11.9.2019

This review is for the RTX 2080 Gaming X Trio. I paid £626 in September 2019.If I had to describe this GPU with 2 words I would say: quiet, fast.Quick review:This is the best GPU I've ever had. Period.Pros:- Incredibly quiet. Most silent GPU l've ever had even compared to Asus Strix 2080 OC.- Fast as any TOTL 2080 (in my own experience, performance is equal to Strix 2080 OC).- Cool (usually sits at 65ºC at 20ºC ambient temperature while playing games like BV or Metro Exodus, up to 99% of GPU usage).- Excellent build.- Aesthetics (subjective, l know).- Quality LED lights (for those who care). I still have to install and try MSI LEDs software.- RTX: If you value realism in your games,if you take your time to admire the graphics while playing then RTX may be for you. Personally I love it. Forget about looking at screenshots, just play a game and 'see' it for yourself. Again, to me it's a wonderful feature.- Included 'support bracket' to help with GPU sagging (see it in the attached picture).Neutral:- Size: I like it that the GPU is big and heavy, but some of you can't afford having a 'full ATX' case on your desk/room so size may be a problem.- You'll need a 650W PSU (recommended in the specs.).Cons:- Price (way overpriced). Again, we need AMD to step up their game in the 'high end GPU' bracket in order to compete with Nvidia the way they're now doing against Intel. That way Nvidia may be 'forced' to lower the prices of their GPUs.Extended review:Let's begin with the negative. l placed an order on a 'new' GPU, yet I was sent an 'open box/used' one so l was NOT happy when l opened the box and saw the GPU had clearly been used. Of course, I called Amazon 'CS' right away and, as always, everything was amended immediately. Apparently, it was MSI's fault as the GPUs come straight from them... I guess MSI would in turn blame Amazon... Either way, l'm a happy camper now so no problem.Now, the moment I installed the GPU and tried it... oh boy, didn't l quickly forgot the initial disappointment. I am a 'silence freak.' I want my PC to be literally inaudible. Until today, my loudest component has always been the GPU (when gaming) so l've always tried to buy the quietest GPU possible. Watching reviews (no matter which ones or what channel) proved to be useless for me as depending on the channel they'd claim this card or the other to be the 'silence queen' when they are truly not. Not in my experience anyway...Before this MSI 2080 I've had the Gigabyte OC version and the Asus Strix OC. From these two, when it comes to both noise and performance, the Gigabyte was by far the worst performer, playing in the horrible 'vacuum cleaner/jet engine' category when it comes to noise, yet being very decent when it comes to performance.The Gigabyte offers the best price to performance ratio hands down. Limiting the power consumption of the card via software turned the Gigabyte onto a decently quiet GPU at almost no cost to performance. The Strix model was decently quiet, very quiet, still not 'quiet, quiet' if you know what l mean. Now, if you truly value silence and you want an absolutely quiet card, actually a 'you won't believe how quiet this bloody card is,' then look no further: the Gaming X Trio should be number 1 on your RTX buying list.Should you buy a 2070 Super, 2080 or 2080 Super? The value is on the 2070 super, especially if you can wait until price goes down to £550/560 (I've already seen the Gaming X Trio at £560 a few times on Amazon UK). Otherwise, you then have to go for the 2080 Super, unless you get a 2080 at a 'competitive' price as I did (remember, l paid £626).Check out the attached pictures:- Some are for you to compare the overall size of both GPUs (MSI Gaming X Trio vs Asus Strix OC) and the size of their fans.- Others are screenshots of the Metro Exodus benchmark (a very demanding one, FYI). You can see the temps achieved by the card after 3 consecutive benchmark runs. Pay attention to the fan's RPMs and usage in percentage. From that you may infer how quiet this GPU is (fans barely spin at 1200 RPMs at the end of the 3 runs).I hope you find this review helpful. If you do, destroy the 'helpful' button down below. Let's see if MSI sends me one of those company's 'Stuffed animal' (Dragon) I've seen some reviewers have.MSI, did you hear my humble request? Can l have one of those cute little Dragons please?

