MSI GeForce RTX 5080 SUPRIM SOC 16 GB GPU Review – Superior Cooling, Stunning Looks

MSI GeForce RTX 5080 SUPRIM SOC Unboxing & Closeup

The MSI GeForce RTX 5080 SUPRIM SOC graphics card comes inside a large cardboard box. The front of the package has a large "GeForce RTX" brand logo along with the "MSI" logo in the top left corner and the "SUPRIM SOC" series branding in the lower left corner. A large picture of the graphics card itself is depicted on the front which gives a nice preview of the SUPRIM design.

The packaging has put a large emphasis on the RTX side of things as the first feature enlisted by AIBs will be NVIDIA Blackwell architecture, Ray Tracing & DLSS support. NVIDIA has bet the future of their gaming GPUs on Ray Tracing support as these are the first cards to offer support for the new feature.

The back of the box is very typical, highlighting the main features and specifications of the cards. The key highlights listed by MSI include the new HYPER Frozr Thermal design with Stormforce fans, Core Pipes, Advanced Vapor Chamber, Wave Curved 4.0 & the Air Antegrade Fin 2.0 heatsink.

There's also a focus towards GeForce.com on each AIB card through which users can download the latest drivers and GeForce Experience application which are a must for gamers to access all feature sets of the new cards.

Once again, the sides of the box greet us with the large GeForce RTX branding. There's also the mention of 16 GB GDDR7 (RTX 5080) memory available on the card. Opening the box, you are greeted with a nice SUPRIM logo.

Outside of the box, the graphics card and the accessory package are held firmly by foam packaging. The graphics card comes with a few accessories and manuals which might not be of much use for hardcore enthusiasts but can be useful for the mainstream gaming audience. The only two useful accessories are the GPU mounting anti-sag bar and the 16-pin to 4x 8-pin power adapter.

The card is nicely wrapped within an anti-static cover which is useful to prevent any unwanted static discharges on various surfaces that might harm the graphics card. The most interesting accessory that I found in the package was a graphics card support mount which is a great add-on that keeps your card sturdy inside your case.

After the package is taken care of, I can finally start talking about the card itself. This thing is a beast and I can't wait to test it out to find what kind of performance improvement I get over current-gen cards.

The card is nicely wrapped within an anti-static cover which is useful to prevent any unwanted static discharges on various surfaces that might harm the graphics card. The most interesting accessory that I found in the package was a graphics card support bracket. This bracket connects the graphics card to the casing, offering better durability and preventing any sort of bending that may occur due to the heavy weight of the SUPRIM series graphics cards.

After the package is taken care of, I can finally start talking about the card itself. This thing is a beast and impressively, it is slightly bigger than the previous SUPRIM variant which was already gargantuan.

MSI’s Tri Frozr heat sinks are some of the biggest heatsink cooling solutions that I have ever tested. I first tested the Gaming X Trio when MSI released the 1080 Ti variant back in 2017 and that was a very aggressive design in its own right. Since then, I have tested the RTX 2080 Ti, RTX 3090, RTX 3090 Ti and the last RTX 4090 SUPRIM in their Tri-Frozr iterations.

With the RTX 50 series cards, MSI has further refined the Tri Frozr design. The card measures even larger at 359 x 150 x 76 mm and weighs in at 2614 grams. The card features a 3.8 slot height which is expected of today's high-end cards.

You would have to keep in mind the height when going for a triple or quad-slot card solution as your case or motherboard PCIe slot combination may not allow such a setup. The cooling shroud extends to the back of the PCB and it requires a casing with good interior space for proper installation.

The back of the card features a solid metal backplate that looks stunning. The backplate offers a lot more functionality than just looks which I will get back to in a bit.

In terms of design, we are looking at an updated version of the Tri Frozr heatsink known as HYPER FROZR which is now in its ninth variation while for the SUPRIM series, this is the 3rd iteration.

The first variation started with the GTX 780 Ti Lightning, the second was the 980 Ti Lightning, then came the 1080 Ti Gaming X Trio, the 1080 Ti Lightning, then the RTX 20 & RTX SUPER Gaming X Trio graphics cards while the seventh generation was introduced on the RTX 30 series. The 8th Gen was introduced with the RTX 40 series.

The new heatsink looks like a beefed-up version of the SUPRIM X heatsink that we saw on the 4090 with the main changes being the shroud and heatsink design that feature a neater shroud design on the front, absorbing the black and silver color platelets while featuring the RGB emitting V-shaped acrylic cutouts at the front.

