Time to go over the 2025 generation of the MSI Titan 18 HX AI lineup in this review, one of the most, if not the most, powerful 18-inch notebooks available in stores today.
The 2025 iteration is a hardware refresh of the 2024 Titan 18, built on the same premium chassis and with the same peculiar inputs and beautiful 4K mini LED display, but updated in specs and general performance.
Our review unit is the top-tier variant with the Intel Core Ultra 9 285HX processor, 64 GB of RAM, gen5 SSD storage, and an Nvidia RTX 5090 175W dGPU, all running at full blast here.
I’ve gathered my thoughts and impressions on this update down below, where I’m also judging the overall viability of this series against a few other heavyweight modern 18-inch options , such as the Asus ROG Strix Scar 18, Lenovo Legion 9 18, or the Alienware 18 Area 51m, all new models for 2025.
Specs sheet – MSI Titan 18 HX AI gaming laptop
2025 MSI Titan 18 HX AI A2XWJG – official page
Display 18-inch, 16:10, non-touch, matte,
Processor Intel Arrow Lake HX,
Video Intel + Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 Laptop 16GB graphics (175W with Dynamic Boost)
Memory 64 GB DDR5-6400 RAM – up to 128 GB (2x DIMMs)
Storage 6 TB SSD (2x Samsung PM9A1 drives in Raid0) – 1x M.2 PCIe gen5, 3x M.2 PCIe gen4 slots
Connectivity WiFi 7 (Killer BE1750x – Intel BE200NGW chip) 2×2 with Bluetooth 5.4,
Ports Left: 2x USB-A 3.2 gen2, SD card reader, Kensington lock
Battery 99.9Wh, 400 W power adapter, USB-C charging up to 100W
Size 404 mm or 15.91” (w) x 308 mm or 12.11″ (d) x 24 to 32 mm or .94 to 1.26” (h)
Weight 3.63 kg (8 lbs) + .9 kg (2 lbs) charger and cables, EU version
Extras clamshell 18-inch format with 150-degree screen angle,
Design and construction This 2025 Titan 18 is built on the exact same chassis as the 2024 Titan 18 already covered indepth in this review , so go ahead and read that for my thorough impressions.
In fewer words, this is a sturdy premium feeling laptop, arguably one of the better made in the segment, as most of the surfaces that you’ll come in contact with are either metal or matte glass (for the armrest). The design, on the other hand, is rather questionable, with the backlit Dragon logo on the lid and the gray/white plastic elements around the back edge. A bit heavy, I preffer more minimalist approaches. But at least the interior is clean and neat.
That aside, this laptop is rather big and heavy, at 3.6 kilos. It’s close in weight and dimensions to the Scar 18 or the Legion 9 18, and smaller/lighter than the Alienware 18. The Razer Blade 18 is more compact and lighter, as well as a much cleaner design. So overall, a fair middle-grounder in this space of full-size 18-inch notebooks. I doubt many of you buying such a notebook will fuss much over a few hundred grams in weight, anyway.
Ergonomics are mostly fine for this chassis as well, with grippy rubber feet, strong hinges, and a spacious armrest. That front metal lip is quite sharp, and that can be an issue on this sort of chassis that sits a little higher off the desk than the more portable notebooks. Your wrists will feel it in certain conditions, but as long as you keep this on a spacious desk that can provide extra arm support, you should be fine.
The display only leans back to about 150 degrees, and not flat, which is fine as well for this sort of laptop meant for desk use. And there’s an always-on light in the power-button key, but at least it’s fairly dim, and there are no other status LEDs or interior lights to interfere with your use experience at night.
As for the IO, there’s everything you’ll want here, including HDMI, USB-A and USB-C slots with Thunderbolt 4, an SD card reader, a K-Lock, an audio jack, and a LAN port. These are spread around the sides and on the rear of the laptop, behind the display, so you can easily hide the internet cable and the power plug, and even an external monitor back there. If there’s one thing to nit about is that all the USB-C ports are on the left and they didn’t squeeze one on the back as well, but that’s a minor detail.
Overall, this Titan 18 remains one of the better 18-inch chassis designs available today, both in terms of general feel and ergonomics. Aesthetically, sure, it could be improved, but beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Oh, and btw, there’s a Dragon Norse limited edition offered as well, if you’re interested in something even flashier.
Keyboard and touchpad – Cherry switches and RGB lighting The keyboard and touchpad on this Titan 18 HX series are rather unique, and not necessarily in a good way.
The keyboard is partially a mechanical implementation of low-profile Cherry MX switches, similar to what you get on the Alienware 18 as well, but quite a lot different from the regular rubber-dome keys offered with most laptops.
