Asus GeForce RTX 3080 TUF Gaming OC review. Asus tuf rtx 3080
Review – Asus TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 3080 OC Edition
NVIDIA has finally announced its new GeForce RTX 30 series graphics cards, featuring the new Ampere GPU that packs plenty of new features and a pretty promising performance gain over the previous GeForce RTX 20 series graphics cards. Asus, like many of NVIDIA’s major board partners, has come up with their own variant of the RTX 30 series cards under three different lineup: ROG Strix, TUF Gaming, and Dual.
For this review, we will be taking a good look at the TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 3080 OC Edition, which Asus has decided to equip with a surprisingly big and beefy looking cooler, unlike the rest of the TUF Gaming graphics cards we’ve seen in the past. Has Asus finally decided to step up the game for its TUF Gaming series graphics cards?
Specifications
| GPU | GeForce RTX 2080 Ti | Asus TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 3080 OC Edition |
| SMS | 68 | 68 |
| CUDA Cores | 4352 | 8704 |
| Tensor Cores | 544 | 272 |
| RT Cores | 68 | 68 |
| Texture Units | 272 | 272 |
| ROPs | 88 | 64 |
| GPU Boost Clock | 1545 MHz | 1815 MHz |
| Memory Data Rate | 14 Gbps | 19 Gbps |
| Total Video Memory Size | 11G GDDR6 | 10G GDDR6X |
| Memory Interface | 352-bit | 320-bit |
| Memory Bandwidth | 616 GB/sec | 760.3 GB/sec |
| TDP | 250W | 320W |
| Recommended PSU | 600W | 850W |
| Power Connectors | 2 x 8-pin | 2 x 8-pin |
| Dimensions | 267mm x 116mm x 35mm | 299.9mm x 126.9mm x 51.7mm |
Unboxing
Starting off with the packaging, we can immediately notice the new TUF Gaming logo that was announced just a month ago. The new logo has a much more simplified look as compared to the previous winged-shield design that many of you enthusiasts are familiar with.
This exciting new look will complement the foundation of TUF Gaming while signaling the start of what’s yet to come. The first product line to implement the new TUF Gaming logo will be the latest Asus TUF Gaming NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3000 series graphics cards, launching now. Additional TUF Gaming products will adopt the new family design language starting in early 2021, including motherboards, graphics cards, laptops, desktop PCs, cases, keyboards, mice, headsets, monitors, power supplies, and coolers. – Asus, September 16, 2020
Logo aside, the rest of the design is pretty much in the same format as the rest of the existing Asus products, except for ROG. You won’t’ find much information regarding the specifications and features at the front of the box, so you’ll have to check on the back, which has most of the prominent features of the product printed on.
The accessories that come with the TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 3080 OC Edition include the certificate of reliability which you will normally get from a TUF product, a thank you note, a speed setup guide, and a trading card? The driver CD is nowhere to be found, we’re not sure if it went missing while it’s on its way to us, or Asus has decided to not include it anymore since not many people are using a CD/DVD drive nowadays.
The TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 3080 OC Edition
After getting all the harsh criticism from reviewers and community members of the PC hardware enthusiasts, we can see that Asus has totally redesigned the cooler for the new TUF Gaming cards. The cooler looks way much beefier and cooler than the older design, which I personally think that it’s the best looking RTX 30 series graphics card from Asus. As a long time fan of the TUF series lineup myself, this is probably the first-ever TUF Gaming product that deserves the proper love from the fans, long after Asus’ decision to rebrand TUF as an entry-level gaming product.
The TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 3080 OC Edition is equipped with a sturdy Aluminum shroud, a gigantic heatsink with six heat pipes, and triple Axial-tech fans where the middle fan will spin in an alternate direction to reduce air turbulence and provide better coverage on the heatsink for better cooling performance.
Together with the cooler, the card measures a 51.7mm thickness, which takes up 2.7 slots on the expansion slots on your motherboard. Despite the 2.7 slot thickness, the TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 3080 OC Edition will still fit in most of the PC case that can support at least 300mm length graphics card. So, compatibility is probably the last thing to worry about if you’re planning to upgrade to this card if you already have a huge graphics cards sitting in your system.
