This is our first review of the year, and we have something “supreme” for you. Today we are going to check out MSI’s GeForce RTX 3080 SUPRIM X 10G graphics card. According to MSI, their SUPRIM series is “a prestigious concept turned into reality with high-quality materials and meticulous engineering that can be seen, felt, and experienced”. I have been using this graphics card these past few weeks; and finished Cyberpunk 2077 using this graphics card. If you are in the market for a luxurious and eye-catching graphics card, check out our MSI RTX 3080 SUPRIM X review below.
- MSI RTX 3080 SUPRIM X 10G Graphics Card Review
- NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 Series Features
- MSI RTX 3080 SUPRIM X Specifications
- Packaging and Closer Look
- MSI RTX 3080 SUPRIM X Test Setup
- MSI RTX 3080 SUPRIM X Noise and Temperature
- MSI RTX 3080 SUPRIM X Synthetic Benchmarks
- 1080p Game Benchmark Results
- 1440p Game Benchmark Results
- 2160p Game Benchmarks Results
- Ray Tracing + DLSS Benchmark Results
- Price and Availability
- MSI GeForce RTX 3080 SUPRIM X Review Conclusion
Also: Check out our MSI RTX 3080 Ti SUPRIM X 12 Review
MSI RTX 3080 SUPRIM X 10G Graphics Card Review
The RTX 30 SUPRIM series is MSI’s top of the line graphics card lineup. I’m not sure if the SUPRIM replaced their “Lightning” series. But the SUPRIM is placed on top of the Gaming X Trio series; followed by the Ventus series at the bottom.
I’m also not sure why MSI opted for “SUPRIM”, perhaps they were going for the “SUPREME” branding. Obviously, they can’t use “SUPREME”, so “SUPRIM” will have to suffice. I’m just speculating here. Nevertheless, this graphics card means business; and it is more premium and (a bit) better than the Gaming X Trio variant.
The RTX 3080 SUPRIM X features the company’s Tri Frozr 2S cooling solution. It is similar to the Tri Frozr 2 cooling solution used on the Gaming X Trio variant. But from the looks of it, the 2S is slightly larger or “chunkier” than the Frozr 2.
The large aluminum heatsink is cooled by three Torx Fan 4.0 fans; and heat is delivered from the GPU to the heatsink via seven core pipes. Each aluminum fins have “deflectors” and “Wave-curved 2.0” fin edges that help guide air and reduce airflow harmonics that may result in additional noise.
Unlike on other graphics cards, the RTX 3080 SUPRIM X’s memory modules are also passively cooled with its close-quarter heat pipe and dedicated heatsink. In addition, the backplate used on the SUPRIM variant is also an aluminum backplate. Unlike the “graphene” (a.k.a plastic) plate on the Gaming X Trio variant. I am not a fan of the graphene backplate since it scratches easily and leaves unwanted permanent marks/scratches.
The MSI GeForce RTX 3080 SUPRIM X also features dual BIOS, where you can choose from “Gaming mode” or “Silent mode”. Both modes have the same clock speeds but the Silent mode has a less aggressive fan profile. During my test, I find that this graphics card is very silent. Just use the Gaming mode at all times.
I hope graphics card companies would remove the “silent mode” and replace it with “OC mode” instead. The cooling solution is very impressive and it runs silently even in Gaming mode. Below are additional features that all RTX 30 series cards have and a specs comparison between the RTX 3080 Suprim X and Founders Edition. After that, let’s take a closer look at the graphics card.
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 Series Features
- New streaming multiprocessors: The building block for the world’s fastest, most efficient GPU, delivering 2x the FP32 throughput of the previous generation, and 30 Shader-TFLOPS of processing power.
- Second-gen RT Cores: New dedicated RT Cores deliver 2x the throughput of the previous generation, plus concurrent ray tracing and shading and compute, with 58 RT-TFLOPS of processing power.