Just keep in mind that while the main keys and the arrows are Cherry switches, the NumPad section is made out of rubber dome keys, so feel and sound different. Weird approach, especially since the keys in the NumPad are the same size as the main set of keys, and not smaller. The entire NumPad layout is atypical, in fact, a minimalist approach.
Anyway, what’s more important is how these keys feel with general use, as well as the fact that these Cherry MX switches are louder than regular rubber dome switches.
I am using red Cherry switches on my daily desktop keyboard, and this laptop implementation is different and needs time to get used to. It’s hard to describe the clickiness and feedback of these switches, but I’ve seen most users completely torn in their opinions: they either love them or hate them. I’m mostly in the former camp when it comes to the feedback, but at the same time, their noisy clicks can be an issue if you’re using the laptop in regular work/school environments. And even at home, your other family members might have a hard time accepting this sort of keyboard. So make sure you’re considering the noise aspect in your decision. The feedback, I expect the kind of buyers looking into this sort of laptop to be able to embrace.
All these keys are RGB backlit, with per-key control in the SteelSeries software; you get a handful of modes and effects, as well as control over the Dragon light on the lid and the light in the touchpad. The illumination is well implemented, with bright LEDs, good uniformity, and limited light-bleed from underneath the keycaps.
The touchpad is a clear example of why you shouldn’t change something that otherwise works: it is seamlessly integrated within the matte glass armrest. That means it has no physical delimitation; with regular use, you have to keep the RGB active to some extent to figure out where this starts and ends.
But more importantly, this implementation struggles with regular click and drag actions. It feels nice to the touch and responds well to swipes and taps, but for anything that involves clicking, holding, and then interacting with the surface, the haptic system fails over and over again. You have to press and hold really forcefully in the corner to have a chance to move things on the screen without losing them along the way. So frustrating. You’ll want to use a mouse with this notebook, that’s for sure.
I guess most will use a mouse anyway, but as you might be aware from other reviews, I personally use a Scar 18 as a daily driver in my home office, and I just do everything with general use with the touchpad, so I expect the same from all laptops. I do hook up a mouse for gaming, but not for regular use. That’s hardly possible on this Titan.
Finally, for biometrics, there’s no finger-sensor here, but there’s IR functionality integrated within the camera.
Screen – 4K mini LED panel There’s the same display on the 2025 Titan 18 as on the 2024 generation, an 18-inch 16:10 panel with a 4K+ UHD+ 120Hz mini LED panel.
This keeps being exclusive to this lineup, as there are other 18-inch laptops with mini LED panels, but QHD+ 240Hz variants, or at the same time, there are other options with 4K+ displays, but those are IPS 240Hz or even dual-spec variants.
In the past, I argued that this sort of 4K 120Hz panel might not be ideal for a high-performance gaming option. It’s a great-looking display, don’t get me wrong, but it’s not quite as competitive as a gaming option compared to the alternatives.
For general and creator use, on the other hand, this is excellent: sharp, punchy, bright, and with a matte finish. You’ll want to be aware of how HDR and zone dimming impact accuracy for color-accurate work, though, since there’s no clear option for switching dimming on and off as on the ROG laptops. But other than that, this is awesome.
Here’s what I got in your tests, using an XRite i1 Pro sensor:
Panel HardwareID: AU Optronics AUOC5AC (B180ZAN01.0);
technology: Mini LED 3840 x 2400 px, 10bit, 1008 dimming zones
Coverage: 99.8% sRGB, 83.5% AdobeRGB, 97.8% DCI-P3;
Measured gamma: 2.24;
Max brightness in the middle of the screen: 601.18 cd/m2 on power;
Min brightness in the middle of the screen: 32.18 cd/m2 on power;
Contrast at max brightness: 1:1;
White point: 7800 K;
Black on max brightness: 0.00 cd/m2;
PWM: Yes – to be discussed.
As far as gaming goes, this is UHD+ and 120Hz and around 7-8 ms response times, while the QHD panels on the market are lower resolution, 240Hz refresh, and faster real response times at 4-5 ms. So the hardware needs to drive more pixels with this display, and the refresh/response rates are a step lower, albeit still plenty for most games. Furthermore, MSI doesn’t implement GSync support on this panel, while other 18-inch laptops do. In fact, there’s no sync technology of any kind implemented here. Are these critical details for your gaming experience? Your call, but they at least need to be mentioned and considered.
That aside, you should also consider that this panel is a mini LED implementation with around 1000 dimming zones, while the QHD 18-inch options offer a denser array of 2000+ zones. That means ghosting, consistency artefacts on solid colors, and blooming are somewhat more visible on this panel than on the QHD options. For general use, these differences are rather minor, as all miniLEDs will showcase these to some degree when opting for zone dimming. But again, something to be aware of.
