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MSI’s Creator Z16P is a very powerful content creation powerhouse that will set you back a lot of money. With a 12th Gen Intel Core i9-12900H CPU, an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 Ti GPU with 16GB VRAM, a 16:10 golden ratio display with QHD+ (2560 x 1600) resolution, a 165Hz refresh rate touch screen, and a stylus, I’m surprised it didn’t just drive to my house and deliver itself.
The Z16P is a portable workstation for creating content. It can handle the power-hungry needs of Adobe Creative Suite, enjoys editing and colour grading in DaVinci Resolve, and even lets you play games. This beautiful, sleek machine is always ready to be turned on and put to work, but it costs a lot. Read on to find out if the MSI Creator Z16P is really worth taking out a loan for and why it made our list of the best photo editing laptops, best video editing laptops, and best workstations.
MSI Creator Z16P Specifications
Specification | Description |
---|---|
Processor | 11th Gen Intel Core i7 or i9 |
RAM | Up to 64 GB DDR4 |
Storage | Up to 2 TB NVMe SSD |
Display | 16-inch WQXGA+ (2560 x 1600) Mini LED |
Graphics | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 or 3080 |
Battery life | Up to 8 hours |
Weight | 2.2 kg |
Operating system | Windows 10 or Windows 11 |
MSI Creator Z16P review: Design

The MSI Creator Z16P is a great example of how powerful simple elegance can be. It has a Lunar Gray CNC all-aluminum chassis. If Lockheed Martin ever tried to make a laptop, I think it would look something like the MSI Creator Z16P. It has a tough but elegant look. MSI put a lot of thought into the Z16P, from its elegant, understated lines to its huge 16:10 golden ratio touch display. This lets the Z16P’s performance and style do the talking.
On the back of the lid, the Lunar Gray frame makes the black MSI logo stand out. When the unit is closed, the lid and body have chrome accents on all four sides where they meet the bottom. When you open it up, you’ll see a big keyboard and a big deck with a touchpad that has a chrome edge. The fingerprint reader is to the right of the touchpad, below the keyboard. Just above the keyboard is the grill that holds the speakers that are tuned by Dyna Audio. You can buy this laptop from its official website
Keyboard and Trackpad

The CreatorPro Z16P’s case is the same as that of the regular Creator Z16P, which means that the connections and input devices are the same as well. Even in the office, the dark grey (Lunar Gray) case shouldn’t be a problem as long as you don’t go with the keyboard lighting, where each key’s colour can be set separately. The keyboard itself is very comfortable to type on, and a long key stroke is helpful. Even good business laptops can keep up with the CreatorPro in this way. The same is true for the ClickPad, which works fine.
MSI Creator Z16P review: Display
The Creator Z16P has a 16-inch display with a 16:10 aspect ratio and small bezels on the sides and top. It also has a slightly larger chin than the XPS 15. It is the same width and depth as the Creator Z16, but it is 0.75 inches thicker and weighs 5.27 pounds more than the Creator Z16.
This is because the thermal design has been improved. The Prestige Z16P is about the same width and depth as the Lenovo ThinkPad x1 Extreme Gen 4, which is also a 16-inch performance laptop but is only 0.70 inches thick and 3.99 pounds light. The Creator Z16P is a big laptop that you probably won’t want to carry around more than you have to.
MSI Creator Z16P review: Graphics
The MSI Creator Z16P is a beast. It has an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 Ti GPU with 16GB of VRAM. It never slowed down or didn’t work well when we used Adobe Premiere or DaVinci Resolve to edit videos. When I used Capture One to take photos of it while it was tethered to my computer, there was no delay between shots because the images were quickly sent to the screen.
A person can’t live by working all the time, so I used the Nvidia RTX 3080 Ti GPU and 64GB of RAM to wreck cars in WRC 10 and kill some enemies in Borderlands 2. Both Borderlands 2 and WRC 10 games ran smoothly at an average of 60 frames per second thanks to the 165Hz refresh rate.
