In addition to the Nvidia RTX 4080 Founders Edition that I have already taken a look at for the launch, we did also receive an aftermarket card as well. MSI sent over their RTX 4080 Gaming X Trio which will be the first aftermarket 4000 series card we have had in the office. Because of that, I am excited to see how it performs differently compared to the Founders Edition, especially with an overclock and a completely different outlook on how to keep the card cool. Beyond that, I’m also curious to see what MSI is doing for styling this generation so let’s dig in and check it out.

Product Name: MSI RTX 4080 Gaming X Trio

Review Sample Provided by: MSI

Written by: Wes Compton

Amazon Affiliate Link: HERE

 

Specifications

Model Name

GeForce RTX™ 4080 16GB GAMING X TRIO

Graphics Processing Unit

NVIDIA® GeForce RTX™ 4080 16GB

Interface

PCI Express® Gen 4

Boost Clocks

2595 MHz

Cuda® Cores

9728 Units

Memory Speed

22.4 Gbps

Memory

16GB GDDR6X

Memory Bus

256-bit

Output

DisplayPort x 3 (v1.4a)

HDMI™ x 1 (Supports 4K@120Hz HDR, 8K@60Hz HDR, and Variable Refresh Rate as specified in HDMI 2.1a)

Hdcp Support

Y

Power Connectors

16-pin x 1

Recommended PSU

850 W (Min.750W)

Card Dimension (mm)

337 x 140 x 67 mm

Weight (card / package)

1876 g / 2816 g

Directx Version Support

12 Ultimate

Opengl Version Support

4.6

Maximum Displays

4

G-Sync® Technology

Y

Digital Maximum Resolution

7680x4320

Warranty

3-Years

 

Before getting into testing I did also run GPUz to double-check that our clock speeds match up with the specifications. The 4080 Gaming X Trio came in the silent setting and running at 2595 MHz clock speed which is overclocked over the stock speed we saw on the RTX 4080 Founders Edition which ran at 2505 MHz. This also documents the BIOS version of our test card and the driver which was the pre-release driver that Nvidia provided.

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Packaging

The MSI RTX 4080 Gaming X Trio’s box was more of a traditional shape than the past two Founders Edition cards we have had in the office. MSI also has the box for the 4080 Gaming X Trio looking a lot like past MSI Gaming video cards. The front of the box has a huge picture of the card right in the middle which is great for shopping in retail. The picture has the RGB lighting on and to go with that in the background there are neon-like RGB lines. The top left corner has the MSI Gaming dragon badge and below the card picture in the bottom left you have the Gaming X Trio model name. Then the bottom right has the black and green Nvidia wrap around which has the GeForce RTX 4080 model name and the 16GB GDDR6X above that.

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Around on the back, the wrap-around wraps around to the back with the green and grey section at the bottom that has a few of the basic Nvidia features. MSI has a very small specification listing here as well but it just tells you the memory size, memory bus size, and display outputs. None of the important information like the card dimensions or the overclock speeds are listed here. Above all of that MSI has broken down some of their key features for things like the Tri Frozr 3 cooler, Torx Fan 5.0, and their core pipe heatpipes with descriptions of each of those but details are scarce. There is also another picture of the 4080 Gaming X Trio on the right side.

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Inside the box is a cardboard tray. This has a foam layer on top and under it you have the 4080 Gaming X Trio wrapped up in a static protective bag sitting in its cutout section in a thick foam tray. There is also another cutout for the accessories and under the card, there was the documentation.

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For documentation the 4080 Gaming X Trio just came with a universal MSI quick users guide which also has QR codes on the front for Nvidia or AMD installations. The 4080 Gaming X Trio did come with two accessories and both are important. Because of the size of the card, MSI did include a stamped sheet metal support bracket. This is finished in black and has a few glossy black stripes that match the styling on the card. It also has Gaming Trio printed on it as well. There is a rubber bumper on the top to support the card and it attaches to your PCI brackets for strength. Then the 4080 Gaming X Trio also came with the same three 8-pin to single 12HPWR connection that the RTX 4080 Founders Edition came with. This cable has the Nvidia logo on it and is the same cable that the high-end RTX 3000 Series cards came with as well. I know the four-to-one cables that came with the RTX 4090s have been having issues but as of right now there hasn’t been a specific cause for those issues worked out and this is a different cable than used with the 4090s.  

