Product Listing

MSI GT80 2QE Titan SLI: The world's most over-the-top gaming notebook

By Salehuddin Bin Husin - 16 Feb 2015
Launch SRP: S$6599

The Overview

 With gold key caps, SLI graphics and a mechanical keyboard, the GT80 Titan SLI is the epitome of premium.

 

The Overview

Say what you will about MSI, but you can't say they don't try new things. This is the company that brought us the GS30 Shadow notebook and dock after all. But even then, the GS30 Shadow was somewhat conventional. After all, docking stations that mated notebooks with a desktop graphics cards aren't exactly a new idea. The GS30 Shadow, while unexpected, wasn't even a world's first. That's obviously not the case with the GT80 2QE Titan SLI. Can you guess why?

We figured it wasn't that hard to guess. It was in the summary to this article after all. So yes, it's the keyboard. If you're new to the keyboard scene, you might wonder why all the fuss about a mechanical keyboards? After all, aren't all keyboards technically mechanical? To that effect, we point you to this article about what mechanical keyboards are and the pros and cons of using one. To put it very briefly, mechanical keyboards have special switches which are more responsive and give a more satisfying tactile experience when you're typing. So does the inclusion of a mechanical keyboard make the GT80 Titan SLI the best gaming notebook in the world? Let's find out.

 

The Hardware

The MSI GT80 2QE Titan SLI is the first ever notebook with a mechanical keyboard. At 18.4 inches, the notebook isn't for the faint of heart. Not only is it large and intimidating, it's also heavy. Fully loaded, the notebook weighs a hefty 4.5KG and is 49mm thick. Despite the thickness, MSI claims that the GT80 Titan SLI is the world's thinnest 18.4-inch notebook. Indeed, it is thinner than 18.4-inch notebooks such as the discontinued Alienware 18. Even so, it is still massive. Of course, you get a lot of hardware to go with it. Quite confusingly, MSI offers three SKUs with varying levels of hardware. The entry-level model comes with only a single GPU, whereas the mid and top-of-the-line versions have SLI configurations. Our unit is the highest-end model and to avoid confusion will be referred to as the GT80 Titan SLI.

Our highest spec GT80 Titan SLI comes with one of Intel's most powerful mobile processor, the quad-core Core i7-4980HQ (2.8GHz, 6MB cache). The GT80 Titan SLI also comes with 32GB of RAM and two NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980M in SLI. The storage system is particularly impressive as it has four M.2 128GB SSDs configured in a RAID 0 array for a total capacity of 512GB. The SSDs in use here are from Kingston and uses Phison PS3108-S8 controllers, the same used in the recently reviewed Silicon Motion S80 SSD, which we found to be unimpressive. We ran a simple test to gauge its performance, and as expected, sequential read and write speeds were very impressive, but results in the other workloads were less so - 4K reads and writes were particular slow. To complement the flash storage, MSI has also equipped the machine with a single 1TB 7200rpm HDD.

The hardware of the machine shares many similarities with MSI previous monster machine, the GT72 Dominator Pro. Like that older machine, the GT80 Titan SLI also has Killer Doubleshot Pro GB LAN and Doubleshot Pro 11ac for WiFi, and supports Smart Teaming. According to the literature we have seen, Smart Teaming allows users to combine both wired and wireless bandwidths together for a maximum theoretical data transfer rate of 1.87Gbps. How useful this would be is doubtful, since it is unlikely one's Internet connection can ever achieve such speeds in the real-world, but still we figure it could be useful if you transfer files across your network often or if you backup to a NAS system in your home network. 

As for audio, the machine is equipped with speakers by Dynaudio and features a 4+1 speaker system (two speakers for each channel) with Audio Boost 2 technology. Creative's Soundblaster Cinema 2 is also supported, which gives users the option of DSP settings, and if you have a surround speaker setup, even multi-channel speaker calibration. The speakers are great, even better than the ones present in the MSI GT72 Dominator Pro, which we thought was already pretty good. But of course they are no match for decent headphones or speakers. As for connectivity options and ports, the GT80 Titan SLI comes with just about everything an enthusiast would need, but there's no D-sub or Thunderbolt ports.

On the left, users will find a Blu-ray writer, a SD card reader, three USB 3.0 ports, and jacks for audio and the S/PDIF output.

The right side is pretty bare, with only two USB 3.0 ports and huge vents to cool the machine.

The display related ports are all at the back, with the two mini-DisplayPorts, the HDMI port and the Ethernet port all hanging out together with the charger input. (Can we use all DPs and HDMI to output to three displays?)

