NVIDIA released the GeForce RTX 3080 12 GB very silently in January. At their CES event, there was no mention of the card, and it suddenly appeared on the market on January 12th. I had samples of the ASUS STRIX OC and MSI Suprim X, but NVIDIA didn't provide a driver before launch—rather, they waited until after launch to post their drivers. At that point, I was already on my ski holiday, and I have had to take care of other new releases since then. Last week, we posted the ASUS STRIX review, and today, it's the MSI RTX 3080 12 GB Suprim X's turn.

With the RTX 3080 12 GB, NVIDIA addresses the concern in the community that "10 GB is not enough" on the RTX 3080. While there are certainly specific scenarios where that is true, across a wide range of titles, even at highest settings and 4K, this is a non-issue—we specifically looked at VRAM usage for this review. Even when we enabled ray tracing, there wasn't a significant framerate difference between 10 GB and 12 GB. Yes, a few games will exceed 10 GB VRAM at 4K with RT on, but these VRAM usage numbers are actually allocations. A game putting a texture or model into VRAM doesn't mean it will be used all the time. Rather, many games are optimistic—as much memory as possible is filled in hopes those assets are used in the near future.

Averaged over our test suite, we found the MSI RTX 3080 12 GB Suprim X to be a whopping 8% faster than the RTX 3080. These are pretty serious gains that put the card VERY close to the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti, which has 12 GB, too, but comes with more cores. The reason for the 8% performance increase is definitely not the VRAM size alone; actually, a lot of factors contribute here. In order of contribution, I'd say it's the increased number of GPU cores, higher power limit, higher clocks, wider memory bus width, and bigger VRAM size. Compared to the RTX 3080 Ti at 4K resolution, the RTX 3080 Suprim X 12 GB is only 3% slower, and the much more expensive RTX 3090 is only 4% faster. In the fight against AMD's offerings, the MSI Suprim X can beat the Radeon RX 6900 XT by 3%, and it's 10% faster than the RX 6800 XT.

With those performance numbers, the card is the perfect choice for 4K gaming at 60 FPS and above. It's probably the only resolution you should consider for this beast because even at 1440p, we've seen some titles get CPU limited—for 1080p, it's definitely overkill. On the other hand, if you have a strong CPU and 1440p high-refresh-rate monitor, the 3080 12 GB could be an option, too. Not for its increased VRAM size, but the added GPU horsepower. The extra performance and VRAM increase over the RTX 3080 10 GB could also give you more headroom in case future games significantly increase their hardware requirements, which seems unlikely considering the new consoles are out and their hardware specifications will define what's possible for the next few years.

In terms of ray tracing performance, there are no big surprises: The RTX 3080 12 GB is faster than the RTX 3080 10 GB due to the reasons listed above, and it's quite close to the RTX 3080 Ti. In the duel against AMD's offerings, NVIDIA Ampere GPUs clearly have the upper hand because they execute more ray tracing instructions in hardware. AMD is addressing this "problem" by teaming up with developers to ensure they implement watered-down ray tracing that doesn't come with as big a performance hit. Since AMD is the hardware provider of the new consoles, developers also have an incentive to make sure their RT implementation works best on consoles, too. I'm sure we'll learn more about whether this trend can persist in the coming months or if the only option for serious ray tracing will continue to be NVIDIA GeForce.

With a rated boost of 1890 MHz, the MSI Suprim X is the highest-clocked RTX 3080 12 GB on the market. The next-closest card is the ASUS RTX 3080 12 GB STRIX OC, which ticks at 1860 MHz. Our testing confirms that the MSI Suprim X is faster than the ASUS STRIX, but the differences are fairly small. MSI's huge Suprim X cooler has been featured in several of our reviews before, and it's doing an excellent job keeping the card cool. Unlike ASUS, which defaults to the "high fan noise, low temperature" BIOS, MSI defaults to the "silent" BIOS, which is the better choice in my opinion. The differences in temperature are marginal and have no noteworthy effect on anything, but lower noise levels are immediately recognizable. With 32.9 dBA, the card is pretty quiet for its performance class, just a tiny bit louder than the ASUS STRIX with its "quiet" BIOS enabled. For all intents and purposes, noise levels are identical as there's no way you'll notice a subjective difference between both. Temperatures under load are fine, too. At 79°C, I feel like there's still a bit of additional headroom if you want to quieten down the card even further. Should you prefer lower temperatures and don't mind the noise, the "gaming" BIOS is for you. It runs the fan at 39.8 dBA, which is very noticeable, and lowers temperatures by 8°C, to 71°C—not worth it in my opinion since it won't increase the lifespan of the card, either. In our apples-to-apples heatsink test, the ASUS STRIX cooler came out a little bit better than the Suprim X, but differences are minimal. As expected, the Suprim X has idle fan stop, which shuts down the fans completely in idle, desktop work, productivity, internet browsing and light gaming.

