Gaming PC

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

MSI is synonymous with gaming notebooks and their Raider lineup is one of the top gaming platforms on the market. But MSI has always hidden a little bit, leaving the most interesting ideas and most powerful configurations in the Titan lineup.

MSI’s Titan series always offers something special. Something is wrong. something unique. Take a look back at the insane MSI GT80 Titan of 2015. This model fused a full desktop keyboard into an 18.4-inch notebook computer. The MSI GT76 Titan packs a full desktop Core i9-9900K processor into a more traditional 17-inch form factor.

Today we’ll take a look at the latest iteration from MSI. Titan GT77. Powered by a desktop-inspired Core i9-12900HX processor and his NVIDIA RTX 3080 Ti laptop GPU, the GT77 is his one of the most powerful notebooks on the market today.

Intel’s latest offering for powerful notebooks is the Alder Lake HX series of processors, part of the 12th Gen Core family. While the naming of these chips is similar to Intel’s traditional H-series, the new his HX platform is very different. Intel’s HX processors are repackaged desktop processors rather than the H lineup aimed at laptops. Compared to the Core i9-12900HK, the Core i9-12900HX offers an additional 2 P-Cores for a total of 8 and offers the same 8 E-Cores. This brings the Core i9-12900HX to a total of 24 threads, 16 performance threads and 8 efficiency threads.

Being a desktop processor, it also increases the maximum memory supported from 64 GB to 128 GB. MSI offers his four DDR5 slots for the user to upgrade the memory of his Titan GT77. Our review sample comes with 4 x 16 GB of DDR5-4800 system RAM for a total of 64 GB and runs at DDR5-4000 speeds on quad channels.

Intel has also increased the base TDP from 45 Watts to 55 Watts and the maximum turbo power level has increased from 115 Watts on the regular H lineup to a whopping 157 Watts. For multitasking, this should improve performance significantly, assuming the laptop’s cooling solution can sustain itself.

One downgrade from the i9-12900HK is that the i9-12900HX uses Intel’s much lower performing UHD graphics configuration (32 EU ) is to provide However, this processor will always be paired with discrete graphics, so it shouldn’t be a big hindrance.

The new HX-series isn’t a drop-in replacement for the H-series lineup, so laptop vendors will have to bear the additional cost of creating bespoke motherboards. Not only is the package different, HX utilizes his FCBGA1964 package as compared to the FCBGA1744 found in the regular H series, but HX is also back to a two-chip package. processor. The high-end nature of the platform also means that laptops should have as many memory slots as possible (to get maximum memory capacity), compared to only two in typical H-series laptop designs. I mean

Packing a desktop processor into a notebook computer is not a new concept and we’ve seen some examples of it in the past, but with Intel offering suitable notebook packaging options the equation is Alternately, notebook makers can make fewer compromises when they do. choose this path. You’ll need a dedicated motherboard for the HX series, but the FCBGA package allows you to reduce the system’s Z height by not having to include a socket for the processor. On the flip side of the new HX platform, the proprietary motherboard and extra memory slots make it significantly more expensive than traditional H-series processors. But as we’ve always seen, there’s an insatiable thirst for higher performance, especially with increasing demanding workloads for video creation, engineering, and of course gaming.

MSI Titan GT77 12UHS
(engineering sample)
component tested
CPU Intel Core i9-12900HX
8 x P cores, 8 x E cores, 24 threads
125W TDP
GPUs NVIDIA RTX 3080 Ti Laptop GPU
7424 CUDA cores
16GB GDDR6 (16Gbps)
sheep 4 x 16GB DDR5-4800
screen 17.3 inch 1920×1080 360Hz
depository 3x Samsung PM9A1 1TB NVMe PCIe 4.0
networking Killer AX1675 Wi-Fi 6E
Killer E3100G Ethernet
input/output 2 x Thunderbolt 4
USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A x 3
HDMI2.1×1
1 x Mini DisplayPort 1.4
SD card reader
headset jack
keyboard Steelseries per-key RGB anti-ghosting
low profile mechanical
cherry mx switches
audio video 720p webcam with Windows Hello
2 x 2W Speakers + 2 x 2W Woofers
battery 99Wh battery
330W AC adapter
size 397×330×23mm
15.63 x 13 x 0.90 inches
weight 3.3kg / 7.3lbs
Price (USD) Starting from USD 3600
Tested $4500 USD

On the graphics side, MSI has outfitted this Titan GT77 with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti laptop GPU (hereafter referred to as the 3080L Ti), which is currently the fastest graphics card available in notebooks. The 3080L Ti sits between the desktop RTX 3070 and RTX 3080 in terms of available hardware and is paired with 16 GB of his GDDR6 connected via a 256-bit bus.

On the network side, MSI has gone with a killer combination of Wi-Fi and Ethernet. The Killer AX1675i Wi-Fi networking solution is a Wi-Fi 6E product. In other words, if your access point is new enough, it will support the 6 GHz band. Killer is built on the industry-leading Intel Wi-Fi stack, giving you the best and most reliable Wi-Fi option as a base, even if you don’t want to use the software features Killer offers. Ethernet is Killer E3100G 2.5 Gbps product. On the network side, there are few complaints.

As for storage, Intel’s review sample featured three 1 TB Samsung PM9A1 PCIe 4.0 SSDs.

MSI’s Titan series are truly performance-first devices, and MSI equips the Titan GT77 with everything they can think of, even a Windows Hello IR camera and fingerprint reader. All this packed into a (relatively) compact package. Let’s take a closer look at that first.

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