MSI GTX 1080 Gaming X 8G RGB SLI Review

The KitGuru team are big believers in 120hz+ gaming. The super smooth refresh rates can really enhance the gaming experience. If you are lucky enough to own a screen such as the Asus ROG Swift PG278Q 144hz Adaptive Sync panel (review HERE) or the new Asus PG279Q ROG Swift 165hz panel (buy HERE) then it becomes critical to drive super high frame rates to get the best experience. If you like to game with the maximum image quality even one GTX 1080 will struggle to deliver 120fps+ at 1440p so MSI sent us another MSI GTX 1080 Gaming X 8G RGB to supplement our initial findings (Review HERE). At close to £700 each (buy HERE) the MSI GTX 1080 Gaming X 8G RGB SLI isn't for the faint of heart. Thanks to Brexit the price of hardware in the United Kingdom has been slowly rising. These were never inexpensive cards, but initially they were on sale for £629.99. Thats a £70 increase per card, within the space of a month. The MSI card is a looker and we mentioned in our initial review that MSI competitors Asus and Gigabyte opted for three fan cooling solutions. It didn't hurt MSI to deliver a two fan cooling system - they are using large, high grade fans and our initial thermal tests showed the MSI solution to be competitive. Expect a capable Virtual Reality experience with the GTX 1060 too, Nvidia’s own figures claim a 24 % advantage over AMD’s RX 480. That being said we’d imagine given the significant expense of VR headsets that early adopters of this technology would lean towards a higher-performance offering, something circa $400+. GPU AMD RX 480 Nvidia GTX 960 Nvidia GTX 970 Nvidia GTX 1060 Nvidia GTX 1070 Nvidia GTX 1080 Streaming Multiprocessors / Compute Units 36 8 13 10 15 20 GPU Cores 2304 1024 1664 1280 1920 2560 Base Clock 1120 MHz 1126 MHz 1050 MHz 1506 MHz 1506 MHz 1607 MHz GPU Boost Clock 1266 MHz 1178 MHz 1178 MHz 1708 MHz 1683 MHz 1733 MHz Total Video memory 4096 or 8192 MB 2048 or 4096 MB 4096 MB 6144 MB 8192 MB 8192 MB Texture Units 144 64 104 80 120 160 Texture fill-rate GT/s 72 GT/s 109.2 GT/s 120.5 GT/s 180.7 GT/s 257.1 GT/s Memory Clock 7000 or 8000 MHz 7000 MHz 7000 MHz 4006 MHz 4006 MHz 5005 MHz Memory Bandwidth 224 or 256 GB/s 112 GB/s 224 GB/s 192 GB/s 256 GB/s 320 GB/s Bus Width 256-bit 128-bit 256-bit 192-bit 256-bit 256-bit ROPs 32 32 56 48 64 64 Manufacturing Process 14nm 28nm 28nm 16nm 16nm 16nm TDP 150 W 120 W 145 W 120 W 150 W 180 W The Nvidia GTX1080 ships with 2560 CUDA cores and 20 SM units. The 8GB of GDDR5X memory is connected via a 256 bit memory interface. This new G5X memory offers a huge step up in bandwidth, when compared against the older GDDR5 standard. It runs at a data rate of 10Gbps, giving 43% more bandwidth than the GTX980 GPU. The MSI card ships at 1,683mhz with a boost of 1,823mhz – the company call this GAMING MODE. The 8GB of GDDR5 memory is set at 1,251mhz. As the screenshot above shows there is an 'OC mode' available in software which offers a slight increase in clock speeds. In OC MODE the core increases to 1,709mhz with a 1,849mhz boost, and the memory increases to 1,264mhz. The MSI website (HERE) shows the three available settings, including ‘silent mode’ which downclocks the card to 1607mhz while reducing fan speeds. We tested the single card in OC mode, but we are testing the SLi configuration today in standard 'Gaming mode' which is the BIOS default. With two cards in close proximity we want the best temperatures and stability possible. MSI are using some fantastic box artwork highlighting the lovely dual tone cooler. The MSI GTX 1080 Gaming X 8G is a stunning card and by far my favourite looking of the GTX 1080 solutions I have reviewed so far. MSI have opted for two very large fans rather than three smaller ones. The card is fitted with a solid RGB capable black backplate, which is expected at this price point. MSI have fitted this card with two very special fans - they are double ball bearing Twin Frozr VI TORX 2.0 fans which offer 13% more airflow and 22% more air pressure than the earlier version. If you are paying close attention you may have noticed the steeper curved blades on the fans - this is to 'accelerate the airflow' increasing its effectiveness. I think the MSI GTX 1080 Gaming X 8G looks great from every angle, even if the red and black colour scheme is somewhat overused in recent years. The MSI GTX 1080 Gaming X 8G has a dual DVI connector, 3 DisplayPort