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Card Layout and Photos

Well MSI has gone a completely different direction that the Founders Edition card with the 4080 Gaming X Trio. As the name suggests it is a three fan design and MSI has stuck with their “Gaming” look which has an angular design and uses multiple textures and colors along with those angles to make them stand out. They have also integrated three claw-like RGB accents at the top and bottom of the front of the card. The shroud design is made of plastic which doesn’t have the same quality feel that the Founders Edition cards have, but the look MSI is going for is a little less professional and more gamer, this is their Gaming X card after all.

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The 4080 Gaming X Trio, like all of the 4000 Series cards so far, is a huge card. MSI’s specifications on their website list it as 337 mm long and 140mm tall but I think those are the Founders Editions dimensions. My measurements put the length at a full 14 inches which is 355mm long.  The width is 67mm which is a three and a half slot card with the full three-slot bracket and a half slot sticking out past that with the fan shroud. Height measurements get a little weird depending on if you count the bottom of the bracket or if you go from the PCB but the card is 33mm from the top of the PCI bracket. You will need to plan for the size when picking out your case, that’s for sure. It also weighs 1876 grams which is 4.1 pounds if you are measuring that in kings feet.

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The triple fan design has three axial fans with the same nine blade design with a heavy twist to the blades. MSI has also given the blades more strength by linking every three blades together. I thought that the fans might be different sizes but they all measured the same at 93mm from tip to tip on the blades. The two outer fans do have black stickers in the center whereas the center fan has a mirrored finish, but they all have the MSI dragon logo on them. You can see between the fans there is a strip of the same black textured finish that links them all together on the fan shroud and then at the top and bottom, there are lighter grey angled accents. They also have two areas with a heavy texture in the recessed areas that the grey and black areas don’t cover. Looking in through the fan blades we can also see that the top of the aluminum heatsink design has a wave shape to it with every other row having its peak offset, this from what I understand helps cut down noise and helps spread out the fans cooling across the heatsink.

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Around on the back of the 4080 Gaming X Trio, MSI has a metal backplate running the length of the card and all the way up to the full height as well. It is cut out around the GPU area with the backplate exposed there. The entire backplate is black but MSI has used two different finishes for some contrast with a textured finish in the middle and brushed finishes in the top two corners which are interestingly at two different angles. There are also vent slots cut in on the left side where the third fan can blow through but I’m surprised those openings aren’t larger to get more airflow from that fan. Then for branding, they have printed the MSI Gaming dragon logo and GeForce RTX on this side upside down so it is visible when installed in a normal case.

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Looking around at the top, bottom, and end edges of the 4080 Gaming X Trio we can get a better idea of the cooling configuration. The three axial fans on the fan side are blowing down towards the PCB for the first two fans and through the vents in the backplate for the third fan. The heatsink is split into two sections near the center with heatpipes running from both ends to on top of the GPU with six heatpipes in total. The heatsink is laid out in a horizontal orientation with the air blowing down and out the top and bottom of the card except for the last fan. This does mean more heat being blown under the card which is sometimes where M.2 slots are so keep that in mind. The heatsink is designed to fit around the components on the PCB which means it isn’t a universal design and it utilizes as much of the space as possible except for in that space between the two heatsinks and because of the cards overall thickness, this is a THICK heatsink. I was also surprised to see on the end of the card that MSI has put a metal plate with screw holes for card stabilization similar to how Founders Edition and reference cards have always done for OEMs. MSI does include a bracket to help with the weight, but hopefully, we see more cases start to utilize these brackets to help hold things in place and keep the weight off of the PCIe slot.

