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MSI GT75VR 7RF Titan Pro review: A desktop masquerading as a laptop

By Koh Wanzi - 1 Nov 2017
Launch SRP: S$5899

A closer look

Every feature you need, and then some

MSI GT75VR 7RF Titan Pro

This laptop is likely to generate extremely polarizing opinions. But whether you love it or hate it, the good part is that MSI has attempted to add in some differentiating features, instead of just making a super powerful laptop.

For starters, you get a 1,920 x 1,080-pixel display with a 120Hz refresh rate and 3ms response time. The speedy 120Hz refresh rate and NVIDIA G-Sync really give a huge boost to the overall gaming experience, and you can expect a butter-smooth and fluid feel while in game.

The TN panel purports to be able to display 94 per cent of the NTSC color space, and while I wasn’t able to properly test this, colors could still appear slightly muted, especially if you’re used to IPS displays. They also fade out a lot once you look at the screen off from a wide angle, which is typical for TN screen.

Nevertheless, the screen is more than serviceable, and color accuracy probably isn’t something you care a lot about if you’re just looking to play games.

The screen is paired with bottom-firing Dynaudio speakers that can fill a room with loud and fairly full-bodied tunes, for a laptop that is. Audio quality is definitely above average, as it should be on a laptop that costs this much.

MSI GT75VR 7RF Titan Pro

Another standout feature is the inclusion of Killer MultiGig software, which supports multi-gigabit Ethernet solutions. The Titan Pro uses an Aquantia AQtion 10Gbit Network Adapter, so in case you actually have a 10Gbps plan such as Viewqwest Black, you’ll be able to take full advantage of it by plugging in to the LAN jack at the back of the notebook.

This is a first for a laptop, according to MSI, and it complements the laptop’s over-the-top approach quite well.

MSI GT75VR 7RF Titan Pro 

Wireless connectivity is provided by the Killer Wireless-AC 1535 controller, a 2x2 module that supports MU-MIMO Wi-Fi and a maximum throughput of up to 867Mbps. MSI has always favored solutions from Killer, so hopefully you don’t have any strong feelings about the brand.

The other noteworthy feature is the SteelSeries Rapid RGB mechanical keyboard. The SteelSeries branding is no surprise, and we’ve seen that on plenty of MSI gaming notebooks in the past, but the mechanical keyboard is the real deal.

It uses low-profile Kailh switches, which boast a 1.5mm actuation distance and 3mm total travel distance. That’s only slightly shallower than Cherry’s own MX Speed Silver switches, which have a 1.2mm actuation distance and 3.4mm travel.

Having said that, the switches have a nice clicky feel to them, and you’re always pleasantly surprised by how far they travel when you take to typing. They’re also a huge step up from the so-called mechanical keys on the ASUS ROG GX800, which felt awfully shallow, so it is possible to have a good mechanical keyboard on a laptop that doesn’t look like you slapped a standalone keyboard on it (ahem).

MSI GT75VR 7RF Titan Pro

Still, given how thick the Titan Pro is, there’s no excuse for not being able to cram a good keyboard in there and thankfully, MSI delivers.

The keyboard supports per-key RGB backlighting, so there are nearly limitless customization options available. A dedicated SteelSeries key on the right of the keyboard lets you toggle quickly between different lighting effects, so you don’t always have to fire up the software if you want to switch things up.

The SteelSeries Engine 3 software offers a decent amount of customization, including some fun templates such as Disco Mode, Warp Drive, and the American and Danish flags (SteelSeries is a Danish company). However, it still isn’t as intuitive or powerful as Razer’s Chroma, which remains one of the best ways of customizing the backlighting.

SteelSeries Engine 3

The trackpad feels accurate and responsive, but the left- and right-click buttons below it feel woefully mushy. That’s a pity, given how good the keyboard feels, although most users will probably be using the laptop with a gaming mouse anyway.

