If cost is no object and you’re seeking a desktop-like laptop experience for maximum performance, look no further than the MSI Titan 18 HX ($5,399 as tested). This 18-inch powerhouse packs a fresh Intel 14th Gen “Raptor Lake Refresh” Core i9 HX processor, an RTX 4090 GPU, a whopping 128GB of memory, a 4TB solid-state drive, and a 4K 120Hz mini LED display. Enthusiast gamers are more than covered, meaning this is a machine for demanding media, processing, or data-crunching tasks—in addition to gaming. Outside of that thin upper slice of the market, the Alienware m18 is a comparatively more approachable 18-inch machine. At the same time, the Editors’ Choice award-holding Lenovo Legion Pro 7i Gen 8 is the best overall value among gaming laptops costing more than $2,000. The Titan, as ever, is a pick for peak power seekers untethered from the budget or space constraints of mere mortals.
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Design: A Weighty Chassis With a 120Hz 4K DisplayWhen you see an 18-inch gaming laptop, it needs little introduction: You can rightly assume it’s going for power. That’s even more the case for the Titan 18 than others, as the name suggests, pulling no punches in its design or choice of high-end components (as was evident when we first saw this system at a CES 2024 preview). Older big-screen laptops used to go even bigger, so the Titan is perhaps relatively “compact” versus the behemoths of old, but it’s still a beast when put against most modern laptops. Specifically, it measures 1.25 by 15.9 by 12 inches and weighs 7.93 pounds, a reasonable footprint for an 18-inch system, but sparing little concern for weight. Laptops of this size, bluntly, are not meant to be moved much—these are desktop-replacement devices, giving you a monitor-like experience and destined to stay put on your desk.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)
Regardless, it’s far easier to pack up and move than a desktop tower when needed, and changing rooms at home is no big deal, but you won’t look forward to hauling this any farther. Not all 18-inch laptops are equal: The Alienware m18 is slimmer, but even heavier at 1.05 by 16.15 by 12.59 inches and 8.9 pounds, while the Asus ROG Strix Scar 18 is the “lightest,” measuring 1.21 by 15.71 by 11.57 inches and weighing 6.77 pounds. The Scar 18 is the most similar alternative to the Titan 18 HX in size and purpose.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)
The Titan’s prodigious size benefits both the component and performance potential (which I’ll get to), and, of course, the display. This roomy 18-inch screen comes in only one flavor, unlike many gaming laptops, but it’s a super-advanced UHD+ (3,840-by-2,400 resolution) 120Hz mini LED panel. The only room for moderate disappointment is the 120Hz refresh rate. For enthusiast gamers, some games (particularly competitive multiplayer titles) benefit from 165Hz, 240Hz, or even more, though in the case of a 4K screen you’d attain those only at lower resolutions, in any case, given the limits of the GPU for most games. Otherwise, the screen looks sharp and bright, and the 4K resolution makes it ideal for professional and creative uses outside of gaming, too. For gaming, many laptops can’t justify a 4K display with their components, but as we’ll get to, this machine can still push high frame rates at 4K.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)
With size-related aspects covered, I still have a lot to discuss with this system. It’s something like a car loaded up with all of the extra trim, as you may have concluded from the price. That extends to the components and performance ceiling, of course, but also permeates every part of the design. The touchpad is glass, with noticeable and customizable RGB lighting beneath, and that’s not all. It’s a haptic touchpad, meaning simulated feedback and clicks rather than a physical button, as part of this flat glass design. It doesn’t reduce the functionality, and it’s satisfying to use.The keyboard, too, features uncommon advantages. This is a low-profile Cherry MX mechanical keyboard, with much more substantial feedback (plus that signature click) than a traditional laptop keyboard. This is not unique to the Titan 18—Alienware’s m18 also features the low-profile Cherry keyboard—but it is still rare in the laptop space, and it feels more comfortable to type on.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)
Per-key backlighting supported by SteelSeries (you can customize the touchpad and key lighting in the SteelSeries app) is also included. If I’m being critical, something about the shift of the keyboard—perhaps to include the full-size number pad—is a bit awkward, and I kept finding my fingers in the wrong place when starting to type. I’d adjust with time, but that, in addition to the fact that the keyboard is pushed so far up the substantial keyboard deck, makes using it a little less than natural.Using the MSI Titan 18 HX: Connectivity and Extra FeaturesAdditional features that contribute to the Titan’s significant price include an IR FHD webcam and—less visible—a massive internal vapor chamber for cooling its high-end parts effectively. Between the cooling system and MSI’s OverBoost Ultra technology, the laptop can push up to 270 watts (W) of system power with the CPU and GPU (175W as configured) running at full power. The laptop also includes four DDR5 memory slots and three M.2 SSD slots, further driving home that this can be used for professional purposes beyond gaming; workflows for engineers and architects (including those in the field that can’t move a desktop) can benefit from the power.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)
The Titan 18 HX is also loaded with desktop-style connectivity. The left edge holds a USB Type-A port and an SD card reader, while the right side houses another USB-A port, two USB Type-C connections with Thunderbolt 4 support (one with USB PD charging), and an audio jack. The rear is home to an HDMI port, a power connector, and an Ethernet jack. You’ll also find a range of software options and features that enhance the Titan 18. MSI Center includes different performance modes—something that’s come to be expected in gaming laptops of a certain tier—for varying scenarios. We tested the laptop on the extreme performance mode to gauge its maximum power, but expect to hear loud, sustained fan noise under load (and sometimes even when idling) on this mode. Balanced mode did see a performance drop, but unless you’re looking to squeeze out the fastest performance in that moment for work or gaming, it may be worth using this mode most of the time. You’ll also find a silent mode, solving that problem entirely at the cost of power, and a life-extending battery mode.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)