connectors, and a single HDMI connector. The Asus ROG Strix GTX 1080 Aura ditched one of the DisplayPort connectors in favour of another HDMI connector. The MSI card takes power from the slot along with a single 8 pin and an extra single 6 pin (75 watt) PCIe power connector. The Gigabyte GTX 1080 G1 Gaming RGB took all the power it needed from a single 8 pin power connector, and the ASUS GTX 1080 Strix OC was equipped with two 8 Pin PCI e power connectors. The SLI connectors are shown in the image above. If you haven’t already, then I recommend you head to THIS PAGE to get detailed information on the new SLI configuration introduced in May with Pascal hardware. MSI include two useful software packages with the graphics card - the MSI Gaming App, and MSI Afterburner. The MSI Gaming App offers three preset clock and fan profiles, and you can also adjust LED colours and monitor the hardware. MSI Afterburner really needs no introduction at this stage. It is actually my favourite overclocking software which I use regularly on my own systems at home. The Twin Frozr VI cooler is formidable. It comprises a series of nickel plated copper heatpipes ranging in size from 6mm to 8mm. These heatpipes run into two separate racks of aluminium fins on either side of the core. MSI have not opted for a direct touch heatpipe heatsink design on this card. The copper heatsink baseplate is solid nickel plated and is polished to a high finish. This is a great looking cooling system. MSI have fitted this card with a strip which you can see in the above (left). This strip is called a 'rugged anti bending strip' and is designed to help reduce card sag when it is installed inside a system. The card is also fitted with a memory cooling plate and a PWM heatsink to help improve stability and overclocking as well as reducing temperatures. MSI are incorporating Hi-C Capacitors, Super Ferrite Chokes and Japanese Solid Capacitors throughout the design, which is always good to see. We are using the AMD Crimson Edition Display Driver, Version 16.15.2211 and Nvidia ForceWare 368.81 driver. Due to public demand we also add in a range of tests at 1080p to supplement the results at 1440p and Ultra HD 4K resolutions. We list each resolution test for every game on its own page – meaning if you are just interested in 4K resolutions for instance, you can skip the other resolutions without effort. If you want to read the whole review and find all the page changes annoying – click on our menu system top right of these pages, and head to ’31. view all pages’. We are using a custom Titan Bayonet system supplied by Overclockers UK as the basis of our test system today. Read more on this system over HERE. Case: Phanteks Enthoo Evolv ATX Mid Tower Processor: Intel 6700K @ 4.4ghz Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2x8GB) @ 3000mhz Motherboard: ASUS Z170-E DDR4 ATX Motherboard Power Supply: Super Flower Leadex 850W Gold Certified Software: Microsoft Windows 10 64 Bit SSD: Samsung 250GB 850 EVO HDD: Seagate 1TB 7,200 rpm 64MB Cache. If you want to purchase this system yourself head to THIS page on OCUK. Graphics cards: MSI GTX 1080 Gaming X 8G RGB SLI– (1,683mhz core / 1,823 mhz boost / 5000 mhz memory) Comparison Cards on test: Palit GTX 1080 GameRock Premium Edition – (1,747mhz core / 1,886mhz boost / 5256 mhz memory) MSI GTX 1080 Gaming X 8G RGB – OC Mode (1,709mhz core / 1,849mhz boost / 5,056 mhz memory) Gigabyte GTX 1080 G1 Gaming RGB (1721 mhz core / 1860 mhz boost / 5,005 mhz memory) Nvidia GTX 1080 Founders Edition (1607mhz core/ 1733mhz boost / 5,005 mhz memory) Nvidia GTX 1070 Founders Edition (1506mhz core/ 1683mhz boost / 4,006 mhz memory) Sapphire R9 390 Nitro 8GB (Rev 2 w/ backplate). (1040mhz core / 1,500 mhz memory) Sapphire R9 295X2 (1,018 mhz core / 1,250mhz memory) AMD R9 Fury X (1,050 mhz core / 500 mhz memory) AMD R9 Nano (1,000mhz core / 500 mhz memory) Gigabyte GTX980 Ti XTREME Gaming (1,216 mhz core / 1800mhz memory) Nvidia GTX Titan Z (706 mhz core / 1,753 mhz memory) Nvidia GTX Titan X (1,000 mhz core / 1,753 mhz memory) Asus GTX980 Strix (1,178 mhz core / 1,753 mhz memory) Nvidia GTX980 Ti (1,000 mhz core / 1,753 mhz memory) Sapphire R9 390X Tri-X 8GB (1,055 mhz core / 1,500 mhz memory) Sapphire R9 390 Nitro 8GB (1,010 mhz core / 1,500 mhz memory) Software: Windows 10 64 bit Unigine Heaven Benchmark 3DMark 11 3DMark Fraps Professional Steam Client FurMark Games: Ashes Of the Singularity Dirt Rally Hitman 2016 Middle Earth: Shadow Of Mordor Rise Of the Tomb Raider Grand Theft Auto 5 Metro Last Light Redux Additional equipment: Leica S-E (006) medium format camera with 100mm Leica F2 lens. We perform under real world conditions, meaning KitGuru tests games across five closely matched runs and then average out the results to get an accurate median figure. If we use scripted benchmarks, they are mentioned on the relevant page. Game descriptions edited with courtesy from Wikipedia. 