VERDICT
MSI’s cooler is effective, but the underlying GPU lacks a generational performance leap
NVIDIA HAS TYPICALLY taken a few extra months after the release of its most powerful GeForce graphics card before launching an even faster Ti version, but with the latest-gen RTX models, both the RTX 2080 Ti (Shopper 371) and the RTX 2080 have arrived at the same time. This, happily, gives performance minded PC builders a choice of options straight away; as mighty as the RTX 2080 Ti is, £1,099 for a single card is a big ask, and with the RTX 2080 also offering 4K resolution capability, ray-tracing and Deep Learning Super-Sampling (DLSS) anti-aliasing, it has the potential to be a more affordable alternative.
EARLY ADOPTER
Not that much more affordable, mind. The MSI-designed model we tested is £799, and some water-cooled variants reach up to £830, so you’re unavoidably paying more than Nvidia’s previous top dog, the GTX 1080 Ti.
To an extent, this is understandable. Ray-tracing and DLSS are interesting features on a consumer-grade GPU; the former might well bring CGI film-quality lighting effects to games that implement it, while DLSS (which uses an Nvidia supercomputer to develop AA algorithms for individual games) could produce quality edge-smoothing without the usual performance hit.
This story is from the February 2018 edition of Computer Shopper.
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This story is from the February 2018 edition of Computer Shopper.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
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