MSI GeForce RTX 3080 Ti SUPRIM X Review

1. Introduction
2. Everything You Need to Know About Ampere
3. RTX 3080 Ti Tech Specs
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: 94%

The Bottom Line

MSI does it again with the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti SUPRIM X graphics card -- a powerhouse GPU with MSI SUPRIM X styling and you even get a free mouse pad!

Introduction

MSI sent over their flagship GeForce RTX 3080 Ti SUPRIM X graphics card for a whirl of gaming and benchmarking, with it being the third RTX 3080 Ti that I've reviewed so far... coming in off of the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Founders Edition and the custom ASUS ROG Strix RTX 3080 Ti OC Edition graphics cards.

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MSI tweaked their usual triple-fan GAMING X TRIO family of graphics cards and infused a little bit of the energy from their LIGHTNING family of cards with the SUPRIM X last year. MSI launched the GeForce RTX 3080 SUPRIM X and GeForce RTX 3090 SUPRIM X, which were two of the very best custom Ampere graphics cards money could (sometimes) buy.

Well, the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti is now here and MSI has got its flagship GeForce RTX 3080 Ti SUPRIM X on the prowl and ready to eat up your games and throw out the best frames. Wow, that actually rhymed and it flowed from my hands to the keyboard, up for 22 hours and counting getting these RTX 3080 Ti reviews out the door.

• Read more: MSI GeForce RTX 3090 SUPRIM X Review
• Read more: MSI GeForce RTX 3080 SUPRIM X Review

Onwards with the MSI GeForce RTX 3080 Ti SUPRIM X graphics card review!

MSI's new GeForce RTX 3080 Ti SUPRIM X graphics card is a thicc boi, coming in as a 3-slot graphics card which is ridiculously large. NVIDIA's own GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Founders Edition is a dual-slot beast, the custom ASUS ROG Strix RTX 3080 Ti isn't any better as a thick 2.9-slot card, though.

MSI deploys its impressive TRI FROZR 2S cooling technology, packing in a metal alloy shroud, dense aluminum fin-stack heat sink, 3 x TorX fans, and power delivery that should be very similar if not identical to the flagship MSI GeForce RTX 3090 SUPRIM X.

We have 12GB of GDDR6X memory on a 384-bit memory bus with 912GB/sec of memory bandwidth, which means it competes more with the flagship GeForce RTX 3090, and generally just pounds the RTX 3080 into forgotten-but-still-can't-buy dust.

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A nice little family photo of NVIDIA's new GeForce RTX 30 series Founders Edition graphics cards, and my reviews on each of the separate cards.

• Read more: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Founders Edition Review
• Read more: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Founders Edition Review
• Read more: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Founders Edition Review
• Read more: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Founders Edition Review
• Read more: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti Founders Edition Review

For the entire time testing the MSI GeForce RTX 3080 Ti SUPRIM X graphics card, I was using the new ASUS ROG Strix XG43UQ monitor... a huge 43-inch 4K 144Hz monitor with HDMI 2.1 connectivity. I used HDMI 2.1 directly into every GeForce RTX 3080 Ti that I've tested here today and will continue from this day onward.

MSI Gaming GeForce RTX 3090

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Everything You Need to Know About Ampere

• 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 10240 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 Ti has 12GB of GDDR6X memory on a 384-bit memory bus, with a massive 912GB/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.

RTX 3080 Ti Tech Specs

NVIDIA has up to 1.5x more performance at 4K with the new GeForce RTX 3080 Ti over the previous-gen Turing-based GeForce RTX 2080 Ti, which can lead to a gigantic improvement in frame rate in the latest games at the glorious 4K resolution on the RTX 3080 Ti.

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If we do a direct comparison between the new Ampere-based GeForce RTX 3080 Ti and the previous-gen Turing-based GeForce RTX 2080 Ti there are some stark differences. The new GeForce RTX 3080 Ti has 10240 CUDA cores up from the 4352 CUDA cores on the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti.

The new GeForce RTX 3080 Ti has 80 SMs, 320 Tensor Cores (3rd Gen) and 80 RT Cores (2nd Gen) versus the 68 SMs, 544 Tensor Cores (2nd Gen) and 68 SMs (1st Gen). There's 320 Texture Units and 112 ROPs on the RTX 3080 Ti, versus the 272 Texture Units and 88 ROPs on the RTX 2080 Ti.

