MSI GeForce RTX 3080 SUPRIM X Review: The Most Premium RTX 3080 Yet

1. Introduction
2. Everything You Need to Know About Ampere
3. MSI marketing
4. Detailed Look
5. Test System Specs
6. Benchmarks - Synthetic
7. Benchmarks - 1080p
8. Benchmarks - 1440p
9. Benchmarks - 4K
10. Overclocking
11. Power Consumption & Temps
12. What's Hot, What's Not
13. Final Thoughts

TweakTown's Rating: 98%

The Bottom Line

MSI has the very best GeForce RTX 3080 with its new RTX 3080 SUPRIM X -- the best performance, silent gaming, some nice OC and a design that leaves a smile on your face. Premium from top to bottom.

Introduction

MSI launched its GeForce RTX 3090 and GeForce RTX 3080 custom cards in their respective GAMING X TRIO variants, which were great cards but they didn't feel like that pure GAMING X goodness we're used to. They are great cards, but now MSI has quickly released a new custom SUPRIM X which takes things to another level.

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MSI's new custom GeForce RTX 3080 SUPRIM X graphics card is one of the biggest, most bad-ass RTX 3080s on the market. It sports a tweaked look that looks just... I don't even have words, it's just so nice in person and in your hand (and more importantly, in your gaming PC).

The company has used some gorgeous brushed aluminum on the shroud and backplate, which looks absolutely stunning in person with RGB lighting flashing off of it -- in my case, 32GB of G.SKILL Trident Z RGB memory. It seriously looks so nice installed into the PC.

• Read more: MSI GeForce RTX 3080 GAMING X TRIO Review
• Read more: MSI GeForce RTX 3090 GAMING X TRIO Review
• Read more: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Founders Edition review
• Read more: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Founders Edition review

It's not just looks, but it's also some nice tweaks to the GPU where MSI have its highest GPU boost clock with the GeForce RTX 3080 SUPRIM X at up to 1905MHz -- and I was able to get it up to around 2130MHz with some manual overclocking for the very best GeForce RTX 3080 that I've tested so far.

You're looking at a hefty $200 premium at $900 total ($700 for the 3080 FE) for MSI's new GeForce RTX 3080 SUPRIM X over NVIDIA's own GeForce RTX 3080 Founders Edition. This is a tough pill to swallow, but I guess if you want it -- you're going to pay for it. It is the best-performing RTX 3080, and it is one of the best-looking... so MSI has that on its side.

You're just just paying more 'just cause' but more that you're getting the most premium MSI card in RTX 3080 flavor, short of the LIGHTNING Z model the company has in the oven.

MSI MEG Z490 Unify ATX Gaming Motherboard

	Today	Yesterday	7 days ago	30 days ago
	$299.99	$299.99	$204.47	$299.99	Buy
* Prices last scanned on 4/27/2024 at 5:21 am CDT - prices may not be accurate, click links above for the latest price. We may earn an affiliate commission.

Everything You Need to Know About Ampere

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• Ampere GPU architecture: NVIDIA has so much going on under the Ampere GPU hood, with the GA102 GPU packing a huge 28 billion transistors (that's 28,000,000,000) on the Samsung 8nm node. We have a huge 10496 CUDA cores on GA102, over double the 4608 CUDA cores on the TITAN RTX.
• RTX improvements: NVIDIA has effectively doubled everything when it comes to RTX, where it will rips and tears your games and delivers them to your eyeballs faster than ever before with Ampere. If you want to run any RTX-powered games, you'll want a new GeForce RTX 3080.
• GDDR6X memory: The new NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 has 10GB of GDDR6X memory on a 320-bit memory bus, with a huge 760GB/sec of memory bandwidth. You should see the 4K gaming results for the evidence of the Ampere GPU + GDDR6X memory slaying it.

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• PCIe 4.0 connectivity: NVIDIA's new GeForce RTX 30 series graphics cards are now PCIe 4.0 compatible, so if you're building a new AMD Ryzen 3000 series system with an X570 motherboard -- you will be ready to rock and roll with PCIe 4.0 connectivity.
• HDMI 2.1: 4K 120Hz + 8K 60Hz = single cable: If you are buying a new TV in the coming months or years, HDMI 2.1 is going to be something you want. It opens up the bandwidth floodgates to 4K 120Hz and 8K 60Hz over the single HDMI 2.1 cable.
• RTX IO: NVIDIA's introduction of RTX IO with Ampere is very similar to the ultra-fast game load times on the next-gen Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 consoles. You can read all about RTX IO right here, which is something we'll see build more foundation in 2021 and beyond.

MSI marketing

Normally I'd show you what MSI has to tease you with its marketing on its landing page for the card, but the company has made a really nice page for the GeForce RTX 3080 SUPRIM X -- it deserves a look yourself right here.

