MSI GeForce RTX 2080 Ti GAMING X TRIO Review @ [H]

3 power connections? Haha I guess power connections are now the target to draw attention like memory was back when.
 
Great review! Seems like a solid choice if you want all out performance.

I'm wondering why you didn't test DLSS in Metro. Would that have allowed it to be playable at 4K w/ RT?
 
Do you have any pictures of the support bracket in action? Is it as effective as a ghetto-mod plastic pole?
 
Thanks for the review guys!

This is by far the card I was most interested in. Only reasons I didn't buy it was because Asus gained my confidence with the previous gen and MSI 'seemed' to run out of these during the space invasion and a few users(I really do mean a few) reported experiencing it in the 1st round. Haven't heard of any since.

That 3 power connector set up combined with how power hungry these cards are really had me curious. I can brag about higher core clocks with my Strix but I can't even touch those mem speeds and keep my core that high. Well done and thanks again since I'd pretty much gave up hope on seeing one tweaked like that. Really liked the in depth Metro Exodus tests as well since that's my go to RTX test title now. If I didn't already have my Strix I'd probably get one of these just based on this review.
 
Great review as always Brent and Kyle. It really does look like a pretty sweet card. This was on my short list of cards to get, but was no where to be seen in my country.
 
Great review! Seems like a solid choice if you want all out performance.

I'm wondering why you didn't test DLSS in Metro. Would that have allowed it to be playable at 4K w/ RT?

I haven't had time to fully explore that feature yet. Have to pick our battles per-review, including Metro for the first time in a review, playing the game and figuring out a run-through, testing ray tracing performance off and on, testing hairworks and physx off and on and testing ray tracing playability in the game took a lot of time on its own. I suspect we'll be doing more with Metro Exodus in the future.
 
Seems like a great card. That said, I feel like you have to pay a shitload of money only to get a better cooler as that is the biggest difference between this and cheaper cards.

In terms of tests, I think using resolution scaling in games like RE2 gives the wrong impression because that means you are rendering the game at a much higher resolution. 1440p at 180% scale and 4K at 120% are the same render resolution of 4608 x 2592, just downscaled to a different final resolution. It would be better to have a separate test where resolution scaling is in use and instead present results in 1440p and 4k with 100% scale.
 
I got mine at launch and love it. Agree with statements about fans, you just hear air moving. Mine runs at similar clocks as the max oc, without added voktage, using the auto overclock feature in afterburner. My memory is at +1000.

The RGB is great if you look for that. Per pcb breakdown videos the card apparently does not have power load balancing like all other 2080ti cards and the third connector runs in parallel with the 8 pin next to it.


I love mine overall.
 
Looks like an amazing card. Too bad here in canada it is more expensive than the i9 9900k, 16 gig 3200 ddr 4, corsair 540 air case, h115 platinium, 1tb m2 pcie ssd, asus tuf gaming mobo i just bought. (combined)
I feel like i paid 900$ CDN when the gtx 1080 came out for equivalent performance at 1440. This card is around 1800$ CDN. Price is the killer this gen.
Really like the new games for testing btw.
 
Thank you for the review. I bought this card a few months back because it was the only one I could find and have delivered before Christmas. It has been great to use. Going to try it with Anthem this weekend and maybe Battlefield as well.
 
At 454 watts this meme sums this card up.
 

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I'm wondering why you didn't test DLSS in Metro. Would that have allowed it to be playable at 4K w/ RT?

DLSS definitely helps but afaik there's still a major problem with it jacking the gamma if used on conjunction with HDR. The issue isn't card or panel specific either. I haven't heard of any driver or game patches to address it yet and the only work around is to either play at 1440p rt maxed dlss off, or 4k rt maxed dlss on hdr off. Adjusting gamma doesn't help.

I'm not sure if the Asus PB287Q listed in the test system configuration supports actual HDR but I just checked the Asus site and it is a true 10bit so it's likely Kyle and Brent won't encounter this in their DLSS testing but I've read about users with monitors and t.v.s of different brands, sizes, etc. experiencing it. I have with my Sony Z9D 65".

I can completely understand why they want to keep it a separate article. From cards to displays, all these new display features create an immense workload for reviews now. It's kind of insane.
 
I'm not sure if the Asus PB287Q listed in the test system configuration supports actual HDR but I just checked the Asus site and it is a true 10bit so it's likely Kyle and Brent won't encounter this in their DLSS testing but I've read about users with monitors and t.v.s of different brands, sizes, etc. experiencing it. I have with my Sony Z9D 65".

It actually does not support true 10-bit, it's still 8-bit with FRC. I have tried on numerous occasions to enable 10-bit, never an option for it. It is also not HDR capable.
 
