MSI RTX 3080 12GB SuprimX Review

Introduction

As is always the case here at OC3D Towers, when a new graphics card gets released we have a few models to test. With the newest RTX 3080 on the table in it's 12GB guise with extra CUDA Cores, it is good that the two cards we have to test are two of the best of the 3000 series in the form of the ASUS Strix and, here, the excellent MSI SuprimX.

Whenever we think of high end MSI graphics cards we imagine the Lightning models that brought them so much fame and glory. However, the move to the SuprimX saw similar levels of high quality cards. Boasting a huge cooler and blazing fast clock speeds the MSI SuprimX RTX 3080 12GB promises to be the best an RTX 3080 can be without moving up into the rarified air of the RTX 3080 Ti. You're getting more CUDA Cores and more, faster, memory. Add that to the Low Hash Rate that should, hopefully, prevent many of the supply issues that plagued the early Ampere cards availability.

Naturally the important thing that we care about is whether this is faster than the RTX 3080 that preceded it, and if so by how much?

Technical Specifications

The main changes from the original RTX 3080 and the newer 12GB model are, rather obviously, the upgrade in the memory to the same interface and capacity as that we saw on the RTX 3080 Ti - 12GB @ 384-bit - and another 256 CUDA Cores to help push along your polygons. The clock speed sits somewhere between the two, although more at the RTX 3080 end of the scale.