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The top edge of the 4080 Gaming X Trio, beyond having some of the heatsink visible for airflow, does still have some of the front fan shroud wrap around the top. MSI has used this to have the MSI logo and part of their dragon logo on the side closest to the PCI bracket. This is backlit with the addressable RGB lighting as well. They also have GeForce RTX printed in white on the other end but that isn’t backlit. That area also has the claw RGB accents that wrap around on to the top. Then we have the power connection which sits at the end of the custom PCB. This is the same 12VHPWR connection that the Founders Edition card uses with its more compact single connection. The PCB does drop down slightly at the plug so that it isn’t at the full height of the card but because it is designed to face directly up it does still run into the same issues that the Founders Edition has with the adapter and the total height of the card it is going to be very tight in a lot of cases if it fits at all. This also means a tight bend which is one of the theories for some of the issues that a few people have reported with this plug with the 4090. CableMod has announced an adapter that should help with this that does a 180 and redirects the plug down to save that space so hopefully, we see that soon. There is also a small dip switch on the top edge which is labeled for gaming and silent modes to switch between the two BIOS.

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For display connections, the 4080 Gaming X Trio sticks with the same configuration and layout as the Founders Edition did. It has three DisplayPort connections and one HDMI at the bottom. MSI has labeled them with the logos stamped into the metal MCI bracket and while this card isn’t designed to push air this way the three-slot bracket does have a large array of vent openings in a random design.

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I did get a comparison shot of the 4080 Gaming X Trio next to the RTX 4080 Founders Edition and it's funny how the huge Founders Edition card looks small with the Trio sitting next to it. The extra length makes a big difference as well as the extra card height and having three fans visible to the one. The Founders Edition design is still my favorite looking card, especially with its all-metal construction, but the Trio isn’t bad looking as well.

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Before getting into testing the MSI RTX 4080 Gaming X Trio I did get a few pictures of the RGB lighting lit up. The three claw-like accents at the top edge and bottom edge of the fan side look great. This is what I normally prefer for lighting as I’m not against RGB at all, I just don’t like that a lot of companies use it exclusively to light up their branding which makes your PC look like times square. MSI did also backlight the MSI logo up on top which I could go without and would prefer more of the unbranded accents like on the front, but overall the Gaming X Trio doesn’t go too crazy with the lighting.

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Test Rig and Procedures

 

Test System

CPU: Intel Core-i9 12900K – Live Pricing

Motherboard: MSI MEG Z690I UNIFY Gaming Motherboard – Live Pricing

Cooling: Corsair H100i Elite LCD DisplayLive Pricing

Noctua NT-H1 Thermal PasteLive Pricing

Memory: Crucial 32GB Kit (2 x 16GB) DDR5-4800 UDIMM– Live Pricing

Storage: Sabrent Rocket Q4 2TB – Live Pricing

Power Supply: Corsair AX1200Live Pricing

Case: Primochill WetbenchLive Pricing

OS: Windows 11 Pro 64-bitLive Pricing

      

Our Testing Procedures

3DMark

All 3DMark-based tests are done using the most recent version. We test using all three versions of Fire Strike and both Time Spy and Time Spy Extreme. Tests to look at ray tracing performance are done with Port Royal when supported and for Nvidia cards that support DLSS, the DLSS subtest is also done at 1440p with the performance setting and DLSS 2.0.

Unigine Superposition

1080p Extreme and 4k Optimized benchmarks along with the VR Future test are done. The VR test is done at the Oculus resolution

VRMark

Only the Blue room test is run

CS:GO

This test is done using the workshop map called CS:GO Benchmark. You can find more information at this link. https://www.gamingpcbuilder.com/how-to-install-csgo-fps-benchmark-map/ I test at 1080p, 1440p, and 4K resolutions. All auto settings are turned off and detail is set to their highest settings. shadow quality high, model texture detail high, shader detail very high, AA set to 16x, uber shaders enabled

Mafia 2 Definitive Edition

This uses the built-in benchmark to test High and Medium detail presets at 1080p, 1440p, and 4K resolutions

Watch Dogs: Legion

Built-in benchmark testing at ultra and high details. Tested at 1080p, 1440p, and 4k. I also do RTX and DLSS testing on Nvidia cards at 4K using the Ultra detail settings as a base as well.

Borderlands 3

Built-in benchmark testing with the ultra detail setting and medium detail setting, done at full screen with default settings at 1080p, 1440p, and 4k on DX11

Metro Exodus

Using built-in benchmark, testing at ultra and normal details at 1080p, 1440p, and 4k. I also do RTX and DLSS testing at 4K with the ultra-detail base settings for Nvidia cards as well.

