A few weeks ago, we saw first learned about MSI's new Suprim line of GPUs when a Redditor received the unreleased RTX 3090 Suprim. Then, just a few days ago, MSI formally announced the cards and reviews of the RTX 3080 Suprim X went up on a few sites. Being the company's new flagship GPU, paired with being an RTX 30-series GPU in the first place, demand was obviously high, but a few Redditors were disappointed to hear from their retailer that there was a recall and that their orders were delayed.
We reached out to MSI to confirm the information and received the following response:
"Yes, before all of the RTX 3090/3080 SUPRIM was about to hit retails/e-tails. We held back the shipment to evaluate some issue but it was fixed and should be ready for normal shipment schedule." the MSI rep told us. "This is just extra precaution since this is our new flagship model and want to make sure we delivery the premium product."
The good news here is that the cards are on the way, and the issue appears to be fixed. MSI did not tell us what the problem was though, so we cannot tell you what it is you need to look out for if you're one of the lucky few that managed to secure an order for the MSI RTX 3080 Suprim X or RTX 3090 Suprim X.
As much as it's a shame that it took a little longer to get the GPUs into customers hands, it's better that issues are caught by the manufacturer before delivery, than by the customer afterwards -- and besides, the delays are but a drop in the ocean in the whole GPU scarcity that's happening anyway.
Nvidia's RTX 3080 and 3090 cards are among the best graphics cards you can buy, because they offer strong 4K gaming performance and speeds that are good enough to put them at the top of our GPU benchmarks hierarchy. However, if you've been wondering how and where to buy an RTX 3080 or RTX 3090, you know how difficult it has been to find these cards in stock.
Supreme Specs for a Suprim X
For a long time, MSI's flagship graphics cards have been the Gaming X series (our review of the MSI RTX 3080 Gaming X Trio here), but with the advent of the RTX 3000 series, it looks like MSI felt the need to one-up itself on its cooler and board designs.
As such, the Suprim X RTX 3080 and 3090 graphics cards come lavishly equipped with the biggest Tri Frozr 2S coolers, more RGB lighting, a metallic shroud, and a more elaborate board design that delivers up to 420W TGP on the RTX 3090 variant.
This is a whopping 70 W over the standard reference designs, and you'll need three 8-pin PCIe power connectors to feed the card. The GPU's default boost clock is rated at 1860 MHz, which is a serious increase over the FE card's 1695 MHz rating. In the 'Extreme Performance' mode, the figure is on the MSI RTX 3090 Suprim X is even higher at 1920 MHz.
For the MSI RTX 3080 Suprim X, the boost clock is raised to 1905 MHz (1920 MHz in Extreme Performance mode) from the reference 1710 MHz clocks, also thanks to the increased board power, which has been raised from 320W to 370W on this card.
Of course, it's no surprise that MSI conjured this new line of graphics cards -- it has been known for a while that the limitation in overclocking has been due to the locked board power limits, and thus, makers like EVGA also dropped RTX 3090 graphics cards with more lavish VRM circuitry and higher board power limits for more extreme overclocking. Undoubtedly, highly-binned silicon plays a part in achieving these clocks, too.
