Last year, NVIDIA introduced their latest Turing based GeForce RTX 20 series graphics cards, which made a complete departure from traditional GPU design and created a hybrid GPU architecture that would include a range of new technologies to power the next-generation immersive gaming experiences
The GeForce RTX 20 series was the enablement of real-time raytracing which is the holy grail of graphics and something NVIDIA took 10 years to perfect. In addition to raytracing, NVIDIA also aimed to place bets on AI which would go on to play a key role in powering features such as DLSS or Deep Learning Super Sampling.
While the GeForce RTX 20 series was generally well-received in the tech industry, the launch didn’t go without a few issues. The first and foremost problem with the new cards was the heavily taxing RTX features and a few key titles that supported it. Since the technology was new, it needed time to deliver results and it felt kind of rushed on NVIDIA’s part. The second was the pricing with each tier getting a bump in price over its predecessor.
But all of that changes this month! In less than a year, NVIDIA is now bringing forth their new RTX SUPER lineup. Think of it as the original Turing lineup but supercharged with better performance & more sensible prices. The lineup includes three cards, the GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER, GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER, and GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER. Termed in our original review as what Turing should’ve been in the first place, the GeForce RTX SUPER is to bring more gamers over the RTX bandwagon.
NVIDIA GeForce RTX SUPER Pricing Per Segment
When it comes to prices, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER is going to retail at $699 US, the RTX 2070 SUPER is going to retail at $499 US and the RTX 2060 SUPER is going to retail at $399 US. One would ask the question that if the prices are the same as they were before, what has changed?
Well, everything aside from the prices has been upgraded. When it comes to specifications, the RTX 2080 SUPER is going to offer around 10% better performance than the Titan XP for $699 US. The RTX 2070 SUPER is said to offer 16% better performance than the RTX 2070 for $499US, putting it right under the current RTX 2080 and the RTX 2060 SUPER is said to be 15% faster than the RTX 2060 for $399 US which puts it at 1% slower than the existing RTX 2070 for a much lower price.
What happens to the existing cards? The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 and GeForce RTX 2070 are entirely replaced by their SUPER equivalents so NVIDIA and their AIBs would no longer be making more of those. There might be heavy promotions and discounts on the existing stock to clear up an inventory. As for the RTX 2060, it would exist because of the $349 US price point which makes it the perfect step up to RTX performance and feature set in this category. All cards below that fall in the GTX 16 series portfolio which offer the Turing architecture but exclude RTX features. Following is what the latest pricing chart for NVIDIA GeForce lineup looks like.
NVIDIA GeForce GPU Segment/Tier Prices
| Graphics Segment | 2014-2015 | 2015-2016 | 2016-2017 | 2017-2018 | 2018-2019 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Titan Tier | Titan X (Maxwell) | Titan X (Pascal) | Titan Xp (Pascal) | Titan V (Volta) | Titan RTX (Turing) |
| Price | $999 US | $1199 US | $1199 US | $2999 US | $2499 US |
| Ultra Enthusiast Tier | GeForce GTX 980 Ti | GeForce GTX 980 Ti | GeForce GTX 1080 Ti | GeForce RTX 2080 Ti | GeForce RTX 2080 Ti |
| Price | $649 US | $649 US | $699 US | $999 US | $999 US |
| Enthusiast Tier | GeForce GTX 980 | GeForce GTX 1080 | GeForce GTX 1080 | GeForce RTX 2080 | GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER |
| Price | $549 US | $549 US | $549 US | $699 US | $699 US |
| High-End Tier | GeForce GTX 970 | GeForce GTX 1070 | GeForce GTX 1070 | GeForce RTX 2070 | GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER |
| Price | $329 US | $379 US | $379 US | $499 US | $499 US |
| Mainstream Tier | GeForce GTX 960 | GeForce GTX 1060 | GeForce GTX 1060 | GeForce GTX 1060 | GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER GeForce RTX 2060 GeForce GTX 1660 Ti GeForce GTX 1660 |
| Price | $199 US | $249 US | $249 US | $249 US | $399 US $349 US $279 US $219 US |
| Entry Tier | GTX 750 Ti GTX 750 |
GTX 950 | GTX 1050 Ti GTX 1050 |
GTX 1050 Ti GTX 1050 |
GTX 1650 |
| Price | $149 US $119 US |
$149 US | $139 US $109 US |
$139 US $109 US |
$149 US |
In addition to the specs/price update, NVIDIA’s RTX technologies are being widely adopted major game engines and APIs such as Microsft DirectX (DXR), Vulkan, Unreal Engine, Unity and Frostbite. While there were only three RTX titles around the launch of the RTX 20 series cards, NVIDIA claims that they have at least 13 new titles coming soon which would utilize their RTX feature set to offer real-time ray tracing. These titles include the hugely anticipated Cyberpunk 2077, DOOM Eternal, Call of Duty Modern Warfare, Watch Dogs Legion, Wolfenstein Youngblood, and Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2. In addition to that, with the upcoming consoles confirmed to feature ray tracing, developers can also make use of the RTX technology to fine-tune future games for the GeForce RTX hardware.