29.1.2019

I've just upgrades from an Asus stryx gtx 970 & the difference is night & day. (Well the 970 is getting on now but can still hold it's own). I've yet to experiment with higher settings in BF5 but atm settings are high with ray tracing set to auto. (i7-4770k cpu). Single player is running at well over 100fps.As already stated there are no cables with this card. And if you're currently using a dvi/dvi-d port/cable...then you're going to have to acquire a different cable as there are no dvi ports on this card. You can go the hdmi route but if your monitor is 144Hz then do your research on which hdmi standard.. if any..or even your monitor..supports up to 144Hz via hdma.

10.7.2020

I was very much on the fence between AMD and Nvidia for graphics card choice for my PC build. While I was doing my research a couple months back, the then-present AMD driver update issues pushed me towards Nvidia. I was quite opposed to the idea of an Nvidia graphics card at first due to some horror stories I had read about the interference of the Nvidia Experience software with some games, but it turns out that you can just uninstall that not problem.I also desired the PowerColor Red Dragon, specifically, in my research. That AMD graphics card had a dragon logo on the side. I hate to sound like a kid, but I really wanted that 'cause it looked so cool.

14.7.2019

Does exactly as advertised. I read several reviews about the card; most benchmarks are spot on. I was running Total War: Warhammer 2 on full settings at 4k getting around 46 fps with an i7 8700K, Z390-E motherboard, which is brilliant considering the fidelity demand. I would check the case before buying however; its bigger than most but doesn't completely cover the adjoining slots. It's quiet for a card this size and is reasonable in terms of heating.I was unlucky enough to get FedEx for delivery. You can tell they are fixated on trying to appear attentive but quite happily would lie about visiting your property. In the end I had to drive out to pick it up which was a good distance from where I live in the middle of the city.When I contacted the seller,

19.3.2019

The MSI RTX 2060 Gaming Z is a good choice if you're a 1080p gamer whilst its very capable of 1440p I haven't used it on 1440p myself but benchmarks on the internet show its capable of 1440p at 60fps. I've been using it a 1080p with some demanding games and I can say this thing is a 1080p beast being on par with the 1070ti which is what I was originally wanting to upgrade to. 144Hz is achievable with this card if you do have a high refresh rate monitor. The card is super quiet and for me it runs very cool in my rig. As an upgrade from a GTX 970 EVGA FTW I can say its a massive upgrade and the addition of Ray Tracing is nice but I'd say it still needs a bit of a polish.

24.12.2018

As the Armor this is the lowest clocked MSI RTX 2070, my plan was to overclock this myself to achieve the same performance as the other range of RTX 2070's, after all they are the same PCB. Installed fine, nice RGB logo down the side and also the metal shroud looks amazing in the case.After loading up MSI afterburner and playing around with BFV I noticed the core clock would sit at 1840-1860mhz when the card is rated at 1600mhz or so, and also the memory clock would be at 7000mhz. I later found out that it was overclocking itself on the fly which Nvidia's GPU boost does based on heat and fan speed so by buying this card there is no difference from the more higly priced cards apart from design differences and not as much RGB,

18.4.2019

After much reading of game developers inplementation of DLSS and Ray Tracing (which at the moment is minimal at best) I decided that this card was the best compromise of performance and value as I'm not spending over a thousand pounds on a RTX 2080 TiI have a GTX 970 which runs Metro Exodus OK but not great, that's how it goes, keep your graphics card until you find an amazing game which justifies (to yourself) that it's time for an upgradeSo talking of Metro with this card it's buttery smooth no glitching or freezing at 1080p and 1440p with detail on high Yes!I have briefly tried to use the RTX setting however it's too demanding on the system resources and quite frankly you don't need it I

4.4.2019

Looking for a new GPU ? if you're looking for quality, power and a fair price this is the GPU for you. Bought to replace an ageing GTX970 am I glad I waited for the new Nvidia cards. What a difference this makes to the graphics and playability of games. Using MSI Afterburner this card overclocks out of the box but if you use the Afterburner built in OC tuner you can squeeze more FPS without overburdening or over temping the card. Quite a large card but check your dimensions before buying. My case is only a mid size but fitted easily. 8+6 pin connector required for this particular GPU but most power supply units will have these. Fan noise is kept to a minimum as the fans do not spin upuntil needed although you can as I do set up a fan curve in Afterburner.

