MSI GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER Gaming X TRIO review (Page 25)

MSI GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER Gaming X TRIO review

Graphics cards 1049 Page 25 of 25 Published 2019-07-23 15:06 by Hilbert Hagedoorn

Conclusion

Final words and verdict

MSI is offering a lovely card once again. However they are tweaking merely a notch more Boost frequency, it is so little that you'll gain 1 maybe 2 FPS on average.

The graph above basically averages out a handful of games comparing the RTX 2080 Super reference towards the MSI RTX 2080 Super gaming X Trio. I do have to state that the resolution there is Ultra HD, totally GPU bound you obviously will see the strength of the Super better. So yes, the Trio on average is 2% faster. For RTX modes on + a bit of DLSS you likely will end up in the 2560x1440 region. So overall that's not bad. You also need to realize that NVIDIA shaved off a 100 bucks of the introduction price of that 'older' RTX 2080. So the Super models are cheaper overall, whether that is a founders/reference card or the AIB board partner cards.

Aesthetics

With a dark design, the cooler once powered on just looks amazing. The RTX 2080 Super Gaming X Trio offers improved looks. It sits in the Gaming line, was made a little darker to look at, and that works for me. The RGB lighting effects are funky to see. That LED inclusion that has been done subtly and can be configured in any manner you prefer with Mystic Light software, the choice is yours. While I always will remain skeptical about backplates (they potentially can trap heat and thus warm up the PCB) MSI does have vents there. The flip-side is that they can look better and can protect your PCB and components from damage and, well, they can look nice as they can have a certain aesthetic appeal. I have to admit, this is looking very nice but looks are always personal, of course. So in the end, on looks, you certainly get that premium feel of detailed aesthetics and quality.

Cooling & Noise Levels

The card tops out at roughly 67 Degrees C while gaming. So that's not bad at all, the acoustics I'd rate as silent, we doubt you'll ever hear the card once mounted into a chassis. We've heard no noticeable coil whine. But I do want to note that any graphics card at a high-enough FPS can make some coil-whine.

Overclocking

Anything and everything is regulated by NVIDIA these days. Speaking, in general, you can expect another 10% of extra perf out of both cards when you bump up the graphics memory and GPU a bit. That is, however, paired with an increased board power limiter and, as such, that will cost a bit more energy. Both traditional overclocking, as well as the OC Scanner functions, bring us close to that value. In retrospect though, you have to remember, that the 'older' RTX models could also be tweaked to 15~16 Gbps on that GDDR6 Micron memory. The new 2080 Super models have Samsung GDDR6 and it certainly is faster overall as well as tweaking. We could even hit 18 GHz, however, that was not stable. So we settled at 17.8 GHz (effective data-rate) and that is crazy fast.

Concluding

The good news is that MSI is able to offer a competitive price compared to other AIB products, the bad news is that the card will remain the premium model and as such will be priced like that. The RTX 2080S in this revision is positioned at 699 USD, and really should not be much higher in retail even with pimped up AIB cards. Not only did NVIDIA make the card faster, but they also made is cheaper as well. Our perspective obviously needs to be what NVIDIA puts on the table today, and we have to state that it didn't disappoint. The high-end/enthusiast bracket always has been in that 699 USD ballpark, and the RTX 2080 finally arrived at it. While 699 USD still is a hell of lot 'o-money, the price does feel more 'right' compared to what NVIDIA did last year. This card offers good solid shader performance, and for a bit of fun and giggles, you get to play around with RTX/DLSS if you desire. While we can still argue DLSS and RTX you do need to realize that the industry is at a clipping point, hardware-based ray tracing is coming, whether that is NVIDIA, AMD or Intel. You probably still are paying a price premium to be that early adopter with a handful of games to actually test it on. But you can't blame NVIDIA for pioneering with technology. You can blame them for overcharging graphics cards though. And that has to be the conclusion for today, the current state of the Super lineup is much better then what happened last year. They refreshed the RTX 2080 to be faster and cheaper, and there's nothing wrong with that. MSI manages this product well. The PCB layout and component usage are good, the cooler I would qualify as excellent even. The factory tweak is however very small, I mean 30 MHz, come on. Tweaking wise the card did not disappoint though. The 2080 Super is plenty fast for any gaming up-to Ultra HD based on shading performance. With Raytracing enabled you'll be in the 1080p or 1440p range. The good news is that the card is TU104 based, and that means it is fitted with an NVlink slot, yep you could pair up two of these and go for SLI. However, given its track history, Multi-GPU is dying. As stated, the factory tweak is pretty weak, however manual tweaking makes up for that. Combined with a silent cooling and that really nice factory tweak we'll hand out a recommended award, as the product they MSI has released here really deserves that. We would like to see MSI getting a bit more aggressive on that boost clock frequency though.