World War Z Aftermath

The built-in benchmark in DX11 testing both the Ultra detail and Medium detail levels at 1080p, 1440p, and 4K resolutions

The Division 2

Built-in benchmark at Ultra detail with V-Sync turned off at 1080p, 1440p, and 4k resolutions.

Total War: Three Kingdoms

Built-in benchmark using the Battle Benchmark setting. Tested at 1080p, 1440p, and 4k at both high and ultra detail settings

Far Cry 6

Built-in benchmark tested at 1080p, 1440p, and 4k with the Ultra and Medium detail settings

Ghost Recon Breakpoint

Built-in benchmark tested at 1080p, 1440p, and 4k with the Ultra and Medium detail settings

Boundary Benchmark

Testing different DLSS detail levels on cards that support it. All testing is done at 4k with RTX on

Bright Memory Infinite RTX Benchmark

Benchmark all of the different RTX detail levels. Resolution at 4k and DLSS on balanced for each test

Passmark Performance Test 10.2

Test using the GPU Compute Score inside of Passmark’s Performance Test 10.2

Blender

Using the new Blender Benchmark with the Quick Benchmark setting set to use the GPU, not the CPU. Nvidia cards are tested twice, once with CUDA and the other with Optix, and AMD cards are run on OpenGL. The result is in total seconds the test took, lower is better. The 2.93.1 build is used and I run all six tests, BMW27, Koro, Classroom, Pavillon, Fishy cat (my favorite), and Victor

OctaneBench 2020.1

OctaneBench is designed to test rendering in OctaneRender. RTX and non-RTX are both run. This is a CUDA-only test so only Nvidia cards are tested

Power Testing

I run three power tests. Two I use a Kill-A-Watt hooked up in line with the power cord for the test rig. Two tests are done, one using the AIDA64 Stress Test and the second using the 3DMark Time Spy benchmark on the second test. I also use GPUz to document the GPU only reading off the card itself for wattage when doing the Time Spy test. The Time Spy test uses only the second test here because the 3rd test is the combined test that loads the CPU as well.

Noise Testing

Our Noise testing is done using a decibel meter 18 inches away from the video card on the bottom/fan side of the card. We test at 50% and 100% fan speeds as well as a third test while under load using AIDA64's stress test. This is done using a Protmex PT02 Sound Meter that is rated IEC651 type 2 and ANSI S1.4 type 2. Tests are done set weighted to A and set to a slow response using the max function and tested a second time with C weighting as well.  The ambient noise level in the testing area is 33.3 decibels using A weight and 50.0 using C weight.

 Temperature Testing

Using AIDA64, the GPU stress test is run for 30 minutes or until the result has leveled off. The test is run twice, once with the stock fan profile and a second time with 100% fan speed. During this, I also document the 100% fan speed RPM and document the delta between the fan profile and 100% fan speed as well.

 

 


Synthetic Benchmarks

As always I like to start my testing with a few synthetic benchmarks. 3DMark especially is one of my favorites because it is very optimized in both Nvidia and AMD drivers. It's nice to not have to worry about it being favored too much either way and the repeatability of the results makes it a nice chance to compare from card to card, especially when comparing with the same GPU. The 4080 Gaming X Trio is overclocked over the RTX 4080 Founders Edition with a small overclock of 90 MHz so it will be interesting to see how that changes the performance, same with the larger heatsink potentially allowing for more wattage as well.

The first round of tests were done in the older Fire Strike benchmark which is a DX11 test. There are three detail levels, performance, extreme, and ultra. The 4080 Gaming X Trio put itself firmly ahead of the 4080 Founders Edition in all three of these tests. Interestingly the base fire strike result stands out more than on the other tests with the overclock giving it a 2.8% lead whereas on the ultra test it was just .1%.

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The next two were both based on the Time Spy benchmark. One is the standard test and then there is the extreme detail level. The 4080 Gaming X Trio performed similarly here with it ahead of the stock-clocked 4080 Founders Edition but has a larger lead on the base Time Spy where the overclock made less of a difference in the extreme detail test.

