The RTX 3080 Tough Gaming Review: A Premium Aftermarket Card with Impressive Cooling

As we dive into our review of the RTX 3080 Tough Gaming, it's clear that this premium aftermarket card has some notable issues. The GPU's maximum temperature is an alarming 84 degrees Celsius, which raises concerns about its reliability and long-term performance. Despite being a high-end card, the RTX 3080 Tough Gaming seems to be defective in some way, making it a risk for enthusiasts who want the best of the best.

However, one aspect where the RTX 3080 Tough Gaming shines is in its noise levels. According to our sound test, the card runs quietly, even when using the Performance BIOS. The owners should have no issues with it being a distraction in their build, even with well-ventilated chassis that are prone to more sound leakage. When we compared the noise levels of the RTX 3080 Tough Gaming and the RTX 3080 FE, we had a hard time favoring one card's sound profile over the other, despite using headphones.

In terms of performance, the RTX 3080 Tough Gaming takes center stage. After closely monitoring GPU core clock frequency, we found that the RTX 2080 Ti hit the highest peak value of the three cards, but its average clock speed was brought down by atrocious thermals. On the other hand, the RTX 3080 Tough Gaming ran significantly faster on average than the RTX 3080 FE, thanks to its higher GPU boost clock of 1815 MHz compared to just 1710 MHz on the Founders Edition.

Benchmarks: Putting the RTX 3080s to the Test

We ran all game titles at three widely adopted resolutions (1920x1080, 2560x1440, and 3840x2160) to gauge performance. We used NVIDIA's pre-release press driver version 456.16 for both RTX 3080 cards and the latest WilcoDriver version 452.06 for the RTX 2080 Ti.

At 1080p, the RTX 3080 Tough Gaming outperformed the RTX 2080 Ti by 10.3%, while trailing slightly behind the RTX 3080 FE by about one and a half percent. This difference is within the margin of error, meaning that the performance of these three cards is effectively identical at this resolution.

However, as we move to 1440p, the gap between the two RTX 3080 cards narrows. The RTX 3080s pull further ahead of the RTX 2080 Ti by roughly 15%. This reinforces the findings that the performance of these three cards is virtually identical at this resolution.

Finally, at 2160p, the trend continues, with the RTX 3080s continuing to make the RTX 2080 Ti look slower and slower. A near 22-second lead over the flagship RTX 2080 Ti at 4K is a testament to the impressive performance of these three cards.

A Closer Look at the Competition

When it comes to quality and design, the RTX 3080 FE wins hands down. The card is well-built, but if you want something that stands out in terms of cosmetics, the RTX 3080 Tough Gaming might be a better choice. However, this also means that you'll need to pick up a third-party 12-pin cable to keep it looking pristine.

On the other hand, the RTX 3080 FE is smaller and more modestly sized, making it an attractive option for small form factor enthusiasts who want to keep their rig stock cool. The card's domineering feature is its cooling potential, with low temperatures that indicate it will hit power and voltage limits well before reaching thermal capacity.

Conclusion

If you're in the market for a premium aftermarket card with impressive cooling, the RTX 3080 Tough Gaming is definitely worth considering. Its performance benefits make it an excellent choice for high-end gaming builds, and its noise levels are surprisingly quiet.

However, buyers who prioritize quality and design should look elsewhere. The RTX 3080 FE wins hands down in this department, despite being more expensive.

Ultimately, the decision between these two cards comes down to your specific needs and priorities. If you want the best of the best, the cooling potential of the RTX 3080 Tough Gaming is unmatched. But if you're looking for a well-built card with a more modest design, the RTX 3080 FE is a better choice.

What's Next?

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That's all for now, folks! Be sure to subscribe and hit that notification bell for more tech news, reviews, and tutorials. Until next time, stay geeky out there!