As for PWM, this mini LED panel refreshes brightness with modulation at all brightness levels, but at a high frequency of 2600 Hz, beyond what the human eye would notice. So not really a concern.
Hardware and performance Our test model is a top-specced configuration of the 2025 MSI Titan 18 HX AI, code name A2XWJG, with an Intel Core Ultra 9 285HX processor, an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 24 GB dGPU, 64 GB of DDR5-6400 memory, and a set of three fast SSDs in RAID.
Disclaimer: This is a retail unit provided by MSI for this review. It was tested on the software available as of early August 2025, several months after launch. This is a mature software package, thus, I expect very little to change at this point with later software updates.
Spec-wise, the 2025 MSI Titan 18 is built on the latest and most powerful Intel and Nvidia hardware available to date, and a few things have changed compared to the 2024 iterations.
The Core Ultra 9 285HX is the highest-performance mobile processor in the Intel Arrow Lake HX lineup , with 24 Cores and 24 Threads. It’s a hybrid design with Performance and Efficiency Cores, but runs on updated cores that allow for significantly higher sustained performance compared to previous-gen Raptor Lake Core i9 HX hardware. Furthermore, the 285HX is a minorly improved variant of the 275HX bundled with most other similar notebooks, running and potentially higher power and clock speeds.
For the GPU, the 2025 Titan 18 is available with full-power Nvidia Blackwell RTX 5000 graphics chips, either RTX 5080 16GB (175W) or RTX 5090 24GB (175W). Our review unit is the 5090 configuration. All variants offer a MUX, but without Advanced Optimus. So you’ll need to manually change between the dGPU modes for either best efficiency or best graphics performance.
For the RAM, the series offers two DDR5 SODIMM slots, and not 4x slots as on the 2024 model. That’s in order to be able to run the DDR5 RAM at full speed, which means up to 64 GB DDR5-6400 or up to 128 GB DDR5-5600. In the past, with the 4x slots, MSI only ran the memory at DDR5-4000 speeds, with an impact on performance in certain cases. Not sure if that’s still a limitation with Arrow Lake HX on the few units that come with 4x memory slots, but MSI decided to just stick with two slots on this Titan 18 refresh.
Our unit is a 64 GB DDR5-6400 RAM (2x 32GB) configuration.
For storage, there are four M.2 2280 SSD slots inside, one supporting PCIe gen5 speeds, and the other three being PCIe gen4. Our sample comes preconfigured with one gen5 2TB drive and two more gen4 2TB drives, and that’s what you’re getting with retail configurations as well. The performance of this configuration is stellar.
The RAM sticks, the SSDs, and the WiFi module are all upgradable here. For that, you’d need to remove the back panel, held in place by a handful of Philips screws of different sizes. Make sure you put them back the right way. Once the back is out, the RAM is further covered by a metal thermal shield, and the gen5 SSD slot by a heatpipe. You’ll have to remove those as well to get to the actual slots, if needed.
Specs aside, MSI offer updated power profiles in their latest MSI Center control app: Silent/Eco, Balanced, and Extreme Performance, with various power settings and fan profiles between them, summarized in the following table. There’s also an MSI AI Engine mode that supposedly juggles between these modes automatically, based on load.
Silent Balanced Extreme Performance
CPU only, PL1/PL2 TDP
*55/100W
140/240W
160/240W
GPU only, max TGP
*95W
175W
175W
Crossload
*120W, 40 + 80 W
210W, 60 + 150 W
270W, 95 + 175 W
Noise at head-level, tested
<35 dBA
~45 dBA
~52 dBA on Auto fans
*As of MSI Center 2.0.52.0 and later, released around Feb 2025, there’s a new Silent/Eco profile that replaces the previous Silent and Battery Efficiency modes. This new Eco-Silent mode is very aggressively limited to TDP and TGPs of only up to 15-25W, making it useless for any sort of sustained load. It’s just ok for light use on battery power, but otherwise, it struggles even for general multitasking.
However, at the time of this article, you can still install an older version of MSI Center, 2.0.50.0 or earlier, and that gives you the previous settings for Silent mode (the ones mentioned in the table). You can find various versions of MSI Center over here . Just make sure you disable automatic updates in MSI Center, otherwise, you’ll get back to the latest version. I hope MSI fix this at some point, but as of August 2025, that’s just the way things are.
So, the prior Silent mode allows for mid-level power settings of around 95W TGP and 50-100W TDP, as mentioned in the table. These offer excellent performance with quiet sub-35 dBA fan noise, as you’ll see in a bit.
