MSI GT73VR Titan Pro Owner's Impressions after 9 months

The longest period I've owned a laptop....... MSI GT73VR Titan Pro

I was just going through my orders and realized I've ordered this MSI GT73VR Titan Pro from HIDevolution in January 2017 and was like whoaaa!! time sure flies...it feels like yesterday...

I've owned tens of different laptops recently and ended up just selling them in a few months...

Alienware 18...one issue after the other....backlight bleeding, overheating, motherboard problems, received 3 different brand new laptop replacements form Dell each with a better specced CPU or graphics card but the damn thing just never worked 100%....

ASUS.... refunded every ASUS laptop I've owned, they all gave me issues starting from motherboards getting fried within a week's time, to random freezes when connecting a USB 3.0 HDD and actually copying data (faced this issue across 3 diff. ASUS laptops with diff. models/generations), to screens showing green horizontal lines.... I could write an essay if I want to give you the details but let's leave it at that....

Then it was a few Clevo laptops with LGA CPUs, while the performance was great, there was a lot to be desired *for me* about the keyboard and the screen quality....the FHD screen was...well...just ok..but with 75hz refresh rate only.... the 2K screen was rubbish with those vertical banding lines.... (the newer versions now have fixed that though) and the color accuracy was MEH....

Then I got this MSI GT73VR Titan Pro purely because I wanted a better keyboard (SteelSeries Keyboards FTW).... I was not very happy deep inside that I am ditching the desktop class CPUs but I had to make a compromise...and boy was I surprised....

The screen on this MSI GT73VR Titan Pro, which is a 120hz / 5ms screen, not only excels in how fluid and smooth animations, games, videos are, but more importantly, it has a very high Adobe RGB color accuracy and the colors are very rich and vibrant. I don't remember the last time I had a good screen like this. Even the Alienware 18 Philips-LG IPS screen they had was nothing compared to this one....mind you, it's a TN panel but a darn good one...

Then comes the cooling, not once have I had issues with overheating and rarely if ever hear the fans spin up, thanks to MSI's quality heatsinks which make a perfect fit and their Cooler Boost cooling system

The keyboard is by far the best keyboard on any laptop out there hands down....well spaced out chiclet keys, you can never make a mistake or accidentally type a key which you didn't intend to; great quality keyboard, the keys feel very solid and have a nice tactile feedback...

I didn't imagine I would own a laptop for so long and be contempt with it. Sometimes, it's not only about the specs...it's about the overall satisfaction in terms of screen, keyboard, audio quality, cooling that make it count...

MSI laptops "just work"...that's to sum up my experience with this laptop...

Do I wish I can get back to the LGA scene? hell yes, when there is something worthy that has what I want, good keyboard, good screen, good cooling with no flimsy heatsinks....

For my full review with benchmarks when I first got this laptop, click here: MSI GT73VR 7RF Titan Pro-425 Review By Phoenix

the only mod I've done to this laptop: Windows Key + FN Swap Operation Successful!

 

Can ya post a screenshot of the Panel Info in AIDA 64?
Kinda curious to see which one they are using

 

It's in my sig bro but here it is again:

Chi Mei N173HHE-G32 17.3" FHD 120 Hz/5ms [G-SYNC]

 

Mate, that's great to hear.
Seeing how good MSI GT are, I'm stuck between two options I've found at a killer price, new for 1200€. Both models are French and new:

GT62VR 6RD - Unfortunately I did ask about the screen in this specific model and a MSI forum mod told me the 1080p IPS panel isn't G-Sync certified. Could it be a mistake? Do you have any idea about the screens in this specific model?

GE72VR 7RF - 120Hz 5ms with Optimus (No G-Sync as the GPU itself isn't G-Sync certified).

Considering the GT62 is fully G-Sync certified, would you pick 60Hz with G-Sync or 120Hz non G-Sync?

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Ahh thanks a bunch for that. I totally missed reading the signature.

 

120hz without thinking twice. Once j00 experience the smoothness of a 120hz screen you'd never be able to look at a 60hz one

 

Haha, cheers mate. Thanks!

