MSI GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Lightning Z 11 GB

[W1zzard]

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.

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[xkm1948]

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

 

[M2B]

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'.

 

[15th Warlock]

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.

 

[EarthDog]

Well done!

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

 

[Nkd]

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.

 

[MagnuTron]

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.

 

[W1zzard]

Well done!

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

Click the header?

 

[Blueberries]

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.

 

[Tsukiyomi91]

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.

 

[cucker tarlson]

holy crap that power draw...

 

[Joss]

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.

 

[W1zzard]

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?

 

[cucker tarlson]

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.

 

[W1zzard]

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

 

[cucker tarlson]

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.

 

[BarbaricSoul]

$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.

 

[cucker tarlson]

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

 

[Robcostyle]

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.

 

[Black Haru]

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.

 

[cucker tarlson]

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.

 

[Black Haru]

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.

 

[EarthDog]

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.

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.

 

[W1zzard]

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

 

[EarthDog]

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.