Review of the MSI GeForce RTX 3080 Ventus 3X OC video card: bet on noiselessness | Video Cards | Reviews

The announcement of new NVIDIA graphics accelerators took place more than a month ago and the main parameters have been carefully studied: performance, capabilities, heating, consumption. It’s time to slowly move on to studying non-reference models of NVIDIA partners, who release solutions with their own vision and potential.

The Ventus line of graphics accelerators in the MSI hierarchy occupy a certain position, presented as optimal gaming video cards with a neutral design, quiet cooling system, balanced settings, which should be perfect for an ordinary gamer. The new RTX 30 series has made its own adjustments to the plans of the red dragon, but the purpose of the MSI Ventus series has remained unchanged, so the new product in the face of the MSI GeForce RTX 3080 Ventus 3X 10G OC will be very interesting.

Full name: MSI GeForce RTX 3080 Ventus 3X 10G OC;

Manufacturer code: GEFORCE RTX 3080 VENTUS 3X 10G OC.

Packaging and equipment

MSI GeForce RTX 3080 Ventus 3X comes in a huge package with original dark and smoke screen printing.

We turn the box over and get acquainted with the new features characteristic of the 30th line from MSI: square-shaped heat pipes for their enlargement at the base of the cooler, an original three-fan cooling system. The technical characteristics are given.

Inside there is a black envelope with a package containing a video card kit, a comic book with a dragon, a user manual and promotional brochures.

Appearance and design

MSI GeForce RTX 3080 Ventus 3X graphics card stands out with an updated look with a huge three-fan cooling system, made in dark gray tones.

The length of the graphics accelerator is 305 mm with a total weight of 1370 g, the new product covers 2.5 expansion slots inside the PC. The increased dimensions are aimed at curbing the hot temper of the GA102-200 GPU, which is distinguished by its high power consumption.

Part of the rigid structure is a graphene-coated plastic backplate, which has become the manufacturer’s know-how.

Graphene backplate increases the structural strength of the device and serves as a passive heatsink for cooling (c) MSI

Additional power is provided using a pair of familiar 8-pin connectors. TDP of new items is limited at around 320 W, the recommended power supply is 750 W and above.

The rear interface panel houses three DisplayPort 1.4a ports and one HDMI 2.1. NVIDIA has dropped the USB C port.

Cooling system

MSI GeForce RTX 3080 Ventus 3X received a new cooling system with the latest developments from MSI, which migrated models from previous tops: now Ventus uses TORX 3.0 fans, acquired Zero Frozr support, covers all hot elements of the printed circuit board and much more.

The main cooler section is secured with four spring-loaded screws in the GPU area and nine pivots around the perimeter.

The cooling unit takes up almost 2.5 expansion slots.

The base uses a nickel-plated copper plate with six heat pipes with a diameter of 6 mm each. The heatsink sole covers the GPU, memory chips, and all two rows of power elements scattered on either side of the GPU.

The cooler itself is assembled with three sections of aluminum fins in the amount of 83, 43 and 31 pieces, respectively. If you look closely, grooves become visible, which are called deflectors to increase the contact area of ​​the air flow and the radiator body.

The MSI GeForce RTX 3080 Ventus 3X casing is made as a single module for three 92 mm TORX 3.0 fans with a rotation speed of 0 – 3300 rpm.

Without a heatsink, a separate stiffener opens on the PCB.

The last element is a graphene-coated support backplate. To the touch, it is a very rough plastic made of a very hard material, which heats up strongly around the entire perimeter during long work, which distinguishes it from ordinary plastic backplates, but does not reach metal either. By the way, in the area of ​​memory chips there is a foil in a small area to increase uniform heat distribution.

Printed circuit board

MSI GeForce RTX 3080 Ventus 3X is built on an original printed circuit board of its own production, MSI refused from the version of the NVIDIA reference on which the Inno3D and Palit models are based, although the general outlines of the original are of course visible.

The reverse side of the MSI GeForce RTX 3080 Ventus 3X PCB.

The heart of the review hero is the GA102-200-A1 graphics processor. It was produced using an 8nm process technology in the 35th week of 2020 and includes 8704 shaders, 96 rasterization units and 272 texture units. It is surrounded by 10 video memory chips with a density of 8 Gbit, which gives a total memory capacity of 10 GB of the GDDR6X standard, operating at a frequency of 19000 MHz.

The power section has 16 mosfets according to the general formula “13 + 3” for GPU / Mem, power stages AOZ5311NQI from Alpha & Omega are used with a rated current of 50 A.

Voltage control is carried out by the uS5650Q PWM controllers and the uP9512R pair.

The video card is equipped with 10 GB of video memory of the GDDR6X standard. This volume is recruited by ten Micron microcircuits. Their clock frequency is 1188 MHz (effective frequency 19000 MHz).