16.11.2019

The card is great, intensely dislike the msi lighting software, would have liked per app lighting like corsair profiles provide. Other than the lighting I have no issues with the card itself. Did receive a code that was used, asked about the code prior to recieving and was told the code was for Battlefield V, requested a new code when I realised it was already used and recieved a code for Modern Warfare which I had recently wasted £50 on. Even still great service, helped me get a replacement code even if it wasnt the game I wanted, they couldn't have known and I have no other issues. Highly reccomend if you're willing to settle for a single lighting profile.

1.6.2019

This is a great card for under £400 with graphics cards being as expensive as the are at the moment I did a lot of research into cards and their performance as I was originally going to get a Nvidia 1660ti but looking at the benchmarks this offers a lot more performance for not a lot more money. It features a lot of cutting edge technology such as ray tracing and silent mode which means the fans do not spin until it reaches 60 degrees the only reason I have given 4 stars instead of 5 is because it only has 6gb of vram which may not be enough in the near future but the next step up is well over £500 which was out of my budget but an overall excellent graphics card which allows me to run battlefield

2.7.2020

I got this GPU as an upgrade to my Radeon R9 390 8GB and everything is soo much better, so much smoother and easier to game and play stream with too!If anything, you want a budget PC with decent specs, I'd recommend getting this as the 2080 is still like 800 or maybe more if anything. I wouldn't change my purchase if I had the chance to. I am very happy with this.Noise quality has never bothered me since I have noise cancelling headphones, but what makes it better is you can use a program called RTX Voice which reduces any and all background noise (Unless it's voices) from your streaming, recording or podcasts.

16.3.2019

Amazing performance and I can't hear it over the fans in my case. Prices are high but this is the way of all graphics cards at this performance tier. It plays all but one of my games at maximum settings but that game uses the Crysis engine so we can probably guess why that is.VR performance is great and I've not seen any stuttering during gameplay.This is a surprisingly large card though so be be careful to measure your case before buying it as I had to remove some hard drive trays to fit it in my NZXT h440.I really like what MSI have done with this card, the lighting isn't to everyone's taste but can be turned off if that's not your thing.

4.3.2019

Was a bit irritated when the card arrived as the box had been previously opened. However once I checked over it I was satisfied it was unused.First of all this card is huge!!It's replacing a GTX1080TI which is no small card. I had to take out the case fans which sat at the bottom of my case. Doesn't really matter as this card is super quiet even with Metro Exodus at max settings using 4K.The jump in performance alone from 1080ti to 2080ti was worth the cost outlay but I'm very impressed with the RTX graphics improvements too.I'll sell my 1080ti which will help offset the cost of this expensive card but very glad I got one.

25.1.2019

At only £490, I jumped at the oppurtunity to buy this card. The MSI Armor cards are always underclocked, that's why they're cheaper but overclocking the card is an easy way to counter that fact. In terms of preformance, it is better than the 1070ti and preforms similar to a GTX 1080.Many reviews have marked this card down because it doesn't come with cables, but if your buying an RTX card then you should already have at least two 6+2 pin connectors and if you don't, then your machine is likely not powerful enough and will bottleneck the hell out of this card so you're better off getting something less powerful.

12.8.2019

It's everything you want in a high end gpu. Oodles of power and it looks damn good too. You could probably get similar power out of a (cheaper) 2070 super, though RTX is also a really amazing looking feature and the 2080 has enough power to hit decent framerates with it on.My one issue with this card is some slight coil whine under heavy load. Kinda hard to get heavy load, you need to run games at 4k ultra to really max this beast out. But my PC is very close to me, and not overly soundproofed, it's going to be up to you if it bothers you or not.Overall great card, if a little pricey for the performance.

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