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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drzzz - Saturday, June 27, 2015 - link
The article title is misleading. While this laptop can be equipped impressively it has several short comings as well. Over all the people that drop 3400$ (as tested or 3800$ max) on a gaming system get a much more powerful desktop than this laptop for same money. That is why I think the title is misleading. This is a niche product for a group of people that are willing to spend huge amounts of money to have the fastest of a specific thing.The lack of a 2560x1440 screen or even better 3840x2160 screen at this price point is a real let down. Not having 2560x1440 as the base screen is a real missed chance.
The 128GB raided drives (raid 0) do offer 256GB of fast access storage but for the price point I would have preferred to see the raid be 500GB to 1TB SM951's with NVM support and the HDD just dropped. Another really big missed opportunity. Really big one.
Also totally insulting that highest end model provides only 24GB of memory yet support for 32GB exist. Again like the screen and SSD components you can really see where they are short changing you for the keyboard and SLI mobile graphics.
My experience with MSI is that there is always a clearly visible set of areas that they cut corners to give you some great thing(s) and base the price on those things vice building a truly well rounded device. It comes down to the price point for me. At over 3000$ for a laptop I expect certain things like 32GB ram. Large SSD storage only. 1440p+ screen when the system clearly has the power to push that level of resolution.
Overall not impressed by this MSI offering. I would by the GT72 first and have money left over for a steak dinner and some good booze.
Notmyusualid - Wednesday, July 1, 2015 - link
PLEASE... can we have an end to the 'you could build a faster desktop for less' argument. It is not a desktop, it is a laptop. Some of cannot own desktops, due to frequent travel.mlambert890 - Monday, August 24, 2015 - link
Large laptop panels above 1080p dont exist. Period. No one is making them.So what should they do? Not release it at all? Sorry but no.
People always find things to nitpick but the screen issue is NOT something an OEM can control.
PulloDimo - Saturday, June 27, 2015 - link
I really want one badly. I wish I could trade in my Lenovo Thinkpad W541 for one of these babies. I have always been looking for a competent gaming laptop that could play all games with a real keyboard. This is it right here :-DAllanMoore - Saturday, June 27, 2015 - link
Cinebench results are quite impressive! http://picoolio.net/image/Tnwgeek005 - Saturday, June 27, 2015 - link
sRBG setting shown in here with regard to msi gt72 dominator pro ...is it according to the newest model with ips screen(talking about msi gt72 dominator pro g-14 series)..or older with TN panel...??siberus - Saturday, June 27, 2015 - link
Msi for the love of god can you please stop using killer nics technology. Their drivers are so terrible.On my gt70 if i switch in and out of airplane mode my Bluetooths funtionality is lost untill I uninstall the driver and reinstall it >.>
Notmyusualid - Saturday, June 27, 2015 - link
Worry no longer my friend.I've written to them, and got little help, and no resoultion from them whatsoever, with my Killer issues.
The solution is, given that their hardware is always other manufacturers, is to find the original wireless-chip type, and install the driver for that.
For example;
Killer 1103, 3x3 mimo card, is MADE-BY Atheros, and the original chip is an AR9380.
Link: https://www.atheros.cz/atheros-wireless-download.p...
Using the Atheros driver, all is well. However, I got so fed up, I changed both machines with Killer 1103s to Intel 6300, and 5300.
odedia - Saturday, June 27, 2015 - link
I find it amazing that a LAPTOP this powerful has such a better temperature handling compared to my iMac 5k. The iMac easily gets to 92 degrees CPU and can even reach 104 degrees GPU (on the M295X model).DanNeely - Saturday, June 27, 2015 - link
Thats because your iPride is optimized to look thin not for sustained performance.