A Closer Look
As I mentioned earlier, the RTX 2080 Duke sheds the traditional red and black colors of MSI’s gaming series and uses a silver on black color scheme. MSI’s 10xx series Duke cards used a black on black color scheme. The cooler features triple Torx fans from MSI. These are the same fans used on the GTX 10xx series.
On the back of the GPU, you’ll find a massive brushed aluminum backplate that covers the length of the card. There is a small bit of plastic that covers the back end of the heatsink. The backplate does aid in cooling by transferring heat from the card and to the backplate that has a larger surface area to dissipate the heat. During testing, the back side of the card got quite warm to the touch after a lengthy gaming session.
The fans that are used on the RTX 2080 Duke are MSI’s Torx 2.0. They are double ball bearing fans with two different blade designs. The blades with the stripe are the dispersion fan blades and according to MSI, they have a steeper angle on the blade that is designed to increase airflow speed. The nonstriped blades are more of a traditional design and push steady airflow to the heatsink below.
At the edge of the card, you’ll find MSI’s dragon head and Duke logo can be LED backlit. The LEDs are RGB and are controlled through MSI’s Mystic Light software.
Power to the RTX 2080 Duke is provided by two PCIe power connectors, one is an 8-pin and the other is a 6-pin.
The RTX 2080 Duke provides connectivity in the form of triple display port (DP), a single HDMI, and a USB Type-C connector.
