The Titan Dragon Edition is MSI’s latest all-out gaming laptop

The over-the-top 18-incher has a 4K 120Hz display, an Nvidia 5090 GPU, and a whole lot of dragon and Norse mythology flair.

by Antonio G. Di Benedetto

Jan 7, 2025, 4:00 AM UTC

The rear view of the MSI Titan 18 HX Dragon Edition, with a hand-drawn dragon design on its lid.

Antonio G. Di Benedetto is a reviewer covering laptops and the occasional gadget. He spent over 15 years in the photography industry before joining The Verge as a deals writer in 2021.

Lots of gaming laptops go for maximum performance with maximum RGB showiness, but nothing goes harder than MSI’s Titan. The company announced its Titan 18 HX laptop at CES 2025. It’s an 18-inch behemoth with an illuminated touchpad, Intel’s Core Arrow Lake processor, and Nvidia’s new RTX 50-series GPU for a starting price of around $5,000.

But is that really outrageous enough?

It’d be much wilder to also release a fully unhinged Titan adorned with dragon designs and runes inspired by Norse mythology. And that’s exactly what MSI is doing with its Titan 18 HX Dragon Edition Norse Myth. It has the innards of the standard Titan, complete with a new dedicated heat pipe cooler just for its PCIe Gen5 SSD to maximize transfer speeds, and it adds a massive etching of a hand-drawn dragon head to its lid as well as a 3D-printed dragon coin under glass within the palm rest. Now we’re talking.

According to MSI, those Norse runes on the lid mean “Dragon Edition.”

Photo by Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge

We’re still awaiting pricing information, but spec-wise, this thing is roaring. It packs an Intel Core Ultra 9 285HX CPU, Nvidia RTX 5090 GPU with 24GB of GDDR7 VRAM, up to 96GB of DDR5 RAM, one slot of Gen5 NVMe M.2 storage, and three extra slots of Gen4 SSD storage.

It has an 18-inch 4K Mini LED screen capable of 3840 x 2400 (16:10) resolution at 120Hz refresh, a six-speaker audio setup (two of which are woofers), Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.4, Cherry mechanical keyboard switches with per-key RGB illumination, a 99.9Wh battery, and a power adapter capable of delivering 400-freaking-watts.

For I/O, you get two Thunderbolt 5 USB-C ports, three USB-A 3.2 Gen 2 ports, HDMI 2.1, gigabit ethernet, and a full-size SD card slot. This whole fire-breathing magnesium alloy package weighs in at a hefty 3.6 kg / 7.94 lbs, but it’s somehow not as heavy as Alienware’s boat anchor of a new 18-inch Area-51 laptop.

<em>The inlaid dragon medallion has some nice detail work within it.</em>

<em>Like last year, the Titan’s touchpad is flush and invisible until it lights up.</em>

<em>Two USB-A ports and an SD card slot on the left.</em>

<em>On the right are two Thunderbolt 5 ports, one USB-A, and a headphone / mic jack.</em>

<em>The rear has some large exhaust vents with silver accents, one more USB-A port, ethernet, and HDMI 2.1.</em>

<em>Kratos, can you take notes and minutes for this meeting since Thor is out today?</em>

1/6

The inlaid dragon medallion has some nice detail work within it.

Photo by Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge

MSI has done Dragon Edition laptops before, but compared to previous incarnations, the new Titan Dragon Edition looks more fierce and actually less garish — just look at this old thing. And true worshippers of Bahamut or Baal (or take your pick) may be able to get their draconic Titans in an accessory bundle with a matching mouse, keychain, and colorful desk pad when it launches in March.