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: entoday we are looking at our very first aftermarket rtx 3080 the asus rtx 3080 tough gaming aftermarket cards have typically been an improved version of a gpu maker's in-house design but with nvidia stepping up their game with their founders edition cards for this launch many are curious how much better these board partner cards actually are for an in-depth look at how nvidia's rtx 3080 fe compares to the last gen rtx 2080 ti and how it pairs with a 200 ryzen 5 3600 check out our full review over here now as of now i don't have a confirmed msrp for the 3080 tuff but one of the reasons asus has opted to release the tough card on launch day is due to its entry level pricing compared to their other cards like the rog strix 3080 which is slated for release later this month aesthetically the tough card sports a matte black finish all around with an aluminum and plastic housing that feels sturdy but i'd be lying if i said the rtx 3080 fe doesn't look and feel significantly more premium in its quality and design let's just say it'll be tough for board partners to outshine nvidia with its beautifully beefy heatsink assembly and attention to detail the tough card carries a 2.7 slot design measuring 11.81 inches or 300 millimeters long making it notably larger than the two slot founders edition at 11.2 inches or 285 millimeters long as such the size alone makes the tough card less forgiving in small form factor builds the only rgb you'll find is just below the dual 8-pin power connectors which means it's bound to be partially obscured by pcie cables in most chassis on the bright side standard power cables will probably look better than nvidia's new 12 pin to dual 8 pin adapter which has the visual appeal of a skin tag the card's triple axial dual ball bearing fan design is unique in that the middle fan spins in reverse direction of the other two to reduce turbulence as we've seen in the past the fans also stop completely when the gpu falls below 55 degrees celsius for improved cooling on the power delivery asus has implemented a dedicated vrm heatsink along with their max contact heat spreader to ensure a super flat surface for making optimal contact with the gpu die to aid in heat transfer the metallic back plate is partially ventilated at the end and flanks the custom pcb with a two-step bio switch allowing users to target performance or quiet operation at the rear you'll find a custom i o giving us two hdmi 2.1 ports as opposed to one on the fe and three displayport 1.4 a ports on the test bed i tested three different gpus all running stock the tough card nvidia's rtx 3080 founders edition and for comparison to last gen the aorus rtx 2080 ti extreme from gigabyte the cards were run on an open air test bench with a stock amd ryzen 9 3950x cooled by an ndxt kraken x63 aio on an aorus x570 master using 16 gigs of g-skill ddr4 3400 membrane i first tested full system power draw where we saw both rtx 3080 cards pulling the same 537 watts from the wall or about four percent more power consumption than the aftermarket rtx 2080 ti as noted in our rtx 3080 fe review the two largest contributors to power draw in a typical system are the gpu and cpu so the power supply you'll need will largely depend on that pairing but the 750 watt unit that asus and nvidia recommend for these cards should cover the vast majority of configurations now if there's one area where the tough gaming destroys the founder's edition it's thermals under load the tough card ran 16 degrees cooler than the fe giving it significantly more thermal headroom for overclocking and airflow limited environments while i wasn't able to validate if the cooler on my aorus rtx 2080 ti was defective in some way it sure seems like it with the gpu hitting a maximum of 84 degrees celsius which is alarming especially for a premium aftermarket card interested buyers will be happy to know that the rtx 3080 tough gaming runs quietly and owners should have no issue with it being a distraction in their build even with well-ventilated chassis that are prone to more sound leakage the noise levels of the 3080 tough are already so low when using the performance bios that i didn't bother switching to quiet mode for our sound test and much less so for our performance benchmarks that said the rtx 3080 fe is also very quiet and even listening back to the sound test with headphones i had a hard time favoring one card sound profile over the other after closely monitoring gpu core clock frequency the rtx 2080 ti hit the highest peak value of the three but atrocious thermals brought its average clock speed to last place meanwhile the rtx 3080 tuff ran 55 megahertz faster on average than the 3080 founders edition this can be attributed to the card's higher gpu boost clock of 1815 megahertz compared to just 1710 megahertz on the founders edition on top of its ability to run significantly cooler allowing for higher sustained gpu boost clocks and now for the benchmarks yes the time has come as with our rtx 3080 fe review i ran all game titles at 1920x1080 2560x1440 and 3840x2160 to gauge performance at three widely adopted resolutions nvidia's pre-release press driver version 456.16 was used for both rtx 3080s and the latest wickle driver version 452.06 was used for the rtx 2080 ti not to keep you guys waiting any further here are the benchmarks so so so after running the tests i combined the average