MSI GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER GAMING X TRIO Review

TweakTown's Rating: 91%

The Bottom Line

MSI's custom GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER GAMING X TRIO simply kicks ass... barely makes noise, reaches just 66C and can have its 8GB of GDDR6 kicked up to an incredible 18Gbps resulting in 568GB/sec memory bandwidth. WOW.

Introduction & Pricing

MSI never disappoints with its graphics cards especially in the enthusiast realm, with their new GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER GAMING X TRIO graphics card. It is the normal GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER but with much superior cooling, I mean look at it... it's a triple-fan beast.

We have the GPU boost clocks at up to 1845MHz, with our sample reaching closer to 2000MHz when overclocked, while the triple-fan cooler on MSI's new GAMING X TRIO keeps the RTX 2080 SUPER nice and cool. During both game tests and harder synthetic benchmarks the MSI GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER GAMING X TRIO doesn't go above 66C which is crazy impressive.

It does all of this while looking great as well, one of hte best-looking RTX 2080 SUPER graphics cards on the market. The RGB lighting from the Mystic Light RGB lighting on the card looks great, and isn't too over done.

Pricing

MSI has its new GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER GAMING X TRIO at $740.

Best Deals: GIGABYTE GeForce RTX 2080 Super GAMING OC 8G

	Today	7 days ago	30 days ago
	$339.99 USD	$329.99 USD	$339.99 USD	Buy
	$487.50 CAD	$487.50 CAD	$487.50 CAD	Buy
	$339.99 USD	$329.99 USD	$339.99 USD	Buy
	$339.99 USD	$329.99 USD	$339.99 USD	Buy
* Prices last scanned on 3/23/2025 at 8:57 am CDT - prices may not be accurate, click links above for the latest price. We may earn an affiliate commission from any sales.

Specs: Turing GPU & Fastest GDDR6 Ever

Full TU104 GPU

NVIDIA is using the "full implentation" of the TU104 GPU with its new GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER, with the full 3072 CUDA cores and 48 RT cores versus the 2944 CUDA cores and 46 RT cores in the RTX 2080.

The TU104 GPU is clocked at up to 1650Mhz base and 1815MHz boost on the GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER, while the TU104 in full on the RTX 2080 SUPER offers up 11.2TFLOPs of compute performance versus the 10.1TFLOPs on the original RTX 2080. This results in Tensor FLOPs at 89 TFLOPs fersus 81 TFLOPs.

But it's the faster GDDR6 memory on the RTX 2080 SUPER that is exciting.

Fastest GDDR6 Ever

NVIDIA injected some faster GDDR6 memory into the RTX 2080 SUPER with its 8GB of GDDR6 clocked at 15.5Gbps, up from the 14Gbps on the regular RTX 2080. It has the same 256-bit memory bus which results in 496GB/sec of memory bandwidth compared to the 448GB/sec on the RTX 2080.

I overclocked my sample of the MSI RTX 2080 SUPER GAMING X TRIO and its 8GB of GDDR6 right up to 18Gbps... with some very interesting results.

Cooling Tech: TRI-FROZR Thermal Design

The release of NVIDIA's new GeForce RTX 20 series GAMING TRIO cards saw the high-end triple-fan cooler come back, with a slick design that features great use of RGB lighting, as well as super-cool performance. We will have more on how cool the new RTX 2070 SUPER GAMING X TRIO runs later in the review. For now, let's check out what's under the hood:

Detailed Look

MSI has its usual great-looking packaging for the GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER GAMING X TRIO.

The same goes for the back of the box, informing you of what to expect.

The front of the card shows off the impressive triple-fan cooler.

The metal backplate on the card looks MEAN.

You can see the elaborate cooling here from the bottom.

And once again from the top, with the 8+8-pin PCIe power connectors.

Test System Specs

Our New GPU Test Rig

Welcome to the latest revision of our GPU test bed, with our system being upgraded from the Intel Core i7-7700K to the Core i7-8700K. The CPU is cooled by the Corsair H115i PRO cooler, with the 8700K overclocked to 5GHz. We've stayed with GIGABYTE for our motherboard with their awesome Z370 AORUS Gaming 7.

We approached our friends at HyperX for a kit of their kick ass HyperX Predator DDR4-2933MHz RAM (HX429C15PB3AK4/32), with 2 x 8GB sticks for a total of 16GB DDR4-2933. The RAM stands out through every minute of our testing as it has beautiful RGB lights giving the system a slick look while benchmarking our lives away, while the Z370 AORUS Gaming 7 motherboard joins in with its own array of RGB lighting.

Detailed Tech Specs

• CPU: Intel Core i7-8700K @ 5GHz
• Cooler: Corsair Hydro Series H115i PRO
• MB: Z370 AORUS Gaming 7
• RAM: 16GB (2x8GB) HyperX Predator DDR4-2933
• SSD: 1TB OCZ RD400 NVMe M.2
• SSD: 512GB OCZ RD400 NVMe M.2
• PSU: InWin 1065W PSU
• Chassis: In Win X-Frame
• OS: Windows 10 Pro x64

Additional Images

Benchmarks - Synthetic

3DMark TimeSpy

3DMark TimeSpy Extreme

3DMark Port Royal

Heaven - 1080p

Heaven is an intensive GPU benchmark that really pushes your silicon to its limits. It's another favorite of ours as it has some great scaling for multi-GPU testing, and it's great for getting your GPU to 100% for power and noise testing.