So for this review, I will be taking a look at the MSI GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER Gaming X Trio. This card uses the renowned triple fan Gaming X Trio cooling solution and a custom PCB design which delivers better performance than the reference variant while supporting a factory overclock. The card retails for $729.99 US which is $30 US more than the reference Founders Edition but with the added feature set of the custom design.
The NVIDIA GeForce RTX SUPER Family
The NVIDIA GeForce RTX SUPER series is currently composed of three cards, the GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER, GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER, and GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER. Nothing has changed in terms of architecture and the cards feature the same 12nm FinFET process node. Only the assigned GPU config has changed on all three cards along with a new shroud design. But before we get into the visual changes, let’s talk specs.
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER – Full TU104 GPU, 15.5 Gbps Memory
Based on the previous information and what we have seen so far, NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER would be using the TU104-450 GPU with 3072 CUDA cores, 8 GB of GDDR6 memory and would be clocked in at 15.5 Gbps along with a 256-bit bus interface. This would boost the total bandwidth to 496 GB/s which is just shy of that sweet 500 GB/s figures which could now easily be achieved with a slight overclock.
The core clocks would be maintained at 1650 MHz base and 1815 MHz boost. The card would have a TDP of 250W and would feature 8 Giga Rays/second worth of ray tracing horsepower. The card is expected to launch on the 23rd of July.
In terms of performance, the GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER is said to be around 10-15% faster on average than the Titan XP which makes it a lot faster than the GTX 1080 Ti, a card that the RTX 2080 was only able to match. The card is rated to deliver 11 TFLOPs of FP32 and 11 TFLOPs of INT32 Compute power and the tensor operations are rated at 89 TOPs which are clearly faster than RTX 2080s 10.1 TFLOPs FP32 and around 81 TOPs worth of horsepower.
It is still unclear about the wattage of this card but it is expected to hit the market later this month for $699 US. Those who have been saving up to buy a graphics card would find this a great high-end card compared to the original RTX 2080 or the Radeon VII.
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER Official Photo Gallery:
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER – The Navi Killer For $499 US
The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER is the replacement for the RTX 2070 and while the RTX 2070 was not as popular as its predecessors, the GTX 1070 or the GTX 970, the RTX 2070 SUPER might actually change that. For $499 US, the existing RTX 2070 was clearly priced a bit too high. Even if it was faster than the RTX 1080 ($649 US), the price point was higher for the card to get attention from the mainstream audience who had previously seen the **70 tier cards under $400 US. The RTX 2070 SUPER doesn’t change the price point but it changes the specs and now it’s no longer faster than the GTX 1080, it’s faster than the GTX 1080 Ti and just around the same performance of a reference RTX 2080.
In terms of specifications, the GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER is everything that the rumors have told us. The GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER would be utilizing the Turing TU104-410 GPU with 2560 CUDA Cores, 184 TMUs, and 64 ROPs. It would also feature 320 Tensor Cores and 40 RT cores. The clock speeds would be maintained at 1605 MHz base and 1770 MHz boost with the TGP (Total Graphics Power) being set at 215W. The chip will be accompanied by 8 GB of GDDR6 memory operating at 14Gbps along with a 256-bit wide bus interface, delivering a total bandwidth of 448 GB/s.
When it comes to competition, the card would compete against AMD’s recently announced, 7nm RDNA based Radeon RX 5700 XT which does cost $100 US less but doesn’t have the RTX feature set that GeForce cards do support. In addition to that, while the Radeon RX 5700 XT was shown to be about 10% faster than the RTX 2070 on average, the RTX 2070 SUPER is about 16% faster average and up to 24% faster. It also has a maximum compute power of 9.1 TFLOPs FP32 / 9.1 TFLOPs INT 32 and 72 Tensor OPs. Another surprising fact about this card is that it has 10W lower power than the Radeon offering and the reference design offers two axial tech-based fans compared to just one on AMD’s reference design. So in an all reference battle, you know who the real winner would turn out to be.
