Despite the fact that most applications work just fine with Intel’s non-HX offerings and that this laptop is primarily intended for gaming, multi-core performance is out of this world. The GT77 Titan utilizes the new chip while charging an excessive price, making it a poor value even when compared to MSI’s other top-tier products. Due to its 16-core CPU, the MSI GT77 Titan can compete with the best gaming laptops, but its price makes that advantage insignificant. A well-known manufacturer of computers, MSI is especially well-known for its gaming laptops. The business offers a number of well-known gaming lineups, including Raider GE, Titan GT Series, and Stealth GS. These lineups all cater to various player needs. It has been observed, nonetheless, that the corporation made every effort to outperform rivals in some of its most recent models.
Design
The MSI GT77 Titan is a large laptop, but doesn’t the word “Titan” kind of hint at that? Even by the standards of 17-inch workstation substitutes, it is large. It weighs over 7 pounds and is large, measuring 15.6 inches wide by 13 inches long. This makes it a pound heavier than the MSI GE76 Raider. But at 0.9 inches thick, it’s not as thick as we had expected. The vents in the back, which protrude aggressively out of the back to keep the RTX 3080 Ti and 55W Intel processor cool, account for a significant portion of the size. The design makes it clear that this is a gamer’s laptop with bright RGB, aggressive angles, and enough cooling potential to put the Razer Blade 17 to shame despite MSI and Intel’s attempts to position it as a workstation replacement. Given the weight of the enormous power brick, you won’t be carrying the GT77 Titan around with you. But when placed on a desk, the device looks fantastic. When you open the computer, the back vents emit programmable RGB lighting to match the MSI shield on the top lid, and you have complete control over the lighting on the SteelSeries mechanical keyboard. However, as can be seen in the image above, the lid is a bit of a fingerprint magnet.
Keyboard and touchpad
The Cherry MX Ultra Low Profile mechanical switches on the SteelSeries keyboard offer exceptional tactile feedback, quick reaction times, and a clear typing sound. The SteelSeries GG software enables configuring various RGB lighting effects and macro shortcuts, and all keys can be individually lighted. Cherry MX mechanical keys are exclusively used in the primary typing area, though. The arrow keys, numpad, and function keys all appear to use standard membrane switches. If you are unfamiliar with MSI laptops, it may take some time to get used to the Fn key’s location. When the Fn key is pressed, only the extra features on the F1–F12 keys are illuminated, making them easier to read in low-light conditions. Only the numpad has the Home, End, Page Up, and Page Down keys, and using them requires disengaging the Num Lock. Although the arrow keys are of a respectable size, if you enjoy racing games, the absence of mechanical keys is disappointing. The area around the keyboard needs to be kept reasonably clean because food or dust particles can easily become lodged there and interfere with key actuation. The touchpad is an improvement over the Titan GT76’s touchpad. It now has a buttonless design, measures 13 x 8.2 cm, and glides with ease. The touchpad has a comparatively smooth click and is compatible with Windows Precision gestures.
MSI GT77 Titan review: Display
At least in the U.S. and Canada, it doesn’t appear that the FHD display in our test unit is widely accessible. That’s not a big deal, as the majority of people should choose 4K UHD at 120Hz to support this level of hardware performance. However, it’s worthwhile to check the colour and brightness of the FHD screen. The FHD display seems quite washed out right out of the box. It feels like we are using an ancient VA panel because the colours are so faint, which is not what you expect from an expensive laptop. According to online research, MSI’s integrated colour management software “TrueColor” interferes with the performance of Intel and NVIDIA drivers. After reinstalling every driver as advised in an official MSI troubleshooting guide, the display began to perform as intended. Why is the user still dealing with this problem? We are unsure. When properly configured, the display does look fantastic, and the 360Hz refresh rate that comes with the FHD resolution helps it keep up with the enormous performance potential. With our SpyderX Pro colorimeter, we conducted some tests, and the results showed 100% sRGB, 80% AdobeRGB, and 82% DCI-P3 colour reproduction. Additionally, the screen’s maximum brightness was 342 nits, with a drop to 16 nits for late-night work or gaming. When it’s functioning properly, MSI’s TrueColor app offers five distinct display profiles (Gamer, Anti-Blue, sRGB, Office, and Movie), each with a variety of customizable settings.
Audio
Although the Titan’s top-firing speakers and woofers perform admirably, a good set of headphones is still preferable. We could clearly hear some hand claps while listening to Matt Maeson’s “Hallucinogenics,” even though they were a little bit buried in the background. Like many laptops, the bass was not up to par. The song grew loud and full, filling the little space in our office. It got a little distorted at its loudest, but it’s plenty loud before you get there. Gunfire was punchy and vocals, including Jesse’s inner narration, were crystal clear when we played Control. Although some of the background music was muffled by the battle, other parts of the game featured clearer audio. There are numerous sound profiles and an EQ in the Nahimic app. Although we suspect some people might prefer the surround sound for movies and games, they don’t really make a difference. you will learn our article on MSI GT77 Titan review.
