MSI GeForce RTX 3090 Ti SUPRIM X: Overclocking (OC)

Introduction

MSI's new custom GeForce RTX 3090 Ti SUPRIM X has now been unleashed, and because I got my sample so late I simply didn't have enough time to comprehensively cover the overclocking (OC) side of things on the insane high-end RTX 3090 Ti.

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But now that I have, I've pushed MSI's tweaked RTX 3090 Ti SUPRIM X to its limits and re-run all of my benchmark suite in all resolutions once again. I've got comparisons between the stock MSI RTX 3090 Ti SUPRIM X and the overclocked MSI RTX 3090 Ti SUPRIM X, showing a decent gain in performance.

I didn't think there'd be much wiggle room with an already pushed to its limits card, but I was surprised: pushing past the 2015-2040MHz GPU boost barrier up to a manual OC max of around 2175-2205MHz. There's 24GB of faster GDDR6X on the RTX 3090 Ti (21Gbps) which I was able to push up to around 23Gbps max, resulting in a huge 1.2TB/sec of memory bandwidth.

• Read more: MSI GeForce RTX 3090 Ti SUPRIM X Review

MSI's new GeForce RTX 3090 Ti SUPRIM X is already my personal recommendation for the best 4K 120FPS gaming GPU, but now it is an even stronger recommendation that I've had the time to overclock it. You're not going to get another 10FPS+ in each game, but for example:

Cyberpunk 2077 at 4K maxed out (no RT, no DLSS)

• MSI RTX 3090 Ti SUPRIM X (overclocked): 54FPS average
• MSI RTX 3090 Ti SUPRIM X (stock): 51FPS average
• GeForce RTX 3090: 47FPS average

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This means that MSI's new GeForce RTX 3090 Ti SUPRIM X -- at least in Cyberpunk 2077 at 4K in this example -- is 8.5% faster than the RTX 3090 FE, while the MSI RTX 3090 Ti SUPRIM X overclocked being another 5.8% faster. On top of that, the overclocked MSI RTX 3090 Ti SUPRIM X is 14.9% faster than the already wicked-fast RTX 3090 FE.

Let's dive into this for more detail.

MSI Gaming GeForce RTX 3090 24GB GDRR6X

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New 16-pin PCIe 5.0 Power Connector

NVIDIA's new GeForce RTX 3090 Ti does one thing very different to the previous flagship GeForce RTX 3090, which saw the custom MSI GeForce RTX 3090 SUPRIM X using 3 x 8-pin PCIe power connectors... but the new RTX 3090 Ti uses a single 16-pin PCIe power connector.

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But... how will you plug your PSU into the new 16-pin PCIe power connector, which you don't have? Well, that's why you'll use the 1 x 16-pin PCIe power connector to 3 x 8-pin PCIe power connectors. Your PSU might be able to handle it, but I would suggest looking at upgrading your PSU for the new GeForce RTX 3090 Ti... especially with the RTX 40 series GPUs right around the corner, and man they're going to need all the power they can get.

That's why MSI sent over their new MSI MPG A1000G power supply, pumping 1000W of power with 80 PLUS Gold-certified efficiency. It also looks great, with MSI using patterns that can be infused beautifully -- with tons of power at your disposal -- with the MSI MPG VELOX 100P AIRFLOW PC case and MSI MPG Z690 CARBON WIFI motherboard.

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MSI's new MPG A1000G PSU has a single-railed design, which will deliver clean currents under heavy loads... making it perfect for MSI's new flagship GeForce RTX 3090 Ti SUPRIM X graphics card. MSI's new MPG A1000G PSU is also "future-proof" as it meets the new standards for the upcoming PCIe 5.0 specification... for even higher-wattage GPUs.

I used MSI's new MPG A1000G PSU for all of my GeForce RTX 3090 Ti reviews, starting here with MSI's new flagship GeForce RTX 3090 Ti SUPRIM X. I will also be using the MPG A1000G PSU for NVIDIA's new GeForce RTX 3090 Ti Founders Edition, and the new flagship ASUS ROG Strix LC GeForce RTX 3090 Ti that should be with me any minute now.

RTX 3090 Ti 24GB Tech Specs

NVIDIA is using the full GA102 on its new GeForce RTX 3090 Ti, with 10,752 CUDA cores compared to the 10,496 CUDA cores on the same (GA102 GPU) as the GeForce RTX 3090. There are other tweaks, with the same 82 RT cores but 336 Textures Units (328 TUs on the RTX 3090).