With that out of the way, before we jump to the performance section, here’s how this laptop handles everyday use and multitasking on the Eco-Silent profile, unplugged from the wall.
Performance and benchmarks – Intel Core Ultra 9 285HX + Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 On to more demanding loads, here’s the CPU’s performance in the Cinebench R15 loop test. For these tests, I have the laptop placed on a stand for better cooling.
As you’ll see in a bit, CPU performance is thermally impacted when having this laptop flat on the desk. That’s especially noticeable in heavier longer-term tests and loads, though.
So, in Extreme Performance mode with the fans on Auto, the Core Ultra 9 285HX runs at 200W+ sustained for all loops, with temperatures around 100 °C, and fan noise around 52 dBA. The system doesn’t limit power in any way, it runs the CPU at full blast around the 100 °C thermal limit. Not necessarily a fan of this approach.
With the laptop flat on the desk, the system averages CPU power around 160-180W, at the same 100 °C thermal limit.
On the Balanced profile, the CPU stabilizes at ~140W sustained, with temperatures in the high-80s °C and fan noise of around 45 dBA. The performance takes a 10% dip.
I haven’t tested the older variant Quiet profile. That should allow for 55W of sustained power with sub-35 dBA noise levels, and scores of around 3500 points.
Finally, the CPU runs at ~45 W of power on battery, on the Balanced profile. Details below.
To put these findings in perspective, here’s how this Core Ultra 9 285X implementation fares against other powerful platforms in this test.
This is the fastest Core HX processor tested so far, outpacing by 10-15% the Core Ultra 9 275HX processor tested in the Scar and Legion laptops, where the systems limit power around 150-180W in order to keep temperatures down. Since MSI opts to run the CPU at 100 °C, it can push 200+W of power in this test, and thus score higher.
Compared to the previous generation Titan 18 with the Core i9-14900HX processor, the 2025 refresh scores almost 25% higher. It’s much faster on the mid-level Balanced mode as well.
In fact, this HX platform is even faster than the Dragon Range AMD Ryzen 9 9955HX in the MSI Raider A18, which scores around 5800 points based on NBC’s review. I haven’t tested it.
We then went ahead and further verified our findings with the more taxing Cinebench R23 loop test and Blender – Classroom, which resulted in similar findings to what we explained above: 200W+ sustained for Extreme Performance with the laptop on a stand, 160W sustianed for Exteme Performance with the laptop on the desk, 140W sustained on Balanced, and 55W sustained on Silent (the previous software variant). The new Eco-Silent mode just runs at 15W even with Cinebench, so useless.
We also ran the 3DMark CPU test on the Extreme Performance and Silent profiles.
Finally, we ran our combined CPU+GPU stress tests on this notebook. 3DMark stress runs the same test for 20 times in a loop and looks for performance variation and degradation over time. This unit passes the test both flat on the desk and when placed on a stand, which means the performance in mixed loads and heavy graphics tasks is not impacted by the heat building up. More on that in the gaming section down below.
Next, we ran the entire suite of tests and benchmarks, on the Extreme Performance profile with the GPU set on the Hybrid mode (MUX on Optimus), with the fans on Auto, and with the screen set at the native 4K+ resolution. The CPU runs on stock voltage for these tests, and the GPU is overclocked at +100 MHz Core, +200 MHz memory.
For consistency, the laptop was placed on a stand for all these tests to prevent any thermal limitations flat on the desk (although those are limited to sustained CPU loads on this notebook).
Here’s what we got:
3DMark 13 – CPU profile: max – 17631, 16 – 14534, 8 – 9269, 4 – 4991, 2 – 2531, 1 – 1291;3DMark 13 – Fire Strike (DX11): 41264 (Graphics – 52511, Physics – 52077, Combined – 14143);3DMark 13 – Port Royal (RTX): 16676;3DMark 13 – Time Spy (DX12): 24069 (Graphics – 25620, CPU – 17924);3DMark 13 – Speed Way (DX12 Ultimate): 6226;3DMark 13 – Steel Nomad (DX12 Ultimate): 6303;3DMark 13 – DLSS: 36.62 fps DLSS Off, 130.86 fps DLSS On;
Uniengine Superposition – 1080p Extreme: 15641;Uniengine Superposition – 1080p Medium: 38133;
Aida64 Extreme, memory test – ;PCMark 10: -9014 (Essentials – 11157, Productivity – 8914, Digital Content Creation – 19989);GeekBench 6.2.2 64-bit: Multi-core: 22015, Single-Core: 3063;CineBench R15 (best run): CPU 6120 cb, CPU Single Core 334 cb;CineBench R20 (best run): CPU 15147 cb, CPU Single Core 876 cb;CineBench R23: CPU 39710 cb (best single run), CPU 39176 cb (10 min run), CPU Single Core 2285 cb;CineBench 2024: GPU – pts, CPU 2268 pts (loop run), CPU Single Core 138 pts.