- Third-gen Tensor Cores: New dedicated Tensor Cores, with up to 2x the throughput of the previous generation, making it faster and more efficient to run AI-powered technologies, like NVIDIA DLSS, and 238 Tensor-TFLOPS of processing power.
- NVIDIA RTX IO: Enables rapid GPU-based loading and game asset decompression, accelerating input/output performance by up to 100x compared with hard drives and traditional storage APIs. In conjunction with Microsoft’s new DirectStorage for Windows API,(1) RTX IO offloads dozens of CPU cores’ worth of work to the RTX GPU, improving frame rates and enabling near-instantaneous game loading.
- NVIDIA Broadcast for AI-powered Video and Voice: Turn any room into a home studio with AI – taking your live streams and video chats to the next level with AI-powered audio and video effects like noise removal, virtual background, and webcam auto frame.
- Next-gen process technology: New 8N NVIDIA custom process from Samsung, which allows for higher transistor density and more efficiency.
- NVIDIA Reflex: Low Latency Technology: Acquire targets faster, react quicker, and increase aim precision through a revolutionary suite of new GeForce and G-SYNC technologies to optimize and measure system latency in competitive games.
- AI-Powered Video and Voice – NVIDIA Broadcast: You can now transform any room into a home broadcast studio—taking your live streams and video chats to the next level with AI-powered audio noise removal, virtual background effects, and webcam auto frame.
- NVIDIA Studio: RTX-Accelerated Content Creation: RTX 30 Series brings faster rendering and AI performance, more graphics memory, and exclusive NVIDIA AI tools such as Omniverse Machinima to help you finish creative projects in record time.
MSI RTX 3080 SUPRIM X Specifications
| MSI RTX 3080 Suprim X | NVIDIA RTX 3080 FE | |
|---|---|---|
| Fab Process | 8nm Samsung | 8nm Samsung |
| Architecture | Ampere | Ampere |
| CUDA Cores | 8704 | 8704 |
| Base Clock | 1440 MHz | 1440 MHz |
| Boost Clock | 1905 MHz | 1710 MHz |
| Memory Size | 10GB | 10GB |
| Memory Type | GDDR6X | GDDR6X |
| Memory Clock | 19 Gbps | 19 Gbps |
| Memory Bandwidth | 760.3 GB/s | 760.3 GB/s |
| Memory Interface | 320-bit | 320-bit |
| Power Connectors | 3x 8-pin | 2x 8-pin |
| Power Target | 370W | 320W |
| Power Limit | 430W | 370W |
| Recommended PSU | 850W | 750W |
| Price | ~$900 | $700 |
MSI RTX 3080 SUMPRIM X latest pricing and availability:
For US/Global: check Ebay.com here or Newegg.com here
For US: check Amazon.com here
Packaging and Closer Look
It’s refreshing to see a white box for a gaming graphics card. I haven’t reviewed any white-themed graphics card before and the Suprim X is not a white-theme card. But the white box looks clean, neat, and refreshing.
Inside the box, you get a graphics card mount/holder, an MSI SUPRIM mouse pad, some reading materials, and the card itself. I haven’t taken photos of the accessories included, but we’ll show them in our video review of the RTX 3080 Suprim X.
Above you can see the front and rear view of the graphics card. It doesn’t have an all-black color theme. Instead, it has this industrial-look with gunmetal color and aluminum finish. The graphics card itself is very heavy and big. It measures 336mm (13.2″) in length, 140mm (5.5″) in width, and 61mm (2.4″) in height. It occupies three PCI slots and weighs around 1.9kg. So, you do need to use the graphics card support to prevent sag.
Like most RTX 3080 cards, the MSI SUPRIM X has three DisplayPort 1.4a and one HDMI port. According to MSI, the HDMI port supports 4K@120Hz as specified in HDMI 2.1. The dual BIOS switch is located near the PCIe power connectors. I think, by default, it is set to “Silent” mode; so, be sure to check it and set it to Gaming mode.
