The full details are still a little sparse but we do know one thing for sure, the MSI GT80 Titan will be the first gaming laptop with an integral mechanical keyboard, it also happens to be backlit. The laptop is an 18" model and though it may look large in the pictures MSI reports it will be 17% thinner and 22% lighter than similar machines. They have also incorporated the SteelSeries Engine with CloudSync to allow you to save and synchronize settings via SteelSeries cloud storage. Check out the full PR below.
City of Industry, Calif. – October 30, 2014 – MSI Computer Corp, a leading manufacturer of computer hardware products and solutions, unveils the GT80 Titan, the world’s first gaming laptop with a mechanical keyboard.
First of its kind, MSI’s GT80 Titan ushers the future of gaming by integrating a SteelSeries gaming keyboard with Cherry Brown MX switches into the 18-inch gaming beast. Mechanical keyboards provide superior tactile feedback, increases durability, and enhances overall gaming experience by eliminating key jamming even during the most heated battle sessions.
“Performance is key for gamers and the GT80 Titan will forever change the mobile gaming experience,” says Andy Tung, president of MSI Pan America. “We are proud to be at the forefront of the gaming evolution and will continue to provide solutions that deliver the most outstanding gaming experience in the world.”
MSI’s newest gaming laptop uses standard Cherry switches and a standard keycap with 27mm of thickness, nearly 5 times of traditional laptop keyboards. It is also the world’s slimmest and lightest 18-inch gaming laptop, measuring 17% thinner and 22% lighter than its closest competitor. To fully optimize the keyboard, the GT80 Titan features an enhanced SteelSeries Engine with CloudSync, allowing users to save and synchronize settings via SteelSeries cloud storage.
UMMMMM whats up with the
UMMMMM whats up with the football field between the keyboard and screen??????????
Maximizing distance between
Maximizing distance between eye and the world view? (for farsighted soldiers and competitors who prefer not to wear foggy sweat spattered spectacles while engaged in outdoor activity, actual or virtual, or at public competitions.)
Minimizing sweaty palms? (for marketing custom palm-rest accessories/swag, potentially wicking and washable for long competitions)
For the first time a laptop
For the first time a laptop keyboard makes sense to me..
Now it’s more or less like an actual keyboard w/o wrist pad (which I have never liked or used in my entire life so…)
Should include matching mouse / headset. Heh.
Would be epic..
Not into gaming laptops, waiting for better tablet solutons.
BUT IF I WERE… Yea’ this could of sold me.
Also I wonder if that huge
Also I wonder if that huge untouched area could second as a heatsink. That would be really, really smart.
Now just add some diodes to help recycle some of the system heat to assist powering it. Constantly trickle charging slight at a specific temp threshold.
Been meaning to experiment with that but life got hectic. : (
I would guess that because of
I would guess that because of the extra thickness of the keyboards, you can’t put the motherboard under it and still keep it reasonably small. Therefore, it looks like all of the chips and such are under that awkwardly large dragon graphic. Because MX switches have longer key travel and much larger physical switch size than scissor switches, the only other option would have been to make this laptop over 2 inches thick. The result is pretty unattractive though.
It’s the same amount of blank
It’s the same amount of blank space on most 17+ inch models, except it is moved to the top instead of shoved to the bottom.
That said, “MSI reports it will be 17% thinner and 22% lighter than similar machines.” Define “similar machines.” That sure seems like a lot of leeway, given the lack of any other laptops with mechanical keyboards.
Looks like a stage. (for
Looks like a stage. (for holographic poker chips?)
Such innovation…
Much
Such innovation…
Much development…
rather see a gsync/freesync laptop than any of these marketing gimmicks
How about a 6 core laptop
How about a 6 core laptop CPU, without the lame Intel graphics, and use any extra space for more powerful GPUs!
Those Stuffed shirts, and marketing monkeys at Intel, with their thin and light Apple envy, are forcing the OEMs to waste R&D resources that otherwise should be utilized to make a real gaming laptop! Screw the dragon art, the real dragons come in pairs, and are under the skin doing their rendering, and whatnot, along with the most powerful(6 damn core) CPU! Gaming laptop OEMs, get one not too ugly laptop case design, and stick with it for years, and then devote all of you resources to what is inside, and improving the CPUs/GPUs and OEM drivers, and stop trying to foist Intel’s thin and light crap on everyone, no one that buys a laptop for gaming is really thinking about the weight, they would rather have the power under the hood.
That Keyboard, is an answer to a problem that did not need fixing, why not just offer an external USB keyboard!
