Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 (opens in new tab). It's a very good graphics card that offers a generation of performance gains, very good power efficiency, and unique features such as DLSS 3.

A wise old critic once wrote, "There are no bad graphics cards, only bad prices." This is a straightforward description of the RTX 4080. But while pricing may change over time, the card's characteristics do not. assuming the RTX 4080's price goes down, and with a shelf life of perhaps two years, it is certain that the RTX 4080 may end up being a gem. Time will tell.

Here today is the GeForce RTX 4080 Suprim X from MSI. At $1,379 | £1,359 | A$2,449, it is one of the more expensive RTX 4080s at the time of this writing, but for more money than the Founders Edition, you get a clearly superior card. Interestingly, the price of this card has dropped a bit in the UK and AU markets in the weeks since its release, and inventory seems to be widely available. Clearly not the mining boom glut we disliked, and we expect the downward pressure on prices to intensify as we head into 2023. Expectations.

The Suprim X, like all other RTX 4080s, has a superior TSMC 4N AD103 GPU at its heart. With 9,728 of the available 10,752 cores, Nvidia has left open the option of releasing an RTX 4080 Ti almost inevitably in the future. It offers much better power efficiency than the previous RTX 3080 (open in new tab) with its larger GA102 GPU; the RTX 4080 has 64MB of L2 cache compared to the RTX 3080's 5MB. A better feature set is expected in the next generation of GPUs, and with 16GB of GDDR6X memory, improved ray tracing and superior DLSS 3 wizardry, a 320W TDP, and enormous cooling capacity, the RTX 4080 Suprim X meets all these requirements.

The 320W TDP is especially noteworthy, and is by far the best performance per watt over the RTX 3080, RTX 3090 (opens in new tab), and their Ti siblings. This makes a mockery of the rumor mongers who pointed out the ridiculous TDPs in the pre-launch period. An excellent GPU, but did I mention it's too expensive? That's right.

The MSI GeForce RTX 4080 Suprim X is MSI's flagship RTX 4080; it sits above MSI's Gaming Trio and Ventus models. For an additional cost, you get a more premium design, better materials, build quality, and a slightly higher factory overclock; it is worth noting that MSI includes a very sturdy metal GPU holder to prevent sagging and a good quality mouse pad.

The Suprim X's official rated boost clock is 2,625MHz, but you can add another 15MHz by using the MSI Center app. As is often the case, however, Nvidia's rated boost clock doesn't really mean much. In our tests, the card was able to maintain a boost clock of 2,745 MHz while looping through 3DMark Speedway.

The card's finish is stunning. Looks are deceiving to the eye, and I think this is the best looking RTX 4080 card out there. As expected, RGB is included, but very tastefully implemented. Adjacent to the fan are three small elements, one on top facing the outside of the case and the logo on the back plate.

The card is surrounded by a brushed metal shroud and backplate; MSI has kept the sides of the card relatively free of obstructions, allowing the hot air to vent effectively. The cards are also large, occupying nearly four slots.

Like most 4080s, it has three DisplayPort 1.4a and one HDMI 2.1 port; the Ada Lovelace card has no DisplayPort 2.0/2.1. It also has a dual BIOS with a quiet option and a gaming option, but the default setting is essentially quiet, so there is little need to use the quiet option. A single 12VHPWR connector provides power, and MSI has bundled 3x8-pin power adapters.

Now let's take a look at that cooler, the AD103 will never get away with a single slot cooler, but at 320W it won't challenge Suprim X's 450W+ RTX 3090 Ti/ 4090 class coolers. This cooler uses a vapor chamber system, with more than 10 heat pipes to dissipate heat even deeper into the massive surface area.

The VRM and memory chips are cooled by thermal pads, and there is an additional frame on top of the PCB for added rigidity and cooling of additional components. The back plate also has thermal pads for the rear mounted heat dump components.

The PCB itself is a custom design, with 18+3 phase, 50A stages. Simply put, it is overkill for the AD103 GPU's requirements, but not over-spec, and as we saw with the Zotac RTX 4080 Amp Extreme Airo (opens in new tab), the Suprim X has a faster than the card's 22.4 Gbps rated clock rating, 24 Gbps GDDR6X memory. This means it has OC headroom.

Of course, a great looking card with great build quality will not get high marks if it performs like a turkey. Nevertheless, we know what to expect from the RTX 4080, so let's get right to it.

The massive Suprim X cooler is truly impressive, with a peak temperature of 57°C, one of the highest I've seen on any GPU, high-end or not. This is 5 degrees lower than the Zotac Airo. And it does so while remaining quiet. On my test platform, the CPU cooler fans and pumps are more noticeable. Admittedly, the 57°C is on an open test bench, so it would be a bit higher in the case, but even in the mid-60°C range, this is outstanding for a 320W GPU.

One of the RTX 4080's most impressive feats is its relatively low power consumption, more specifically its performance per watt. This is lower than the Zotac RTX 4080, RTX 3080, RX 6900 XT, and even the RX 7900 XT. While there were whispers of runaway power consumption in the RTX 40 series prior to its release, the RTX 4080 appears to offer better power efficiency than any card released to date.

However, its low power consumption comes at the expense of a fraction of its performance: the Zotac 4080 is one to two percentage points ahead in the following benchmarks, using about 20W of extra power.

Synthetic gaming performance

1440p gaming performance

4K gaming performance

The RTX 4080 Suprim X performs very well, but MSI seems to focus more on cooling and quiet operation than overall performance. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but it would be nice if the manufacturer used a more aggressive second BIOS, perhaps allowing for a 450W power limit. Nvidia may not be satisfied with that, however.

At 1440p, even the most demanding titles are possible, including Cyberpunk 2077 without DLSS, often bottlenecking the card even with a 12900K CPU.

Most games that struggled to break 60Hz at 4K are now possible with ray tracing effects enabled, and this was before DLSS was enabled.

As of this writing, I have not had a chance to benchmark the Radeon RX 7900 XTX comprehensively myself. Our launch day review shows that it is a worthy competitor to the RTX 4080, although it falls short of the Nvidia in ray-traced games. If you can stomach the RTX 4080's superior ray-tracing performance at a lower price and, more importantly, without DLSS, it is definitely worth considering.

If you ignore the price a bit, the RTX 4080 is an excellent graphics card, and the MSI Suprim X is arguably the best of the bunch. It is built like a battleship, cool, quiet, looks great, and has a PCB that is not stressed by the power requirements of the AD103 GPU.

Now comes its second offering, priced at $1,379 | £1,359 | A$2,449, making it one of the more expensive RTX 4080 cards. But those are today's prices. I don't expect it to stay at this level in the short term; a year from now, when someone searches for "RTX 4080 Suprim X review," the graphics card landscape and the amount of money you'll get may be very different. Right now, it's hard to recommend a high-end graphics card from a bang-for-buck perspective.

If you pull the trigger and buy the Suprim X, at least you'll have a great graphics card that can play all your games in 4K, Nvidia's feature set can't be ignored, and the price point for a high-end graphics card is very high. All you need is some good news on the price front. When that happens, the RTX 4080 and the Supreme X flavor will go from merely good to great.