# MSI GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Lightning Z 11 GB



## W1zzard (Jan 24, 2019)

MSI's GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Lightning Z is the company's flagship RTX 2080 Ti. Its out of the box overclock is larger than on most other cards, and it actually provides significant performance gains. MSI also added a lot of features for overclockers, and RGB is present, too.

*Show full review*


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## xkm1948 (Jan 24, 2019)

Hmm so I wonder which is better, the Kingping FTW3 or this one.


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## M2B (Jan 24, 2019)

I was expecting it to beat the Strix 2080Ti in terms of thermals and noise levels.
But seems like asus' cooling solution for 2080Ti is in another level compared to all other 2080Ti's.
I understand the fact that the power limit has increased for the lightning Z model and it's clocked higher but still, I don't think its cooling solution is as capable as asus'.


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## 15th Warlock (Jan 25, 2019)

My Asus Strix 2080 Ti OCs a bit higher than this card, but I have a feeling the real potential for this card is gonna be realized when people use LN2 to cool it, the power delivery circuitry is over engineered with that purpose in mind.

Thanks for the review.


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## EarthDog (Jan 25, 2019)

Well done! 

Any chance we can sort the maximum overclock table by maximum overclocks instead of alphabetical?


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## Nkd (Jan 25, 2019)

its a damn shame. I actually wanted to consider picking up a 2080ti. But there seem to none around the original promised MSR. 1300+ for everything. Even EVGA raised the price on their black edition card when it was supposed to be 999 but they switched it to 1100 now. Suckers! ROFL! Only reason I didn't buy it because they pretty raised the MSRP after press release. They can suck it.

Pretty much everyone is selling above founders edition. Last time actually we started seeing cards below 1080ti founders edition tax. But its almost 5 months now and everyone is milking it.


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## MagnuTron (Jan 25, 2019)

15th Warlock said:


> My Asus Strix 2080 Ti OCs a bit higher than this card, but I have a feeling the real potential for this card is gonna be realized when people use LN2 to cool it, the power delivery circuitry is over engineered with that purpose in mind.
> 
> Thanks for the review.



Honestly that might come down to sampling. Yes these cards aren't remarkable unless placed under LN2 - that is their purpose as far as I know.


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## W1zzard (Jan 25, 2019)

EarthDog said:


> Well done!
> 
> Any chance we can sort the maximum overclock table by maximum overclocks instead of alphabetical?


Click the header?


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## Blueberries (Jan 25, 2019)

Long are the days of overclocking the crap out of your hardware without exotic cooling...

Even MSI's own Duke card achieved a higher GPU clock than their Lightning in W1zard's tests, and by the looks of it, it didn't run any cooler under load either.

In a couple years when GPUs are pumping out 100 FPS in 4k we're going to have some really unexciting competition between AIB partners.


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## Tsukiyomi91 (Jan 25, 2019)

so, the 2080Ti FE is $100 cheaper than the non FE?? whut? Am I seeing things? anyways, great review as always, W1zz. Anyways, I don't see the RTX cards not supporting Windows 7 as a drawback when the majority of userbase are using Windows 10.


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## cucker tarlson (Jan 25, 2019)

holy crap that power draw...


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## Joss (Jan 25, 2019)

cucker tarlson said:


> holy crap that power draw...


Yes.
And the price, and the size... and the price
But then we read things like 





> Very energy efficient in gaming


 or 





> Stunning RGB visuals


 followed by a very short list of cons... but no, tech press is not biased.


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## W1zzard (Jan 25, 2019)

Joss said:


> Yes.
> And the price, and the size... and the price
> But then we read things like  or
> followed by a very short list of cons... but no, tech press is not biased.


Look at perf/watt. It's more energy efficient than the Founders Edition.

I thought I was clear about the price?


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## cucker tarlson (Jan 25, 2019)

Joss said:


> Yes.
> And the price, and the size... and the price
> But then we read things like  or
> followed by a very short list of cons... but no, tech press is not biased.


I consider peak power draw as important as average draw,you don't want those spikes to exceed your psu capabilities.


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## W1zzard (Jan 25, 2019)

cucker tarlson said:


> I consider peak power draw as important as average draw,you don't want those spikes to exceed your psu capabilities.


