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.

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

RELATED PRODUCTS (Test Bench Parts)

GPU - This is what we're testing!

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

[NZOCD]

Everyone and their dog is uploading 3080 reviews but THIS is the one that matters.

[literate-aside]

There's no way I'm *pre-ordering* your T-shirt; I'll wait for reviews.

[Anon-trlq]

Gamers Nexus is always my #1 choice when there are dozens of reviews of something. Well written/organized, in-depth, they pay attention to detail

[sdesantino]

29:51 "But the biggest change was in Quake II and, to some extent, Minecraft".

Sorry but, taken out of context, this is a very funny quote for a high performance video card in 2020.

[miinyoo]

It's mighty impressive and delightful to hear the words (paraphrasing) "All of the revenue from the purchases will go into buying the equipment necessary to test and benchmark hardware as accurately as we possibly can." This philosophy, which has been demonstrated numerous times, is the sign of good people who don't rest on their laurels and are worth supporting.

[OniGG]

"Never buy because it's new and shiny buy when your current system doesn't serve your needs" wow that made me feel better for buying a 20 series last august

[ArmchairTitan]

If Steve told me that putting a live Mongoose in my PC case would improve airflow, I would travel to Africa and catch one without question.

[Kraaketaer]

I've long been a big fan of GN's reviews and general editorial policies, but the explicit remarks about the value of keeping old hardware running, not buying something just because it's new and shiny but buyinng if what you have is no longer serving your needs really, really cemented the absolute excellency of GN as a review site. Nobody else comes even close. Reviews that explicitly counteract their implicit "look how cool this new shiny thing is, maybe you should buy it" message are so so so so so sorely needed in this industry. Thank you.

[derptyderp]

Steve: "Never pre-order anything"
Also Steve: "Pre-order our T-Shirt to make sure you can get one!"

Also, I can't concentrate on the heat mapping, because I keep seeing the white patches as a pair of unicorns...

[auricom]

You and your team just have setted the bar for testing, this video reminds me more to an academic work rather than just a youtube video.
This is wonderful and great, GN disserves this 1, 000, 000 and more.

[perciusmandate]

Steve seems mildly interested... This card must be amazing!

[austindaniel]

When Steve talks, I feel like someone is reading me the fine print of a contract. And I love it.

[mephilees]

"Apparently we known as Gamers Nexus achieved 1M follower in YouTube named subscribers. Which in turn will enable is to have bigger budget leaning to bigger projects and further improvements in our testing methodologies, specifically increasing the accuracy while maintaining simplicity.

This... "Event", However will still require us to improve our ability in entertaining said customers, leading us to make what's known as "puns" by the community. Developing such skills would require due diligence and out of character notes, these abnormalities however with enough training should reach the realm of possibility. Until due date we expect GN to operate normally."

Joking around Steve. Congrats for the 1M. And finally we got the left for the 3080 review...

[poetic.voyage]

I feel like I just attended a graduate seminar on a video card. 😀

[DemZane]

Thank you for including 1080 Ti in the charts!

Many others just skipped the 10-series in testing, which is a bit strange since a lot (me included) are still on that and even Nvidia focused on that this is the upgrade for 10-series owners.

[orbitalarbiter]

Huge respect for your highly technical, rigorous, scientific, etc. angle, Steve! Keep up the good work, you're one of a kind in a good way in the computer tech space IMHO.

[robanson]

Steve's got the best reviews, I understand a decent portion of what he goes over but I immensely appreciate the fact he goes into depth that everyone else skips over because they think it's to detailed for their audience. Most trust worthy reviewer!

[DennisHipp]

"Don't just buy because it's better and shiny. You should buy, because your current system isn't serving your needs."
"If you can stretch out 1080 Ti or 2080 Ti for longer, you should absolutely do it. Economically - and it reduces the amount of waste."

[radicalxedward]

It’s hilarious watching him talk at basically 2x speed to try to fit an hour script into a half hour. I have to Lol at the people who listen to stuff at 2x.

[ushdhyxywb]

21st on trending for gaming. Hell yeah.