GPU boost clocks are around the same on both the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti and GeForce RTX 2080 Ti in Founders Edition form, while the new RTX 3080 Ti packs 12GB of GDDR6X against the 11GB of GDDR6 found on the RTX 2080 Ti.

GDDR6X provides a huge injection of performance, key to 4K gaming dominance -- with the 12GB of GDDR6X placed on a 384-bit memory bus providing a huge 912GB/sec of memory bandwidth. NVIDIA used 11GB of GDDR6 (non-X) on the RTX 2080 Ti on a slightly smaller 352-bit memory bus, which spits out 616GB/sec of memory bandwidth.

Detailed Look

MSI continues the ultra-premium tradition of the SUPRIM X name with the new GeForce RTX 3080 Ti SUPRIM X, with a flashy retail box and great packaging. Inside you'll even find a SUPRIM X gaming mouse mat, a nice present with your new SUPRIM X graphics card.

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From the front and back, MSI's custom GeForce RTX 3080 Ti SUPRIM X graphics card is a helluva card to look at. The triple-fan cooler on the front looks mean, and will keep your Ampere GPU + GDDR6X memory nice and chill -- while on the back we have a fantastic heat sink -- carried over from the RTX 3080 + RTX 3090 SUPRIM X cards.

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That huge 3-slot design is just so big coming in off of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Founders Edition, but I do love the style of the SUPRIM X... ugh, they're all so good.

Test System Specs

Latest upgrade:

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ASUS provided a rather large upgrade to my GPU testing lab -- or rather, I kept the ASUS ROG Swift PG43UQ gaming monitor after my review on it. The 43-inch 4K 144Hz panel is just glorious to look at -- it's huge, the DPI for Windows 10 when set perfect for your viewing distance is kiss-fingers-emoji good. It's just amazing -- for work, and gaming.

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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.

I'll be making some changes over the coming months to the GPU test bed here for TweakTown, to both the Ryzen 9 5900X and then Intel's new Core i9-11900K to do some proper PCIe 4.0 testing between the chipsets for GPUs + super-fast load times into games on these new super-fast Sabrent SSDs.

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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)
• Monitor: ASUS ROG Swift PG43UQ (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

As I said in my review of the ASUS ROG Strix GeForce RTX 3080 Ti, please don't rush out and buy a new GeForce RTX 3080 Ti for 1080p gaming. Unless you're pushing frame rates into the atmosphere at like 240FPS+ then you would not buy this card.

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

If you had a 2560 x 1440 monitor with 120/144/165Hz refresh rate, then the MSI GeForce RTX 3080 Ti SUPRIM X (and any RTX 3080 Ti for that matter) is a superb choice. 1440p at high refresh rates warrants a high-end GPU like the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti.

You'll get enjoying 60FPS+ in AAA titles and 120FPS+ in esports and multiplayer titles on the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti without a problem.

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

NVIDIA created the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti for 4K gaming, which is where MSI's custom GeForce RTX 3080 Ti SUPRIM X graphics card really comes out into its own. It'll keep up with, perform the same and sometimes higher than the RTX 3080 Ti FE.

There's some wiggle room for overclocking, but for the most part you're going to have performance that rivals NVIDIA's own GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Founders Edition as well as the GeForce RTX 3090.

Overclocking

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Out of the box, MSI's custom GeForce RTX 3080 Ti SUPRIM X graphics card had its GPU boosting up to around 1845MHz -- at least for my sample. This is 15MHz higher than the ASUS ROG Strix RTX 3080 Ti, but lower than the 1890MHz from the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Founders Edition.

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When it comes to the maximum overclock that I could get out of my card, I was hitting a wall at around 2010MHz -- but I did push the GDDR6X memory up by another 1000MHz+ which resulted in over 1TB/sec of memory bandwidth.

Power Consumption & Temps

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Out of the box the MSI GeForce RTX 3080 Ti SUPRIM X was running at around 75-76C, the same temperature as NVIDIA's own GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Founders Edition graphics card. The GPU hotspot was hitting 81-82C or so, and the 12GB of GDDR6X memory is running quite warm at 88C when the card is at stock.

