A GeForce RTX 3080 based graphics card by MSI that is strong and cool. Performance, stability and reliability now go together.
2ND GENERATION RT CORES
2X THROUGHPUT
3RD GENERATION TENSOR CORES
UP TO 2X THROUGHPUT
NEW SM
2X FP32 THROUGHPUT
NVIDIA Reflex delivers the ultimate competitive advantage. The lowest latency. The best responsiveness. Powered by GeForce RTX 30 Series GPUS and NVIDA G-SYNC gaming monitors (Sold separately). Acquire targets faster, react quicker, and increase aim precision through a revolutionary suite of technologies to measure and optimize system latency for competitive games.
GeForce RTX 30 Series GPUs deliver the ultimate performance for gamers and creators. They’re powered by Ampere—NVIDIA’s 2nd gen RTX architecture—with new RT Cores, Tensor Cores, and streaming multiprocessors for the most realistic ray-traced graphics and cutting-edge AI features.
DLSS AI ACCELERATION
MAX FPS. MAX QUALITY. POWERED BY AI.
NVIDIA DLSS is groundbreaking AI rendering that boosts frame rates with uncompromised image quality using the dedicated AI processing Tensor Cores on GeForce RTX. This gives you the performance headroom to crank up settings and resolutions for an incredible visual experience. The AI revolution has come to gaming.
We’ve Got Your Back
A sturdy brushed aluminum backplate reinforces the full length of the graphics card while providing passive cooling by applying thermal pads.
CUTTING EDGE TRIPLE FAN THERMAL
TORX Fan 3.0
The award-winning MSI TORX Fan 3.0 design keeps the limits of thermal performance turning. Fan blades alternate between traditional blades and dispersion blades that focus and accelerate airflow into the heatsink.
Zero Frozr
Chillingly Silent
Zero Frozr is the calm before the storm. The fans completely stop when temperatures are relatively low, eliminating all noise when active cooling is unneeded. The fans will automatically start spinning again when the heat is on during gaming.
Core Pipe
Core Pipes are precision-machined for maximum contact over the GPU and spread the heat along the full length of the heatsink for optimal cooling.
Thermal Padding
Ample amounts of thermal pads allow various board components to transfer heat directly to the heatsink for better cooling.
Traces of Brilliance
BUILT STRONG
Specially designed Anti-Bending brackets reinforce the card to resist sagging, bending, and twisting.
Without Anti-bending
Anti-bending Included
TAILORED PCB DESIGN
Not all circuit boards are created equal. A custom PCB Design provides greater reliability and beefed up power circuitry for pushing the card to its limits.
We Made 10 Million Clicks, You Only Need 1
Bringing It All Together
MSI's exclusive MSI Center software helps you get the most out of your MSI products. Monitor, tweak and optimize in real-time with just a few clicks.
Pros: *Competitive price versus other 3080s (this is generically true, not trying to get into price specifics as per the Newegg review guidelines) *Good Ampere chip that can run at high clocks with lower voltage (this is crucial to its best performance, read on) *Effective cooling solution that keeps the card at safe operating temperatures even at full 350W power *Performance capabilities well in line with other 3080 models *12GB of VRAM likely to be "enough" for more time versus 8/10GB
Cons: *Lack of RGB lighting makes it an outlier these days *350W hard power limit means that it can't draw more power to achieve even higher performance unlike other AIB 3080 designs *Fan design not as advanced as slightly more expensive MSI models
Overall Review: This card has been a stellar pickup for me. Its stock performance at default settings was a bit lower than the average for 3080 12GB cards, though still a lot higher than even a good 3070 Ti card. The reason for its performance not being as high as some others is because, like its predecessor the 10GB Ventus model from MSI, it features a rather low power limit compared to its direct competition. The 10GB had just 320W to work with, while this card has 350W, and that is a hardware-enforced limit so it isn't something you can just drag a slider to overcome. So, being that its performance by default is power-limited, how can you get better than stock performance without the usual route of running more power through it and overclocking? The answer lies in undervolting! A process that is safe and effective, placing no additional load on the GPU and in fact making it run cooler, with less power usage at a given clock speed. Not every card will have the same undervolting performance, but the process of finding your card's efficiency point couldn't be easier. You can see my attached screenshot for my voltage curve and resulting 3DMark scores for my MSI Ventus 3080 12GB 3X Plus OC, about 5% more than I got with it stock with better thermals and power. Its stock boost behavior tended to stay in the mid-1800s or low 1900s while drawing a full 350W at 1.1V for its highest clocks. Undervolted, its clock is stable at or around 1995MHz at .9V, which has proven stable for my chip in all testing and all gaming applications including raytracing-enabled and advanced DX12 games. This stability lets it achieve greater performance while drawing typically lower wattage and also therefor lower temperatures. The lower temperatures are also related to its boost stability, as nVidia's boosting algorithm takes temperature into account. The only downside to undervolting is that it takes a moment of your time and some stability testing, that's it. Unlike overvolting which places additional strain on components, this actually lets them do their job under even safer conditions than stock! Before you start, run a benchmark at its stock settings so you can get an idea of how high it wants to boost. You will not be able to exceed its stock boost behavior, which might use a voltage as high as 1.1V, with your undervolt, and in fact will probably need to use a lower clock than that, so keep that in mind. My card would boost to 2040Mhz at stock, but only for a split second as it would quickly become power limited and downclock further. But, that gave me a good idea of what a realistic goal should be as I undervolted: definitely not quite that high. Once you've got an idea of what it does stock, get started: 1. Install MSI's excellent "Afterburner" software, and set a clock offset of -260 right off the bat in the "Core Clock MHz" box on that software, and click the checkmark "Apply" button, to the right of the floppy disk-looking "Save Settings" button. That will set the voltage to a very reasonable curve right away, close to the stock boost frequency from nVidia's design. 2. hit "Ctrl+F" to open up the Voltage Curve editor. You want to find the vertical line corresponding to .9V, and (using either your mouse, or your arrow keys) move the frequency point at that .9V line up to a reasonable setting. Because my card did 2040Mhz at 1.1V, I first tried moving this to 1935MHz, which it easily achieved in testing. Set your card's frequency at .9V to something reasonable based on your own card's stock clock, and hit the "Apply" checkmark. That will automatically change the rest of the curve so that it now uses that voltage and under for its clock rates, and never exceeds .9V. 3. If stability testing does not result in benchmarks failing to run or crashing, congratulations, you've got a working undervolt! Test in some demanding games, titles that use DX12 and Raytracing, and if you get stable performance without issues or crashing, you've just saved power and gained performance. 4. Now, you can start to tune the performance level up. Boosting works in 15MHz increments, so move it up 15MHz at a time, repeat testing, and find what level of performance you can get at .9V - well below stock voltage, and thus at a lower power usage overall with better temperatures. I found my chip remains perfectly stable and has performance improvements up to 1995MHz at .9V, which was good for a substantial performance gain over the stock settings as it will dial into that clock speed and stay there for the duration of gaming, instead of throttling! Other voltages may work, but with only 350W, "less" can be "more" for performance. Remember to use the floppy disk-looking "Save" feature to save your resulting profile to one of the numbers on the right of MSI Afterburner to easily apply it again later, or even at startup. I hope this review has been helpful to others who bought this excellent value card. I wish you all success and happiness getting the most from it!