Review

ASUS GeForce RTX 3080 TUF Gaming OC Edition Review

NVIDIA's new architecture codenamed "Ampere" series products are based on Samsung's 8nm process and the interesting GPU in their new RTX 30 series is the GeForce RTX 3080 with 8704 CUDA cores, 68 RT Cores and 272 Tensor cores with a reference clock of 1710MHz.

Today we are reviewing the ASUS TUF Gaming RTX 3080 OC edition graphics card, this TUF Gaming OC edition model has a rated boost clock of 1785MHz with Micron's new GDDR6X 10GB VRAM, at 19Gbps, over a 320-bit bus with total memory bandwidth of 760GB/s. ASUS TUF Gaming OC edition offers their own custom cooling solutions and advance power delivery designs.

The TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 3080 has been stripped down and built back up to provide more robust power and cooling. A new all-metal shroud houses three powerful axial-tech fans that utilize durable dual ball fan bearings. Fan rotation has been optimized for reduced turbulence, and a stop mode brings all three fans to a halt at low temps. Beneath, independent heatsinks for the GPU and memory keep thermals under tight control. Additional features, including TUF components, Auto-Extreme Technology, a new GPU bracket, and a backplate vent make the TUF a proper powerhouse. For builders looking for a new "old faithful", this card has your back.

Now let's see what this ASUS GeForce RTX 3080 TUF OC has for us.

Features

TUF Gaming GeForce RTXâ„¢ 3080 buffed-up design with chart-topping thermal performance

  • NVIDIA Ampere Streaming Multiprocessors: The building blocks for the world’s fastest, most efficient GPU, the all-new Ampere SM brings 2X the FP32 throughput and improved power efficiency.
  • 2nd Generation RT Cores: Experience 2X the throughput of 1st gen RT Cores, plus concurrent RT and shading for a whole new level of ray tracing performance.
  • 3rd Generation Tensor Cores: Get up to 2X the throughput with structural sparsity and advanced AI algorithms such as DLSS. Now with support for up to 8K resolution, these cores deliver a massive boost in game performance and all-new AI capabilities.
  • Axial-tech Fan Design has been newly tuned with a reversed central fan direction for less turbulence.
  • Dual Ball Fan Bearings can last up to twice as long as sleeve bearing designs.
  • Military-grade Capacitors and other TUF components enhance durability and performance.
  • GPU Tweak II provides intuitive performance tweaking, thermal controls, and system monitoring.

FANS Axial-tech Upgrades
TUF Gaming cards leverage our tried-and-true Axial-tech fan design, with three fans working in tandem to satisfy the thermal demands of NVIDIA's new high-octane design. The fans rely on dual ball fan bearings to ensure consistent performance and increased longevity compared to sleeve bearings and other bearing types.

FANS New Directions
The fans have been smartly tuned with a reversed rotation for the center fan, which reduces turbulence, and with a fan-stop mode that kicks in when the GPU temp falls below 55 degrees.

Heatsink MaxContact
To get heat into the heatsink array efficiently, so that it can be whisked away by the powerful axial-tech fans, we use a manufacturing process that improves the surface smoothness of the heatspreader at the microscopic level. The extra flatness allows for better contact with the die for improved thermal transfer.

TUF Components
Components are selected for TUF Gaming graphics cards based on their durability and performance. In addition to top-shelf chokes and MOSFETs, capacitors that meet military-grade certification make the TUF stand tall amongst the competition. The components are soldered to the PCB using our advanced Auto-Extreme automated manufacturing process. Smooth joints on the rear of the PCB and the elimination of human errors ensure each graphics card meets our rigorous specifications. Finally, to ensure flawless performance when it counts, the cards are subjected to a grueling 144-hour validation trial.

Fresh Shroud
An all-aluminum shroud adds robust protection to TUF Gaming graphics cards and a no-nonsense industrial design and grayscale colorway fits into any build with ease.

It's Cooler Out Back
The underside of the card reveals a host of improvements. Most of the rear is swathed in a protective metal backplate that prominently features a wide vent. The vent allows hot air to escape towards chassis exhaust fans instead of being recycled back into the GPU cooler. Beneath the GPU, a bracket provides consistent mounting pressure between the die and heat spreader. Stainless steel is used for the I/O bracket to protect ports and provide a more secure mount. A conveniently placed Dual Bios switch allows customization of the card's default performance profile without software.

Design Functional Front
The top-side RGB element can be customized with Armoury Crate and synced with other ASUS components to enable uniform lighting. To fulfill the power demands of the GeForce RTX 3080, two 8-pin power connectors are present, along with an onboard circuit that monitors PSU rail voltage. The circuit is fast enough to catch any transients that result in the rail voltage dropping too low. If that happens, a red LED will light up so you know the power supply wasn't able to keep up with the GPU's power draw.

Specifications

Package

The ASUS GeForce RTX 3080 TUF Gaming OC Edition comes in a black / green colored box with ASUS TUF Gaming Logo highlighted on front of the box . Back of box covers details about the product features along with specifications.

Inside the box

Along with the GFX card box also includes Collection card, Speedsetup manual and TUF certificate of Reliability.

Looks

Testing

Test system configuration -

CPUIntel Core i9 10900K
Board ASUS PROART Z490 CREATOR 10G
RAM2 X 8GB Corsair DDR4 2800Mhz
SSDKINGSTON KC2000 500GB NVMe PCIe
CoolerCorsair H115i RGB
GFXTUF 3080 RTX
PSUCorsair 850W RGB
CaseCorsair 465x
DisplayAcer S220HQL
OS Windows 10

Bundled Softwares

Benchmarks

Temperatures

Room Temperature: 30C

In idle, the temperature is real good and at full load running 3D Mark Fire Strike temperature was ok and fans were not loud at all.

Power Consumption

Wattage reading as per displayed by APC Pro 1000VA (Model no. BR1000G-IN) UPS.

Pros

  • Great Build Quality
  • RGB LED and quieter FANs
  • Nice thermal performance
  • Standard PCIe Power Connectors
  • Out of the Box OC
  • Dual-BIOS

Cons

  • High power consumption

Conclusion

The ASUS GeForce RTX 3080 TUF Gaming OC Edition graphics card is a great quality build graphics card and is a significantly overall better graphics card than Nvidia Founders Edition. Offering out of the box boost clock of 1785MHz than the 1710MHz reference board clock. With ASUS's thermal solution the card provides excellent thermal and acoustic performance along with a choice of Performance and Quiet BIOS options. The card also offers output to two separate HDMI 2.1 ports.

All the fast cores, fast memory and factory overclock make ASUS GeForce RTX 3080 TUF Gaming OC Edition graphics card little higher on power consumption. During our testing, the system consumed more than 452 Watts from the wall.

At the conclusion ASUS GeForce RTX 3080 TUF Gaming OC Edition graphics card is one of the best RTX 3080 card with excellent build quality and top quality components, better cooling system and overclocking capabilities makes it worthy of our PC TeK REVIEWS EXCELLENCE Award.

Manufacturers Info

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