If you’re a fan of minimalistic build, the TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 3080 OC Edition is probably one of the nice options that are worthy of your attention. Asus kept the RGB lightings to a bare minimum on this card and can be disabled anytime with Asus AURA software for a full stealth look.
Like many of the other board partners, Asus has opted for the usual dual 8-pin PCIe power connector instead of the new 12-pin power connector design as what we can see on the Founders Edition cards. The minimum power supply required for this card is 850W as according to the official specifications and not 750W as what we can see on the power requirement of the RTX 3080 Founders Edition. So that’s one thing to keep in mind if you plan to upgrade or build a new system with this card.
A metal backplate is much to be expected on a card of this category and it’s good to see that the pretty decent looking and is equipped with a very solid metal backplate that is reasonable for its size and weight. The cutout on the metal backplate with the exposed heatsink works pretty similarly to what we’ve seen on the Founders Edition design, which directs hot air removed from the GPU to the top instead of letting it trapped around the card for better cooling performance.
There’s also a dip switch located near the power connectors that allows you to toggle between performance mode and quiet mode. The card is on performance mode by default but you can always switch to quiet mode if you need it to run quieter in exchange for a slightly higher temperature.
As for the display output, you’ll find a total of three DisplayPorts 1.4a and two HDMI 2.1 ports on the TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 3080 OC Edition, which plentiful. With NVIDIA announcing its RTX 30 series cards to be the first to come with a dedicated AV1 decoder for high-quality 4K and 8K video streaming, HDMI 2.1 is the only display standard that can support up to 8K resolution at 60Hz.
Test System Setup
For our games benchmark test, we’ve selected a number of AAA titles to run at its highest possible settings using the following setup under an ambient temperature of 30°C:
| CPU | AMD Ryzen 9 3900X |
| Motherboard | MSI MEG X570 GODLIKE |
| Memory | TEAMGROUP T-FORCE XTREEM ARGB DDR4 @3600MHz |
| Graphics Card | GeForce RTX 2080 Ti / Asus TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 3080 OC Edition |
| Power Supply | Enermax MaxTytan 1250W |
| Primary Storage | Force Series Gen.4 PCIe MP600 2TB NVMe M.2 SSD |
| Secondary Storage | WD Black 6TB |
| CPU Cooler | Cooler MasterLiquid Master ML360R RGB |
| Chassis | Streacom Open Benchtable BC1 |
| Operating System | Windows 10 64bit |
Games Benchmark
1080p gaming is definitely a piece of cake for both the RTX 2080 Ti and RTX 3080, easily going way beyond the 60fps smooth gaming standard without any issue. It’s definitely a waste if you only game on 1080p with such a powerful card but hey, it’s still your choice anyway.
With more gamers slowly moving forward to 1440p which can offer better details and not overly taxing on the graphics card as 4K did, I’d say that this is definitely the sweet spot for the RTX 3080. Both cards still holding pretty well at this point but the RTX 3080 is still a clear winner here, especially on games that are CPU bound on 1080p, which is no longer CPU board as we increase the resolution to 1440p.
Moving on to 4K gaming, we can definitely confirm NVIDIA’s claim on the ‘huge leap for 4K gaming and ray tracing’ after seeing how well the RTX 3080 can perform. Raw performance, double the CUDA cores, new architecture – the TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 3080 OC Edition has everything ready to get you into 4K gaming and ray tracing performs better but costs much lesser than the RTX 2080 Ti at launch.
Operating Temperature
The idle temperature of the TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 3080 OC Edition is very similar to the rest of the RTX 3080 we’ve tried, which is at 43°C as the fan will not spin before the GPU temperature hits 55-56°C. We left the to run 6 hours on the FurMark stress test and the highest temperature recorded is at 66°C with performance mode and 73°C in quiet mode. Depending on the games you’re playing, as it is unlikely for the GPU to hit 66°C unless your game is much more CPU bound than GPU. For the games we’ve tested so far, we only see the GPU temperature hovering around 60-63°C at most.
Final Thoughts
The RTX 3090 is definitely the most powerful graphics card in the RTX 30 series lineup but the 1499 price tag is definitely not everyone can afford and only enthusiasts and content creators who really want to take advantage of the powerful GPU for a next-level gaming experience or more efficient rendering work will consider getting one for themselves.
