MSI GTX 1080 Gaming X 8 GB

[bug]

I vote for castrating the guy who thought that 20% above MSRP is OK. The more expensive it is, the less value it holds and the more fierce the defense be from the ones who bought it, there aren't many people who can admit a 700+ purchase mistake..

Don't worry about it, if the price is unfair nobody will buy these. And then the manufacturer will have to lower the price.

 

[beck24]

LOL, didn't say it wasn't. Now, try and focus on it's over-inflated value.

What's amazing is how skillfully you chose to completely gloss over the primary point, which was that most of those pointing out its overinflated expense are not AMD owners as you assumed. It IS possible to just make honest assesments of a product.

I
It's all relative. What's over inflated to you is not to somebody else . That's why there is a wide price range of products. Some bought the Founder's Edition cards which makes no sense to me, but so what? That's their business.

 

[centaurius]

Weird prices, actually where I am right now the price of GTX 1080 FE is 799€, and the MSI GTX 1080 Gaming X is at 779€.

 

[beck24]

Weird prices, actually where I am right now the price of GTX 1080 FE is 799€, and the MSI GTX 1080 Gaming X is at 779€.

I'm waiting for the 1080ti which from all reports should be ridiculously fast.
I think some of the custom 1070s are looking pretty cool for people with older cards .

 

[Dippyskoodlez]

I'm looking into that right now. SLI HB Bridge just arrived from NV

w1zzard da MVP.

 

[jihadjoe]

In my opinion, it's better to judge a product's performance based on it's stock clock than it's overclocking capability. Plus, there's always that luck of the draw when it comes to OC.

Who buys a card specially made for overclocking to run stock?

 

[Aquinus]

Who buys a card specially made for overclocking to run stock?

There is something to be said for not having to touch overclocking to be happy with the card. I've overclocked my 390 to play with it but, I don't usually need to overclock it to be happy with the performance I get out of it. I think that's @EzioAs' point. With that said, I love my 390 GAMING. MSI has done a great job as of late IMHO.

 

[GhostRyder]

Love the design, cooler, and everything of this card. Always love seeing MSI cards in action and this one has not let down except on the overclocking front.

 

[Aquinus]

Love the design, cooler, and everything of this card. Always love seeing MSI cards in action and this one has not let down except on the overclocking front.

That's how I've been feeling about the GAMING series. The TwinFrozr series felt a lot like MSI's own take with about similar results as the reference design plus maybe a quieter cooler but, the GAMING series seems to clock far better than the prior cards. I don't know what MSI is doing, but they need to keep doing it.

 

[Prima.Vera]

Just wait for the 1080Ti price! (We need an emoticon of clutching the chest)

The new Titan will probably break the 2K$ barrier too. It seems that recently Money start to grew on the trees, otherwise I really cannot understand those callous prices...

 

[Abula]

More reviews will follow this week; the cards are already here, stay tuned.

Hope there is a Asus GTX1080 Strix on the list, i really want to see how it measures with the MSI.

Btw did you guys know if there will be a MSI GTX1080 Lightning, seems there was a lightning model on Computex, but some sites said that was GTX980ti that was purely there for show, and that MSI didn't have a real GTX1080 Lightning. I really would like to know, i would wait if there will be one, specially with how good it did on the GTX980Ti, but i somewhat think that they are going to wait for the GTX1080Ti.

 

[Basard]

In my opinion, it's better to judge a product's performance based on it's stock clock than it's overclocking capability. Plus, there's always that luck of the draw when it comes to OC.

So, the FE is ABSOLUTELY pointless then.

 

[SmokingCrop]

Hope there is a Asus GTX1080 Strix on the list, i really want to see how it measures with the MSI.

Btw did you guys know if there will be a MSI GTX1080 Lightning, seems there was a lightning model on Computex, but some sites said that was GTX980ti that was purely there for show, and that MSI didn't have a real GTX1080 Lightning. I really would like to know, i would wait if there will be one, specially with how good it did on the GTX980Ti, but i somewhat think that they are going to wait for the GTX1080Ti.

