The MSI GT73VR Titan Pro-201 features an Intel Core i7-6820HK and an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080, and comes with a hefty price tag of $3,599. Will the flagship Pascal GPU give the MSI Titan Pro enough performance to dominate its competition?

Nvidia’s GTX 1080 is one of the most powerful graphics cards on the market, and if you’re lucky enough to have one in your PC you can breeze through modern games at the highest settings with relative ease. But what happens when you put that GPU in a gaming laptop? Today, we’re going to find out. We’re testing a behemoth of a machine: the MSI GT73VR Titan Pro.

What stereotypes come to mind when you picture a gaming laptop? Perhaps it’s big and thick and heavy, with a ridiculous cooling system and aggressive aesthetics. The MSI GT73VR Titan Pro-201 is all of that, and proudly so. It’s big, it’s bold, and it’s robust.

The hood of the Titan Pro-201 features a black, brushed metal finish, which feels premium to the touch. The MSI logo is stamped in the center in silver, and the Gaming Series shield logo is directly beneath it. Two metallic red accents are found on the sides, and those red accents and the Gaming Series logo are illuminated when the system is powered. Finally, “Titan” is stamped on the bottom just above the hinges.

The bottom of the Titan Pro-201 is constructed of plastic rather than metal. The laptop’s build is solid overall, with very little flex, but the plastic bottom doesn’t feel as satisfying as the top’s brushed metal. The bottom is populated with numerous, wide intake vents colored in red and black.

The black, brushed metal finish continues on the laptop’s workspace, surrounding the keyboard. The oddly shaped power button is on the top right-hand corner of the workspace. There are four buttons beneath it: the first button switches the Titan Pro-201 between discrete and on-die graphics, the second button turns up the fan speed, the third button launches XSplit Gamecast, and the final button cycles SteelSeries Engine profiles.

There are four exhaust vents: two on the back and one on each side. You can see just how thick the thick aluminum heat sinks are if you look behind the red-accented back vents.

The display hinge offers about 130° of movement, which is fairly standard, and it is both smooth and firm.

The Titan Pro-201’s speakers are front-facing, but located on the bottom. The subwoofer is behind the left-hand speaker, and delivers impressive bass at high volumes.

Starting from the right, there are two USB 3.0 ports, an SD card reader, and a Kensington lock. On the left are 3 additional USB 3.0 ports, a line-in jack, a line-out jack, a microphone jack and a headphone jack. On the back, you’ll find the Ethernet port, a mini DisplayPort, a USB Type-C Gen 2 port, and an HDMI port.