MSI GeForce RTX 2080 Gaming X Trio
September 2018Type
Graphics CardsPrice
$849.99 USMSI GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Gaming X Trio & RTX 2080 Gaming X Trio Package
The MSI GeForce RTX 20 Gaming X Trio series graphics cards come in a standard cardboard box package. The front of both packages has a large "GeForce RTX" brand logo along with the "MSI" logo on the top left corner and the "Gaming X Trio" series branding on the lower left corner.
The packaging has put a large emphasis on the RTX side of things as the first feature enlisted by AIBs will be Ray Tracing, followed by GDDR6, DirectX 12 and Ansel support. NVIDIA has bet the future of their gaming GPUs on Ray Tracing support as these are the first cards to offer support for the new feature.
The back of the box is very typical, highlighting the main features and specifications of the cards. The three key aspects of MSI's top tier custom cards are its blazing performance which is achieved by a fully custom design, the new Tri-Frozr cooling system and a new wave-curved heatsink which will offer better cooling performance compared to the traditional flat surfaced fin heatsinks.
There's also a focus towards GeForce.com on each AIB card through which users can download the latest drivers and GeForce Experience application which are a must for gamers to access all feature set of the new cards.
The sides of the bx once again greet us with the large GeForce RTX branding. There's also mention of the 11 GB GDDR6 (RTX 2080 Ti) and 8 GB GDDR6 (RTX 2080) memory available on the cards. The higher bandwidth delivered through the new GDDR6 interface would help improve performance in gaming titles at higher resolution over GDDR5 and GDDR5X based graphics cards.
Outside of the box, the graphics card and the accessory package are held firmly by foam packaging. The graphics card comes with a few accessories and manuals which might not be of much use for hardcore enthusiasts but can be useful for the mainstream gaming audience.
The cards are nicely wrapped within an anti-static cover which is useful to prevent any unwanted static discharges on various surfaces that might harm the graphics card. The card accessories include a Molex power connector which isn't of much use in high-end systems since the PSUs already have the required cables.
The most interesting accessory that I found in the package was a graphics card support bracket. This bracket connects the graphics card to the casing, offering better durability and prevents any sort of bending that may occur due to the heavy weight of the Gaming X Trio series graphics cards.
Useful manuals and installation guides are packed within an MSI labeled letter case. There is an MSI Quick Users Guide, a Support bracket installation guide, a sticker letter, the MSI DIY comic, and a single drivers disk. It's best to ignore the driver disk and install the latest software and graphics drivers directly from the NVIDIA and MSI official web pages as the ones shipped in the disks could be older versions and not deliver optimal performance for your graphics cards.
After the package taken care of, I can finally start talking about the card itself. This thing is a beast and I can't wait to test it out to find what kind of performance improvement I get over current-gen cards.
Contents
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MSI's GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Gaming X Trio with its new Turing GPU is the fastest on the planet. It's the new champion of the performance throne and offers the leap one should expect from a GTX 1080 Ti successor. With it's vastly enhanced cooler and PCB, a great looking design and a phenomenal amount of GPU horsepower, you can't go wrong with this graphics card, if you can buy one.
- Great performance at the 4K resolution
- Great upgrade from GTX 1080 Ti and GTX 1080
- Factory Overclocked Out of Box
- Tri Frozr heatsink cooling performance is great
- Refreshing new MSI Gaming design
- ZeroFrozr Technology Included on Torx 3.0 fans
- Great overclocking potential, full tuning options
- Memory modules on the Gaming X Trio can hit more than 750 GB/s bandwidth
- Backplate includes heat pads for increased heat dissipation
- RGB Lighting support on the shroud and sides are a plus
- Support for real-time ray tracing and DLSS features in next-generation gaming titles
- Good driver support for GeForce products, compatibility with DX11, DX12, Vulkan, OpenGL titles
- Performance per watt is great on Pascal graphics cards
- Lot's of display connectivity, great for VR and multi-display PCs.
Pros
- Ridiculously High Priced ($1249.99 US)
- Very high power consumption when overclocked
- No RTX and DLSS games available on launch
Cons
About the author: A Software Engineer by training and a PC enthusiast by passion, Hassan Mujtaba serves as Wccftech's Senior Editor for hardware section. With years of experience in the industry, he specializes in deep-dive technical analysis of next-generation CPU and GPU architectures, motherboards, and cooling solutions. His work involves not only breaking news on upcoming technologies but also extensive hands-on reviews and benchmarking.
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