There's the same 24GB of GDDR6X on the GeForce RTX 3090 Ti as the previous GeForce RTX 3090, on the same 384-bit memory interface -- but with a big change: it's clocked at 21Gbps -- providing it with up to 1TB/sec of memory bandwidth, up from the 936GB/sec on the RTX 3090.

However, I've overclocked every custom GeForce RTX 3090 graphics card that I've got -- before, and leading up into this review -- and pushed the 24GB GDDR6X up over 21Gbps and enjoyed 1TB/sec of memory bandwidth for the last year or more.

Another huge upgrade over the RTX 3090 is that the new RTX 3090 Ti has its spiffy new 16-pin PCIe 5.0-ready power connector with up to 450W available on the RTX 3090 Ti... up from the 350W on the RTX 3090. NVIDIA is making plenty of references to its near 10-year-old TITAN RTX, and sure it kinda is... but it's replacing the RTX 3090, not the Ampere-based TITAN RTX that never materialized.

And if this is the Ampere TITAN RTX... then maybe it should've been called that, so I will not be referring to the TITAN RTX (even though I could, I have the results recently tested on my Ryzen 9 5900X) but no one in their right mind still has that as a gamer... they'd have a new RTX 30 series GPU so they have RT + DLSS... right?!

Right, NVIDIA?!

Anyway... onwards with the review!

Detailed Look

MSI hasn't changed the retail packaging of its new GeForce RTX 3090 Ti SUPRIM X, as its identical to the retail packaging for MSI's other SUPRIM X cards -- except for one big difference -- man, the box is HUGE compared to the already large SUPRIM X packaging. But the card itself... well, it's warranted.

As always, MSI impresses with its TRI FROZR 2S cooling system deployed on the new flagship GeForce RTX 3090 Ti SUPRIM X. It looks great, matching the aesthetics of the other SUPRIM X cards but packing a decent chunk more of performance on top.

It's a massively thick card, standing out from the already 2.5-slot+ RTX 3080, RTX 3080 Ti, and RTX 3090 SUPRIM X graphics cards from MSI. This is one of MSI's thickest graphics cards yet, so you'll want to ensure you have the room inside of your PC to install it. This won't be going into many SFF gaming PCs, I can tell you that.

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[MSI RTX 3090 SUPRIM X on top, the new MSI RTX 3090 Ti SUPRIM X on bottom]

I didn't want to just snap photos of MSI's new GeForce RTX 3090 Ti SUPRIM X to show you how thick it is, so I have my MSI GeForce RTX 3090 SUPRIM X graphics card for some side-by-side comparisons. Then we get a look at the thickness of each of the cards, the difference between the PCIe power connectors, and more.

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Oh yeah, baby, that new 16-pin PCIe power connector is so good. It just looks so much better inside of your PC, a much smaller, thinner 16-pin PCIe power cable that feeds out to the triple 8-pin PCIe power connectors that are required to run the MSI GeForce RTX 3090 Ti SUPRIM X. The card can handle up to 480W of power, and I was pulling that during gaming and benchmarking without a problem.

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MSI hasn't changed its display connectivity on the new flagship GeForce RTX 3090 Ti SUPRIM X graphics card, with 4 x DisplayPort 1.4 and 1 x HDMI 2.1 connectors... all capable of 4K 120/144Hz and 8K 60Hz on either displays or high-end gaming TVs through HDMI 2.1.

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Test System Specs

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Anthony's GPU Test System Specifications

The biggest upgrade to the GPU testbed is the AMD Ryzen 9 5900X processor, offering 12 cores and 24 threads of Zen 3-powered CPU grunt at up to 4.8GHz.

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That's plenty of CPU power and offers a great upgrade over the Ryzen 7 3800X that I was using previously.

I will be upgrading this system in a few months, and maybe running it side-by-side with the new Alder Lake-powered Intel Core i9-12900K processor. I'm using one inside of the Allied M.O.A.B.-I gaming PC that I reviewed a few months ago, and man the 12900K is like the Godzilla of CPUs.

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Sabrent is the most recent partner of mine to help build out my systems, sending me oodles of the fastest NVMe M.2 SSDs on the planet. I'm using Sabrent's flagship Rocket 4 Plus 4TB M.2 SSDs which offers 7GB/sec+ reads and writes with a huge 4TB of capacity.

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• Read more: ASUS ROG Strix XG438Q Review: It's So Good, ASUS Will Hate This Review
• Read more: ASUS ROG Swift PG43UQ Review: Perfect For The GeForce RTX 3080
• Read more: ASUS ROG Strix XG43UQ Review - The Best HDMI 2.1 Gaming Monitor

ASUS has been a tight partner of mine for a few years now, providing their huge 43-inch 4K 120Hz gaming monitors for my benchmarking and gaming needs. I'm using two of them at the moment, the ROG Strix XG438Q and the ROG Swift PG43UQ gaming monitors.

• CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 5900X (buy from Amazon)
• Motherboard: ASUS ROG X570 Crosshair VIII HERO (buy from Amazon)
• Cooler: CoolerMaster MasterLiquid ML360R RGB (buy from Amazon)
• RAM: G.SKILL Trident Z NEO RGB 32GB (4x8GB) (F4-3600C18Q-32GTZN) (buy from Amazon)
• SSD: Sabrent 4TB Rocket NVMe PCIe 4.0 M.2 2280 (buy from Amazon)
• PSU: be quiet! Dark Power Pro 11 1200W (buy from Amazon)
• Case: InWin X-Frame 2.0
• OS: Microsoft Windows 11 Pro x64 (buy from Amazon)
• Display: ASUS ROG Swift PG43UQ (4K 120Hz) (buy from Amazon)

Benchmarks - Synthetic

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Benchmarks - 1080p

Note: All games run on Ultra/Maxed Out visual settings, motion blur disabled, V-Sync disabled.

Performance Thoughts

Please, please, please... do not buy the new GeForce RTX 3090 Ti for 1080p gaming. I mean, if you want to have like 300FPS in multiplayer titles or something because you've got a 360FPS display, then sure. But for the most part you don't need to spend this type of money for gaming at 1920 x 1080.

Benchmarks - 1440p

Note: All games run on Ultra/Maxed Out visual settings, motion blur disabled, V-Sync disabled.

Performance Thoughts

Now, this is where the real fun begins: 2560 x 1440. In a flagship game like CD PROJEKT RED's masterpiece Cyberpunk 2077, where the MSI GeForce RTX 3090 Ti SUPRIM X hums along with a huge 97FPS average at 1440p... compared to the 90FPS of the RTX 3090 and RTX 3080 Ti GPUs.

You're going to be speeding along at 120FPS average in Forza Horizon 5, 60FPS+ if you turned RT and enabled DLSS in a beautiful-looking game like Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition. 1440p gaming is going to be no issue for the GeForce RTX 3090 Ti, it dominates here as well.

Benchmarks - 4K

Note: All games run on Ultra/Maxed Out visual settings, motion blur disabled, V-Sync disabled.

Performance Thoughts

4K gaming is where the GeForce RTX 3090 Ti shines.

You wouldn't think that by overclocking an already pushed-to-the-max GeForce RTX 3090 Ti would gain you anything, but it does: in something as intense as Cyberpunk 2077 you're going to get 3FPS more at 4K -- up from 51FPS average to 54FPS average with the overclock.

Forza Horizon 5 and Metro Exodus are the same... a few FPS gain, which is the same performance hike you've got over the RTX 3080 Ti or RTX 3090 to the RTX 3090 Ti... once again with the overclocked RTX 3090 Ti. It's impressive stuff.

OC Results, GPU + GDDR6X Temperatures

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A handy little chart to make it easier to show you visually, the difference between the GPU, GDDR6X and GPU hotspot temperatures between the stock and overclocked MSI GeForce RTX 3090 Ti SUPRIM X graphics card.

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I pushed the MSI GeForce RTX 3090 Ti SUPRIM X as far as I could, with my sample most likely being one of the best-binned GA102 GPUs on the planet. I was able to push 2145-2175MHz out of the RTX 3090 Ti SUPRIM X on the GPU overclock, max.

It would pop its head over 2200MHz reaching 2220MHz in some gaming tests, but it wouldn't stay there and would come back down to 2145-2160MHz. With the triple-fan cooler spinning its fans at 100% and 24GB of GDDR6X memory overclocked from its already-fast 21Gbps up to 22Gbps and hitting the walls of 22.5Gbps. I'll be doing more GDDR6X memory overclocking in the next few days.

In that article, I'll compare the GDDR6X memory temperatures of the MSI and ASUS GeForce RTX 3090 Ti graphics cards.

MSI's custom GeForce RTX 3090 Ti SUPRIM X can be pushed at up to 2205MHz in something as intensive as Cyberpunk 2077 in 4K, with the fans spinning at 100% the GPU temperatures are only hitting 64C... very impressive. The 24GB of ultra-fast GDDR6X memory sits at just 56-60C, down from the 90-110C on the regular RTX 3090 non-Ti GPU.

The performance gain on top of the already-better-than RTX 3090 performance makes the MSI GeForce RTX 3090 Ti SUPRIM X an even better purchase... more performance, out of an already wicked-fast GPU.