I'm sure a lot of people will use a $1600 card with a 450 W PSU


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## cucker tarlson (Jan 25, 2019)

W1zzard said:


> I'm sure a lot of people will use a $1600 card with a 450 W PSU


no but with peak draw at 360w stock, if you have a HEDT system with oc both the CPU and the card and running on a 650W,I would not be surprised to see OCP tripped.


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## BarbaricSoul (Jan 25, 2019)

$1600 for just a video card? I built a full top of the line system with a 780ti for about that much. Video card prices *ARE OUTRAGEOUSLY EXPENSIVE*. I can buy a car for less money. It killed me to spend $750 on the 780ti, there is no way I could justify spending this much money on a video card, even if I was rich.


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## cucker tarlson (Jan 25, 2019)

that'll buy you 1080Ti SLI and a 9700K


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## Robcostyle (Jan 25, 2019)

So, no voltage unlock and 2250 MHz on air/water I suppose? 
Hm, where I can find more info about boost 4.0 - can't find it on the ocn.

So, simply put - this card is completely useless for 99.8% of users? Especially taking into account that price tag - 600$ for aib - are they nuts? And I bet pricetag on shelf will be even more ridiculous - 2000$ I guess?
Damn shame. Eventually, it will kill all the AIBs aswell, because from now, it's all about how quite and cold the card is - all other factors, such as max oc, VRM quality, PCB complexity is no more relevant, yeah. 
And that's going to be nightmare for all of us, frankly speaking - because soon, with such approach, only asus/gigabyte/msi gonna stay, with nvidia sharing the whole market. Or even worse - only single nvidia puting prices out of a hat. I'm not even talking about myself - because, in that case, with nvidia videocard (not gpu!) monopoly, I won't see any solid gpu in my country at all. Why? Because nvidia doesn't sell it's gpus in ukraine - only aibs, there's no way you can get FE here. And now imagine the situation, if there were only FE available to buy, only directly from nvidia, only in preselected countries.


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## Black Haru (Jan 25, 2019)

cucker tarlson said:


> no but with peak draw at 360w stock, if you have a HEDT system with oc both the CPU and the card and running on a 650W,I would not be surprised to see OCP tripped.



You are right. So don't buy a 650 W system for a high end HEDT build.


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## cucker tarlson (Jan 25, 2019)

Black Haru said:


> You are right. So don't buy a 650 W system for a high end HEDT build.


or don't buy this and a hedt cpu for a gaming rig.


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## Black Haru (Jan 25, 2019)

cucker tarlson said:


> or don't buy this and a hedt cpu for a gaming rig.



Certainly a fair point. Although a overclocked 9900k can still pull close to 300 W by itself, so mainstream isn't entirely safe either. (I know, I know, a 9900k isn't really necessary for gaming either)

The fact is that this is a halo product, it's about proving what MSI is capable of. As with all such products you pay a steep premium for that small bit of extra.


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## EarthDog (Jan 25, 2019)

cucker tarlson said:


> buy you 1080Ti SLI and a 9700K


It will? 1080 Ti is $1000+ itself now.

If you pick your power supply right (adequate headroom), peak values do not matter much honestly. MSI calls it a 300W card and suggests a 650W PSU for it. That will handle most PCs, even HEDT, with some overclocking. That said I am surprised they didn't suggest 750W. I'd be more comfortable there with HEDT fully OC'd and this GPU. I run my system now on a 750W PSU and the fan never turns on the thing (7960x @ 4.4 GHz, 2080 Ti FE overclocked). A 650W would suffice in most cases.


W1zzard said:


> Click the header?


Awesome.. never knew that! Any chance it can be sorted that way by default? Its a table of OCs and its in alphabetical order. The first piece of info users should see is what the table shows IMO.


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## W1zzard (Jan 25, 2019)

EarthDog said:


> Awesome.. never knew that! Any chance it can be sorted that way by default? Its a table of OCs and its in alphabetical order. The first piece of info users should see is what the table shows IMO.


Problem is sort by max GPU OC or max memory OC? That's why I went for alphabetical


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## EarthDog (Jan 25, 2019)

W1zzard said:


> Problem is sort by max GPU OC or max memory OC? That's why I went for alphabetical


GPU OC surely. Memory is, typically, a secondary thought.


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## The King (Jan 25, 2019)

Was expecting more OC performance from the Samsung memory, but I guess this is a good thing at the end of the day since there seems to be no real advantage of Samsung VRAM over Micron VRAM like with DDR5.


