The MSI Titan 18 HX is the brand’s latest flagship gaming laptop featuring the best of the best components namely the Intel Core i9 14900HX and RTX 4090 Laptop GPU. It has the world’s first 18-inch 4k 120Hz mini LED display that gives you an immersive gaming experience or a vivid professional workflow in photo or video editing. So, let’s take a closer look at the MSI Titan 18 HX and see how MSI has perfected its flagship gaming laptop line.
MSI TITAN 18 HX – A CLOSER LOOK
The MSI Titan 18HX comes in rather plain packaging unlike what we’ve seen with most brands having a gimmicky yet fun unboxing experience.
Unlike most gaming laptops released this year, the MSI Titan 18 HX has a plain matte black lid design with only the MSI logo on the top center. The MSI logo lights up and its RGB lighting can be controlled via the SteelSeries GG software.
The back of the laptop shows an intricate design with different cutouts that expose part of the vapor chamber cooler showing you the heat pipes and fan. Interestingly, the bottom part has a silver finish compared to the all-black setup we’ve seen so far on the MSI Titan 18 HX.
You have two USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-A ports and one SD Express memory card reader on the left. One more USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-A port on the right as well as two Thunderbolt 4 ports both of which support display port over type-c and one Thunderbolt 4 port supporting PD 3.1 charging support.
Moving to the back you can see the Kensington lock, 2.5G ethernet port, DC-in, and HDMI 2.1 port which supports 8K@60Hz or 4k@120Hz.
MSI has improved with its Mystic Light RGB lighting especially coming from the “jelly-looking” design on previous iterations but it’s not the RGB lighting that we’re highlighting. It’s the keyboard. MSI is by far the only brand to push mechanical switches on its flagship gaming laptops with its longstanding partnership with Cherry and Steelseries. The MSI Titan 18 HX has the best keyboard on a Windows laptop thanks to the Cherry MX Ultra-Low Profile Mechanical keyboard. Unlike membrane or scissor type laptop keyboards every key has a crisp and consistent tactile feedback making it feel like you’re on a regular desktop.
While MSI has managed to cram in a full-sized keyboard in such a large 18″ chassis, the half-sized tilde button and the arrow keys require a long adjustment period. Moreover, MSI swapped the right control and FN key placement so if you’re used to using the right ctrl key you’ll have a very hard time adjusting to the keyboard layout. That said, it’s well worth it thanks to the aforementioned CheryMX Ultra Low Profile mechanical keyboard which feels closer to a clicky blue switch which happens to be my switch preference.
MSI used a glass trackpad on the MSI Titan 18 HX making it the world’s first seamless RGB haptic trackpad. Like its keyboard, the trackpad takes a little time to get used if you’re coming from a trackpad with dedicated buttons. Its tracking is very accurate but the seamlessness of the trackpad may often get you out of the area as there are no corners to help you know by feeling that you’re going off-edge. That said, its size is not small nor not large especially considering the Titan 18 HX’s size. Its lighting can be controlled via the SteelSeries GG software.
Display
The MSI Titan 18 HX has an 18” 16:10 4K 120Hz MiniLED display. Its 16:10 aspect ratio gives you more screen real estate for productivity while the 4k resolution gives you crisp and detailed video. It uses a miniLED display from AU Optronics which has a 100% DCI-P3 rating and supports HDR1000.
Our SpyderX Display Analysis Tool measured a rating of 100% RGB, 86% aRGB, and 97% DCI-P3 as well as a peak brightness of 670 nits easily making it one of the best displays in a gaming laptop. The results show that the MSI Titan 18 HX’s display is not only for gaming but for productivity as well.
MSI Center Software
MSI Center Software is one of the two software required to customize the MSI Titan 18 HX. Here you can find the laptop’s various performance and fan profile settings. The app also has hardware monitoring and other features such as the GPU switch key, windows lock, display overdrive, and crosshair. Moreover, you could access the AI Engine through the app to enable AI optimizations for performance and audio.
SteelSeries GG App
Keyboard macro and key mapping settings can be found on the SteelSeries GG App. RGB Lighting of both the keyboard and trackpad can be also customized inside the app albeit I wasn’t able to find the brightness setting of the lighting.
Benchmark Setup and Test Methodology
Gadget Pilipinas’ testing philosophy is to provide detail-oriented results as accurately as possible so that our readers can replicate our tests given that these conditions are met. Different benchmarking apps and sequences are used depending on the component or device being tested.
We use CapFrameX 1.7.2 Beta as our primary FPS capture and analysis tool for all our gaming benchmarks. The latest build version of Windows 11 Pro and WHQL-certified drivers are used for our benchmarks. Readings such as temperatures and power draws are recorded using HWINFO64, and OCCT Enterprise.
For more information read our Benchmark Methodology article.
MSI TITAN 18 HX Synthetic and Productivity Benchmarks
OCCT Benchmark
OCCT is a popular benchmark and stability testing tool among overclockers, enthusiasts and system integrators
CINEBENCH 2024
Maxon’s Cinebench benchmark is one of the most iconic benchmark applications used by reviewers and enthusiasts. The latest Cinebench 2024 uses the latest rendering architectures, including Intel’s Embree ray tracing technology and other advanced features from AMD and Intel that allow users to render the same scene on the same hard.
