MSI Titan 18 HX (2025) Review: The Most Powerful Laptop… With Annoying Flaws

The MSI Titan series has always represented the pinnacle of mobile gaming power, and the 2025 MSI Titan 18 HX is no exception. Our friend Jarrod from Jarrod’sTech calls it “the most powerful gaming laptop I’ve ever tested.” But before you consider emptying your bank account for this monster, he warns there are some “stupid issues” you absolutely need to know about. Let’s dive in!

Key Specifications

Design & Build: Premium with a Few Oddities

MSI has opted for a striking black and silver theme for the Titan 18 HX. The chassis is primarily constructed from a magnesium-aluminum alloy, lending it a premium and sturdy feel. However, the wrist rest area, while visually seamless, is plastic, albeit with a finish that Jarrod describes as feeling “closer to glass.” This choice might raise eyebrows for some purists expecting full metal, but it doesn’t seem to detract significantly from the overall solid impression.

For those seeking an even more exclusive aesthetic, MSI also offers a limited-edition “Norse Myth” version. This variant boasts intricate designs inspired by Norse mythology but, as expected, comes with an even heftier price premium.

In terms of build quality, the Titan 18 HX scores well. Jarrod notes that screen flex, lid flex, and keyboard flex are all minimal, even when applying considerable pressure. This is crucial for a large 18-inch machine. The hinges feel smooth and robust, providing a stable display with no screen wobble during typing – a common annoyance on lesser-built large laptops. A welcome touch is the easy one-finger lid lift, and the screen itself can tilt back to a generous 145-degree range, offering more viewing flexibility than many competitors.

Fingerprints are a common bane of dark-themed laptops. On the Titan, they are less noticeable on the interior surfaces compared to the lid. Thankfully, both are relatively easy to wipe clean with a standard microfiber cloth.

The Price of Power: Size, Weight, and Portability

There’s no sugarcoating it: the MSI Titan 18 HX is a behemoth. “Titan-level power” doesn’t come in a svelte package. This laptop is unapologetically big and heavy.

• Dimensions: Approximately 15.9 inches (W) x 12.08 inches (D) x 0.94 – 1.26 inches (H) (40.4cm x 30.75cm x 2.4cm – 3.2cm).
• Weight: The laptop alone tips the scales at a substantial 8 lbs (3.63 kg).
• Travel Weight: Add the new, more compact 400W power brick and cables, and you’re looking at a travel weight of around 10.54 lbs (4.78 kg).

Compared to its predecessor, the 2023/2024 Titan, the weight is similar. Interestingly, the older 2023 Titan GT77, with its smaller 330W charger, actually ended up being heavier when the charger was included. While the Alienware m18 R2 still holds the “heaviest laptop” crown, the Titan is firmly in the desktop replacement category. Portability is clearly not its primary design goal.

The new 400W power adapter is a noteworthy improvement. While it’s a step up in wattage from some previous MSI chargers, it’s significantly more compact than MSI’s older, notoriously bulky power bricks.

Keyboard & The Infamous Touchpad

Keyboard: The Titan features a mechanical keyboard with Cherry MX Ultra-Low Profile switches for the main keys (function row and numpad are not mechanical). It offers per-key RGB backlighting, which is bright and illuminates all primary and secondary functions. There are four brightness levels, adjustable via an F8 shortcut. However, a quirk remains from last year: you can’t see the keyboard brightness change while holding the function key; you have to release it. The touchpad and lid logo brightness are synced to this. Typing feels good, but it’s definitely on the louder side.

Touchpad: Now, for the touchpad. Jarrod bluntly states, “The seamless haptic touchpad is the worst laptop touchpad I’ve used in my entire life.” Even its cool RGB lighting can’t save it. The core issue lies with its click mechanism. It inconsistently registers clicks, especially double-clicks and drag-and-drop operations. You often need to physically lift your finger completely off the pad between clicks for it to register a double-click, which is unnatural and frustrating. Without the RGB on, the lack of a physical border also makes it a bit awkward to use. A mouse is practically essential.