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## W1zzard (Jan 25, 2019)

The King said:


> Was expecting more OC performance from the Samsung memory, but I guess this is a good thing at the end of the day since there seems to be no real advantage of Samsung VRAM over Micron VRAM like with DDR5.


The difference is around 100 MHz


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## The King (Jan 25, 2019)

W1zzard said:


> The difference is around 100 MHz



The ASUS 2080 Ti Strix card hit 2065Mhz with  Micron memory vs 2090Mhz with Lightning with the Samsung memory, so that's a 25mhz difference.
Yes, I know this will vary and no two cards will OC the same etc...

I have 7 GTX 1070s all with micron VRAM all different brands 2 Asus Strix OC, 2 Gigabyte Windforce and 3 MSI Amour cards and all of them are barely stable with +400Mhz on the VRAM,
no were close to the 2290Mhz you got when you tested the Msi GTX 1070 Quick Silver with Micron VRAM. You stated then from that one sample review, there was no real disadvantage from having a GTX 1070 with micron VRAM. I can state from my more than one sample of GTX 1070s with micron VRAM, that there is a big difference when compared to the Samsung GTX 1070 versions.

The general feeling most people give off when they have a GPU with Micron VRAM is that they wished they had Samsung instead.

I was hoping this not be the case with the newer GDDR6 VRAM versions and that the difference between Micron and Samsung should not be so great in terms of Overclocking VRAM performance.


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## EarthDog (Jan 25, 2019)

The King said:


> The general feeling most people give off when they have a GPU with Micron VRAM is that they wished I had Samsung instead.


Last gen, yes.


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## W1zzard (Jan 25, 2019)

The King said:


> The ASUS 2080 Ti Strix card hit 2065Mhz with Micron memory


That card seems to be an outlier. I tested other RTX cards with Samsung and the difference does seem to be around 100 MHz there too. It's 5%, really not enough to lose sleep about


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## maukkae (Jan 25, 2019)

Those thermals and fans are out of control! It's like a totally different card compared to what Guru3D measured.

Yours: 75°C & 2000rpm
Guru3D: 67°C & 1400rpm

Seems like it's quite a risk to purchase.


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## Mescalamba (Jan 25, 2019)

maukkae said:


> Those thermals and fans are out of control! It's like a totally different card compared to what Guru3D measured.
> 
> Yours: 75°C & 2000rpm
> Guru3D: 67°C & 1400rpm
> ...



Sample variation probably. Or bad TIM application, or both.

Temp definitely doesnt look like I would expect (on par with ASUS creation).

While this super-ultra version is fun to look at, I would appreciate review of stuff like..

*RTX 2070 MSI AERO 8G*

Cause its one of cheapest 2070, which still has quite a bit of power (probably). And thus is actually sorta realistic to buy it. In case you dont want second-hand 1080 Ti (which apart tensor cores is ofc better buy).

And if you ask why this one? Well MSI is atm kinda respectable brand. Their HW doesnt tend to die too frequently (unlike certain unnamed manufacturers), so.. that.


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## Razrback16 (Jan 25, 2019)

As usual with the MSI Lightning model - just a beautiful card, but (2) major downsides with his model that make it basically non-considerable for me - 1.) Price. It's about $600 overpriced which is mostly due to NVidia's ridiculous pricing on Turing 2.) The cooler is unacceptable. Any card that touts overclocking, voltage and power design upgrades, etc. like the Lightning model does should have an option of a FC Waterblock.


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## Tolga (Jan 26, 2019)

Good old times hah , i remember my GTX 780 Lightning overclock 1450mhz with custom water cooling + 3rd party program 1.4v

Next gens nvidia blocked voltage and TDP increase? why should i buy this card now


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## Pumper (Jan 26, 2019)

So much for $1000 non FE 2080Tis.


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## EarthDog (Jan 26, 2019)

Pumper said:


> So much for $1000 non FE 2080Tis.


those would be reference models....not the highest ssd t of high end.


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## Pumper (Jan 26, 2019)

EarthDog said:


> those would be reference models....not the highest ssd t of high end.



And yet the cheapest non FE cards are over $1250.


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## EarthDog (Jan 26, 2019)

FE is not reference.


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## Pumper (Jan 26, 2019)

Fact is that there are no GPUs cheaper than FE at $1200 when nvidia promissed that 2080Tis will start at $1000 and nvidia never specified that the price point does not include non reference models.