3DMark 11 is designed for testing DirectX 11 hardware running on Windows 7 and Windows Vista. The benchmark includes six all new benchmark tests that make extensive use of all the new features in DirectX 11 including tessellation, compute shaders and multi-threading. After running the tests 3DMark gives your system a score with larger numbers indicating better performance. Trusted by gamers worldwide to give accurate and unbiased results, 3DMark 11 is the best way to test DirectX 11 under game-like loads. The MSI GTX 1080 Gaming X 8G scores around 10,000 points in the graphics test in the Extreme test. In SLi the score jumps to 19495, well ahead of the pack. 3DMark is an essential tool used by millions of gamers, hundreds of hardware review sites and many of the world’s leading manufacturers to measure PC gaming performance. Futuremark say “Use it to test your PC’s limits and measure the impact of overclocking and tweaking your system. Search our massive results database and see how your PC compares or just admire the graphics and wonder why all PC games don’t look this good. To get more out of your PC, put 3DMark in your PC.” The results are certainly impressive when the two cards are driving Futuremark's 3DMark. Scaling is excellent. Unigine provides an interesting way to test hardware. It can be easily adapted to various projects due to its elaborated software design and flexible toolset. A lot of their customers claim that they have never seen such extremely-effective code, which is so easy to understand. Heaven Benchmark is a DirectX 11 GPU benchmark based on advanced Unigine engine from Unigine Corp. It reveals the enchanting magic of floating islands with a tiny village hidden in the cloudy skies. Interactive mode provides emerging experience of exploring the intricate world of steampunk. Efficient and well-architected framework makes Unigine highly scalable: Multiple API (DirectX 9 / DirectX 10 / DirectX 11 / OpenGL) render Cross-platform: MS Windows (XP, Vista, Windows 7) / Linux Full support of 32bit and 64bit systems Multicore CPU support Little / big endian support (ready for game consoles) Powerful C++ API Comprehensive performance profiling system Flexible XML-based data structures We test at 2560×1440 with quality setting at ULTRA, Tessellation at NORMAL, and Anti-Aliasing at x2. This tessellation heavy benchmark tends to favour Nvidia hardware. As such we can expect great performance from a GTX 1080. The MSI GTX 1080 Gaming X 8G does not fail to deliver, averaging 103.7 frames per second. In SLi, the frame rate average increases to 194.3. Some minor microstuttering as the benchmark switched between scenes caused the minimum frame rate to show much lower in the graph than it generally was. Ashes of the Singularity is a real-time strategy game set in the future where descendants of humans (called Post- Humans) and a powerful artificial intelligence (called the Substrate) fight a war for control of a resource known as Turinium. Players will engage in massive-scale land/air battles by commanding entire armies of their own design. Each game takes place on one area of a planet, with each player starting with a home base (known as a Nexus) and a single construction unit. We test the final retail game at 1080p resolution and with EXTREME image quality settings, shown above. Enable multiple GPU's was ticked on. At 1080p in the Direct X 12 game, the MSI GTX 1080 Gaming X 8G takes a position behind the Gigabyte GTX 1080 G1 Gaming. When two cards are in the system, the average frame rate increases to 83.4. Ashes of the Singularity is a real-time strategy game set in the future where descendants of humans (called Post- Humans) and a powerful artificial intelligence (called the Substrate) fight a war for control of a resource known as Turinium. Players will engage in massive-scale land/air battles by commanding entire armies of their