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Add to SafariWhen comparing MSI GeForce GTX 1080 GAMING X 8G vs Palit GeForce GTX 1080 GameRock Premium Edition, the Slant community recommends Palit GeForce GTX 1080 GameRock Premium Edition for most people. In the question“What are the best GTX 1080 cards?” Palit GeForce GTX 1080 GameRock Premium Edition is ranked 2nd while MSI GeForce GTX 1080 GAMING X 8G is ranked 6th. The most important reason people chose Palit GeForce GTX 1080 GameRock Premium Edition is:
The GameRock Premium Edition is priced at $629.99. For that price it offers pretty good performance. It achieved a 3DMark Firestrike score of 20,014 and averages at 127-133 FPS with the latest games such as Fallout 4 and Hitman at Full HD resolution.
Specs
Question Ranking
Pros
Pro Excellent cooler
The cooler used on the Gaming X is the Twin Frozr IV and performs very well. In an idle situation, the chip measured at 36° Celsius in a room temperature of 21° C. That's a bit higher than the reference GTX 1080 - but the fans do not spin at all under 60° C for a completely silent operation. Under full load the chip heats up to 70° Celsius, which is a whopping 12 degree Celsius cooler than a GTX 1080 Founders Edition.
Pro Very quiet operation
The cooler does not spin under a temperature of 60° Celsius, making the card silent in normal situations. When the fans are needed however, the card remains very quiet. Measured from a distance of 75 centimeters from a closed environment, the Gaming X produces 39 dBA of noise. For comparison: that's a little bit more quiet than the noise a refrigerator produces. Irritating sounds such as coil whine are also not present.
Pro Smooth framerates even for 4K gaming on high graphics settings
The MSI GTX 1080 Gaming X 8GB offers great, smooth performance even with the most demanding graphics requirements. Here are some examples of framerates:
Rise of the Tomb Raider 4K (very high details): 49fps
Hitman (2016) UHD (Max. detail): 49fps
Fallout 4 UHD (Ultra detail): 59fps
The Witcher 3 UDH (Max detail): 51fps
While these aren't quite 60fps, they are all very close - and some of the best in-game performance available from any graphics card.
Pro Custom LED lightning
This graphics card by MSI uses LED-lights in its logo, which is adjustable via the driver software. You can adjust the color of the logo to better match your setup.
Pro Good value for the money
The GameRock Premium Edition is priced at $629.99. For that price it offers pretty good performance. It achieved a 3DMark Firestrike score of 20,014 and averages at 127-133 FPS with the latest games such as Fallout 4 and Hitman at Full HD resolution.
Pro Usually very quiet
When the fans are at their minimum, which is when the card is at about 60 degrees C, the noise level is at 33dBA, virtually inaudible unless you put your head next to the case. Under heavy load when gaming, the fans will generate noise at about 38dBA, which is a barely audible hum.
Pro Decent cooling
The large size and the twin 95mm fans it's equipped with help a lot with keeping the card cooled. The fans will also switch off at low load which helps with the noise levels as well. The I/O plate has a honeycomb plate to help with the ventilation which again, greatly contributes to the overall cooling performance of the card.
Benchmark-wise, it achieves 39 degrees C while idle which is a pretty standard temperature for 1080 cards. Under heavy load however, it reaches up to 73 degrees C. Still lower than the 80 degrees C set by the reference card, but a tad bit higher than what was achieved by some other GTX 1080 cards.
Pro LED lighting
The case lighting can be changed to any color you want, so you can match it to your fan lighting, for example.
Pro Comes packaged with a G-Panel SKU
The GameRock comes with a G-Panel equipped with a 3.12" LCD display. You can connect it with the supplied USB 3.0 header to the motherboard and it will display information related to the graphics card such as: fan speed, temperature, and memory usage.
Cons
Con Requires additional 6-pin power connector
The MSI Gaming X version of the GTX 1080 requires an extra 6-pin power connector, for a total of one 6-pin and one 8-pin connector. A reference GTX 1080 only needs a single 8-pin connector, but this MSI card requires the extra connector because of the slightly higher clock speeds. Although the TDP (thermal design point and maximum power consumption) of the MSI Gaming X GTX 1080 has been rated at 180 watts just like the reference card, the TDP is around 198 watts in reality. It only uses 14 more watts than a reference GTX 1080 during full load, but the extra power connector can be inconvenient for cable routing or for power supplies with a limited power capacity and connectors.
Con More expensive than other overclocked GTX 1080 cards
At a recommended retail price of $729.99, the MSI Gaming X card is significantly more expensive than other overclocked GTX 1080 cards with similar or higher clock speeds and similar cooling solutions.
Con Annoying LED power connector
There's a 4-pin power connector which feeds the LEDs in the middle-top of the card that sticks like a sore thumb and that's pretty annoying.
Con Can be a bit large for some
The Palit GeForce GTX 1080 GameRock is 285mm long and 133 tall and weighs 1.2kg. It can be quite large for some builds, especially those that use a dual-GPU implementation since a single 1080 GameRock occupies two and a half expansion slots.
Con Not readily available for US
The easiest way to get the card to the US would be to order it from Europe.
Con Unpleasant color scheme
The color scheme for the GameRock 1080 consists of: black, grey, and blue. This is rather unorthodox for graphics cards and may be a bit hard to find other parts that have matching colors if you are going for a transparent case.
