With the distribution of gtx 1080 ti non-public products, each aic has done everything in its power to strive to achieve the ultimate non-public graphics card of this model that represents its own ultimate performance: heat dissipation enhancement, power supply enhancement, faith lamp upgrade and even equipped with a display, which is really useless. In terms of heat dissipation, the first batch of gtx 1080 ti non-public graphics cards of each family are mainly air-cooled heat dissipation, but there are also water-cooled heat dissipation, and MSI's famous sea hawk seahawk is one of them.
MSI's current sea hawk series is divided into two types, one is a one-piece water-cooled cooling graphics card jointly developed with Corsair, and the other is a split water-cooled graphics card jointly created with ek, and the MSI gtx 1080 ti sea hawk x we want to talk about today belongs to the former. MSI and pirate ship cooperation water-cooled graphics card is not the first time, as early as the gtx 980 ti has cooperated, after the two sides have been cooperating to promote new products, MSI is responsible for graphics card PCB, pirate ship is responsible for integrated water-cooled radiator. However, the two sides are sold independently, and the naming is also different, MSI tube the card is called sea hawk, and the pirate ship calls the card hydrogfx, which is basically the same in appearance, but the cold exhaust fan has a little difference.
MSI GTX 1080 ti sea hawk x
In fact, it is not accurate to say that the card is an integrated water-cooled heat dissipation, the card should become a hybrid heat dissipation, the integrated water-cooled radiator is the GPU core heat dissipation, and the turbine heat sink is used to power the graphics card, video memory and PCB heat dissipation. Combining Corsair's expertise in integrated water cooling and MSI's deep power in air-cooled heat dissipation from graphics cards, the MSI GTX 1080 ti sea hawk's heat dissipation system is efficient and quiet, and can suppress the huge heat generated gtx 1080 ti at a very low temperature.
Close-up of the top faith lamp
Of course, as a graphics card with high requirements for temperature and noise, the performance of the card is not top-notch, but the frequency comparison is also a big improvement compared to the public version, which can be said to achieve a balance between performance and temperature. So how will this graphics card perform? We'll go through a series of software and game tests to see if the card is worth its value.
Graphics card disassembly appreciation
Graphics card heatsink design
MSI gtx 1080 ti sea hawk x uses a feng shui cooling integrated hybrid radiator, pirate ship hydro integrated water-cooled radiator for gtx 1080 ti core heat dissipation, 120mm aluminum refrigeration row with pure copper cold head base can quickly take away the heat, the silent fan on the cold drain allows users to feel no noise during use; the turbo fan specifications are the same as the public version, cooling heat for pcb and power supply.
Graphics card backplane design
The back of the MSI GTX 1080 ti sea hawk x is covered with a metal backplane printed with the MSI logo and the Dragon, which not only provides protection for the components on the back of the PCB, but also provides a certain auxiliary heat dissipation capacity and acts as a reinforcement.
The graphics card is fixed in the middle box
Although the metal backplane reinforces the PCB, the MSI gtx 1080 ti sea hawk x in order to improve the service life of the graphics card, or install a fixed middle frame on the graphics card, making the entire graphics card more robust and durable, while assisting the video memory and other components to dissipate heat.
Graphics card pcb design
The MSI GTX 1080 ti sea hawk x graphics card uses a public PCB design, which is also the usual practice of many graphics cards with hybrid thermal design.
Graphics core
MSI GTX 1080 ti sea hawk x graphics card with a new pascal architecture 16nm process codenamed gp102-350-a1 core, with 12 billion transistors, 88 rops, 224 texture units, 3584 stream processors, 1506-1620mhz core frequency in oc mode, 1493/1607mhz and 1480/ in game mode and 1480/ in silent mode 1582mhz。
Graphics card powered design
The MSI GTX 1080 ti sea hawk x is powered by a public 7+2 phase dual fet, which is much stronger than the previous GTX 1080 founders edition's 5+1 phase. Graphics memory uses Micron's second-generation gddr5x with frequencies up to 11124mhz.
Auxiliary power supply interface design
MSI gtx 1080 ti sea hawk x adopts an 8+6pin auxiliary power supply interface, which is consistent with the public version, plus pci-e can provide up to 300w of power, which is enough for the graphics card to work stably at high frequencies and has a certain overclocking capability.
Video interface design
The MSI GTX 1080 ti sea hawk x provides players with a full interface combination of 3*dp+hdmi+dvi, which can ensure compatibility with most monitors on the market and meet the needs of players who need multi-screen output.
Test platform environment at a glance
In order to ensure that the test can play the best performance of the graphics card, the test platform is composed of a new 7th generation Core Core - intel Core i7-7700k processor, MSI z270 chipset motherboard, Asgart ddr4-2133 32GB dual-channel memory, and Antec 1000w titanium power supply. The detailed hardware specifications are shown in the following table:
Test bench soft and hardware configuration
Core accessories
cpu
intel
Core i7-7700k
mainboard
Msi
z270i gaming pro carbon ac
Core graphics
hd 630
memory
Asgard
leorice ddr4-2133 32gb x2
hard disk
Pucott
px-512m6s+
power supply
Antic
hcp Platinum Edition -1000
System and drivers
operating system
microsoft windows 10
Motherboard driver
Intel chipset driver
Graphics driver
nvidia geforce game ready driver（381.89 whql）
Directx environment
directx 12
Frames monitoring
fraps 3.5.1
Motherboard for testing: MSI z270i gaming pro carbon ac
In terms of test scores, theoretical performance tests measure performance with scores, and the higher the value, the better; the game performance test measures performance by the average number of frames in the game's own benchmark, and the higher the value, the better.
