NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Founders Edition Review: Gaming, Thermals, Noise, & Power Benchmarks

This is our review of the NVIDIA RTX 3080 video card, looking at the new Ampere GPU and its Founders cooler vs. the GTX 1080 Ti, RTX 2080 Ti, RTX 2080, 2070, Super cards, RX, and more.
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RTX 3080 FE Tear-Down: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OX9Eh_NaC5c
Article: https://www.gamersnexus.net/hwreviews/3618-nvidia-rtx-3080-founders-edition-review-benchmarks

Watch our NVIDIA Ampere GPU Architecture Deep-Dive: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AmNL2Cg2OO8
$13K of our New GPU Testing Methodology Equipment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-P7-ML-bPCE

In theory, the RTX 3080 Founders Edition will be listed on Amazon here: https://geni.us/lEvB7

This review of the NVIDIA RTX 3080 takes into consideration the Founders Edition thermal design and cooling solution, including acoustics (noise), thermals, contact pressure, and coldplate flatness, and also preps the groundwork for reviews versus EVGA, ASUS, Gigabyte, and other partner model RTX 3080 cards, where we'll compare VRAM (GDDR6X) and VRM (MOSFET) thermals between partners. We started with a focus on auto settings for this review. PCIe 4 vs. PCIe 3 tests were also completed, and we chose the fastest platform for this comparison (but we do have Gen3 vs. Gen4 benchmarks coming shortly). The RTX game results, particularly for fully path-traced games, produced interesting data when looking at scaling vs. the 2080 Ti, but 'normal' games are also included.

TIMESTAMPS

00:00 - RTX 3080 Review Premise
01:51 - The Cooler Interests & Basic RTX 3080 Specs
02:58 - RTX 3080 VRAM Limitations & 10GB vs. 11-12GB
04:51 - Pressure Testing of RTX 3080 Founders Edition
06:50 - Coldplate Flatness of RTX 3080 FE Cooler
08:12 - RTX 3080 Frequency vs. Temperature
09:12 - Fan RPM Behavior vs. GPU Temperature
09:51 - Noise Levels Over Time for FE Card
10:58 - Fan Speed vs. Noise Level & Harmonics
11:49 - Games - Red Dead Redemption 2 GPU Benchmarks
14:15 - Vulkan vs. Dx12 API Performance on RTX 3080 GPU
15:01 - Rainbow Six Siege GPU Benchmarks (RTX 3080 vs. 2080 Ti, et al)
15:46 - Unstable Overclock Frametime Plot
17:02 - Tomb Raider RTX 3080 vs. 1080 Ti, 5700 XT, Etc
18:13 - Microsoft Flight Simulator GPU Benchmarks
18:46 - F1 2019 Crashed on 3080, But Fixed After Launch
18:59 - Horizon Zero Dawn GPU Benchmarks
19:38 - Three Kingdoms, The Division 2, GTA V Benchmarks
20:07 - RTX Game Benchmarks on Minecraft
21:34 - Control RTX Benchmarks & DLSS On vs. Off
22:19 - Insane Scaling in Quake II RTX
23:01 - Power Consumption of RTX 3080 vs. 2080, Ti, 1080 Ti, et al
25:20 - RTX 3080 Overclock Stepping Chart
26:11 - Conclusion: Cooling Solution, Gaming, & More

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RELATED PRODUCTS (Test Bench Parts)

ASUS ROG Maximus XII Hero Z490 on Amazon - https://geni.us/0682
Intel i7-10700K CPU on Amazon - https://geni.us/Io2g98
EVGA Supernova 1600W T2 Titanium PSU on Amazon - https://geni.us/9ioW
Arctic Liquid Freezer II 280 on Amazon - https://geni.us/RJBy
GPU - This is what we're testing!

ASUS ROG Crosshair VIII on Amazon - https://geni.us/Z6Ju
AMD R9 3900XT on Amazon - https://geni.us/ivvR

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Editorial, Testing, Test Lead: Steve Burke
Testing: Patrick Lathan, Mike Gaglione
Video: Keegan Gallick, Andrew Coleman "