The MSI GT80 Titan Review: The Broadwell Gaming Laptop Your Desktop Envies
by Brett Howse on June 26, 2015 8:00 AM ESTGPU Performance
With the GT80 Titan packing in not one but two GTX 980M GPUs, and with each GPU having 8 GB of memory, MSI has the most potent combination available today. We just saw that the processor choice is potent in its own right, being able to outperform faster clocked Haswell parts, but will it be enough to feed two GPUs?
For 2015, we’ve continued to update our gaming notebook workloads, and cycled out some of the older tests and added a few new ones to the mix. Since we don’t have a back-inventory of gaming laptops, the new tests only have limited results, but as you will see the result is pretty clear. We have kept a couple of the older benchmarks as well in order to have more devices for comparison. As always you can turn to our Notebook Bench to compare this against any other notebook we have tested.
3DMark
Starting out with some synthetics, we have FutureMark’s 3DMark benchmarks. The Fire Strike is the most demanding one in our test (they have since added a couple of new Fire Strike tests that are even more demanding) and already we can see the huge lead that the GT80 Titan has over any other laptop we have tested. The GT80 Titan is almost 60% faster than the GT72 with a single GPU. As the tests get less demanding on the GPU with the Sky Diver and Cloud Gate scores, you can see that the Clevo P750ZM narrows the gap with its much quicker CPU, but not enough to catch up or even really come close.
Bioshock Infinite
Bioshock is getting a bit long in the tooth, but it is such a great game that it is difficult to see it go. As our first true game benchmark, you can see that the GT80 Titan moves the yardstick quite a bit out.
Tomb Raider
With the Tomb Raider sequel coming out later this year, this is another of our older benchmarks that we have kept around to keep a good mix of comparisons. While other laptops still struggle to keep around 60 fps in this game with everything enabled (TressFX included) the GT80 Titan destroys single GPU devices in this test.
Civilization: Beyond Earth
Civ: BE is the latest in the Civilization franchise of turn-based strategy games. The GT80 Titan once again wins this round.
Dragon Age: Inquisition
Up next is the latest Dragon Age RPG. We use a custom benchmark here with FRAPS because the built in benchmark is far too short. The Razer Blade was the first device tested with the new benchmark and for some reason, it scored higher than all of the other single GPU devices despite the slower GTX 970M GPU. It is possible it was driver updates or something, but it was consistent across all of the runs. I no longer have the Blade to re-test on so I have removed its scores from the results until they can be re-tested. The GT80 Titan continues its run at the top though.
GRID Autosport
Autosport is the latest version of the GRID series. We finally have a game that needs a really strong CPU to bring out its full potential, with the Clevo squeaking past the GT80 Titan in this test.
Shadow of Mordor
Our final benchmark brings us back to where we started. The GT80 Titan is pretty much the fastest gaming laptop around when you pack it with two GTX 980M graphics cards.
I think the numbers kind of speak for themselves. This laptop can handle anything you want to throw at it. MSI has said that they will be offering GPU upgrades for this device in the future, but in the present there is literally no need. It can easily run any game we threw at it well over 60 fps, and it is somewhat helped by its 1080p panel here too. It will be some time before this laptop has any issues pushing enough polygons for 1080p. It is really a shame that no one seems to be producing higher resolution large laptop panels yet since this is one of the first devices around that can likely handle that.
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Laststop311 - Friday, June 26, 2015 - link
Man imagine if they would of put a 120 or 144hz panel on this thing. That woulda just rly took it to another level considering it's easily hitting 120 fps+ on games.dali71 - Saturday, June 27, 2015 - link
I'm considering getting a Eurocom X8 for exactly that reason. It's ridiculous to give a laptop that much GPU power, only to cripple it with a 60Hz display.meacupla - Friday, June 26, 2015 - link
"MSI includes a wrist rest in the box which mounts on the front."Are there any pictures of said wrist rest being attached to the laptop?
I mean, I know it's an accessory and all, but if it's a laptop that comes with external accessories, it'd be nice to see the size of all accessories that come with the retail box the laptop came in.
For example, the power brick that came with the initial Xbox 360 was MASSIVE and that added a lot of bulk to the entire package, especially if you wanted to take it over to a friend's house.
JKflipflop98 - Friday, June 26, 2015 - link
I think the power numbers are quite misleading. Why don't you try doing what this laptop is built for and see how long the battery lasts? I didn't see any charts with battery life while actually using those two Titans. I'd wager you get 20 minutes of battery life before you need to plug in again.Notmyusualid - Saturday, June 27, 2015 - link
Having had a string of DTR machines to my name, I can say that gaming tends around the 60 minute mark on battery.The battery ends up being a UPS to most of the machines I've had, but the M18xR2 I have has HD4000 graphics, and I can run for hours using that, but annoyingly, it requires a reboot to activate, and thus gets little real world use.
bennyg - Sunday, June 28, 2015 - link
Most gaming notebooks downclock on battery, too much current draw will overheat the battery. You just do not bother gaming on battery. The strength of this is that you're not tethered to your desk. Though... while not less hassle, it is probably a lot cheaper to just buy 2 desktops of similar power :oSirGCal - Friday, June 26, 2015 - link
If this had G-Sync to the monitor and an M2 PCIe slot for faster still performance storage, I'd buy it in a second... So close though!Laststop311 - Friday, June 26, 2015 - link
Does this laptop use pci-e ssd's? I have a feeling it doesn't since the 2 gpu's will be eating up 16 pci-e lanes. We have to wait for skylake for the 4 extra pci-e lanes from the cpu before we can have sli graphics and pci-e ssd's.Even so I am extremely impressed with this laptop. I truly hope MSI keeps this design going when skylake is released. If MSI releases this exact laptop with skylake and uses the extra pci-e lanes from skylake for pci-e ssd's I will be buying this to replace my m18x. Nothing beats a large 18 inch laptop for portable lan gaming. With this laptop since the keyboard is so nice you don't even need to pack a keyboard and monitor with you when you go. I currently have to carry a keyboard and 24 inch monitor with me as well as the notebook and mouse. With this design all I need is the notebook and mouse.
My wish is they keep this exact same design when skylake comes out and add the option of a XM overclockable skylake flagship mobile cpu so I can overclock it to a solid 4.3-4.5ghz similar to how i overclock the 2960xm to 4.2ghz in my alienware. And use the 4 extra pci-e lanes to make one of the m2 slots a pci-e 3.0 x4 slot and the other one a normal sata slot. If they make this simple tweak I will be buying on day 1.
dominiqueovalle - Saturday, June 27, 2015 - link
when will the anandtech review for the 1080p razer blade come out? if everMamiyaOtaru - Saturday, June 27, 2015 - link
would have preferred a physical numpad. What about cursor control? eh, trackpoint maybe? I'd expect an external mouse to be in use most of the time, and a trackpoint would be fine for backup