MSI GT75 TITAN 8RG-094 Review by Ultra Male

Specifications:

GT75VR 8RG Titan-094

CPU: Intel® 8th Generation Coffee Lake Core™ i9-8950HK 6 Core - 12 Thread Processor, 2.9 GHz (Max Turbo Frequency 4.8 GHz), 12MB Smart Cache
Memory: Samsung M471A2K43CB1-CTD 2400 MHz 64GB DDR4 RAM
GPU: GeForce GTX 1080 8GB GDDR5
Sound: Dynaudio Tech Speakers 3W *2 + Subwoofer 5W *1 with Nahimic 3 Sound Technology
Thermal Paste: Thermal Grizzly Conductonaut on CPU + GPU, and Fujipoly Extreme Thermal Pads on heat sensitive surfaces + Bottom Service Panel Ventilation Mod
Screen: Chi Mei N173HHE-G32 17.3" FHD (1920*1080), 120Hz 3ms Wideview 94%NTSC Color Anti-Glare w/ G-Sync Technology
Wireless: Killer Wireless-AC 1550
Storage: 3x Samsung 960 PRO 2TB [Super RAID 4] + 850 EVO 4TB + Sandisk 512GB Extreme PRO SD Card
Keyboard: SteelSeries per-Key RGB Mechanical KB with Anti-Ghost key
Mouse: SteelSeries Sensei Wireless Laser Gaming Mouse
Power: 2x 230W AC Power Adapters
Operating System: Windows 10 Pro 64-Bit

Price as Configured: $10,000 USD

Bought from: HIDevolution

 

Video Review:

 

Benchmarks:

Windows Experience Index



PCMark10 - 8950HK+GTX 1080 (397.64)



3DMark11 - 8950HK+GTX 1080 (397.64)



Fire Strike - 8950HK+GTX 1080 (397.64)



Time Spy - 8950HK+GTX 1080 (397.64)



API Overhead Feature Test - 8950HK+GTX 1080 (397.64)



Final Fantasy XV Benchmark - 8950HK+1080 GTX (390.94)



Cinebench i9-8950HK



wPrime i9-8950HK



AS SSD Benchmark 3x 960 PRO



CrystalDiskMark 3x 960 PRO




Here are my temps after playing Need For Speed Payback for 1 hour:

 

Images:

 

Sweet, those temps are heavenly.

Could you overclock your GPU and see how the scores are on OC?

 

give me a while and I surely will. Those benchmarks + temps are all on stock clocks for CPU + GPU

I don't overclock until I pass 7 days of ownership to make sure the taptop works fine at stock first

 

yeah that's alright, can't wait to see the GPU power of that thing. It's already pretty good!

 

Mind you guys, I am not using any cooling pad, and the ambient room temp is 25C

 

meanwhile clevo notebooks with same performance are on 80-90c, no mux switch, inferior speakers, inferior screen, inferior keyboard, broken software and much louder fans......

Really consiering getting a GT 75 myself, the notebooks is just beastly.

 

Dude, just wait for another hour or so till you see my video review. The speakers are much louder than any other laptop I head before and the keyboard is just pure heaven to type on. I can type much faster and with more accuracy now.

 

thats the beauty of mechanical keyboard, every single key is seperate. the feedback is also much better. It's an entirely different experience.

Yeah I figured with the speakers, unlike clevo jokebooks MSI really knows how to give their customers a good user experience, Hows the panel? I was considering getting that panel for my GT72.

 

Well the panel is the exact same panel that was in my GT73VR Titan Pro-425, same model, same manufacturing date even, and you know my opinion on it, it's the best panel you can have right now. Period. Yes it's a TN panel but has very good viewing angles, very vibrant and vivid colors, and the 120hz refresh rate is just a joy to look at, be it watching movies or playing games. Even the window maximizing/minimizing animations and slide out menus are buttery smooth. Oh and say bye bye to ghosting with it's very low response time 3ms

@Dr. AMK

 

Nice temps, is this with stock paste or repasted? This is actually the first I9 laptop that I saw with decent temps. Have to say it is also the size ofcourse. Maybe the 6 cores are just a step to far for 90% of the laptops out there.

 

Its LM'ed with TGC and Fuji pads. Typical Phoenix TODO list.

 

It has Thermal Grizzly Conductonaut on the CPU + GPU + Fujiploy Extreme Thermal Pads + Bottom Panel Mod all done by HIDevolution

Bottom Panel Mod:

 

Thats explains a bit. First i9 i saw with LM.

 

I still want to know if a smaller hole would be a better "inbetween" mod to still ensure proper cooling of the rest of the system. Then again I could simply use a cooler pad for the rest of the system and keep the fans with a big enough hole...

how big at the holes? 1.5 inch?

 

Didn't measure them but you can get an approximate of the size from the pic. I'm just happy that everything is working perfectly as I was pretty scared at first as to how how it would run given the fact that it's an 8950HK.

