Performance Analysis

The GTX 1080 Ti remains unchallenged as the highest performing consumer-grade GPU on the market. This is a new bunch of benchmarks on a brand new test system, and we’re still adding data for cards lower down the stacks, but for now we’ve used the Aorus GTX 1080 Ti as a point of comparison – all other GTX 1080 Tis have been returned to their manufacturers.

Only at 4K do modern games pose a challenge for this card, and even there it passes each of our tests by always having a minimum frame rate of over 30fps, while in others it’s even above 60fps on this metric. It trades single-digit blows with the Aorus card, and both have the odd lower-than-expected minimum result, but you won’t be able to tell them apart outside of benchmarks, and this is quite simply as good as single-GPU performance gets right now, give or take a few frames per second.

In the default Performance Mode, the card runs at between 1,875MHz and 1,900MHz under load, and this is upped only marginally by switching to OC Mode. Neither mode makes any significant difference to noise, power consumption, temperature, or performance, which is usually the case.

Next to the Aorus card, the MSI one comes out as more power-hungry but cooler. Still, either way a total system power consumption of less than 400W is remarkable given just how much power is on display here. We couldn’t tell the two apart on a noise front – both were quiet even under sustained load, but you’d hope so given the size of their coolers. MSI’s fans span up to 47 percent, which equated to around 1,250 RPM.

As mentioned, through overclocking we were able to get the card boosting to 2,000MHz and the memory running at 12.2Gbps. This netted us an extra five or six percent of performance.

Conclusion

With a three-fan design, black and grey fascia, RGB-illuminated backplate, and a price tag of £750, it’s pretty clear MSI has its sights fixed firmly on the very similar Asus GTX 1080 Ti Strix OC, which is itself a phenomenal card. If cooling is a priority, we would probably recommend the MSI card thanks to its cooler giving its PCB fuller coverage than the Asus design, which leaves some memory modules exposed or partly exposed.

However, MSI’s design has the drawback of those red LEDs on the front fascia. We can’t imagine it would have been difficult to make these clear and RGB instead, and then you’d have three separate RGB zones. Instead, those who don’t want any red in their system will just have to turn these lights off, which doesn’t apply to the Asus card. The latter also has onboard fan headers whereas MSI doesn’t, and this will appeal to a certain subset of enthusiasts as well.

Other than the red lighting (which you can easily turn off), there’s nothing especially wrong with this card. Yes, the price is very steep, but the performance is exceptional on all fronts. If you’ve £750 to spend on a GPU, you’re spoilt for choice by numerous GTX 1080 Tis. The MSI GTX 1080 Ti Gaming X Trio adds itself to that list confidently, but it doesn’t deliver a knockout blow to other cards it competes with.