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER Official Photo Gallery:
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER – More VRAM, More Cores, Higher Clocks For $399
Out of all the cards, the GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER has received one of the major upgrades. The GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER would be utilizing the full Turing TU106-410 GPU die with 2176 CUDA Cores, 136 TMUs, and 64 ROPs. It would also feature 272 Tensor Cores and 32 RT cores. The clock speeds would be maintained at 1470 MHz base and 1650 MHz boost with the TGP (Total Graphics Power) being set at 175W. The chip will be accompanied with 8 GB of GDDR6 memory operating at 14Gbps along with a 256-bit wide bus interface, delivering a total bandwidth of 448 GB/s. The Vram would be the biggest upgrade over the 6 GB RTX 2060 which also featured a cut down 192-bit bus interface.
When it comes to performance, you are paying $100 US lower for the same performance as the GeForce RTX 2070. This places the card ideally against AMD’s Radeon RX 5700 (non-XT) which has been priced at $349 US. The GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER is 15% faster on average than the existing RTX 2060 in 1440p.
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER Official Photo Gallery:
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 20 SUPER Lineup Specifications:
| Graphics Card Name | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GPU Architecture | Turing GPU (TU106) | Turing GPU (TU106) | Turing GPU (TU106) | Turing GPU (TU104) | Turing GPU (TU104) | Turing GPU (TU104) | Turing GPU (TU102) |
| Process | 12nm FNN | 12nm FNN | 12nm FNN | 12nm FNN | 12nm FNN | 12nm FNN | 12nm FNN |
| Die Size | 445mm2 | 445mm2 | 445mm2 | 545mm2 | 545mm2 | 545mm2 | 754mm2 |
| Transistors | 10.6 Billion | 10.6 Billion | 10.6 Billion | 13.6 Billion | 13.6 Billion | 13.6 Billion | 18.6 Billion |
| CUDA Cores | 1920 Cores | 2176 Cores | 2304 Cores | 2560 Cores | 2944 Cores | 3072 Cores | 4352 Cores |
| TMUs/ROPs | 120/48 | 136/64 | 144/64 | 184/64 | 192/64 | 192/64 | 288/96 |
| GigaRays | 5 Giga Rays/s | 6 Giga Rays/s | 6 Giga Rays/s | 7 Giga Rays/s | 8 Giga Rays/s | 8 Giga Rays/s | 10 Giga Rays/s |
| Cache | 4 MB L2 Cache | 4 MB L2 Cache | 4 MB L2 Cache | 4 MB L2 Cache | 4 MB L2 Cache | 4 MB L2 Cache | 6 MB L2 Cache |
| Base Clock | 1365 MHz | 1470 MHz | 1410 MHz | 1605 MHz | 1515 MHz | 1650 MHz | 1350 MHz |
| Boost Clock | 1680 MHz | 1650 MHz | 1620 MHz 1710 MHz OC |
1770 MHz | 1710 MHz 1800 MHz OC |
1815 MHz | 1545 MHz 1635 MHz OC |
| Compute | 6.5 TFLOPs | 7.5 TFLOPs | 7.5 TFLOPs | 9.1 TFLOPs | 10.1 TFLOPs | 11.1 TFLOPs | 13.4 TFLOPs |
| Memory | Up To 6 GB GDDR6 | Up To 8 GB GDDR6 | Up To 8 GB GDDR6 | Up To 8 GB GDDR6 | Up To 8 GB GDDR6 | Up To 8 GB GDDR6 | Up To 11 GB GDDR6 |
| Memory Speed | 14.00 Gbps | 14.00 Gbps | 14.00 Gbps | 14.00 Gbps | 14.00 Gbps | 15.50 Gbps | 14.00 Gbps |
| Memory Interface | 192-bit | 256-bit | 256-bit | 256-bit | 256-bit | 256-bit | 352-bit |
| Memory Bandwidth | 336 GB/s | 448 GB/s | 448 GB/s | 448 GB/s | 448 GB/s | 496 GB/s | 616 GB/s |
| Power Connectors | 8 Pin | 8 Pin | 8 Pin | 8+6 Pin | 8+8 Pin | 8+8 Pin | 8+8 Pin |
| TDP | 160W | 175W | 185W (Founders) 175W (Reference) |
215W | 225W (Founders) 215W (Reference) |
250W | 260W (Founders) 250W (Reference) |
| Starting Price | $349 US | $399 US | $499 US | $499 US | $699 US | $699 US | $999 US |
| Price (Founders Edition) | $349 US | $399 US | $599 US | $499 US | $699 US | $699 US | $1,199 US |
| Launch | January 2019 | July 2019 | October 2018 | July 2019 | September 2018 | July 2019 | September 2018 |
In case you want to read our full NVIDIA Turing GPU architecture deep dive and GeForce RTX 2080 & GeForce RTX 2080 Founders Edition review, head over to this link.