Heaven - 1440p

Heaven - 4K

Benchmarks - 1080p

1080p Benchmarks

Middle-earth: Shadow of War is a sequel to the popular Shadow of Mordor, which was powered by the Lithtech engine. When cranked up to maximum detail, it will chew through your GPU and its VRAM like it's nothing.

You can buy Middle-earth: Shadow of War at Amazon.

Metro Exodus is one of the hardest tests that our graphics cards have to go through, with 4A Games' latest creation being one of the best looking games on the market. It is a serious test that pushes GPUs to their limits, and also features RTX technologies like DLSS.

Far Cry New Dawn was developed by Ubisoft, and is powered the Dunia Engine, an engine that has been modified over the years for Far Cry and last used in Far Cry 5. Dunia Engine itself was a modified version of CRYENGINE, scaling incredibly well on all sorts of hardware.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider is one of the latest games to join our graphics card benchmark lineup, with the game built using the Foundation engine as a base, the same engine in Rise of the Tomb Raider. Eidos Montreal R&D department made lots of changes to the engine during the development of Shadow of the Tomb Raider to make it one of the best-looking games out right now.

Benchmarks - 1440p

1440p Benchmarks

Middle-earth: Shadow of War is a sequel to the popular Shadow of Mordor, which was powered by the Lithtech engine. When cranked up to maximum detail, it will chew through your GPU and its VRAM like it's nothing.

You can buy Middle-earth: Shadow of War at Amazon.

Metro Exodus is one of the hardest tests that our graphics cards have to go through, with 4A Games' latest creation being one of the best looking games on the market. It is a serious test that pushes GPUs to their limits, and also features RTX technologies like DLSS.

Far Cry New Dawn was developed by Ubisoft, and is powered the Dunia Engine, an engine that has been modified over the years for Far Cry and last used in Far Cry 5. Dunia Engine itself was a modified version of CRYENGINE, scaling incredibly well on all sorts of hardware.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider is one of the latest games to join our graphics card benchmark lineup, with the game built using the Foundation engine as a base, the same engine in Rise of the Tomb Raider. Eidos Montreal R&D department made lots of changes to the engine during the development of Shadow of the Tomb Raider to make it one of the best-looking games out right now.

Benchmarks - 4K

4K Benchmarks

Middle-earth: Shadow of War is a sequel to the popular Shadow of Mordor, which was powered by the Lithtech engine. When cranked up to maximum detail, it will chew through your GPU and its VRAM like it's nothing.

You can buy Middle-earth: Shadow of War at Amazon.

Metro Exodus is one of the hardest tests that our graphics cards have to go through, with 4A Games' latest creation being one of the best looking games on the market. It is a serious test that pushes GPUs to their limits, and also features RTX technologies like DLSS.

Far Cry New Dawn was developed by Ubisoft, and is powered the Dunia Engine, an engine that has been modified over the years for Far Cry and last used in Far Cry 5. Dunia Engine itself was a modified version of CRYENGINE, scaling incredibly well on all sorts of hardware.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider is one of the latest games to join our graphics card benchmark lineup, with the game built using the Foundation engine as a base, the same engine in Rise of the Tomb Raider. Eidos Montreal R&D department made lots of changes to the engine during the development of Shadow of the Tomb Raider to make it one of the best-looking games out right now.

Thermals, Power, Noise

Thermals

Power Consumption

Overclocking

Overclocking = 18Gbps GDDR6!

The GDDR6 being clocked at 18Gbps provides up to 568.6GB/sec of memory bandwidth over its 256-bit memory bus.

NVIDIA's new GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER cards have huge OC headroom for GDDR6 overclocking, with both my samples (RTX 2080 SUPER Founders Edition and MSI RTX 2080 SUPER GAMING X TRIO) both reaching 18Gbps in total.

• NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER overclocked: 18Gbps
• NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER stock: 15.5Gbps
• NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 stock: 14Gbps

Close to RTX 2080 Ti performance out of an overclocked MSI RTX 2080 SUPER GAMING X TRIO... and all at 66C maximum (with no adjustments to fan profiles).

Final Thoughts

If you are in the market for the GeForce RTX 2080 or RTX 2080 SUPER, the Founders Edition is a good card but holy hell is MSI's custom GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER GAMING X TRIO awesome. It doesn't breach 66C under load, even when pushed to its limits -- and that's with the GDDR6 at record speeds of 18Gbps.

The card barely makes any noise under load, and the fans won't even spin up until the GPU reaches 60C. So it is literally silent until you jump into a game, and even when you're in a game it barely makes any noise. Inside of your PC with everything else going (fans, CPU cooler, etc) you won't even hear it.

MSI has some overclocking headroom in the RTX 2080 SUPER GAMING X TRIO, with our sample topping out at around 2040MHz but the 8GB of GDDR6 went from 15.5Gbps (which is already fast) up to a blistering 18Gbps which results in 568GB/sec of memory bandwidth. This is the big selling point here: NVIDIA using Samsung-produced GDDR6 memory which has much more headroom for some OC fun.

I played hours and hours of Overwatch and Apex Legends on two gaming displays and configurations: 2560x1440 @ 144Hz (32-inch) and 3840x2160 @ 144Hz (27-inch) and it handled both without a problem. MSI has done such a good job that I had a double-take when I was loading into games and the three fans weren't spinning on the card for a few minutes... just, wow.

MSI has produced yet another kick ass card in its GAMING X TRIO range of card with the new RTX 2080 SUPER GAMING X TRIO, a purchase you won't regret.