MSI RTX 3080 Gaming X Trio Review

1. Introduction2. MSI RTX 3080 Gaming X Trio3. Testing Methodology4. 3DMark Fire Strike & Time Spy5. 3DMark Port Royal6. Control7. Death Stranding8. The Division 29. Far Cry New Dawn10. Gears 511. Ghost Recon: Breakpoint12. Metro Exodus13. Middle Earth: Shadow of War14. Red Dead Redemption 215. Shadow of the Tomb Raider16. Total War Saga: Troy17. Performance Summary (11 Game Average)18. Cost Per Frame Analysis19. Clock Speed20. Temperatures21. Acoustics22. Power Consumption23. Performance Per Watt24. Overclocking25. Closing Thoughts26. View All Pages

Barely any time has passed since we got our first look at just how fast the RTX 3080 really is, but today we are finding out whether it can go even faster. That's because we are looking at MSI's RTX 3080 Gaming X Trio, a huge graphics card with a triple-fan cooler, that also ships with a factory overclock of over 100MHz. It's certainly not cheap at £759.99, but if you want the best of the best, is this the card to buy?

MSI's Gaming X Trio has always been a premium offering, and that is certainly the case with this RTX 3080 model, as it is priced almost £110 more than the RTX 3080's £649 MSRP. For that extra cash, MSI promises increased performance, lower noise levels and  lower temperatures, while also offering plentiful RGB lighting for those looking for some bling.

Here, we find out just how much faster this card is up against Nvidia's Founders Edition, and whether or not the large cooler can yield significantly improved thermals and acoustics.

GPU	RTX 3090	RTX 3080	RTX 2080 Ti (FE)	RTX 2080 SUPER	RTX 2080 (FE)
SMs	82	68	68	48	46
CUDA Cores	10496	8704	4352	3072	2944
Tensor Cores	328	272	544	384	368
RT Cores	82	68	68	48	46
Texture Units	328	272	272	192	184
ROPs	112	96	88	64	64
GPU Boost Clock	1695 MHz	1710 MHz	1635 MHz	1815 MHz	1800 MHz
Memory Data Rate	19.5 Gbps	19 Gbps	14 Gbps	15.5 Gbps	14 Gbps
Total Video Memory	24GB GDDR6X	10GB GDDR6X	11GB GDDR6	8GB GDDR6	8GB GDDR6
Memory Interface	384-bit	320-bit	352-bit	256-bit	256-bit
Memory Bandwidth	936 GB/Sec	760 GB/Sec	616 GB/sec	496.1 GB/sec	448 GB/sec
TGP	350W	320W	260W	250W	225W

Just before diving into the details, it's worth reminding ourselves of the key specs for the RTX 3080. Built on Nvidia's GA102 GPU, fabricated on Samsung's 8nm process, RTX 3080 houses 8704 CUDA cores, 68 RT Cores and 272 Tensor cores.

A reference board would come clocked at 1710MHz, but this is the MSI Gaming X Trio, so of course it has a relatively hefty factory overclock, with a rated boost of 1815MHz. We do, of course, expect GPU Boost to bring actual frequency well above those levels, but we will look at that later in the review.

The 10GB VRAM is provided thanks to Micron's new GDDR6X memory. Operating at 19Gbps, over a 320-bit bus this gives total memory bandwidth of 760GB/s.

All of those cores, fast memory and factory overclock come at a cost, however, and that is power draw. Reference TGP for a RTX 3080 is 320W, but MSI has bumped this up to 340W, making it one of the most power-hungry GPUs I have ever tested.

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