In the very competitive market of gaming laptops, sometimes you might need to think bigger and go all out with power. You have an enthusiastic audience that just needs to play everything at the highest settings and never look back for the next decade or so.
So when MSI decides to release the new Titan 18 HX AI laptop, with an Intel “Arrow Lake HX” Core Ultra 9 processor with 24 cores, Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 5090 GPU with 24GB of dedicated memory, 65 GB of DDR5 RAM and the most clickiest keyboard by the folks at Cherry at hand, you might have quite a combo.
So let’s look at the basics first. 
Review Spec
- CPU: Intel Core Ultra 9 285HX
- GPU: Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 (24 GB VRAM)
- RAM: 65GB DDR5-6400 RAM (2X 32GB)
- Storage: 6TB SSD (3x 2TB RAID 0)
- MSRP: 29,499 MYR
Hardware
Just by looking at the pictures, would you notice the large stature of this Titan? Weighing in at almost 4KG (3.7kg to be precise), it’s a looker, alright. The long diameters it has to fit its 8-inch, 3840 x 2400 monitor, which is also Mini LED and has a 120 Hz refresh rate.
Along with that aforementioned Cherry MX mechanical keyboard that just makes such an incredible sound at each touch, plus it being made out of a magnesium-aluminium chassis to keep its shape, does help put on the pounds. Is it backpackable? Mostly, if you don’t mind the carry weight of a small bag of rice, but its sharp looks could fit most bags.
But unlike most contemporaries, the Titan is packing 2x Thunderbolt 5 Type-C Ports, 3 USB Type-A 3.2 ports, HDMI 2.1 for output, an SD card reader, 3.5 mm audio jack and 2.5 Gbps Ethernet, which makes it quite a feature complete laptop even on that price range and, believe me most of those ports are quite useful for both work and gaming sessions. Heck, even the sound coming from its SteelSeries speakers shows off its crystal clear clarity that’s paired well with its design.
So, you may be wondering how the heat dissipation works for a ginormous boy like this, and its fan placement is quite liberal, with most of it coming towards the back, and it’s cool to the touch on the Cherry keys, dispersing everywhere else. The caveat is that the fan is constantly blowing at a loud noise, and since it is the latest model of RTX cards, it doesn’t get software help like Nvidia Whisper mode to quiet it down.
Software![]()
The usual stuff for MSI laptops is the highly customizable MSI Afterburner, where you could overclock your CPU and GPU, monitor your hardware and so on. It’s quite a tool that can be used in different machines as well. It does its job well, albeit quite slowly at times, but everything works as intended.
It also runs the usual Windows 11, complete with the likes of the Xbox Game Bar and the new bits and bobs of the Operating System, now AI-focused with the likes of Copilot and such, which doesn’t really affect the performance with this much power within its trunk, but I didn’t test it out during my time with the laptop, unlike the more gaming parts of it, like Nvidia’s Blackwell AI that helps tunes the games I ran on this machine to it’s optimal settings, usually without fuss.
One complaint that I want to address isn’t about the Titan 18 but its CPU provider, Intel, whose idea of updating is just redirecting to a website instead of making it proprietary. A confusing choice, but it does help with choosing which type of update is good for your CPU, but it is still lacking when compared to its Orange-colored rival.
Game Performance ![]()
The MSI Titan 18 HX AI (12XWJG) is quite a powerhouse, as I mentioned above, so performance isn’t really an issue with this gaming laptop. So when putting it into the Cyberpunk benchmark, you can see the FPS numbers going really high, even with Ray-Tracing on, with an average of 110fps measured.
Open-world titles such as Mafia: The Old Country thrive well on Ultra, with the volumetric clouds and lush terrain that make the experience on Unreal Engine 5 quite a looker at times.
Then we have racers of different styling, CarX Street, F1 25 and Tokyo Xtreme Racer (2025), all of which played into the game’s speed, one using the SSD speed to quickly load the terrain, and the UE-based Tokyo nights have never rendered as better using this laptop. And with the power in hand, F1 25 can be played in VR with a pretty good refresh rate, with the image as sharp as you want it to be.
Then we have the infamous Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 PC port that had some issues running the game, and unsurprisingly, it just runs well on Ultra with Ray-Tracing reflections on. Quite a testament to its powerful nature when even this troublesome PC version of a PS5 hit could get up to the higher numbers without issues.
And more computing-power-intensive games like Inzoi do well utilising most of the CPU power of the Core Ultra 9 285HX, and it manages to load an entire map with NPCs in all the nooks of its South Korean-style map. Like, just looking at the luscious hair of our avatar just says it all about what Ultra gaming on a PC would look like.
As for battery life, it’s substantial with the power this laptop holds; its three-hour battery life could be better, but normal browsing, like watching a 4K Video, scrolling social media, or even just doing normal Microsoft Office work on the go, I reckon you could go far with 3 to 4 hours of unplugged battery life like this.
Value![]()
At a whopping 29,990 Malaysian Ringgit, this is for the enthusiast players, without any shadow of a doubt. For the full price of a compact hatchback or a used ’90s JDM classic, this goes well beyond future-proofing for this generation and perhaps even the next. Like when even Grand Theft Auto 6 comes to PC (2027 or longer, depending on the outlook of Rockstar Games right now), this WILL beat its estimates for Ultra settings without any shadow of a doubt.
Like this price is basically all of the major consoles (A PlayStation 5 Pro, Xbox Series X and Nintendo Switch 2, along with all of their highest tier of Subscription), plus perhaps a 65’ inch Sharp 4K TV with Xtreme Mini-LED built-in and 120Hz refresh rate, and you’ll still have enough to dine at a Five Guys restaurant, in both the KL store and Genting one, lavishly.
Like, its design wouldn’t stand out that much if you bring it to a public library or University campus, with how nice its colours and materials blend together, just hope no one asks about its price.
Verdict![]()
The MSI Titan 18 HX AI is quite an impressive tour de force of a gaming laptop. It is a machine that, had it been a few half centuries back, would have been classified as a supercomputer with how much power this one is packing.
This is definitely the ultimate enthusiast gaming laptop. The top of the tower is in power.
Loaned Review Unit provided by Intel.
MSI Titan 18 HX AI A2XWJG
Quite an impressive tour de force of a gaming laptop. It is a machine that, had it been a few half centuries back, would have been classified as a supercomputer with how much power this one is packing.
- Hardware 9.5
- Software 8.5
- Gaming Performance 9
- Value 8