Damn! all the guts of this thing must be under that football field size area, to make room for the thickness of that keyboard, what a waste of engineering effort!
Yeah, and while we’re at it,
Yeah, and while we’re at it, why not 4 way SLI and a custom watercooling setup in the laptop? Why not a 8 port USB 3.0 hub in the side? Why not 4 DP outputs to run multiple GSync external monitors? Oh yeah, because they are better utilized in desktops, along with 6 core CPUs. Gaming laptops are made to be portable gaming systems, not to play 4K at 60+ FPS. I think a mechanical keyboard is a great idea for a mid to high end gaming laptop, just as long as they don’t pair with a core i5 or any AMD CPU.
If it had Cherry MX Blue switches this would be great for people that do a lot of typing and want a laptop. It doesn’t look like it will be much bigger than a standard laptop.
I do a lot of rendering on
I do a lot of rendering on laptops, I need cores, and if Intel would ditch the crappy as F__k Intel GPU, there would be room for 2 more cores, and a six core laptop SKU would not overheat a normal form factor laptop, F**K the thin and light. I Need cores for ray tracing, and as long as the cores have SIMD, and can run fast enough, even ARM cores could be helpful for ray tracing rendering with their Neon units, the most cores that could be fitted into a normal laptop’s thermal budget. Until the GPU makers start putting the ray tracing hardware on the GPUs themselves, the powerVR wizard has GPU ray tracing circuitry. Hopefully the ray tracing component of graphics can be moved entirely to the discrete GPU, and then who cares about CPUs any more, at least not for graphics. Even Intel’s Ivy Bridge has low enough thermals in its top end laptop SKUs, to ditch the graphics and add 2 more cores. I do have to agree with you about the typists using that style keyboard, but they would not need the GPUs, or a multicore CPU for typing. I do not do graphics in the frames per second, metric, my renders can take hours for a single image, and keep a quad core i7 at 100%(4 core, 8 threads) for hours.
Intel and Its ultrabook fiasco, has left the market flush with underpowered CPU SKUs, Intel with its trying to capture the mobile market, at the expense of the regular form factor laptop/gaming laptop market, has ruined the new Mac Mini, because now that giant retailer Apple, is getting a good deal on those worthless ultrabook SKUs, and foisting them on the Mac Mini Users, who now have to wait and hope that there will be more powerful SKUs when the mac minis are dew for another refresh, so that they can get a quad core desktop variant for the mac mini again! Really stuffing a weak, even by laptop standards, SKU in the mac mini, and calling it the most power efficient desktop, retailers are something else with their slacked jawed marketing monkeys.
Intel, with the marketing monkeys, and monopolists in control. Between windows 8.* and Intel’s wimpy chip, thin and light, obsession, my yearly laptop purchasing habits, are on full Stop.
I do hope the Chinese and Koreans can get the Power8 licenses, and maybe derive some interesting PC/Laptop SKUs out of the Power8’s efficient core microarchitecture and give the x86 market some much needed competition, a 4 core Power8, would have 32 threads, and the power8s can throttle and power gate the individual thread hardware when not needed, and my graphics software runs under Linux, or windows 7. Those VISC folks, ex Intel Engineers, have some very interesting IP, and technology, best of luck to the Soft Machine VISC folks, lots of IPCs on low clock cycles, and I would love to see some ray tracing benchmarks on the VISC microarchitecture.
Maybe the “football field”
Maybe the “football field” people are referring to has QI wireless charging? Would be nice to just place my phone or tablet on my laptop to charge while I game or type.
OH, good one man! That
OH, good one man! That thought didn’t cross me.
No The keyboard is so thick,
No The keyboard is so thick, and the key travel requires more vertical space, the guts of the machine are under that football field size block as a matter of engineering necessity, the keyboard leaves little or no vertical space for little else. It’s not a totally bad Idea, but I would rather see a standard size laptop enclosure/body, in the same vain as the old F-body camera style, get one style and stick with it, save all the engineering for the insides, better processors, faster connections, better screens. Stop all of this all style and no substance unnecessary engineering and design, and focus on CPUs with more cores, and dual GPUs, better storage, and plenty of ports(with the latest technology).
Maybe it’s just me but I
Maybe it’s just me but I judge gaming laptops by how much bulk they include not omit. I also judge them by the size of the power supply not just what they claim is inside. The more performance the more power required. The more power required the more heat generated. The more heat generated the more space you need to get rid of it. If 2 competitors have the same components the one with the larger power supply and space for airflow is going to win. And let’s face it if your going to sit down for a gaming session it not going to sit in your lap so what difference do a few pounds and half an inch thickness make?