The MSI GT80 Titan Review: The Broadwell Gaming Laptop Your Desktop Envies
by Brett Howse on June 26, 2015 8:00 AM ESTI was lucky enough to be on-hand when MSI launched the GT80 Titan at CES. It was a big event for them, and all of the MSI people were quite excited about the unique device they had come out with. Over the last couple of years, there has been a lot of traction in the enthusiast market for mechanical keyboards, and MSI decided it was time to put a fully mechanical keyboard into a gaming laptop.
MSI turned to SteelSeries for the keyboard, and wedged one of their Cherry MX Brown keyboards into the GT80 Titan, creating one of the more uniquely designed laptops in quite some time. The keyboard is placed right at the front since a mechanical keyboard requires a lot more vertical depth than traditional notebook keyboards. This poses a slight problem for the standard trackpad placement, so MSI shifted it off to the right side and have made it both a trackpad and number pad. The layout works better than you might suspect, but since this is a desktop replacement, using it with a mouse would likely be the preferred option.
What’s behind the keyboard is equally as important, since this is first and foremost a gaming laptop. Here MSI has not disappointed either. Intel has finally released quad-core Broadwell parts, and MSI has shipped us the just recently updated version sporting the Intel Core i7-5700HQ processor. This is one of the new breed of 47 watt processors on 14 nm, with a base of 2.7 GHz and a turbo of 3.5 GHz. MSI pairs this with 16 GB of memory, and not one but two GTX 980M GPUs in SLI.
This plentiful processing power pushes polygons to a 1920x1080 pixel panel with proportions past the purview of most portable PCs (and try saying that five times fast). Alliteration aside, the display is right at the upper bounds of a notebook computer, with an 18.4-inch diagonal, making this one of the largest laptops around. It seems like the push for high PPI displays has been slow to come to the larger 17-inch panels, and the even rarer 18.4-inch one like in this device likely means sourcing one is even tougher. This display size at 1080p only results in 120 pixels per inch. At a point we hope that MSI might look into a 4K display at this size, although sourcing 18.4-inch 4K displays might be tricky. The device also does not support NVIDIA’s G-SYNC technology, but at least there should be fewer worries about frame rates dropping under the refresh rate of the panel.
MSI GT80 Titan | |||||
As Tested, Core i7-5700HQ, 16 GB RAM, 256 GB SSD + 1TB HDD, 1920x1080 PLS display | |||||
Processor | Intel Core i7-5950HQ (4C/8T, 2.9-3.7GHz, 6MB L3, 14nm, 47W) Intel Core i7-5700HQ (4C/8T, 2.7-3.5GHz, 6MB L3, 14nm, 47W) |
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Memory | 16GB-24GB DDR3L-1600 MHz | ||||
Graphics | 2 x NVIDIA GTX 980M 8GB each 2 x NVIDIA GTX 970M 6GB each 2 x NVIDIA GTX 965M 4GB each |
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Display | 18.4" 1920x1080 PLS Matte | ||||
Storage | 128GB SSD x 2 (RAID 0) boot drive 1 TB HDD |
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Networking | Killer e2200 Gigabit Networking Killer N1525 Wireless-AC plus Bluetooth (2x2:2 866 Mbps max) |
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Audio | Dynaudio Premium Sound Technology Four Speakers plus subwoofer Microphone |
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Battery | 80 Wh Battery 330 Watt A/C Adapter |
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Right Side | 2 x USB 3.0 | ||||
Left Side | 3 x USB 3.0 Ports Headphone Jack Microphone Jack SD Card Reader Blu-Ray Burner Line-in Jack SPDIF |
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Rear | 2 x Mini DisplayPort v1.2 HDMI 1.4 A/C In |
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Dimensions | 456 x 331 x 49.0mm (17.95 x 13.02 x 1.93 inches) | ||||
Weight | 4.50 kg (9.90 lbs) | ||||
Extras | 1080p Webcam Backlit Mechanical Keyboard with Cherry MX Brown switches |
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Pricing | $2500-$3800, as tested $3400 |
There are a couple of different configurations available, with the processor, memory, GPU, and storage options determining price. On the low end, you can get it with SLI GTX 965M GPUs, SLI GTX 970M or just a single GTX 980M card. All of the upper tier models though are SLI GTX 980M. Memory is 16 GB as the base and 24 GB on the top model, but the laptop can support up to 32 GB if you want to add it. Ultimately the versions that end up for sale will be determined by the SIs that decide to stock the device. For our review, we have the Core i7-5700HQ processor, 16 GB of RAM, and GTX 980M SLIs graphics cards.
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Notmyusualid - Saturday, June 27, 2015 - link
Well, may I ask, what are you expecting?I believe my M18x is 5.4kg.
I carry it all over the world. And I do mean that.
vladx - Friday, June 26, 2015 - link
So why not offer a 4K display option? I'm sure a dual 980M can run games on high-very high even in 4K.BMNify - Friday, June 26, 2015 - link
Because there is no one selling 4k panels for 17/18 inch laptops, so all large gaming laptops have to stick with 1080p for now.Notmyusualid - Saturday, June 27, 2015 - link
Argeed.And I'm not changing my M18x R2, until another panel at 18.4", with a resoultion of at least 1440p comes along. Preferably at 120Hz too.
The first manufacturer to tout such a screen (and with QUALITY too), is going to have a feeding frenzy on their hands from the enthusiast community.
meacupla - Friday, June 26, 2015 - link
I would not want a 4K display, unless it had a controller that could do some great 200% and 50% scaling. I've never seen any monitor/panel do a proper scaling to make it look like a lower res screen.Instead, every monitor/panel that I've seen tends to smudge, smear and distort the image being displayed, even though it's supposed to be a simple 1280x720 image being outputted to a 2560x1440 display. There should be no issues with artifacting and the sorts with that kind of direct scaling, and yet, every monitor that I have seen fails this.
As a comparison, if you tell your computer -an image program- to blow up an image to 200%, it'll do it with no distortions at all. Heck, you can even do 150% (3:2) and it'll still look better than what a monitor will do.
ViperV990 - Friday, June 26, 2015 - link
A laptop like this could really benefit for an "ezel" type hinge. Ever better if it could telescope.TallestJon96 - Friday, June 26, 2015 - link
It seems to me that this thing cools really well. I'm not much of a laptop gamer, but the change to 16/14nm processes should be a huge improvement for laptop performance.sulu1977 - Friday, June 26, 2015 - link
How can you play a game at "well over 60 fps" when laptop screens are limited to 60 fps? And if this screen can do more than 60 fps where does it say that and what's the limit?Meaker10 - Friday, June 26, 2015 - link
You can overclock the panel.Meaker10 - Friday, June 26, 2015 - link
Also some of the G-Sync displays that launched are 75hz as standard. Plus you can hook it up to external displays.