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MSI has created a mightily impressive graphics card in the shape of the GTX 1080 Ti Gaming X Trio.
It is essentially a hybrid of the company's Gaming X and Lightning models – take a Lightning triple-fan cooler, stick it on a Gaming X PCB and you pretty much have a Gaming X Trio.
The card's design is definitely more colour neutral than previous Gaming X cards, as typically the Gaming X series is known for its red and black colour scheme. With the rise of RGB lighting, however, rigid colour schemes have become much less popular as they can clash with whatever colour scheme your own system uses.
MSI has acknowledged this and created a more colour neutral card, with the RGB LED strip there to allow end-users to tailor the card to their own colour schemed systems. However, MSI still left some red-only LEDs on the underside of the Gaming X Trio which I would question. If you are going to make a colour neutral card, it should be properly colour neutral. The Gaming X Trio lands somewhere in no man's land.
That being said, the red accenting is not a huge concern for me. After all, the LEDs can be disabled via MSI Mystic Light, and then you won't even know they're there. I can understand why some people might find it frustrating, but you can't even see the red once the card is installed, so let's not make it a bigger deal than it is.
Of much more importance is the performance of the card, and here MSI delivers in spades. The Gaming X Trio came top across every single game we ran, at every single resolution. This is no mean feat, so if you're looking for a fast card, look no further.
Equally impressive are the noise and temperature readings. Under full load, the Gaming X Trio stays very cool and very quiet, to be point where you can hardly tell the thing is running. The fans don't spin at idle, either, so browsing the web can be done in blissful silence.
As such, it is hard for me not to give the MSI GTX 1080 Ti Gaming X Trio our highest award. It is very fast, very cool and very quiet – what's not to like? Hopefully the next iteration of the card – GTX 1180, anyone? – will completely do away with the red accents, but this card is so successful in every other area that it really does not bother me at all.
You can buy one from Scan for £769.49 HERE.
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Pros
- Very fast.
- Excellent cooling solution.
- Easy on the ears, especially while idling as the fans stop spinning altogether.
- RGB LED strip is bling-tastic.
Cons
- Red-only LEDs on the underside of the card aren't ideal.
KitGuru says: The MSI GTX 1080 Ti Gaming X Trio is a fabulous card. It is cool, quiet and very, very fast.