We used Sid Meier’s Civilization VI: Gathering Storm (1080p) as a benchmark to test the GPU. The Z16P got an average of 60 fps in 1080p, which is much better than the average of 57 fps for a workstation laptop. It wasn’t enough to lead its group, which was won by the surprising Dell Precision 5760 with an average of 93 fps, followed by the HP Zbook Studio (Nvidia RTX 3070) with a score of 79 fps. During testing, the Asus ZenBook Duo came in last with an average of 63 frames per second (fps).
MSI Creator Z16P review: Performance
The Creator Z16P can be set up with one of several 45-watt Intel 12th-generation CPUs. The Core i9-12900H was in the review unit I used. That CPU has 14 cores (6 Performance and 8 Efficient), 20 threads, and can go up to 5.0GHz. Along with that was an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 Ti with Nvidia’s Studio drivers, which are designed to give the best performance and reliability in a variety of creative, engineering, and scientific applications. On paper, the Creator Z16P looks like it should be a very fast laptop.
My measurements proved it. When set to both “balanced” and “performance” modes with the MSI Center Pro utility, which gives precise control over thermals, the Creator Z16P got the best Geekbench 5 score of all the computers we tested. Most of the time, the utility didn’t have as much of an effect as I’ve seen in other MSI laptops, but it wasn’t because the laptop’s thermal design limited its ceiling. In performance mode, I only noticed a small amount of throttling. This model is different from the previous Creator Z16 because it has a vapour chamber cooler that has 76% more cooling area and fans that move 65% more air.
MSI Creator Z16P review: Battery Life
In order to power its huge, high-resolution display and speedy components, the Prestige Z16P packs a battery with 90 watt-hours of capacity. However, this is no guarantee of long battery life; the Creator Z16, which had a similarly sized battery but a slower processor, fell short in this regard.
The Prestige Z16P only lasted 4.75 hours on our web surfing test, which cycles through several popular and sophisticated websites. This is a score more typical of gaming laptops. Over three hours of additional time was gained by using the Dell XPS 17. The MSI only managed 5.5 hours in our video test, which plays a local 1080p movie trailer, another poor result compared to the XPS 17. Last but not least, the Prestige Z16P cut off at roughly 5.5 hours in the PCMark 10 Applications battery test, the best indicator of battery life for productivity.
MSI Creator Z16P review: Price
It’s too bad that it’s priced like a workstation and not like a multimedia machine. So, it’s a good laptop in general, but the price is a little strange. It costs less than most of the best laptops in this area. My test unit has a Core i7-11800H CPU, a GeForce RTX 3060 GPU, a 2560 x 1600 touch screen, 32GB of RAM, and 1TB of storage for $2,599.99 (MSI says the price is only $2,349.99 for a limited time).
MSI Creator Z16P review: Final Words
MSI’s Creator Z16P is almost the ideal workstation laptop for making content. It has a powerful Intel Core i9 CPU, an Nvidia RTX 3080Ti GPU, and top-of-the-line performance in its class. This makes it a great choice for content creators who want a portable workstation that can speed up their workflows.
The Z16P is one of the best workstations for creating content because it makes it easy to make media projects. But in today’s economy, $4,299 is a big investment that may be out of reach for some people. If you can afford it, though, it’s a great choice.
MSI Creator Z16P review: The good and The bad
The Good
- Great keyboard and touchpad
- Very good display
The Bad
- Expensive
FAQS
The MSI Creator Z16P is one of the fastest Windows computers for creative work that you can buy, and its screen is good enough for all but the most picky producers. It’s also a very expensive laptop, so people who need the best performance and don’t want to move to MacOS should buy it.
OS Windows 10 Pro (MSI encourages business use of Windows 11 Pro.) (MSI encourages business use of Windows 11 Pro.) OS: Windows 10 Pro. For business, MSI suggests Windows 11 Pro. Dynamic Boost gives you a boost clock of up to 1357MHz and a max graphics power of 65W.