I cannot thank Falkentyne enough for his help with tweaking my settings as I was shocked how high the temps were at first due to the bad stock settings from MSI for the IA/DC Loadline

 

2 inches, I believe

 

Yeah, out of the box those intel settings were quite high. Falkentyne has helped a lot with tweaking and thanks to him, even older GT73 machines greatly benefit. It makes more sense these settings are far more useful with the new CPUs since you have more hardware, more performance to cool off

I was also wondering how hot intel would make these new CPU's, but it looks like they are no problem for the GT75 after tweaking.

Thanks, I was hoping they wouldn't be that big, but I could try 1.5 inch first and measure how my temps are affected. I don't have a GT75, but I could still try push my hardware to the limit haha.

 

NIce.

Got any pictures of the heatsink?

 

Great review as always:
@Phoenix MSI GT75 8RG Review
EDIT: video removed

 

Video review is out:

 

Yeah you should proabbly mention that the fans are rather nice to listen to. They have a rather deep noiselevel to them, which makes them FAR less annoying than clevo and Alienware notebooks for instance.

Also there is something I realized. All clevo notebooks had mura on their screen (P650, P170SM, P157SM-A, P375SM-A) which were caused over time, however on my old MSI from 2015, there were no such things, I think this is actually thanks to the MSI screen being so wonky compared to the others, Every time the screen gets hit or something it flexes and cushens the impact, which is so weird to realize. Maybe someone else can share their experience with older models and mura (clouding) or if this is a luck thing.

To compare your speakers to the competition:
GT 75 - 98dB
P870TM - 69.1 dB (lol)
ALienware 17 - 74.99 dB
Acer Predator 17x - 86 dB
Asus Rog Chimera G703 - 89 dB

So yeah, the MSI is significantly louder than the average notebook. The MSI, ASUS and Acer actually have really loud spoeakers, Alienware having average and Clevo as usual has demonstrated its pathethic drivers and software ruining perfecly fine speakers having below averagte speakers which is a complete joke considering its size.

There is a thing you can mention tho, the implemention of the keyboard is an absolute nightmare. This is almost apple level annoyance, since you need to dissassemble the entire notebook to switch out the keyboard if it gets damaged. Never been a fan of that design.

You can also showcase the maginificent fan profiles. For instance you could do some light work and show people that the notebook is quiet, compared to alienware and clevo this is such a joy to work with since it doesnt have horrendous fan profiles which makes it sound like a yet just because you simply opened photoshop.

Did you figure out what kind of MX switches it has? Since I do know it is a mechanical keyboard but I would like to know the noiselevel, since mechanical keyboards can be anything from extremely klicky to silent.

EDIT: So far rather impressed on this one @hidevolution, the temps are good probably thanks to the bottom mod + good tim job.

 

I will make a follow up review mentioning these points that I missed out on. Probably my GT75 Titan after a week experience

 

Did you open the backplate? I am actually wondering if you got the huge heatsink for the M2 SSDs.

Or rather if u are generally willing to show us the cooling.
The 7th gen looked like this:


I was wondering if they changted the cooling system.

 

I'll show you the internals soon in the OP / Pics post which is reserved

 

Is this the same panel as on MSI GP63 Leopard 8RE (15.6-inch FHD (1,920 x 1,080), anti-glare, wide view angle display (120Hz,3ms response, 94% NTSC color gamut,) ? I mean colors and stuff wise.

I am asking because I am buying that laptop tomorrow and I am not sure about the panel and its colors etc.

 

Just for context Phoenix what other laptops have you used? I know the ones you've owned obviously but have you had the opportunity to use a lot of the competition like AWs and such?

Just because it helps to contextualize comparisons if there are certain laptops you're mainly comparing against.

Like for example I don't doubt the keyboard is probably the best on any laptop, it looks amazing, but what other ones have you used? Just because Clevo sets an extra low bar

I'll be looking forward to seeing how far you end up being able to push that system, HID got you some sick thermal overhead. I also didn't know they did that mod to the bottom panel that's badass.

One last note is those speakers on full blast at 98db... Geez. That's capable of damaging your hearing in around half an hour I'm assuming they're also just better sounding than the competition as well. My old GT60 was well above the rest at the time quality wise.

 

Dear @Phoenix, I am almost envious of the i9 in your laptop.
I think that also including some gameplay videos with msi afterburner overlay would help a lot to give others a clear idea of how the laptop performs under real life situations (it is a gaming laptop after all). I hope you post some in the future! Also you did not mention whether the fans ran coolerbooster or auto during the tests - if it was auto, then it is seriously impressive ^^
Thank you for taking the time to review!

 

Honestly the CPU won't make a noticable difference in terms of gaming, however MSI does put quite the emphesis on the GPU, which is why I'm really interested in some OCed benchmarks.

 

You got that right, clevos keyboards are terrible. (even tho I do like the old ones with the rubber finish , 2012 - 2014)
The new Alienware ones are mediocre but not bad, worse than the older versions for sure.
Acer actually has quite decent ones. (predator series)
Asus ROG Chimera have similair keyboards to MSI GT 73 series, they are really good.