The last mode, AI Engine, is different, and it was the subject of our CES 2024 MSI Prestige laptops hands-on preview. The Prestige laptops run on Intel’s AI-centric Core Ultra Meteor Lake chips, so it makes sense that an AI feature was front and center; the Titan runs on a 14th Gen HX processor, which lacks the dedicated neural processing unit (NPU) for offloading AI tasks. In this case, the HX chip and GPU will work through AI enhancement workloads, rather than the NPU found in Meteor Lake chips, but the Titan should be able to handle these tasks without slowdown, given the power it possesses.What does AI Engine mode do? With the mode active, pulling up an application causes a notification to pop up on the screen from the MSI Center software, telling you the AI has adjusted the settings to fit that application. Changing your focused window to something like Zoom will prompt AI Engine to switch to a communications-focused Intelligent Meeting mode, optimizing the camera and microphone, while switching to a more productivity-minded and processing-centric program will prompt AI Engine to ramp up the system fans and performance modes in Intelligent Work mode. You’ll also find Intelligent Gaming and Intelligent Entertainment modes.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)
This is pretty neat in practice, though it will hardly change your life. Applications have provided some versions of these enhancements as individual features, but it is still welcome to have them taken care of from one place and without slowing performance when changing among modes.Beyond this, MSI Center provides a range of component monitoring pages where you can see CPU and GPU usage, settings pages for key functionality, and display settings. MSI also included its AI image-generation software on our review unit, named AI Artist, but it will not be pre-installed on retail systems; you can instead download it for free from the MSI website. In short, you can issue text prompts and/or an image reference for the local hardware to churn through and produce a resulting image.Testing the MSI Titan 18 HX: Prodigious PowerAs a showcase product, the Titan 18 HX doesn’t have a wide range of configurations like most laptops. You’ll find one main SKU sold across retailers, which is the unit we have, and another similar configuration sold only at Micro Center.Our model is $5,399 for a truly outrageous configuration. It packs a 14th Gen Intel Core i9-14900HX processor, a massive 128GB of memory, an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 GPU, and a 4TB SSD—on top of the 4K display. Any one of those selections could be the marquee inclusion of another laptop, and packing them all into one chassis is a rare sight. The memory and storage are truly overkill even for high-end gaming, and the GPU is the best possible option, but even then, you’ll never have quite enough juice for all-out, max-settings 4K gaming.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)
The Micro Center-only version is priced at $4,999, and the only difference is the memory drops to 64GB. You’ll find far more cost-effective pure gaming laptops than this, even in the high-end tier, and the Titan 18 is aimed at users who will deploy its power in other professional or creative use cases.These 14th Gen Raptor Lake Refresh processors debuted at CES 2024, though the Meteor Lake chips took headlines. HX denotes the ultra-high performance tier, and at the Core i9 level, the CPU in this laptop should shred through tasks with its 24 cores and 32 threads.To test this laptop’s performance, we put it through our usual suite of processing and graphics benchmark tests. We’ve compared it with the following alternative hyper-expensive laptops…
The Alienware m18 ($3,199.99 as tested) and Asus ROG Strix Scar 18 ($3,699 as tested) are two alternative top-end 18-inch laptops with similar components to the Titan 18. Even then, you can see the prices come in way below the Titan 18, mostly due to memory and storage capacities. (So, the difference shouldn’t necessarily be evident in performance.) The other two are 16-inch laptops: The Lenovo Legion 9i Gen 8 ($4,528.99 as tested) is a liquid-cooled, all-out-power model, while the Razer Blade 16 ($4,199 as tested) prioritizes its slim design, but is the only other system to pack a 14th Gen processor. The Lenovo Legion Pro 7i Gen 8 may be our Editors’ Choice pick for high-end laptops above $2,000 as the best value, but at its price, it’s unfair to match it with these machines.Productivity and Content Creation TestsWe run the same general productivity benchmarks across both mobile and desktop systems. Our first test is UL’s PCMark 10, which simulates a variety of real-world productivity and office workflows to measure overall system performance and also includes a storage subtest for the primary drive.Our other three benchmarks focus on the CPU, using all available cores and threads, to rate a PC’s suitability for processor-intensive workloads. Maxon’s Cinebench R23 uses that company’s Cinema 4D engine to render a complex scene, while Geekbench 5.4 Pro from Primate Labs simulates popular apps ranging from PDF rendering and speech recognition to machine learning. Finally, we use the open-source video transcoder HandBrake 1.4 to convert a 12-minute video clip from 4K to 1080p resolution (lower times are better).Finally, we run PugetBench for Photoshop by workstation maker Puget Systems, which uses the Creative Cloud version 22 of Adobe’s famous image editor to rate a PC’s performance for content creation and multimedia applications. It’s an automated extension that executes a variety of general and GPU-accelerated Photoshop tasks ranging from opening, rotating, resizing, and saving an image to applying masks, gradient fills, and filters.