frame rates across all six titles to give us an overall look at performance at 1080p the rtx 3080 tuff outperformed the rtx 2080 ti by 10.3 percent while trailing slightly behind the 3080 fe by about one and a half percent which falls within margin of error meaning the performance of these 3080s is effectively the same at this resolution with no meaningful difference in user experience as we become more gpu dependent at 1440p the rtx 3080s pull further ahead of the 2080 ti by roughly 15 here we reinforce the findings of the last slide and that the performance of our rtx 3080s is virtually identical the trend continues at 2160p with the 3080s continuing to make the rtx 2080 ti look slower and slower a near 22 lead over the flagship touring gpu at 4k is downright impressive and should give high-resolution gamers something to celebrate with the performance power consumption and acoustics of both rtx 3080s being more or less a draw consumers are gonna have to look at other areas to make an informed buying decision between the two while the 3080 tough is well built the 3080 founders edition wins hands down when it comes to quality and design although you'll definitely need to pick up a third-party 12-pin cable to keep it looking pristine the fe card is also the smaller of the two which is an important consideration for small form factor enthusiasts looking to keep the stock cooler on their carbs by far the tough card's domineering feature is its cooling potential the low temperatures indicate that it's sure to hit power and voltage limits well before it reaches thermal capacity when overclocking and users with limited airflow are likely to be better positioned using the tough card over the much warmer 3080fe buyers choosing the 3080fe should do so if they prefer the quality in cosmetics prefer a more modestly sized card and don't mind the toasty temps or are planning to outfit their rig with exceptional airflow outside of those considerations the rtx 3080 tough gaming gets a solid recommendation for improving significantly upon nvidia's cooling solution while offering all the technology benefits of the rtx 3000 series if you guys like this video and would love to see us make more of them you can support us by heading to our store bitwit.tech and picking up one of the many high quality items we offer like the infamous blue shirt of death the screw with confidence shirt or one of our new glassware sets that can be configured to your liking you can also configure the like button to turn blue by clicking it so we can be in the good graces of the youtube algorithm that's all for now guys but be sure to subscribe for more tech stuff and rtx 3000 series content on the way thanks for watching and we'll see y'all in the next videotoday we are looking at our very first aftermarket rtx 3080 the asus rtx 3080 tough gaming aftermarket cards have typically been an improved version of a gpu maker's in-house design but with nvidia stepping up their game with their founders edition cards for this launch many are curious how much better these board partner cards actually are for an in-depth look at how nvidia's rtx 3080 fe compares to the last gen rtx 2080 ti and how it pairs with a 200 ryzen 5 3600 check out our full review over here now as of now i don't have a confirmed msrp for the 3080 tuff but one of the reasons asus has opted to release the tough card on launch day is due to its entry level pricing compared to their other cards like the rog strix 3080 which is slated for release later this month aesthetically the tough card sports a matte black finish all around with an aluminum and plastic housing that feels sturdy but i'd be lying if i said the rtx 3080 fe doesn't look and feel significantly more premium in its quality and design let's just say it'll be tough for board partners to outshine nvidia with its beautifully beefy heatsink assembly and attention to detail the tough card carries a 2.7 slot design measuring 11.81 inches or 300 millimeters long making it notably larger than the two slot founders edition at 11.2 inches or 285 millimeters long as such the size alone makes the tough card less forgiving in small form factor builds the only rgb you'll find is just below the dual 8-pin power connectors which means it's bound to be partially obscured by pcie cables in most chassis on the bright side standard power cables will probably look better than nvidia's new 12 pin to dual 8 pin adapter which has the visual appeal of a skin tag the card's triple axial dual ball bearing fan design is unique in that the middle fan spins in reverse direction of the other two to reduce turbulence as we've seen in the past the fans also stop completely when the gpu falls below 55 degrees celsius for improved cooling on the power delivery asus has implemented a dedicated vrm heatsink along with their max contact heat spreader to ensure a super flat surface for making optimal contact with the gpu die to aid in heat transfer the metallic back plate is partially ventilated at the end and flanks the custom pcb with a two-step bio switch allowing users to target performance or quiet operation at the rear you'll find a custom i o giving us two hdmi 2.1 ports as opposed to one on the fe and three displayport 1.4 a ports on the test bed i tested three different gpus all running stock the tough card nvidia's rtx 3080 founders edition and for comparison to last gen the aorus rtx 2080 ti extreme from gigabyte the