MSI GeForce RTX 3080 Gaming Trio 10G, 10GB GDDR6X, HDMI, 3x DP

Mit Asus GeForce RTX 3080 TUF und MSI GeForce RTX 3080 Gaming X Trio stellen sich die ersten Custom-Designs der Founders Edition im Test. Ihr Vorteil gegenüber Nvidias Variante ist der leisere Betrieb, bei der Leistung tut sich hingegen wenig. Die klassischen 3-Lüfter-Kühlsysteme verlangen allerdings nach Platz.

MSI is asking $760 for their Gaming X Trio, which is a 8.5% price increase. Just the performance increase of 4% alone won't justify that. The larger cooler, with its low noise levels has me convinced though, I'd be willing to take that extra cost, because noise matters to me. Adjustable RGB lighting might be the feature that will lure in others to pick the MSI card, because the Founders Edition has just fixed white lighting. On the other hand, the clean understated looks of the Founders Edition will appeal to many, and it also comes at highly competitive pricing.

So far, I must admit that I’m very impressed with the latest cards from Nvidia, and even more so with the AIB cards such as the MSI RTX 3080 Gaming X Trio we’ve tested today. Of course, I can understand some users are frustrated as we’ve heard claims of “twice the performance” from the previous gen, and while that may be true in some games, at some resolutions, I always think you should take manufacturer claims with a pinch of salt. Let’s put any claimed performance aside though because now we have solid figures. This is the RTX 2080, and it’s clear to all that it gave the RTX 2080 Ti an absolute bloody thrashing. That’s impressive for a card that is launching for roughly half the price of what the Ti did at its launch. Of course, we haven’t tested anything above the 3080 yet, but I expect them to be insanely fast cards. The 2080 Ti is a phenomenal card for 4K gaming, ultra-high frame rates, ray tracing and more. So, for the RTX 3080 to blow the RTX 2080 Ti away at this price point is nothing short of incredible. In all our games, we got past 60 FPS at 4K, a lot past it actually. Well, except Control that averaged an annoying 59.6 FPS, but we’ll let that slide.

...for users who sat out the previous crop of cards, Nvidia's latest £649 GPU represents a monumental upgrade.

MSI, as a brand, gets preferenced by many people. And that's for a valid reason, as when you look at the design, you'll see a PCB that is beautiful architecture with the finest components. As such the quality overall in the past few years has risen significantly. Next to that, you of course, want good looks, a product that runs it's operation temperatures at proper levels, and a price tag to go along with that. For most, if not all, these features MSI checks all the right boxes with the TRIO model. It does run silent and cools properly, and the sheer looks are terrific (but the taste is of course, subjective). Performance-wise really, all cards released will be within a 5% margin towards each other, so that can no longer be a decisive factor in the year 2020, however, this card is immediately at that threshold, all tweaked for you.The looks are dazzling, the silence will impress you.

Overall if you are in the market for a new video card and the RTX 3080 matches your wallet size, the Gaming X TRIO is an excellent choice when it comes to the AIB partner lineup. Those who are looking for the maximum raw performance will truly see an uplift over the Turing generation is not just gaming, but CUDA, Ray-Tracing, and AI workloads. This is in part all thanks to the revamped RTX and Tensor core making it the to-go series for those who want to crank up all the settings and still have a good experience. If you like what you see, don't hesitate to buy it the second it becomes in stock at e-tailers around the world.

If you're here fresh from our Nvidia Founders Edition review for the new Ampere RTX 3080, you'll be aware of how monstrous the performance is from these upgraded RTX cards. If you're here without reading that first, well obviously go and read that as it details all that is new with the Ampere GPU, but for simplicities sake, we will bring you up to speed. Bigger, better, faster, more is the cornerstone of the RTX 3080 when compared to the previous Nvidia flagship card, the RTX 2080 Ti. The Ray Tracing works better, the card itself is significantly faster in every resolution and any combination of ray tracing being on, DLSS being on, or off, or anything. It's just bleeding fast. DLSS deserves a special mention as this second generation of the technology not only brings even bigger performance gains than those we saw in its limited use on the Turing cards, but it also has much sharper image quality. It's having your cake and eating it, and something we can't wait to see implemented in more games as the future rushes towards us. Given how 2020 has gone so far, we can't wait to reach 2021. The MSI is here in Gaming X Trio format. If you follow the hardware world, you'll know that the triple-fan cooling of the Frozr Trio was outstanding on the Turing RTX 2080 Ti, and the move to the Ampere RTX 3080 hasn't diminished that combination of high cooling performance and low noise. It's one of those coolers, like all the triple fan ones we're reviewing today, that shows an extra fan can make a big difference, letting your card boost higher because it has more thermal headroom, but running the fans slower and thus quieter, because each has to handle a little less of the cooling workload. Overclockers will appreciate the 24 pin PCIe power input potential. Admittedly on our pre-release drivers, the overclock worked but wasn't stable enough to test in our full suite of games. Still, clearly there is a lot of potential awaiting you as drivers and the OC tools fully support what ampere has available. If nothing else it's a more suitable placement of the power connectors than the central one we saw on the Founders Edition and requires no cable adaptors. Performance is so spectacular it almost goes without saying. If you've been checking out the results in this review, you'll see that the MSI Gaming X Trio regularly gets in amongst it at the top of our graphs. The build quality is solid, and that deserves special praise. We can't recall having a card that weighed this much but sat at perfect right angles to the back of our case. Sturdy in the extreme. The only, tiny, fly in the ointment is that this is the most expensive of the four RTX 3080 cards we've reviewed during launch week. Remember too that relative to the RTX 2080 Ti it replaces at the top of the Nvidia range the Gaming X Trio is still 400+ pounds cheaper than before. Expensive is relative after all. We do think that the implementation of the RGB is a bit lazy with no real design flare gone into it, that side of it when you think about it actually feels a bit rushed/lazy. There is no doubt that the RTX 3080 should be in the rig of anyone with a lust for high frame rates and MSI Gaming X Trio guise it is cool, quiet, fast and built like a tank. Glorious.