ASUS has officially pulled back the curtain on its first custom-cooled GeForce RTX 30 series, The TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 3080. As per its name, the card is part of the brand’s TUF Gaming lineup and comes equipped with all the features that are part and parcel of the series.
Specs-wise, the card is powered by NVIDIA’s 8nm Ampere GPU architecture and has the same 10GB GDDR6X graphics memory. Additionally, the card’s accompanying memory also runs at a speed of 19Gbps, while the memory bus is rated at 320-bit.
The difference between the TUF Gaming version and NVIDIA’s Founders Edition (FE) of the RTX 3080, though, are plenty, to say the least. Firstly, the card still uses dual 8-pin PCIe connectors to power it, instead of the new 12-pin PCIe port that the FE uses. Second, the PCB being used with ASUS’ card isn’t as ultra-compact either, and on top of that, the card employs a triple-fan cooling solution. Instead of the Dual Axial Flow Through setup of the FE version.
For that matter, ASUS’ TUF Gaming cooling solution isn’t quite as elaborate, and is instead quite straightforward. The three axial fans sit on top of multiple heatsinks; one sitting on top of the GPU, and the other on top of the memory chips that surround the main module.
Of course, the fans are also programmed with ASUS’ own zero RPM technology, whereby the fan only spins up when the GPU hits a specific temperate. Typically, that temperature is set at 55°C by default. Lastly, the PCB itself is built using what ASUS says are top-shelf chokes, MOSFETS, and capacitor that “meet military grade” certification.
The ASUS TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 3080 is already available at all authorised resellers and partner PC shops, and retails for RM3360. On a related note, we recently reviewed the GeForce RTX 3080, so you can check that out if you want to get an idea of the sort of performance you can expect from it.