BTW, do reference models of the RTX cards exist? I don't think so, as the only stock nvidia cooler is the FE one and the rest of GPUs use custom cooling solutions, thus every single RTX GPU in non reference.


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## EarthDog (Jan 26, 2019)

Inflated market.

https://m.newegg.com/products/N82E16814126261

There's a 2080ti from asus that is blower/reference. Its 3rd party so price is high.


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## GlacierNine (Jan 28, 2019)

> Priced at $1,600, the MSI RTX 2080 Ti Lightning Z is definitely not cheap, but not outrageously expensive either (compared to other options above $1,000).



Can we maybe not participate in the normalising of absolutely absurd GPU pricing? The mining boom is well and done, and yet GPU pricing is still absolutely ridiculous.

In 2009, at launch I could buy an HD5870, the fastest single GPU card on the market, bar none, for £299.
In 2016 I could buy a GTX 1080 for £520 at launch.
Right now the cheapest 2080Ti I can buy is £1049.99.

This, while the performance increases are also smaller now - The HD5870 was 37% faster than the card it replaced, the HD4870, according to TPU's own Review, and the GTX 1080 was 41% faster than the 980 at 4K, or 36% at 1080p.

The RTX 2080 on the other hand is Only 24% faster than the previous generation card at the same level. The Ti is even worse, being only 19% faster than the previous generation Ti.

And that's without taking into account Nvidia's muddying of the waters by moving their entire product lineup up an entire price class while retaining the naming.

Also, because I know someone will bring this up - No, the value of the currency is not the reason for this.

In 2009, £299.99 was equivalent to £380.99 in 2018
In 2016 £519.99 was equivalent to £660.39 in 2018
and yet in the first month of 2019, Nvidia is charging £1,099.00 on their own web shop for the 2080Ti, and £749.00 for the 2080.

We've seen real-terms-prices nearly double since 2009 while the generational performance gap hasn't widened year-on-year, and this generation the gap has actually shrunk by nearly half for two cards at the same relative position in the product stack.

It's honestly beyond a joke and I think any respectable member of the tech press should be doing far better than simply accepting that "High end graphics cards now cost two thirds more than they did 2 years ago after adjusting for inflation, and 188% percent of what they cost 10 years ago, for half of the performance increase per generation".


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## Joss (Jan 28, 2019)

GlacierNine said:


> Can we maybe not participate in the normalising of absolutely absurd GPU pricing?


Agree.
And thank you for taking the time to gather those price and performance gains comparisons. That should be the job of tech reviewers.


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## GlacierNine (Jan 28, 2019)

Joss said:


> Agree.
> And thank you for taking the time to gather those price and performance gains comparisons. That should be the job of tech reviewers.


To be fair they're very quick and dirty, and I didn't take the time to properly consider whether the modern equivalent of an HD5870 should be a 2080 or a 2080Ti. On the one hand, the 2080Ti is, like the HD5870 was, the fastest single-die-on-a-PCB consumer card you can buy. On the other hand, so is the RTX Titan, but that came later and is a very unique product, perhaps more analogous to the HD5970, which was the single-card-crossfire version of the 5870. Muddying waters even further is that the Ti cards traditionally come later and as a performance bump to an existing flagship, and the 2080 would normally be that flagship. 

It doesn't matter a whole lot - All 3 of them are disproportionately more expensive compared to the HD5870, even after adjusting for inflation, but I honestly could have chosen any of the 3 and it would simply have lessened the blow or made it much worse when I calculated the percentages.

The bottom line is, in 2019, GPU buyers are getting taken to the cleaners for a lot more cash, and getting nowhere near enough in return.


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## phill (Jan 29, 2019)

For me personally, so much money for not enough gain unless you might be able to use it with a phase cooler or LN2...  It's a solid performer no doubt but like with all 1080 Ti's and 2080's and everything else, whatever Nvidia seem to be doing to limit the overclocking for the core, 100Mhz over stock isn't hardly enough for me to go and buy a few...

Like with my 1080 Ti SC's I have, I would have prefered to get the 1080 Ti FTW3 cards, but the difference in price and the difference in performance wasn't enough at the time for me to get them.  I still have a 1080 Ti at the end of the day but it might be a few % behind the top cards costing a load more... 
The RGB for me is a bit of a put off point as well.  But then when you use it with LN2, I'm not sure that's even a consideration...


