The MSI GT75 Titan Laptop Review: Hex-Core DTR
by Brett Howse on September 13, 2018 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Laptops
- Gaming
- MSI
- Pascal
- Coffee Lake
- Coffee Lake-H
The gaming laptop segment is one of the most profitable around, and MSI has focused their laptops almost exclusively on this market for the last couple of years. Today we are taking a look at the MSI GT75 Titan, otherwise affectionately known as the GT75 Titan-093. The GT lineup is the top of the range for MSI, and the GT75 Titan offers all the accoutrements you’d be expecting in a gaming laptop.
MSI continuously updates their GT lineup with the latest equipment, and for the 17.3-inch GT75 they’ve moved exclusively to the hex-core Intel Coffee Lake lineup, with the Core i7-8750H, Core i7-8850H, and Core i9-8950HK options. These are all 45-Watt CPUs, but the Core i9 offers overclocking in addition to a higher base and boost frequency at stock speeds.
GPU options are all NVIDIA. AMD doesn’t offer Vega in any sort of laptop form factor at the moment, so for now, NVIDIA has this market all to themselves. The GT75 can be had with a GTX 1070, GTX 1070 SLI, or GTX 1080.
There’s lots of storage options, starting with just a 1 TB 7200 rpm drive, and then adding in SSDs for the boot drive, with either a 256 GB SATA, 512 GB SATA, or 512 GB NVMe or dual 512 GB NVMe in RAID on the higher models. If you want to add your own storage, the laptop offers 3 M.2 slots so you can mix and match flash storage.
The low-end models come with a single SODIMM of 16 GB DDR4-2400, and the high-end models come with 2x16 GB DDR4-2667. Since this is a gaming laptop, it does of course offer SODIMM slots, so you can add more RAM after purchase, unlike an Ultrabook. There are four slots, so the laptop could handle up to 64 GB of DDR4.
| MSI GT75 Titan | ||||||
| Component | GT75 TITAN-058 | GT75 TITAN-055 | GT75 TITAN-056 | GT75 TITAN-094 | GT75 TITAN-093 (Model Tested) |
GT75 TITAN-04K-071 |
| CPU | Intel Core i7-8750H 6 Core, 12 Thread 2.2 - 4.1 GHz 9MB Cache, 45W TDP |
Intel Core i7-8850H 6 Core, 12 Thread 2.6 - 4.3 GHz 9MB Cache, 45W TDP |
Intel Core i9-8950HK 6 Core, 12 Thread 2.9 - 4.8 GHz 12MB Cache, 45W TDP |
|||
| GPU | NVIDIA GTX 1080 2560 CUDA Cores, 160 TU, 64 ROPs 1556-1733MHz 10 Gbps GDDR5X 256-bit 8GB |
|||||
| RAM | 16GB DDR4 2400 x 1 4 SODIMM Slots 64 GB Max |
16GB DDR4 2666 x 1 4 SODIMM Slots 64 GB Max |
16GB DDR4 2666 x 2 4 SODIMM Slots 64 GB Max |
|||
| Display | 17.3" 1920x1080 120Hz TN 170° viewing angle sRGB |
17.3" 3840x2160 60Hz IPS Adobe RGB |
||||
| Storage | 256GB M.2 SATA 1 TB 7200rpm 3 M.2 slots |
512GB M.2 SATA 1 TB 7200rpm 3 M.2 slots |
1 TB 7200rpm 3 M.2 slots |
512GB M.2 NVMe 1 TB 7200rpm 3 M.2 slots |
512GB M.2 NVMe x 2 (1TB RAID) 1 TB 7200rpm 3 M.2 slots |
|
| Network | Killer Gigabit Ethernet Killer Wireless-AC 1550 2x2:2 Bluetooth 5.0 |
Aquantia 10Gbps Ethernet Killer Wireless-AC 1550 2x2:2 Bluetooth 5.0 |
||||
| I/O | USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-A x 5 USB-C Thunderbolt 3 x 1>br />SDXC mini DisplayPort 1.2 HDMI 2.0 |
|||||
| Keyboard | SteelSeries Mechanical Per-Key RGB with Anti-Ghost | |||||
| Audio | ESS Sabre HiFi DAC 3.5mm Headphone, Mic, Line In, Line Out Dynaudio Tech Speakers 3W Stereo + 5W Subwoofer |
|||||
| Battery | 8 cell 75Wh Li-Ion | 8 cell 90Wh Li-Ion | ||||
| AC Adapter | 330W | 330W | 2 x 230W | |||
| Dimensions | 428 x 314 x 57.9 mm 16.85 x 12.36 x 2.28 inches |
|||||
| Weight | 4.56 kg 10.05 lbs |
4.50 kg 9.92 lbs |
4.56 kg 10.05 lbs |
|||
| MSRP | $2,799 | $2,999 | $2,799 | $3,299 | $3,999 | $4,499 |
As you can see, there's quite a few different models available depending on what channel you end up purchasing from, and of course the third party resellers of MSI will likely be able to customize further. There's also a single model called the GT75 Titan-057 which comes with a GTX 1070, and costs $2,399 that's not in the above table in order to prevent it becoming even more complicated.
