The ASUS GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Matrix is ASUS's flagship card for this generation. It features the world's first fully contained watercooling loop on a graphics card. Other watercooled cards go for an approach that more closely resembles what you get with aftermarket watercooling: a separate radiator that might end up too bulky for many cases, or too complicated to install for some users. Not only is the watercooling solution impressive, but the card comes with the highest out of the box overclock of all RTX 2080 Ti cards we tested. GPU Boost is set to 1800 MHz, which is higher than all RTX 2080 Ti models on the market with the exception for three cards which offer 15 MHz higher boost. The ASUS card still wins because it has the highest memory clock out of the box with 1850 MHz, which is significantly higher than the 1800 MHz you see on competing high-end cards. Overall, when looking at our performance results for 4K, the ASUS RTX 2080 Ti Matrix Platinum is 10% faster than the RTX 2080 Ti Founders Edition, which means it should be slightly ahead of the NVIDIA TITAN RTX. Compared to the RTX 2080, the performance increase is a whopping 40%, and compared to AMD's fastest, the Radeon VII, the uplift is around 50%. Those performance numbers make the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti an excellent choice for full-details gaming with 60 FPS at 4K—something no weaker card even gets close to delivering.

ASUS has decided to use the same PCB as on the RTX 2080 Ti STRIX, which might cause some outcry in the community. But taking a closer look at that PCB shows that it's more than adequate for such a product. It comes with a 16+3 phase power design, which matches all other competitors, and the voltage controller from Monolithic Systems is the best money can buy. I'm not even sure whether ASUS could have improved much on the STRIX PCB—maybe a third power connector, which won't do much because of the BIOS power limit, maybe some circuitry for an OLED/VFD display to show stats, but that's definitely not a dealbreaker. I do find it surprising that ASUS included the circuitry for pump power even on their original STRIX PCB—they must have known the Matrix is coming and accommodated for it. The result of this foresight is that ASUS can now pick from the large pool of STRIX PCB/GPU/memory combinations for its GPU-binning process, which lets them find the best candidates for Matrix cards. According to ASUS, the top 5% of these cards make it on to the Matrix. The company also confirmed that the Matrix is not only a short production run with limited quantity, but that production will be ongoing for as long as demand exists.

Building self-contained watercooling into a card has always been some sort of holy grail in the graphics industry. We heard rumors of companies working on it over the years, but the technological hurdles seemed impossible to master given nobody had managed to pull it off. Guess we were wrong—in what looks like a fully custom design (that's not using Asetek, by the way), ASUS has achieved that goal without even having to go quad-slot for the cooler design. Like on their other GeForce 20 cards, ASUS has included a dual BIOS, giving you a choice between prioritizing low temperatures or less fan noise. With the default "performance" BIOS, this highly overclocked card reaches only 66°C during gaming with noise levels that are comparable to the NVIDIA RTX 2080 Ti Founders Edition. When the "quiet" mode BIOS is activated, temperatures match the RTX 2080 Ti Founders Edition, but the card ends up running much quieter. However, the biggest noise emitter on the Matrix is the pump, which runs at a set speed at all times regardless of whether the card is idle or fully loaded. This is especially true when the system is idle and fan-stop is activated (quiet BIOS only), as the pump becomes the only source of noise for the graphics card and is easy to make out over various other sources of noise in the PC due to its distinct sound signature. It would have been better had ASUS given the pump PWM capability to adjust its speed automatically, resulting in lower noise levels. There is no reason the pump has to run at full speed when the card is lightly loaded or sitting idle. It's also important to mention here that the regular ASUS RTX 2080 Ti STRIX (the quietest RTX 2080 Ti we ever tested) reaches the same noise levels with its "quiet" BIOS and is completely silent when the fans stop because it has no pump. Overall performance of the STRIX is a few percent lower because of its lower clocks out of the box, however.

Some of the highest-end RTX 2080 Ti cards feature three power connectors while the Matrix "only" has two. Together with the PCIe slot, these two power inputs can supply up to 375 W to the card, which is enough for all uses except competitive hardcore overclocking. All of these cards use the same 16+3 phase power delivery system, so only the power connectors and BIOS power limit are different. With 300 W default and 360 W maximum, the limits are more conservative on the ASUS Matrix than on other top-end cards, but again, I don't think this will affect regular users much. It does suggest that ASUS isn't targeting their Matrix at the hardcore OC crowd, though, but, rather, more regular users who want the best performance out of the box, maybe with the ability to sprinkle on a little bit of manual OC with the stock cooler. This seems to be supported by the lack of a special LN2 BIOS optimized for liquid nitrogen overclocking.

Unlike most RTX 2080 Ti cards on the market, ASUS is using Samsung GDDR6 chips on their card, which overclock much better than the chips from Micron. We typically see about 100 MHz higher OC potential, which is significant. The ASUS waterblock cools the memory, too, which is a small novelty on its own. Overall, memory overclocking is the best we've seen so far on an RTX 2080 Ti. GPU overclocking, on the other hand, was good, but with 2115 MHz, not significantly different from the majority of our RTX 2080 Ti cards. After manual overclocking, we gained almost 7.5% in real-life performance, which definitely makes this a rewarding journey that extends the card's lead over the Titan RTX, which will plateau in performance first because of its lower board power limit.

While exact pricing isn't decided yet for the RTX 2080 Ti Matrix Platinum, ASUS's expectation is "not below $1900", which is a lot of money for a graphics card, as is $1200 for any RTX 2080 Ti. I doubt the watercooling unit costs $700, but we have to factor in R&D cost and the premium for GPU binning. On the other hand, compared to the $2,500 Titan RTX, the Matrix will definitely have the upper hand. It should be faster out of the box and overclock better thanks to its higher power limit, and the integrated watercooling is not only a novelty as it also works well, with better noise levels at the same time. I would say the ASUS RTX 2080 Ti Matrix is the ideal choice for gamers who just want the fastest graphics card out of the box and can afford it. Those people usually don't want to worry about adding custom watercooling or learning how to install an AIO radiator, and manual overclocking might not be their thing either. On the opposite end are hardcore overclockers looking to break world records using liquid nitrogen, throwing away the watercooler. These are probably better served with the LN2 optimized cards on the market. Last but not least, if you value noise over everything, the ASUS RTX 2080 Ti STRIX should be on your list—it's the quietest RTX 2080 Ti on the market and considerably cheaper than the Matrix. If you want better value, the RTX 2080 Ti simply isn't an option, and I'd recommend looking at the RTX 2060 or RTX 2070 instead.