MSI GeForce GTX 1080 GAMING Z 8G review

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Product Showcase

Let's start with our photo-shoot. A few pages that show the ins and outs with photos, all taken with an in-house photo-shoot of course.
  

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So the MSI GeForce GTX 1080 gaming Z is quite a nice looking product. It shared 98% of the DNA that the X model offers. MSI moved away from the reference design and just re-used that Pascal GPU. You will spot a nice matte black PCB with 10-phases and two power headers (one 8-pin and one 6-pin) for a little more overclocking headroom. The PCB is as mentioned matte black in color, and of course the new revision TwinFrozr VI cooler is being used. These cards will look just terrific in a dark themed PC. 

 

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As board partners are allowed to release the 1080 model cards in their own configurations you will see many versions, mostly based on customized PCB/component and the obviously mandatory different cooling solutions. This is the Z edition of the Gaming series, meaning it has high but not the highest clocks and a back-plate, all quite impressive as well. 

The Z cards have three configurable clock freqeuncy modes:

  • 1911 MHz / 1771 MHz / 10108 MHz (OC Mode)
  • 1873 MHz / 1733 MHz / 10108 MHz (Gaming Mode)
  • 1733 MHz / 1607 MHz / 10010 MHz (Silent Mode)

The MSI GeForce GTX 1080 GAMING X 8G ships at default clock frequencies of 1873 MHz (boost) / 1733 base) MHz with a 8192 MB GDDR5X / 10108 MHz effective data-rate on the memory. Alternatively you can switch to OC modus that clocks in an extra notch at 1911 MHz / 1771 MHz / 10108 MHz. We'll put that modus to test today.


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The card itself is a dual-slot solution, it is composite heat-pipe based, the GPU is cooled by a nickel-plated copper base plate connected to Super Pipes (8mm heat pipes) on this MSI GAMING series graphics card. A SU heat pipe layout increases efficiency by reducing the length of unused heat pipe and a special SU-form design. Zero Frozr technology eliminates fan noise in low-load situations by stopping the fans when they are not needed Up-to roughly 60 Degrees C, the fans won't even spin. The LEDs embedded in this graphics card can be controlled with the MSI Gaming APP.  Check out the backside where there is a thick sturdy metal back-plate with plenty of venting spaces applied as well. This Z moderl is fitted with the Gaming logo to the left side and is LED activated. 

For me personally it's a bit too much, just a LED lit dragon or something would have been more aesthetically pleasing. I find the logo to be obtrusive and too busy on the eyes this way.


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The card has a power design of roughly 180 Watts, but due to the high clocks and extensive tweaking design please add 10, maybe 15 extra Watts. Two power headers in combo with component selection like Hi-c CAPs, Super Ferrite Chokes and solid capacitors should be plenty for a nice tweak as well. The GeForce GTX 1080 is DisplayPort 1.2 certified and DP 1.3/1.4 Ready, enabling support for 4K displays at 120Hz, 5K displays at 60Hz, and 8K displays at 60Hz (using two cables). This model includes three DisplayPort connectors, one HDMI 2.0b connector, and one dual-link DVI connector. Up to four display heads can be driven simultaneously from one card. The GTX 1080 display pipeline supports HDR gaming, as well as video encoding and decoding. New to Pascal is HDR Video (4K@60 10/12b HEVC Decode), HDR Record/Stream (4K@60 10b HEVC Encode), and HDR Interface Support (DP 1.4).

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