Conclusion
The MSI GeForce RTX 5080 16G VANGUARD SOC LAUNCH EDITION ushers in MSI’s new Vanguard GeForce RTX 50-Series, providing SUPRIM-like goodness, in a nice dark aesetich and extreme cooling for enthusiast overclocks. The MSI GeForce RTX 5080 16G VANGUARD SOC LAUNCH EDITION is based on NVIDIA’s new GeForce RTX 5080 Blackwell GPU with 16GB of GDDR7 for an MSRP of $1229. The MSI GeForce RTX 5080 16G VANGUARD SOC LAUNCH EDITION is a special edition boxed card with Lucky the figurine.
The MSI GeForce RTX 5080 16G VANGUARD SOC is a factory overclocked card at 2730MHz, providing an instant out-of-box excellent gaming experience. It does so with MSI’s HYPER FROZR technology, which ran very quietly, and cool, in our testing with a lot of overclocking potential. There’s even dual-BIOS on board with a Silent or Gaming option built-in, and you can even enable a higher clocked mode in MSI Center software.
Overclocking, Power, and Temp
Overclocking is a strong point with the MSI GeForce RTX 5080 16G VANGUARD SOC video card. Before we even started overclocking, this video card has a nice factory overclock that does boost well beyond that thanks to NVIDIA GPU Boost in games.
Our MSI GeForce RTX 5080 16G VANGUARD SOC clocked itself all the way upwards of 2820MHz while gaming, which is faster than the GeForce RTX 5080 Founders Edition hit at 2760-2790MHz. Therefore, you are getting an out-of-box gaming experience already better than the GeForce RTX 5080 Founders Edition with this factory overclock. There is also a built-in option in MSI Center to boost that clock speed by another 15MHz with a one-button solution.
We also found that the MSI GeForce RTX 5080 16G VANGUARD SOC ran very cool at default, much cooler than the GeForce RTX 5080 Founders Edition on both GPU temp and memory temp. It also ran very quietly whether it was in Silent mode or even the Gaming BIOS mode.
When we loaded up MSI Afterburner to overclock the MSI GeForce RTX 5080 16G VANGUARD SOC it supported a Power Limit increase of 11%, which takes it up to a 400W TDP limit, giving it some headroom. We were also able to adjust the maximum Voltage, and it worked, giving us the ability to attain a slightly higher overclock, very stable. When we pushed the GPU frequency we actually managed to top out around 3220-3230MHz, but felt that lowering it a bit to 3210MHz would be suited well for stability over a long time. We also managed to push the memory up to 31.5Gbps, breaking the 1TB/s barrier on the MSI GeForce RTX 5080 16G VANGUARD SOC.
Even better is the fact that we did not have to manually increase the fan speed at all. We were able to keep it on the “Automatic” setting, granted we did have the BIOS in the “Gaming” position. This allowed the fans to spin up to around 50% at default, and then up to 56% when overclocked, maintaining the quiet operation of the video card with no noticeable noise, even when overclocked. The temperatures also did not increase all that much either, with GPU and memory remaining very cool compared to the other video cards, and compared to the RTX 5080 Founders Edition.
Final Points
Overall, the MSI GeForce RTX 5080 16G VANGUARD SOC LAUNCH EDITION is an amazing overclocker and has an amazing cooling solution. The overclock went so well with the MSI GeForce RTX 5080 16G VANGUARD SOC that this ended up being the star of the performance. The MSI GeForce RTX 5080 16G VANGUARD SOC, out-of-box was a bit faster than the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 Founders Edition in games. It provided a 2-4% performance increase, depending on the settings.
What really made the difference was with the overclock of 3.2GHz. When we overclocked it performance shot up and gave us a 10% or more increase in performance over the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 Founders Edition. In fact, the performance was so good, that it really narrowed the margin with the GeForce RTX 4090 FE. There were even a couple of instances where it matched the GeForce RTX 4090 FE, or beat it. Though that was more rare, it was interesting, and exciting to see.
There has been a lot of discussion about the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 Founders Edition and its placement compared to the GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER, and GeForce RTX 4090 FE. Well, it just so happens that when the GeForce RTX 5080 has a really high overclock, it achieves more of that performance that everyone was expecting out of it. The MSI GeForce RTX 5080 16G VANGUARD SOC delivers on that, allowing the GeForce RTX 5080 to achieve that better value, closer to the GeForce RTX 4090, but at a lower cost than a GeForce RTX 4090.
Overall, the MSI GeForce RTX 5080 16G VANGUARD SOC LAUNCH EDITION is a brilliant video card, and we are loving the new VANGUARD design already. It actually ends up delivering on what it sets out to do, providing that SUPRIM feeling, with a different theme, high overclock, great enthusiast, overclocking potential, and cooling that truly remains cool and quiet. It is a large video card, however, so make sure you have ample case space, but if you have the means, you won’t be disappointed with what this video card can deliver, and the fun you’ll have overclocking it.