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With the card overclocked and the fans spinning at 100% the GPU drops to 56C or so, the GPU hotspot to 63C and the 12GB of GDDR6X to a much cooler 68C. The custom ASUS ROG Strix RTX 3080 Ti when overclocked and its triple-fan system cranked to 100% the GDDR6X memory also runs at 68C.

What's Hot, What's Not

What's Hot

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• One of the fastest RTX 3080 Ti cards: Every single GeForce RTX 3080 Ti is going to be fast, but MSI's custom GeForce RTX 3080 Ti SUPRIM X is one of the fastest you can buy, period. There are AIO cooled models on the market, but the air-cooled cards are what you want.
• SUPRIM X style: MSI has a very unique style with its SUPRIM X brand, with the front and the back of the card looking fantastic in a gaming PC. With RGB lighting reflecting off of the front and its metallic elements, it just has a unique look to it that nothing can match so far.
• Thermal performance: Both MSI and ASUS have great thermal performance with their respective custom GeForce RTX 3080 Ti graphics cards but that's because they're pretty much re-purposing the RTX 3090 cooling from their flagship cards and using it on the RTX 3080 Ti. No complaints from me there.
• Bonus mouse pad: You'll even get a free SUPRIM X gaming mouse pad in the box with your graphics card, nice work there MSI. Everyone loves free swag.
• Gorgeous backplate: MSI has one of, if not the best-looking custom GeForce RTX 3080 Ti backplate on the market with its SUPRIM X.

What's Not

• 400W+ power consumption: This isn't a problem exclusive to MSI, as the entire GeForce RTX 30 series stack of GPUs are power hungry. You're looking at over 400W+ for the GPU alone here with the MSI RTX 3080 Ti SUPRIM X when you're fully overclocked and close to it at stock, as well.

Final Thoughts

MSI has unleashed a flagship GeForce RTX 3080 Ti SUPRIM X graphics card that if you can find it, you will not stop smiling from ear-to-ear for years to come. 4K 120FPS gaming becomes a reality, if you are playing a game that supports DLSS 2.0 then prepared to be blown the F away.

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From the triple-fan cooler, massively chunky 3-slot design and SUPRIM X style... MSI has crafted an awesome RTX 3080 Ti. We have the latest sibling of the SUPRIM X family of cards that sits between the MSI GeForce RTX 3080 SUPRIM X and the MSI GeForce RTX 3090 SUPRIM X... but I would be buying the RTX 3080 Ti SUPRIM X over the RTX 3090 SUPRIM X purely on price.

If you can match the MSI GeForce RTX 3080 Ti SUPRIM X with a large high resolution, high refresh rate monitor (4K 120FPS and above) then you're going to be transported into another world with this GPU. If you've got a 1440p or better yet a 21:9 UltraWide high refresh rate gaming monitor, the MSI RTX 3080 Ti SUPRIM X is going to be enough grunt for the next couple of years at least.

NVIDIA just announced that a bunch more games will be getting RTX ray tracing and DLSS upgrades soon, where during its virtual Computex 2021 keynote the company announced that huge games like DOOM Eternal, Red Dead Redemption 2, and Rainbow Six: Siege would be getting RTX and DLSS technologies (some both, some just DLSS).

• Read more: DOOM Eternal receives ray tracing + NVIDIA DLSS update in June
• Read more: Red Dead Redemption 2 to get NVIDIA DLSS tech update soon
• Read more: Rainbow Six: Siege joins the NVIDIA DLSS train, update coming soon

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For the purposes of these GeForce RTX 3080 Ti reviews, I had the MSI GeForce RTX 3080 Ti SUPRIM X graphics card plugged into a new HDMI 2.1-enabled 4K 120/144Hz gaming monitor. That monitor would be the ASUS ROG Strix XG43UQ -- 43 inches of 4K 144Hz HDMI 2.1 monitor goodness, the perfect match for the RTX 3080 Ti.

In that photo above, we have the MSI SUPRIM X family photo -- from left to right: RTX 3070 Ti SUPRIM X, RTX 3080 SUPRIM X, RTX 3080 Ti SUPRIM X and finally the flagship beast RTX 3090 SUPRIM X.

If you can find the MSI GeForce RTX 3080 Ti SUPRIM X and you're happy with whatever the hell insane price it is, and you're happy to pay that -- don't hesitate. MSI has one of the best custom GeForce RTX 3080 Ti graphics cards that money can buy with its new RTX 3080 Ti SUPRIM X.