Review Laptop MSI Titan GT77

Desktop replacements are often big and bulky, and while this Titan is still a very big laptop, it has slimmed down from the last time we saw it.

And it has tons of other trimmings, including a mechanical keyboard, and, depending on your configuration, lots of opportunities to upgrade down the line. But starting at more than $2,500, it's expensive and only goes up from there, hitting about $5,000 on the configuration we tested. If you want to replace your desktop, you'll have to pay the price.

Design of the MSI Titan GT77

Regarding massive office replacements, the MSI Titan GT77 redesigned is elegant. Do not mistake yourself. It's always huge. You will not want to transport this from one place to another without a car. However, its aesthetics of sports cars is catchy and, if you saw the old design of 9.2 pounds of 9.2 pounds, a little more compact.

Closed, the Titan is somewhere between a spaceship and a Ferrari. The black, plastic lid is fairly plain, with the exception of MSI's dragon shield logo (which, of course, lights up in RGB because why not?). The other thing you'll notice before you even open this notebook is that the Titan has a bit of junk in the trunk with some lines for texture. Alienware has been doing this for years to add extra ports in the back of the machine, but on the Titan, that's all exhaust for hot hair. But hey, that has RGB lighting, too (and replaces the RGB light bar on the front that you can see on MSI's existing GE76 Raider).  

Closed, the Titan is somewhere between a spaceship and a Ferrari. The black, plastic lid is fairly plain, with the exception of MSI's dragon shield logo (which, of course, lights up in RGB because why not?). The other thing you'll notice before you even open this notebook is that the Titan has a bit of junk in the trunk with some lines for texture. Alienware has been doing this for years to add extra ports in the back of the machine, but on the Titan, that's all exhaust for hot hair. But hey, that has RGB lighting, too (and replaces the RGB light bar on the front that you can see on MSI's existing GE76 Raider).  

LIfting the lid reveals a 17.3-inch display with moderate bezels (though particularly large along the bottom). The entire deck is black plastic, which is offset by the RGB mechanical keyboard (more on that below). Some of the same lines can be seen below the screen, bringing a bit of coherence to the different parts of the laptop. There's a small fingerprint reader next to the trackpad, which worked well when I was wearing a mask and couldn't use Windows Hello facial recognition.

The Titan weighs 7.28 pounds and is 15.63 x 12.99 x 0.91 inches, which is hefty, but fairly shrunken down from the old design. In fact, it's actually lighter than the MSI GE76 Raider, and, in some dimensions, smaller (8.8 pounds, 15.6 x 11.2 x 1 inches). Part of that may be because the Titan switched entirely to plastic. 

The Alienware x17 R2 is 6.82 pounds and 15.72 x 11.79 x 0.84 inches, while the Asus ROG Strix Scar G733Q is 5.95 pounds is 15.55 x 11.11 x 1.08 inches.

Just under a thickness, it is good to see MSI use this space to blur the Titan full of ports. On the left side, there is the power outlet, two USB-A ports, a full-size SD card reader and a 3.5 mm headphone jack. The right side has a third USB-A port, a pair of Thunderbolt 4 ports on USB Type-C, Mini Displayport and HDMI for video and an Ethernet Jack. I am of the opinion that with Thunderbolt 4 on board, MSI could probably abandon Mini Displayport here for another USB-C or USB-A port.

MSI Titan GT77 Specifications

CPU	Intel Core i9-12900HX
Graphics	Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 Ti (16GB GDDR6, 1,395 MHz Max Boost Clock, 175 W max graphics power)
Memory	64GB DDR5-4800
Storage	4TB PCIe Gen 4 SSD
Display	17.3-inch, 1920 x 1080, 360 Hz
Networking	Killer Wi-Fi 6E AX1675 (2x2)
Ports	2x Thunderbolt 4, 3x USB Type-A 3.2 Gen 2, Ethernet jack, SD card reader, HDMI, Mini DisplayPort
Camera	720p, IR
Battery	99.9 WHr
Power Adapter	330W
Operating System	Windows 11 Pro
Dimensions (WxDxH)	15.63 x 12.99 x 0.91 inches (397 x 330 x 23 mm)
Weight	7.28 pounds (3.3 kg)
Price (as configured)	~$4,999, not available with 1080p display in the U.S.

Gaming and Graphics on the MSI Titan GT77

In our review configuration, the Titan comes with the most powerful mobile components from Intel and Nvidia: an Intel Core i9-12900HX processor and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 Ti. These deliver solid gaming performance, although the gap is rarely large between the HX chips and Intel's existing HK-series chips. 

To test them myself, I played  Control, which is still very demanding a few years after its release. I increased the settings as high as I could, including ray tracing, to 1080p to fit the screen. The game usually runs from 75 to 80 fps when I get past the enemy Hiss in the Oldest House.