And here are some workstation benchmarks, on the same Extreme Performance profile:
Blender 4.3.2 – BMW scene – CPU Compute: 1m 00s;Blender 4.3.2 – BMW scene – GPU Compute: 8.47s (CUDA), 4.87s (Optix);Blender 4.3.2 – Classroom scene – CPU Compute: 2m 33s;Blender 4.3.2 – Classroom scene – GPU Compute: 16.38s (CUDA), 10.23s (Optix);
SPECviewperf 2020 – 3DSMax 07: 220.31;SPECviewperf 2020 – Catia 06: 113.76;SPECviewperf 2020 – Creo 03: 118.93;SPECviewperf 2020 – Energy 03: 75.31;SPECviewperf 2020 – Maya 06: 695.18;SPECviewperf 2020 – Medical 03: 67.59;SPECviewperf 2020 – SNX 04: 41.47;SPECviewperf 2020 – SW 07: 542.04;
SPECviewperf 15 – 3DSMax 08: 86.25;SPECviewperf 15 – Blender 01: 81.93;SPECviewperf 15 – Catia 07: 88.81;SPECviewperf 15 – Creo 04: 120.62;SPECviewperf 15 – Energy 04: 74.69;SPECviewperf 15 – Enscape 01: 88.18;SPECviewperf 15 – Maya 07: 230.28;SPECviewperf 15 – Medical 04: 65.56;SPECviewperf 15 – Solidworks 08: 41.49;SPECviewperf 15 – Unreal Engine 01: 98.80;
V-Ray Benchmark: 26810 – CPU, 3214 – CUDA, 4120 – RTX.
These are crazy good results for a high-performance laptop, subjectively the fastest recorded in our tests so far – that’s because we tested the Scar 18 and the Legion 7 earlier in the year, with different software, and we haven’t yet fully tested the Lenovo Legion 9 and the Alienware 18 Area 51.
For the most part, all these laptops should be close in performance, with only slight advantages for the Titan in CPU multi-threaded loads, due to MSI’s choice of running the CPU at 100 °C and not limiting it quicker to the PL1 setting of 160W. That’s not an ideal approach imo, but it is what it is.
Furthermore, you should also account for the GPU overclock and more mature drivers when judging the graphics results, which are indeed 2-5% higher than other RTX 5090 models tested in the past.
Compared to i9-14900HX + RTX 4090 version of the Titan 18 2024, this 2025 refresh scores 15-25% higher in multi-threaded CPU loads, 5-10% higher in short burst CPU loads, and 10-20% higher in graphics loads. Notable gen-over-gen gains, not to mention the extra features offered by the RTX 5000 chips, such as DLSS 4.0 and others.
As for the 5080 model of this Titan, expect 10-15% lower scores on the GPU side, with a lesser impact on mixed-use tests as well. CPU performance should change on that configuration.
Silent Mode – excellent performance at sub 35 dBA noise This profile is no longer available with the latest MSI Center variants, but can be brought back by installing an older version of MSI Center, 2.0.50.0 or earlier (from here ).
This profile limits the CPU at 55W sustained TDP and the GPU at around 95W TGP. Still plenty for this configuration, and with excellent internal temperatures and quiet fan noise, sub 35 dBA.
Here’s what we got.
3DMark 13 –CPU profile: max – 10563, 16 – 9541, 8 – 7016, 4 – 4553, 2 – 2526, 1 – 1303;3DMark 13 – Fire Strike: 30666 (Graphics – 41492, Physics – 36980, Combined – 9545);3DMark 13 – Port Royal (RTX): 12224;3DMark 13 – Time Spy: 18022 (Graphics – 18588, CPU – 15370);Uniengine Superposition – 1080p Extreme: 11430;CineBench R23 (10 min loop): CPU 24037 cb, CPU Single Core 2228 cb;Blender 3.6.5 – Classroom scene – CPU Compute: 4m 02s.SPECviewperf 2020 – 3DSMax: 201.83;SPECviewperf 2020 – Catia: 98.15;SPECviewperf 2020 – Maya: 640.53;SPECviewperf 2020 – SNX: 40.96;SPECviewperf 2020 – SW: 433.33.
These results are roughly 70% of what the system delivers on Extreme Performance, both on the CPU and on the GPU side. Not bad at all!
Gaming performance – Ultra 9 + GeForce RTX 5090 With benchmarks out of the way, let’s see how this MSI Titan 18 handles modern games.
