# MSI GTX 1080 Ti Gaming X 11 GB



## W1zzard (Apr 3, 2017)

MSI's GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Gaming X comes with a decent overclock out of the box and uses the company's signature TwinFrozr thermal solution which promises good temperatures and low noise at the same time. It's also priced significantly lower than the competing card from ASUS.

*Show full review*


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## dj-electric (Apr 3, 2017)

3rd party GTX 1080 Ti's are retartedly powerful. I love it.


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## jabbadap (Apr 3, 2017)

Nice one(Both article and card). 

One thing just pop in my eye...



> Once the main heatsink is removed, you can see this metal baseplate which covers VRM circuitry and memory chips.



No it's does not. VRM circuity is obviously cooled by main cooler not that black metal baseplate.


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## ZeppMan217 (Apr 3, 2017)

wait, TPU didn't get any Titan Xp?


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## W1zzard (Apr 3, 2017)

jabbadap said:


> No it's does not. VRM circuity is obviously cooled by main cooler not that black metal baseplate.


Whoops, fixed 



ZeppMan217 said:


> wait, TPU didn't get any Titan Xp?


We did not, so I bought one, and sold it last week before prices drop even more


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## Adam Freeman (Apr 3, 2017)

So the Asus 1080Ti strix is better regarding cooling performance and noise level. It's the first time we see Msi card from gaming  x series
falls behind in temperature-noise metric.


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## the54thvoid (Apr 3, 2017)

Bought an FE for £699, bought a nice Heatkiller block and 240 Rad, now have 2Ghz without trying and temps at 42 degrees and inaudible fan noise.  

Bliss.


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## efikkan (Apr 3, 2017)

It's clearly a great card, but I might end up with the Armor (OC) version instead. I don't see enough OC potential in this to justify the premium over Armor, since Pascal quickly will hit an "efficiency wall". Nevertheless, a good dual-fan with decent cooling matters in closed builds to avoid too much throttling, so I'll surely get one over a blower fan.


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## Devastator0 (Apr 3, 2017)

@W1zzard, I have noticed something weird about this review, specifically with the Assassin's Creed benchmarks. If you compare the Syndicate benchmarks on the Asus 1080Ti review to the ones here, there is about a 30-40fps difference between the tests on almost all cards at 1080p & 1440p. That seems odd to me so I thought I'd mention it.


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## W1zzard (Apr 4, 2017)

Devastator0 said:


> @W1zzard, I have noticed something weird about this review, specifically with the Assassin's Creed benchmarks. If you compare the Syndicate benchmarks on the Asus 1080Ti review to the ones here, there is about a 30-40fps difference between the tests on almost all cards at 1080p & 1440p. That seems odd to me so I thought I'd mention it.


Different rebench. AA off and some scene changes if I remember correctly. and new drivers of course


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## Devastator0 (Apr 4, 2017)

W1zzard said:


> Different rebench. AA off and some scene changes if I remember correctly. and new drivers of course



Any particular reason behind the change? I would have thought that with all the AIB 1080Ti's, you'd want to keep the testing consistent to get a balanced representation of performance across the different cards. Not to criticize (as I honestly do love the work you guys do), but having a disparity here can affect people's buying decisions (I know I base my decisions on what cards I buy on how they are reviewed by TPU and a few others) so having certain games bench'd differently card to card seems like a bad thing to do?


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## W1zzard (Apr 4, 2017)

Devastator0 said:


> Any particular reason behind the change? I would have thought that with all the AIB 1080Ti's, you'd want to keep the testing consistent to get a balanced representation of performance across the different cards. Not to criticize (as I honestly do love the work you guys do), but having a disparity here can affect people's buying decisions (I know I base my decisions on what cards I buy on how they are reviewed by TPU and a few others) so having certain games bench'd differently card to card seems like a bad thing to do?


Got it, but I have to make changes at some point, also note that we added and removed a bunch of games. and our drivers were getting old.


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## Devastator0 (Apr 4, 2017)

W1zzard said:


> Got it, but I have to make changes at some point, also note that we added and removed a bunch of games. and our drivers were getting old.



All good mate, that's a fair point. I understand. Thanks for replying so quickly Wiz. Keep up the good work!


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## Fluffmeister (Apr 4, 2017)

Certainly a fast card, but then the GTX 1080 is practically a year old already so it was time for something faster.


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## thebluebumblebee (Apr 4, 2017)

efikkan said:


> It's clearly a great card, but I might end up with the Armor (OC) version instead.


I've gotten to play with one of the Armor versions and the cooler has trouble keeping it below 83°, and I'm not the only one seeing that.  Check the reviews at Newegg.
Is $40 really that big of a deal on a $700+ GPU?


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## hapkiman (Apr 4, 2017)

Enjoyed the review. Thanks!

Man, I want that sucker - But I don't feel like going through a divorce right now.