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Detailed Look

MSI ups the ante with the retail packaging for the GeForce RTX 3080 SUPRIM X, a hefty box with a mouse pad included. MSI knows how to keep gamers happy.

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Right out of the box and MSI has my eye -- hell, the second I took it out of the box I was like 'oh wow'. I didn't have that with the GAMING X TRIO, but I had that insta-love with the SUPRIM X.

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Even better is the backplate, of which I'm a huge fan of (in general). MSI has one of the best here.

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It's a thick card, with some beautiful heat pipes and heat sink work here keeping the card nice and chill -- and silent, during gaming loads.

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Once again from the top, where you can see the RGB lighting bar and SUPRIM and GeForce RTX branding.

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You will need 3 x 8-pin PCIe power connectors.

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MSI ships the GeForce RTX 3080 SUPRIM X with the Quiet BIOS enabled, I ran the card with the Gaming BIOS before starting my review.

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You have 3 x DP 1.4 and 1 x HDMI 2.1 for display connectivity.

Test System Specs

Latest upgrade:

Sabrent sent over their huge Rocket Q 8TB NVMe PCIe M.2 2280 SSD, which will be my new Games install SSD inside of my main test bed.

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I've got a new upgrade inside of my GPU test bed before my change to a next-gen test bed, where I will be preparing for NVIDIA's next-gen Ampere graphics cards and AMD's next-gen RDNA 2 graphics cards.

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Sabrent helped out with some new storage for my GPU test beds, sending over a slew of crazy-fast Rocket NVMe PCIe M.2 2280 SSDs. I've got this installed into my GPU test bed as the new Games Storage drive, since games are so damn big now. Thanks to Sabrent, I've got 2TB of super-fast M.2 PCIe 3.0 x4 SSD storage now.

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Anthony's GPU Test System Specifications

I've recently upgraded my GPU test bed -- at least for now, until AMD's new Ryzen 9 5950X processor is unleashed then the final update for 2020 will happen and we'll be all good for RDNA 2 and future Ampere GPU releases. You can read my article here: TweakTown GPU Test Bed Upgrade for 2021, But Then Zen 3 Was Announced.

• CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 3800X (buy from Amazon)
• Motherboard: ASUS ROG X570 Crosshair VIII HERO (buy from Amazon)
• Cooler: CoolerMaster MasterLiquid ML360R RGB (buy from Amazon)
• RAM: G.SKILL Trident Z NEO RGB 32GB (4x8GB) (F4-3600C18Q-32GTZN) (buy from Amazon)
• SSD: Sabrent 2TB Rocket NVMe PCIe 4.0 M.2 2280 (buy from Amazon)
• PSU: be quiet! Dark Power Pro 11 1200W (buy from Amazon)
• Case: InWin X-Frame 2.0
• OS: Microsoft Windows 10 Professional x64 (buy from Amazon)

Benchmarks - Synthetic

3DMark Fire Strike

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3DMark has been a staple benchmark for years now, all the way back to when The Matrix was released and Futuremark had bullet time inspired benchmarks. 3DMark is the perfect tool to see if your system - most important, your CPU and GPU - is performing as it should. You can search results for your GPU, to see if it falls in line with other systems based on similar hardware.

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3DMark TimeSpy

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.

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Benchmarks - 1080p

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Assassin's Creed: Valhalla is the latest game to be inserted into our benchmark suite, with Ubisoft Montreal using its AnvilNext engine to power the game. It scales really well across the cards, and has some surprising performance benefits with AMD's new Big Navi GPUs.

You can buy Assassins Creed: Valhalla at Amazon.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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1080p Benchmark Performance Thoughts

I've got a new game in the benchmark line up with Assassin's Creed: Valhalla, where the MSI GeForce RTX 3080 SUPRIM X starts out ahead in -- beating the RTX 3080 FE and equaling the RTX 3090 FE when overclocked. Not too damn bad at all. But the RX 6800 and RX 6800 XT really scale well here in AC:V.

Shadow of War sees the MSI RTX 3080 SUPRIM X destroying the charts at 1080p, and nearly again in Metro Exodus except the RTX 3090 FE beats the RTX 3080 SUPRIM X by 4FPS at 100FPS versus 96FPS. You're looking at over 240FPS average in Shadow of the Tomb Raider, which should kinda just -- probably just be OK.

Benchmarks - 1440p

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Assassin's Creed: Valhalla is the latest game to be inserted into our benchmark suite, with Ubisoft Montreal using its AnvilNext engine to power the game. It scales really well across the cards, and has some surprising performance benefits with AMD's new Big Navi GPUs.

You can buy Assassins Creed: Valhalla at Amazon.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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1440p Benchmark Performance Thoughts

The MSI RTX 3080 SUPRIM X offers identical performance to the RTX 3090 FE in Assassin's Creed: Valhalla at 1440p, with 78FPS average -- but man, once again Big Navi kills it here in AC:V.