own design. Each game takes place on one area of a planet, with each player starting with a home base (known as a Nexus) and a single construction unit. We test the final retail game at 1080p resolution and with EXTREME image quality settings, shown above. Enable multiple GPU's was ticked on. Excellent performance at 1440p, averaging over 68 frames per second. With two cards in the system, the average scores increase to 76. Ashes of the Singularity is a real-time strategy game set in the future where descendants of humans (called Post- Humans) and a powerful artificial intelligence (called the Substrate) fight a war for control of a resource known as Turinium. Players will engage in massive-scale land/air battles by commanding entire armies of their own design. Each game takes place on one area of a planet, with each player starting with a home base (known as a Nexus) and a single construction unit. We test the final retail game at 1080p resolution and with EXTREME image quality settings, shown above. Enable multiple GPU's was ticked on. At Ultra HD 4k the MSI GTX 1080 Gaming X 8G averages 53 frames per second. With two cards installed the frame rate increased to 60.9. Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor is a third-person open world video game, where the player controls a ranger by the name of Talion who seeks revenge on the forces of Sauron after his family, including his wife, are killed. Players can travel across locations in the game through parkour, riding monsters, or accessing Forge Towers, which serve as fast travel points. We test at 1440p with the image quality settings at Ultra. If you own a high refresh monitor then you can see the benefits of adding another card to the system. Minimum frame rates increase from 79 to 134. Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor is a third-person open world video game, where the player controls a ranger by the name of Talion who seeks revenge on the forces of Sauron after his family, including his wife, are killed. Players can travel across locations in the game through parkour, riding monsters, or accessing Forge Towers, which serve as fast travel points. With test at Ultra HD 4k resolution with Ultra image settings enabled. Solid performance, and 3 frames per second ahead of the GTX 1080 Founders Edition. In an SLi formation, the minimum frame rates increase from 48 to 75 fps. Dirt Rally is developed by British video game developer Codemasters using the in house Ego engine. Development began with a small team of individuals following the release of their 2012 video game Dirt: Showdown. Codemasters have emphasised a desire to create a simulation with Dirt Rally. They started by prototyping a handling model and creating tracks based on map data. The game employs a different physics model from previous titles, rebuilt from the ground up. We test at 1080p with 8x MSAA and the ultra image quality setting enabled. With two cards in SLi, the frame rates increase noticeably, with minimum frame rates jumping from 116 to 144. Dirt Rally is developed by British video game developer Codemasters using the in house Ego engine. Development began with a small team of individuals following the release of their 2012 video game Dirt: Showdown. Codemasters have emphasised a desire to create a simulation with Dirt Rally. They started by prototyping a handling model and creating tracks based on map data. The game employs a different physics model from previous titles, rebuilt from the ground up. We test at 1440 with 8x MSAA and the ultra image quality setting enabled. With a single card in the system, the minimum frame rate is 80, well below the 120 or 144 of the latest gaming panels. With two cards in SLi, this minimum frame rate jumps to 136 giving a much smoother experience. Dirt Rally is developed by British video game developer Codemasters using the in house Ego engine. Development began with a small team of individuals following the release of their 2012 video game Dirt: Showdown. Codemasters have emphasised a desire to create a simulation with Dirt Rally. They started by prototyping a handling model and creating tracks based on map data. The game employs a different physics model from previous titles, rebuilt from the ground up. We test at Ultra HD 4k with 8x MSAA and the ultra image quality setting enabled. At Ultra HD 4K resolution, the MSI GTX 1080 Gaming X holds frame rates between 