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The last test was using the Unigine-based Superposition benchmark and I tested at 1080p with the extreme detail setting as well as the 4K optimized setting. In the extreme detail setting the 4080, Gaming X Trio improved on the RTX 4080 Founders Edition score by 250 points and 250 again in the 4k test as well.

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VR Benchmarks

As for Virtual Reality, I love it but it is more demanding than traditional gaming. This is partially because of the resolutions needed to render for two eyes and because they render more than what is immediately visible. But also because of post effects to get the proper “fisheye” effect for it to look proper in your eyes with the HMD. You also have to have much higher expectations for frame rates in VR, skipping frames or lower FPS can cause motion sickness in VR. Because of that, I ran a few tests.

My first test was again in Superposition. This time I tested the VR Future test using the Oculus resolution. Here the 4080, Gaming X Trio improved on the RTX 4080 Founders Edition’s score by 99 points. This wasn’t enough to make any huge difference but the performance improvement does seem to be consistent at least.

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My second round of VR testing was in VRMark which has three tests that are similar to the VR tests in Superposition. I only focused on just the most demanding test called Blue Room which is looking more at future VR performance. Like in the last test, the 4080 Gaming X Trio did manage to improve on the stock-clocked performance by 47 points which wasn’t a big improvement at all. But it does seem to be consistent.

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In-Game Benchmarks

Now we finally get into the in game performance and that is the main reason people pick up a new video card. To test things out I ran through our new benchmark suite that tests 10 games at three different resolutions (1080p, 1440p, and 4k). Most of the games tested have been run at the highest detail setting and a mid-range detail setting to get a look at how turning things up hurts performance and to give an idea of if turning detail down from max will be beneficial for frame rates. In total, each video card is tested 54 times and that makes for a huge mess of results when you put them all together. To help with that I like to start with these overall playability graphs that take all of the results and give an easier-to-read result. I have one for each of the three resolutions and each is broken up into four FPS ranges. Under 30 FPS is considered unplayable, over 30 is playable but not ideal, over 60 is the sweet spot, and then over 120 FPS is for high refresh rate monitors.

So how did the 4080 Gaming X Trio do when we step back and look at the results by resolution? Well like with the RTX 4080 Founders Edition, it blew through both 1080p and 1440p with each of our tests coming in at over 120 FPS at both resolutions. Only at 4k can we really see how it performed at all because that is the only resolution that has results below 120 FPS. The 4080 Gaming X Trio has 9 results over 120 FPS and 7 were in between 60 and 119. This is an improvement when compared to the Founders Edition card which has 8 and 8. 

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Of course, I have all of the actual in game results as well for anyone who wants to sort through the wall of graphs below. Just like with the RTX 4080 Founders Edition the 4080 Gaming X Trio performed consistently in every game except CS:GO. The 4080 Gaming X Trio came in ahead of the stock-clocked Founders Edition in each test and is still well behind the big brother RTX 4090. Our CS:GO number, specifically at 4K is the odd man out with both 4080s performing down below the older RTX 3080. The overclock on the 4080 Gaming X Trio did help it gain 6 FPS at 4k which helped bump it past a few cards but still behind the others. I have reached out to Nvidia to see what they think the issue is, but my theory is that with the crazy frame rates that CS:GO is seeing that the smaller 256-bit memory interface is the limit here which is why the 3080 and 2080 Ti which have a bigger interface performed better and the 4080 Gaming X Trio was right with the 3070 Ti which also had a 256-bit interface. All of that said though this is just a big first-world problem as 311 FPS itself is more than any monitor right now can do at 4k and is also more than DisplayPort 1.4, which is what all of the 4000 Series cards have, is capable of. Beyond that I averaged out the 1440p and 4k performance numbers but removed CS:GO to keep its crazy high results from messing up the average and we can see that the 4080 Gaming X Trio with its small overclock did outperform the Founders Edition at 4k by 2% and 1% at 1440p putting the 3080 Ti 25% behind the 4080 Gaming X Trio at 4k as well.

