MSI GeForce RTX 5080 Expert OC GPU Rocks A Dual-Fan Blower With FE Styling
It's a refined-looking GPU touting an aesthetic that is similar to NVIDIA's FE design language, but it's not a carbon copy. To put it in MSI's own words, the Expert series is intended to "embody the elegance of a finely crafted masterpiece," as opposed to visually-loud GPUs that typically cater to gamers with RGB lighting and aggressive styling.
As for the GPU itself, it sports an overclocked 2,715MHz boost clock, or a more aggressive 2,730MHz in Extreme Performance mode. Bot hare up from 2,617MHz on NVIDIA's FE model.
MSI says the GPU employs its Flow Froze 2 cooling solution, which is a passthrough thermal design. Air goes through one fan and out the back, and then up to the top on the right side of the GPU. While it differs from NVIDIA's Founders Edition cooler, it certainly is inspired by it. When temperatures are low, the Stormforce fans stop with its Zero Frozr design.
This GPU differs from the traditional three-fan designs that we have been accustomed to seeing from the likes of MSI. For example, MSI's GeForce RTX 5070 Gaming Trio is much larger by comparison, which can be a factor in workstations. While a sleek aluminum design is always great, the real star of the shower is its smaller profile to fit in a variety of productivity and/or compact gaming builds, while maintaining reasonable cooling performance.
GPUs with this design can have some drawbacks, namely higher thermals compared to more traditional three-fan designs. Maybe we'll get a chance to MSI's GeForce RTX 5080 16G Expert OC to see what kind of cooling comprises (if any) are at play.
There's no mention of when MSI's new card will release or how much it will cost. That said, NVIDIA and its hardware partners are rumored to introducing sweeping price cuts to the GeForce RTX 50 series. There's also chatter of a looming Super refresh.