Theoretical Performance Test: 3dmark Firestrike
The first is a 3dmark firestrike test to measure the performance of graphics card theory dx11, the selection mode is extreme, corresponding to 2k resolution, the test results are as follows:
3dmark FSE grades
Through the extreme test in the new version of 3dmark, we can see that the performance of the MSI gtx 1080 ti sea hawk x graphics card is still quite strong, and it has a total score of 12691 in the extreme mode, of which the graphics score is as high as 14036 points, although it is not as good as the top non-public gtx 1080 ti, but it is still a big improvement compared to the public version.
3dmark ts score
Time Spy is the first standalone third-party benchmarking tool for dx12, and the entire engine is entirely based on the dx12 design, which can fully squeeze the dx12 performance of the graphics card. It can be seen that the card has good support for dx 12, in this test, the card got a good score of 8753 points, of which the GPU score is 9807 points, which is excellent.
Game performance testing
In the game performance test, we selected 2 dx12 games and 2 dx11 games for testing, with test resolutions of 2k and 4k. Set all the game's effects to the highest in the test, turn off VSY, use appropriate anti-aliasing, and record the average number of frames with the in-game benchmark, the results are as follows:
An average number of frames in the game at a glance
In all the test games, the MSI GTX 1080 ti sea hawk x graphics card achieved an absolutely smooth 60 frames at 2k, allowing the game to run perfectly with special effects at full range. The card can basically be regarded as absolutely smooth at 4k resolution, and even reached more than 80 frames in "Killer 6", and there are basically no games on the market that the card cannot cope with.
Graphics card power consumption and temperature testing
In terms of temperature, we will continue to use furmark for testing, so that each computing unit in the GPU chip is fully loaded, and the state of maximizing power supply can be used to get accurate results.
The video card oven temperature is 53°C
We set the parameter to 1280*1024 resolution and turn on 8*msaa. After more than 20 minutes of baking machine, the final MSI gtx 1080 ti sea hawk x graphics card full load temperature of 53 °C, the frequency finally stabilized at 1911 mhz, the temperature performance is extremely excellent, more than 30 °C lower than the gtx 1080 ti fe version, it can be seen that the water cooling heat dissipation effect is indeed unattainable by air cooling.
Graphics card power consumption test
We can see that in terms of standby power consumption, MSI gtx 1080 ti sea hawk x graphics card is still very low, the platform power consumption is only 57w, in line with the energy consumption level of gtx 1080 ti; in terms of full load power consumption, its platform full load peak power consumption reached 356w, this value is not much different from the gtx 1080 ti fe version, as a non-public graphics card performance is very good.
Summary of graphics card reviews
The MSI GTX 1080 ti sea hawk x graphics card is very satisfactory as a graphics card that focuses on thermal performance. In the actual game testing session, it can smoothly run various stand-alone masterpieces with full special effects, bringing players an unparalleled game experience. With the excellent hybrid heat dissipation design, the oven temperature of the card is only 53 °C, which is more than 15 °C lower than the general non-public gtx 1080 ti, but the frequency can reach a staggering 1.9 ghz! Being able to maintain such a low temperature at high frequencies shows that the card is an excellent graphics card that combines heat dissipation and performance.
MSI gtx 1080 ti sea hawk x
The power consumption performance of the whole machine is also very satisfactory, standby power consumption is less than 60w, full load power consumption is less than 360w, which is very low in gtx 1080 ti non-public graphics card, the benefits of low power consumption Needless to say, in this era of increasing attention to energy consumption ratio, the power consumption of graphics cards has become an important indicator to measure the quality of graphics cards.
The radiator was developed in conjunction with the pirate ship
As a series positioned second only to lightning, sea hawk pursues not the ultimate performance, but an excellent user experience. Integrated water-cooled radiator first appeared on the CPU, a major reason for users to choose water cooling is quiet, because the noise emitted by the water pump of the water-cooled radiator is far less than that of the fan, and the fan speed on the cold drain is generally not too high, when the graphics card is installed in the chassis, it is difficult to hear the noise.
Close-up of the logo area at the end
Such a graphics card that can almost be said to have no shortcomings has been put on sale on Tmall, priced at 6699 yuan, and the price is about 300 yuan more expensive than the general top air-cooled non-public version. According to the past law, the pricing of the card should be the same as MSI's top lightning series, even so, the card is not the most expensive gtx 1080 ti on the market, the most expensive one you should be able to guess. All in all, the MSI GTX 1080 ti sea hawk x graphics card is undoubtedly a high-end audiophile-grade graphics card that is well worthy of gaming enthusiasts who are looking for a better comprehensive experience.