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Review: MSI GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Duke 11G OC

by Parm Mann on 5 October 2018, 14:00

Tags: MSI, NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA)

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Conclusion

Choosing between FE and custom is no longer clear-cut, and for most users it may well be just a matter of personal preference.

The Duke 11G OC is a sensible addition to MSI's range of custom RTX 2080 Ti graphics cards. Appreciating that Nvidia's new-and-improved Founders Edition now poses a greater threat, Duke is priced to compete and offers both a sizeable cooler and a small increase in core frequency.

MSI's design isn't as sleek as the reference card, however Duke finds itself in a useful middle-ground; it isn't as large as the range-topping Gaming X Trio, yet build quality is suitably robust. In previous generations, throttling on FE cards would have helped a triple-fan cooler such as this stand out, but the RTX performance gap has narrowed, and during real-world usage you'd do well to tell the difference between the Founders Edition and Duke OC.

Choosing between reference and custom is no longer clear-cut, and for most users it may well be just a matter of personal preference. Whichever you choose, RTX 2080 Ti is a beast of a GPU, delivering true 4K60 gaming performance and promising more to come as developers get to grips with the forward-looking Turing architecture.

Bottom line: RTX 2080 Ti is the ultimate GPU and MSI's Duke is a fine example of what a partner card should offer. It's both faster and cooler than reference, and costs only a fraction more.

The Good
  
The Bad
Superlative performance
Forward-looking architecture
Good cooling performance
Keeps quiet at all times
Silent when idle, quiet under load
  
It's a £1,140 graphics card
Not as sleek as the Founders Edition



MSI GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Duke 11G OC

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The MSI GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Duke 11G OC graphics card is available to order from Scan Computers.

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At HEXUS, we invite the companies whose products we test to comment on our articles. If any company representatives for the products reviewed choose to respond, we'll publish their commentary here verbatim.



*UK-based HEXUS community members are eligible for free delivery and priority customer service through the SCAN.care@HEXUS forum.


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Posted by philehidiot - Fri 05 Oct 2018 16:58
Yeh this is making my purchase of a Vega 64 a few weeks ago seem very sensible. When you look at the cost to upgrade being just over £300 (sold old card) Vs the 2080 at around £650 total cost with merely a 20-25% performance advantage for that at the resolutions I play at…

For once I don't feel like I've been conned by the market!
Posted by mikeo - Fri 05 Oct 2018 18:22
Similar position for me to the above. Upgraded from a 1070 to an MSI 1080 TI Gaming X (bought at a decent price in a one day sale). Got a good price for my old card, so cost to upgrade was only around £300, The 2080 TI are good cards, but the price makes my eyes water. Also pointless if you don't game at 4k really as well (which I don't…QHD).
Posted by tsolias10 - Fri 05 Oct 2018 21:05
No difference i think in power consumption. Nvidia you took it too far now with the power. 363?
Posted by Bagpuss - Sat 06 Oct 2018 08:25
I just don't see the 4K performance of these cards as anything special, at all.

If you look at the benchmarks in current games the 2080Ti only has about a 10-15fps overhead when maintaining a locked 60fps.

If that's all the overhead they've got in current games then I cant see them having much hope of maintaining a 60fps lock in games going in to 2019 & 2020.

Not much of a lifespan for a £1200 investment.

If you're going to spend that much on a card you'd be FAR more sensible to wait until the 7nm cards drop this time next year, they will have a genuine generational uplift in performance and last far longer than these stop-gap Turing cards.
Posted by Tunnah - Sat 06 Oct 2018 11:34
Bagpuss
I just don't see the 4K performance of these cards as anything special, at all.

If you look at the benchmarks in current games the 2080Ti only has about a 10-15fps overhead when maintaining a locked 60fps.

If that's all the overhead they've got in current games then I cant see them having much hope of maintaining a 60fps lock in games going in to 2019 & 2020.

Not much of a lifespan for a £1200 investment.

If you're going to spend that much on a card you'd be FAR more sensible to wait until the 7nm cards drop this time next year, they will have a genuine generational uplift in performance and last far longer than these stop-gap Turing cards.

Yup. 1080Tis are an absolute steal at the current price. Hell I paid £720 (was supposed to be 700, cheeky buggers tacked on 20 quid simply for holding it for an hour. Aria, you've got some massive stones) and it's still a steal.

Sure I can't max out every setting, but considering how little difference those top whack settings make, especially at 4K, I'll take a 1080Ti for literally half the price of a 2080Ti.

That still genuinely makes me laugh too. Doubling the cost for a measly 40%. You know that South Park thing about Comcast, and them ripping you off, and you not being able to do anything, while they stand there rubbing their nips ? Yeah, Nvidia definitely did a “hold my beer” on that.

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