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This is part of the reason I don't like the desktop cpu lga or bust mentality right now.

I'm all for it and the upgrade path, but the argument of performance is so irrelevant for most users.

Mxm vs soldered gpus are barely different at this point, and the difference between a 7820hk and a 7700k both max OCed is like 20% at most which won't even matter for like 95% of people... The GT73 is a great performing laptop. It's not some huge compromise in performance... Not to mention like the better keyboard and speakers.

 

Wasn't there supposed to be an MSI LGA model of this laptop coming this year? I thought @Eurocom Support mentioned 17" model was coming?

 

The MSI 16L13 is a niche white box product with LGA and a 15.6" display, and Eurocom said MSI is working on release of a white box 17.3" model, and we are assuming it's LGA.

It's not supposed to be a mainstream gaming laptop with LGA like in a GT73 / GT75 / GT83 body, but it might be I suppose - I wouldn't hold your breath for either one

 

well part of me doesn't like the fact that the Whitebox MSI laptop has no official BIOS support and I've seen users have issues where brightness controls don't work, or certain drivers won't install, etc.

I want none of that headache..I want a laptop that gives me proper BIOS support and stuff that just works.... until then.... I don't care for LGA vs BGA anymore as long as the laptop at hand does the tasks I want with ease

 

The GT73 is solid for sure. It would be nice if there was a second 2.5-inch expansion bay, especially since it looks like there's room for it. I wish MSI would adopt the keyboard design of the Clevo P6XX line. Both feel remarkably similar to type on, but the Clevo has the advantage of being easy to remove to access the top of the motherboard, which would make it simpler for the end user to populate all the RAM slots and reset the CMOS battery without needing HID to modify it. It could also open up the possibility for an extra M.2 or Optane slot.

Overall, I think I prefer my 16L13 and not just for the LGA processor. It seems to run quieter than the GT73 I had (though that one only had ICDiamond on the CPU), it's not that heavy to carry around, I love the minimalist aesthetic, especially with no branding, and the stock 1080p/60 IPS panel looks amazing, so much so I'm tempted to sell my TN Dell S2716DG and get a high-refresh IPS G-Sync external monitor.

 

There isn't room for it, unless you do very heavy modding. That 'room' you refer to is for SLI systems. A GT73VR 1070 is fully compatible with SLI, if you can find the extra heatsink and videocard for it...there is no physical difference between a 1070 and 1070 SLI except the missing extra heatsink and video card.

 

The second GPU sits above the recess that looks like it still be deep enough to accommodate a second drive.

 

The MSI GT75 does have 2x NVME M.2 + 1x SATA M.2 just like the GT73.

The area that looks like room for a 2nd 2.5" is actually space reserved for the 2nd MXM GPU, for the 1070 SLI model. In the single GPU models there is a physical strut for support of the subframe.

The new MSI GT75 keyboard is mechanical, and so far it's had good reviews

 

That's news to me, and very welcome at that.

 

This GT75VR Specification page I posted earlier shows 2x M.2 NVME and 1x M.2 SATA:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...iscussions-lounge.806253/page-6#post-10580416

GT75VR 7RF TITAN PRO
https://www.msi.com/Laptop/GT75VR-7RF-Titan-Pro.html#hero-specification

Storage
SSD
1x M.2 SSD (SATA)
2x M.2 SSD Combo (NVMe PCIe Gen3 x4 / SATA )
HDD
1x 2.5" SATA HDD

This other (newer?) GT75 Specification page says something different:
https://us.msi.com/Laptop/GT75VR-Titan.html#hero-specification

HDD Capacity
Super RAID 4 512GB SSD (PCIE Gen3x4) [256GB *2] + 1TB 7200rpm

It doesn't say anything about a 1x M.2 SATA...

Earlier someone with a GT75 also confirmed that they had 3 M.2 sockets, so when someone else has a US GT75VR, please take a look, and confirm the M.2 count once again

 

Need to do the test both shift keys + "THE BIG BROWN FOX JUMPS ALL OVER THE LAZY DOG" NKRO test.
Until then, you can pry my Ducky Year of the Monkey RGB MX Blue from my cold, dead fingers...