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## Kanan (Apr 4, 2017)

> When installed inside the case, there is no visible sagging, bending, or warping.


Yeah of course, because the GPU is brandnew.  Rest of the review is fine, though.


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## Mistral (Apr 4, 2017)

Damn beast of a card. Though probably should of included a Titan in the Performance-per-Dollar charts so the TI's not at the bottom of the stack...


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## lanlagger (Apr 4, 2017)

Adam Freeman said:


> So the Asus 1080Ti strix is better regarding cooling performance and noise level. It's the first time we see Msi card from gaming  x series
> falls behind in temperature-noise metric.


that surprissed me too (both priced the same)... + another bonus for asus is those case2 fan headers, I hope more producers adopt case fan headers, because lets face it - a huge GPU is the biggest heater in the case and it would help for the GPU temps if it would recycle cooler air - that can only be delivered by case fans.


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## thec0wking (Apr 4, 2017)

On the overclocking page : https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/GTX_1080_Ti_Gaming_X/33.html

You show that the FE overclocked higher than the MSI and ASUS








*but *then you only show benchmarks for the MSI stock & MSI OC, completely ignoring the FE OC & ASUS OC. Strange.... I would have liked to see the comparison. as well as more than just one benchmark, preferably more games in 4k.


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## dj-electric (Apr 4, 2017)

The higher initial oc of the FE is useless once thermal throttling starts kicking in


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## the54thvoid (Apr 4, 2017)

Dj-ElectriC said:


> The higher initial oc of the FE is useless once thermal throttling starts kicking in



Ah but after two classifieds and a kingpin, I get to buy the basic model and slap a water block on it to get the best performance.  Behaves quite well under water as well unless the specific block I've bought is better than my previous one.


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## lors (Apr 4, 2017)

Adam Freeman said:


> So the Asus 1080Ti strix is better regarding cooling performance and noise level. It's the first time we see Msi card from gaming  x series
> falls behind in temperature-noise metric.



guru3d review tells the opposite, only load temp is 2 degrees better on ASUS, everything else MSI is ahead, even power consumption is slightly better on MSI o_0.

but guru3d comparison shows that asus is slightly ahead on same driver regarding fps.


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## crazyeyesreaper (Apr 4, 2017)

The differences are called margin of error. The changes in terms of % are so small as to be indistinguishable.

Noise level overall will be impacted by case used / cooling setup etc 2 dBA is a noticeable difference but at levels below 40 its nearly impossible to detect over other components. I review coolers anything sub 40 dBA is essentially silent at 30cm  / 1ft compared to say the PSU or a mechanical HDD in use. For reference i use a 980Ti Gaming X and even under heavy load the typical case fan at 1000 RPM is louder. Total system noise is 39 dBA at 30cm

While FPS difference is there in tests it generally falls under the typical 3% margin of error.  so 100 fps gives a leeway of 6 fps 3 under to 3 above being essentially an acceptable margin of error range. looking at overall performance charts for the difference between the ASUS and MSI vs the FE version we see the MSI at 4k offers a 7% lead average across the board while the ASUS offers 5% out of box. The difference overall being a paltry 2% which anything from a driver revision to game patch to CPU used to memory subsystem can influence. Now even with driver revision differences. Looking at 4k results MSI / ASUS the typical average difference is 3% and usually that comes down to 2 fps or so.

Its basically a wash pick which vendor you like better lol. In which case i personally lean more toward MSI than ASUS. Considering how bad ASUS fucked me over with the 7970 DirectCU II TOP back in the day.



lors said:


> guru3d review tells the opposite, only load temp is 2 degrees better on ASUS, everything else MSI is ahead, even power consumption is slightly better on MSI o_0.
> 
> but guru3d comparison shows that asus is slightly ahead on same driver regarding fps.


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## efikkan (Apr 4, 2017)

thebluebumblebee said:


> I've gotten to play with one of the Armor versions and the cooler has trouble keeping it below 83°, and I'm not the only one seeing that.  Check the reviews at Newegg.
> Is $40 really that big of a deal on a $700+ GPU?


Stock or overclocked?
If there is a noticeable difference, then of course it's worth it.


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## thebluebumblebee (Apr 4, 2017)

efikkan said:


> Stock or overclocked?
> If there is a noticeable difference, then of course it's worth it.


Stock clocks, 72°F room.  It was causing it to thermal throttle, which is a failure in my book.  Now that was with F@H which puts a full load on it 100% of the time.  Most likely, gaming would not put such a high consistent load on it.


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## idx (Apr 4, 2017)

300W and 2.5 slot, kinda disgusting.


