Wi-Fi 6E, Wi-Fi 6, Wi-Fi 5, and Wi-Fi 4 standards, ensuring a variety of wireless networking options. Additionally, both models feature Bluetooth version 5.3 and have an HDMI output with HDMI 2.1 support.

Both laptops also support AirPlay, and neither has an external memory slot, mini DisplayPort outputs, or a VGA connector. The only difference in HDMI outputs is that both have 1 HDMI port each, providing similar video output capabilities.

In terms of overall connectivity, the primary difference between the two models is the number of USB 3.2 Gen 2 USB-A ports—two on the Cyborg 17 and three on the Katana 15. Other than that, their connectivity options are largely identical.

The MSI Cyborg 17 B2RW (2025) and MSI Katana 15 HX B14W (2025) both come with sleep-and-charge USB ports, allowing you to charge devices even when the laptop is in sleep mode. However, they differ in battery size. The Cyborg 17 is equipped with a 55.2 Wh battery, while the Katana 15 has a larger 75 Wh battery, providing more potential runtime.

Neither laptop includes a MagSafe power adapter, so charging will rely on standard charging methods. The key difference between the two models in terms of battery is the Cyborg 17’s smaller 55.2 Wh battery compared to the Katana 15’s 75 Wh battery.

In summary, both models share the feature of sleep-and-charge USB ports, but the Katana 15 offers a significantly larger battery capacity than the Cyborg 17, though neither has a MagSafe adapter.

The MSI Cyborg 17 B2RW (2025) and MSI Katana 15 HX B14W (2025) share a similar set of features, including stereo speakers, a 3.5 mm audio jack, ray tracing support, DLSS support, and a 720 x 30 fps main camera for video recording. Both laptops also include one microphone, a front camera, and do not feature Dolby Atmos, a stylus, a fingerprint scanner, 3D facial recognition, voice commands, or an S/PDIF Out port.

Neither laptop has a gyroscope, GPS, accelerometer, or compass. Additionally, both laptops lack an optical disc drive, which is common for modern devices.

Overall, the features are very similar between the two models, with no significant differences. Both laptops offer solid multimedia capabilities but lack some advanced features like Dolby Atmos or additional sensors.

The MSI Cyborg 17 B2RW (2025) and MSI Katana 15 HX B14W (2025) share several similar technical features, including support for 3D, multi-display technology, and ECC memory. Both laptops use the Blackwell GPU architecture and support Intel Resizable BAR. However, they differ in several key specifications. The Cyborg 17 has a clock multiplier of 25, while the Katana 15’s is slightly lower at 22. The Cyborg 17 also has a thermal design power (TDP) of 45W, whereas the Katana 15 has a higher TDP of 50W.

When it comes to memory performance, the Cyborg 17 offers a faster effective memory speed of 28000 MHz and a much higher maximum memory bandwidth of 448 GB/s, compared to the Katana 15’s 14000 MHz and 224 GB/s. The Cyborg 17 has a slightly larger L3 cache at 24 MB, while the Katana 15 has 30 MB of L3 cache.

Additional differences include the Cyborg 17’s 3328 shading units and 64 GPU execution units, whereas the Katana 15 has fewer shading units (2560) and GPU execution units (16). Both laptops have integrated graphics, use big.LITTLE technology, and support a variety of instruction sets, but the Cyborg 17 is designed for slightly higher overall performance in GPU-related tasks, as indicated by the differences in memory bandwidth and shading units.