Connectivity: Ports Galore

The Titan 18 HX offers a generous selection of ports, thoughtfully laid out:

• Rear: Power input, HDMI 2.1, 2.5GbE LAN port. This is excellent for cable management, keeping thicker, less frequently moved cables out of the way.
• Right Side: USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A, full-size SD card reader.
• Left Side: USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A, Thunderbolt 5 Type-C port (supporting DisplayPort 2.1, PD 3.1 140W charging), 3.5mm audio combo jack.

Jarrod points out an odd design choice: port icons are etched on the bottom panel near the rear ports, where they’re invisible during normal use, instead of on the top surface where they’d be helpful. The SD card, while fast, doesn’t click fully into the slot and protrudes slightly, risking accidental damage.

Display output options are plentiful, with the HDMI and both Type-C ports capable of driving external monitors. The rear Type-C connects to the Intel iGPU when Optimus is on, and the NVIDIA dGPU when Optimus is off. The front Type-C (Thunderbolt 5) and HDMI always connect directly to the NVIDIA dGPU.

Delving Deeper: Internals and Upgradability

Accessing the internals requires removing 12 Phillips head screws (all the same length, a nice touch). Jarrod found prying the bottom panel open a bit challenging, even with proper tools.

Inside, the layout is expansive:

Battery: Located at the front.

RAM: Two user-accessible SODIMM slots are situated towards the middle, above the battery. This is a change from last year’s Titan which had four. Jarrod actually prefers this, as two slots allow for faster DDR5-6400 RAM (up to 96GB). With four slots, Intel’s platform limitations would cap speeds at DDR5-4800 or even 4400MHz depending on configuration, as seen with the last-gen Titan running at only DDR5-3600 with four sticks.

Storage: An impressive four M.2 slots are available. Jarrod’s unit came with three 2TB SSDs (one Gen5, two Gen4) in a RAID 0 configuration, delivering incredibly fast speeds. MSI has helpfully labeled which slots are Gen4 and Gen5. All slots can accommodate double-sided SSDs.

SSD Cooling: The primary Gen5 SSD has a dedicated heatsink which, rather curiously, is also connected to one of the CPU’s heatpipes. MSI claims this design improves SSD performance by leveraging the main cooling system, potentially adding 5-8W of heat dissipation capacity. While Gen5 SSDs do run hot and benefit from cooling, sharing a heatpipe with an already toasty CPU raises questions about heat transfer dynamics.

Wi-Fi: The Wi-Fi 7 card performed well, showing an improvement over last year’s Titan which used the same card, suggesting driver enhancements.

The Titan scores an 8 out of 10 on Jarrod’s upgradability scale. Losing two RAM slots but gaining an M.2 slot compared to the older design makes for a slightly lower score, but overall upgrade potential remains excellent.

Audio & Webcam

The Titan 18 HX features a multi-speaker setup: two front-firing speakers flanking the keyboard and additional speakers on the underside, both on the sides and towards the front. The audio quality is good, clear with a decent amount of bass, and impressively, there’s almost no vibration felt through the wrist rests even at maximum volume.

The 1080p webcam located above the screen includes IR functionality for Windows Hello facial recognition and a welcome physical privacy shutter.

Display: Bright, Beautiful, But with a Halo

MSI offers three 18-inch display options for the Titan. Jarrod’s review unit came with the UHD+ (3840 x 2400) 120Hz Mini-LED panel.

Color & Brightness: This panel boasts excellent color gamut coverage (99.4% sRGB, 84.1% AdobeRGB, 92.7% DCI-P3) and good color accuracy (Delta E 1.53). It gets incredibly bright: over 727 nits in SDR mode and a searing 1190 nits in HDR mode, making it the brightest laptop screen Jarrod has tested. This panel model appears to be the same as last year’s Titan, so the slight brightness variation is likely due to panel lottery.

Mini-LED Characteristics: Being a Mini-LED display, it exhibits a “halo effect” on dark backgrounds with bright elements due to the local dimming zones. However, on a completely black screen, the dimming zones turn off, resulting in perfect contrast. There was no backlight bleed detected.