Seeing how the TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 3080 OC Edition performs, we can see just how confident NVIDIA is with the ‘huge leap for 4K gaming and ray tracing’ claim for its RTX 30 series cards. Having experienced it ourselves, we can definitely see a very significant gain in both raw performance and ray tracing on the new Ampere GPUs as compared to the previous generation Turing GPUs. With more game developers adopting DLSS and ray tracing for their games, you will definitely need a graphics card that will support either one of these features if you want to enjoy the game to its fullest.
The TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 3080 OC Edition might not be the most affordable RTX 3080 available but its higher RM 3770 price tag is still somewhat justifiable by its build quality, features, and performance it can deliver even though you’re paying for the slightly higher clock speed. If you don’t mind the slightly lower clock speed (you can still overclock it anyway), the non-OC variant TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 3080 which is priced at RM 3360 is obviously a much wallet-friendly choice to go with.
Pros
- Excellent performance out of the box
- Greatly improved 4K and DXR performance
- Excellent build quality
- Excellent cooling performance
- Runs silently even during full load
- Come with two HDMI ports
Asus GeForce RTX 3080 TUF Gaming OC review
The Asus GeForce RTX 3080 TUF Gaming, with its excellent cooling and solid performance is easily the RTX 3080 for most people. It may be a bit large for the smallest PC cases out there, but promises to be one of the best GPUs of its generation.
Pros
- Solid performance
- Best in class cooling
- Decent aesthetics
- Same price as Founders
Cons
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The Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 is here, bringing with it one of the biggest generational leaps in graphics card history. And just like any other GPU launch, it’s accompanied by aftermarket graphics cards like this Asus GeForce RTX 3080 TUF Gaming card, bringing more robust cooling and RGB flair to an already amazing package.
And because this Asus TUF Gaming edition of the RTX 3080 retails for the same 699 (£650, AU1,399) as the Founders Edition of the RTX 3080, there’s really no reason to avoid jumping on this version. While it doesn’t have the downright futuristic cooler design of Nvidia’s own card, the cooler Asus brings to the table does a fantastic job of keeping temperatures under control – in fact, it’s the first RTX 3080 we’ve tested that stays cooler than Nvidia’s own.
Throughout our testing, through a gauntlet of eight games and three synthetic benchmarks, the Asus GeForce RTX 3080 TUF Gaming peaked at just 61°C, a full 11°C below the max temperature of the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 Founders Edition. And that’s without making a massive triple-slot card that is too long to fit in many folks’ cases. Although, at 11.81 inches long and 2.04 inches thick, some people may still run into issues with PC case compatibility.
Because of this, this is definitely a graphics card that most people should feel relatively comfortable with just tossing into their PC and never really worrying too much about the graphics card overheating. And because there will be so much thermal headroom, most people should be able to get a pretty healthy overclock out of this graphics card – though out of interest of time, we didn’t really put that to the test.
Even right out of the box, though, the Asus GeForce RTX 3080 TUF Gaming manages to perform pretty much identically to the Founders Edition, even managing to beat it by a few fps in most tests. However, most of the gains here are within margin of error, so your mileage may vary.
This is the system we used to test the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 Founders Edition:
CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 3950X (16-core, up to 4.7GHz) CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Masterliquid 360P Silver Edition RAM: 64GB Corsair Dominator Platinum @ 3,600MHz Motherboard: X570 Aorus Master SSD: ADATA XPG SX8200 Pro @ 1TB Power Supply: Phanteks RevoltX 1200 Case: Praxis Wetbench
For instance, this Asus model scores 11,449 points in the 3DMark Port Royal test, placing it right in between the MSI RTX 3080 Gaming X Trio and the RTX 3080 Founders Edition. That’s a story that repeats itself over and over again, with the Asus GeForce RTX 3080 TUF Gaming sitting in the middle of these other games in Horizon Zero Dawn, Metro Exodus, Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey and more.
There are a couple games where the Asus RTX 3080 falters, like Red Dead Redemption 2 and Far Cry 5, but again the differences are marginal at best. The Asus GeForce RTX 3080 TUF Gaming serves as an excellent version of Nvidia’s card at its price.
As for how it looks in your PC case, it’s a bit shorter than the MSI Gaming X Trio – though not by much, and is also a 2.5-slot card. Because of the massive amount of power that the RTX 3080 inherently eats up, this is something we should expect to see a lot of.