Other design flourishes include an elevated palm rest area with a nice soft-touch coating. The soft material feels a lot more comfortable than regular plastic, and it seems like it could help stave off the buildup of dirt and grime over time.

There’s a distinctive arrow-shaped cutout to accommodate the arrow keys, but despite how gratuitous it feels, the extra layer on top of the palm rest seems to help mitigate some of the heat from below. When measuring the temperature in the area, it was slightly cooler than what you normally see, and the palm rests felt relatively cool to touch even while the laptop was under load.

Still, it’s difficult to say whether to attribute that to palm rest design or the overall cooling system, but the Titan Pro’s sheer girth once again means that you definitely expect the best when it comes to cooling.

MSI GT75VR 7RF Titan Pro

 

Cool, but noisy

This is a laptop that measures a whopping 58mm at its thickest point, and MSI says it’s managed to cram 10 heat pipes in there to keep the important hardware running cool. Both the CPU and GPU are cooled independently, and MSI has also included two large 29-blade to pull the cool air in. There's even a dedicated heatsink for the two M.2 SSDs, which is located beside the battery pack.

MSI GT75VR 7RF Titan Pro

The fans use what the company refers to as a whirlwind-blade design, which supposedly helps improve airflow and static pressure. The design is unique, and is more reminiscent of the blower-style fans you find on some graphics cards. They’re tall, with vertically-oriented blades, and they push air out four vents located at the sides and rear of the Titan Pro.

MSI GT75VR 7RF Titan Pro

MSI GT75VR 7RF Titan Pro

If you still want additional cooling, you can also hit the Cooler Boost button at the side to further ramp up the fan speeds. In this mode, hot air actively gusts out of all four exhaust vents, which can be slightly disconcerting. However, it does work, and CPU and GPU temperatures dropped by around 10°C.

MSI GT75VR 7RF Titan Pro

Unfortunately, the fans are also super noisy. And I mean really, really noisy, even without the Cooler Boost function. This isn’t just some annoying background hum, and the loud, whooshing air noises make it sound like there’s a hurricane going on somewhere.

Make no mistake, if you use voice communication software like Discord to talk to your friends while gaming, they’re going to hear it, and they’re not going to like it. Furthermore, if you’re used to just leaving your microphone open, you might have no choice but to switch to push-to-talk.

 

Speedy storage and plenty of ports

Further tying in with the narrative of extravagance is the dual 256GB PCIe M.2 SSDs in RAID 0. This configuration vastly improves sequential read and write speeds, so you can transfer large files very quickly. RAID 0 doesn’t offer any redundancy at all, so what you’re getting is just improved performance.

That said, performance is quite impressive. In addition to blazing fast sequential read and write speeds, you get good 4K read speeds, although write speeds are slightly underwhelming. On top of that, it acquited itself well in the more intensive 4k, 64 queue depth workload, with read speeds exceeding 1,000MB/s and write speeds approaching that.

Here’s a snapshot of the result from the AS SSD benchmark to give you an idea of the performance:

The 512GB of total storage space is adequate for several good-sized games, but if that’s still not enough, there’s the 1TB HDD for you to fall back on.

The Titan Pro also supports output to three external 4K displays, in case you want to just use the machine as an actual desktop replacement. It does this using a combination of the three HDMI, Mini DisplayPort 1.2, and Thunderbolt 3 outputs, but you can also continue to use the laptop’s own screen at the same time.

On top of that, there are a total of five USB 3.1 (Gen 1) Type-A ports and an SD card reader, so that pretty much covers most of the bases.

MSI GT75VR 7RF Titan Pro

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7.5
  • Design 7.5
  • Features 9
  • Performance 9
  • Value 6.5
  • Mobility 4.5
The Good
Super powerful
Excellent cooling performance
10Gbps Ethernet is a first for a laptop
Mechanical keyboard feels great to type
120Hz display and speedy RAID 0 storage
The Bad
Still extremely thick and heavy when there are already slimmer competitors
Very pricey
Fans are rather noisy
TN display isn't too impressive
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