MSI is using the same incredibly strong 18+3 VRM design on their RTX 3080 12 GB Suprim X as on the RTX 3080 Ti and RTX 3090—very nice. This does affect idle power consumption, which is higher than expected. The RGB illumination certainly plays a role in that, too. While the non-gaming power consumption increase might look like a lot, it's not. Technically, it's 20 W instead of 10 W, or double, but we're talking a few added dollars in electricity cost per year—not much when you consider the $1700 price of this card. Gaming power consumption is increased, too, to 400 W in typical gaming, which is a lot, 50 W more than the RTX 3080 Ti and RTX 3090. This also hurts efficiency, which is roughly 10% lower than the regular RTX 3080. The underlying reason is that MSI bumped their board power limit significantly to achieve higher performance out of the box. This runs the card at a less efficient operating point, though; the gains are not 1:1. Still, given the topnotch cooler I don't think this is a dealbreaker.

Overclocking worked well on our card and reached slightly higher clocks than the ASUS STRIX in last week's review. After a few minutes, we gained 5% in real-life performance, which lets the card beat the RTX 3080 Ti and RTX 3090. MSI offers a 430 W manual adjustment limit for the serious overclockers, which is 20 W lower than the ASUS STRIX limit. The Suprim X default power limit is also 20 W lower than the one on the ASUS card. I feel like the manual adjustment limit could definitely be higher since the VRM and cooler could easily take it. Just like on other high-end graphics cards, you should not cheap out on the power supply—at least 800 W are a good choice here.

Back in 2020, NVIDIA offered the original RTX 3080 at an MSRP of $700—yeah, I had to lol too when I wrote this. If you can find an RTX 3080 at that price (or close to it), buy it. There is absolutely nothing that would come close in price/performance. The RTX 3080 12 GB is positioned well north of $1500, which is more than twice the RTX 3080 10 GB MSRP. This is probably why NVIDIA refrained from a big launch, as several outlets still compare MSRPs, which would be a great source of drama. When looking at current, realistic market prices, the RTX 3080 10 GB costs around $1400, RTX 3080 Ti $1750, and RX 6900 XT $1500. This suddenly makes the $1700 RTX 3080 12 GB MSI Suprim X look much less crazy, and the RTX 3080 12 GB is even in stock right now. It still won't be an easy sell because just $50 more gets you an RTX 3080 Ti, which is faster, and psychologically more advanced due to the "Ti", which might lead to better resale value, too. For $1750, you're not getting an ultra-premium RTX 3080 Ti, but rather the cost-optimized cards. If cooling and noise are particularly important for you, maybe do consider the MSI Suprim X. Compared to the RTX 3080, it probably comes down to cost. If you can find an RTX 3080 at or near MSRP, that will be the best choice; buy some for me, too. At around $1400, I'd probably still prefer the 10 GB version because there's no way you're getting back $300, or +20% in performance. Compared to a $1500 (or higher) RTX 3080 10 GB, I think I'd pick the RTX 3080 12 GB instead. Also, if you've been moaning about "only 10 GB on the RTX 3080," you might as well consider the RTX 3080 12 GB for future-proofing if you believe in that. In the MSI Suprim X vs. ASUS STRIX duel, the MSI card wins with better out-of-the-box performance due to the larger factory OC. Acoustics are similar, but MSI has a slightly weaker cooler, slightly lower power limit, lacks the second HDMI output and the case fan headers. Overall, I couldn't declare a clear winner.

I'm giving our Recommended award to the RTX 3080 Suprim X because it's a fantastic custom-design with an excellent cooler, good factory overclock, large power limit increase, and good fan settings (in quiet mode). However, it was a close call because the card is definitely not for everyone at that price point; it's just SO much money. But if you're in the market for a high-end graphics card, it's definitely a product worth considering.