There are also three fans here, which combined with the fact that there are just 2 8-pin PCIe power connectors is one of the largest contributing factors to the low temperatures.
Aesthetically, it has the kind of gunmetal gray color profile that is unfortunately prevalent in graphics cards, but it’s offset by a surprisingly tasteful RGB logo near the back of the card. In fact, it might be our favorite lighting in any RTX 3080 that’s not the Founders Edition, because it doesn’t look tacked on at the last minute like the ridiculous bar on the MSI Gaming X Trio version.
Especially as the generation goes on and the Founders Edition becomes more rare and expensive, the Asus TUF Gaming edition of the RTX 3080 should be one of the top aftermarket cards on your list, especially if you don’t want to fork over extra money for a more extreme graphics card like the MSI Gaming X Trio edition or Asus’ own ROG Strix line.
Buy it if.
You don’t want to pay extra The Asus GeForce RTX 3080 TUF Gaming graphics card comes in at the same retail price as Nvidia’s own Founders Edition, which means you’re not paying any extra for this card – at least in theory.
You don’t want to worry about thermals If you’re just looking for a version of the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 that you can just toss in your case and forget about, this is the one. The lowest temperatures at stock settings that we’ve seen on any RTX 3080 so far.
Don’t Buy it if.
You want an overclocking behemoth Because this Asus TUF Gaming chip doesn’t have the beefy power delivery like, say, the MSI Gaming X Trio, you’re not going to be able to push it quite as far before running into voltage and power limits.
You’re playing at 1440p or below We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again. The Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 is only truly necessary for straight 4K gaming. Even the best processors on the market will start to bottleneck the Asus GeForce RTX 3080 TUF Gaming at lower resolutions.
Asus TUF Gaming RTX 3080 OC Review
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Today we’re reviewing the Asus TUF Gaming RTX 3080 OC, the first third-party GeForce RTX 3080 graphics card to come our way and we’re very interested to see how it compares to Nvidia’s Founders Edition model. We’ll be checking out gaming performance which should be very similar to the FE card, but also thermal and overclocking results.
First, let’s tear the TUF Gaming RTX 3080 OC down and take a look at the cooler and PCB. Please note this was done after we collected all our thermal and performance data. Starting with LED lighting, because of course, that’s important. The TUF is minimalist which we like, there is a small light bar above the ‘TUF’ branding along with a backlit logo which faces outwards when the card is traditionally mounted.
In terms of design and appearance, the TUF Gaming looks like your typical high-end graphics card. It’s a 2.7-slot design, so it takes up 3 slots, it measures 30cm long, stands 12.7cm tall and weighs in at 1385 grams, so it’s slightly heavier than the 1355 gram Founders Edition model. It’s mostly black, so it will suit most builds and Asus has included a few ‘TUF’ theme design elements like the tire tracks on the backplate, for example.
We liked how there’s no plastic on the card, apart from the fans of course. The fan shroud has been constructed from aluminum, giving it a premium look. Asus are also using the axial-tech fans and since there are three in total, they’ve reversed the rotation of the center fan to reduce turbulence, the fans each measure 90mm in diameter. We should also note that the card includes a stop-fan feature which activates when the GPU drops below 55C.
Around at the I/O end of the card we find two HDMI 2.1 ports and three DisplayPort 1.4a outputs. That’s an extra HDMI output when compared to Nvidia’s FE version, though note it can still only support up to 4 simultaneous displays. Asus also points out that this model features a very robust stainless steel I/O bracket which they say protects against rust while providing a more durable and secure mount. Can’t say we’ve ever had an issue with the standard steel brackets, but if you have, well this will be a welcomed feature.
Pulling this thing apart to take a better look, starting with the heatsink and fans, we have a very serious looking heatsink here, in fact it looks like something you’d expect to find on an ROG Strix model and not a card with TUF branding, and it really is very large, weighing in at 820 grams.
There are two massive banks of fins which are connected using half a dozen 6mm thick nickel plated copper heatpipes, and all connect to a large nickel plated copper base plate.
