ASUS ROG STRIX GeForce RTX 3080 Ti O12G GAMING Review

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ASUS ROG STRIX GeForce RTX 3080 Ti O12G GAMING video card top view with RGB lit up

Conclusion

Today we took a look at ASUS’s latest ROG STRIX high-end video card, the ASUS ROG STRIX GeForce RTX 3080 Ti O12G GAMING video card. The ASUS ROG STRIX brand is built for enthusiasts, and this video card definitely proved that fact. This video card is large, don’t underestimate its size, make sure you have proper clearance in your case, length-wise and width as well. It’s a thick boy, and there’s just no way around that.

However, with all that girth comes a solid construction with robust cooling and quiet operation. All that metal underneath the shroud keeps the GPU very cool and the fans spinning at a respectable RPM. This GeForce RTX 3080 Ti GPU will be kept cool, and that means higher consistent NVIDIA GPU Boost clocks for you. Plus, it all comes in an appealing aesthetic with ARGB.

But it is power-hungry, boy is it power-hungry. You will want three dedicated 8-pin connectors for this video card, and it will consume over 400W, that’s just the fact of it. Overclock it and you’ll see that skyrocket to 450W. Just keep that in mind if you are considering this for your build.

Performance

The ASUS ROG STRIX GeForce RTX 3080 Ti O12G GAMING video card was the top of the pack in performance in all our gaming performance. It did edge out the Founders Edition slightly in most games, but it wasn’t ground-breaking in performance improvement over the Founders Edition.

If there is one part of this that is underwhelming, it was this bit, that even with the higher 1815MHz factory overclock it was only just a few percent faster than the Founders Edition video card. The factory overclock didn’t add as much to performance as one would like. It did provide a few FPS here and there, but nothing that would make a real gameplay difference.

Otherwise, compared to the competition, the AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT, the ASUS ROG STRIX GeForce RTX 3080 Ti O12G GAMING gave it a good beating in almost all games. In Dying Light 2 the ASUS ROG STRIX 3080 Ti was 12% faster, in Rainbow Six Extraction it was 25% and 36% faster than the Radeon RX 6900 XT. The ASUS ROG STRIX RTX 3080 Ti was 11% faster in Forza Horizon 5, but identical to the 6900 XT in Far Cry 6. The ASUS ROG STRIX RTX 3080 Ti was also faster in Cyberpunk 2077 and Watch Dogs Legion.

When we turned on Ray Tracing we also found the ASUS ROG STRIX RTX 3080 Ti O12G GAMING to be faster than the Radeon RX 6900 XT in every game. In Dying Light 2 the difference was pretty massive, same for Cyberpunk 2077. Far Cry 6 was a lot closer, but the ASUS ROG STRIX RTX 3080 Ti was still 4% faster. Watch Dogs was 52% faster.

One major advantage the ASUS ROG STRIX GeForce RTX 3080 Ti O12G GAMING has is that it can run DLSS and FSR. In games that support DLSS, it can run DLSS and we used it in our review and those games saw massive performance increases. In games that just support FSR it can also run FSR, and thus receives a performance benefit as well. The Radeon RX 6900 XT receives a big benefit with FSR also, but it cannot run DLSS in games that just have DLSS and no FSR support. DLSS was the key to the ASUS ROG STRIX RTX 3080 Ti O12G GAMING performing much better at 4K or allowing Ray Tracing at 1440p.

Overclocking

The ASUS ROG STRIX GeForce RTX 3080 Ti O12G GAMING video card overclocked very easily. We used ASUS GPU Tweak II and were able to raise the Power Target higher than we were on the Founders Edition video card. We then bumped up the GPU Clock and Memory as high as possible. We got ours up to 1930MHz GPU Boost and 20.5GHz memory overclock. The neat thing is, we did not need 100% fan speeds, this overclock was stable at automatic fan speeds, and the video card still remained very quiet. That’s a big benefit of it.

In terms of performance advantage from overclocking, we did get around 5-6% better performance. However, it also required 50W more power for that small percentage gain. The uplift from overclocking just doesn’t seem worth it considering the large power demand to get that extra few percent which overall did not affect the gameplay experience. The GeForce RTX 3080 Ti is really at its limits here, and you are probably better off just not overclocking at all to maintain the integrity of your video card longer.

Final Points

As of this writing, pricing and availability are both getting better on GPUs of this caliber. The ASUS ROG STRIX GeForce RTX 3080 Ti O12G GAMING has availability now, and pricing is inching closer to MSRP than ever before. With the ASUS ROG STRIX GeForce RTX 3080 Ti O12G GAMING, you get to experience a playable 4K gaming experience in today’s games, beating the competition in raw performance. It also has the fastest Ray Tracing performance, again beating the raw performance of Ray Tracing from the competition.

The ASUS ROG STRIX GeForce RTX 3080 Ti O12G GAMING has DLSS for demanding situations. DLSS right now has never looked better and is providing huge gains games in performance. DLSS could be the answer to allowing a game to run very well at 4K at the highest settings, or to run Ray Tracing at the highest settings at 1440p. The GeForce RTX 3080 Ti can also run FSR in games that have that. It gives you both options, whereas the Radeon RX 6900 XT can only run FSR.

At the end of the day, the ASUS ROG STRIX GeForce RTX 3080 Ti O12G GAMING allows you to experience 4K gaming very well, or Ray Tracing gaming very well at 1440p. Combined with DLSS, and the ability to run FSR, these upscaling methods extend its performance advantage in the most demanding game titles.

If you are in the market for a GeForce RTX 3080 Ti video card right now and want to experience high-end gaming and ASUS ROG STRIX style, check out the ASUS ROG STRIX GeForce RTX 3080 Ti O12G GAMING video card. As prices continue to fall back towards MSRP, this card becomes very appealing for the gameplay experience it provides.

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ASUS ROG STRIX GeForce RTX 3080 Ti O12G GAMING

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Brent Justicehttps://www.thefpsreview.com
Former managing editor of GPUs at HardOCP for 18 years, Brent Justice has been reviewing computer components since the late 90s, educated in the art and method of the computer hardware review, he brings experience, knowledge, and hands-on testing with a gamer-oriented and hardware enthusiast perspective. You can follow him on Twitter - @Brent_Justice You can sub to his YouTube channel - Justice Gaming https://www.youtube.com/c/JusticeGamingChannel You can check out his computer builds on KIT - @BrentJustice https://kit.co/BrentJustice

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