The MSI GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER Gaming X Trio is the flagship variant in the RTX SUPER family. It is a very powerful graphics card, rocking one of the best design schemes I have seen to date on a triple-slot graphics card and it is also very bulky. In overall size and weight, this thing is just tons of massive performance packed in one triple slot form factor.
In addition to the custom design, the RTX 2080 SUPER Gaming X Trio comes with a non-reference PCB, featuring a 10+2 phase design that features higher quality components than the reference variant which is already a really good design by itself. In terms of clock speeds, the graphics card features the same base frequency of 1650 MHz but the boost clock is rated at 1845 MHz over the Founders boost of 1815 MHz.
Following are some of the features of the MSI GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER Gaming X Trio before we go in detail:
MSI GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER Gaming X Trio Graphics Card Gallery:
The MSI Gaming X Trio Graphics Cards With Next-Gen Tri-Frozr Cooling
With the differences out of the way, now let’s talk about the similarities and the main highlights of the Gaming X Trio design. The Gaming X Trio is a toned-down variant of the much higher-end card, the MSI Lightning. Both cards use advanced Tri-Frozr coolers which are the replacement of the MSI Twin Frozr series which have been widely used in current and last generation graphics cards from MSI.
The GeForce RTX 20 Series GAMING TRIO is the return of MSI’s beastly three-fan graphics card. Only reserved for the most powerful of GPU’s, the TRIO Series features a mix of black and gunmetal grey with elegant shapes and a classy brushed metal backplate that matches the front.
This looks great with the gorgeous RGB effects found on the front and the side of the card, which can be controlled using MSI’s Mystic Light software and made to synchronize with other RGB components.
MSI has incorporated and refined a couple of things in the new Tri-Frozr design for Gaming X Trio graphics cards. First is the TORX fan 3.0 which uses both traditional and dispersion fan blades to accelerate airflow and push it down in a steady stream. These fans are made up of a double ball bearing design which ensures silent functionality in heavy loads.
The fans are fully compliant with the Zero Frozr Technology and are actually comprised of three areas. All of these would stay at 0 RPM (idle state) if the temperatures don’t exceed 60C. When it does exceed 60C, all fans would start spinning. You can change that through the MSI configuration panel if you want more cooling performance over noise load but it’s a nifty feature which I do like.
In addition to the cooling fans, the heatsink has been designed to be denser by using a wave curved fin design. It allows more air to pass through the fins smoothly, without causing any turbulence that would result in unwanted noise. Airflow Control Technology guides the airflow directly onto the heat pipes, while simultaneously creating more surface area for the air to absorb more heat before leaving the heatsink.
Talking about the heatsink, the massive block is comprised of 8mm copper squared shaped heat pipes with a more concentrated design to transfer heat from the copper base to the heatsink more effectively. The base itself is a solid nickel-plated base plate, transferring heat to the heat pipes in a very effective manner. To top it all off, MSI uses their exclusive Thermal Compound X which is said to offer higher thermal interface and heat transfer compared to traditional TIM applications.
Rocking a classy brushed look, the backplate on the GAMING TRIO series provides a nice visual finish to the card. It also strengthens the card and thanks to some cleverly placed thermal pads even help to keep temperatures low.
The MSI GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER Gaming X Trio graphics card come inside a standard cardboard box. 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. A large picture of the graphics card itself is depicted on the front which gives a nice preview of the Gaming X Trio design.
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 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 box once again greet us with the large GeForce RTX branding. There’s also the mention of 8 GB GDDR6 (RTX 2080) memory available on the card. The higher memory 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 card is 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 heavyweight 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 is 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.
MSI’s Tri Frozr heat sinks are some of the biggest heatsink cooling solutions that I have ever tested. I first tested the Gaming X Trio when MSI released the 1080 Ti variant last year and that was a very aggressive design in its own right. With the RTX 20 series cards, MSI has further refined the Gaming X Trio design. Both cards measure the same at 327 x 140 x 55.6 mm with the RTX 2080 SUPER weighing in at 1582 grams. The card is also slightly taller at 2.7 slots height compared to 2.5 slots height of the previous model.
You would have to keep in mind the height when going for a dual card solution as your case or motherboard PCIe slot combination may not allow such setup. The cooling shroud extends all the way to the back of the PCB and it requires a casing with good interior space for proper installation.
The back of the card features a solid backplate which looks stunning. The backplate offers a lot more functionality than just looks which I will get back to in a bit.