Using an aluminum plate, it directly cools the VRM, so that’s good to see, but there’s a lot more to this design as there is a second heatsink which directly cools the GDDR6X memory as well as the power delivery for the memory components. It’s an impressive bit of kit that fits in snug beneath the main heatsink. Asus have also used a few high quality thermal pads to aid in heat transfer from this smaller heatsink to the primary heatsink. Oh and for those of you wondering the smaller heatsink weighs in at 70 grams.
On the back side of the card we find a rather thick aluminum back plate which weighs 138 grams and has been used to strengthen the card and reduce PCB sag, or in this case completely eliminate it. We think this is actually the thickest backplate we’ve ever seen on a graphics card. Asus has also employed a series of thermal pads to remove built up heat from the rear side of the PCB behind the VRM and GDDR6X memory chips. There’s also a few cut outs to aid in air-flow.
Now over to the PCB, we find a 24cm long by 10.6cm tall PCB, so a fairly compact board, though it is crammed full of components. Surrounding the massive GA102 die are the GDDR6X memory chips and then flanking them on either side are boatloads of inductors and power stages. In total the card packs 20 power stages, and here we’re looking at an 8 6 4 power phase design using SIC641ACD 55A powerstages, though please note two of the 8-phases drive two power stages, so a bit of an odd configuration, but this is what Asus has gone with.
If you’re wondering what the 8 and 6-phase portions power, the answer is the GPU. So 14 phases feed into the GPU, or 16 55A powerstages. The 8-phase power rail is for NVVDD and the 6-phase power rail is for MSVDD while the 4-phase power rail is for the GDDR6X memory.
For comparison, the Nvidia reference board uses an 8 5 3 power phase design featuring 50A Alpha Omega Semiconductor power stages. In other words, Asus has beefed up the TUF Gaming well over the Nvidia reference spec.
There’s also two 8-pin PCIe power connectors feeding power into the graphics card and you’ll also find a dual BIOS switch that allows you to change from the default ‘performance’ BIOS to a ‘quiet’ BIOS. Both modes run the card at 340 watts, so we’re just looking at a change to the fan profile which will see the card run hotter in the quiet mode.
In terms of clock specifications, Asus lists a core clock frequency of 1815 MHz which is a 5% boost over the 1730 MHz default spec. The GDDR6X memory though has been left at 19 Gbps, so we’re just looking at a typical mild GPU overclock here. All that said, let’s move on to see what clock speed this model maintains when underload.
For these GeForce 30 series graphics card reviews we’ll be using Shadow of the Tomb Raider for all stress testing and will be reporting temperatures after 30 minutes of gameplay. This saw the TUF Gaming peak at just 63 degrees in a 21 degree room inside the Corsair Obsidian 500D, fully populated with fans. That’s a massive 15 degree drop in temperature when compared to Nvidia’s Founders Edition model.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider running at stock and overclocked clock speeds
To maintain this temperature the fans spin at up to 1900 RPM and while that’s a reasonably high fan speed, the card was surprisingly quiet, generating just 42 dBA of noise, making it slightly quieter than the FE version. The typical core clock speed seen during our testing was 1935 MHz and under the same conditions that’s a 5% increase over the Founders Edition model. This saw power consumption increase by 7% from 323 watts with the FE model to 344 watts with the TUF Gaming.
Overclocking
Now for overclocking, with the limits reached we again saw a peak operating temperature of 63 degrees but this time the fans spun up to 2000 RPM. The card wasn’t terribly loud at this fan speed. The overclock saw the cores operate at 2 GHz and the memory also hit 20.6 Gbps, an impressive transfer speed. Finally, when overclocked the card sucked down 357 watts, a small 4% increase from the factory OC configuration.
Let’s move into the benchmark graphs to see what overclocking gets us. We’re testing with our Ryzen 9 3950X GPU test rig with 32GB of DDR4-3200 CL14 memory. The latest drivers available at the time of testing have been used, and for this one we have just a few select games to look at.
Benchmarks
Starting with Death Stranding numbers at 1440p, the TUF Gaming was a single frame faster than Nvidia’s FE model, hitting 158 fps. That’s a pretty disappointing increase and we weren’t able to do much better with a manual overclock, boosting performance by a further 2%.
The results at 4K were just as underwhelming, here the TUF Gaming was 2% faster than the FE model and our overclock netted us an extra 2% performance.