The sides also come with a new RGB accent bar which lights up when the card is powered on.

Coming to the fans, the card features the latest fan designs based on the Stormforce design. All three fans feature a ring-based design to allow for higher airflow to be channeled within the main heatsink. All fans deploy a double ball bearing design and can last a long time while operating silently. Each fan has three blades that form three sets and each fan has three sets of them that make up a total of 7 fan blades. Each blade features claw textures to enhance air pressure.

MSI also features its Zero Frozr technology on the HYPER Frozr cooling solution. This feature won’t spin the fans on the card unless they reach a certain threshold.

In the case of the HYPER FROZR heatsink, that limit is set to 60C. If the card is operating under 60C, the fans won’t spin which means no extra noise would be generated.

I am back at talking about the full-coverage, full metal-based backplate that the card uses. The whole plate is made of solid metal with rounded edges that add to the durability of this card. The brushed silver finish on the backplate gives a unique aesthetic.

The graphics card also comes with a compact PCB design which means that the shroud, heatsink, and backplate are all extended beyond the PCB. The third fan blows air through the heatsink and blows it out from the cutouts that are situated at the very end of the backplate.

There are cutouts in screw placements to easily reach the points on the graphics card. We can also see the mew SUPRIM logo which drops the Dragon design and goes for a Diamond shape on the back which looks stunning.

MSI is also using heat pads beneath the backplate which offer more cooling to the electrical circuitry on the PCB. The most interesting thing to spot on the back aside from the backplate is the large retention metal bracket which adds more mounting pressure to effectively disperse heat from the GPU to the heatsink.

With the outside of the card done, I will now start taking a glance at what's beneath the hood of these monster graphics cards. The first thing to catch my eye is the humungous fin stack that's part of the beefy heatsink that the cards utilize.

The large fin stack runs from the front and to the back of the PCB and is so thick that you can barely see through it. It also comes with the wave-curved 4.0 fin stack design which I want to shed some light on as it is a turn away from traditional fin design and one that offers better cooling on high-end graphics cards such as the RTX 5080. The card also uses antegrade fins 2.0 on the back that direct and optimize air pass-through on the back by channeling air through a V-shaped fin-stack cutout, allowing more warm air to pass out of the card like a nozzle.

The heatsink has been designed to be denser by using a wave-curved and filled-fin design. It allows more air to pass through the fins smoothly, without causing any turbulence that would result in unwanted noise.

Talking about the heatsink, the massive block is comprised of 11 copper squared-shaped heat pipes with a more concentrated design to transfer heat from the copper base to the heatsink more effectively. The base itself is a solid nickel-plated base plate, transferring heat to the heat pipes in a very effective manner. To top it all off,

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MSI adds extra protection to its impressive PCB by including a rugged anti-bending plate. This also acts as a memory and MOSFET cooling plate while the PWM heatsink with micro fins keeps the VRM cool under stressful conditions.

I/O on the graphics card sticks with the reference scheme which includes three Display Port 2.1b & a single HDMI 2.1 port.

There's also a dual-BIOS switch on the card which comes pre-configured with Silent & Gaming modes. The BIOS doesn't affect the clock profiles but rather affects the maximum power limit, enabling higher fan speeds for better cooling and more stable clocks.

The MSI GeForce RTX 5080 SUPRIM SOC is a power-hungry graphics card as showcased by its custom design. Being so, the card utilizes a single 16-pin connector which can deliver up to 600 Watts of power to the graphics card. The card is rated at 360W but ends up around 400W with its full power limit.

The PCB on the MSI GeForce RTX 5080 SUPRIM SOC is very compact and features a total of 20 VRM phases. Around 20% of the PCB area is bare of components that might be utilized by higher-end designs such as the RTX 5090 models.

MSI GeForce RTX 5080 SUPRIM SOC RGB Lighting Gallery:

MSI SUPRIM SOC series cards utilize their Mystic Light RGB technology to offer you a visually pleasing lighting experience on your graphics cards.

There are a total of 5 different RGB effects that you can choose from and the cards have 3 RGB accent points on the front, one on the back, and one lightbar surrounding the side of the card which looks good. You can fully customize the RGB lights to your preference using the MSI Mystic Light application from MSI's web page. Following is what the graphics card looks like when lit up.

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