 

Yup, nothing beats an easily mobile external keyboard, even the MSI GT80/83 has that huge laptop wrapped around it's mechanical keyboard

I suggested Clevo get a custom Ducky into their future units, I wonder how that is going?

http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...unge-phoenix-3-0.800081/page-14#post-10434105

 

I'm friends with one of the Ducky engineers, I'll ask him, but he still didn't reply to my question about what screw part is used on the MSI chassis (the same screw is used in the Year of the Monkey chassis, I know because I lost one of the Titan case screws and used one from an old MSI Laptop I bricked, which also fits perfectly in the YOTM (which I had stripped screws in).

 

I thought you had the 75hz G-stink 1080p screen And this screen is in fackt quite ok and can easly clock up to 100hz Oh'well, I did not think I was starting to get so forgetful aka closer dementia

 

@Phoenix have you tried to OC your display? The 17.3" and 18.4" will usually OC up to 100hz, and then you can change your FPS to 100 as well

 

Didn't he sell that laptop?
Overclocking laptop screens is scary.
Instead of an "out of range" error, the screen starts vibrating and looking like it's melting....

 

wow. you have a great memory man! yes I did have the 75hz IPS Panel sorry, I will edit my review

 

I'm sure you know/remember that 75hz was the fastest refresh rate you could get for laptop panels when you bought your first Clevo laptop early fall 2015

Great, that something still works as expected

 

It's just like OC'ing GPU RAM, you get visible artifacts before the driver dies

In all the years I've been doing it I've never seen a report that OC'ing a display caused display failure. It's uncomfortable to look at if the screen is OC'd too high, even if there is no obvious distortion it's "not quite right".

Usually you can get a 60hz/75hz panel to 100hz on the 17.3" / 18.4", some regularly got 105hz, 110hz, and one guy said he got 120hz. Most 60hz 15.6" displays won't OC past 63hz...

If you are trepidatious you can OC in 1hz, or 5hz increments at a time, or do what I do and jump right up to the hoped for maximum - 100hz, and if it fails to come back use the power key to power off and then boot back up. Then try 95hz, etc.

I had one panel that would only do 70hz, and I lived - but I missed the joy of the full 100hz

You can set custom resolutions in the Nvidia Control Panel, and also now in the Intel IGP Control panel, and have a selection of refresh rate profiles for different uses.

 

@Papusan =

 

The nvidia control pane custom refresh rate does not register when you play a game in real full screen mode. Also, you need to test for frame skips. OC the refresh rate might look like it worked but your screen might be skipping frames so you must test for it.

 

Interesting, I've never had that problem with the 60hz / 75hz 17.3" / 18.4" laptop displays getting to around 100hz. Setting the refresh, setting the RTSS frame limiter, and full screen OSD shows correct frame rate, and I often choose various settings depending on game FPS average, and all works as indicated.

I use the UFO tools to check when tuning a new laptop, and haven't seen a problem with laptop displays.
https://www.testufo.com/#test=frameskipping
https://www.testufo.com/#test=framerates

What are you using - display, stock refresh, OC refresh, and laptop make / model. Which setting did you try that failed, and did a lower OC work ok?

Does your laptop have Optimus? Intel's control panel needs to be used to set refresh for Optimus, Nvidia's control panel may/may not show controls but have no effect on internal display through iGPU.

 

Gt62vr 6re, max 64hz lol with CRU. At 65 I get a black screen.

 

Sorry to hear it, most 15.6" displays won't OC past 63hz... you got a "good one"

I updated my post to include the 15.6" info.

When you get a 17.3" / 18.4" there is a much higher probability for high OC from 60hz / 75hz stock to around 100hz.

High refresh external displays are nice.

 

This used to be true in the past, now I'm pretty sure most high end 15" laptops will have the AHVA 120Hz 3ms, in no time

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Of course, if you have a 120hz screen already, then "OC"'ing to 100hz is pretty much a slam dunk

We are talking about the 60hz/75hz screens, as I noted in the posts.

As long as we are on the subject, how much further than 120hz has anyone OC'd one of the 15.6" / 17.3" 120hz panels?