That Lightning on Computex was the 980 Ti. Asked that on forums of tweakers.net (dutch) where MSI employee ("The Source") often comes.
He also says it takes atleast 2-3 months to make something like a Lightning model and like a month for the normal models. He didn't say anything about 1080 lightning or 1080 ti lightning.

 

[SpAwNtoHell]

It think you should mention it in the "cons" that it is gigantic. Wont fit a lot of itx cases.

Unfortunately for itx owners, seems like most custom cards this generation are very wide. Seems I will have to go back from a Ncase to my big old prodigy...

Depends on the case my fractal design cube 500 can fit anything i through at it unless the card is wider then 2 slots... And longer then 320mm....and yes it is itx

 

[SpAwNtoHell]

If AMD really can sneak Polaris' promised performance in at $200 they're gonna have a winner on their hands. The prices for the Pascal cards are insane.

That is the reason most of us wait to push the buy button... Ehh not long now i am not expecting polaris to exceed 1080 but close enough or just about 1070 if so we all have a winner if price is right but until then and w1zzard gets its hand on one to review and we see the actual price in the online stores.... As look what gtx 1070 msrp and gtx 1080 got us so far....

In uk at least no 1070 and that is preorder and out of stock is not below 400£ and you need to add delivery to that, and 1080 is not even listed under 620£ except one or 2 listings and then not by much lower... I am not talking about FE... 980ti on the other hand was placed just above 1070 more in bettween pascal cards...but guess what is out of stock so if you want a gpu right now here you can only buy a 970 which is lame really. So really great cards nice to see they exist but will be some time till we want to buy or are available...

 

[Tagaotpk]

Hello.

What about the special BIOS for press cards ?
French review website say MSI and Asus are using special BIOS (not Gigabyte) for press, that leads to 1-3% difference in benches.

http://www.hardware.fr/news/14693/gtx-10x0-asus-msi-bios-special-presse.html

It's not that big but it begins like this and then...

Just a small message nothing big. Have a nice day.

 

[Jeffredo]

I hate monopolies.

 

[ThomasS31]

Hi W1zzard,

Any chance you review the cheaper "Armor" edition as well, to see how it compares?

Thanks!

 

[Footman]

Hi W1zzard,

Any chance you review the cheaper "Armor" edition as well, to see how it compares?

Thanks!

Based on what I read I think all MSI cards are built around the same 1080 pcb using the 10 phase vrm, Hi-c CAPs, Super Ferrite Chokes and solid capacitors. I just purchased one of the MSI Sea Hawk X EK cards (lucky enough to have some cash on hand). I replaced the TIM and the PCB looks exactly the same as the other MSI 1080's. Just the cooling that looks different.

Usually I buy the cheapest VGA I can and then buy the waterblock and backplate separately as it is usually cheaper. This is the first videocard and waterblock combo that is actually cheaper than buying the parts separately. I did pay $804 USD for the card, however a base 1080 would have cost a minimum of $659 and the FE is still $600, add on the EK Waterblock in Nickle at $140 and the backplate at $30 and shipping and you end up spending more than $804. The added benefit of this card is no lost warranty for swapping out the HSF for a waterblock, better pcb than stock FE and custom EK waterblock and backplate.

I haven't really done any testing of this card yet, but it is 30% faster than my overclocked 980Ti (2560x1440), which I gave to my son (sold his GTX 970), everyone wins.....

Perhaps I should have waited for AMD to get their 490 ready or for game promotions! I can always sell the SeaHawk later

(EDIT) I believe that MSI has based their SeaHawk (the one with the Corsair cooler) on the FE PCB with 5 phase power supply and single 8 plug power supply.

 

[Prima.Vera]

I'm waiting for the 1080ti which from all reports should be ridiculously fast.

Which reports? There are no reports of any 1080Ti being released or any performance rumors.
Have any links?

 

[qubit]

Which reports? There are no reports of any 1080Ti being released or any performance rumors.
Have any links?