We tested a couple of different games on the various available profiles at 4K+ and QHD+ resolution (on the main display), with the GPU set on dGPU mode. For all profiles and tests, the laptop is placed on a stand; results aren’t any different with the laptop flat on the desk, but thermal are higher (as explained further down after the table).
I’ve also disabled any automatic settings and optimizations in the Nvidia app. Extreme mode includes a GPU overclock of +100 MHz Core and +200 MHz Memory, and the fans set to Auto.
Here are the results:
MSI Titan 18 HX, RTX 5090 Laptop 150-175W 4K+ Extreme, dGPU QHD+ Extreme, dGPU QHD+ Silent, dGPU
Black Myth: Wukong –
66 fps (48 fps – 1% low)
–
Black Myth: WukongMFG On 2x (equivalent to DLSS 3.5) 57 fps (22 fps – 1% low)
98 fps (36 fps – 1% low)
74 fps (30 fps – 1% low)
Black Myth: WukongMFG On 4x 102 fps (22 fps – 1% low)
162 fps (32 fps – 1% low)
128 fps (28 fps – 1% low)
Cyberpunk 2077 –
106 fps (82 fps – 1% low)
–
Cyberpunk 2077 –
32 fps (24 fps – 1% low)
–
Cyberpunk 2077MFG On 2x , Ray Reconstruction On, 67 fps (28 fps – 1% low)
125 fps (55 fps – 1% low)
92 fps (38 fps – 1% low)
Cyberpunk 2077MFG On 4x , Ray Reconstruction On, 120 fps (28 fps – 1% low)
220 fps (52 fps – 1% low)
154 fps (34 fps – 1% low)
Far Cry 6 98 fps (72 fps – 1% low)
138 fps (110 fps – 1% low)
118 fps (92 fps – 1% low)
Horizon Forbidden West 58 fps (44 fps – 1% low)
96 fps (72 fps – 1% low)
72 fps (54 fps – 1% low)
Horizon Forbidden West 114 fps (88 fps – 1% low)
156 fps (120 fps – 1% low)
122 fps (94 fps – 1% low)
Red Dead Redemption 2 87 fps (52 fps – 1% low)
126 fps (88 fps – 1% low)
98 fps (64 fps – 1% low)
Shadow of Tomb Raider 109 fps (92 fps – 1% low)
180 fps (124 fps – 1% low)
150 fps (112 fps – 1% low)
Cyberpunk, Horizon FW, Witcher 3, Resident Evil – recorded with MSI Afterburner fps counter in campaign mode;
Black Myth, Far Cry 6, Red Dead Redemption 2, Tomb Raider – recorded with the included Benchmark utilities;
Red Dead Redemption 2 Optimized profile based on these settings .
These games run smoothly at 4K and QHD resolution with Ultra settings on all profiles, including on the Silent profile at QHD. Activating DLSS greatly improves framerates, especially in the newer titles that support DLSS 4.0 with Multi Frame Generation set on 4x.
The overall performance in Silent mode is truly impressive. What were MSI thinking ditching this profile for the latest software variants?
For comparison, this Titan 18 delivers 5-15% higher framerates than the previous 4090 model, not accounting for DLSS 4.0 where possible. It only outscores the tested RTX 5080 configurations by 5% or so, though, so if gaming performance is your main concern, the RTX 5080 configuration is the better value choice for your money.
Let’s go over some performance and temperature logs.
First, Extreme Performance with the laptop flat on the desk. The fans spin loudly at 52 dBA on Auto (or 55++ on Cooler Boost). The CPU averages temperatures in the 85-95 C between the tested titles, while the GPU averages around 80-82 C. Toasty on the CPU side, but the overall performance is not thermally impacted in any notable way.
On a stand, the same mode allows for lower temperatures: 80-85 °C on the CPU and 75-78 °C on the GPU.
Balanced mode applies lower CPU/GPU power settings and runs the fans quieter at 45 dBA. It still delivers roughly 85-90% of the framerates possible on Extreme Performance, even without a GPU overclock.
On desk, the CPU runs at 85-90 °C and the GPU at 80-82 °C.
Off the desk, internals run a little cooler, at 75-80°C on the CPU and 70-75 °C on the GPU.
As for Silent mode, the older software variant, this ensures 70-80% of the gaming performance possible on Extreme Performance, with sub 35 dBA fan noise and temperatures on the 60s and 70s °C.
I only logged performance with the laptop on a stand, but this mode is impressively well-balanced for gaming. These sort of settings are just better than what you’re getting on the Silent modes on the ROG Scar laptops, which are power capped more aggressively and leave performance on the table. In here, the 95W TGP is just right.