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## londiste (Jan 29, 2019)

@W1zzard on Page 33 power limits graphs shouldn't 2080*Ti* FE be highlighted in blue?


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## W1zzard (Jan 29, 2019)

londiste said:


> @W1zzard on Page 33 power limits graphs shouldn't 2080*Ti* FE be highlighted in blue?


Indeed, fixed. Thanks!


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## GlacierNine (Jan 29, 2019)

I decided to do a more thorough analysis.

First off, the inclusion of TITAN cards *really* throws a wrench in these figures, even when only including the GTX TITANs that were marketed as gaming cards - They're just way out of line with everything else in terms of both price and performance. That's why the first chart I'm going to post doesn't include them, so that we can draw some more realistic conclusions from the data, and not have it muddied up by Titans being so chaotic in terms of their cost and their performance increase over a previous card.

Secondly, the performance change figures I'm using, are all from TPU's "Performancy Summary" pages in the respective reviews of each card. I have deliberately not used the average summary however - I have only used TPU's highest resolution summaries, in order to eliminate as much variance due to CPU or game as possible.






Some caveats - Firstly, yes, there's no such card as an HD580. I meant the GTX580. Secondly, this chart is not adjusted for inflation. You'll need to do that for yourselves if you want more data. I've done it for a couple of examples below however.

You can, of course, draw your own conclusions, but what strikes me is that between September 2010 and June 2015, we saw a tripling in performance and an RRP increase of 71% - Accounting for inflation over the same period, actually only 55% over a little under 6 years.

Since then, we've seen performance jump to 210% of a 980Ti, but that's come with a price increase of 74%, and that's not over 6 years, it's over only 3.

That's at RRP for Reference Design cards and doesn't include TITANs. If I add in the Titan RTX, (Which TPU didn't test but Toms Hardware says is 6% faster than 2080Ti) then we've got 223% of the performance of a 980Ti, but with a 363% price increase after adjusting for inflation.

However you slice it, and even discounting the fact Pascal as an architecture really was a surprisingly huge leap forwards, the truth is, customers in 2019 are spending more money, for a smaller relative improvement than they used to see for their extra dollars, and the price increases are themselves getting steeper.


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## EarthDog (Jan 29, 2019)

GlacierNine said:


> However you slice it, and even discounting the fact Pascal as an architecture really was a surprisingly huge leap forwards, the truth is, customers in 2019 are spending more money, for a smaller relative improvement than they used to see for their extra dollars, and the price increases are themselves getting steeper.


Thanks... good to see something we already knew in print!


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## Razrback16 (Jan 29, 2019)

Yep thanks to Glacier for taking the time to dig all those numbers up. NVidia's simply being greedy and limiting their customer base, which isn't a good practice if you want people to keep buying your products. My last 3-4 generations of cards have been NVidia and I had planned on buying a couple 2080 Ti cards this year until I read the reviews and saw the asking price. Even as a frequent NVidia customer, I am glad they are being bent over by the stock market right now. Only time will tell if they adjust some of their business practices or not. If not, I'll be either buying a different brand of cards next time I upgrade, or buying 2nd hand market cards once pricing is in a range I deem acceptable.


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## Mescalamba (Jan 30, 2019)

Everyone is fked over on stock market right now, mostly cause stock market is about to deep dive from a cliff. Losing some stock price isnt atm that much tied to performance of company, more to general sentiment and well.. deep dive incoming.


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## dalekdukesboy (Feb 5, 2019)

EarthDog said:


> It will? 1080 Ti is $1000+ itself now.
> 
> If you pick your power supply right (adequate headroom), peak values do not matter much honestly. MSI calls it a 300W card and suggests a 650W PSU for it. That will handle most PCs, even HEDT, with some overclocking. That said I am surprised they didn't suggest 750W. I'd be more comfortable there with HEDT fully OC'd and this GPU. I run my system now on a 750W PSU and the fan never turns on the thing (7960x @ 4.4 GHz, 2080 Ti FE overclocked). A 650W would suffice in most cases.
> Awesome.. never knew that! Any chance it can be sorted that way by default? Its a table of OCs and its in alphabetical order. The first piece of info users should see is what the table shows IMO.



Not mine, I got it for $485 . Days before these ridiculous cards were released.


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