MSI RTX 2080 Ti Lightning Z 11GB Review – The £1500 RTX!

1. Introduction2. MSI RTX 2080 Ti Lightning Z3. Testing Methodology4. 3DMark Fire Strike & Time Spy (1080p, 1440p, 4K)5. 3DMark Port Royal (1440p DXR)6. Deus Ex: Mankind Divided (1080p, 1440p, 4K)7. Far Cry 5 (1080p, 1440p, 4K)8. Ghost Recon: Wildlands (1080p, 1440p, 4K)9. Middle Earth: Shadow of War (1080p, 1440p, 4K)10. Shadow of the Tomb Raider (1080p, 1440p, 4K)11. Battlefield V w/ DXR (1080p, 1440p, 4K)12. Final Fantasy XV w/ DLSS (4K)13. Clock Speed14. Temperatures15. Acoustics16. Power Consumption17. Overclocking: 3DMark and Games18. Overclocking: Thermals, Acoustics, Power19. Closing Thoughts20. View All Pages

We measure system-wide power draw from the wall while the card is sat idling at the Windows 10 desktop for 30 minutes. A reading under load comes from running the 3DMark Fire Strike Ultra stress test 20 times.

Considering it has a total of 3x 8-pin PCIe power connectors, a huge 16+3 power delivery implementation, and runs at over 1920MHz – it is perhaps not a surprise to see this Lightning Z draw a lot of power. In fact, it even draws more than Vega 64, while Nvidia's Founders Edition RTX 2080 Ti pulls about 80W less.

Like I said on the previous page, however, this card is all about performance – not, in this case, power efficiency. This obviously isn't the card to get if you need something cheap and efficient to use with a 500W PSU. If you're an enthusiast overclocker, however, I can't imagine the power draw would bother you in the slightest.

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