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

Gaming Performance

While our engineering sample review unit comes with a 360 Hz 1920x1080 display, for retail units MSI is only offering a 3840x2160 120 Hz panel. Driving that display, MSI offers the Titan with a choice of either the NVIDA RTX 3070 Ti Laptop GPU or the RTX 3080 Ti Laptop GPU, the latter of which is in our review unit. The RTX 3080L Ti is currently the fastest notebook GPU and will probably continue to be for some time. The RTX 3070L Ti model of the Titan GT77 supports 225 Watts combined CPU/GPU power, and the RTX 3080L Ti model bumps that up to 250 Watts, with up to 175 Watts for the GPU.

The Titan GT77 was run through our gaming laptop suite, with the newer titles in the suite run at both 1920x1080, as well as 3840x2160 by connecting an external display. As usual, we will start with some synthetics then move on to actual games.

3DMark

With the same GPU as the MSI Raider GE76, it is not a big surprise to see both systems very close to each other. The Titan’s HX processor has a bit more headroom, but both processors max out at the same 5 GHz peak boost on a single core.

GFXBench

The GFXBench 5.0 uses DirectX 12, but even so it is a low-impact test and is more useful for integrated graphics. The performance is very good in this very lightweight test.

Tomb Raider

Our first real game is the original rebooted Tomb Raider, which can still be a challenge for low-tier gaming notebooks and integrated graphics. The RTX 3080L Ti, unsurprisingly, has no issues with this title.

Rise of the Tomb Raider

The first sequel in this franchise really upped the stakes in terms of graphical fidelity and utilizes DirectX 12 as well. At 1920x1080 it can still be a challenge to mid-tier notebooks, but again, the MSI Titan GT77 dominates.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider

The most recent installment in the Tomb Raider franchise is still not very demanding for an RTX 3080L Ti, at least at 1920x1080. There is a small boost here with the Titan just eking out the Raider. At this resolution, that will be down to the CPU since the game will not be GPU bound.

At UHD the Titan still has a small leader over the Raider. It is not a huge difference since both share the same 175-Watt GPU but there is a small win here for the Titan.

Strange Brigade

This game has a wide range of playability, with settings that support even integrated graphics, so it is less demanding than some of the others. The performance is very good, but there is no clear win here from the other RTX 3080L devices.

Borderlands 3

Borderlands 3 has the Titan ahead by a percent or two again, but is still very close.

Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla

Unsurprisingly, the same story is repeated here again with the Titan and Raider about equal.

F1 2021

Both systems are tied at FHD with the Titan just getting the edge at UHD.

Far Cry 5

Far Cry tends to be a CPU bound game, and here we have one of the few real wins for the Titan GT77. There is a noticeable gap at 1920x1080, and although the gap is much lower at 3840x2160, it still exists.

GPU Conclusion

The MSI Titan GT77 is a fantastic gaming device with the best GPU available and plenty of thermal headroom. The Core i9-12900HX processor is faster than the i9-12900HK we tested in the GE76 Raider (which has since been updated to the same HX processor) but for most gaming scenarios the CPU is not as big of a bottleneck. Both the HK and HX both feature the same 5.0 GHz maximum boost frequency, and while the HX offers two more P-Cores and four more threads, as well as a bit more thermal headroom, it was not a huge gain in gaming. There was a small but consistent increase, but it was not massive.