PROCYON
Procyon benchmark suite is developed by the UL, the same team behind 3DMark and PCMark benchmarks. The UL Procycon video editing benchmark uses Adobe Premiere in a typical video editing workflow. The benchmark starts by importing two video project files with various edits, adjustments, and effects – the second project uses several GPU-accelerated effects. Each project is exported in 1080p with H.264 encoding and again in 4K with HEVC H.265. The reported score is based on the time taken to export all four videos.
PCMark10
From the same developers of the popular game benchmarking tool 3DMark, PCMark 10 is a benchmarking app for measuring a whole PC’s performance. It covers a wide variety of tests to reflect common tasks performed in a modern workplace. We selected PCMark 10’s extended benchmark and reported both the overall score and Digital Content Creation Score.
V-RAY 5
V-Ray Benchmark is a stand-alone version of V-Ray developed by Chaos Group. It is designed to test the CPU and GPU by rendering sample scenes at a fixed amount of time. V-Ray is a plug-in mostly utilized by 3D computer graphics software applications mainly for industrial design, product design, architecture, film, and video game production. V-Ray is not limited to 64-threads as it supports multi and mega-threading.
BLENDER
Blender is a widely used, free, open-source 3D creation suite. It supports the whole 3D pipeline process from modeling, rigging, animation, simulation, rendering, and even motion tracking. Blender has become a standard for CPU benchmarks with the BMW27 and Classroom Scene most used. This prompted the company to release Blender Open Data Benchmark in 2018, a benchmark-specific version allowing users to run a preset benchmark and share the results online like 3DMark.
SuperPI 32M
SuperPI is a single-threaded benchmark application that lets the CPU calculate Pi(π) to the nth digit. In this benchmark, we selected the Pi calculation to 32M, the highest available for the app.
GeekBench 6.2.2
Geekbench is a multi-platform benchmark used to gauge CPU performance and compare them across Windows, Mac, and Mobile. Geekbench 6 is the latest version and doesn’t rely on memory more than the previous Geekbench 4, making it a great tool to measure both single-core and multi-core CPU performance.
3DMark Firestrike and TimeSpy
3DMark is the go-to benchmark for gamers because of the ability to share and compare results online. We test GPUs both in DX11 Firestike and DX12 Timespy to get a gauge of the performance.
CORONA RENDERER
Corona Renderer is an unbiased photorealistic render available for Autodesk 3Ds Max, Maxon Cinema 4D, and as a stand-alone application. Its popularity, similar to Blender, led Chaos Group to develop a benchmark version of the app which runs using Corona Renderer 1.3. Workstation systems, especially CPUs, can utilize the Corona Benchmark as up to 72 threads can be used in the benchmark, making it very suitable for CPUs with various price segments.
MSI TITAN 18 HX SSD Benchmark
MSI used a Samsung MZVL22T0HDLB 2TB Gen4 SSD rated 7000MB/s read and 5,200MB/s write. Our quick Crystal Disk Mark 1GB and 16GB tests validates the rated speed of the PM9A1 SSD. Its speed is arguably overkill for gaming but also ideal for video and photo editing.
MSI TITAN 18 HX Gaming Benchmarks
COUNTERSTRIKE 2
CounterStrike 2 or CS2 is the successor to the now-retired CSGO and now uses the Source 2 Engine – the same engine used on DOTA 2. CS2 is a great FPS game to test out CPU performance. Our benchmark process uses the replay function of the game.
DOTA 2
Dota 2 is a good repesentation among F2P titles especially MOBAs and RTS as it lands on the demanding side of the spectrum. Its gameplay and quality of life updates are far more frequently than most F2P titles thanks to its vast popularity. Our benchmark sequence is based on a replay of OG vs. Gaimin Gladiators in the ESL ONE Berlin Major Finals Game 4 from the team fight that happened from 23:00 to 24:00.
SPIDER-MAN: MILES MORALES
Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales is developed by Insomniac Games and published by Sony is one of the most popular PC port titles last 2022. It’s one of the few modern game titles that support upscaling technologies FSR, DLSS, and XeSS making it a great title to use for benchmarks.
F1 23
F1 23 is the official video game of the 2023 Formula One and Formula 2 championships developed by Codemasters. F1 2023 is the sixteenth installment in the franchise and uses the Ego Engine 4.0. F1 233 is a good representation of racing games thanks to its realistic graphics and fairly demanding spec requirements as well as support for Ray Tracing and the latest upscaling technologies such as DLSS, XeSS, and FSR.
ASSASSIN’S CREED: MIRAGE
Assassin’s Creed Mirage is the latest Assassin’s Creed game from Ubisoft making it the thirteenth major installment in the franchise. It uses the AnvilNext 2.0 game engine and is the very first AC game to support the latest upscaling technology such as XeSS, FSR, and DLSS.
