Stuff has long been fans of MSI’s Titan range of gaming notebooks. The brand’s gear can look samey in the lower order but the bonkers approach to its ultimate portable gaming machine/Bitcoin-mining rigs resonates with us. There is a new headliner from the Taiwanese company, revealed at CES 2025. Meet the MSI Titan 18 HX Dragon Edition Norse Myth.
Wait, aren’t the Titans all Greek?
Yes, that’s entirely correct. There isn’t a parallel to the Titans in Norse mythology. The closest you’ll get are the jötunn or jötnar but they’re a different sort of being. Rather than primordial proto-gods, they’re more like very large… dwarves or something. We doubt MSI expects its target audience to be so pedantic about the naming convention but while we’re on the subject… the Norse didn’t have dragons either. There’s Níðhöggr, the being that gnaws at the roots of Yggdrasil, and Jörmungandr, the Midgard serpent but they’d be described as worms (or wyrms) or, well, serpents.
Is there a point to this complaining?
Not really. None of this has any bearing on the MSI Titan 18 HX Dragon Edition Norse Myth’s performance but names are important, right? Especially since the custom case design is supposed to be based on Norse mythology. Which, again, doesn’t really feature dragons. But there are Nordic runes on the etched lid to spruce up the Frazetta-style dragon adorning the rest of the 18in chassis’ cover.
That 18in display packed a 4K mini-LED panel capable of 120Hz refreshes, a six-speaker setup that includes a pair of woofers, Intel’s Core Ultra 9 285HX processor, and up to 96GB of DDR5 RAM. One of Nvidia’s newest RTX 5090 GPUs with 24GB of GDDR7 VRAM is also resident, as are four slots of NVMe M.2 storage. One of these supports Gen 5 speeds, and the remaining trio sticks with fourth-gen NVMe M.2.
So this is, like, a Fjord Ranger?
Get out.
It wasn’t that bad.
Yes, it was. But since we weren’t finished and you won’t leave, MSI has also lobbed all of the extras it has in stock at this Titan. WiFi 7, Bluetooth 5.4, Cherry mechanical keyboard switches (the Titans are always wonderfully clicky and thumpy) with per-key RGB illumination, a 99.9Wh battery that should last long enough for you to switch plug points, and a 400W power brick are all features of the Titan 18 HX.
There’s probably a standard version of this notebook somewhere without the visual adornment but it’ll likely match this version’s 3.6kg weight. It might even weigh more, since it’ll eschew the recessed dragon inlay next to the Norse Myth’s illuminated trackpad. We figure that saves a few grams in this particular model.
So we’ll have to trade an eye for this one, then?
You won’t get wisdom in exchange unless it’s the wisdom to know that you shouldn’t have done that. MSI hasn’t given an official price for this gaming monster but it’s expected to start at about R95,000 ($5,000) when it launches sometime in March 2025. It’s possibly cheaper to import an actual cornea in South Africa so even giving up both ocular orbs won’t do you much good. Rather hand over the money.