Response Time: With Display OverDrive enabled by default in MSI Center, the average grey-to-grey response time was a decent 7.54ms. This is a significant improvement over last year’s Titan (which had a sluggish 26.53ms with the same panel), indicating MSI has likely fine-tuned the overdrive settings. However, some transitions, particularly from black to lighter shades, are slower due to the dimming zones taking time to activate.

Latency: LatencyMon results weren’t ideal in a 5-minute idle test. Total system latency, measured in CS2 (mouse click to gunshot flash), was 15.4ms. This is okay, but not significantly better than last year and is surpassed by some other RTX 50-series laptops.

MUX Switch & G-Sync/Adaptive Sync: The Titan 18 HX has a MUX switch, requiring a reboot to toggle between Optimus (hybrid graphics) and dGPU-only mode. Disappointingly, there’s no Advanced Optimus for seamless switching. MSI’s rationale is that the current Advanced Optimus experience (with brief screen freezes during switches) isn’t “great” for a premium laptop. Jarrod (and many users) would likely disagree, preferring the option. Furthermore, G-Sync is not available on the internal display even with Optimus off (dGPU mode), which Jarrod attributes to a limitation of the UHD+ panel MSI has chosen. However, Adaptive Sync is available via the iGPU when Optimus is enabled, operating within a 50-120Hz range, which is useful for tear-free gaming.

Unleashing the Beast: Performance and Thermals

The MSI Center software allows switching between Eco, Balanced, and Extreme Performance modes. Extreme mode also allows for GPU core and VRAM overclocking (not tested by default) and features Cooler Boost to max out fans, or an Advanced option for custom fan curves. Max fans can also be toggled with Fn+Up arrow.

Temperatures:

• Idle: CPU/GPU were cool.
• Stress Tests (CPU+GPU): In Extreme mode (auto fans), the CPU hit its 100°C thermal throttle limit. Using a basic metal stand helped alleviate this. A cooling pad at 800 RPM showed similar results to the stand, while at 1400 RPM, temps dropped further. Manually setting fans to maximum wasn’t much cooler than auto fans but was significantly louder.

Clock Speeds & Power:

• The extra cooling from a stand or pad allowed the CPU P-cores to consistently run near 5GHz under sustained load.
• In Extreme mode, the CPU could sustain around 90-95W, and the GPU close to its 170-175W limit.
• With a high-speed cooling pad and max fans, the CPU power draw jumped to an astonishing 138.3W, but this seemed to come at the cost of GPU power, which dropped to 143.9W, despite the GPU running very cool at 61.9°C. This suggests a shared power budget or cooling capacity limitation, even with the 400W adapter.

Fan Noise:

• Idle (Eco): Mostly silent, fans occasionally spin up.
• Stress Test (Eco, Auto Fans): 40.1 dBA.
• Stress Test (Balanced, Auto Fans): 51.0 dBA.
• Stress Test (Extreme, Auto Fans): 56.1 dBA.
• Stress Test (Extreme, Max Fans): 60.1 dBA.
• Stress Test (Extreme, Max Fans + Cooling Pad 2800 RPM): A very loud 66.9 dBA.
  The Titan is on the louder side, but this is somewhat expected for its performance class. It is, however, a bit quieter than last year’s model under similar loads.

Keyboard Temperatures:

• Idle: Low 30s°C range (comfortable).
• Stress Test: The keyboard gets noticeably warmer in higher performance modes. The center can reach the low 50s°C, making it the hottest keyboard Jarrod has tested in recent years. However, the hotspot is in the middle, away from WASD/palm rests. The keycaps themselves felt warm and slightly uncomfortable, but not painfully hot.

Gaming Benchmarks: King of the Hill?

Tested with Windows 11 24H2, NVIDIA Driver 576.02, Optimus OFF, Extreme Mode + Max Fans, and Core Isolation OFF.