45 and 60 at all times. With two installed the minimum frame rate jumps to 78 which is ideal for current 4k monitors which are limited to 60hz anyway. Rise of the Tomb Raider is a third-person action-adventure game that features similar gameplay found in 2013's Tomb Raider. Players control Lara Croft through various environments, battling enemies, and completing puzzle platforming sections, while using improvised weapons and gadgets in order to progress through the story. It uses a Direct X 12 capable engine. We enable Direct X 12, Vsync is off and graphics are set to the 'very high' profile, shown above. We test the Nvidia Titan Z with the SLi optimisation both disabled, then enabled. This is clearly marked in the graph. See more HERE. Stellar performance at 1080p in this Direct X 12 title, averaging 121 frames per second. Minimum frame rates jump from 87 to 127 when another card is added. With two cards installed the minimum frame rate is actually higher than the average with one in the system. This would be a noticeable improvement for those owning a 120hz, 144hz or 165hz panel. Rise of the Tomb Raider is a third-person action-adventure game that features similar gameplay found in 2013's Tomb Raider. Players control Lara Croft through various environments, battling enemies, and completing puzzle platforming sections, while using improvised weapons and gadgets in order to progress through the story. It uses a Direct X 12 capable engine. We enable Direct X 12, Vsync is off and graphics are set to the 'very high' profile, shown above. We test the Nvidia Titan Z with the SLi optimisation both disabled, then enabled. This is clearly marked in the graph. See more HERE. At 1440p the MSI GTX 1080 Gaming X 8G holds an average frame rate in excess of 80, and more importantly constantly above 60 fps. When adding another in for SLi, the minimum frame rate jumps from 69 to 118 - this transforms the gaming experience on a 120hz, 144hz or 165hz panel. Rise of the Tomb Raider is a third-person action-adventure game that features similar gameplay found in 2013's Tomb Raider. Players control Lara Croft through various environments, battling enemies, and completing puzzle platforming sections, while using improvised weapons and gadgets in order to progress through the story. It uses a Direct X 12 capable engine. We enable Direct X 12, Vsync is off and graphics are set to the 'very high' profile, shown above. We test the Nvidia Titan Z with the SLi optimisation both disabled, then enabled. This is clearly marked in the graph. See more HERE. At Ultra HD 4k the MSI GTX 1080 Gaming X 8G averages 52 frames per second, dropping to 42 frames in the more intensive sections of the environment. Gamers will ideally want a solid 60hz+ frame rate at 4k, and this is exactly what two of the cards in SLi deliver - even at this maximised image quality settings. Grand Theft Auto V is an action-adventure game played from either a first-person or third-person view. Players complete missions—linear scenarios with set objectives—to progress through the story. Outside of missions, players may freely roam the open world. Composed of the San Andreas open countryside area and the fictional city of Los Santos, the world is much larger in area than earlier entries in the series. It may be fully explored after the game's beginning without restriction, although story progress unlocks more gameplay content. We maximise all the image quality settings, but leave anti aliasing turned off, as it dramatically impacts performance. This engine runs exceptionally well on Nvidia hardware, especially the latest GTX 1080 high end cards. The frame rate holds close to 80 or above, at all times. With another card added for SLi, the minimum frame rate jumps to 134 fps - giving a much smoother gaming experience on a 120hz or 144hz screen. Grand Theft Auto V is an action-adventure game played from either a first-person or third-person view. Players complete missions—linear scenarios with set objectives—to progress through the story. Outside of missions, players may freely roam the open world. Composed of the San Andreas open countryside area and the fictional city of Los Santos, the world is much larger in area than earlier entries in the series. It may be fully explored after the game's beginning without restriction, although story progress unlocks more gameplay content. We maximise all the image quality settings, but