The gains seen in Rainbow Six Siege were a little more impressive, here the TUF Gaming was 6% faster than Nvidia’s FE model, hitting 346 fps. That’s a typical factory overclock, but unfortunately through further manual tuning we were only able to extract 2 extra frames, well under a single percent gained here.
The 4K data looks much the same, again the TUF Gaming was 6% faster than Nvidia’s Founders Edition model and our manual overclock was useless.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider saw a 4% increase for the TUF Gaming over the FE model at 1440p, though quite interestingly this time our manual overclock netted us a further 3% increase in performance.
Similar margins were seen at 4K, here the TUF Gaming was 5% faster out of the box and then 8% faster with our overclock, though that was just a 3% increase over the Asus factory overclock.
Temperatures
Here’s a more in-depth look at the stock temperatures after running Shadow of the Tomb Raider for 30 minutes in a 21C room. The PCB temperatures were recorded using K-type thermocouples. For the GPU rear PCB temp the probe is attached to the backside of the PCB behind the GPU and we were expecting temperatures to be higher, so it would seem the heatsink on the frontside does a good job of extracting heat from the GPU. The GPU die temperature is the result you’ve already seen, we’re just reporting the internal sensor here.
Then the GDDR6X temperature has been reported using a thermal probe, attached to the PCB between the memory chips, so that it doesn’t interfere with the thermal pad and it’s contact with the memory chip. The same method was used to measure VRM temperatures, 4 probes were used to detect the VRM hot spot and here we’re looking at a peak of 66C which is very good. Overall, the TUF Gaming runs surprisingly cool.
What’s to Like
Asus has done an excellent job with the TUF Gaming RTX 3080 OC, it’s a great quality graphics card and better than Nvidia’s own Founders Edition in every measurable way. It’s quieter, significantly cooler, faster out of the box and best of all, it doesn’t require a silly 12-pin power adapter or specialized cable.
The only area where the Founders Edition model might be better is the physical appearance, but that’s entirely subjective. While we do like the look of Nvidia’s version, the TUF Gaming still looks great and we appreciate the use of high quality materials all around.
The fact that the TUF Gaming can be up to 6% faster while running 15C cooler seals the deal for us. There’s just no way we’d buy the Founders Edition over this Asus model for the same price.
At this point we’re still in the process of checking out other AIB RTX 3080 cards, so there might be better options, but we can’t imagine they’re going to be that much better. We’ve seen numerous 5700 XT graphics cards that run hotter than the TUF Gaming RTX 3080 OC, so there’s no denying Asus has done an excellent job. Should the price be right, then we see no reason not to buy this graphics card.
The Asus TUF Gaming RTX 3080 OC is currently listed for 700, which matches the MSRP for standard RTX 3080 boards. That said, it’s also out of stock everywhere we looked, but if you can eventually snag one for 700, then you’ve done very well.
We were surprised to find how much better this thing is than Nvidia’s intricate Founders Edition, and we like to think that our scrutiny with previous TUF Gaming cards helped motivate Asus to put together this excellent design and attention to detail.
Shopping Shortcuts:
- Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 on Amazon
- AMD Radeon RX 5700 on Amazon
- AMD Ryzen 9 3900X on Amazon
- AMD Ryzen 5 3600 on Amazon
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Review | Asus TUF RTX 3080 O10G Gaming
The Asus TUF RTX 3080 is one of the latest iterations of the recently released Ampere based graphics cards from Nvidia. This exact model is a triple fan monster featuring Asus’ Axial-tech fan design, Dual Ball fan bearings and military-grade capacitors. That’s on top of the six heat-pipe 2.7 slot cooler design.
This is our first look into the RTX 3080 series of cards and suffice to say I am excited to have a go on this one for a review.
Technical Specifications
| GPU | |
| Model | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 |
| Cores | 8704 (Cuda), 68 (RT) |
| Core Clock | 1440MHz |
| Boost Clock | 1740MHz, 1815MHz OC |
| Architecture | Ampere |
| Manufacturing Process | 8nm |
| TDP | 320W |
| Memory | |
| Memory Clock | 1188MHz, 19Gbps |
| Memory Bus Width | 320-bit |
| Memory Capacity | 10GB |
| Memory Type | GDDR6X |
| Connectivity | |
| Display | 2x DisplayPort 1.4a, 3x HDMI 2.1 |
| Power | 2x 8-Pin |
| Dimensions | |
| Length | 299mm |
| Width | 127mm |
| Height | 51mm, 2.7 slot |
| Weight | 1390g |
Packaging and Accessories
Asus used the typical graphics packaging for the TUF RTX 3080. The product should come with the following items inside:
Nothing fancy here folks. Just your usual GPU bundles.
