MSI GeForce RTX 3080 Gaming X Trio Graphics Card Overview
Taking a first look at the MSI GeForce RTX 3080 Gaming X Trio it is a pretty large card, the official dimensions are 323 x 140 x 56mm so you are going to want to make sure it is going to fit inside your case.
The card itself is distinguished by its large black shroud and three cooling fans. These of course make up MSI’s Tri Frozr 2.0 cooling solution. The three cooling fans are MSI’s new Torx 4.0, which feature a new ring design where pairs of blades are bound together with a linked outer ring that focuses airflow into the Tri Frozr 2.0 cooling system. These new fans provide 20% more air pressure over the previous design. The fans also feature MSI’s Zero Frozr technology which means they will turn completely off when the card is idle.
Looking at the card from the side we can see how thick it is. I would say this is a 2.7-slot to 3-slot card once installed. Looking at the heatsink design we can see two main heatsinks, one for the GPU and the other for the power delivery components. These two heatsinks are connected by a heatpipe.
Flipping over to the other side of the card we can see the edge that will show if you have this card installed in a case with a window. Here you’ll find an MSI logo and long strip which will light up with RGB lighting when you have your system turned on. It also says GeForce RTX on the top edge of the card. You’ll also notice a piece of metal towards the top of the card this is a reinforcement bracket or what MSI calls their anti-bending strap, which should help with GPU sag, also keep in mind the card does come with a bundled support bracket.
Towards the end of the card we have our power connections and no NVIDIA 12-pin connector here, we have three 8-pin PCI-Express power connectors.
Moving on to the backplate, we have a full-cover backplate. This backplate is not metal, but rather Graphene. Graphene provides a light weight backplate which is stronger and more efficient at heat dissipation than plastic. On the back of the card we have the MSI Dragon logo and it says GeForce RTX.
Finally we come to our display outputs which include three DisplayPort 1.4a and a single HDMI 2.1. You’ll notice no USB-C on this card, it seems as if NVIDIA is ditching that whole concept.
When it comes to RGB lighting you have a large RGB strip that sits on the edge of the card. Also on the edge of the card you have the MSI logo that will light up. Finally you have small accent lights on the shroud around the center fan. Overall I think the lighting is done very well on this card. Remember you’ll be able to control the lighting with MSI’s Mystic Light software.
