MSI RTX 3080 Gaming X Trio Review

MSI RTX 3080 Gaming X Trio Review

Introduction

We’ve already seen how incredible the Ampere version of the Nvidia RTX cards is thanks to the Founders Edition we reviewed on Monday. Naturally many of you have been holding on to your pennies to discover how the partner cards perform, and whether MSI, ASUS and Gigabyte can bring even more to the table than the Founders Edition RTX 3080 did.

Rather than go over again what the RTX 3080 changes – namely more memory, faster memory, more cores, more performance, lower price tag – we’re just focussing today on what the partner cards have to offer.

This particular review is aimed squarely at a card which had enormous sales numbers in the last generation, the MSI Gaming X Trio, here in Ampere RTX 3080 version. Is it still as good as it was when it was an RTX 2080? Can a more standard cooler design bring lower temperatures and higher performance than the fast flow/exhaust combination on the Nvidia card?

There is, of course, only one way to find out.

Technical Specifications

Straight away we can spot two big changes from the Gaming X Trio when compared to the Nvidia card we reviewed on Monday. Firstly the card can boost 105 MHz higher than the Nvidia offering which should bring some extra performance in our stock tests. The most notable change from a user point of view is that instead of the strange 12 pin power input the Founders Edition had, the MSI Gaming X Trio has a more familiar power input setup, with three 8 pin PCIe connectors on the right hand side rather than in the middle.

MSI RTX 3080 Gaming X Trio Review Â