Nice review.

It seems to me the extra 8 pin connector is not really necessary. But I guess its better to have it than not.
 
Do you have any pictures of the support bracket in action? Is it as effective as a ghetto-mod plastic pole?

As an owner of an RTX 2080 Ti Gaming X Trio, no, its actually quite a nice piece of metal that screws into the PCIe slot beneath it, and supports it quite well.

I can get some pictures of it later today, I'd just have to remove my vertical GPU mount first.
 
That's a bunch of cash for a single video card.
That and it isn't even the Lightening card.....yikes.

The card does put up some good numbers in Exodus, though.
It's still disappointing that it cant go full tilt 4K for this much money.

It does give hope for the next Gen though, I can't wait to see what the 3080 Ti will be capable of.
 
It does give hope for the next Gen though, I can't wait to see what the 3080 Ti will be capable of.

Likely to be the last gen my 2600k rig can drive w/o real cpu bottleneck in single player 4k/60hz. I'm actually looking forward to whatever comes next just to see that what'll be nearly 10 years for that rig.
 
Nice review. Feeling a small tinge of buyer's remorse. Bought the EVGA FTW3 a week and a half or so ago, and not many days later the price dropped 100$. Now reading this review, could have saved even more for same performance. also need to install an exhaust fan to get my overclocked temps out of the 70s, or at least lower in that bracket. but nonetheless, happy with the performance so far @3840x1600. i should have kept reserching and reading the reviews, this MSI card seems legit.
 
Was using this exact card the other day. Far cry new dawn with HD texture pack @4k showed over 10gb GPU ram usage. Seemed a shame for such a new and expensive card.

That farcrys 14gb download of "hd" textures still looked worse then some of my old skyrim texture mods that were 1/10 the resource draw is not MSI fault.

Re the card itself. Solid, quiet. Very nice backplate. Even spun down to 0 rpm at desktop.
 
Was using this exact card the other day. Far cry new dawn with HD texture pack @4k showed over 10gb GPU ram usage. Seemed a shame for such a new and expensive card.

That farcrys 14gb download of "hd" textures still looked worse then some of my old skyrim texture mods that were 1/10 the resource draw is not MSI fault.

Re the card itself. Solid, quiet. Very nice backplate. Even spun down to 0 rpm at desktop.

At the very least NVIDIA could have added another 1GB GDDR6 chip to the 2080 Ti to make it a 12GB GPU. This shows you how stingy and greedy (at the same time) NVIDIA is.

I have some 2080 8GB cards, brand new, for builds that were ordered. I will stick to my 1080 Ti cards for this generation. I'm not going to spend money to watch demos or play games with DLSS on jus so they can look worse.

Nice review. Feeling a small tinge of buyer's remorse. Bought the EVGA FTW3 a week and a half or so ago, and not many days later the price dropped 100$. Now reading this review, could have saved even more for same performance. also need to install an exhaust fan to get my overclocked temps out of the 70s, or at least lower in that bracket. but nonetheless, happy with the performance so far @3840x1600. i should have kept reserching and reading the reviews, this MSI card seems legit.

Don't feel bad. You got a higher quality PCB :D with that EVGA FTW3.

On another note, the way Jensen Huang sold us DLSS and real-time ray tracing, six months later, he looks more like Elizabeth Holmes than Steve Jobs. Just some food for thought ;)
 
Hah! You reviewed my video card. Bought this day one ..... paid $1,249.99 for it plus tax.

Love this video card.
 
Great review. I love everything about MSI GPUs. They do a fantastic job. Plus they maintain Afterburner. By far my favorite tool.
 
Nice review. Feeling a small tinge of buyer's remorse. Bought the EVGA FTW3 a week and a half or so ago, and not many days later the price dropped 100$. Now reading this review, could have saved even more for same performance. also need to install an exhaust fan to get my overclocked temps out of the 70s, or at least lower in that bracket. but nonetheless, happy with the performance so far @3840x1600. i should have kept reserching and reading the reviews, this MSI card seems legit.

EVGA has the best warranty service so if you ever have a problem you'll be glad you bought from them.
 
Hah! You reviewed my video card. Bought this day one ..... paid $1,249.99 for it plus tax.

Love this video card.

I've never seen people so happy to pay MSRP for a piece of computer hardware as with these ridiculously overpriced GPUs.

Oh, and never love something that can't love you back :D
 
I've never seen people so happy to pay MSRP for a piece of computer hardware as with these ridiculously overpriced GPUs.