1440p Average FPS
(without CS:GO)

%  -/+ to the 4080 perf

4k Average FPS
(without CS:GO)

%  -/+ to the 4080 perf

RTX 4090

195

+6%

158

+23%

4080 Gaming X Trio

184

0%

128

0%

RTX 4080

182

-1%

126

-2%

RTX 3090 Ti

153

-17%

106

-17%

RTX 3080 Ti

151

-18%

96

-25%

 

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Compute Benchmarks

Now some people don’t need a video card for gaming, they need the processing power for rendering or 2D/3D production, or in some cases people who game also do work on the side. So it is also important to check out the compute performance on all of the video cards that come in. That includes doing a few different tests. My first test was a simple GPU Compute benchmark using Passmark’s Performance Test 10 and the 4080 Gaming X Trio scored 26565 to the 4080 Founders Editions 26439 which is just a difference of 126 points or .47% improvement overall.

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Blender is always my favorite compute benchmark because the open-source 3D rendering software is very popular and it isn’t a synthetic benchmark. With the latest version of Blender, they redid the benchmark so we now have a new test that runs three different renderings and gives each a score. I have all three stacked together so we can see the overall performance. The 4080 Gaming X Trio was consistent in improving on the scores from the 4080 Founders Edition but each score was just a small bump which even when added up together wasn’t a big difference.

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For CUDA-based cards, I also check out OctaneRender performance using their OctaneBench 2060.1 benchmark which allows me to check out both RTX and non-RTX rendering performance. Here the 4080 Gaming X Trio saw an improvement of .44% in the RTX results and .8% in the CUDA test over the 4080 Founders Edition.

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For an additional CUDA-based test I also ran V-Ray Benchmark 5 to check out CUDA and RTX performance in the 3D rendering and simulation software. The 4080 Gaming X Trio didn’t gain much in the CUDA test but did see a bigger improvement over the stock-clocked RTX 4080 Founders Edition in the RTX test. This wasn’t enough to make any difference in the gap between the 4080s and the 4090 at the top of the chart though.

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RTX and DLSS

Being an RTX card I also like checking out the performance of some of Nvidia’s features. Namely the ray tracing performance and the performance improvements you can see by using DLSS combined with the tensor cores. My first test goes back to our synthetic benchmarks with 3DMark where I check out their Port Royal benchmark. This is the one test that does also have AMD Ray Tracing support which is great to get a look at how different cards including older non-RTX cards perform. The 4080 Gaming X Trio sits 148 points ahead of the RTX 4080 Founders Edition here which overall is a very small difference.

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3DMark also has added in a few feature tests, one being a look at DLSS performance. For this one, I have the resolution set to 1440p and DLSS 2.0 turned on. I then have run the test on every card supported to get a comparison of how their test performs with and without DLSS. The 4080 Gaming X Trio gained 2.6 FPS on the DLSS on setting and just under one FPS with it off. This also shows the performance difference that DLSS can make as well which for both cards was a little over 100 FPS more. I also tested the 4080 Gaming X Trio across all three DLSS versions and twice with the new DLSS 3. This time at 4K and you can see how in all of the results the overclock did make a small difference. This test also shows how each revision has improved on performance, not to mention fixing visual effects as they have improved the process.

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I then jumped into game tests, this time with Watch Dogs: Legion. For this one, I wanted to get an idea of the performance you will see when taking advantage of Nvidia’s RTX and DLSS features. I tested at 4k with the ultra detail setting and with ultra being the setting for DLSS and RTX when they are on as well. I then test with no RTX or DLSS on and then with RTX DLSS on and off and on together. Here the 4080 Gaming X Trio did especially well on the DLSS-only test but also saw a big improvement over the stock 4080 in the RTX-only test as well.

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Next, I wanted to check out the performance in Metro Exodus which we have used for testing for a long time now. This test is similar as well with it set to 4K and Ultra detail, I use the included benchmark to test DLSS and RTX individually and then with them both on and both off to give us a look at overall frame rates depending on which direction you go. The difference between the 4080 Gaming X Trio and the stock 4080 Founders Edition is almost nothing in these tests and the DLSS results also push Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition to be CPU limited once we reach the RTX 4080 and RTX 4090 with no performance difference between them showing.