In terms of design, we are looking at an updated version of the Tri Frozr heatsink which is now in its fifth variation. The first variation started off with the GTX 780 Ti Lightning, the second was the 980 Ti Lightning, then came the 1080 Ti Gaming X Trio and soon the 1080 Ti Lightning and now we have the RTX 20 and RTX SUPER Gaming X Trio graphics cards.
The new heatsink looks like a beefed-up version the Gaming X Trio with the main changes being the shroud and heatsink design that feature an aggressive shroud design on the front, absorbing the black and silver color platelets while featuring the RGB emitting four accent points on the front and the side.
Coming to the fans, the card actually features two different fan designs based on the Torx 3.0 system. All three fans combine traditional and dispersion fan blade technology to offer better cooling performance.
The dispersion fan blade technology has a steeper curved blade that accelerates airflow and as such increases effectiveness in keeping the GPU cool. All fans deploy double ball bearing design and can last a long time while operating silently.
Now you might have noticed an odd third fan on the card which is smaller than the rest of the two fans. This fan was made small to accommodate the NVLINK connector slot on the top. The cover on top of the fan has to be removed if you are to use NVLINK functionality. Aside from that, the third smaller fan offers the same TORX 3.0 technology and the same cooling potential as the larger fans on the Gaming X Trio graphics card.
MSI also features their Zero Frozr technology on the Tri Frozr heatsink. This feature won’t spin the fans on the card unless they reach a certain threshold. In the case of the Tri Frozr heatsink, that limit is set to 60C. If the card is operating under 60C, the fans won’t spin which means no extra noise would be generated.
I am back at talking about the full-coverage, full metal-based backplate which both card use. The whole plate is made of solid metal with rounded edges that add to the durability of this card. The brushed silver finish on the backplate gives a unique aesthetic.
There are cutouts in screw placements to easily reach the points on the graphics card. There are open vents for the hot air to move out from the back too. We can also see the MSI Dragon logo on the back which looks stunning. MSI is also using heat pads beneath the backplate which offer more cooling to the electrical circuitry on the PCB.
Gone is SLI and now we have the latest NVLINK gold finger connectors. Both the RTX 2080 Ti and RTX 2080 come with a single NVLINK connector which allows for 2-Way multi-GPU functionality. The RTX 2080 Ti and RTX 2080 are the only cards to support NVLINK connectivity so multi-GPU is only for the high-end spectrum of cards and for good reason. Only these cards have enough bandwidth that can drive another GPU of their tier as anything below wouldn’t have the power to interlink to the other card.
A single x8 NVLINK channel provides 25 GB/s peak bandwidth. There are two x8 links on the TU102 GPU and a single x8 link on the Turing TU104 GPU. The TU102 GPU features 50 GB/s of bandwidth in parallel and 100 GB/s bandwidth bi-directionally. Using NVLINK on high-end cards would be beneficial in high-resolution gaming but there’s a reason NVIDIA still restricts users from doing 3 and 4 way SLI.
Multi-GPU still isn’t optimized so you won’t see much benefits unless you are running the highest end graphics cards. That’s another reason why the RTX 2070 and below are deprived of NVLINK connectors. The NVLINK connectors cost $79 US each and is sold separately. Currently, only NVIDIA is selling them as the AIB cards don’t include any such connectors but that may change once the standard is adopted widely.
With the outsides of the card done, I will now start taking a glance at what’s beneath the hood of these monster graphics cards. The first thing to catch my eye is the humungous fin stack that’s part of the beefy heatsink which the cards utilize.
The large fin stack runs all the way from the front and to the back of the PCB and is so thick that you can barely see through it. It also comes with the wave-curved fin stack design which I want to shed some light on as it is a turn away from traditional fin design and one that may actually offer better cooling on such power-hungry graphics cards such as the Turing based RTX 2080 Ti and RTX 2080.
The heatsink has been designed to be denser by using a wave curved fin design. It allows more air to pass through the fins smoothly, without causing any turbulence that would result in unwanted noise. Airflow Control Technology guides the airflow directly onto the heat pipes, while simultaneously creating more surface area for the air to absorb more heat before leaving the heatsink.
Talking about the heatsink, the massive block is comprised of 8mm copper squared shaped heat pipes with a more concentrated design to transfer heat from the copper base to the heatsink more effectively. The base itself is a solid nickel-plated base plate, transferring heat to the heat pipes in a very effective manner. To top it all off, MSI uses their exclusive Thermal Compound X which is said to offer higher thermal interface and heat transfer compared to traditional TIM applications.
MSI adds extra protection to their impressive PCB by including a rugged anti-bending plate. This also acts as a memory and MOSFET cooling plate while the PWM heatsink with micro fins keeps the VRM cool under stressful conditions.
