Conclusion
We finally got our hands on a retail, custom, GeForce RTX 3080 based video card. However, it was not by sampling, or an ability to actually buy one. We managed to borrow one from a reader on our forum, and he allowed us to be the first to open it and test it. Besides the Founders Edition model, this is the first custom video card we have reviewed here. We gave it a full review and now we kind of have an idea where we might see limits on overclocking on future RTX 3080 video cards, but of course, more testing and time will tell.
NVIDIA launched the GeForce RTX 3080 on September 16th, 2020 for an MSRP of $699. It replaces the GeForce RTX 2080 and GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER at $699, but yet has the performance to actually beat the $1,199 GeForce RTX 2080 Ti FE.
On our test bench today, we had the opportunity to review the EVGA GeForce RTX 3080 FTW3 ULTRA GAMING (10G-P5-3897-KR) video card. Among the two FTW3 versions, this one has the highest factory overclock. EVGA sets the factory overclock at a GPU Boost of 1800MHz, compared to the 1710MHz found on the Founders Edition.
EVGA also asks a hefty price for the video card at $809.99, versus the Founders Edition at $699. That’s a $111 price premium. However, EVGA does pack in a more robust cooling solution and completely custom PCB and power delivery with unique overclocking features thanks to EVGA Precision X1 software. EVGA’s iCX3 cooling technology is used to keep the video card cool, and monitor temperatures.
Performance and GPU Boost
First, let’s talk about performance. One of the advantages of buying a video card with a factory overclock is that it will give you faster out-of-box performance to the reference design, or reference clock speed. In this case, the only reference card we can compare it with is NVIDIA’s Founders Edition which is clocked at a GPU Boost of 1710MHz. The EVGA GeForce RTX 3080 FTW3 ULTRA GAMING is clocked at 1800MHz GPU Boost out-of-the-box.
This does not seem like a big leap upfront. One thing to keep in mind is how NVIDIA’s GPU Boost algorithm works. NVIDIA GPU Boost dynamically clocks the GPU frequency as needed based on thermal, power, and other metrics. If there is headroom for the clock speed to be boosted higher, it can do so, it can also adjust the Voltage as needed to push the clock higher. In a way, it’s already auto-overclocking, to begin with.
When a manufacturer adds a higher factory boost all it is doing is telling the GPU it can boost it “that much more” over what GPU Boost sets. Often times this is more than GPU Boost will do alone, giving it a slight performance increase. However, you have to understand GPU Boost is doing a pretty bang-up job already, even before a factory boost overclock. That means ultimately, there really may not be much more headroom for the GPU to frequency up if it’s already performing near its potential from the get-go. If you don’t also have a memory overclock, then you aren’t left with a lot of headroom for just the GPU to improve game performance.
Games get very bottlenecked with the RTX 3080 just because of the sheer performance, especially at a lower resolution like 1440p. Adding more clock speed won’t improve performance if you are bottlenecked. This is also why it’s important to test at higher resolutions like 4K and introduce things like Ray Tracing to make games more GPU dependent.
Our Performance Results
In our testing, when we looked at what kind of performance the EVGA GeForce RTX 3080 FTW3 ULTRA GAMING provided compared to the GeForce RTX 3080 FE we found it to be very minor. We saw between a 4-5% performance improvement with just installing the EVGA GeForce RTX 3080 FTW3 ULTRA GAMING video card versus a Founders Edition. This did technically bring faster performance, but in a subtle way that wasn’t necessarily advantageous to the gameplay experience, except in very demanding games.
You see, in our testing, we found that the Founders Edition is already clocking itself up pretty high on the GPU frequency even though it is set at 1710MHz. It averaged about 1821MHz GPU frequency while gaming. The EVGA GeForce RTX 3080 FTW3 ULTRA GAMING was only 100MHz higher averaging 1925MHz while gaming. 100MHz just isn’t a lot, it’s something, but not a whole lot to make a big difference. There just isn’t a lot of frequency to separate the two video cards. This is why we wish EVGA had given the video card a memory overclock as well to help better performance. We found there was a lot of memory clock speed headroom on the video card, more than GPU frequency even.
The saving grace for the EVGA GeForce RTX 3080 FTW3 ULTRA GAMING was in its ability to maintain a more consistent and stable GPU frequency compared to the Founders Edition and to overclock higher. We were able to push the overclock up on the EVGA GeForce RTX 3080 FTW3 ULTRA GAMING to achieve an average of 2GHz clock speed, and even better on the memory up to 21GHz from 19GHz.