leave anti aliasing turned off, as it dramatically impacts performance. At 1440p the MSI GTX 1080 Gaming X 8G holds a frame rate above 60 at all times. Adding another card into SLi drives the minimum frame rates up to 112, with an average of 165. Grand Theft Auto V is an action-adventure game played from either a first-person or third-person view. Players complete missions—linear scenarios with set objectives—to progress through the story. Outside of missions, players may freely roam the open world. Composed of the San Andreas open countryside area and the fictional city of Los Santos, the world is much larger in area than earlier entries in the series. It may be fully explored after the game's beginning without restriction, although story progress unlocks more gameplay content. We maximise all the image quality settings, but leave anti aliasing turned off, as it dramatically impacts performance. At Ultra HD 4k with this maxed out image quality settings, a single GTX 1080 simply cannot maintain a constant 60fps+. Add another however and the minimum frame rates are increased to around 70fps. Perfect for 4K gaming. Just like the original game Metro 2033, Metro: Last Light is played from the perspective of Artyom, the player-character. The story takes place in post-apocalyptic Moscow, mostly inside the metro system, but occasionally missions bring the player above ground. Metro: Last Light takes place one year after the events of Metro 2033, following the canonical ending in which Artyom chose to proceed with the missile strike against the Dark Ones (this happens regardless of your actions in the first game). Redux adds all the DLC and graphical improvements. Quality-Very High, SSAA-on, Texture Filtering-16x, Motion Blur-Normal, Tessellation-Normal, Advanced Physx-off. Super smooth frame rates holding an average over 90. With two cards installed for SLi the minimum frame rate increases from 49 to 94. This makes a huge difference to perseved smoothness with the 120hz gaming panel we have in our labs.Just like the original game Metro 2033, Metro: Last Light is played from the perspective of Artyom, the player-character. The story takes place in post-apocalyptic Moscow, mostly inside the metro system, but occasionally missions bring the player above ground. Metro: Last Light takes place one year after the events of Metro 2033, following the canonical ending in which Artyom chose to proceed with the missile strike against the Dark Ones (this happens regardless of your actions in the first game). Redux adds all the DLC and graphical improvements. Quality-Very High, SSAA-on, Texture Filtering-16x, Motion Blur-Normal, Tessellation-Normal, Advanced Physx-off. A demanding engine at 1440p and at these settings even two MSI GTX 1080's in SLi struggle to hit over 100 frames per second. Image quality settings such as SSAO and texture quality need to be lowered to improve frame rates. Just like the original game Metro 2033, Metro: Last Light is played from the perspective of Artyom, the player-character. The story takes place in post-apocalyptic Moscow, mostly inside the metro system, but occasionally missions bring the player above ground. Metro: Last Light takes place one year after the events of Metro 2033, following the canonical ending in which Artyom chose to proceed with the missile strike against the Dark Ones (this happens regardless of your actions in the first game). Redux adds all the DLC and graphical improvements. Quality-High, SSAA-off, Texture Filtering-16x, Motion Blur-Normal, Tessellation-Normal, Advanced Physx-off. We have to lower image quality settings at 4K to maintain smooth frame rates. The MSI GTX 1080 Gaming X 8G takes a position close to the top of the chart, averaging 66 frames per second. With two cards in SLI, frame rates increase massively holding a minimum above 84 at all times. At 4k resolutions we ideally want a 60 frame rate at all times. Hitman (2016) is a third-person stealth video game in which players take control of Agent 47, a genetically enhanced, superhuman assassin, travelling to international locations and eliminating contracted targets. As in other games in the Hitman series, players are given a large amount of room for creativity in approaching their assassinations. The game is being released in stages, which hasn't proved too popular with a large audience. We test with many of the settings maximised, SSAO is disabled