So all in all, this Titan 18 laptop is an excellent gamer. You’ll want to keep it off the desk to keep the CPU temperatures at bay, and probably want to stick to Balanced and Silent modes for the quieter and cooler experience, even if that comes with a slight toll on performance. Worth it, though.
Noise, Heat, Connectivity, speakers, and others There’s a complex thermal module inside this laptop, fully designed for an 18-inch chassis, and not an oversized variation of a 16-inch cooling module as on lineups that are available in both 16 and 18 inch sizes.
It comes with two high-capacity fans, four big radiators, and a mix of a beefy vapor chamber module and some heapipes covering all the important hardware components. The vapor chamber feeds into the rear radiators, with heatpipes circling under the fans into the side radiators. As far as I understand, there’s liquid metal on the CPU, and regular thermal paste on the GPU here.
Compared to the cooling module on the 2024 Titan, this generation adds an extra heatpipe covering the SSD slot at the right, which is the PCIe gen5 slot.
MSI also implements quite tall rubber feet on this notebook, in order to allow for better airflow underneath the chassis and into the fans when using this flat on the desk. Since most of the fresh air is sucked in from the bottom, though, you will still get significantly better internal temperatures if you can create more space under the chassis, so raise this on the charger brick or ideally place it on a stand for your longer work and gaming sessions. Cooler internals also help keep the chassis temperatures at bay, which is an important aspect here, as we’ll discuss in a bit.
As far as noise levels go, expect 58 dBA on Extreme with Cooler Boost max-fans, 52 dBA on Extreme with Auto fans, 45 dBA on Balanced, and sub-35 dBA on the Silent profile. I’m referring to the older Silent profile that was actually useful for sustained activities and games, which is still available with the older versions of MSI Center. The latest Eco-Silent mode keeps the fans under 30 dBA for all activities, but also significantly limits usability for anything but casual loads.
For chassis temperatures, the laptop keeps cool with daily use and is quiet for the most part. The fans never idle, but they spin slowly and are inaudible even in a quiet environment. I also haven’t noticed coil whine or other sorts of electronic noises on this unit, and the fans don’t have a high-pitched hiss at lower speeds, as on some other modern notebooks.
We’re looking at temperatures in the mid-30s °C on the keyboard level, with a 40+ °C hotspot on the lower part of the display.
*Daily Use – streaming Netflix in EDGE for 30 minutes, Silent profile, fans idle or <30 dB
The laptop heats up with sustained loads, though, even when used on a stand.
With Extreme Performance settings with Auto fans, we measured noise levels of 52 dBA and temperatures in the mid-50s °C in the middle of the keyboard and higher-50s on the back. The WASD and arrow keys average in the mid-40s °C, which doesn’t sound like that high, but the metal frame can actually feel uncomfortably warm to the touch around the arrow keys. We’re testing in a 24-25 °C environment, so your readings could vary a bit in other conditions.
Silent mode keeps things cooler, in the lower to mid 40s °C, but still quite warm around the right side of the keyboard. I haven’t measured Standard mode, but it’s closer to Extreme Performance in terms of chassis readings.
So all in all, this is quite a hot-running machine with sustained loads and long gaming sessions, and this is something you must consider in your decision. Some of the 18-inch competing options run much cooler to the touch, such as the Scar 18 with its plastic chassis, or even the Alienware 18 Area 51. I haven’t tested the Legion 9 18 yet, but I’d expect that to run cooler to the touch as well.
For connectivity, there’s Wireless 7 and Bluetooth 5.4 on this unit, as well as 2.5G Gigabit LAN, so the best tech available at this point. This sample performed well on wi-fi with my setup. The LAN port is conveniently placed on the rear edge, behind the display, so the cable won’t get in the way if you decide to use it.
The audio quality is alright here, with 6x speakers firing downwards and upwards through the grills that flank the keyboard. These can get loud at 85+ dBA at head-level, but at the same time, the richness in mid and lows leaves something to be desired. These are more or less on par with the speakers in the 2025 Scar 18, and offer better bass than the speakers on the Alienware 18.
Finally, there’s a 2MPx camera placed at the top of the screen and flanked by microphones. Pretty poor quality. It supports IR with Windows Hello.
Battery life There’s a 99.9Wh battery inside this Titan, the largest capacity possible in a laptop.
Here’s what we got on our review unit in terms of battery life, with the Nvidia GPU on Optimus mode, the screen’s brightness set at around 120 nits (~50 brightness), and on the default 120Hz refresh. I’ve also set the laptop on Best Power Efficiency mode in Windows 11.