While most RTX 3080 cards only require two 8-pin power connectors; the SUPRIM X requires three 8-pin PCIe power connectors. The SUPRIM X has a higher power target and limit compared to other RTX 3080 graphics cards. It also requires at least an 850W to run smoothly and to avoid any over current or tripping. If you have a lot of components installed or connected to the system, I’d recommend going above 850W just to be on the safe side.
The MSI dragon logo at the back has RGB lighting as well. It looks great and the level of craftsmanship and attention to detail is simply different compared to the Gaming X Trio or Ventus variants. If you are interested to see what capacitors are used at the back of the GPU, I have taken a close-up photo as well. Luckily, MSI decided to expose the capacitors. Although, I think they should have covered it instead, for protection.
Above you can see a close-up shot of the TORX Fan 4.0 fan. It has a total of 10 fan blades with pairs of the fan blades linked together. According to MSI, this helps focus airflow and air pressure into the heatsink.
The second photo is a close-up shot of the middle portion of the graphics card. I have not dismantled the graphics card but you can see from that angle several heat pipes and the dedicated heatsink for the VRAM.
The RGB lighting on the SUPRIM X is also “just enough”. Only highlights on the front-side and fan area and the dragon logo on the backplate have RGB lighting.
MSI RTX 3080 SUPRIM X Test Setup
For our graphics card reviews, I’m using a Z490 motherboard powered with an Intel Core i7-10700K. It is paired with a DDR4-4000 memory. Below are the rest of the specifications of the system:
| Operating System | Windows 10 Pro 64bit version 2004 |
| Processor | Intel Core i7-10700K (running stock) |
| Motherboard | MSI MEG Z490 GODLIKE |
| Memory | Crucial Ballistix MAX RGB DDR4-4000 |
| Graphics Card | MSI GeForce RTX 3080 SUPRIM X 10G |
| OS Drive | WD Black SN750 with Heatsink |
| Game Drive | Crucial MX500 2TB SSD, Kingston KC600 1TB SSD |
| Power Supply | Seasonic Prime TX-1000 |
| Chassis | Thermaltake Core P3 |
For this test, I used the NVIDIA driver version 457.30. The graphics card was tested in three resolutions – 1920×1080 FHD, 2560×1440 WQHD, and 3840×2160 4K UHD.
For synthetic benchmarks, I used 3DMark’s benchmark suite. I also used the following games to test the graphics card: Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, Gears 5, Ghost Recon: Wildlands, Horizon Zero Dawn, Monster Hunter World, Red Dead Redemption 2, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, The Division 2, and The Witcher 3.
Finally, I also included some ray tracing with DLSS benchmarks using three game titles. The games are Call of Duty Cold War, Cyberpunk 2077, and Watch Dogs Legion. Below is the GPU-Z screenshot of the MSI GeForce RTX 3080 SUPRIM X 10G.
MSI RTX 3080 SUPRIM X Noise and Temperature
Like most modern-day graphics cards, the GeForce RTX 3080 SURPIM X has a fan stop feature, called “Zero Frozr”. It runs dead silent during idle to light load situations since fans are not spinning. As you can see from the screenshot above, its idle temperature hovers around 52° Celsius. Depending on the GPU and/or environment, the temperature could go up or down.
For the full load temperature test, I ran FurMark for almost 20 minutes. The RTX 3080 SUPRIM X’s temperature settled at around 76° Celsius, with a fan speed of around 1200RPM or 41% of its capacity. Fans are very silent and it is almost inaudible even if I put my ear near the graphics card. This is with the “Silent mode” enabled.
Switching the vBIOS selector to “Game mode”, the fans become more aggressive. The fan speed can go up to around 1800RPM or around 52% of its capacity. Temperature is significantly lower and hovers around 67° Celsius only.
