Asus ROG Strix GeForce RTX 3080 10GB GDDR6X Graphics Card

Asus ROG RTX 3080 10GB 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. In-Game Performance And All-New AI Capabilities. Axial-Tech Fan Design Has Been Tuned Up With More Fan Blades And A Reversed Rotational Direction For The Center Fan.2.9-Slot Design Expands Cooling Surface Area Compared To The Last-Gen For More Thermal Headroom Than Ever Before.Super Alloy Power II Includes Premium Alloy Chokes, Solid Polymer Capacitors, And An Array Of High-Current Power Stages.GPU Tweak II Provides Intuitive Performance Tweaking, Thermal Controls, And System Monitoring.

TAKE FLIGHT

From Top To Bottom, The Asus ROG RTX 3080 10GB Has Been Radically Improved To Accommodate The Impressive New Ampere Chips From NVIDIA And To Deliver The Next Wave Of Gaming Performance Innovation To The Market. A Fresh Design And More Metal Surrounds A Grouping Of Axial-Tech Fans. Last Gen’s Uniform Fan Layout Has Been Usurped By A New Rotation Scheme And Specialized Roles For Central And Auxiliary Fans. Below The Blades, A Larger, More Impressive Heatsink Is Ready For The Most Demanding Thermal Loads. Asus ROG RTX 3080 10GB PCB Has Some New Tricks Up Its Sleeves, And Even The Backplate Has Received Some Performance-Boosting Changes. You’ve Been Waiting For The Latest And Greatest In GPU Design – And This Is It.

AXIAL-TECH UPGRADES

Our Axial-Tech Fan Design Has Been Optimized For A New, Larger Heatsink That Features More Fins And Surface Area Than Last Gen. The Blade Count Has Been Increased On All Three Fans, With 13 On The Center Fan And 11 On The Auxiliary Fans. Asus ROG RTX 3080 10GB Barrier Ring On The Side Fans Has Been Slimmed Down To Allow For More Lateral Intake And To Provide Better Airflow Through The Cooling Array. Asus ROG RTX 3080 10GB Center Fan’s Extra Blades And Full-Height Ring Provide Boosted Static Pressure To Blast Air Directly Onto The GPU Heat Spreader.

MAXCONTACT

To Get Heat Up Off The Die And Into The Heatsink Array To Benefit From The New Fan Design Requires Special Attention. We Use A Manufacturing Process That Polishes The Surface Of The Heat Spreader To Improve Smoothness At The Microscopic Level. Asus ROG RTX 3080 10GB Extra Flatness Allows For Better Contact With The Die For Improved Thermal Transfer.

FUNCTIONAL FRONT

Careful Attention Has Been Paid To The Front Of The GPU, As It’s The Most Visible Part Of The Card In Typical Configurations. A New Addressable RGB Element Can Be Customized With Armoury Crate To Create A Uniform Look Along With Other ROG Components. To Fulfill The Power Demands Of The GeForce RTX 3080, Three 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 To Indicate A Power Supply Issue. The Strix’s Reinforced Metal Frame Is Also Visible Here, Adding A Literal Layer Of Durability.

GPU TWEAK II

Asus ROG RTX 3080 10GB GPU Tweak II Utility Takes Graphics Card Tuning To The Next Level. It Allows You To Tweak Critical Parameters Including GPU Core Clocks, Memory Frequency, And Voltage Settings, With The Option To Monitor Everything In Real-Time Through A Customizable On-Screen Display. Advanced Fan Control Is Also Included Along With Many More Features To Help You Get The Most Out Of Your Graphics Card.

Asus ROG Strix GeForce RTX 3080 10GB GDDR6X Review

Reviewing the best graphics card isn’t a difficult task since most aftermarket GPUs will perform roughly the same, so long as they are running the same NVIDIA or AMD internals. Aftermarket cards like the ASUS ROG Strix GeForce RTX 3080 we have for review today rely more on cooling, overclocking, price, and design to set themselves apart.

Asus ROG RTX 3080 10GB Strix line of graphics cards from ASUS is the company’s flagship. This Asus ROG RTX 3080 10GB from ASUS comes with a factory-set boost to push the card even further without you needing to touch a single setting. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 founder’s edition performed seriously well and we’re expecting just as much from ASUS.

As is the case with most PC components right now, it remains difficult to locate graphics cards at MSRP. Cryptocurrency mining and the silicon shortage have played parts in driving up the price of GPUs as scalpers attempt to battle legitimate buyers in picking up what’s left.

Asus ROG RTX 3080 10GB is a stunning GPU. Compared to the previous generation, the company has toned down the aggressive “gamer” styling a little, resulting in less RGB lighting, though you will still be able to see the card through tempered glass. It’s the usual ROG Strix affair though with premium materials, a full backplate, and three large fans.

There are three 8-pin PCIe connections for supplying enough current to the GPU. That’s a lot of power and many PSUs may not have enough connectors available, especially at the lower end of the capacity scale. This is why ASUS recommends an 850W PSU as a minimum and we’d agree since this puppy can draw up to 320W alone.

Keeping everything cool, ASUS took a few cues from NVIDIA’s reference design with the passthrough of air. You’ll see the same feature here with this card. The right fan will actually blow air all the way through and out the top, helping to reduce blowback. The heatsink is huge with full copper heat pipes.

Compared to the base NVIDIA RTX 3080, which we reviewed favorably for its performance, the RTX 3080 from ASUS is able to boost far higher at 1935MHz instead of 1710MHz. This results in overall better performance, allowed by those three large fans on the 2.9 slot GPU. You also get all the usual specs with the NVIDIA RTX 3080, including 8,704 CUDA cores, 68 Ray Tracing cores, and 272 Tensor cores.

If you’d like to learn more about the Ampere architecture from NVIDIA and how that compares to the older Turing that we saw with RTX 20-series cards, I highly recommend you check our RTX 3080 founder’s edition review for in-depth detail. Cutting a long story short, NVIDIA made some changes to how it handles floating-point and integer operations that unlocked vast amounts of performance.

Specifications