Oh, and never love something that can't love you back :D

I wouldn't honestly say anyone is happy to pay these inflated prices. Unfortunately if you want to buy the best, there is no choice at this time. I myself would rather have held off, but needed a card and nothing else really suited my needs. It sucks, but other than voting with your wallet, what other choice is there.
 
I've never seen people so happy to pay MSRP for a piece of computer hardware as with these ridiculously overpriced GPUs.

Oh, and never love something that can't love you back :D


For some of us, the money is secondary to the excitement of owning these high end PC components.
 
I wouldn't honestly say anyone is happy to pay these inflated prices. Unfortunately if you want to buy the best, there is no choice at this time. I myself would rather have held off, but needed a card and nothing else really suited my needs. It sucks, but other than voting with your wallet, what other choice is there.

Some rumors are circulating about Jensen Huang, about how he came up with the tech in the RTX cards and why pricing was bumped up so much this generation.

One of the working theories is that not too long ago he was taken as a host by a Goa'uld named Imhotep. Jensen, however, did not enjoy the experience very much, so he killed Imhotep simply by sheer will. It is the only known case where a human host kills its Goa'uld captor. Not only did Jensen kill him, but he absorbed Imhotep's mind into his own, while the Goa'uld's tiny body blended into Jensen's. Now the guy has Naquadah coursing through his veins and thousands of years of genetic memory passed on by the Goa'uld to him. His knowledge of technology and what is possible is far superior than that of any other human being on this planet. At this point, I would not dare question him. Rumor has it that Jensen came up with the tech that went into RTX GPUs a couple of weeks before the official unveiling in Cologne, Germany last year, while the guy was on his lunch break. He was so eager to implement it right away and announce it the following day, that other NVIDIA employees had to calm him down and talk some sense into him. Rumor also has it that he wanted to use crystal technology, rather than obsolete silicon-based tech, so that we could have true real-time ray tracing (the real deal), but again, the voice of sanity prevailed at NVIDIA. Other company execs were worried that if the secret got out about their superior technological capabilities, the implications that this would have on the company and the industry as a whole. In the meantime, NVIDIA is keeping prices high to stave off any suspicion about the advanced alien technology that the company acquired via its Founder and Lord, Jensen Huang, who dare I remind you has successfully blended with a Goa'uld. It's also because everyone at NVIDIA wants to get their bonuses, of course, and realize their materialistic dreams. In the meantime, the other NVIDIA execs are trying to keep Jensen busy because the guy comes up with something new every five minutes or so. Now they just sent him off to complete the Mellanox acquisition, to keep him busy for a couple of days.

jense-goauld.jpg


Another rumor has it that NVIDIA is trying to kill SLI without doing too much damage to their brand. After collecting anonymous data for many years via GeForce Experience, NVIDIA realized that many enthusiasts would buy two GPUs (at least) and install them in their system regardless of how they scale in SLI, just because they want their systems to look good like they're all ballers. By increasing the pricing to new astronomical and never before seen hights on for their last two top tier GPUs, the RTX 2080 Ti and the RTX TITAN, those same enthusiasts now have to be contempt with only one GPU, leaving their systems to look empty, like every other mear mortal's gaming rig. They left the RTX 2080's pricing between mildly-within-reach and close to absolute-hell, because, well, NVIDIA still likes to make money, and because Jensen is still partly human, the guy has a heart, and is thinking of you lowly enthusiasts who need to fill up those otherwise empty computer cases.

The last rumor that I heard about why the RTX cards are priced so high is that NVIDIA was sitting on a lot of excess inventory of high-end and mid-range Pascal GPUs. By artificially inflating the prices of their latest generation of GPUs, NVIDIA wanted to persuade customers to instead buy up their old stock at or over the original MSRP. I don't give to much creedance to this rummor.

So, I'm on the fence. What do you guys think?
 
Hah! You reviewed my video card. Bought this day one ..... paid $1,249.99 for it plus tax.

Love this video card.

Dat price doe :jawdrop::rage:.....
I'd buy one of I didn't feel sooner or later there was gonna be 7nm team green.1080ti to this just didn't feel too compelling at least from the benches I've seen. $1200 is tough. Smoke em if you got em I guess. If they continue this pricing I'm doomed, or divorced...
 
Dat price doe :jawdrop::rage:.....
I'd buy one of I didn't feel sooner or later there was gonna be 7nm team green.1080ti to this just didn't feel too compelling at least from the benches I've seen. $1200 is tough. Smoke em if you got em I guess. If they continue this pricing I'm doomed, or divorced...

We need a subsidized GPU insurance program for gamers and enthusiats to make GPU-care affordable again. /s
 
Seems to be a real shame to have all these 2080Ti cards with such a tight limit on TDP. I'd love to see what a waterblock and uncapped power could achieve with these.
 
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