MSI Gaming X Trio RTX 3080 Graphics Card Review

How Much Does It Cost?

While I don’t have retail links just yet, as we’re writing this review before the product is live on retail sites, we do know it has an MSRP of just £759.99 here in the UK. I can’t imagine the US price will be much different, but most likely $799.99. Of course, there will be some variation based on retailer and availability, but this launch does at least seem to scale the pricing much better than what we saw with the RTX 2000 series launch. You can Amazon UK for up to date stock and prices here. Alternatively, you can also find them on eBuyer here.

Overview

So far, I must admit that I’m very impressed with the latest cards from Nvidia, and even more so with the AIB cards such as the MSI RTX 3080 Gaming X Trio we’ve tested today. Of course, I can understand some users are frustrated as we’ve heard claims of “twice the performance” from the previous gen, and while that may be true in some games, at some resolutions, I always think you should take manufacturer claims with a pinch of salt.

Let’s put any claimed performance aside though because now we have solid figures. This is the RTX 2080, and it’s clear to all that it gave the RTX 2080 Ti an absolute bloody thrashing. That’s impressive for a card that is launching for roughly half the price of what the Ti did at its launch. Of course, we haven’t tested anything above the 3080 yet, but I expect them to be insanely fast cards.

The 2080 Ti is a phenomenal card for 4K gaming, ultra-high frame rates, ray tracing and more. So, for the RTX 3080 to blow the RTX 2080 Ti away at this price point is nothing short of incredible. In all our games, we got past 60 FPS at 4K, a lot past it actually. Well, except Control that averaged an annoying 59.6 FPS, but we’ll let that slide.

8K Ain’t Easy

We thought it was going to be fun to run some stuff at 8K, and in short, it wasn’t. The monitor is prohibitively expensive to begin with, but so is the tax on VRAM. Some of the “older” cards just simply wouldn’t load that resolution in some games. Some games wouldn’t even allow the option, and others ran but didn’t run well. Even Deus Ex only got 26 FPS with the RTX 3080! However, Doom Eternal hit a very playable 53.4 FPS, Control managed 55.2, etc, so it’s not all bad. Remember, that’s 4x the pixels of 4K, so that’s pretty impressive really.

RTX, DLSS and Beyond

Ray Tracing, DLSS a and other RTX benefits are here too and certainly gave us some exciting results. We stuck with 4K testing for all of that, as DLSS isn’t supported at some resolutions on some cards, and it gets a bit complex for comparison purposes. However, hitting 91 FPS at 4K, with RTX on and DLSS off in Youngblood was impressive. That rocketed to 159 FPS with DLSS turned on!

Control was pretty demanding, but that was expected. However, with DLSS and RTX on, it still put out 67.6 FPS at 4K. Plus, it looked insanely good while doing it. Battlefield V looked incredible at 61.2 FPS with full RTX on, and DLSS took that to an impressive 77.9 FPS.

Should I Buy One?

Without a doubt this is an exceptional card. For 4K gaming, it’s a true power house, and the benefits of ray tracing don’t have to be compromised any more even at more demanding resolutions. This card is the sweet spot for those seeking ultra-fast refresh rates or extremely high graphics settings at high resolutions.