No matter how you slice it, the Titan 18 HX is a beast for processing workloads. The Scar 18 went toe-to-toe in performance on these tests, trading blows, but either (and most of these systems) are suited to the most demanding tasks. Some of these tests couldn’t even push this machine to its full extent, and 128GB is always going to come in handy when you throw even more at it. Gamers and demanding media or CAD professionals alike can rest comfortably.Graphics and Gaming TestsFor gaming laptops and other mobile gaming hardware, we run both synthetic and real-world gaming benchmarks. The former includes two DirectX 12 gaming simulations from UL’s 3DMark, Night Raid (more modest, suitable for systems with integrated graphics) and Time Spy (more demanding, suitable for gaming rigs with discrete GPUs). Normally, we also use the cross-platform GPU benchmark GFXBench 5, which gauges OpenGL performance, but we were not able to run the test on this system due to server connection issues.Our real-world gaming testing comes from the in-game benchmarks of F1 2021, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, and Rainbow Six Siege. These three games—all benchmarked at 1080p resolution—represent simulation, open-world action-adventure, and competitive/esports shooter games, respectively. Valhalla and Siege are run twice (Valhalla at Medium and Ultra quality, Siege at Low and Ultra quality), while F1 2021 is run twice at Ultra quality settings with and without AMD and Nvidia’s performance-boosting FSR and DLSS features turned on.
This was an all-RTX 4090 faceoff, yet you can still see plenty of variation in the results. Processor, memory, chassis size, power delivery, and thermal solutions all play a part here, but it’s clear that the Titan 18 HX was king. It led this group on every single run of every test and game here, powering through each scenario and setting some laptop records. I hope its leading low-settings Rainbow Six result doesn’t become a reason we see 600Hz refresh rate screens any time soon.These game tests were run at 1080p, which is of course not this laptop’s native resolution. I ran the same games at 4K to gauge how the Titan 18 could perform with this far more demanding pixel count, and the results did drop significantly. Assassin’s Creed, as the AAA case study here, went from 174fps on maximum settings at 1080p to 77fps at 4K. Similar drops were seen in the other titles, though any DLSS-capable games can mitigate the impact. Still, comfortably clearing 60fps at 4K without DLSS is no easy feat, even if the frame rate isn’t in the hundreds. More cutting-edge titles will push it harder, but more and more include DLSS support with every release to make smooth performance more plausible—even the best of laptop technology like Titan 18 HX can’t reach those heights without it yet.Battery and Display TestsWe test each laptop and tablet’s battery life by playing a locally stored 720p video file (the open-source Blender movie Tears of Steel) with display brightness at 50% and audio volume at 100%. We make sure the battery is fully charged before the test, with Wi-Fi and keyboard backlighting turned off.To gauge display performance, we also use a Datacolor SpyderX Elite monitor calibration sensor and its Windows software to measure a laptop screen’s color saturation—what percentage of the sRGB, Adobe RGB, and DCI-P3 color gamuts or palettes the display can show—and its 50% and peak brightness in nits (candelas per square meter).
The battery life is subpar for this laptop, harkening back to what we used to expect for most, if not all, gaming laptops. A less than three-hour runtime isn’t exactly surprising for this machine, even with the settings and lights turned down, but you can see that the rest of this powerful field has gone beyond that. No, you probably won’t look to use this laptop away from your desk or charger that much given its general intended use, but you won’t have too much say in the matter, either. On the display side, its color coverage is broad, and mini LED panels are known for being especially bright, as shown by the chart-topping result.Verdict: Unmatched Mobile Power for Gamers and ProsWith an incredibly hefty price tag, the Titan 18 HX pushes laptop performance to its limits. This system is not meant for most buyers, or even those interested only in high-end gaming, but instead comes as close to a desktop experience as possible. The laptop’s loads of memory and storage, giant 4K display, and superpowered performance deliver on that concept, if you have both the workflow needs and budget to justify this behemoth. In terms of peak performance and versatility, we can recommend the Titan 18 HX to that niche of users (or businesses) to whom cost is no object. If money matters, the Alienware m18 is a decent balance of price, design, and power among 18-inchers, while the Editors’ Choice-winning Lenovo Legion Pro 7i Gen 8 is the best value among premium gaming laptops.
Pros
Unmatched gaming performance
Plenty of power (and memory) for professional workloads
18-inch 4K 120Hz mini LED display
Haptic glass touchpad with customizable lighting
Mechanical Cherry MX keyboard
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Cons
Prohibitively expensive
Big and heavy
Short battery life
The Bottom Line
The Titan 18 HX is a gigantic desktop-replacement laptop for enthusiast gamers and professionals seeking as much power as possible, but its premium features and loaded specs command a sky-high price.
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