Cyberpunk 2077 (Phantom Liberty v2.21, Ultra Settings, No Upscaling/RT/FG):

• 4K: 52.59 FPS average. Second only to the ASUS Scar 16.
• 1440p: 114.04 FPS average. Class-leading.
• 1080p: 159.46 FPS average. Class-leading.
  With Ray Tracing Ultra + Upscaling (DLSS):
• 4K (DLSS Perf): 65.6 FPS average.
• 1440p (DLSS Balanced): 90.52 FPS average.
• 1080p (DLSS Quality): 107.72 FPS average.
  In most scenarios, the Titan topped the charts, especially at 1080p and 1440p, likely due to the powerful CPU and fast RAM.

Black Myth: Wukong (High Settings, No Upscaling/RT/FG):

• 4K: 49.86 FPS average.
• 1440p: 84.66 FPS average.
• 1080p: 112.74 FPS average.
  Again, top-tier performance, often leading by 1-2 FPS. With Ray Tracing + Upscaling, results remained competitive.

Alan Wake 2 (High Settings, No Upscaling/RT/FG):

• 4K: 45.28 FPS average.
• 1440p: 84.43 FPS average.
• 1080p: 124.05 FPS average.
  Here, the Titan showed a more noticeable lead at lower resolutions, reinforcing the impact of its CPU and RAM. This trend continued with ray tracing enabled.

Content Creation & Productivity

• 3DMark: Scores were exceptionally high across the board.
• Adobe Premiere Pro (Puget Systems Benchmark): 15,169 – chart-topping.
• DaVinci Resolve (Puget Systems Benchmark): 2,609 – chart-topping.
• Adobe Photoshop (Puget Systems Benchmark): 8,743 – Very strong, second only to an XMG Neo 16 (Liquid Cooled).
• SPECviewperf 2020 v3.1: Excellent scores, particularly in Maya and Solidworks.

The extra VRAM on the RTX 5090 (24GB) will also be a boon for AI workloads and demanding content creation tasks.

Battery Performance

The 99Wh battery, combined with the “Display Power Saver” feature (which drops the screen to 60Hz on battery), delivered decent longevity for such a powerful machine:

YouTube Playback: 4 hours 30 minutes.

Gaming (The Witcher 3, limited to 30 FPS): 1 hour 54 minutes.
These results are better than last year’s Titan and competitive with other 18-inch gaming laptops. However, performance on battery power is significantly reduced. Jarrod noted some sluggishness just interacting with Windows on battery. Last year’s Titan actually performed better in Cinebench on battery.

Sleep drain was 21% over 24 hours, or an average of 819mW per hour, which is respectable compared to other high-power Intel laptops.

The Verdict: Is the MSI Titan 18 HX (2025) Worth its Colossal Price?

The MSI Titan 18 HX (2025) is, without a doubt, a performance monster. It breaks gaming records, excels in content creation, and offers an unparalleled level of BIOS customization for enthusiasts who love to tinker. The Mini-LED screen is exceptionally bright and vibrant, and the build quality is largely solid. The four M.2 slots offer incredible storage potential.

However, this Titan is not without its significant flaws. The touchpad is, to put it mildly, a disaster for usability. The lack of Advanced Optimus and G-Sync (with dGPU) on a flagship laptop at this price point (starting around $4,800 for an RTX 5080 model, and $5,800 for the reviewed RTX 5090 configuration) is genuinely baffling and, as Jarrod put it, “embarrassing.” The keyboard, while offering a mechanical feel for some keys, is loud and its hottest point is among the warmest tested.

Who is this laptop for?

The Titan 18 HX is for the uncompromising enthusiast who demands the absolute peak of mobile performance, extensive storage options, and deep BIOS-level control, and is willing to pay a significant premium while overlooking some frustrating usability issues. If you need four M.2 slots or the advanced BIOS, it’s a unique offering.

For everyone else, the eye-watering price and the mentioned “stupid issues” make it a tough sell. There are other 18-inch gaming laptops that offer a more balanced experience for less money, often including features like Advanced Optimus and better touchpads.

Ultimately, the MSI Titan 18 HX (2025) is a specialist machine. It achieves its goal of being one of the most powerful laptops available, but its practical appeal is narrowed by its cost and some perplexing design choices.

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