What's Hot, What's Not

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What's Hot

• MSI's air-cooled RTX 3090 Ti > ASUS's water-cooled RTX 3090 Ti: I was seeing more consistency in MSI's overclocked GeForce RTX 3090 Ti SUPRIM X beating the water-cooled ASUS ROG Strix LC GeForce RTX 3090 Ti OC Edition, but I'll dive into more detail in a showdown between the custom RTX 3090 Ti cards after I'm done running the overclocked ASUS through its paces. For now, the MSI is out in the lead without a doubt.
• 2145-2200MHz GPU boost: Depending on your card, you're going to see up to 2200MHz without a problem. You won't need to tweak much, and there won't be another 100W of power or something out of nowhere. There's actually a good amount of OC headroom here, for an already balls-to-the-wall GPU.
• 22.5-23Gbps GDDR6X memory OC: NVIDIA shipped the GeForce RTX 3090 with the same 24GB of GDDR6X as the RTX 3090 Ti, but with one big difference for the new RTX 3090 Ti: its 24GB of GDDR6X is Micron's latest G6X clocked at 21Gbps and it can OC easily to 22.5-23Gbps for ultra-fast GDDR6X memory.

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• 1.2TB/sec memory bandwidth: With the GDDR6X memory pushed up to its limits, you're seeing -- for the first time ever I might add - a GeForce GPU with over 1TB/sec of memory bandwidth. But when the GDDR6X is overclocked, you're able to enjoy the lofty heights of 1.2TB/sec of memory bandwidth.
• An even more ultimate-r 4K 120FPS gaming GPU: You can squeeze another 10-15FPS out of overclocking the MSI RTX 3090 Ti SUPRIM X... and when you're at 4K 120FPS and only hitting 100-120... those extra 10-15FPS are more than welcomed.
• Beats the pants off of everything, but now with a smirk: MSI was already at the top of the benchmark charts with its GeForce RTX 3090 Ti SUPRIM X, but when overclocked it sits up on that purch even higher. At least until the insane custom RTX 3090 Ti designs from other AIBs drop with 1100-1275W at their disposal (through a ridiculous dual 16-pin PCIe power connector setup).

Final Thoughts

I have spent the last 48 hours working pretty much 36-40 hours of that benchmarking a huge amount of GPUs -- including the new MSI GeForce RTX 3090 Ti SUPRIM X -- writing, taking and editing photos, and everything in between.

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But now that I had the time to push the MSI GeForce RTX 3090 Ti SUPRIM X to its limits, and then of course re-run every single benchmark at every single resolution, I've got a better picture of how far the RTX 3090 Ti can be pushed. MSI's new RTX 3090 Ti SUPRIM X is the better overclocker out of the two RTX 3090 Ti GPUs I've got here right now (the other is the liquid-cooled ASUS ROG Strix LC RTX 3090 Ti OC Edition).

MSI's custom RTX 3090 Ti SUPRIM X can have its GPU pushed anywhere between 2145-2205MHz or so, with my sample sitting comfortably (and stable) at 2145-2175MHz. I could get another 600-1000MHz or more out of the GDDR6X with some overclocking, but depending on the task it would crash.

• Maximum GPU OC: 2170-2205MHz (up from ~2010-2040MHz)
• Maximum GDDR6X OC: 22.5-23Gbps (up from 21Gbps)
• Maximum power: ~480-490W
• Average GPU temps: 65C
• Average GDDR6X temps: 76C

Mining ETH on it was easy at 22.5Gbps and even 23Gbps, and looking at the memory bandwidth hitting 1.2TB/sec (1200GB/sec) was a nice thing to see on a GeForce GPU. The new 24GB GDDR6X clocked at 21Gbps on the RTX 3090 Ti is very, very nice... and has some OC wiggle room to boot.

In the end, I was more than pleasantly surprised with the OC headroom that MSI has in its superbly built GeForce RTX 3090 Ti SUPRIM X. I'm still a few hours away from finishing my overclocking of the ASUS ROG Strix LC GeForce RTX 3090 Ti OC Edition, but I can see from the 1/3 of the data I have here that MSI has the crown.

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More impressive, considering MSI RTX 3090 Ti SUPRIM X is air-cooled while the ASUS ROG Strix LC RTX 3090 Ti OC Edition has a huge, bulky AIO cooler.

I'll have a full comparison between the MSI GeForce RTX 3090 Ti SUPRIM X and ASUS ROG Strix LC GeForce RTX 3090 Ti OC Edition by the weekend, where I'll compare both the cards at both stock and their maximum OC.

For now, MSI... you have impressed me greatly with your GeForce RTX 3090 Ti SUPRIM X... the only thing that could make this any better is two of them.