Some AIB advertises or highlights the boost clock speed of their graphics card. But at the end of the day, all of them will boost higher thanks to NVIDIA Boost technology. The graphics card only needs sufficient power and enough cooling to keep the GPU's temperature at bay.
With the conditions met, the GPU will eventually boost higher. You can indeed push the EVGA FTW3 Ultra's power limits further than with many rival RTX 3080 cards. The stock reference spec is 350W, but EVGA's card features a stunning 420W power limit. The Founders Edition tops out at 370W if you increase its power target limit in overclocking software like EVGA's fantastic Precision X1. Precision X1 also lets you tap into the not one, not two, but nine"iCX3" sensors that EVGA embedded throughout the card, letting you see temperature readings for different parts of your GPU, memory, and voltage regulation systems. EVGA introduced iCX technology in the GeForce GTX 1080 Superclocked 2 following a cooling controversy.
It remains a killer exclusive feature for graphics card nerds. Arguably the most crucial component of any PC is the graphics card. For gamers and design based professionals, the graphics card, or GPU, handles the majority of their computing workload.
Other parts such as the processor, RAM, or storage drives are also important, however activities such as high FPS gaming, 3D Rendering, or advanced media editing, require powerful graphics cards. With more people working from home than ever before, the need for graphics cards is at an all time high. Whether your home is now your office or you are streaming the latest games to an audience, your GPU will become the workhorse of your computer. When it comes to purchasing a GPU, the first decision you need to make is between an NVIDIA graphics card or an AMD graphics card. Graphics cards that support Ray Tracing and DLSS or FSR are becoming more popular as they provide gamers the highest quality graphics possible without sacrificing frame rates. Out of the box, the Asus ROG Strix LC RTX 3080 Ti, EVGA RTX 3080 Ti FTW3 and MSI RTX 3080 Ti SUPRIM X have the higher or faster boost clock speed.
But like I mentioned earlier if the graphics card has enough power and the GPU is sufficiently cooled, it will eventually boost higher. My MSI Suprim X can achieve around ~2,000MHz(+/-) without additional tweaking or manual overclocking. Overview GeForce RTX 2080 Ti EVGA FTW3 Ultra Hybrid Gaming 11GB is a dual-slot RTX 20 Series graphics card and considered an Enthusiast graphics card based on the Turing architecture. This graphics card comes with all-in-one liquid and air Hybrid cooling solutions. Architecture The Turing architecture represents a process shrink down to 12nm compared to 14nm Pascal. The Turing architecture provides the world's first consumer support for real-time ray-tracing technology, or RTX.
GPU It equips a GPU Codenamed TU102 which has 4352 Shader Processing Units, 272 TMUs and 88 ROPs. The central unit runs at 1350MHz and goes up to 1755MHz in Boost mode, offering a generous 14% overclock. Memory The GPU accesses an 11GB frame buffer of first-gen GDDR6 memory through a 352-bit memory interface, while the Memory clock operates at 1750MHz, or 14GHz effective.
Power Consumption With a rated board TDP of 250W, it requires at least a 650W PSU with two 8-pin power connectors. System Suggestions GeForce RTX 2080 Ti EVGA FTW3 Ultra Hybrid Gaming 11GB is best suited for resolutions up to and including 3840x2160. We recommend a top-End Processor and at least 16GB of RAM for optimal performance.
The Asus ROG Strix LC RTX 3080 Ti OC features a hybrid cooling solution. Its GPU is cooled by a 240mm radiator and the tube connecting the radiator and GPU copper plate is 560mm long. It also has RGB lighting on the fans and on the graphics card itself. In addition to the liquid cooling, there's a blower-type fan that cools the aluminum heatsink that is in contact with the VRM and other components. NVIDIA has partnered closely with Microsoft to enable full DXR support on GeForce GPUs.
