Card Layout and Photos
The SUPRIM X’s design tones things down from the gaming-focused Gaming X. Using brushed aluminum for the center of the fan shroud accented with dark grey at the ends with the triple fan cooler. They use an angular design that manages to add depth to a mostly flat surface with small angles as well as the V-shaped lighting accents between each of the fans. The holes for the fans are all octagons as well.
In MSI’s Tri Frozr 2S cooler, the three fans themselves are an axial design that blows down into the horizontally arranged heatsink. If you look past the fans you can see that the heatsink has a staggered ribbed shape at the top which helps spread the airflow across a wide area. The fans have 10 twisted blades and I thought that they had a ring around the outside but every two blades are paired up, giving them extra structure. These are what MSI calls their TORX 4.0 fans. In the center, the MSI dragon logo is embossed into the metal grey sticker and polished which looks amazing and is a lot cleaner than the normal fan stickers which normally have a bright red. These match perfectly with the color neutral look of the SUPRIM X. MSI also added a nice and hard to see touch with the machined edges around the fan on the brushed aluminum section of the shroud having a gold finish which looks great on the silver/grey.
I have to just point out, this card is HUGE. Without a doubt, this is the biggest card I’ve had in the office though to be fair I haven’t had the RTX 3090 in just yet. It is 61mm or 2.4 inches thick which is a full triple slot design. MSI has it listed at 140mm or 5.5 inches tall which are you can see puts the section above the top of the PCI bracket at 35mm. Then for length, it is 336mm or 13.2 inches long. When measuring it I had to get out my full measuring tape because my cool Nvidia ruler wasn’t long enough to cover it all. For comparison, the Nvidia Founders Edition comes in at 11.2 or 285mm long, is a normal 2 slot card, and is 4.4 inches or 112mm tall. The Asus RTX 3080 Strix which is a close competitor for the SUPRIM is 12.53 " x 5.51 " x 2.27 " which is the same height but almost an inch less on the length and .3 on the thickness.
The top edge of the RTX 3080 SUPRIM X adds to the simple lighting that the front had between the fans with hockey stick like light diffusers near the ends as well as a light bar that goes around the top of the branding on top. This includes a mirror that has the SUPRIM branding that is also backlit with addressable RGB and the Geforce RTX branding as well. Then down near the end of the card, the SUPRIM has three 8-pin power connections. MSI dropped the new 12-pin connection that Nvidia used on the Founders Edition for the standard connection. The PCB drops down to tuck these down farther to prevent the power connections from being a fitment issue with the tall card. In addition to having three power plugs (and not having the 12-pin), having the plugs this far down on the card also tells us right away that MSI has a fully custom PCB for the SUPRIM. They also tucked away a small switch right in front of the power plugs as well with it marked as gaming and silent. This flips between the dual BIOS which while they both have the same boost clock one is focused more on noise as the name might indicate.
When we look around at the edges of the RTX 3080 SUPRIM X it is clear right away what MSI used the extra thickness for. They packed a huge heatsink in here which they even were careful to wrap it around every area possible including caps and the power connectors. The top of the card has an additional metal support to help keep things straight as well. Then the entire bottom of the card is completely uncovered for airflow as well as a good majority of the top as well. The bottom view is great at letting us see the heatpipes. MSI used what they call core pipes which are machined squared off for the area where all of the pipes are on top of the GPU and memory, being squared off not round takes the most advantage of the space and gets the best contact surface. These sit on top of a nickel-plated copper baseplate which is combined with dedicated cooling for the memory which have their own heatpipe and baseplate.
For the back of the RTX 3080, SUPRIM X MSI didn’t hold anything back. This is the area most likely to be seen in most builds. They stuck with the machined elegant styling back here with a thick brushed aluminum backplate. The brushed finish has two different directions to it, which like on the front adds more depth even when in this case it is a completely flat surface. The backplate isn’t just a styling touch, MSI has used thermal pads places around the GPU backplate hole and on both ends to use this as a proper heatspreader. The GPU backplate hole has the same machined and polished edges with that gold touch. Then for branding, they do have the GeForce RTX branding as well as SUPRIM in a large font. But it is the MSI logo cut into the back that I like the most, even when I normally hate having too much branding. This is backlit with a mirror finish for the dragon shape. The badge, as well as all of the branding, is of course upside down, so when installed in a traditional case it is all easier to see.
The PCI bracket end of the SUPRIM is mostly covered with surprisingly small vent holes. But what surprised me is with everything that this end didn’t end up with the same over the top treatment with maybe a black finish. It does have a slight tint to the normal chrome finish, but that’s about it. For I/O you have what is the standard layout these days with three DisplayPorts on the top then one HDMI down at the bottom. MSI did make things easier with stamps labeling them, the HDMI is between the ports then all of the DisplayPorts have the small logo above each port.
Because of the size, I was curious just how much the 3080 SUPRIM weighed so I did get it on the scale. It came in at 4 pounds and 2 ounces.
I also can’t forget the RGB lighting as well right? I mentioned their locations previously. But on the fan side, there are two V-shaped arrows with addressable RGB LEDs. Then up on top, the hockey stick LED diffusers run nearly the full length of the card, but it is the SUPRIM logo up on top with the mirror finish that I like the most. The MSI dragon on the back looks great as well, with more detail being visible when it is lit up. Overall the lighting isn’t overdone or gaudy but there is still enough there to let you match the SUPRIM with the rest of your build if that is what you prefer. I also like the MSI didn’t just use the lighting to light up their branding, though they did light up their branding as well.