The GT 75 keyboard is on a different level tho, I mean it's mechanical. Once you tried the difference urself u'll understand why a "normal" keyboard can't quite compete with a mechanical one. Mechanical keyboards are simply way more accurate. Multiple keys are connected on normal keyboards, which can cause that some keys don't register or register way later, mechanical keyboards don't have this issue for instance. That's also something u notice that when a normal has a defect normally multiple seemingly random keys don't work.

It's not the speakers perse that do the high volume, its actually the drivers and the AMP making the speakers use the capacity they have, bhut I agree, 98dB is extremely loud, can't wait to get my hands on the nahimic 3 and see how my GT 72 speakers will sound like.

 

@Danishblunt I would actually argue that it will make lots of difference in SOME games. Like my new favorite AC:Origins - that thing is better than benchmarking haha. Can't wait to be able to play that game as I could not on my gt72vr 6re. ^^ But indeed, it's kind of an overkill for pretty much anything else.
And I agree with the mechanical keyboard stuff, I use the sharkoon sgk3 with brown kailh switches and I am loving it. Wondering if I will like the low profile ones better.... I will be getting the gt75 with 8750h and gtx1080 probably.

 

come again? :'D

In term of gaming, skylake, kabylake or coffee lake won't make any difference. Obviusly in your case it does make a diifference since u're coming from a 6700HQ, which is only like 3.1ghz compared to the 4ghz+ coffeelake. If you want best bang for the buck you'd probably find a GT 75 with a 7820hk, since due to coffee lake they might sell cheap and ocne u OCed it to 4.3ghz or so it will be equal in terms of gaming

 

@Danishblunt well considering the 8750h still runs lower clocks it should have lower performance either way - but not much I guess, my bad. But have you noticed how in the video the 7700k is pretty much bottlenecking further improvement sitting above 90% most of the time while the 8th gen almost all cores are like 50-60%? Anyway I cannot decide which laptop I get as it is kind of a... warranty thing. And I am actually coming from 6820HK that was badly throttling to 800MHz so anything will be better, really. And yes the gt72vr came also with 6820HK here in the Netherlands. ^^

 

Haha see part of why I was asking was I don't fully agree with you, but seeing you say all the ones you like vs don't helps me understand what your preferences are. For example I'd take the AW keyboards over the Acer still in terms of wpm performance. While they aren't like the old ones I still find that style easier to type on. I've used most laptop keyboards, just haven't had a chance to see the new gen keyboards yet like the GT75, GS65, Aorus X9 etc...

And yeah my real set up is a desktop. Mechanical is all I want to use.

 

Something looks really off here... can you run this test again for me?

What I got on really old drivers:

 

Something's wrong with your FF15 bench score.
your 3dmark score looks fine (not sure about timespy) but that FF15 benchmark is WAY too low.

 

Will do brother

 

Fire Strike - 8950HK+GTX 1080 (397.31)



Sorry for completely unrelated question, but can u help me to show GPU power usage?
I cant get to show it with any monitoring software somehow
Thx Phoenix, Great review btw, that FF15 result seems weird tho

 

Because this is to an extend subjective. The best thing you can do (which I also did) is to go to a store, where they sell all kinds of gaming notebooks and try for yourself!

 

Not bad, but since my EVOC 16L13 is with a GTX 1080 and scored similar FS results or less by a small margin due to core count, I would love to have this MSI laptop but only with the upcoming Turin GPU line.

Nice review @Phoenix , I want it to break the 20K FS mark when it's OCed.

@Mr. Fox what do you think?

 

Nope. BGA always ruins everything. I wouldn't consider it under any circumstances unless it was selling for $500 or less. That is the maximum I would spend on a turdbook. MSI is famous for cancer firmware and screwed up power delivery systems as well. So, no thanks. I am not going to provide financial support for crap peddlers. I intentionally avoided including anything in my desktop made by MSI because of the stupid stunts they pull with castrating their overpriced laptops. Maybe someday when these posers can get their act together, but they're not where they need to be to earn forgiveness and acceptance.

Should have had an 8700K, vapor chamber cooling, unlocked BIOS and no throttle cancer. Then I might have viewed it as a product to be taken seriously. As it stands, it is just another jokebook.

 

@Phoenix Really, really great work! + like + rep

Well if you plan to add a complementary review, please download an app on your phone and do some noise measurements when you benchmark and please report the background noise as well.

So far we haven't seen any noise level measurements. You do mention temps that are very low, but temps without noise do not mean so much.

Many thanks again!

 

Would you rather go for the Clevo P870 with an 8700K and a prima bios?

 

I will try bro

 

Many thanks! I am sorry for being so persistent.

 

Can some1 please put here a photo of the power cable characteristics for this laptop. I just missed mine cable and dont comletely understand which one can i use. Sorry if wrong thread again. Thank you.

Simply is it ls-14 or ls-60 to use?

 

Darn! Just as as I was about to make a new updated review, I put all the points on a paper so I don't forget anything, went to print it, and my printer is printing blank page even though the ink is full. I tried cleaning the heads but no joy. I will have to buy a new printer.

Canon.... never again.... I have a Canon PIXMA G3400 Printer

 

Great review and amazing benchmark and temp scores!!