At 2GHz clock speed and 21GHz memory speed, we now saw a performance that was between 8-11% faster than the GeForce RTX 3080 FE. The overclock is what set the EVGA video card apart, now with ~10% better performance it brought better playability and gameplay experience to 4K gaming with all graphics at the highest settings, or 1440p with Ray Tracing at full.
Overclocking
Overclocking was made easy thanks to EVGA’s iCX3 cooling technology. It had no trouble keeping the GPU and memory cool while we were overclocking. It performed excellently and did not hold back the potential of overclocking. It could honestly put up with a much higher demand than we were throwing at it.
The limit to overclock, from what it seems, is one of power or TDP. With a small window of headroom on raising the Power Limit, we are simply limited on overclocking potential. However, we do get a feeling that 2GHz may be a common limit for GeForce RTX 3080 GPUs period. Unless it’s a highly binned GPU, 2GHz might be the norm for this generation on this manufacturing process.
EVGA XOC BIOS BETA
What about EVGA’s custom high-power BIOS? Yes, we are aware of the custom BIOS EVGA put out that transforms the video card by allowing a higher maximum Power Target. A couple of things to note, this is a BETA BIOS and EVGA does not guarantee any performance increase or overclock with it. The power requirements are quite high, as we noted already hitting near 600W of system power, adding this BIOS will just make that skyrocket even more.
Second, and most importantly, we are not testing a sampled video card here today, but rather a borrowed video card from a forum member that spent a lot of money on this video card and has obtained it before the scarcity. If we were to break the video card there would be no way for us to buy and replace the video card anytime soon for him since there are none available. Therefore, we just did not take the chance.
However, I will say this. If EVGA wants to sample us a video card to test the BIOS, I will gladly take a sample and apply this BIOS and see what happens and test overclocking with it. I put it out there to EVGA, if they are interested, send us a card, and I’ll do it.
Power and Temp
That brings us to the final remark, this is one power-hungry video card. At near 600W power usage, it’s higher than even the Founders Edition on power usage. We cannot stress enough the need for a quality power supply with an 80+ Gold rating at the very very least. Heck, for this video card I’d recommend a higher efficiency rating, to be honest, 850+ Watt with 80+ Platinum should do it made by well-known manufacturers, R.E., brand name. This is especially important if you are going to overclock. If you have an aging power supply, or a weak one, you need not apply.
Onto the cooling, though we cannot say enough about EVGA’s iCX3 cooling, it does the job great. Attention to detail has been paid, and all the right parts are being cooled very well. The whole configuration works. Just don’t forget this is a large video card, but you shouldn’t have any trouble keeping it cool inside your case.
Final Points
The GeForce RTX 3080 GPU seems to be short on headroom when trying to overclock its GPU frequency. This may be a systemic fact to all RTX 3080’s though. NVIDIA GPU Boost is already doing a great job keeping the GPU Frequency extremely high over the rated GPU Boost frequency. This, unfortunately, leaves not much headroom for manufacturers to provide factory overclocks, or even manual overclocking. There is a distinct power level capacity maximum. The result is that factory overclocked video cards may only be single-digit percentages faster than the RTX 3080 Founders Edition. That is until you overclock it.
You buy a video card like the EVGA GeForce RTX 3080 FTW3 ULTRA GAMING to overclock, and overclock it does. We managed to push the video card up high enough that we finally saw 10% average performance bumps compared to the GeForce RTX 3080 FE, and that is what made the difference. The EVGA RTX 3080 FTW3 ULTRA GAMING can achieve this high overclock on GPU and memory while keeping the GPU cool and quiet.
The EVGA iCX3 cooling is one of the more robust and realized coolers we’ve seen on a video card. The extra sensors and Precision X1 software take it to another level for enthusiasts. It supports aux fan, RGB headers, and a dual-BIOS.
We come down to the price, at $809.99 it is an expensive video card, no doubt. It demands a price premium. We feel that with everything combined, that price premium makes sense mostly. There is one thing we would have added though, and that is a factory memory overclock to help separate performance. The memory had a lot of headroom, and EVGA could have easily got away with a much higher memory frequency by default.
Otherwise, the overclocking is left up to you, and you do get more from manual overclocking. If these video cards weren’t so scarce we’d easily recommend it right now. All we can say is when the video cards become available at MSRP, and not exaggerated pricing, you should give this one a look if you are a serious enthusiast or overclocker.
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