On Shadow of the Tomb Raider at its highest parameters (1080p), the Titan played at 117 IPS, beating the Raider and Alienware X17 (both with a Core i9-12900hk, RTX 3080 TI) at 112 IPS and 107 IPS , respectively. The Asus ROG Stix Scar 17, with an AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080, hit 92 IPS.

We have seen a similar model on Grand Theft Auto High (1080p, very high parameters), where the Titan reached an average of 142 images per second, exceeding the raider (139 IPS), Alienware (129 IPS) and Strix (109 IPS ).

When we checked Far Cry New Dawn (1080p, Ultra), MSI's last reached 125 IPS. This time, Alienware got closer to 117 IPS, while the Raider reached 113 IPS.

The systems were the most competitive on Red Dead Redemption 2 (Medium, 1080p), where the Titan dominated the list at 86 IPS. The Raider (82 IPS), the Alienware (78 IPS) and the scar (75 IPS) followed in the nearest delta among the games between the first and the last place.

On Borderlands 3, the Titan arrived in second place at 105 IPS; The Raider was ahead of a single frame. Meanwhile, the Alienware has reached 97 IPS and the Strix reached 87 IPS.

We also tested the Titan by performing Metro Exodus for 15 races on RTX preset, which takes about half an hour. The game took place at an average executives of 89.41 images per second, and it was largely coherent throughout.

During the metro, the nucleus of the nucleus of the nucleus i9-12900HX worked at an average of 3.03 GHz while the efficiency nuclei was on average 2.68 GHz. The CPU package was 59.19 degrees Celsius. The GPU ran to an average of 1,243 MHz and measured 59.33 degrees Celsius.

Productivity Performance on the MSI Titan GT77

The MSI Titan GT77 marks the first time we're reviewing a laptop with one of Intel's 12th Gen HX series chips. Specifically, the Titan is rocking a top-of-the-line Intel Core i9-12900HK with 16 cores (eight performance cores and eight efficiency cores) and 24 threads, with a boost clock of 5 GHz. Our review unit also came with a whopping 64GB of RAM and 4TB of SSD storage.

On Geekbench 5, a global performance reference that is strongly based on the CPU, the Titan has reached a single nucleus score of 1851 and marked a multi-core score of 15,999. While MSI Ge76 Raider and Alienware X17 R2, Both armed with an Intel Core i9-12900HK, obtained similar unique performance scores, they were not as powerful on the multi-core (13,456 for the Raider, 13,710 on the Alienware). The Asus ROG Stix Scar 17 G733Q, with its AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX, obtained a unique nucleus score of 1487 and a multi-foundation score of 8,231.

All laptops have successfully completed our file transfer test, which copies 25 GB of test files, but the Titan GT77 has really been blazing by the challenge. The latest MSI office replacement reached speeds of 2,639.03 Mbps, easily exceeding the Alienware (2,268.18 Mbps), Raider (1,774.50 Mbps) and the scar (1449.66 Mbps).

On Handbrake, in which we use laptops to transcode a 4K video to 1080p, the Titan finished our task in 3 minutes and 59 seconds. It is faster than the Raider and the Alienware (4:44 and 4:45, respectively), and significantly faster than the Strix (6:11).

We generally do not do our Cinebench stress test on the game notebooks, but it was our first overview of the Core i9-12900hx, and we wanted to see what he could do. And let me say that he has torn the workload. It started with a solid score of 22,112.12 and never fell under less than 20,896.57. It's quite stable, well considered.

The CPU performance hearts reached an average of 3,732.71 GHz while the electronic cores operated at 2,909 GHz. The Core i9-12900HX measured an average of 89.28 degrees Celsius.

Display on the MSI Titan GT77

We tested the MSI Titan GT77 with a 17.3-inch, 1080p, 360Hz display. United. However, since we have the tools, we put them under the light meter and the colorimeter, because readers in other parts of the world can still get  useful information from the numbers. . 

In my eyes, 1080p displays are forbidden, despite what the colorimeter told us. The screen looks washed out (and strangely, it looks worse in the middle of the screen). Trailers for Thor: Love and Thunder are often full of color. But on  Titan, each of these colors, when present, looks very dull. In the scenes where Thor and Jane Foster (technically, Thor) fight in the streets, only their red capes stand out. Everything else is just a bit boring.

Keyboard and Touchpad on the MSI Titan GT77

Audio on the MSI Titan GT77

The pair of Titan speakers and the pair of Woofers do a good job, but still does not replace a solid pair of headphones.

When I listened to "Hallucinogenics" from Matt Maeson, the voices and guitars were beautiful and clear, and some applause, although a little buried in the background, could be made. Lower, like many laptops, was lower. The song has become pleasant and noisy, filling a small room in our office. To its highest volumes, it has distorted itself a little, but it is very very well before reaching this point.

When I played control, the shots were impactful and the voices, including the interior of Jesse, were clear and clear. Part of the ambient music was lost among the fights, but could be heard more clearly elsewhere in the game.