Test stand

• Motherboard: ASUS ROG Z490 Maximus XII Formula;
• Processor: Intel Core i5-10600K;
• Cooling system: Noctua NH-D15 chromax.black;
• Thermointerface: Noctua NT-H1;
• RAM: Team Xtreem 8Pack ~ 4000 MHz (2 x 8 GB);
• Video card: MSI GeForce RTX 3080 Ventus 3X;
• Drives: Western Digital Black SN750, 500 GB;
• Power supply: be quiet! Straight Power 11, 850W;
• Monitor: AOC U2790PQU;
• Case: open stand.

Software

• Operating system: Microsoft Windows 10 x64;
• Driver: GeForce 456.71 WHQL.

Testing tools and methodology

For overclocking video cards, as well as monitoring temperatures and fan speeds, we used the proprietary MSI Afterburner utility.

To check the temperature conditions of the video card in conditions close to everyday ones, we used the 3DMark Fire Strike Extreme stability test.

The noise level was measured using a TM-102 digital sound level meter. The measurements were taken from a distance of 30 cm. The background noise level in the room is no more than 28 dBA. All system fans were turned off. On the graphs, the conditional noiselessness limit for the system is determined at the level of 30.5 dBA, the conditional comfort limit is 37 dBA. The room temperature was 25 degrees Celsius.

Additionally, readings of the power consumption were taken using a Robiton PM-2 wattmeter and the temperature of the printed circuit board with a Fluke 59 Max IR thermometer.

MSI GeForce RTX 3080 Ventus 3X Standard Frequencies

MSI GeForce RTX 3080 Ventus 3X has a factory overclocking of 30 MHz in terms of GPU Boost, thanks to improved technology, the dynamic frequency in games and applications is even higher, however, it is limited by the Power Limit, which is an important parameter on the new NVIDIA RTX 30 graphics accelerators.

At idle, the fans are turned off thanks to the support of the Zero Frozr technology. We get the following indicators:

• 44 ° C and 0 rpm when working with MS Office documents;
• 46 ° C and 0 RPM when watching videos and surfing the Internet.

Here are the detailed BIOS specifications for the MSI GeForce RTX 3080 Ventus 3X. The TDP level is 320 W without the possibility of increasing.

In games and tests, the MSI GeForce RTX 3080 Ventus 3X boosts to 1935 MHz, but with a gradual increase in temperature and peak consumption of 320 W, it quickly reaches an average value of 1845 MHz. The cooling system operates quietly at 1760 rpm and 1620 rpm side and center fans. The GPU heats up to 72 ° C, the power section to 76 ° C.

It immediately becomes obvious that the developers tried to make a quiet video card: at full power of the cooler, the temperatures of the GPU and VRM are reduced to 57 ° C and 61 ° C, respectively. It seems to me that the optimal rotation speed for the MSI GeForce RTX 3080 Ventus 3X model will be ~ 1850-1900 rpm with a noise level below average.

The best operation for new video cards is downvolting. Model MSI GeForce RTX 3080 Ventus 3X perfectly downvolts up to 850 mV at 1875-1935 MHz at automatic rotation speed. In this case, the temperature drops by 2-4 ° C, and the rotation speed does not rise above 1600 rpm. Complete idyll.

Overclocking MSI GeForce RTX 3080 Ventus 3X

The MSI GeForce RTX 3080 Ventus 3X graphics card also has a Power Limit, which limits the dynamic growth of the GPU clock speed, and manual overclocking adds only a little performance. The core frequency can be raised as much as 135 MHz, but this does not mean anything, because GPU Boost directly depends on PL, and it is small, so the video card only boosts up to 1890 MHz in the core. Memory overclocking – 1300 MHz (20800 MHz).

Performance in games and benchmarks

The performance of MSI GeForce RTX 3080 Ventus 3X from manual overclocking increases by 3-4%.

Conclusion

The MSI GeForce RTX 3080 Ventus 3X graphics card becomes a kind of benchmark for many new products to demonstrate a balanced and quiet cooling system without compromising performance. The only measures that are a stumbling block for the further increase in performance are in limiting Power Limit without the possibility of its expansion, which makes overclocking on this model almost useless.

To summarize, we have an excellent flagship with optimal settings for gamers who use the popular “set and forget” formula. This is exactly what they did when creating the MSI GeForce RTX 3080 Ventus 3X, so to speak, nothing superfluous.

Advantages:

• High performance and speed;
• Factory overclocking of the video card;
• Appearance and design of the novelty;
• 10 GB GDDR6X video memory;
• Quiet cooling system to dissipate 320W;
• Includes a special bracket.

Disadvantages:

• Requirements for a power supply unit from 750 W.