I/O on the graphics card sticks with the reference scheme which includes three Display Port 1.4a, a single HDMI 2.0b and a single USB Type-C port for VirtualLink connectivity to high-end HMD (Head Mounted Displays).
MSI GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER Gaming X Trio Teardown:
MSI makes use of a 10+2 phase PWM design that includes their Military Class components such as Hi-C Caps, Super Ferrite Chokes, and Japanese Solid Caps. The card also uses the K4Z80325BC-HC16 GDDR6 memory from Samsung that operates at 15.5 Gbps alongside a 256-bit wide memory interface. Now interestingly, these modules are rated to hit 16 Gbps but NVIDIA has toned them down by 0.5 Gbps. The exact reason for this is not stated and DRAM yields don’t seem to be the issue here as the 16 Gbps dies have been in mass production for a while. It could’ve been done to conserve power but that’s just my best guess.
The MSI GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER Gaming X Trio is a very power-hungry graphics card as showcased by its custom design. Being so, it uses a very power-intensive connector configuration which comprises of dual 8 pin connectors. The card is rated at a TDP of 275W officially by MSI.
MSI GeForce RTX SUPER Gaming X Trio Series RGB Lighting Gallery:
MSI Gaming X Trio series cards utilize their Mystic Light RGB technology to offer you a visually pleasing lighting experience on your graphics cards. There are a total of 8 different RGB effects which you can choose from and the cards have five RGB accent points, four on the front and one light bar surrounding the side of the card which looks really good. You can fully customize the RGB lights to your preference using the MSI Mystic Light application from MSI’s web page.
Following is what the graphics card looks like when lit up.
We used the following test system for comparison between the different graphics cards. Latest drivers that were available at the time of testing were used from AMD and NVIDIA on an updated version of Windows 10. All games that were tested were patched to the latest version for better performance optimization for NVIDIA and AMD GPUs.
GPU Test Bench 2019
| CPU | Intel Core i9-9900K @ 4.70 GHz |
|---|---|
| Motherboard | AORUS Z390 Master |
| Video Cards | Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER Gaming OC MSI GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER Gaming X Trio Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER Gaming OC MSI GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Lightning Z MSI GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Gaming X Trio Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Gaming OC Colorful iGame GeForce RTX 2080 TI Vulcan X OC ASUS ROG STRIX GeForce RTX 2080 TI OC NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Founders Edition ASUS ROG STRIX GeForce RTX 2080 OC AORUS GeForce RTX 2080 Xtreme MSI GeForce RTX 2080 Gaming X Trio MSI GeForce RTX 2080 DUKE OC NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Founders Edition MSI GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Gaming X Trio MSI GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Lightning X ASUS ROG STRIX GeForce RTX 2070 OC MSI GeForce RTX 2060 Gaming Z NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Founders Edition MSI GeForce GTX 1660 Ti Gaming X MSI GeForce GTX 1660 Ti Ventus XS MSI GeForce GTX 1660 Gaming X MSI GeForce GTX 1660 Ventus XS MSI GeForce GTX 1070 Ti Titanium MSI GeForce GTX 1070 Armor X OC MSI GeForce GTX 980 Ti Lightning OC Gigabyte Radeon RX Vega 64 (Reference Air) XFX Radeon R9 Fury X Liquid Cooled ASUS ROG STRIX RX 580 OC |
| Memory | G.SKILL Trident Z RGB Series 32GB (4 X 8GB) CL16 3600 MHz |
| Storage | Samsung SSD 960 EVO M.2 (512 GB) |
| Power Supply | ASUS ROG THOR 1200W PSU |
| OS | Windows 10 64-bit |
- All games were tested on 2560×1440 (2K) and 3840×2160 (4K) resolutions.
- Image Quality and graphics configurations have been provided in the screenshots below.
- The “reference” cards are the stock configs while the “overclock” cards are factory overclocked configs provided to us by various AIB partners.
MSI GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER Gaming X Trio Overclocking
Since the card is clocked at overclocked specifications, we are kind of left with limited headroom to overclock. I pushed the core to +140 MHz beyond its overclock profile and +1050 MHz on the video memory.
I had the power and temp target slider maxed out in EVGA Precision X1 so that meant that the GPU was under no restrictions or blocks when it came to overclocking. The clocks were stable after GPU testing for an hour under stress load.
DOOM
In 2016, Id finally released DOOM. My testing wouldn’t be complete without including this title. All cards were capable of delivering ample frame rates at the 1440p resolution using Nightmare settings, so my focus turned to 4K.
Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus
Wolfenstein is back in The New Colossus and features the most fast-paced, gory and brutal FPS action ever! The game once again puts us back in the Nazi-controlled world as BJ Blazkowicz. Set during an alternate future where Nazis won the World War, the game shows that it can be fun and can be brutal to the player and to the enemy too. Powering the new title is once again, id Tech 6 which is much acclaimed after the success that DOOM has become. In a way, ID has regained their glorious FPS roots and are slaying with every new title.
Ultra HQ-AF, Vulkan, Async Compute On *if available, Deferred Rendering and GPU culling off
We tested the game at Ultra settings under the Vulkan API which is standard. Async Compute was enabled for graphics cards that support it while deferred rendering and GPU culling were disabled.
Ashes of The Singularity: Escalation
NVIDIA and AMD have been tweaking the performance of their cards for Ashes of the Singularity since the title released. It was the first to make use of the DirectX 12 API and the first to leverage from the new Async compute technology that makes use of the DX12 renderer to improve performance.
Battlefield V
Battlefield V brings back the action of the World War 2 shooter genre. Using the latest Frostbite tech, the game does a good job of looking gorgeous in all ways possible. From the open world environments to the intense and gun-blazing action, this multiplayer and single player FPS title is one of the best looking Battlefields to date.
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided
Humanity is at war with itself and divided into factions. On one end, we have the pure and on the other, we have the augmented. That is the world where Adam Jensen lives in and this is the world of Deus Ex: Mankind Divided. The game uses the next generation Dawn Engine that was made by IO interactive on the foundation of their Glacier 2 engine. The game features support of DirectX 12 API and is one of the most visually intensive titles that taxes the GPU really hard.
Hitman 2 (DX12 Highest Settings)
Hitman 2 is the highly acclaimed sequel to 2016 Hitman which was a redesign and reimaging of the game from the ground up. With a focus on stealth gameplay through various missions, the game once again lets you play as Agent 47 who embarks on a mission to hunt down the mysterious Shadow Client. The game runs on IO’s Interactive’s Glacier 2 engine which has been updated to deliver amazing visuals and environments on each level while making use of DirectX 12 API.
Shadow of The Tomb Raider
Sequel to The Rise of the Tomb Raider, Shadow of The Tomb Raider is visually enhanced with an updated Foundation Engine that delivers realistic facial animations and the most gorgeous environments ever seen in a Tomb Raider Game. The game is a technical marvel and really shows the power of its graphics engine in the latest title.
Metro Exodus
Metro Exodus continues the journey of Artyom through the nuclear wasteland of Russia and its surroundings. This time, you are set over the Metro, going through various regions and different environments. The game is one of the premier titles to feature NVIDIA’s RTX technology and does well in showcasing the ray-tracing effects in all corners.
Assassins Creed: Origins
Assassins Creed Origins is built by the same team that made Assassins Creed IV: Black Flag. They are known for reinventing the design and game philosophy of the Assassins Creed saga and their latest title shows that. Based in Egypt, the open-world action RPG shows its graphics strength in all corners. It uses the AnvilNext 2.0 engine which boosts the draw distance range and delivers a very impressive graphics display.
We tested the game at maxed settings with TAA enabled and 16x AF. Do note that the game is one of the most demanding titles out in the market and as such tweaks and performance issues are being patched out.
Far Cry 5
Far Cry 5 is a standalone successor to its predecessor and takes place in Hope County, a fictional region of Montana. The main story revolves around doomsday cult the Project at Eden’s Gate and its charismatic leader Joseph Seed. It uses a beefed up Dunia Engine which itself is a modified version of CryEngine from Crytek.
Final Fantasy XV
Grand Theft Auto V
GTA V is the most optimized gaming title that has been made for the PC. It’s so optimized, it even runs on my crap GT 840M based laptop with a smooth FPS on a mix of medium/low settings. I mean what???
Aside from being optimized, GTA V is a great game. It was the Game of The Year for 2013. At 1440p Ultra quality, the game gave us smooth frames on all cards tested.
Ghost Recon: Wildlands
Using the new Anvil Next engine that was developed by Ubisoft Montreal, Ghost Recon: Wildlands goes wild and grand with an open-world setting entirely in Bolivia. This game is a tactical third-person shooter which does seem an awful lot similar to Tom Clancy’s: The Division. The game looks pretty and the wide-scale region of Bolivia looks lovely at all times (Day/Night Cycle).
The Witcher 3 Game of The Year Edition
Witcher 3 is the greatest fantasy RPG of our time. It has a great story, great gameplay mechanics and gorgeous graphics. This is the only game I actually wanted to get a stable FPS at 4K. With GameWorks disabled, I gave all high-end cards the ability to demonstrate their power.
