Upgradeability

To get the bottom cover off, you need to remove six screws (one placed under a factory seal sticker). These are all Phillips head screws. My only challenge was one fairly deep screw, for which I needed a longer screwdriver.

Most of the inside is taken up by the heat pipes and MXM module. The PCIe-NVME SSD can be replaced by removing a single screw, but the HDD requires a few more because it’s attached to a bracket. There are two open RAM slots. While ours came with 32GB of RAM already, it’s good to know that it’s easy to get a stick in there when you want to upgrade.


The Titan doesn't last very long on a charge. On our battery test, which continuously browses the web over Wi-Fi, streams videos and runs graphics tests at 150 nits of brightness, it ran for just 2 hours and 48 minutes. While most gaming laptops don't last very long, this is still less than the 3:32 premium gaming average.

Heat

Under a simple productivity workload, the Titan can stay cool. After streaming 15 minutes of HD video from YouTube, it measured 97 degrees Fahrenheit on the bottom, 93.5 degrees between the G and H keys and 90 degrees on the touchpad.

While gaming, it heated up. During my time playing Middle-earth: Shadow of War, it reached 93 degrees on the keypad, 88 degrees on the touchpad and 118 degrees on the bottom.


The FHD webcam on the Titan is workable. In a shot I took of myself at my desk, I appeared to be in a bit of shadow, but I could still make out details in my skin and see the color-accurate red stripes on my shirt.

Software and Warranty

As with most of MSI’s gaming machines, the most useful piece of preinstalled software is Dragon Center, which lets you tune your system’s performance and fan speeds, see CPU, GPU, memory and storage usage and activate Gaming Mode to optimize applicable games for the system, including Dota 2, Overwatch, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and Rocket League. MSI’s True Color software lets you change the screen temperature, which could be good for some late-night gaming.

There is quite a bit of bloatware on the Titan, though. This includes Music Maker Jam, Microsoft’s versions of Minesweeper, Mahjong, a jigsaw puzzle, as well as a series of word games, plus LinkedIn, Evernote, PowerDirector 4 (for video editing) and PhotoDirector 8. There’s also the standard junk from every Windows 10 build, like two different versions of Candy Crush, Disney Magic Kingdoms and Royal Revolt 2: Tower Defense.

MSI sells the GT63 Titan with a one-year warranty.


Configurations

The MSI GT63 Titan we tested is the most expensive model—$2999—with an Intel Core i7-8750H processor, 32GB of RAM, a Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 with 8GB of VRAM, a 512GB PCIe-NVMe SSD, a 1TB, 7,200-rpm HDD and a 1080p display.

The cheapest option is $2,199, which uses the same CPU but bumps the graphics down to a GTX 1070, 16GB of RAM and less storage with a 256GB PCIe-NVMe SSD.

There are varying models in between, including one for $2,799 with a 4K display and GTX 1080 but the same memory and storage options from the cheapest model.

Bottom Line

The MSI GT63 Titan is a high-performance gaming laptop with a comfy keyboard and easily upgradable parts. The red and black design is getting old, though, and I wish the display was slightly brighter. I would also like a Windows precision touchpad for productivity use, though if you’re one of the many gamers who brings a mouse along with their keyboard, you may not mind as much as I do.

If you want something thinner, the Origin EVO15-S is a bit cheaper when similarly configured (but with a GTX 1070 Max-Q, the only graphics option available), at $2,632. Its display, however, is no brighter than the Titan's. The Razer Blade Pro has a better (and larger, if that’s your bag) screen and a more attractive design, but it uses a 7th generation Intel Core processor. And if you want a GTX 1080, like the Titan has, it starts at $3799.99, which is far more expensive.

But if you’re good with the size and don’t need the brightest monitor around, the Titan makes a solid price and performance play.