GeForce RTX GPUs were designed from the start for the extreme demands of ray-tracing workloads. Specialised RT cores, found only on GeForce RTX graphics cards, provide billions of rays per second of performance, and up to 3X the frame rates with DXR games and applications. This makes ray tracing at real-time frame rates possible for the first time. Along with its sibling, the RTX 3070 Ti, the new graphics cards are a response to AMD's return to competitiveness in the high-end graphics segment. It has the same mission as the RTX 3080—to offer maxed out gaming at 4K Ultra HD resolution with raytracing, making it NVIDIA's new flagship gaming product. The RTX 3090 is still positioned higher, but with its 24 GB memory, is branded as a TITAN-like halo product capable of certain professional-visualization applications when paired with NVIDIA's Studio drivers.
Powered by the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 graphics processing unit with a 1710MHz boost clock speed to help meet the needs of demanding games. EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti FTW3 Hybrid Gaming Graphics Card Equip your desktop PC with EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti FTW3 Hybrid Gaming Graphics Card and take on most challenging, graphics-intensive games without missing a beat. This GeForce GTX 1080 Ti graphics card delivers great levels of gaming performance and immersive VR, powered by the speed and power of NVIDIA Pascal the most advanced GPU ever created. The only issue I had was the VRAM isn't cooled quite as well as with the air cooler due to the heat spreader plate it uses . Putting thermal pads under the backplate got it back to about where it was with the air cooler.
The crypto currency Ergo is based on the Autolykos algorithm, which was updated in version 2 in early 2021. The Autolykos 2 algorithm is based on the PoW concept and can be efficiently calculated by a graphics card. When calculating Ergo Coins, ASICs have no efficiency advantage over modern graphics cards, which should make Ergo attractive for as many miners as possible. The Ergo protocol is based on the blockchain and has been optimized for a very long shelf life.
The hashrates were achieved under Hive OS with moderate overclocking settings. The latest graphics cards have dedicated hardware that's optimized for ray-tracing operations. Despite the advances in GPU performance, the demands are still too high for a game to rely on ray tracing alone. That's why games use ray tracing to complement traditional rendering techniques. The 3DMark DirectX Raytracing feature test is designed to make ray-tracing performance the limiting factor. Instead of relying on traditional rendering, the whole scene is ray-traced and drawn in one pass.
The test result depends entirely on ray-tracing performance, which means you can measure and compare the performance of dedicated ray-tracing hardware in the latest graphics cards. The PCB has several air guides that let airflow from the fans pass through, improving ventilation. EVGA is pricing the RTX 3080 Ti FTW3 Ultra at $1400, a pretty premium over the $1,200 baseline price of the RTX 3080 Ti. The non-Ti GeForce RTX 3080 delivers exceptional 4K and 1440p gaming performance for half the price of the FTW3 Ultra.
You're paying twice as much for frame rates that are only 10 to 15 percent faster. Price-to-performance becomes seriously out of wack up here at the luxurious end of graphics cards. Similarly, the 3080 Ti also tackled Control's demanding ray tracing well. It reached 85 to 90 fps in 1,440p with maxed out graphics and medium ray tracing settings. While impressive, though, that's only 5 to 10fps more than what I saw on the 3080.
Oddly enough, both cards delivered similar performance while playing in 4K with NVIDIA's DLSS technology, which upscaled the rendered graphics from 1,440p. I was able to crank the ray tracing settings up to high and still see a steady 65 to 70fps on the 3080 and the 3080 Ti. It could just be that game isn't fully optimized for NVIDIA's faster hardware yet. Particular laptops can even connect to what is called an external graphics card to increase image processing power when needed. External graphics cards function by connecting to a computer via a dock or similar device that can use the power of the GPU without it needing to be physically installed in the system.