18-22 W (~4-5 h of use) – text editing in Google Drive, Eco-Silent Mode, screen at 50%, WiFi ON;16-18 W (~6-7 h of use) – 4K fullscreen video on Youtube in Edge, Silent Mode, screen at 50%, WiFi ON;15-18 W (~6-7 h of use) – Netflix 4K HDR fullscreen in Edge, Silent Mode, screen at 50%, WiFi ON;20-25 W (~4-5 h of use) – browsing in Edge, Balanced Mode, screen at 50%, WiFi ON;85 W (~1 h of use) – Gaming – Witcher 3, Balanced Mode, screen at 50%, WiFi ON, no fps limit.
This 2025 Titan runs more efficiently than the previous-generation i9-14900HX variant, and generally a little better than most other Arrow Lake HX notebooks tested so far. Quite surprising, given the 4K display.
I’ll also add that this Titan 18 notebook comes with a 400W power brick, which is more compact and lighter than the past chargers. It’s still a dual-cable design with a rather short cable on the part that’s attached to the brick, which means you’ll have to keep the brick quite close to the laptop and won’t be able to hide it far away. At least the power plug in behind the display, tucked away. Competing laptops come with somewhat smaller chargers with a longer cable, but many implement the charging port on the sides, reserving all the back edge for cooling. So all in all, I’d say this approach on the Titan is still one of the more ergonomic in the segment.
USB-C charging is supported on this laptop as well, up to 100W, through one of the USB-C slots on the left side. I didn’t get to test the general behavior on USB-C power.
Price and availability- MSI Titan 18 HX AI The MSI Titan 18 HX AI is listed in stores around the world at the time of this post.
This 2025 generation remains one of the most expensive notebooks in its tier, and that’s partially due to the offered configurations. For instance, this top-specced Titan 18 HX A2XWJG with the Core Ultra 9 285HX processor and RTX 5090 dGPU is mostly offered with 64 GB of RAM and 6 TB of storage (3x 2TB SSDs in RAID, including one PCIe gen5). That’s sold at $5499 MSRP in the US, 5500 EUR here in Europe
In comparison, alternatives start at 32 GB of RAM and 2 TB drives and which allows MSRP prices lower by at least 1000 USD/EUR, with a Scar 18 or Legion 9 18 starting at $4300-$4500. But you must factor in the extras offered by default with the Titan.
You can also find the Titan in a 5080 configuration, but still a beefed-up configuration with 64 GB of RAM and 4 TB of SSD storage. That’s available for around $4000 these days. Still expensive, though, when competing 18-inch laptops start at around $3000 for the 5080 models, but that’s for only 32 GB of RAM and 1 TB of storage.
Follow this link for updated configurations and prices in your region at the time you’re reading this article.
Final thoughts- 2025 MSI Titan 18 HX AI review While a hardware refresh of an existing chassis, the 2025 MSI Titan 18 HX still delivers excellent performance in a premium 18-inch notebook package.
It’s still one of the most expensive devices in its segment, but that’s mostly because MSI offers these with higher-end specs than what competitors put on their similar-tier configurations. That usually means at least 64 GB of RAM and 4 TB of storage, while the competition starts their lineups at 32 GB of RAM and 1/2 TB of storage, both for the 5080 and the 5090 configurations.
For the most part, the RX 5080 is the better-value option, much like with any other high-performance laptop today. For most workloads and games, the 5090 offers slight gains in performance, within 10% or so, with a 20+% higher price. It does get 24 GB of VRAM, while the 5080 is only a 16 GB configuration, for what that’s worth.
Specs aside, though, this laptop is such a weird mixup. It comes with a 4K mini LED display that’s beautiful, but not necessarily the best choice for either gaming or creator use, it comes with a quirky mechanical keyboard and a stupid haptic touchpad design, and is built really well, but still looks a bit too gamery for my liking. Furthermore, this runs hot to the touch with sustained gaming sessions; the metal frame heats up and can get rather uncomfortable on its right side, which can be a deal-breaker at this level.
In fact, where this excelles is on the older Silent profile, which for some reason MSI no longer offers on their latest version of MSI Center control software. So to get that, you need to install older software and make sure it doesn’t update, at least as of the time of this article.
So yeah, there you have it. A potentially great laptop ruined by quirky hardware and software decisions that make no sense. What do you guys think? Is the Titan 18 HX AI a competitive choice?
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Review by: Andrei Girbea
Andrei Girbea is a Writer and Editor-in-Chief here at Ultrabookreview.com . I write about mobile technology, laptops and computers in general. I've been doing it for more than 15 years now. I'm a techie with a Bachelor's in Computer Engineering. I mostly write reviews and thorough guides here on the site, with some occasional columns and first-impression articles.