cards were run on an open air test bench with a stock amd ryzen 9 3950x cooled by an ndxt kraken x63 aio on an aorus x570 master using 16 gigs of g-skill ddr4 3400 membrane i first tested full system power draw where we saw both rtx 3080 cards pulling the same 537 watts from the wall or about four percent more power consumption than the aftermarket rtx 2080 ti as noted in our rtx 3080 fe review the two largest contributors to power draw in a typical system are the gpu and cpu so the power supply you'll need will largely depend on that pairing but the 750 watt unit that asus and nvidia recommend for these cards should cover the vast majority of configurations now if there's one area where the tough gaming destroys the founder's edition it's thermals under load the tough card ran 16 degrees cooler than the fe giving it significantly more thermal headroom for overclocking and airflow limited environments while i wasn't able to validate if the cooler on my aorus rtx 2080 ti was defective in some way it sure seems like it with the gpu hitting a maximum of 84 degrees celsius which is alarming especially for a premium aftermarket card interested buyers will be happy to know that the rtx 3080 tough gaming runs quietly and owners should have no issue with it being a distraction in their build even with well-ventilated chassis that are prone to more sound leakage the noise levels of the 3080 tough are already so low when using the performance bios that i didn't bother switching to quiet mode for our sound test and much less so for our performance benchmarks that said the rtx 3080 fe is also very quiet and even listening back to the sound test with headphones i had a hard time favoring one card sound profile over the other after closely monitoring gpu core clock frequency the rtx 2080 ti hit the highest peak value of the three but atrocious thermals brought its average clock speed to last place meanwhile the rtx 3080 tuff ran 55 megahertz faster on average than the 3080 founders edition this can be attributed to the card's higher gpu boost clock of 1815 megahertz compared to just 1710 megahertz on the founders edition on top of its ability to run significantly cooler allowing for higher sustained gpu boost clocks and now for the benchmarks yes the time has come as with our rtx 3080 fe review i ran all game titles at 1920x1080 2560x1440 and 3840x2160 to gauge performance at three widely adopted resolutions nvidia's pre-release press driver version 456.16 was used for both rtx 3080s and the latest wickle driver version 452.06 was used for the rtx 2080 ti not to keep you guys waiting any further here are the benchmarks so so so after running the tests i combined the average frame rates across all six titles to give us an overall look at performance at 1080p the rtx 3080 tuff outperformed the rtx 2080 ti by 10.3 percent while trailing slightly behind the 3080 fe by about one and a half percent which falls within margin of error meaning the performance of these 3080s is effectively the same at this resolution with no meaningful difference in user experience as we become more gpu dependent at 1440p the rtx 3080s pull further ahead of the 2080 ti by roughly 15 here we reinforce the findings of the last slide and that the performance of our rtx 3080s is virtually identical the trend continues at 2160p with the 3080s continuing to make the rtx 2080 ti look slower and slower a near 22 lead over the flagship touring gpu at 4k is downright impressive and should give high-resolution gamers something to celebrate with the performance power consumption and acoustics of both rtx 3080s being more or less a draw consumers are gonna have to look at other areas to make an informed buying decision between the two while the 3080 tough is well built the 3080 founders edition wins hands down when it comes to quality and design although you'll definitely need to pick up a third-party 12-pin cable to keep it looking pristine the fe card is also the smaller of the two which is an important consideration for small form factor enthusiasts looking to keep the stock cooler on their carbs by far the tough card's domineering feature is its cooling potential the low temperatures indicate that it's sure to hit power and voltage limits well before it reaches thermal capacity when overclocking and users with limited airflow are likely to be better positioned using the tough card over the much warmer 3080fe buyers choosing the 3080fe should do so if they prefer the quality in cosmetics prefer a more modestly sized card and don't mind the toasty temps or are planning to outfit their rig with exceptional airflow outside of those considerations the rtx 3080 tough gaming gets a solid recommendation for improving significantly upon nvidia's cooling solution while offering all the technology benefits of the rtx 3000 series if you guys like this video and would love to see us make more of them you can support us by heading to our store bitwit.tech and picking up one of the many high quality items we offer like the infamous blue shirt of death the screw with confidence shirt or one of our new glassware sets that can be configured to your liking you can also configure the like button to turn blue by clicking it so we can be in the good graces of the youtube algorithm that's all for now guys but be sure to subscribe for more tech stuff and rtx 3000 series content on the way thanks for watching and we'll see y'all in the next video\n"