however as I found it causes some crashing. I have to say that Hitman is a little unstable at times under the best of situations, but we managed to get it running well enough to benchmark. The built in benchmark is very flaky indeed however, so real world runs had to be used. At 1080p the MSI GTX 1080 Gaming X 8G averages 122 frames per second, holding a position close to the top of the graph behind the faster clocked GTX 1080 partner cards from Asus and Gigabyte. With 2 in SLi the frame rates increase to a minimum of 150 ensuring super smooth frame rates Hitman (2016) is a third-person stealth video game in which players take control of Agent 47, a genetically enhanced, superhuman assassin, travelling to international locations and eliminating contracted targets. As in other games in the Hitman series, players are given a large amount of room for creativity in approaching their assassinations. The game is being released in stages, which hasn't proved too popular with a large audience. We test with many of the settings maximised, SSAO is disabled however as I found it causes some crashing. I have to say that Hitman is a little unstable at times under the best of situations, but we managed to get it running well enough to benchmark. The built in benchmark is very flaky indeed however, so real world runs had to be used. At 1440p, owners of a 120hz, 144hz or 165hz screen will be pleased to see the benefits that two GTX 1080's cards bring. The minimum frame rates increase from 70 to 132, adding fluidity to the gaming experience. It is worth reiterating that image quality is set to maximum so further increases to frame rate would be gained by dropping some of the graphics options. Hitman (2016) is a third-person stealth video game in which players take control of Agent 47, a genetically enhanced, superhuman assassin, travelling to international locations and eliminating contracted targets. As in other games in the Hitman series, players are given a large amount of room for creativity in approaching their assassinations. The game is being released in stages, which hasn't proved too popular with a large audience. We test with many of the settings maximised, SSAO is disabled however as I found it causes some crashing. I have to say that Hitman is a little unstable at times under the best of situations, but we managed to get it running well enough to benchmark. The built in benchmark is very flaky indeed however, so real world runs had to be used. At Ultra HD 4K the engine averages 68 frames per second, just behind the Gigabyte GTX 1080 G1 Gaming. At these settings, the minimum frame rate of the GTX 1080 SLi setup is identical to the average from the AMD R9 295X2. We have built a system inside a Lian Li chassis with no case fans and have used a fanless cooler on our CPU. The motherboard is also passively cooled. This gives us a build with almost completely passive cooling and it means we can measure noise of just the graphics card inside the system when we run looped 3dMark tests. We measure from a distance of around 1 meter from the closed chassis and 4 foot from the ground to mirror a real world situation. Ambient noise in the room measures close to the limits of our sound meter at 28dBa. Why do this? Well this means we can eliminate secondary noise pollution in the test room and concentrate on only the video card. It also brings us slightly closer to industry standards, such as DIN 45635. KitGuru noise guide 10dBA – Normal Breathing/Rustling Leaves 20-25dBA – Whisper 30dBA – High Quality Computer fan 40dBA – A Bubbling Brook, or a Refrigerator 50dBA – Normal Conversation 60dBA – Laughter 70dBA – Vacuum Cleaner or Hairdryer 80dBA – City Traffic or a Garbage Disposal 90dBA – Motorcycle or Lawnmower 100dBA – MP3 player at maximum output 110dBA – Orchestra 120dBA – Front row rock concert/Jet Engine 130dBA – Threshold of Pain 140dBA – Military Jet takeoff/Gunshot (close range) 160dBA – Instant Perforation of eardrum The MSI GTX 1080 Gaming X 8G is a very quiet card, even under load conditions - with the default fan profile. In most systems it will be barely audible with other system fans in the mix. We can report our sample exhibited no coil whine, even under artificially stressed conditions. The tests were performed in a controlled air conditioned room with temperatures maintained at a constant 21c – a comfortable environment for the majority of people reading