MSI RTX 2080 SUPER Gaming X Trio Review

1. Introduction2. MSI RTX 2080 SUPER Gaming X Trio3. Testing Methodology4. 3DMark Fire Strike & Time Spy (1080p, 1440p, 4K)5. 3DMark Port Royal (1440p DXR)6. Battlefield V (1080p, 1440p, 4K)7. Deus Ex: Mankind Divided (1080p, 1440p, 4K)8. Far Cry 5 (1080p, 1440p, 4K)9. Ghost Recon: Wildlands (1080p, 1440p, 4K)10. Metro Exodus (1080p, 1440p, 4K)11. Middle Earth: Shadow of War (1080p, 1440p, 4K)12. Shadow of the Tomb Raider (1080p, 1440p, 4K)13. Battlefield V w/ DXR (1080p, 1440p, 4K)14. Shadow of the Tomb Raider w/ DXR (1080p, 1440p, 4K)15. Clock Speed16. Temperatures17. Acoustics18. Power Consumption19. Overclocking: 3DMark and Games20. Overclocking: Temperatures, Acoustics, Power21. Closing Thoughts22. View All Pages

Launching alongside our review of the new RTX 2080 SUPER Founders Edition, today we are also looking at a high-end custom card from MSI. The Gaming X Trio ships with a triple-fan cooler, factory overclocked core and custom PCB, so it's ticking all the right boxes on paper. It also has a MSRP of £752.99 here in the UK, making it almost £85 more expensive than the Founders Edition. Is it worth buying?

It seems MSI is being quite cautious with its factory overclocks of late. A couple weeks ago we reviewed the 2070 SUPER Gaming X Trio and were quite disappointed with its relatively meagre 30MHz factory overclock, but MSI has not pushed the boat out further with this RTX 2080 SUPER Gaming X Trio, as the clock speed again has only been factory overclocked by 30MHz.

Pricing is also interesting, as the £752.99 MSRP is certainly a heck of a lot of money, and it works out at a 13% increase over the £669 MSRP. The 2070 SUPER Gaming X Trio came in at £569, or 20% more than the £475 MSRP – so, in relative terms, this 2080 SUPER model is less of an increase over the MSRP than its 2070 SUPER counterpart.

GPU	RTX 2080 SUPER	RTX 2080 (FE)	RTX 2070 SUPER	RTX 2070 (FE)	RTX 2060 SUPER
SMs	48	46	40	36	34
CUDA Cores	3072	2944	2560	2304	2176
Tensor Cores	384	368	320	288	272
Tensor FLOPS	89	85	72	63	57.4
RT Cores	48	46	40	36	34
Texture Units	192	184	160	144	136
ROPs	64	64	64	64	64
Rays Cast	8 Giga Rays	8 Giga Rays	7 Giga Rays	6 Giga Rays	6 Giga Rays
GPU Boost Clock	1815 MHz	1800 MHz	1770 MHz	1710 MHz	1650 MHz
Memory Data Rate	15.5 Gbps	14 Gbps	14 Gbps	14 Gbps	14 Gbps
Total Video Memory	8GB GDDR6	8GB GDDR6	8GB GDDR6	8GB GDDR6	8GB GDDR6
Memory Interface	256-bit	256-bit	256-bit	256-bit	256-bit
Memory Bandwidth	496.1 GB/sec	448 GB/sec	448 GB/sec	448 GB/sec	448 GB/sec
TGP	250W	225W	215W	185W	175W

As for specification of this card, the 2080 SUPER uses a full implementation of the TU104 GPU. That means it has a slightly higher core count than the original RTX 2080, with 3072 CUDA cores versus 2944 on the original.

The memory has also been tweaked, with Nvidia using new 15.5Gbps GDDR6 VRAM with the 2080 SUPER, when all the other RTX-series cards use 14Gbps memory. This results in an 11% improvement to total memory bandwidth, with the 2080 SUPER memory giving 496.1 GB/s.

Lastly, as for power, despite being a factory overclocked card, the Gaming X Trio retains the same 250W total graphics power (TGP) rating as the Founders Edition, putting it 10W less than the RTX 2080 Ti.

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