Mass Effect: Andromeda
Being a huge fan of the Mass Effect series, I was highly anticipating the arrival of Andromeda to store shelves. Now that it’s here, I put the fastest gaming card to the test. Using Frostbite, the latest Mass Effect title looks incredibly gorgeous and the open world settings on the different planets immerses you a lot.
Middle Earth: Shadow of War
The successor of 2014’s epic, Shadow of Mordor, Shadow of War continues the previous game’s narrative continuing the story of the ranger Talion and the spirit of the elf lord Celebrimbor, who shares Talion’s body, as they forge a new Ring of Power to amass an army to fight against Sauron. The game uses the latest Firebird Engine developed by Monolith Productions and is very intensive even for modern graphics cards.
Watch Dogs 2
Finally, we have Watch Dogs 2. Gone is Aiden Pearce as the new game takes us away from Chicago and puts us in the shoes of Marcus, a seasoned hacker in San Francisco. Running off the Disrupt engine, the game is based on the DirectX 11 API and is a graphics hungry monster. You can see the results for yourself below:
No graphics card review is complete without evaluating its temperatures and thermal load. The MSI GeForce RTX 20 Gaming X Trio series is fitted with the most advanced version of the Tri-Frozr cooling design. The latest Tri-Frozr cooler features a massive heatsink with multiple heat pipes which extend beyond the aluminum fin-based design that lead towards the incredibly dense heatsink block. The card comes with PWM cooling and an anti-bending plate that keeps the card sturdy and durable in the harshest environments inside your PC.
The patented Torx fan 3.0 design and Zero Frozr technology featured on this card make sure that it delivers the best cooling performance and best acoustics while operating.
Note – We tested load with Kombuster which is known as a ‘power virus’ and can permanently damage the hardware. Use such software at your own risk!
I compiled the power consumption results by testing each card under idle and full stress when the card was running games. Each graphics card manufacturer sets a default TDP for the card which can vary from vendor to vendor depending on the extra clocks or board features they plugin on their custom cards. Default TDP for the RTX 2080 is set at 250W while the MSI custom model has a TDP of 275W.
Also, it’s worth noting that the 12nm FFN process from TSMC is a refinement of their 16nm FF node. NVIDIA is cramping even larger amount of transistors and more cores than their previous cards, making it one of the densest chip built to date. It’s likely to consume a lot of power and the results are reflective of that.
The fastest of the three RTX SUPER cards is finally here in the form of the GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER which delivers better performance than the RTX 2080 for the same price. In this review, I found out that the RTX 2080 SUPER is good enough to handle all modern titles at 1440p and 4K resolutions and the added tensor/RT performance delivers increased performance in titles that utilize NVIDIA’s ray-tracing features.
In terms of design, the RTX 2080 SUPER is equipped with the fastest GDDR6 memory chips which run at 15.5 Gbps. The DRAM chips are actually 16 Gbps certified so users would have a lot of head-room for overclocking them however it’s disappointing that no AIBs provide an out of box OC on the memory chips. The GPU gets a nice bump in clocks by MSI and the performance increase can be seen there. The extra cores and the faster memory combine to give a 5-10% performance jump over the RTX 2080 which isn’t much but given you’re getting a boost at the same price of $699 US ($729 US in the case of the Gaming X Trio model), the upgrade is welcome.
Most importantly, the RTX 2080 already gave the AMD Radeon VII a hard time but with the RTX 2080 SUPER, the card is most definitely a no go considering the better performance and extra features you get on the RTX SUPER 2080. But with that said, the RTX 2080 SUPER is also the least exciting part in the RTX SUPER family. The RTX 2070 SUPER offers the most value in terms of GPU performance while the RTX 2060 SUPER got a huge upgrade to its core specs.
The RTX 2080 SUPER, on the other hand, has minor changes and a performance uplift in single-digits. The RTX 2080 was already the least exciting part in the GeForce RTX family considering that it offered performance similar to a GeForce GTX 1080 Ti and the RTX 2080 SUPER only manages to push it up by a 7% avg increase. I think those who have been waiting to get an RTX 2080 should look for an RTX 2080 SUPER instead but other than that, there’s not much you should be excited for with this part.
As for the cooling solution, it’s a big improvement in design and uses over the previous Gaming X Trio’s Tri-Frozr solution. It provides superior cooling performance than the Founders Edition and does so while looking phenomenal. The RGB is not overdone and the Mystic Light cuts on the front and sides provide really good aesthetics of the card itself. The MSI GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER is one of the best 2080 SUPER models that you can find in the market for a price of $729.99 US, offering a stunning cooler design, massive heatsink and a nice factory overclock of just $30 US more than the reference model.
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