The MSI GT75 Titan Laptop Review: Hex-Core DTR

Final Words

MSI’s GT series is their top of the range, with a 15.6-inch model in the GT63, an 18.4-inch in the GT83VR, and the 17.3-inch GT75. All offer high-end laptop CPUs paired with the fastest NVIDIA GPUs available. MSI, like all gaming laptop makers, is continuously updating their products to include the latest CPUs and GPUs, and they’ve added a lot of other features to the GT75 to really make it stand out.

Design wise, there’s nothing earth-shattering here. MSI has evolved their gaming laptop styling over the years, and the GT75 Titan fits in well with the other laptops in the GT range. It looks good, and they’ve added premium materials where they count, with a nice aluminum lid, and keyboard deck. The rest of the laptop is what you’d expect out of a desktop replacement system. It’s thick, heavy, and offers plenty of air ventilation.

Arguably one of the standout features on the GT75 is the keyboard. Although the GT80 Titan first launched with a desktop class mechanical keyboard, that laptop has the keyboard mounted at the front of the system. With the GT75, MSI was able to keep the more traditional laptop design, but still implement mechanical switches. The tactile difference is immediately noticeable and welcomed. The SteelSeries keyboard also offers per-key RGB lighting and can be customized to with different lighting profiles depending on what game you are playing. The backlighting is well done, and the SteelSeries software makes it fairly easy to set it up how you like.

The move to the Intel Core i9-8950HK CPU has really moved the bar in terms of laptop CPU performance. Offering six cores and twelve threads in the same 45-Watt package as the previous quad-cores is a big win for the end user. Even if you’re only working on a single core, the 4.8 GHz maximum boost frequency is plenty to get the job done. But if you have an application or game that was limited on threads before, the 50% more threads can make a big difference.

The default display for almost all GT75 Titans is the 1920x1080 120 Hz panel. Although it’s a TN setup, the viewing angles are rated at up to 170° by MSI, and in using this system that does seem to be the case. Unlike some of the low-quality TN displays we’ve seen over the last couple of years, this one offers much better contrast, and far less shifting. The 120 Hz refresh rate makes gaming extremely smooth, and when coupled with G-SYNC, it’s a great experience. MSI does offer a 3840x2160 panel as well, which is IPS and runs at 60 Hz, but even the GTX 1080 is going to struggle with current AAA games at that resolution. Of course, at 17.3-inches, running 1920x1080 at 100% scaling is the only way to go, so you also don’t run into any odd issues, which are less of a problem today than a couple of years ago, but can still crop up from time to time.

The cooling system does a good job, and you can tweak the fan settings any way you’d like using MSI’s software. Although the Auto setting does get quite loud, it also lets the GPU run at a pretty high frequency. If you want to overclock, you can ramp the fan speed to max and get a bit more thermal room as well.

Overall, the MSI GT75 Titan is a worthy successor to the outgoing models. The GT series is not inexpensive. You can get devices that are just as fast for less money, but they are not likely to offer the same build quality, or premium features like a mechanical keyboard, and 10 Gbps network. The GT75 isn’t perfect, with minor issues like a less than amazing trackpad, but that can be overlooked when the target market is almost certainly going to be using it with a mouse on a desk. The battery life is terrible, but once again, that’s completely normal in this type of system.

Big, thick, heavy, but powerful, and refined. The GT75 Titan offers lots of configuration, plenty of features, and as much performance as we’ve ever seen in a gaming laptop.