Design, Layout and Build Quality
Asus went a bit nuts with the overall design of the TUF RTX 3080 10G Gaming. The thing is just huge, heavy and oozes with gaming oriented elements on top of a more industrial design.
The back plate, like its facade is no joke either, featuring a thick aluminum plate. There are key perforations here for the air to pass through – showing that the cooler actually extends over the length of the PCB.
According to Nvidia, the RTX 3080 has a TDP of 320W and it shows. The card we got has dual 8-pin PCIe power and combined with the PCIe slot itself, it could theoretically handle 375W of load.
Now cooling is provided by triple Axial-tech fans blowing air into the dense array of heatsinks with 6 heat-pipes. It is worth to note that this card also comes with a separate memory cooler. The larger array cools the Ampere chip and the VRM.
Connectivity wise, Asus managed to stuff this RTX 3080 with 3x DisplayPort 1.4a and 2x HDMI 2.1 ports.
Test Setup and Methodology
System performance is evaluated by industry standard benchmark tools and applications. The system is tested with the following software configurations:
- UEFI configuration – Default
- Windows Power Plan – Balanced
- Windows Game Mode – Disabled
- Windows Game Bar – Disabled
- Windows Security – Disabled
Outlined below is the default test system specifications as well as the software and applications used for the review:
| Default Test System Specifications | |
| CPU | AMD Ryzen 5 3600 |
| Motherboard | Asus ROG Strix B550-I Gaming |
| Cooler | AMD Wraith Stealth V2 |
| Memory | ADATA Premier 2666MHz 16GB |
| GPU | Asus ROG Strix RX 570 4GB |
| Storage | Crucial BX200 480GB |
| Case | Mechanical Library JXK-K3 |
| PSU | Thermaltake Toughpower GF1 650W |
| Display | LG UF680T |
| OS | Microsoft Windows 10 Pro 64-bit |
Compute Performance:
- AIDA64 Extreme Edition – GPGPU Benchmark, Single-Precision
- LuxMark v3.1 – LuxBall HDR, OpenCL
Gaming Performance:
- CS:GO: DirectX 9, Maximum Settings, 8x MSAA, FXAA
- Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege: Vulkan, Ultra Preset, TXAA, 16x AF
- League of Legends: DirectX 9, Very High Preset
- DOTA 2: DirectX 11, Best Looking Preset, AA
- Assetto Corsa: DirectX 11, Maximum Settings, 4x AA, FXAA, 16x AF
- F1 2020: DirectX 12, Ultra High Preset, TAA, x16 AF
- Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers: DirectX 11, Maximum Preset, FXAA, x16 AF
- Shadow of the Tomb Raider: DX12, Highest Preset, TAA, 8x AF
Temperature, Power and Noise:
Benchmarks for the review are recorded via CapFrameX and in full screen mode. Motion-blur and V-SYNC are turned off unless otherwise stated.
Temperature, Power and Noise
Graphics card thermal figures are taken during a 15 minute idle and a 15 minute load via OCCT’s 3D stress test. The ambient temperature is checked at 27 °C (±1 °C), with values extracted via HWiNFO and GPU-Z.
Now total system power consumption are also noted during the stress test. The measurements are then taken by a watt-meter.
Graphics card noise levels are also measured via the OCCT 3D stress test. The ambient sound level or noise floor is about 34 dBA (±1 dBA). Measurements are then taken via a sound level meter situated exactly 12 inches away from the card.
The Asus TUF RTX 3080 is off from a good start although Nvidia is not joking when they said a 750W is required for this card. All profiles considered, the particular model performed the best with the default mode (Gaming) enabled.
Synthetic Performance
The Aida64 Extreme Edition GPGPU Benchmark is designed to measure GPGPU computing performance via different workloads. Our choice here is the Single-Precision benchmark to check out the floating-point performance of the card.
