MSI GeForce RTX 4080 Suprim X 16G, 16GB GDDR6X, HDMI, 3x DP

Schnell, leise, kühl und effizient müssen sich seit dem Launch der GeForce RTX 4080 16GB nicht mehr ausschließen und so ist auch die MSI RTX 4080 SUPRIM X 16GB eine solche Offerte. Sie ist aber leider auch noch mehr, nämlich aktuell viel zu teuer. Auch wenn der Abgabepreis ab Werk schon nicht zimperlich ist, verlagert der Handel die Wertschöpfungskette eher in Richtung Ladentheke. Genau solche Unverschämtheiten haben aber Käufer und Produkt nicht verdient, so dass ich mich im heutigen Test natürlich auf die technische Seite fokussieren werde. Immer in der Hoffnung, es kommen auch mal wieder bessere, Scalper-freiere Zeiten und dass der Markt dann bitte den Rest erledigen möge, die Halsabschneider inklusive. Grafikkarten unter UVP wären als Weihnachtsgeschenk sicher nicht die schlechteste Jahresendlösung.

Vorgestern haben wir uns die Founders Edition der GeForce RTX 4080 angeschaut und mussten unser Roundup mit dem Custom-Designs leider verschieben. Vier bzw. fünf Karten zu ausgiebig zu testen benötigt entsprechende Zeit, die wir im Vorfeld nicht hatten. Nun aber soll es soweit sein und wir schauen uns vier Modelle von ASUS, Gigabyte, INNO3D und MSI an. Die Karten werden jeweils ihre Stärken und Schwächen haben, sei es in der Leistung oder der Kühlung und eben darauf werden wir besonders achten.

MSI's best GeForce RTX 4080 is the new SUPRIM X, with unbelievable thermal performance, a wicked design, and gorgeous backplate.

Finally, the MSI GeForce RTX 4080 SUPRIM X is an excellent graphics card. You simply can’t go wrong with it. The RTX 4080’s raw performance and DLSS 2 are already remarkable. But with DLSS 3, it’s entirely on another level. NVIDIA’s DLSS paired with Frame Generation and Reflex offers a smooth gaming experience at higher resolution. I hope more games will adopt the technology soon. But I hope to see the GeForce RTX 4080, in general, priced lower.

MSI positions the SUPRIM series of graphics cards as a higher-end, custom-made line compared to their Gaming series. The cooler shroud and backplate of the MSI RTX 4080 SUPRIM X are made of two different colours of brushed aluminium, giving it an exotic look. The necessary adaptor provided turns three 8-pin PCIe power connectors into a 12+4 pin 12VHPWR. As video outputs, you can choose between three DisplayPort and one HDMI. A sleek backplate made of aluminium with a brushed finish is included. Close to the power jack is a switch for dual-BIOS. From a hardware and performance point of view, the GeForce RTX 4080 is downright fantastic. However, we live in challenging times, with a war close to the EU border, soaring energy prices, and life has gotten much harder. That does make products like those shown today harder to defend; then again, we can't blame NVIDIA for the state of the world in 2022. We hope to see affordable low-energy products sooner rather than later from NVIDIA. As a piece of hardware all by itself, we can only applaud the 4080. TheADA GPU architecture can perform skillfully and excellently. A good chunk of extra shader cores brings in nearly 1.5x raw shader performance and even better Raytracing and Tensor core performance. Underlying technologies like Shader Execution Reordering (SER) and DLSS 3.0 make the new product and Series 4000 shine. The GeForce RTX 4080 offers staggering numbers. Starting at $1199, however, it's very expensive. If you have the wallet leniency and play games in Ultra HD or, at the very least, start at a monitor resolution of 2560x1440, we can't argue that it'll be a great addition towards any enthusiast-class gaming rig. Take Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 combined with DLSS 3.0; you can fly at 100+ FPS in the highest resolutions. Cyberpunk at UHD with raytracing and DLSS3 quickly passes 100 FPS. This purebred Ultra HD card shines in that area, whether shading (regularly rendered games) or hybrid ray-tracing + DLSS3 is used. Compared to the mighty 4090, this still is a more economical product series offering massive performance. In closing, the RTX 4080 impresses and will keep you happy for years, but at a high cost and energy consumption. Never has built a new game PC been this expensive, but never have things been this fast. Ultimately, MSI went all out with the new Suprim X. The default extra performance is only ~3%. Still, if you are really into silent operation and beautiful looks, it is a card we can recommend over the founder edition at a price premium of just $150~200. But it's a lot of money for something to play games on.

MSI's Suprim X has been a hit in all our reviews since it was introduced, and the RTX 4080 Suprim X is no different. MSI has paired a fantastic cooling solution with fan settings that are exactly the way I would have configured them myself. In our apples-to-apples cooler testing we found out that the MSI Suprim X cooler is the most powerful cooler of all the cards tested today, a tiny bit better than ASUS STRIX at default power levels. At higher power levels the STRIX cooler does have the upper hand, the differences are small though. What really sets MSI apart here is that they are making great use of the dual BIOS feature. The out of the box BIOS is "silent", and gives an amazing low-noise experience. Even when fully loaded with anything you can throw at it, the card runs at a whisper-quiet 27 dBA, and still achieves very low temperatures of 66°C. You prefer lower temperatures? (no idea why you would), MSI has you covered, too. Just flip the dual BIOS switch to "Gaming" mode and the fan curve is more aggressive. Now the temperatures are down to 59°C, and noise levels are noticeably higher, but still lower than the NVIDIA Founders Edition. Good job MSI!