So the cryptocurrency mining craze has left you searching high and low for a new GPU to no avail.

While GPUs are being snatched up left and right now might be a good time to consider buying an all-in-one package, specifically a notebook.

The subject of today’s review is just that – the MSI GT73VR 7RE Titan SLI which doesn’t house a Titan but rather two NVIDIA GTX 1070’s in SLI is a gaming beast.

Let’s play some games then shall we.

MSI GT73VR 7RE Titan SLI review – First, a look under the hood

So yes, the reason for the MSI GT73VR 7RE Titan SLI’s name (we’ll be calling it the Titan from here on out) is that it’s packing two GTX 1070 GPUs.

Paired with that is an Intel Core i7-7820HK CPU. The CPU incidentally can be overclocked to 4GHz from 3.4GHz. To accomplish that the Titan has two massive power bricks to power the components inside. The design of these is rather nice because while you will have a mess of cables on your hands there is a single plug that goes into the wall and a single plug that goes to the rear of the notebook.

It’s confusing and messy but it has a purpose so we’re not deducting points here. In fact MSI earns points for taking overclockers into consideration.

As for RAM there are 32GB’s in our review model but you can add another 32GB if you absolutely need it.

By far my favourite part of this notebook however is the display. It’s a UHD display which absolutely requires scaling of 250% in Windows thanks to the 17.3inch dimensions but hot damn is it beautiful.

The display supports the Adobe RGB as well as sRGB standards which makes it rather attractive for gamers and content creators alike.

Our gaming performance benchmarks follows on below. Note, the figures represent an average over five consecutive runs of the in-game benchmark.

Speaking frankly these results are somewhat disappointing IF you were hoping for 4K gaming at 60fps. If you want 4K gaming however and don’t mind 30fps this notebook hits that target without a fuss.

As to thermals the GPU hits a peak of around 79 degrees without the assistance of the large fans employed to keep it cool and once the fans kick in temperatures dip to a reasonable 65 degrees depending on ambient temperature and if you punch the fan button which unleashes the full power of MSI’s cooling temperatures drop to 60 degrees.

There is no thermal throttling to speak of and performance was stable no matter how long we played games for.

MSI GT73VR 7RE Titan SLI review – MSI used Adapt, it was super effective

Now the first time we saw this notebook’s spec sheet we were curious about one thing – battery life.
Driving two GPUs just sounds like battery life would be reduced to seconds but the clever folks at MSI thought of that.

Just below the power button there is a button marked GPU. When the button is pressed you will be prompted to restart the Titan and upon reboot the Titan will use integrated graphics rather than the two discrete GPUs.

While running on battery with both GTX 1070 GPUs activated the power ran out after two hours which isn’t bad if you want to get a game or two in on battery power.

Switching to the Intel HD 630 will net you an extra hour of battery life before it shuts down.

The switching of GPUs is rather clever and given that it does increase battery life we’re happy to give MSI a thuimbs up.

MSI GT73VR 7RE Titan SLI review – 4K or 120Hz?

I do love this notebook but our iteration with a 4K display has me scratching my head.
The generous (by notebook standards at least) 17.3inch display is nice and I didn’t find myself squinting to make out tiny details.

The trouble is that running games at 4K restricts the performance in games to around the 30fps mark.

However, there is a version of the Titan with a 120Hz display that runs at FullHD (and one without the high refresh rate) and I would much prefer that experience over this one simply because I am a frame rate snob.

The good news is that whether you want high fidelity or super smooth visuals there is a Titan for you.

MSI GT73VR 7RE Titan SLI review – Conclusion

It’s loud, it’s big and it performs like an adult male that has suddenly come down with the flu – that is to say dramatically.

Sadly we don’t know how much this notebook retails for. MSI tells us that pricing for the Titan starts at R36 999 but this price goes up as your configuration improves. To get a custom quotation you’ll have to contact Evetech.

I am very impressed with what MSI has managed to do here. While you can crank up the fans of the notebook I found the automatic settings perfectly fine. Your mileage may vary depending on the ambient temperature the notebook will be used in but in my testing area which has no airconditioning save for a fan the temperatures were great.

The Steelseries keyboard is good and typing on it is comfortable. MSI’s Cooler Boost technology does a great job at keeping your hands from heating up as the CPU and GPU work harder.

Sound quality is decent but if you plan on gaming for a long time I’d recommend headphones as the notebook gets rather loud.

In addition for all my whining about not hitting 4K @ 60fps the Titan is the smoothest experience I’ve had at 4K @ 30fps and when I dialled back the resolution to Full HD it comfortably hit 60 frames per second with room to spare.

Overall the Titan is a great machine and in a time where GPUs and other components are as scarce as they are (thanks cryptominers) it offers a compelling alternative to a desktop PC even if it is much more expensive than building a desktop PC.

[su_box title=”MSI GT73VR 7RE Titan SLI specifications” box_color=”#f37021″]

CPU Intel Core i7 7820HK @3.4GHz (Overclockable to 4GHz)

GPU Nvidia GTX 1070 x 2

Display 17.3inch UHD IPS @ 3840 x 2160

Memory 32GB (supports up to 64GB)

Storage 500GB M.2 SSD and 1TB HDD

Network Killer AC WiFi, Gigabit ethernet, Bluetooth 4.1

Interface Microphone, headphone, USB Type-C (Gen 2) x 1, USB 3.0 x 5, SD Card reader, HDMI (supoorts 4K @ 60fps) x 1

Battery 75 WHR

Price Pricing on Request

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*Disclaimer – The MSI GT73VR 7RE Titan SLI was sent to htxt.africa for review purposes by MSI South Africa. The machine has been returned*