One of the many benefits of external graphics cards is that they can increase your computer's power affordably and non-invasively. It's worth noting that the FTW3 Ultra's secondary BIOS increases fan speeds, either to lower temperatures or to give the GPU more thermal headroom for boost clocks, but we didn't benchmark that configuration. Like GTA V, Ubisoft's Rainbow Six Siege still dominates the Steam charts years after its launch, and it'll be getting a visual upgrade for the next-gen consoles. The developers have poured a ton of work into the game's AnvilNext engine over the years, eventually rolling out a Vulkan version of the game that we use to test. By default, the game lowers the render scaling to increase frame rates, but we set it to 100 percent to benchmark native rendering performance on graphics cards.
Below are more RTX 3080 Ti graphics cards that are not as premium as the cards mentioned above, but are generally cheaper and good options as well. These three features tri-fan cooling solution and they do perform as expected. The Gigabyte Vision is the only different card here since it has an all-white color scheme. Just choose which one do you prefer more when it comes to aesthetics.
Like the GeForce RTX 3080, the cooler on the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Founder Edition features dual axial fans, and a split heatsink design. One end of the heatsink array sits directly atop a vapor chamber that is affixed to the GPU and memory. The fan above that section directs air through the heatsink and immediately funnels it out of the chassis through large vents in the case bracket. The GeForce RTX 3080 Ti is powered by the NVIDIA Ampere architecture.
It's built with enhanced RT Cores and Tensor Cores, new streaming multiprocessors, and superfast G6X memory for an amazing gaming experience. Combined with the next generation of design, cooling, and overclocking with EVGA Precision X1, the EVGA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Series presents a new definition in ultimate performance. The FTW branded cards are what we are interested in today since the card we have is the FTW3 ULTRA GAMING version. There is another one, one without the "Ultra" in the name, known as just the FTW3 GAMING with model 10G-P KR. The one we are reviewing the "ULTRA GAMING" with model 3897 has a higher boost clock, but both have the same cooling design. The GeForce RTX 3080 Ti features a lot more CUDA cores than the RTX 3080—10,240 vs. 8,796, and maxes out the 384-bit wide memory interface of the GA102 silicon, much like the RTX 3090.
The memory amount, however, is 12 GB, and runs at 19 Gbps data-rate. The RTX 3080 Ti is based on the Ampere graphics architecture, which debuts the 2nd generation of NVIDIA's path-breaking RTX real-time raytracing technology. The graphics card uses a combination of water and air to reduce the temperature of the card. This allows it to be overclocked more, increasing performance. While graphics cards are less complicated to install than other components, you will still need to do some research to ensure your new GPU is compatible with your computer. Due to the demands of some modern graphics cards, they can sometimes require larger power supplies.
Specific GPUs such as some 30 series cards from NVIDIA will even require proprietary cables to connect to a power supply. Luckily, the experienced team at Micro Center is there at any time to help you find what new graphics cards are compatible with your system. Technicians at the Micro Center Service Department can even install your new component for you, saving you time and eliminating potential issues. Lastly, while not listed as a 'Lite Hash Rate' or LHR graphics card, Nvidia is implementing its Ethereum mining limiter on all new graphics cards, including the RTX 3080 Ti. So if you were hoping to cash in on those CUDA Cores, you'll have to figure out how to get around the limiter first.
The GeForce RTX 3080 is fast, and EVGA's factory overclock puts the pedal even closer to the metal, delivering frames just as quickly as MSI's rival $760 Gaming X Triodoes, and it also boasts an 1800MHz boost clock speed. It's not perceptibly faster than the Founders Edition's reference clock speeds in most scenarios though, and overclocking the GA102 chip definitely comes at a power penalty. Brad Chacos/IDGPulling back to higher-level first, any GeForce RTX 3080 graphics card will knock your socks off for gaming at 4K resolution, or keeping a high refresh rate 1440p monitor well fed. Avoid it for 1080p gaming, though, as this card is so fast that most games become wholly CPU- or engine-bound at that resolution, negating its monstrous performance advantage. This isn't a worst-case test; we removed the Core i7 8700K's overclock and specifically chose a GPU-bound game running at a GPU-bound resolution to gauge performance when the graphics card is sweating hard. If you're playing a game that also hammers the CPU, you will see higher overall system power draws.
