Introduction
The MSI VANGUARD series are a new model of graphics card from MSI for the GeForce RTX 50-Series of GPUs, announced and shown at CES 2025, check out MSI’s YouTube video introduction here. Today we have the MSI GeForce RTX 5080 16G VANGUARD SOC LAUNCH EDITION (G5080-16VGSL) to explore, with benchmarks and surprising overclocking potential and performance uplift over standard GeForce RTX 5080 performance, the MSRP will be $1229 for this video card.
MSI GeForce RTX 5080 16G VANGUARD SOC LAUNCH EDITION Information
If you click over to MSI’s product listings for GPU, you will find all of its series listed. You’ll quickly discover that the new VANGUARD Series sits just under its highest-end SUPRIM Series, in fact, the VANGUARD series is akin to the SUPRIM series but with a darker aesthetic, more RGB, and different factory clock speed boosts on the SOC models, but otherwise a pretty beefy video card meant to offer extreme performance and cooling potential.
On the design front, the MSI GeForce RTX 5080 16G VANGUARD SOC video card has a striking, dark design but with SUPRIM premium feel. It features MSI’s Hyper FROZR cooling solution using an Advanced Vapor Chamber for cooling both the GPU and VRAM. There is also a special LAUNCH EDITION model, which comes with a special package inside with a limited-edition Lucky figurine in the box, and card. There are 9 different themed figurines of Lucky, and it is all random as to what you’ll get, with there even being 1 secret hidden edition you may come across.
In terms of GPU Clock frequency differences between the MSI RTX 5080 SUPRIM SOC and MSI RTX 5080 VANGUARD SOC, the SUPRIM has a game boost clock of 2745MHz and an Extreme Performance mode in MSI Center of 2760MHz. By contrast, the MSI RTX 5080 VANGUARD SOC model has a game boost clock of 2730MHz and an Extreme Performance option in MSI Center of 2745MHz. Those are the technical, out-of-box differences for GPU clock frequency that exist between them. The new VANGUARD series only has SOC models available if you want to spend less or have a lower overclock look downward toward the SHADOW, VENTUS, or GAMING series.
The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 is NVIDIA’s next-generation graphics card featuring the new Blackwell architecture. The GeForce RTX 5080 is the second GPU in NVIDIA’s new RTX 50 Series lineup, a tier-down from the flagship enthusiast GeForce RTX 5090, aimed at providing improved gaming performance with new technologies like DLSS 4, Neural Shaders, and Mega Geometry and Multi-Framegen.
The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 consists of 7 GPCs, 42 TPCs, and 84 SMs with 128 CUDA Cores per SM. When you add all this up, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 has 10,752 CUDA Cores, 336 5th Gen Tensor Cores, 84 4th Gen RT Cores, 112 ROPs and 336 Texture Units. The L1 Data Cache/Shared memory size is 10752KB, and the L2 cache size is 65536KB. The GPU Boost Clock is set at 2617MHz. Memory consists of 16GB of GDDR7 on a 256-bit memory bus at 30Gbps giving it 960GB/s of memory bandwidth. The TGP (Total Graphics Power) is 360W.
MSI GeForce RTX 5080 16G VANGUARD SOC LAUNCH EDITION Pictures
Inside the MSI GeForce RTX 5080 16G VANGUARD SOC LAUNCH EDITION box, well, it’s a completely unique experience. Firstly, there are two boxes, not one, meaning the outer layer box fits over the VANGUARD box inside. The outer box displays VANGUARD on the front, and GeForce RTX 5080 with very shiny and colorful lettering when light is shown. When you take this outer shell off, the inside box opens up and shows you a nice diagram of all the different possible Lucky’s you can get. Lucky is contained inside a smaller box, and you get a nice card as well. Oh, the power adapter is also under this card. Finally, under that, the video card itself. Oh look, we got the London Guard Lucky.
Do not underestimate the size of the MSI GeForce RTX 5080 16G VANGUARD SOC video card, it’s big, very big, and quite heavy. The video card measures 357mm x 151mm x 66mm (14″ x 5.9″ x 2.5″) in size, and while it is a 3-slot video card, in practice it’s a 3.5-slot video card. At this length, it is 2″ longer than the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 Founders Edition, .5″ wider than the RTX 5080 FE and .6″ larger in height, or slot-depth. This video card also weighs 1945g or 4.2 pounds.
This is an “SOC” model, and therefore the GPU Boost is 2730MHz out-of-the-box, which is 4% higher than the GeForce RTX 5080 Founders Edition at 2617MHz. The 16GB of GDDR7 runs at the same stock 30Gbps. The MSI GeForce RTX 5080 16G VANGUARD SOC has 3x DisplayPort 2.1b, and 1x HDMI 2.1b. The MSI GeForce RTX 5080 16G VANGUARD SOC uses one 16-pin power connector, and MSI recommends an 850W PSU.
As we mentioned, the MSI GeForce RTX 5080 16G VANGUARD SOC LAUNCH EDITION uses MSI’s HYPER FROZR thermal design, which is based on an advanced vapor chamber cooling design. Within this is Core Pipe, which is are square-shaped pipes to maximize contact and heat dissipation with the vapor chamber. The heatsink uses MSI’s WAVE CURVED 4.0 design with wave edges featuring a high-low fin design to enhance airflow and reduce turbulence. This, combined with AIR ANTEGRADE FIN 2.0 has a V-shaped cutout to also aid airflow passthrough to optimize flow efficiency.
The fans are MSI’s STORMFORCE Fans with seven fan blades with a claw texturing and circular arc ring designed for optimal airflow with minimal noise. The fans are Double Ball Bearing for lengthy use. The fans also support Zero Frozr which disables the fans at low temperatures to reduce noise. The entire video card has a Metal Backplate with airflow vents and thermal pads to enhance cooling. MSI uses high-quality clay-based thermal pads for critical board components.
Speaking of components, a custom 2oz thickened Copper PCB is used and additional fuses are built into the custom PCB to provide safeguards against electrical damage. MSI uses HCI CHOKE (High-Efficiency Carbonyl Inductors) chokes to reduce noise and improve electrical filtering. DrMOS power stages provide great efficiency with low power loss and enhanced voltage controls. There is even a Dual BIOS on board giving you the choice between the GAMING mode or a low noise SILENT mode.
One unique feature of the 3x 8-pin PCIe power to 16-pin power adapter is the use of a bright yellow plugging. This allows you to visually recognize if the power cable is plugged in all the way or not. When pushed solidly in (with a click) and no yellow showing, the power cable is fully inserted. There is a Dual-BIOS switch between Silent mode and Gaming mode, with the difference being the fan profile, it is more aggressive on Gaming and less aggressive on Silent. With the pass-through air design, the rear fan will blow completely through the video card, cooling the heatsink completely on this end. The top and bottom of the video card are open to allow air to vent that way for the other fans.
The MSI GeForce RTX 5080 16G VANGUARD SOC supports MSI’s Mystic Light RGB lighting and is fully controllable and customizable with MSI Center software. There is a strip of LEDs on the bottom edge of the design, as well as the top, and on the top edge of the video card the MSI logo, as well as on the end of the video card. With the way the LEDs are positioned, they do end up lighting up the inside of the card as well.