MSI GeForce RTX 5080 Skilled OC Evaluation: A Reduce Above

	MSI GeForce RTX 5080 Skilled OC: MSRP $1,299 The MSI GeForce RTX 5080 Skilled OC has distinctive styling and goosed-up specs that permit it to outperform commonplace RTX 5080 collection playing cards.
	Robust Efficiency Blackwell Structure Distinctive Styling Cool And Quiet Tons Of Overclocking Headroom DLSS4 And RTX Neural Rendering Newest Media Engines	Bland From Some Angles Worth Premium No RGB (Could Be A Plus For Some!)

We first received our arms on an MSI Skilled collection graphics card a few years in the past at CES. For the uninitiated, the MSI Skilled collection consists of trendy graphics playing cards with some distinctive design parts and enhanced specs, which goal each avid gamers and creators. They’re not your typical overly-garish, gamer bling-bling merchandise, and eschew the RGB and wild angles, in favor of extra premium supplies and finishes. Living proof, the MSI GeForce RTX 5080 Skilled OC we’ll be exhibiting you right here in the present day. 

The MSI GeForce RTX 5080 Skilled OC takes all the pieces good in regards to the RTX 5080, however cranks up the clocks and encases all of its modern tech inside a precision die-cast aluminum alloy shell, that improves structural integrity and appears nice whereas doing it. Right here’s a have a look at the cardboard’s specs, with a full tour to comply with… 

MSI GeForce RTX 5080 Skilled OC Specs

Most of these specs above look identical to NVIDIA’s personal Founders Version card, save for one. The variety of cores, 16GB reminiscence capability, 30 Gbps efficient reminiscence velocity, ports, interface and have assist are all the identical. The place the MSI GeForce RTX 5080 Skilled OC differs is its most GPU increase clock and dimensions. 

In our real-world testing, our GeForce RTX 5080 Founders Version peaked at a 2,617MHz increase clock when working in its default configuration, however hovered nearer to 2,580MHz more often than not. The MSI GeForce RTX 5080 Skilled OC, nevertheless, options an out-of-box increase clock of two,715MHz, that may be kicked a bit larger to 2,730MHz should you set up MSI Middle and enabled excessive mode. That mentioned – as you’ll see a little bit later – the cardboard really boosts even larger than this when inventory. And guide overclocking can push issues a lot additional.

The MSI GeForce RTX 5080 Skilled OC measures 319 x 150 x 60 mm (successfully 3-slots extensive), whereas the NVIDIA-built Founders Version measures 304 x 137 x 40 mm (2-slots extensive). The MSI card is greater in all dimensions, but it surely’s not otherworldly relative to many different third-party GPU designs. What all of that further quantity affords is extra room for cooling, which is actually well-designed on this card.

The MSI GeForce RTX 5080 Skilled OC

When it comes to its outward look, the MSI GeForce RTX 5080 Skilled OC is a component Dr. Jekyll and half Mr. Hyde. From some angles, the cardboard is beautiful in our opinion. Its die-cast aluminum alloy shell has a lovely, champagne-colored metallic end throughout 3 sides, with a entrance fan grille that’s harking back to a luxurious automobile, full with angles, chrome aspects. The again facet and rear of the cardboard, nevertheless, are adorned a easy, flat matte-black end. In a typical mid-tower setup, meaning essentially the most stunning elements of the MSI GeForce RTX 5080 Skilled OC will face downward and go unseen, sadly. In case your plan is to slap this card right into a windowed chassis, be sure it’s one with a vertical mount that’ll allow you to showcase the cardboard’s finest facet.

Beneath the cardboard’s aluminum shell there’s a big vapor chamber affixed to the RTX 5080 GPU and 16GB of GDDR7 reminiscence, linked to an enormous array of nickel-plated aluminum heatsink fins, which primarily run all the size of the cardboard. The heatsink is linked to the vapor chamber with square-shaped warmth pipes (MSI calls them Core Pipes), and twin ball-bearing, 7-blade followers deal with all the air circulate. The entrance fan blows air downward, instantly onto the GPU and reminiscence, whereas the rear fan pulls air via the open heatsink, just like NVIDIA’s pass-through cooler design.

The MSI GeForce RTX 5080 Skilled OC additionally options DrMOS (driver-MOSFETs) in its energy circuitry and MSI claims the PCB has been “engineered with hardened circuits and optimized hint routing for efficiency and reliability”.

As you’ll be able to see, the MSI GeForce RTX 5080 Skilled OC has clear traces throughout, and apart from the end on the shell, the one further adornments are some GeForce RTX branding and a sq. “Skilled” badge on the highest. That badge, nevertheless, must be eliminated to plug energy into the GPU, so it’s solely there to guard the ability connector throughout transport.

Outputs on the cardboard embrace a trio of DisplayPorts (2.1b) and a single HDMI port (2.1b), which is analogous to different RTX 50-series GPUs.

And with that, what do you say we get to some benchmarks?