This DX11 game that isn't really a visual barn-burner like the Red Dead Redemption 2, but it still tops the Steam charts day in and day out, so we deem it more worthy of testing. RDR2 will melt your graphics card, sure, but GTA V remains so popular years after launch that upgraded versions of it will be available on the next-generation consoles. Gears Tactics puts it own brutal, fast-paced spin on the XCOM-like genre. This Unreal Engine 4-powered game was built from the ground up for DirectX 12, and we love being able to work a tactics-style game into our benchmarking suite.
Better yet, the game comes with a plethora of graphics options for PC snobs. More games should devote such loving care to explaining what flipping all these visual knobs mean. You can't use the presets to benchmark Gears Tactics, as it intelligently scales to work best on your installed hardware, meaning that "Ultra" on one graphics card can load different settings than "Ultra" on a weaker card.
We manually set all options to their highest possible settings. Don't forget about the higher power limit and iCX sensors, which can prove helpful while overclocking. A dual-BIOS switch is really a killer feature for overclockers, though. If you push things too far and things go bad, it's very nice to be able to flip a switch and have another BIOS you can safely boot into. Nvidia has relentlessly improved the design of its own Founders Edition graphics cards over the last few generations. There you have it, which do you think is the best RTX 3080 Ti graphics card for your use case?
If you think the RTX 3080 Ti is too expensive and out of your budget, perhaps you may be interested in checking out some of the best RTX 3080 graphics cards instead. Just like the EVGA FTW3, the MSI RTX 3080 Ti SUPRIM X is also a beast of a graphics card. It also requires three 8-pin power connectors and features a 20-phase power design. There's a switch near the power connector that toggles between "silent" and "gaming" mode.
Finally, it has some RGB lighting and this card feels heavy and premium on hand as well. All GeForce RTX 3080 Ti graphics cards in the market are powered with the same 8nm GA102 GPU based on the Ampere architecture. It has CUDA cores, 320 TMUs, 112 ROPs, and 12GB of GDDR6X memory running on a 384-bit memory interface. We've looked at all the major players since launch and discovered that the benefits of a hybrid cooling solution push the performance to even greater heights whilst also being quieter and cooler. EVGA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti FTW3 ULTRA HYBRID GAMING is a water-cooled, factory-overclocked graphics card in an all-in-one form factor. It is powered by NVIDIA's latest RTX 3080 Ti GPU, which offers performance close to that of the RTX 3090, thanks to its CUDA cores, albeit limited by the 12GB graphics memory.
EVGA iCX3 Technology can track emerging hotspots and direct iCX3 Cooling to beat the heat. Asynchronous fans cool only the areas that need cooling, which keeps your card quieter at all times. Through EVGA Precision X1, you can also monitor every iCX3 sensor and control each fan. With EVGA iCX3 Technology, you can let your graphics card worry about its own temperatures for a change and truly enjoy Peace of Mind Gaming. Ethash is the Proof-of-Work algorithm used for the crypto currency Ethereum.
Ethash is based on the Dagger-Hashimoto algorithm, but has been significantly changed in some places. For example, the memory requirement was significantly increased in order to make it more difficult or even to prevent the calculation of the algorithm on so-called ASICs . Our benchmark results are based on a slight overclocking of the graphics card and the GPU memory. The video card we are looking at today is a video card purchased online from EVGA. EVGA has several models of GeForce RTX 3080 based video cards, from reference spec, with multiple designs and different boost clocks.
If you go to their product page here you can see the entire list. It is broken up into sections, including Watercooling, FTW, and XC brands. We finally got our hands on a retail, custom, add-in-board partner-built video card based on NVIDIA's new GeForce RTX 3080 GPU. These video cards have been scarce, to say the least, with availability issues not able to meet demand. In fact, the video card we have in hand today was purchased by one of our very own readers who let us kindly borrow his video card to allow us to do this review today.