Cyberpunk 2077
Cyberpunk 2077 is arguably the most hyped game of 2020. Developed by CD Projekt Red, the dystopian open-world, action-adventure RPG sports is one of the most demanding titles to date. Cyberpunk 2077 also supports three Ray Tracing settings as well as DLSS which makes the game a great tool to measure Ray tracing performance for both AMD and Nvidia graphics cards.
Far Cry 6
FarCry 6 is an FPS game published by Ubisoft and uses the Dunia engine. It heavily relies on and takes advantage of DirectX 12 to render a realistic environment that makes it taxing to both the CPU and GPU. It’s also the first game of the franchise to support Ray Tracing.
Metro Exodus
Metro Exodus is the third Metro game trilogy based on Dmitry Glukhovsky’s novels. The game is a first-person shooter with survival horror and stealth elements. The post-apocalyptic game uses 4A Engine by 4A games. Released last 2019, Metro Exodus remains to be one of the most graphically pleasing and demanding games that’s popular to date.
HORIZON ZERO DAWN
Horizon Zero Dawn is one of the most popular console-port RPG developed by Guerilla Games and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment. Horizon Zero Dawn is a multi-award-winning action RPG, and its popularity resulted in an exclusive Complete Edition game bundle on Steam.
MSI TITAN 18 HX Battery Life
Battery Life is not the laptop’s strongest suit especially when it is equipped with flagship specs such as the Intel Core i9 14900HX and 175W RTX. With that in mind, we opted to only test the Balanced and Extreme Performance profiles of the Titan 18 HX as well as turning off the MUX switch and only using the iGPU with the Balanced Profile. Using the iGPU only yielded a 4-hour battery life which is decent enough in most use cases but should you require the RTX 4090’s computing power, it’s going to last you from two to three hours. That said, you’re probably better off using the integrated GPU if you’re on battery power.
MSI TITAN 18 HX Temperatures
Gaming Temperatures
MSI pushes the limits of the Intel Core i9 14900HX in Extreme Performance with a maximum temperature of 105°C while the RTX 4090 175W GPU only managed to peak at 72.6°C. On other profiles, the CPU only peaks at 100°C while the GPU gets hotter at around 75 to 76°C
Surface Temperatures – Extreme Performance
Extreme Performance has an aggressive fan profile but as shown in our temperature graph in the 14900HX’s idle temp, the profile has a higher threshold before the fans start ramping up. Using our FLIR One thermal imaging camera shows decent surface tempatures especially on the WASD area allowing for a relatively comfortable gaming experience.
Surface Temperatures – AI
Balanced and AI profiles have a much higher idle fan speed but a lower fan speed on load and that is reflected with the relatively warm 40.8°C surface temps on the WASD area.
Performance Summary and Conclusion
Gaming plays a vital role in the development and improvement of the Titan series. The MSI Titan 18 HX shows MSI’s commitment to bringing the best gaming experience a laptop could offer whether it be in performance and comfort. In terms of Performance, MSI justified placing a 16:10 4K panel on the Titan 18 HX as the i9 14900HX + RTX 4090 could easily run games at native resolution with well over 60 FPS on max settings.
Comfort wise, despite the large form factor, there’s no space wasted on the Titan 18 HX. You have one of the best keyboards a laptop has to offer plus its seamless haptic trackpad which not only elevates your gaming or working experience but also removes the need to buy other peripherals. Speakers are also decent for its size for an overall well-rounded listening and viewing experience. The 4k 16:10 miniLED panel with its decent SpyderX Pro rating not only gives you more immersion in gaming but also allows professional video/photo editing and more surface area for your spreadsheets.
Overall, the only thing that’s holding back most users its is price tag of Php 349,995. To MSI’s credit, there have been Titan iterations that were well above the Php 350k mark mostly due to the gimmicky features found on previous generations. But what makes the Titan 18 HX A14VIG different is that there’s almost little-to-no money spent on unnecessary gimmicks as the improvements this time around are more focused towards enhancing the user’s gaming experience which they excellently delivered.
That said, MSI also markets the Titan with its AI Engine but our benchmarks clearly show that the first gen implementation still has a lot to improve on. So, if you’re in the market for a powerful, complete package gaming laptop that’s basically a desktop replacement then look no further than the MSI Titan 18 HX.
Where to Buy MSI Titan 18 HX A14VIG
The MSI Titan 18 HX is now available for 349,995 pesos at select MSI partner retailers. Every purchase of the MSI TITAN 18 HX comes with MS Office Home & Office 2021 and MSI’s Gift Bundle which includes a 256GB Dual Drive, MSI Lucky Figure Keychain, MSI Gaming Mouse, and a Titan Gaming Backpack
Grant is a Financial Management graduate from UST. His passion for gadgets and tech crossed him over in the industry where he could apply his knowledge as an enthusiast and in-depth analytic skills as a Finance Major. His passion allows him to earn at the same time help Gadget Pilipinas' readers in making smart, value-based decisions and purchases with his reviews and guides.