this. Idle temperatures were measured after sitting at the desktop for 30 minutes. Load measurements were acquired by playing Rise Of The Tomb Raider for 90 minutes and measuring the peak temperature. We also have included Furmark results, recording maximum temperatures throughout a 10 minute stress test. All fan settings were left on automatic. The MSI GTX 1080 Gaming X 8G runs in the mid sixties under gaming load and there will be times when idle or under lower load situations that the fans will disable completely. Below 60c the fans all switch off. We install the graphics card into the system and measure temperatures on the back of the PCB with our Fluke Visual IR Thermometer/Infrared Thermal Camera. This is a real world running environment playing Rise Of The Tomb Raider for extended periods of time. The back of the PCB holds at just below 52c under extended load, which is very cool. The heatpipes are the hottest part of the exposed card, running between 55c and 57c. The cooler is doing a fine job indeed. We measure power consumption from the whole system when idle and when gaming, excluding the monitor. We play Rise Of the Tomb Raider and measure demand. The system with the MSI GTX 1080 Gaming X 8G RGB installed demands around 310 watts, which is around 5 watts more than the Gigabyte GTX 1080 G1 Gaming card and 20 watts less than the Asus ROG Strix GTX 1080. With two cards in SLI, the demand increases to just shy of 400 watts.As we said around a month ago the MSI GTX 1080 Gaming X 8G RGB is without doubt the prettiest GTX 1080 we have reviewed. I love the styling, accenting and sleek lines of the cooler, and the RGB lighting will appeal to a wide enthusiast audience who like to showcase their hardware from inside a windowed chassis. There is no doubt that you need to have a fair bit of cash on hand to be able to spend £1,400 on graphics cards for a new system build. Most people couldn't comprehend spending this kind of money on a new system upgrade. To make matters worse, thanks to Brexit, prices of these MSI GTX 1080 cards have increased by £70 a piece within the space of a month. £140 more in the space of a month is a tough pill to swallow. We know that powering the most demanding engines at Ultra HD 4k requires two high end graphics cards in Crossfire or SLi, but there is a similar point to be made if you want to get a consistent 120-144fps at 1440p. If you have just bought a new super high refresh gaming panel such as the Asus ROG Swift PG348Q 100hz (KitGuru review HERE) then adding another GTX 1080 into the system reaps great results. Holding a frame rate on one of these screens above 100fps at all times will feel much better than it dropping below 60fps when the action heats up. Instead of opting for a triple fan configuration cooler MSI have decided to install two bigger fans in their shroud. In regards to noise levels, the MSI GTX 1080 is quiet with plenty of options available to tweak the settings either in the basic MSI Gaming App or via the more sophisticated Afterburner tool. The RGB lighting is also fully customisable. This cooler is certainly not outperformed by the latest triple fan configurations from MSI's competitors. Our MSI GTX 1080 Gaming X 8G RGB sample ships with a BIOS speed set at 1683mhz/1822mhz turbo. The OC speed is only directly available by clicking a button in the MSI Gaming Application (shown earlier in the review). MSI list the available speeds on this page. There is also a slower setting available which downclocks the card and reduces fan noise further. Overclockers UK stock the MSI GTX 1080 Gaming X 8G RGB. Retail price was initially set at £629.99 in the UK, but due to BREXIT and the falling value of the pound the cost has risen lately to £695.99 inc vat. You can buy it HERE. Discuss on our Facebook page, over HERE. Pros: the best looking GTX 1080 we have seen. good combination of noise and cooling efficiency. overclocks to 2ghz+ easy enough. this dual fan cooling system can compete. fans disable below 60c. Cons: a little higher clock speeds out of the box wouldn't have hurt. expensive in the UK right now. Kitguru says: The MSI GTX 1080 Gaming X 8G RGB is the Cameron Diaz of graphics cards - its a beauty. MSI continue to make the best looking graphics cards on the market. The Gaming X combines top drawer performance with effective cooling proficiency and the ability to hit 2ghz+ in MSI Afterburner without much effort.