With the MSI RTX 5080 Vanguard SOC, MSI has slightly reduced the price of the rather serious-looking SUPRIM and is looking for a different target group (purely visually) for an otherwise pretty much identical product. If you can still say that with an RRP of 1469 euros. The SUPRIM relies on the same inner workings and will therefore have to wait as a review for the time being, because curiosity about MSI’s new series between the Gaming X Trio and the SUPRIM won out after all. Including all the Luckies, with which I could almost unintentionally start a mascot trade. It’s a good thing that I’m somewhat immune to toys and can still concentrate on the essentials. But it’s nice to have a rather rare launch edition like this, because it’s something for your own museum 🙂
The Vanguard Launch Edition from MSI not only offers solid hardware, but also a little extra that collectors and fans will appreciate: an exclusive Lucky collector’s figure. The little dragon, which has long been known as MSI’s mascot, provides a charming accent on any desk with its playful design, if you’re into that sort of thing. While the hardware is rather sober, the addition of Lucky shows that MSI does not forget the humorous side of technology. It may only be a detail that has no practical use, but it’s still fun – whether as an eye-catcher, lucky charm or simply as a nice reminder of the purchase of this special edition. Ok, I’ve mentioned that for now and can finally turn to the more serious things in life, such as a review of a graphics card.
The MSI RTX 5080 Vanguard SOC 16GB
So now, after so many toys, we turn to sober reality in the form of this card. The card is based on the new Blackwell architecture, the GB203-400-A1 graphics processor is manufactured using 4 nm production technology and comprises 45.6 billion transistors on a chip area of 378 mm². With 10,752 CUDA cores, a base clock of 2.30 GHz and a boost clock of 2.73 GHz, the card offers high computing power for current applications. It is equipped with 16 GB GDDR7 memory, which operates at 30 Gbps and achieves a memory bandwidth of 960 GB/s via a 256-bit interface. It has 84 fourth-generation ray tracing cores and 336 fifth-generation tensor cores, which significantly improve performance in the area of AI-supported calculations and real-time ray tracing. The L2 cache has been increased to 64 MB to minimize data transfer bottlenecks.
With a combat weight of 1947 grams, a length of 36 cm and a height of 14.5 cm, this card is even larger than the MSI RTX 5090 SUPRIM SOC, at least in terms of front surface area. Only the 6 cm installation depth (instead of 6.7 cm) plus the 0.5 cm for the backplate are slightly less voluminous. Nevertheless, you have to make sure that you can still close the side panel due to the height of the card.
The MSI RTX 5080 Vanguard SOC is a powerful graphics card based on NVIDIA’s Blackwell architecture. It still offers a high number of CUDA cores and GDDR7 memory, which impresses with its high capacity and fast transfer rates. As with its big sister, the graphics card’s cooling system is based on an integrated vapor chamber that efficiently dissipates heat from the GPU and VRAM. The heat is dissipated through rectangular core pipes, which offer an optimized contact surface for an even distribution of waste heat. More on this in the teardown in a moment. It’s all still very similar.
According to MSI, cooling is supported by precision-engineered fins equipped with Wave Curved technology to optimize airflow and minimize turbulence. The RTX 5080 SUPRIM’s fan system comprises seven fan blades with a specially textured surface to ensure high airflow with reduced noise levels. A Zero-Frozr function deactivates the fans when idling or under low load to further reduce the noise level. Of course, I still have real measurements of the heat conducting materials used.
Additional safety functions such as a built-in fuse and HCI chokes provide increased protection against electrical damage. More on this in the obligatory teardown, which I didn’t want to miss out on here. The card also offers a dual BIOS, which does not allow the GeForce RTX 5080 Vanguard to switch between a performance-oriented mode and a low-noise mode, but only allows the fans to operate more or less aggressively. Since the card remains very cool even without the fan turbo, I took most of the measurements in silent mode. The clock difference was not or hardly measurable, the boost steps were always the same.
Unfortunately, you have to overclock and increase the power limit yourself if you think you need to. After all, the card even offers 400 watts instead of the 390 watts of the Founders Edition and you can also experiment with the current MSI Afterburner. However, the endeavor is somewhat superfluous, because at least my card is already scratching the 2.9 GHz mark even without an energetic boost. Not much more is possible anyway and it only gets louder and warmer.
The MSI RTX 5080 Vanguard SOC is equipped with a selection of modern display outputs that ensure high compatibility with the latest monitors and displays. Specifically, the graphics card has three DisplayPort 2.1b ports and one HDMI 2.1b port. This configuration enables the simultaneous operation of up to four displays. The DisplayPort 2.1b connections support resolutions of up to 8K at 165 Hz or 4K at 480 Hz, while the HDMI 2.1b connection enables resolutions of up to 8K at 60 Hz or 4K at 120 Hz. These versatile connection options ensure a flexible and powerful connection to different display setups.
The technical details and manufacturing of the MSI RTX 5080 Vanguard SOC focus on high computing power, efficient cooling and a stable construction. The rest is the same as yesterday’s big launch article, so I’ll save the redundancy for now.
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 Founders Edition im Test – Das 600 Watt-Kraftpaket im Gaming- und Labortest
- 1 - Introduction, overview and technical data
- 2 - Test system and equipment
- 3 - Teardown: PCB, topology, compenents and cooler
- 4 - Material analysis and heat conducting materials
- 5 - Gaming performance
- 6 - Power consumption, load peaks, power supply recommendation
- 7 - Temperatures, clock rates and thermography
- 8 - Fan curves and operating noise
- 9 - Summary and conclusion
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