Msi Geforce GTX 1080 Ti Armor, where are the reviews???

Title says it all. This card first became known to me once I saw it last week as available on newegg from nowinstock.net

The thing that amazed me was it was
A. In stock!?!
B. Aftermarket cooling
C. Only 10$ more than FE cards
D. Did I mention in stock?

But going online I have found no reviews for it. Best I have found were some press releases saying that it's avalible / coming out and an unboxing video on YouTube from someone who got one.

Either way I purchased it early this morning and should get it by tomorrow night. But what's the deal? Did I mess up? Am I missing something? Why are there no reviews up yet on this? Anyone have any thoughts about this card?

i think most people are holding out for the higher end 1080ti's and those that aren't are just getting FE's but i could be wrong. i can say that for me personally if i'm going to spend this much money i'm at least getting a strix or amp extreme. it's only a few more bucks.

MSI didn't provide samples on time so there are no reviews. Actually there are barely any other reviews than FE. Strix was somewhere and maybe one more card and that's all. Actually I can't complain at FE cooler. I'm not sure what some people are complaining about. It keeps reasonable temps and is quiet. Of course if you are not going to use water cooling then it's better to wait for higher series but many non-FE cards will have similar PCB anyway, the main difference will be the cooler.

That makes sense I guess. I will be happy with this though, 2 hdmi and dvi as well as display ports. Plus I will finally be able to play at 4k and at high settings, no more running at 1440p. I just found it weird no one has reviewed it yet.

Recently most manufacturers are focusing on sales first and then what's left is going for reviews. At least I see that each year is harder to get some samples of new products before they hit the stores. So we can see products in stores but we can't find any reviews. Look at new memory kits. G.Skill Trident Z RGB is in stores for 2 months now but there were no review samples straight from G.Skill. The same with some Team Group products, some higher series graphics cards, special series of hardware, PCIE SSD etc.

Back to GTX1080Ti. Personally I would wait for EVGA FTW. There are 2 reasons. One is that this card will have better PCB and power design but also EVGA has the best support and don't care if you remove warranty stickers.
I got FE just because it's much cheaper on local market, it was available and I'm planning to use water cooling. And I picked EVGA because of what I mentioned already so that my card won't lose warranty when I remove stock cooler.

So got my armor a few hours ago, it's an amazing card. Shorter than my r9 390 or 780, lighter than expected, and initial tests at 4k vs the r9 are about 2 to 3 times better. Seriously I have nothing bad to say about the card. And quiet, at default settings I have not heard it at all over the system fans.

I am already happy about this card. If your on the fence and on much older tech then this is not a real choice here.

Woomack said:

MSI didn't provide samples on time so there are no reviews. Actually there are barely any other reviews than FE. Strix was somewhere and maybe one more card and that's all. Actually I can't complain at FE cooler. I'm not sure what some people are complaining about. It keeps reasonable temps and is quiet. Of course if you are not going to use water cooling then it's better to wait for higher series but many non-FE cards will have similar PCB anyway, the main difference will be the cooler.

Click to expand...

lol, it isn't quiet.

I have an MSI 1p80ti arriving tomorrow for review... I'm guessing it's the gaming x though.

Sweet. Glad to hear it, can't wait to see what you think of it so I can compare to the armor lol.

EarthDog said:

lol, it isn't quiet.

I have an MSI 1p80ti arriving tomorrow for review... I'm guessing it's the gaming x though.

Click to expand...

I can barely hear the thing on 100% FS.

- - - Updated - - -

azuza001 said:

So got my armor a few hours ago, it's an amazing card. Shorter than my r9 390 or 780, lighter than expected, and initial tests at 4k vs the r9 are about 2 to 3 times better. Seriously I have nothing bad to say about the card. And quiet, at default settings I have not heard it at all over the system fans.

I am already happy about this card. If your on the fence and on much older tech then this is not a real choice here.

Click to expand...

How is your card doing as far as cooling goes? My 1080 Ti Armor is running nearly as hot as my FE did prior to the AIO mod.

I will have to check when I get home. I have been testing so many different games with it I haven't actually looked at Temps yet or overclocking lol.

Update -

So I started messing with afterburner and this is what I found.

Setting the fan speed to 100% and just running some tests on 3d mark time spy the hottest it got was 69C. This gave me a score of 7199. The fan was noticeable but not louder than say the original blower on the r9 290s. Those things were loud. And it was more of a gentle hum than a full on fan spin.

Overclocking the card to 117% power limit, 100+ on core clock, and 350+ on memory with fan set at 80% the temp never went above 79c and I received a score of 7423. The fan was slightly noticed in the end of the galaxy test, but still no where near the cpu fan when it cranks up during the cpu test portion.

BTW I am running an Hyper 212 evo with its single original fan on it. The cpu temp never got above 66 according to 3d mark. I do need to upgrade the cooling on this guy at some point.

In the end I don't see me needing to run the overclock really. I just did it to see what the card could do and I am sure it could go higher, but why? Lol. I like the quiet system over the slightly heard system I think.

It's definitely as quiet as my evga 780 or my xfx DD 390. I just wish I had a better way to describe how loud it was.