The Nahimic application has a number of sound profiles and an EQ. They do not make huge differences, although I suspect that some might like surround sound for games and films.

Improvement of MSI Titan GT77

While the Titan GT77 that we tested was packed at the branchies (at this price, it should be), those which choose configurations with less storage space or memory always have upgrade opportunities.

The opening of the titan consists in removing the head screws 11 phillips from the bottom of the laptop. They are all the same length, so you don't have to remember what's going on where. From there, you must use a Pry tool (I found one in the form of a guitar choice to be invaluable) and separate the clips to remove the bottom. The only delicate part was to get out of the rear grill, which required a little upside down.

Once you get over the massive heatsinks cooled by four fans, you'll see that there are four SSD slots, so if you don't get a top-of-the-line model, there's plenty of room for expansion. Underneath a small heat shield, there are four RAM slots. Ours came with four sticks (64GB in total) of DDR5, but again, those who don't have those slots filled can add more down the line.

You can also access the battery and the networking cards.

Battery Life on the MSI Titan GT77

We rarely have high expectations of gaming laptops when it comes to battery life — especially for desktop replacements. But the Titan surprised us a little bit.

On our battery test, we have laptops browse the web, stream video and run OpenGL tests while connected to Wi-Fi with the screen at 150 nits. The Titan endured for six hours and five minutes. That's not a full work day, but it's  better than the competitors we tested against. The Raider ran for 4:57, the Strix ran for 3:44, and the Alienware x17 R2 didn't even make it to three hours.

Heat on the MSI Titan GT77

To see how hot the MSI Titan GT77 gets while gaming, we took skin temperature measurements while running our Metro Exodus stress test.

At the center of the keyboard, between the G and H keys, the laptop measured 37.1 degrees Celsius (98.78 degrees Fahrenheit), while the touchpad remained cooler at 29.2 degrees Celsius (84.56 degrees Fahrenheit).

The hottest spot on the underside of the notebook measured 44.1 degrees Celsius (111.38 degrees Fahrenheit). It's likely more comfortable to use this on a desk, but it probably wouldn't fit comfortably on your lap anyway.

Webcam on the MSI Titan GT77

Considering that everything else on the Titan is pushed to extremes, the fact that MSI has opted for a 720p camera here is a disappointment (especially considering MSI's own GE76 Raider uses a 1080p lens!).

Admittedly, resolution isn't everything, and at my well-lit desk near a window, my green shirt was color-accurate and I could even make out resolution in my hair. But still, this laptop, as configured, is $5,000, so you shouldn’t need to go shopping for one of the best webcams on top of this investment.

There's also an IR camera for use with Windows Hello. Facial login was speedy and worked well throughout my testing.

Software and Warranty on the MSI Titan GT77

MSI's main piece of preinstalled software is called MSI Center. Formerly Dragon Center, it has some hardware monitoring tools, as well a confusing version of its lighting software, Mystic Light. I kind of wish MSI would go back to the old Dragon Center, as months in, this still feels a bit barebones.

In fact, to get to some of the lighting options, I had to install the Steelseries GG app, which previous MSI laptops have had. Here, I was able to adjust the lighting on the back of the device and make per-key customizations to the keyboard.

Otherwise, the other MSI apps are less useful. There's MSI App Player, which lets you run some Android apps. This is far less useful now that Windows 11 allows some (albeit a limited number and not from the Google Play Store). MSI True Color lets you choose between different color profiles and reduce blue light. 

There's still some filler. MSI adds apps like Music Maker Jam, which should be optional. Nahimic is on board for better control of the audio

MSI sells the Titan GT77 with a one-year warranty.

MSI Titan GT77 Configurations

 No matter how you configure the Titan, it is a very expensive notebook. We tested the Titan with an Intel Core i9-12900HX, Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 Ti, 64GB of RAM, 4TB of SSD storage and a 17.3-inch, 1080p display with a 360 Hz refresh rate. In the U.S., that screen won't be available (you'll have to get a 4K, 120 Hz screen), but Intel tells me that our laptop with the 4K screen should cost around $4,999. We haven't found this configuration for sale, though.

Yeah, that hurts my wallet just thinking about it. I know people who have bought cars for less.

I haven't seen that option on the market, but there are others. The cheapest I saw, as of this writing, was a $2,599 model with a Core i7-2800HX, RTX 3070 Ti, 16GB of RAM and 1TB SSD. For $3,199, you can get a Core i7-12800HX , RTX 3070 Ti, 32GB RAM and a 1TB SSD.

MSI directly sells a model with our exact specs, with the excision of 2TB of storage and the 4K screen, for $4,949.99, though it is out of stock as of this writing. In between, there are a few different combinations of CPU, GPU, RAM and storage, but expect to unload a few grand if you buy one of these. 

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