In the world of Gaming PC components, we increasingly embrace gaming laptops as a key tool to continue pursuing our dreamlike journey in virtual worlds. And as a move to make the pursuit of a gaming passion even more convenient for users, popular laptop brands continue the trend of minimalist design while ensuring maximum performance for titles “the new and toughest game”. However, this trend has never been applied to the GT series laptops of “Asia Red Dragon” MSI.
Bulky, grotesque is the most noticeable impressions when we witness the G75 Titan, the G65 Titan. But all the convenience, the face, everything that matters because the MSI GT is created for a single, pure purpose for gaming – power. And outstanding in the main series is the “giant” Titan GT83 8RG with the power of choking hardware: CPU i7-8850H, GTX 1080 SLI, 32GB of RAM, ready to sweep all “virtual world”. A real ferocious magma red dragon.
Product specifications
Intel Core i7-8850H 6 Core / 12 Thread @ 2.6Ghz
Nvidia GTX 1080 8GB DDR5X SLI GPU
32GB DDR4-2666 RAM
512GB SSD
1TB HDD
18.4 ″ Full HD IPS display
Steelseries keyboard, Cherry MX Speed RGB switch
Dimensions 458 x 339 x 69 mm
Weight 5.5kg
Design
Do you want to own a laptop that can “sweep” all current games? A machine can “crush the bones” of PUBG but the price is not a big problem? Look no further because GT83 Titan 8RG has been realized in this reality. The first thing I can comment on this “laptop” is “ludicrous”. As an upgrade for the MSI GT80 first launched in 2015, the GT83 Titan naturally inherits the source idea that design engineers want to convey: making a laptop as powerful as possible. Obviously, the limit on a laptop has been broken, making the GT83 more prone to a mobile desktop than a laptop.
At first glance, GT83 Titan is no different than products in the mid-range segment of MSI with the chassis made of synthetic ABS plastic with good scratch resistance and heat resistance. In contrast, the screen lid is made from a high-grade aluminum alloy with relatively little movement except for the two red lines running diagonally and facing the plate. Although not as colorful as the GE63 Raider with RGB strip on the screen lid, but we can not say that this “monster” is as true as the GL63 8RC. In fact, once viewed near the GT83 looks like a Jeep Grand Cherokee with a screen.
Towards the heat dissipation fan, GTX 1080 SLI is indeed a difficult couple because it is certain that the huge heat generated when 100% Load is ready to “boil” all the components around. The simplest cooling solution, but also the reason why GT83 Titan achieves the outrageous growth size of the heat sink and fan size. The 4 heatsinks are arranged closest to the 2 GTX 1080 with the design of a spaceship jet with a color language similar to the Acer Helios 300 Laptop.
The cooling system is even more impressive when directly admired after the GT83 Titan 8RG “surgery”. The large chassis is no different from the heatsink used on the CPU in PC machines. The heat pipe system is neatly connected but still ensures a good contact area with the heat sink, helping the 2 fans to operate most efficiently.
Despite being bulky and grumpy, MSI did not forget to put a bit of sophistication on her GT83 Titan 8RG monster. MSI’s famous red dragon logo is protected in Corning Gorilla Glass that is used in most high-end smartphones today. Pure, passionate, focused, and patient – the distinctive qualities of being a good player are also visible with the brand new MSI Notebook logo protected by tough Gorilla Glass and ready to endure external forces. This is a very meaningful detail to me as it expresses my personality and proves that this product was created specifically for those who have a strong passion for the visual arts of the century 21.
Not stopping there, Steelseries is also very generous in equipped with RGB backlighting for Titan. With Steel Series Engine 3, we can completely express our personality through GT83 which is already extremely pitiful. What is better than being the conductor, conducting the aurora symphony when synchronizing all other Steelseries products such as Headset Arctis 7, Gaming Mouse Rival 600 …
Overall, you can confidently say that the GT83 Titan 8RG did significantly better compared to the Acer Predator X21 which is also a mobile desktop with 2 GTX 1080 in SLI mode. However, a small minus point is that the GT83 does not have an accessory hand pad attached, showing thoughtful history from the company like Acer did with the X21.
