Final words and conclusion
Final words
In its basis there's little is wrong with the RTX 3080 12GB series, but granted it's more of the same. You'll gain an extra gear in overall performance with this reconfigured product series. MSI impresses with the SUPRIM X, adding an estimated 4% to 5% greater performance oe reference values and even 9% coming from a reference 3080 10GB while maintaining quite pleasant and low acoustics in silent BIOS mode, and adding the possibility to tweak further performance as well. I'll say it again: it's 2022 and still an odd time to write graphics card reviews, given the shortages and outrageous price increases associated with them. The 3080 12GB is a high-end model that will likely be difficult to obtain. The good news is that the new NVIDIA SKUs are hash rate-limited on the AIB side, preventing crypto miners from gaining a disproportionate share of sales. However, the reality is that NVIDIA can only manufacture a limited amount of GPUs, and they will still need to decide how much allocation goes to gaming and how much goes to other markets. We hope NVIDIA makes prudent judgments, as if the trend continues, the PC gaming sector will die off. They must consider what software houses will invest in PC gaming if the market is in freefall.
Performance
Overall, the GeForce RTX 3080 12GB is a close enthusiast-class product, is blazingly fast on all fronts, and is the more reasonable option (based on MSRP) seen from 3080 Ti and 3090. The SUPRIM provides around 5% extra performance over reference perf straight out of the box; the card has already been optimized for you. This card is capable of running games at 4K with raytracing and a DLSS combination; it will perform admirably at that resolution.
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| UHD Performance % | Witcher III | Hitman III | Far Cry: New Dawn | Shadow of the Tomb Raider | Aver Difference % |
| RTX 3080 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 |
| RTX 3080 12GB MSI | 110 | 103 | 111 | 108 | 108 |
| Tweaked graphics card | 114 | 109 | 116 | 111 | 113 |
Keep in mind that we use a factory tweaked product, not a reference clocked design
Cooling & noise levels
Depending on the airflow inside your chassis, the card should reach a temperature of 77~78 degrees Celsius under heavy load conditions in SILENT BIOS mode.Here you cannot hear the card's cooling whatsoever. If you are uneasy with that temperature value, you can switch to the GAMING BIOS mode. Here, noise levels will reach approximately 40~41 DBa, which is still okay (but a notch more than we anticipated). It is a choice that is entirely up to you. The silent mode is the default setup for these cards. And make no mistake, the performance is nearly identical in every way. The main difference is that the fan RPM delta is measured in relation to the ambient temperature.
Energy
The power consumption of the GeForce RTX 3080 12GB during intensive gameplay remains high, especially for the factory tweaked products like reviewed today. For the Suprim X, we measured it to be close to 400 Watts. This is the price to pay for a bit more bite in performance for this particular graphics card model. Are we content with that level of energy consumption in 2022? No, absolutely not. Will you, as an end-user, be concerned about that? Likely not either. Bear in mind that a power source with three 8-pin PCIe graphics power headers will be required. We recommend a 750~800 Watt model due to the fact that the remainder of the system will use power + you will want some reserve. When you open up the power slider, you can raise the graphics card's power consumption by another ~50 Watts. As (graphics) processors and heat might be viewed as a 1:1 state, 100 Watts in (consumption) frequently equals 100 Watts of heat output. This is the fundamental tenet of TDP. NVIDIA lists their TGP as 350 Watts, which is the amount of power consumed by the GPU and other important components. We calculate the graphics card's TBP, or total board power because it's easy to forget that fans spinning and RGB lighting also consume power. As a result, we're lingering around a 400 Watt level for a normal power draw during peak load conditions.
Coil whine
The GeForce RTX 3080 Ti, like the 3080 10GB/12GB and 3090, reveals coil squeal. Is it troubling? It's audible. In a closed chassis, that noise would fade away in the background. However, with an open chassis, you can definitely hear coil whine/squeal. All graphics cards do this to some degree, particularly at high framerates; this is perceptible.
Pricing
NVIDIA is pricing the GeForce RTX 3080 10GB sits at 799 USD, and they did not disclose a price for the 12GB version. We do know that the premium board will easily hit 1500 USD as street price, which is serious money for a gaming graphics card.
Tweaking
The card actually tweaked really well for an RTX 3080. We've been able to push the power limiter by another 10%, then added 10 MHz on the GPU clock resulting in observed boost frequencies towards ~2050 MHz (depends and varies per game title/application). The memory was binned as well; we rarely breached 2.1 GHz on GDDR6X stable, we did so today. All that combined brings us a 9% performance premium seen from the reference 3080 10GB model, but at the cost of a card now consuming ~450 Watts at a typical load.
Conclusion
If memory serves me right, the original 3080 was introduced in September 2020; and we're now in January 2022. With the 3080 reconfigured to 12GB, a handful more shaders available, and a wider memory bus NVIDIA seems to be buying time. In that respect, we're left wondering what this release is truly about? This release has the appearance of a product released to buy additional time for the next generation of competing graphics cards. Which makes sense. We believe NVIDIA is observing the GPU releases from Intel and AMD. Reorganizing, reshuffling, and repositioning items to achieve optimal performance is what they're doing. Also, fabbing GPUs these days takes money and time, the world is still facing a chip shortage. So yeah, time is trivial here. Back to the product though. Without a doubt, we like the GeForce RTX 3080 12GB for what it is; and the MSI SUPRIM X in particular. Indeed, MSI has a wild card with the SUPRIM X. Despite the prophetic moniker, this is a graphics card that exudes quality at that hardware level; the hardware is outstanding. The aesthetics are fantastic; with a metal backplate, a freshly designed cooler, and dual BIOS, is the price premium justified? To be honest, we have some reservations about that. However, this is the pinnacle of over-engineering. Bear in mind that all cards are roughly in the same performance range, resulting in a paltry 5% increase in performance over a 3080 12GB FE edition (if it would exist) for this reshuffled and beefed-up offering. In general, I believe that everyone would concur with me; we would all love to acquire a 3080 12GB. This is an excellent close to an enthusiast-class graphics card that is extremely well-balanced. Essentially, it's a 3090 with half the RAM and configuration changes. I'm quite pleased with the 12GB RAM, but 10 GB is just as fine as well. In the year 2022, 12GB is a well-balanced number though. You'll be considerably ahead of the competition in the top performance regions, and even at Ultra HD, you can enable Raytracing, when combined with DLSS the performance can be dazzling. MSI's offering of the GeForce RTX 3080 12GB works admirably on all fronts, including performance, cooling, and acoustics, as a complete package. Ultimately, the choice comes down to availability and... cost at the end-user level. If etailers keep their pricing in check, this card will be a hit—and what a card it is. But yeah, a little puzzling it is to see as to why NVIDIA has released this series in a very saturated product stack. Only if you can locate it at a reasonable price, it is recommended.
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