The fans do become audible at this point but it is nothing I can consider loud. It produces a very soft hum, nothing obnoxious or irritating at all. I’m sure most wouldn’t even hear the (fan) noise, especially on a close-case setup. Now time to see how this graphics card performs. Will we see “SUPRIM” frame rates as well?
MSI RTX 3080 SUPRIM X Synthetic Benchmarks
NOTE: I made a bit of a blunder when I benchmarked the graphics card. The benchmarks below are results with the vBIOS selector switched to “Silent mode”. This means that the results are a bit on the conservative side. Unfortunately, I don’t have enough time to redo all the tests. The scores and FPS could be slightly higher when in “Game mode”.
Let’s do some synthetic benchmarks first. For the synthetic benchmark results, I used 3DMark’s graphics benchmark tests. On the left-hand side are graphics scores, while on the right-hand side are the average frames per second (FPS). Below are the results I got for the MSI RTX 3080 SUPRIM X (silent mode):
I included the GALAX RTX 3080 SG since it is a reference graphics card but with a custom cooling solution. This means that the PCB design and layout, including its clock speeds, are what NVIDIA set as the “reference” or stock configuration.
As you can see from the results above, the RTX 3080 SUPRIM X performs a bit faster than a reference RTX 3080 overall. Too bad we don’t have any other non-reference RTX 3080 to compare the SUPRIM X with. Nevertheless, we can see that this custom-designed graphics card is faster in general.
But how about actual games? Let’s find out below.
1080p Game Benchmark Results
1080p is not the target resolution of the GeForce RTX 3080 graphics card. Somehow, there is a bottleneck going on here; either by the CPU or the resolution itself. The card seems to be not maximized or is a bit underutilized. As a result, there is some performance left on the table. Below are the results:
Although the GeForce RTX 3080 SUPRIM X is generally in the lead; notice that the gap between the RTX 2080 Ti and RTX 3080 is very slim. It was even trailing behind the RTX 3070 in Gears of War 5; and was outperformed by the RTX 2080 Ti in The Witcher 3.
Like I said earlier, there is some bottleneck happening here. And the RTX 3080 is simply limited or “handicapped”. In my opinion, it is simply impractical to get an RTX 3080 (especially RTX 3090) for 1080p gaming; even if it’s a 240Hz or 360Hz 1080p gaming monitor.
1440p Game Benchmark Results
On a 2560×1440 resolution, the GeForce RTX 3080 now has “more room to stretch its legs”. I still think that the RTX 3070 is the best card for 1440p gaming. However, for the latest game titles that are graphics-intensive, the RTX 3080 isn’t a bad choice for 1440p gaming as well. Again, this is the MSI RTX 3080 SUPRIM X running at “Silent mode”. Below are the results I got.
Now we can see that the RTX 3080 SUPRIM is the faster graphics card overall. However, there is some instance that the RTX performs just on par with a reference RTX 3080 like in Monster Hunter World. Now, let’s check out the 4K UHD game benchmark results.
2160p Game Benchmarks Results
The GeForce RTX 3080 (and RTX 3090) is said to be the graphics card for 4K UHD gaming. Let’s see if the RTX 3080 SUPRIM X can push those frame rates above 60 fps at 4K UHD. Below are the results:
Based on the results I got, the GeForce RTX 3080 SUPRIM X doesn’t seem to have any problem playing games at 4K UHD and still get an average of 60 FPS and above. Notice that in some games, there is a substantial difference between a “reference” RTX 3080 and the RTX 3080 SUPRIM X.
By the way, there is another thing that I would like to emphasize. Thanks to NVIDIA’s latest GPU Boost technology, the “boost clock” speed listed by a GPU manufacturer for their graphics card doesn’t (really) matter anymore.
Why? because even if the graphics card has a GPU boost clock speed of 1710MHz or even 1905MHZ; it will still boost higher than its listed boost clock speed. As long as it has not reached its thermal limit or power limit, it will reach a higher boost clock speed.