GT83’s touchpad is also a highlight compared to all the gaming laptops currently on the market. The touchpad has a smooth and responsive touchpad that can be switched between mouse and Numpad modes when activated by pressing the “num lock” part. However, this detail is not really as impressive as how Acer did with the X21 when the rival from Taiwan also combined Numpad and touchpad. The only difference is that the numeric keypad of the X21 connects to the whole via magnetic force and turns upside down to be able to change with the touchpad.
Software
MSI has pretty much equipped the support software on this “monster” MSI GT83 Titan 8RG, each application has its own purpose. Killer Control Center provides a line manager, where you can prioritize bandwidth usage for specific programs and analyze Wifi. Steelseries gives you complete color personalization on the keyboard, along with adjustable key bindings and macro support for different situations in the game.
MSI Dragon Center is the total management/monitoring center, which checks memory capacity, fan speed, CPU/ GPU load and temperature. Dragon Center is also a controller for typical functions such as VR, fan speed, custom sound.
The display screen
The display screen of the MSI GT83 Titan 8RG is an 18.4 ″ Full HD display with “stable” quality. That’s fine because with the awful hardware: i7-8850H and GTX 1080Ti, this laptop should have had a 4K display or at least 1440p with G-Sync that deserves the premium.
Even if shoppers want to, they have fewer options for better computer screen replacements from manufacturers. Unless they’re willing to take advantage of the 3 HDMI ports, mini-display and Thunderbolt 3 are both capable of outputting 4K UHD picture quality and make the GT83 Titan 8RG the heart of a personal PC.
When it comes to choice, buyers can nonetheless access and customize the image quality, albeit limited and only relative. Based on usage needs, we can choose 1 of 6 customizations in MSI True Color application: sRGB, anti-Bluelight, Movie, Game, Office and Designer.
Performance
Equipped with “brain” Intel Core i7-8850H 6 Core / 12 Thread, it must be said that the “monster” GT83 is not so dull, even has a relatively gray matter. Compared with the Mobile chip of another Coffee Lake generation, i7-8750H, i7-8850H with a higher clock speed (2.6 / 4.3 GHz vs 2.2 / 4.1Ghz) creates a distance of 8-10% in actual use. But for the i9-8950H CPU equipped on the GT75 8RG junior, GT83 still goes a bit slower by about 6-8%.
However, the heat of the game is still coming from the GTX 1080 pair running SLI. With the parallel power of the two most powerful non-Ti video cards Nvidia Pascal generation, the power of GT83 Titan 8RG in games improves from 0-90% depending on different games, operating well at the highest resolution with Full Detail and Anti-Aliasing profiles.
It seems that with the performance of GT83, everything has reached the ceiling price and can hardly be improved further. But unlike the world’s most expensive Acer Predator X21, the GT83 8RG always has room for growth thanks to the hardware placement below the aluminum plate just above the keyboard. More specifically, we can easily add RAM upgrades.
Duration of use
If you can spot one thing about the MSI GT83 8RG, then nothing is clearer about the battery life. Never count on the 8-cell-75Wh battery pack on this laptop that can help you watch an entire movie, let alone gaming in battles up to several hours long.
In fact, the 2 GTX 1080 consumes so much power that, in order to maintain a stable fps, the 2 battery chargers are indispensable.
Summary
To be honest, when compared to the competition, the MSI GT83 8RG is a largely unrealistic choice. With a weight of up to 5.5kg and extremely high power consumption, it is difficult to accept this laptop is really a laptop because of its poor portability, similar to the Acer Predator X21.
However, in contrast to the Acer Predator X21, despite being the most high-end product of the two brands, the GT83’s equipment/accessories have not really shown the level of attention that a flagship needs, as well as the screen is not enough to show off the raw performance of the movement.