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Next, I tested using a benchmark based on the game Boundary. For this one, I wanted to see how all of the different DLSS settings would perform, including turning it off completely. This is run using the free benchmark and with the resolution set to 4k and RTX on. The 4080 Gaming X Trio gained 3 FPS on the DLSS quality setting over the stock 4080 which was the biggest difference. Most of the other results were 1 FPS or less.

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The last tests were done in a benchmark based on the game Bright Memory with their free steam benchmark. This is similar to the previous Boundary test only it is looking at RTX settings individually with the resolution set to 4K and DLSS set to the balanced setting. The 4080 Gaming X Trio gained 1 FPS over the stock 4080 in all but one of the results. Overall though this comparison is better to show the performance differences that different RTX settings can offer when games offer them.

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Cooling Noise and Power

For my last few tests, rather than focusing on in game performance, I like to check out other aspects of video card performance. These are also the most important ways to differentiate the performance between cards that have the same GPU. To start things off I took a look at power usage. For this, I use our Kill-A-Watt hooked up to the test bench to record the total wattage of the system. I ran two tests with the first using 3DMark Time Spy to put the system under a load similar to normal in game performance. Here our test system with the 4080 Gaming X Trio and test bench came in at 553 watts in the Time Spy test which was 114 watts lower than the RTX 4090 but was 27 watts more than the Founders Edition. At the same time with Time Spy I also use GPUz to check out the onboard reading for GPU power draw at the chip. The 4080 Gaming X Trio showed 269.6 on that test which was 3 watts more than the Founders Edition card. Lastly, I run AIDA64’s stress test on the video card to load up only the GPU, and using the Kill-A-Watt the test bench with the 4080 Gaming X Trio and test bench pulled 398 watts at the peak which was 18 watts over the Founders edition and enough to push it over older results like the RTX 2080 Ti as well.

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I did also get the chance to test the 4080 Gaming X Trio using the Nvidia PCat V2 as well but sadly until I get the correct adapters I wasn’t able to add in some of the older cards or anything from AMD. That said with the PCat I was able to get a much more accurate look at the power draw of the card itself because the PCat reads the PCIe slot power as well as the 12VHPWR connection. With this, I tested a variety of workloads to get a good mix then averaged them all together for our overall numbers. The individual results do get interesting however with Time Spy and Time Spy Extreme both pulling beyond the TGP on all of the cards. We can also see that AIDA64 isn’t working the cards as hard as the in-game results but was close to Blender. Overall the 4080 Gaming X Trio pulled 321 watts on average which was 14 watts more than the stock clocked 4080 FE.

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My next round of tests were looking at noise levels. These are especially important to me because I can’t stand to listen to my PC whirling. Especially when I’m not in game and other applications are using the GPU. For my testing, though I first tested with the fan cranked up to 100% to get an idea of how loud it can get, then again at 50% to get an idea of its range. The 4080 Gaming X Trio came in at 41.1 decibels in the 50% fan speed test which was 2 dB lower than the Founders Edition in the same test. Then for the 100% fan speed test the 4080 Gaming X Trio really impressed being nearly at the bottom of our chart while also having three fans. Its 56.2 dB result was 3.2dB lower than the Founders Edition. This becomes even more impressive when we see the fan RPM chart and know that MSI did it with their fans spinning faster than the Founders Edition not to mention having three fans, not two. I also take a look at noise performance while under load. For that when running AIDA64’s stress test I wait until the temperature of the card has leveled off and then measure how loud things are when the card is at its worst-case scenario with the stock fan profile. Here the 4080 Gaming X Trio was farther up in our chart sitting at 39.2 dB which was almost 1 dB higher than the Founders Edition. This is an overclocked card, but we are also running it with the Silent Mode BIOS so I was surprised it didn’t outperform the Founders Edition card, but overall this still put it in the middle of the chart which still isn’t bad.

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To finish up my testing I of course had to check out the cooling performance. To do this I ran two different tests. I used AIDA64’s Stress Test run for a half-hour each to warm things up. Then I documented what temperature the GPU leveled out at with the stock fan profile and then again with the fans cranked up to 100%. With the stock profile, the MSI RTX 4080 Gaming X Trio came in at 67c which was a little warmer than the RTX 4080 Founders Edition, but we do have to remember that it does have an overclock and pulled more power in AIDA64 as well. Turning the three fans up to 100% fan speed in the same test did lower the temps down to 54c which is 1c lower than the Founders Edition in the same test and makes for a delta of 13c. This shows us that the 4080 Gaming X Trio does have headroom left in it.