In this case, the RTX 3080 SUPRIM X has a very good cooling solution, meaning it could handle the GPU’s temperature without any problem. Thus it will most likely boost higher and longer resulting in higher frame rates.
On top of that, the RTX 3080 SUPRIM X has a power limit of 430W. That’s higher compared to other RTX 3080 with a power limit of only 320W or 370W. Again, a better or “superior” cooling solution plus a higher power limit will most likely result in higher frame rates.
Ray Tracing + DLSS Benchmark Results
When the RTX 20 series launched, there were no games that fully supported ray tracing. And some of the early games that did support them wasn’t visually jaw-dropping, at least in my opinion. Also, the first version of DLSS was bad that I didn’t recommend using it at all.
It was only with the newer version of DLSS, showcased on Death Stranding, that I recommend enabling DLSS. You can check out our review of Death Stranding’s DLSS performance here.
It took a couple of years (plus) before we saw a substantial number of game titles that feature ray tracing and DLSS. In this review, I included three of the latest AAA game titles with ray tracing and DLSS features; namely: CoD Cold War, Watch Dogs Legion, and Cyberpunk 2077.
On the left-hand side, you can see results with RT and DLSS disabled. While on the right-hand side, RT and DLSS are enabled and are set to ultra and quality respectively. Below are the results:
Among the three games above, I think Cyberpunk 2077 has the best implementation of ray tracing and DLSS. Cyberpunk 2077 features realistic reflections, improved lighting, enhanced shadowing, and refined ambient occlusion. As a result, the game is very graphics intensive, especially if you enable all of these visual effects and set to ultra.
Nevertheless, after enabling all visual effects, the environment or its “world” looks fantastic! I hope future games will implement most, if not all, ray tracing effects as well. Too bad CP2077 feels unpolished due to bugs, lackluster AI, and some other aspects.
Now let’s wrap up this review, shall we?
Price and Availability
At the time I published this review, the MSI GeForce RTX 3080 SUPRIM X 10G graphics card is already released in the market. It comes with a manufacturer’s suggested retail price of $900 USD. But the availability of these RTX 30 series cards is almost (or is) non-existent. Perhaps availability would become better in a month or two.
And perhaps by the time you read this review, the supply has recovered (hopefully). Be sure to check out the links below for the latest pricing and availability.
MSI RTX 3080 SUMPRIM X latest pricing and availability:
For US/Global: check Ebay.com here or Newegg.com here
For US: check Amazon.com here
MSI GeForce RTX 3080 SUPRIM X Review Conclusion
With the GeForce RTX 3080 SUPRIM X 10G graphics card, I think MSI has “supercharged” NVIDIA’s RTX 3080 GPU. It was built with superb craftsmanship, exceptional aesthetics with meticulous attention to detail.
I might be “sugar-coating” this graphics card too much, but it just screams “premium” through and through. If this was a bag or a pair of sneakers, just think that the RTX 3080 SURPIM X is similar to a luxury bag or sneakers. It is still an RTX 3080, but better.
When it comes to performance, well, you have seen the results above. The RTX 3080 SUPRIM X performs a bit faster compared to a reference-spec RTX 3080 like the GALAX SG. This is thanks to its better cooling solution and higher power limit. Although, honestly, the difference isn’t that huge or noticeable without benchmarking and comparing the numbers side by side.
The RTX 3080 SUPRIM X commands almost a 30% price premium from NVIDIA’s RTX 3080 FE. But that doesn’t equate to ~30% more performance. Like any other luxury items, the SUPRIM X series isn’t the value-type of product. If you are looking for the “value” product, check out MSI’s Ventus lineup instead. But as you can see, aesthetically speaking, the Ventus and SUPRIM X looks entirely different.
At the end of the day, I think the MSI GeForce RTX 3080 SUPRIM X 10G is one of the best, if not the best, RTX 3080 graphics card in the market. It does come with a (hefty) premium price, but you simply can’t go wrong with it.
