The MSI Titan GT77 Review: Desktop-Class Core i9-12900HX Tested

MSI is synonymous with gaming notebooks and the corporate’s Raider lineup is among the prime gaming platforms in the marketplace. However, MSI has at all times saved a tiny bit again, reserving their most attention-grabbing concepts and strongest configurations for his or her Titan lineup.

MSI’s Titan collection at all times gives one thing particular. One thing totally different. One thing distinctive. Look again to the insane MSI GT80 Titan from 2015 which featured a full desktop keyboard melded onto an 18.4-inch pocket book laptop. The MSI GT76 Titan packed in a full desktop Core i9-9900K processor right into a extra conventional 17-inch type issue.

Right this moment we’re wanting on the newest iteration from MSI; the Titan GT77. That includes a desktop-inspired Core i9-12900HX processor and an NVIDIA RTX 3080 Ti Laptop computer GPU, the GT77 is among the strongest notebooks in the marketplace right now.

Intel’s newest product for highly effective notebooks is the Alder Lake HX-series of processors, that are a part of the twelfth Gen Core household. And though the naming for these chips is just like Intel’s conventional H-series, the brand new HX platform is considerably totally different. Intel’s HX processors are repackaged desktop processors somewhat than the laptop-focused H lineup. In comparison with the Core i9-12900HK, the Core i9-12900HX gives a further two P-Cores, bringing the full to eight, and it gives the identical eight E-Cores. This brings the Core i9-12900HX as much as a complete of 24 threads, with 16 efficiency threads and eight effectivity threads.

Being a desktop processor, the utmost reminiscence supported can be elevated from 64 GB to 128 GB. MSI gives 4 DDR5 slots for customers to improve their reminiscence within the Titan GT77. The overview pattern got here with 4 x 16 GB of DDR5-4800 system RAM for 64 GB whole, working at DDR5-4000 speeds in a 2 DIMM-per-channel configuration.

Intel has additionally elevated the bottom TDP from 45 Watts to 55 Watts, and the utmost turbo energy stage is a staggering 157 Watts, up from 115 Watts within the regular H lineup. For multitasking, assuming the laptop computer cooling resolution can sustain, this must be a large enhance in efficiency.

The one downgrade from the i9-12900HK is that the i9-12900HX gives Intel’s a lot much less performant UHD graphics configuration (32 EUs), versus the extra highly effective Iris configurations (48 – 96 EUs) within the H-series correct. Nonetheless, as this processor is at all times going to be paired with discrete graphics, that isn’t going to be a lot of a hindrance.

The brand new HX-series isn’t a drop-in alternative on the H-series lineup so laptop computer distributors should incur the extra value of making bespoke motherboards. Not solely is the packaging totally different, with the HX leveraging the FCBGA1964 bundle in comparison with the FCBGA1744 discovered on the conventional H collection, the HX can be again to a two-chip bundle, as there isn’t any on-chip PCH on this desktop-derived processor. The high-end nature of the platform additionally implies that laptops can even wish to pack in 4 reminiscence slots each time attainable (for optimum reminiscence capability), in comparison with simply two on the conventional H-series laptop computer designs.

Packing a desktop processor right into a pocket book laptop isn’t a brand new idea and we’ve seen and reviewed a number of examples of this up to now, however Intel providing a correct pocket book packaged possibility actually modifications the equation and permits pocket book producers to make fewer compromises in the event that they do select to go this route. They’ll want a novel motherboard for the HX-series, however the FCBGA bundle will enable them to cut back the Z-height of the system as they won’t want to incorporate a socket for the processor. The flip aspect of the brand new HX platform is that prices will likely be considerably larger than a standard H-series processor because of the distinctive motherboard, in addition to the extra reminiscence slots. However, as we at all times see, there may be an insatiable thirst for extra efficiency particularly with the rise in demanding workloads for video creation, engineering, and naturally gaming.

On the graphics entrance, MSI has outfitted this Titan GT77 with the quickest graphics card obtainable for a pocket book proper now: the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Laptop computer GPU (henceforth generally known as the 3080L Ti). The 3080L Ti sits between the desktop RTX 3070 and RTX 3080 by way of {hardware} obtainable, and is paired with 16 GB of GDDR6 linked by way of a 256-bit bus.

On the networking aspect, MSI has gone with the Killer mixture of Wi-Fi and Ethernet. The Killer AX1675i Wi-Fi networking resolution is a Wi-Fi 6E product, which means it helps the 6 GHz bands in case your entry level is new sufficient to have them. Killer is constructed on the industry-leading Intel Wi-Fi stack and if you do not need to make use of the software program options Killer supplies, you continue to get one of the best and most dependable Wi-Fi possibility as a base. Ethernet is a Killer E3100G 2.5 Gbps providing. On the networking aspect there may be little to complain about.

As for storage, our overview pattern from Intel got here outfitted with three 1 TB Samsung PM9A1 PCIe 4.0 SSDs.

MSI’s Titan collection is known as a performance-first machine and MSI has outfitted the Titan GT77 with completely the whole lot they might consider. There’s even a Home windows Howdy IR digicam and fingerprint reader. All of that is packed right into a (comparatively) compact bundle. Let’s take a more in-depth take a look at that first.