LuxMark is an OpenCL cross-platform benchmark tool. Scene of choice is the LuxBall HDR. It is a benchmark with a total of 217K triangles required to render.
Synthetic benchmark performance are excellent. We promise to update this section once we got more cards to test for our updated test system.
Gaming Performance
CS:GO is Valve’s critically acclaimed FPS game, running on the Source engine utilizing the DirectX 9 API. Demo used is the grand finals match between Astralis and ENCE at IEM Katowice 2019.
Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege is a popular FPS title developed by Ubisoft utilizing the AnvilNext 2.0 engine with DirectX 11 and Vulkan API support. The benchmark tool within the game is used for this run.
League of Legends is one of the genre defining MOBA games in the industry. It utilizes RIOT Game’s in-house engine written in C with support for the DirectX 9 API. Demo of choice is a Summoner’s Rift replay via the ROFL-Player.
DOTA 2 is yet another popular MOBA game featuring Valve’s Source 2 engine with support for a number of APIs. Benchmark of choice here is a demo from OG and Liquid’s grand finals match at The International 2019.
Assetto Corsa is a SIM-racing game developed by Kunos Simulazioni with extensive support for customization. The game runs on a in-house engine with support for DirectX 11. The built-in benchmarking tool is used for the run.
F1 2020 is the official F1 racing game developed by Codemasters utilizing the Ego Engine 3.0 with support for DirectX 11 and DirectX 12. API of choice is DirectX 12 with the built-in benchmarking tool utilized for the review.
Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers is an MMORPG created by Square Enix. It uses the tried and tested Crystal Tools game engine with support for DirectX 11. The built-in benchmark tool is used for this run.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider is the third installment for Eidos-Montréal’s reboot of the original series. The updated Foundation game engine is featured in this game with support for DirectX 11 and DirectX 12. The first few scenes from the built-in benchmark tool is used for this review.
Gaming performance wise, there’s no denying that the RTX 3080 is a monster on AAA tiles, reaching more than 60 FPS on average at 4K UHD. With no cards to go against with at the moment, we’ll FOCUS our attention to the issues I had during my time with this card – the GPU usage at the lighter titles.
At DOTA 2, CS:GO and LoL, the card starts at 90-100% GPU utilization. A few minutes in and it will start to stabilize at 30-40% GPU usage which is not really helping when it comes to benchmarking and maximizing the use of the card.
Going by the book, we tried to change drivers, re-install Windows, change components and played with a number of power and software options. Nothing helped so here we are with the gimped lower resolution, lower GPU usage results.
Anyway, I expected a lot from this card – especially with 360Hz monitors inbound. I wager this could be fixed with a simple driver update or with an actually useful Power Management Mode and Max Frame Rate slider at the NVCP.
Software, Lighting and Special Features
Apart from the obvious support for GeForce Experience, real-time ray tracing, DLSS and other AI enhanced Nvidia solutions, the TUF RTX 3080 from Asus supports the latest iteration of the GPU Tweak II. It comes with a three profile presets, an onboard GPU-Z and available set of tools ready to download such as a timed copy of Xsplit, FurMark and the QuantumCloud mining software.
The Asus TUF RTX 3080 also comes with a physical BIOS switch. This allows you to switch from a the default Performance Mode to the Quiet Mode with a more aggressive temperature curve for the fans. This thing will run about ~10°C higher with the quieter mode so we prefer performance all the way.
Final Thoughts
Awesome is a fitting word to describe the RTX 3080. It is a huge step-up from the Turing architecture, allowing gamers to play demanding titles that otherwise would require the equivalent of a much more expensive model from the yesteryear.
As for the card specifics, the Asus TUF RTX 3080 O10G Gaming is one hulking beast and it should be, just to tame Ampere’s 320W TDP. Power and noise are ideal for gaming and there’s no need to worry about the card’s thermal at all even with small enclosures. One small issue here is the card’s quiet mode but who needs to use that anyway especially with the two better modes around? I say just wing it with the OC mode because the card could handle it just fine.
The Asus TUF RTX 3080 model that we got retails for about 49,490.00 Pesos. A price that many of you are willing to pay for. Go get it if all you want is a far superior card that could slice through AAA titles like butter.