 

I'll definitely answer you once I hopefully get mine For now I have yet to hear someone wanting to OC because 120Hz is really more than enough

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"more than enough" ?

Now that Asus ROG Chimera has the 144hz panel almost ready to release, there is a new laptop display high refresh rate bar to clear, and 120hz is only 24hz short.

Maybe some 120hz panels will get to 144hz... maybe not "more than enough", but maybe close enough

 

Btw, I think OC the refresh rate increases the response time.

 

The panels have an inherent physical limitation, then the electronics as well put in delay, so yes as you increase the refresh rate the effect of the latency of the pixels to change can become an issue, so far not objectionable to me

 

Yeah, I haven't phrased my claim properly
120Hz is pretty "new" and rare for laptops already, people will probably be keen to OCing to 144Hz once 120 becomes too common Also most lads hardly tell the difference between 120 and 144 xD

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Yeah, we're just funnin', it's all good

There's people that "see a difference", and many that claim 70hz is the limit, after which they can't see it.

For me and many others 100hz is "good enough", but I can see the difference in 120hz and 144hz, but you need to look for it.

G-sync / FreeSync add's another dimension of view differences.

As I've said many times, as soon as you start running increasing multiples of 60hz / 60 FPS you are really loading up the CPU / GPU increasing power draw and thermal output requiring beefier cooling - higher fan rates, so it becomes a matter of tuning for your noise / thermal comfort level per game FPS.

Asus Chimera has shipped with a visibly beefier chassis and cooling to handle the jump from 60 FPS to 144 FPS (2.4x), so hopefully it's enough to handle the load increase.

 

I'm pretty sure anyone who could tell the difference between 60 and 120 can easily jump from 120 to 240 and still notice the improvement, hell even 165Hz can be noticed! XD But as our folk previously said, a "theoretical" 3ms panel will show improvement if OCed from 120 to 144, since it will definitely be able to display 144fps entirely.

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You need to use ToastyX CRU to use 60hz on a 120hz display that doesn't have 60hz in the EDID.
Trying to use the NVCP To create a 60hz resolution will cause some games to crash or lock up hard (like Dark Souls).

 

Have you tried to OC past 120hz?

 

Thankfully, most laptop AHVA 120Hz panels have both 60 and 120Hz options, probably for battery saving purposes. (120Hz does eat quite some battery)

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Yes I tried 1920x1080 @ 144hz with reduced vertical total (1098 VT) like on desktops, and my screen melted in front of my face.

I don't think I ever reached for the power button that fast in my life.

I assume it would top out between 125-129hz just like my desktop Benq does with normal Vertical Total.

 

It wouldn't really melt, it's just not able to sync up at that speed.

You might get further than you think, give it a try to find the real limits and if you do please come back and share your testing results

 

Yikes, no OC for me. (jk)

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MobileTechReview 2 weeks ago
"Are you folks interested in a smackdown with the Alienware 17 R4?"

Alienware 17 R4 vs MSI GT73VR Titan Pro Comparison Smackdown

 

I have also the GT73VR 6700HQ+GTX1080 120Hz and strongly agree with OP. The screen has a pretty good contrast ratio, indeed capable of everyday use.

Of course the screen of the Dell XPS 9550 2160p is a better display, but the screen tearing and input lag is awful. Wouldn't mind to play slow-paced games on it, but for Overwatch, Need for Speed, etc 120Hz is much much better than 60 or 75 Hz.

Had in the past the Asus ROG G751JY, and the construction quality was good, but had issues with some USB 3.0 ports and the screen was much worse especially the contrast.

Also had the MSI GS60 6QE Ghost Pro and is a very bad computer.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/dont-buy-msi-notebooks-they-are-crap-and-heres-why.796090/

http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/asus-g751jy-short-review.796438/

 

Thanks for sharing your feedback. I too had USB issues with every ASUS laptop I owned. The moment I attacah a USB 3.0 HDD and start copying large amounts of data, the laptop just hard freezes with no error messages. I was all over the ASUS ROG forums back then. No BIOS fixed it, it was like this on my G750JX and G751JY and G75VW