The 1080 Ti is certain to be released (nothing official from NVIDIA yet) and will perform like the Titan X Pascal, which is indeed ridiculously fast. If past experience is anything to go by, then some variants will actually be faster.

The big catch of course is the price. I'm guesstimating around £900 (Titan X Pascal is £1100 in the UK) which will put a lot of people off, including me.

Check out TPU's Titan X Pascal review to see its incredible performance.

www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/Titan_X_Pascal

 

[GreiverBlade]

The 1080 Ti is certain to be released (nothing official from NVIDIA yet) and will perform like the Titan X Pascal, which is indeed ridiculously fast. If past experience is anything to go by, then some variants will actually be faster.

The big catch of course is the price. I'm guesstimating around £900 (Titan X Pascal is £1100 in the UK) which will put a lot of people off, including me.

Check out TPU's Titan X Pascal review to see its incredible performance.

www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/Titan_X_Pascal

incredible is big talk ... a decently OC'ed 1080 (custom model not the craptastic FE) is not far from it for only a fraction of the price so ... a 1080Ti will merely perform like a OC 1080, nonetheless the 1080 are already ovepriced and the TXP is not worth at all the price tag (i know you can put a Titan X (pascal) under water and OC it further to regain the lead ... but still ) i guess the Ti will have 12gb ... pfahahaha (still no 4k card ... not that it matter ... 4k is not a thing ) well the TXP is "almost" 4K worthy but is 4k really worth if it need the incoming top dog to be accessible?

12-15-21-24 difference is not what i call impressive ...

 

[qubit]

incredible is big talk ... a decently OC'ed 1080 (custom model not the craptastic FE) is not far from it for only a fraction of the price so ... a 1080Ti will merely perform like a OC 1080, nonetheless the 1080 are already ovepriced and the TXP is not worth at all the price tag (i know you can put a Titan X (pascal) under water and OC it further to regain the lead ... but still ) i guess the Ti will have 12gb ... pfahahaha (still no 4k card ... not that it matter ... 4k is not a thing ) well the TXP is "almost" 4K worthy but is 4k really worth if it need the incoming top dog to be accessible?

12-15-21-24 difference is not what i call impressive ...

Actually, I just looked at the review again after I posted and saw that it wasn't as far ahead of the 1080 as I thought, so yeah, fair point.

It's a shame that NVIDIA had to disable two processing blocks from it, making the chip effectively less than 50% bigger than the GP104, reducing the performance advantage. It's a bit of a piss-take when they charge so much for it, competition from AMD there or not. I'm sure that the 1080 Ti version will gimp it further and probably the RAM too. This and the likely price of the 1080 Ti is why I decided to buy the 1080 now.

 

[msamelis]

The 1080 Ti is certain to be released (nothing official from NVIDIA yet) and will perform like the Titan X Pascal, which is indeed ridiculously fast. If past experience is anything to go by, then some variants will actually be faster.

The big catch of course is the price. I'm guesstimating around £900 (Titan X Pascal is £1100 in the UK) which will put a lot of people off, including me.

Nvidia has always been consistent with scaling, performance-wise, with their GPU models. For instance, 2x970s performed slightly better than a single 980ti but the latter had more VRam and cost a little less. One would assume that the same would take place again if and/or when the 1080ti is released. The price will probably be slightly lower than the total cost of two 1070s, so around MSRP of $750 or so, which would probably translate to around £750 in the UK (?). Meanwhile, the price locally would probably be around €900 if I take in mind that the cheapest 1070 is around €470 - bloody hell.

The release of the 980ti also dragged the price of the 980 down too. It could be the same story again. I am waiting on the 1080ti myself and decide if it's worth upgrading or not. Probably the latter.

 

[Ungari]

Hi W1zzard,

Any chance you review the cheaper "Armor" edition as well, to see how it compares?

Thanks!

My understanding from the 900 Series, is that the ARMOR is a simply a Reference Card with the custom cooler, hence the lower price.
BTW I love the Black and White shroud as it will go with any color scheme. No matter how good the Twin Frozr cooler is, there are many who buy the card because MSI forces the Red on it's shroud.