Graphic and gaming
We do both simulated and actual gaming tests on Windows PCs. Two DirectX 12 gaming simulations from UL’s 3DMark are included in the former: Time Spy and Night Raid (the latter being more subdued and appropriate for systems with integrated graphics). The cross-platform GPU benchmark GFXBench 5, which we use to assess OpenGL performance, is also looped into that group. The in-game benchmarks of F1, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, and Rainbow Six Siege, which represent simulation, open-world action-adventure, and competitive/esports shooter games, respectively, are used in our real-world gaming testing. We run Valhalla, Siege, and F1 on laptops with and without Nvidia’s performance-enhancing DLSS anti-aliasing at two different image quality settings. The Titan’s domination persisted; its 175-watt GeForce RTX 3080 Ti and Core i9 HX processor were unbeatable. Its processing capability is best demonstrated in the CPU-focused Rainbow Six Siege. As we mentioned, production Titans appear to have a sharper 4K display, which will be much more demanding. Please take note that our laptop gaming tests are run at 1080p resolution. The mighty MSI should, however, easily surpass 60 frames per second at UHD resolution in most games given its performance.
MSI GT77 Titan review: Performance
The MSI GT77 is without a doubt one of the most potent gaming laptops available right now. The frame rates for both of these large games—Cyberpunk 2077 and Spider-man: Remastered—were handled by it like a dream. Ray Tracing did significantly reduce the frame rate in Cyberpunk, but not to the point where it was unplayable. This laptop’s RTX 3080 Ti performs as you may anticipate it to when combined with the 12th-generation Intel Core i9 12900HX processor. As we previously stated, the Titan is a gaming laptop behemoth, and it has the specifications to back it up. For a laptop this size, the RTX 3080 Ti and Intel i9 components are appropriate choices, and they complement each other well enough to handle even the most graphically demanding games. In Cyberpunk, Ray Tracing looked extremely beautiful, especially when DLSS was on hand to assist. DLSS, or Deep Learning Super Sampling, uses AI to upscale your display resolution while rendering your games at a lower native resolution. This effectively provides you with higher resolution visuals at a lower framerate. When the DLSS was activated and Cyberpunk was playing smoothly, we could see this effect. This all works together to produce a really immersive gaming experience when combined with the lush screen. The benchmark for Cyberpunk 2077 achieved astounding 150 frames per second on low settings without DLSS and an average of 128 frames per second on ultra high performance, which is pretty amazing. It’s really nice to see the RGB light integrated into the keyboard and chassis light up in addition to the display because the colours on the screen are very bright and clear. The immersion factor is increased and RGB lights are used in a novel way when they are made to glow in accordance with what is displayed on the screen. Although the gaming experience already feels of the highest calibre at these settings, the GPU can undoubtedly be pushed to higher numbers if you so desire. Despite the fact that the game’s settings had not been altered, Stray ran quite poorly on the laptop, which was a strange letdown. Even after numerous attempts to run the test or game on the GT77 Titan, we had trouble getting some of our benchmarks to actually work. When we ran the benchmarks, Dirt 5 kept giving us very strange results, and we had to check everything was set up correctly multiple times before it stopped doing so. PCMark 10 Home wouldn’t even start up and would abruptly shut down.
Battery life
Sincerely, you won’t use the GT77 Titan much other than to charge it. In our web browsing test, the device lasted for four hours and 25 minutes on its battery, which is respectable. This is a little over an hour longer than the MSI GE76 Raider and a little over a half an hour longer than the Razer Blade 17, but it’s still a long way from the performance of Apple’s ultra-portable laptops. The GT77 Titan has the largest battery you can bring on a plane (99Whr), which shouldn’t come as a surprise but feels incredibly inadequate given the hardware inside the device. For laptops in the class of the GT77 Titan, all-day battery life is not an option, but as long as you are not playing games or using intensive software, the laptop can last for a few hours without a power source.
MSI GT77 Titan review: Heat
We measured skin temperatures while running the Metro Exodus stress test to see how hot the MSI Titan GT77 gets while gaming. The laptop reached a temperature of 37.1 degrees Celsius (98.78 degrees Fahrenheit) at the centre of the keyboard, between the G and H keys, while the touchpad maintained a cooler temperature of 29.2 degrees Celsius. The area of the notebook with the highest temperature measured 44.1 degrees Celsius. Although using this at a desk is probably more comfortable, it wouldn’t fit on your lap either.
Configuration options
Windows Central received a review unit of the MSI Titan GT77 from Intel. There are three 1TB Samsung PM9A1 PCIe 4.0 NVMe solid-state drives (SSD), an Intel Core i9-12900HX CPU, an NVIDIA RTX 3080 Ti Laptop graphics card, 64GB (4x16GB) of DDR5-4800MHz RAM, and a 17.3-inch screen with FHD resolution inside.
Conclusion
After a two-year absence, MSI has brought back its storied Titan range, and the Titan GT77 does everything in its power to live up to the name. Compared to Titans from earlier generations, the revised chassis is now smaller and offers greater looks. The Titan GT77 manages to seem upscale and well-built despite being mostly constructed of plastic. The connectivity capabilities are standard for a 2022 flagship laptop. The 720p webcam is unworthy of the price tag. The Titan GT77’s roomy touchpad and Cherry MX mechanical keyboard are welcome additions.