We are hitting 149FPS average on the MSI RTX 3080 SUPRIM X, 2FPS shy of the RTX 3090 FE -- but easily beats everything else on the charts. We have 79FPS average in Metro Exodus at 1440p, with 84FPS when overclocked -- 4FPS behind the RTX 3090 FE.

Benchmarks - 4K

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Assassin's Creed: Valhalla is the latest game to be inserted into our benchmark suite, with Ubisoft Montreal using its AnvilNext engine to power the game. It scales really well across the cards, and has some surprising performance benefits with AMD's new Big Navi GPUs.

You can buy Assassins Creed: Valhalla at Amazon.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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4K Benchmark Performance Thoughts

4K gaming is where all GeForce RTX 3080s shine, with the overclocked MSI RTX 3080 SUPRIM X hitting nearly 60FPS average in Assassin's Creed: Valhalla -- something the RTX 3090 gets closer to with 59FPS (vs 56FPS on the MSI RTX 3080 SUPRIM X) and 59FPS from the Radeon RX 6800 XT at 4K.

MSI comes out on top in a big way with Shadow of War at 4K with 114FPS when overclocked, 3FPS shy of the stock settings -- and 10FPS faster than the RTX 3080 FE. The same performance improvements are found with Metro Exodus and Shadow of the Tomb Raider.

Overclocking

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Out of the box the MSI RTX 3080 SUPRIM X finds a nice home between 1905-1935MHz, with the GPU sitting at 69C and the fans at 57% (1850RPM or so). The card is silent at this point, the noise levels are great.

Once the card is pushed to its limits, I was finding the MSI RTX 3080 SUPRIM X hitting 2130-2145MHz with another 700MHz+ increase on the GDDR6X. We have 52-56C in temps depending on the test, resolution, etc. I have the fans on at 100% in all overclocking tests.

Impressive stuff here from MSI!

Power Consumption & Temps

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We are looking at around 50W more power consumption with the MSI RTX 3080 SUPRIM X over the RTX 3080 Founders Edition, and up to 525W when overclocked.

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MSI has temperatures down to just 69C under load with silent gaming loads, while fans at 100% and overclocked the RTX 3080 SUPRIM X runs at just 52C -- seriously low.

What's Hot, What's Not

What's Hot

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The fastest GeForce RTX 3080 yet: It edges out the GeForce RTX 3080 Founders Edition easily, and it also beats the ASUS ROG Strix RTX 3080 OC Edition. I'll have a GeForce RTX 3080 Roundup article soon, and the MSI RTX 3080 SUPRIM X is now the new champion.

Beautifully styled card: MSI was a little wobbly with the choices on its GeForce RTX 3080 GAMING X but they have improved it in all the right ways with the RTX 3080 SUPRIM X. Incredible design from the physical feel to the card to the sweet style of the RGB lighting across the card.

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Greatly improved backplate: Speaking of aethestics, the backplate is probably the very best on any of the custom GeForce RTX 3080 graphics cards so far. It's just... perfect.

What's Not

• AMD's new Radeon RX 6800 XT is a formidable threat: But MSI's new GeForce RTX 3080 SUPRIM X offers some of the very best RTX 3080 performance around. I will do another analysis once I have some custom MSI-made Radeon RX 6800 XT graphics cards.
• $200 premium: Not really something that's 'bad' as that would come down to the particular person buying this card, but MSI is demanding a $200 premium over the RTX 3080 FE -- at $900 versus $700. But you will get a wicked design, better thermal performance and noise levels (virtually silent on the MSI RTX 3080 SUPRIM X) against the Founders Edition card.

None of this takes away from what a phenomenal product the MSI RTX 3080 SUPRIM X graphics card is.

Final Thoughts

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If you want the most premium, best-performing GeForce RTX 3080 graphics cards on the market then MSI has crafted just that. The new MSI GeForce RTX 3080 SUPRIM X will probably be impossible to buy, but in a world where these things come into stock in better numbers -- this is the card you will dream of.

It has the best performance of the custom GeForce RTX 3080s that I've tested so far, it is dead silent during games, and has great OC abilities that make it the fastest RTX 3080 you can buy. It's a $200 premium, but when you're looking at buying something like the MSI RTX 3080 SUPRIM X, you're not going to worry about that.

MSI seems to be using the release of the GeForce RTX 3080 SUPRIM X as a stop gap between now and the RTX 3080 LIGHTNING Z -- or maybe we might see the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti LIGHTNING Z -- yeah, RTX 3080 Ti. Maybe we're seeing MSI wait for that inevitable card in 2021, and the SUPRIM X is here to calm our hearts between now and then.

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The MSI GeForce RTX 3080 SUPRIM X is a force to be reckoned with, whisper quiet, unstoppable performance, some great OC fun and one of the best designs on a RTX 3080 yet. That's a yes from me.