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## lors (Apr 4, 2017)

crazyeyesreaper said:


> The differences are called margin of error. The changes in terms of % are so small as to be indistinguishable.
> 
> Noise level overall will be impacted by case used / cooling setup etc 2 dBA is a noticeable difference but at levels below 40 its nearly impossible to detect over other components. I review coolers anything sub 40 dBA is essentially silent at 30cm  / 1ft compared to say the PSU or a mechanical HDD in use. For reference i use a 980Ti Gaming X and even under heavy load the typical case fan at 1000 RPM is louder. Total system noise is 39 dBA at 30cm
> 
> ...



thanks for the info! 

i preordered the MSI at amazon for 753€, so i save 100€.


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## Agentbb007 (Apr 4, 2017)

Bummer I was going to upgrade my MSI 1080 to a MSI 1080 ti but only 2 display ports is a deal killer for me.  I run 3 monitors that only have DP's and I don't want to mess with converters that might or might not work with certain resolutions/refresh rates.  Guess I will just wait for Volta in 2018.


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## crazyeyesreaper (Apr 4, 2017)

HDMI to displayport adaptors work fine. Its a digital to digital connection.


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## Agentbb007 (Apr 4, 2017)

crazyeyesreaper said:


> HDMI to displayport adaptors work fine. Its a digital to digital connection.


Naw I've been down that road before, never again.  Many of the adapters will only work at certain resolutions and I have yet to find one that says it will support 1440p 144Hz.  Many of these adapters are USB powered so that will use up one of my USB ports, not to mention majorly clutter up the back of my rig with a clunky adapter, no thanks.
If I was to buy a 1080 ti I would go for the Gigabyte Aorus or EVGA SC2 since both of these have 3 DP's.  But I've been really happy with my MSI 1080 and love how quiet it is so would like to stick with the MSI brand.
It's ironic because when I upgraded from my Titan Maxwell to 1080 I moved from Asus to MSI because the Asus 1080 only had 2 DP.  Now MSI has done the same stupid thing so I might move to EVGA or Gigabyte.


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## crazyeyesreaper (Apr 4, 2017)

To each their own havent had any issues granted still using 1200p / 1080p across multiple screens here. I didn't feel like being a test dummy for newest tech such as Gsync / 4k etc since none of that stuff really works as intended beyond a few screens or basic 60hz display. Its all a pain in the ass in general.


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## Vayra86 (Apr 5, 2017)

crazyeyesreaper said:


> To each their own havent had any issues granted still using 1200p / 1080p across multiple screens here. I didn't feel like being a test dummy for newest tech such as Gsync / 4k etc since none of that stuff really works as intended beyond a few screens or basic 60hz display. Its all a pain in the ass in general.



Amen to that!


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## ddarko (Apr 5, 2017)

Can you clarify what seems to be a discrepancy with the out-of-box core clock rates for the MSI and Asus 1080 Ti cards?  The MSI review conclusion says it's clocked higher than the Asus, coming in 7% versus 5% higher, respectively, than the reference Founder Edition card.  However, the spec charts in the MSI and Asus reviews lists the MSI's core clock as 1544 MHz while the core clock for the Asus is 1569 MHz, which is obviously higher than the MSI.  Which one has the higher out-of-box core clock?


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## W1zzard (Apr 5, 2017)

ddarko said:


> Can you clarify what seems to be a discrepancy with the out-of-box core clock rates for the MSI and Asus 1080 Ti cards?  The MSI review conclusion says it's clocked higher than the Asus, coming in 7% versus 5% higher, respectively, than the reference Founder Edition card.  However, the spec charts in the MSI and Asus reviews lists the MSI's core clock as 1544 MHz while the core clock for the Asus is 1569 MHz, which is obviously higher than the MSI.  Which one has the higher out-of-box core clock?


Base clock is higher on ASUS, actual clocks after Boost, in gaming, are higher on MSI, refer to the chart at the end of the temps page in both reviews.


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## ddarko (Apr 7, 2017)

Thanks for the clarification.  I had interpreted "out of box" to mean the default core clock rate that's hardwired into the card BIOS but it seems your usage of the term also encompasses what can be achieved through the overclocking software.  I focus on the BIOS clock rate because I avoid installing the overclocking software and would rather go with a card that has a higher default BIOS clock rate over a card that can be overclocked higher with software.  My experience with Asus software has made me allergic to it.


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## W1zzard (Apr 7, 2017)

ddarko said:


> Thanks for the clarification.  I had interpreted "out of box" to mean the default core clock rate that's hardwired into the card BIOS but it seems your usage of the term also encompasses what can be achieved through the overclocking software.  I focus on the BIOS clock rate because I avoid installing the overclocking software and would rather go with a card that has a higher default BIOS clock rate over a card that can be overclocked higher with software.  My experience with Asus software has made me allergic to it.


Out of the box in my terms means without any manual overclocking and without vendor software installed.

You do know about NVIDIA GPU Boost?


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## johnwayne117 (Apr 9, 2017)

Is there an error in review?
"The uPI uP9511P is the same voltage controller as on the GTX 1080 and GTX 1070."
But picture shows it is NCP81274. wtf?


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