MSI offers two display choices, with a 120 Hz 1920x1080 TN panel, or a 3840x2160 60 Hz IPS option with 100% Adobe RGB gamut support. Both displays offer G-SYNC functionality as well.
Finally, there’s plenty of inputs, with five USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-A ports, a USB-C Thunderbolt 3 port, and an SD card slot. There are also four 3.5 mm audio jacks, a Killer Wireless-AC 1550 802.11ac 2x2 network card, and, the first laptop we’ve reviewed with a 10 Gigabit Aquantia Ethernet port.
But wait – there’s more. MSI has outfitted the GT75 with a fully mechanical keyboard from SteelSeries, with per-key RGB lighting.
Yes it’s big. Yes the bezels are large. Yes it weighs just over 10 lbs. But this system is designed for performance, not actually sitting in one's lap, so we’ll have to see how it does with its primary function. But first, let’s go over the design.
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ViRGE - Thursday, September 13, 2018 - link
Later on in the article, they mention that it's the new adapter based on Intel 9260, rather than the awful Qualcomm stuff. That may make it worth it. The worst part of Killer's stuff in recent years wasn't the software, it was the underlying hardware.Brett Howse - Thursday, September 13, 2018 - link
Yes the 1550 didn't exhibit any of the issues I've seen with the older model. I was pretty happy with it.PeachNCream - Friday, September 14, 2018 - link
In a roundabout way, this validates a number of complaints about earlier models of Killer Wireless products that were the subject of ire in previous articles. It's a shame that sort of acknowledgement wasn't around when previous generations were actually being sold. Also, this is the first time I've seen a Killer Wireless even get a bandwidth test in a while. Recent motherboards equipped with earlier model Killer WiFi cards didn't get any testing. I'm not trying to connect and conspiracy dots here, but the combination of facts doesn't paint a very rosy picture about the past couple years of Anandtech's view of Killer products and might add fuel to the fire of people like timecop1818 to continue to denounce Rivet Networks' claims as suspicious.Brett Howse - Friday, September 14, 2018 - link
You're mistaken I've reviewed plenty of laptops with Killer's previous model and every single time I said they had reliability issues. I think I've been pretty clear over the last couple of years that at this point there's Intel and no one else in terms of quality Wi-Fi. In fact I recently reviewed a laptop with the Qualcomm Wi-Fi that the Killer was based on and it had the exact same issues.PeachNCream - Friday, September 14, 2018 - link
That wasn't a call out of you in specific, but the tone of the site as a whole. In fact, I agree that you've noted stability problems and recommended driver updates in reviews of the Dell XPS 15 9560, the MSI GT83VR Titan 7RF, and Clevo P870DM2, and had a relatively slow result with a Razer Blade Stealth in March of 2016. (I didn't remember so I just checked and apologize for leaving you with the impression that I was slinging ire your way.)The lack of bandwidth testing is more a comment about motherboard reviews where there isn't much in the way of validation done with NIC performance, but there were some comments espousing the benefits of its presence. There have also been past product announcements that were promotional in nature. All of that was in the absence of analytical testing that proved the benefit of the Killer NIC's traffic prioritization, its key selling point. Mix that situation with the lingering ire Bigfoot/Rivet/whomever else has built over the years with customers and you've got a situation where people will get defensive or aggressive over being told they should find the product useful. None of that is something I think you've had a hand in. The problem is, or maybe was given the transition to Intel hardware and that the point is probably now moot, elsewhere.
pyrrh0 - Thursday, September 20, 2018 - link
I work with Wi-Fi and Apple's choice of Broadcom's kit in its laptops trumps anything I've used or heard about using Intel's WLAN gear.bennyg - Friday, September 14, 2018 - link
Eh, I had an issue a few years ago that was easily fixed by uninstalling the silly management software, killer wlan issues are overblown imoRedNeon - Friday, September 14, 2018 - link
Except that there already is a laptop with AMD Vega 56 GPU, the Acer Predator Helios 500.RedNeon - Friday, September 14, 2018 - link
Anandtech used to be good.Brett Howse - Friday, September 14, 2018 - link
Those were the days!