As we mentioned earlier, the GT80 Titan SLI is the first notebook in the world to come with a mechanical keyboard and the inclusion of that means that MSI has to make some compromises with regard to hardware arrangement. Whereas most notebooks arranged the hardware throughout the whole chassis, in the GT80, that's only half true. For you see, the hardware pretty much makes up only the top half of the base.

Here's a picture of the GT80 all locked and loaded, the exposed lights on the keyboard are the backlights so you can see how bright they are without any covering.

The top portion's where the dragon casing used to be, which is removed by sliding it off.

Since the GT80 Titan SLI has a mechanical keyboard, that means the space underneath the keyboard has to house the mechanical switches. As a result, there could be nothing underneath the keyboard if MSI wanted to keep the machine at a respectable thickness and size. Their solution, as you can see, was to shift all the hardware up into the upper part of the machine.

Removing the top panel to access the components within was a simple task that involves removing just two screws from the underside of the machine. Our only gripe was that the symbols used to denote which specific screws to remove could have been made bigger and clearer. Once we got the two screws off though, it was just a simple matter of sliding off the cover.

The symbol used to show which screw to remove to access the components could really have been larger. Note also the subwoofer to the right of the screw.

Here we can see the two SO-DIMM slots for memory, which are flanked by the four Kingston M.2 SSDs. To the far right is the 1TB 7200rpm HDD.

One thing we liked about the setup was how everything is much easily accessible and upgradeable. Apart from the RAM modules (two more slots at the back), the rest of the components are right at your fingertips and clearly labelled. The only thing we didn't like was how the HDD just sat there with nothing to really secure it in place apart from some sponge lining the HDD compartment. Even though MSI's implementation worked well enough (we didn't hear any rattling), we would have preferred an HDD caddy of some sort to provide more security.

The HDD has no casing, just sponge lining,

As for the display, going for an 18.4 inch notebook meant that MSI was severely restricted on what displays they could use on the GT80 Titan SLI. MSI has opted to use a Full-HD matte display. While it is a waste to see the powerful hardware contained in our machine paired with with just a 1920 x 1080 pixels resolution screen, we recognize the fact that there is currently no higher resolution display option available for notebook manufactures. If you need a high resolution 4K or QHD display, you will have to look at smaller 15 or 13-inch notebooks. Nevertheless, the display offered exceptional vertical and horizontal viewing angles, but colors looked too washed out to our eyes.

The Full HD screen does the job we suppose, though we'd prefer a much higher resolution one.While we may whine about the Full HD display, the display is still a pretty good one, with clear views even at angles.

Finally, we come to the GT80 Titan SLI's raison d'être, its mechanical keyboard. The mechanical keyboard comes from SteelSeries and is outfitted with Cherry MX Brown keys as they provide the best balance between gaming and regular typing. It goes without saying then this is by far the best keyboard we have used on any notebook. The tactility offered by mechanical keys are unmatched and they are a real joy to use. MSI also provides gold cap keys which do nothing but look gaudy. We really don't know what they were thinking with this. As a side note, the keys are opaque, so if you're playing in the dark and use the gold caps, expect your WASD and ESC keys to be a black spot.

MSI provides changeable gold cap WASD keys for users to spice up their keyboards.

To the right of the keyboard sits the trackpad/numpad combo. You can easily toggle between its two modes by press the Numlock key. If it's on, the area becomes a Numpad, if it's off, it's a trackpad. Tracking is very accurate and responsive, though we think most users would need some time to get used to the layout as most trackpads in notebooks are usually positioned to the bottom of the keyboard.

The main draw for the GT80 series is undoubtedly the mechanical keyboard.

The trackpad may not be conventional, but we like it for its accuracy and responsiveness.

To make the GT80 Titan SLI an attractive purchase, MSI also bundles in some goodies. While purchasers of the GT72 Dominator Pro got a rather cool SteelSeries headset and mouse, those who buy the GT80 Titan SLI get a whole new set of gifts, though it's debatable on whether they have the same usefulness as the items bundled with the GT72 Dominator Pro.

A generic wrist rest, a MSI Dragon keychain and the gold key caps with key cap removal device. There's also a rather sturdy backpack meant for carrying the notebook around.

This covers the specifications and our handling of the machine, what about its hardware and performance? Does it live up to its potential? To find that out, you'll need to continue on to the next few sections.

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8.0
  • Design 8
  • Features 9
  • Performance 9
  • Value 6
  • Mobility 4.5
The Good
Great keyboard
Easy to upgrade
Excellent storage system
Good speakers
Blu-ray writer and dual Mini-DP ports
Killer DoubleShot Pro with Smart Teaming
The Bad
Performance not quite up to par
Average display
Keyboard awkward to use
Heavy and poor battery life
Very pricey
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