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While running the stock fan profile testing I also took the time to get a few thermal images so we could see what is going on. The 4080 Gaming X Trio looks way different than the Founders Edition on the thermals. The hotspot on the fan side isn’t even on the card, it is up under the card where it is blowing its warmed air out the top and bottom, this supports what I mentioned before about being careful about putting your main M.2 under the card. Beyond that, the fans get cooler as you go to the right and the top half of the cooler seems to run cooler than the bottom. When looking down on the top edge it is hottest over on the far left directly above the GPU. Then on the back, the hotspot is of course in the opening behind the GPU with the PCB being directly exposed there.

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Overall and Final Verdict

Going into our coverage of the MSI RTX 4080 Gaming X Trio we already had a good idea of performance having already taken a look at the Nvidia RTX 4080 Founders Edition, but I was very interested in seeing the areas where the RTX 4080 Gaming X Trio would stand out. With its boost clock speed of 2595 MHz, the overclock of 90 Mhz wouldn’t be considered a big overclock at all. But I was surprised as I got into our testing that the RTX 4080 Gaming X Trio did consistently put itself ahead of the Founders Edition by a few percent, averaging 2% across all of our in-game tests as well. While not a huge margin, often small overclocks can fall into the margin of error so the consistency in the RTX 4080 Gaming X Trio’s performance was good to see. Like with the Founders Edition, which put the RTX 4080 Gaming X Trio up at the top of our charts in nearly every benchmark sitting behind the RTX 4090 big brother and well ahead of all of the 3000 series cards including the 3090 Ti which used to be a monster. DLSS 3 performance was impressive as well, which while the game list is just filling out right now offers impressive performance improvements, especially in CPU-limited games where normal GPU performance improvements would normally be minimal.

The RTX 4080 Gaming X Trio design stuck with the “gaming” styling which was a departure from the Founders Edition design. MSI’s design is good looking and I like that MSI integrated RGB accents without going overboard and not all of the lighting is dedicated to just backlighting branding. The card design however is very large, going even bigger than the Founders Edition which itself is big. Like with the Founders Edition the 12VHPWR connection is right up on top and facing directly up which on top of the card size is going to make fitting the card in a lot of cases very hard and as we learned with the 4090 it is also going to put a lot of strain on the connection as well. Speaking of, with the 12VHPWR connection it also means that most people will need to run the included adapter for now until more people have power supplies that support it.

The large card, even with three fans surprised me in two other ways. Its noise performance was extremely quiet, especially for it having a triple fan design. Because of the overclock, even with the larger card the RTX 4080 Gaming X Trio didn’t manage to outperform the Founders Edition in cooling, at least not with the stock fan profile. But there is still some headroom left in the cooling overall which is good.

For pricing, the RTX 4080 Gaming X Trio has an MSRP of $1310 which hits the pocketbook hard. None of the RTX 4080s are what I would consider a big value, which makes any of the pricing above the base $1199 price tag hard to swallow. But MSI does at least include the extra support bracket with the RTX 4080 Gaming X Trio and with the overclock and huge cooler you are getting something for the premium. Overall, like with the Founders Edition, the RTX 4080 Gaming X Trio is looking like a better option than the 4090 if you need high-level 4k gaming performance but aren’t looking to run a 4k high refresh rate monitor, but overall you are going to pay for it which isn’t a big surprise. Gaming at 4k has always been expensive.

fv6

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Author Bio
garfi3ld
Author: garfi3ldWebsite: http://lanoc.org
Editor-in-chief
You might call him obsessed or just a hardcore geek. Wes's obsession with gaming hardware and gadgets isn't anything new, he could be found taking things apart even as a child. When not poking around in PC's he can be found playing League of Legends, Awesomenauts, or Civilization 5 or watching a wide variety of TV shows and Movies. A car guy at heart, the same things that draw him into tweaking cars apply when building good looking fast computers. If you are interested in writing for Wes here at LanOC you can reach out to him directly using our contact form.

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