News Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 Founders Edition Hands On and Unboxing

Despite the probable big jump in performance, (the following is my personal opinion) what a a boring looking card (and Im not talking about RGB or any of that), it just looks like a dull enterprise product and not something that really catch the eye at first glance.

Nothing that will really show up on a glass case. Probably hard to see it on one of those dark tinted glass.

Anyways, lets hope the performance numbers showed live up to the expectation on the vast majority of games.
 
Are you even going to bother with 1080p benchmarks :)?

Would love to see pci-e 3 vs pci-e 4 benchmarks.
I am! But obviously anyone buying this card hopefully isn't focused on 1080p gaming. Even the 2080 Ti was basically overkill at 1080p (unless you enable ray tracing). As for PCIe Gen3 vs. Gen4, I'm planning on testing with Ryzen 9 3900X and Gen4, but that's a different platform and CPU than i9-9900K and Gen3. It might make a difference at 4K, though. Maybe? Like, when you're GPU limited at 4K the added PCIe bandwidth might be useful. Next week ... start the 7 day countdown to launch day! :D
 
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st379

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I'm not expecting 3.0 vs 4.0 to make much of a difference until GPUs are pushed beyond their VRAM size, which may require 8k texture packs at 10GB.
If my memory serve me right the rtx 2080 ti already shows couple precent different.
Unfortunely i don't have a link to where i saw it.
Edit: HardwareUnboxed video. Extra 5 fps over pci-e 4.0
 
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InvalidError

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If my memory serve me right the rtx 2080 ti already shows couple precent different.
I didn't say NO difference, I said NOT MUCH difference. A couple percent is not much, barely above error margins.

If you look at the 4GB RX5500, 3.0x8 vs 4.0x8 spells the difference between 20-30fps and 40-60fps in VRAM-constrained scenarios where the 8GB version hits 60-70fps regardless of PCIe version. A full x16 version could have made the 8GB version mostly unnecessary.

The most interesting 3.0 vs 4.0 differences will be when GPUs get pushed beyond their VRAM comfort zone.
 
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st379

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I didn't say NO difference, I said NOT MUCH difference. A couple percent is not much, barely above error margins.

If you look at the 4GB RX5500, 3.0x8 vs 4.0x8 spells the difference between 20-30fps and 40-60fps in VRAM-constrained scenarios where the 8GB version hits 60-70fps regardless of PCIe version. A full x16 version could have made the 8GB version mostly unnecessary.

The most interesting 3.0 vs 4.0 differences will be when GPUs get pushed beyond their VRAM comfort zone.
I don't know if you saw my edit but the rx5700xt can give you extra 5 fps in some games over pci-e 4.0.
Yes, it is not massive but the rtx 3080 could MAYBE give you 10 fps.
It is a nice boost don't you think?
 
I don't know if you saw my edit but the rx5700xt can give you extra 5 fps in some games over pci-e 4.0.
Yes, it is not massive but the rtx 3080 could MAYBE give you 10 fps.
It is a nice boost don't you think?
That depends on what fps you're talking about.

150 to 155 fps? Meh. 30 to 35 fps? That would be significant.

As InvalidError points out, it's mostly the 4GB 5500 XT cards that saw large improvements in performance from PCIe Gen4, because the lack of VRAM leads to situations where more data has to go over the PCIe bus ... plus it's limited to an x8 link width. I don't think anyone has shown games where Gen3 vs. Gen4 x16 slots result in more than a 1-2% improvement, and even then that's only if you're not fully GPU bottlenecked.
 
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I'd like to see tests on thermals and system stability with different PSUs. With the 3080 blowing air up towards the CPU, I'm curious to see how much that impacts CPU, RAM, and case temp when the graphics and CPU are under load. It has me wondering if it might be worth it to go water cooled for one or the other (CPU or GPU).
 

st379

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That depends on what fps you're talking about.

150 to 155 fps? Meh. 30 to 35 fps? That would be significant.

As InvalidError points out, it's mostly the 4GB 5500 XT cards that saw large improvements in performance from PCIe Gen4, because the lack of VRAM leads to situations where more data has to go over the PCIe bus ... plus it's limited to an x8 link width. I don't think anyone has shown games where Gen3 vs. Gen4 x16 slots result in more than a 1-2% improvement, and even then that's only if you're not fully GPU bottlenecked.
Some of the people that buy Intel will explain to you how important it is the different between 150 to 155 fps :) .
And the rtx 3090 could show an impact between 3.0 and 4.0 specially when rx5700xt already shows some extra fps.

Anyway it is a very interesting article and I am looking forward to see the results.
Maybe there will be no difference, just an intresting topic to cover in my opinion even if it ends up to be the same.
 

InvalidError

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It is a nice boost don't you think?
Depends on where you started from. Nowhere near as impressive as all the ground the 4GB RX5500 can gain on its 8GB big brother by going from 3.0x8 to 4.0x8. As a $150-200 GPU shopper, I am far more interested in 4.0x16's potential for crunching the minimum amount of VRAM necessary to enable newer GPUs to perform close to their full potential as games become more VRAM-intensive than incremental performance gains at the high-end.
 
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st379

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Depends on where you started from. Nowhere near as impressive as all the ground the 4GB RX5500 can gain on its 8GB big brother by going from 3.0x8 to 4.0x8. As a $150-200 GPU shopper, I am far more interested in 4.0x16's potential for crunching the minimum amount of VRAM necessary to enable newer GPUs to perform close to their full potential as games become more VRAM-intensive than incremental performance gains at the high-end.
Also could be very intresenting. There is no doubt that pci-e 4.0 can give you extra fps in all kind of scenarios. I understand that the gpu can interface with the storage also.
 

Makaveli

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Despite the probable big jump in performance, (the following is my personal opinion) what a a boring looking card (and Im not talking about RGB or any of that), it just looks like a dull enterprise product and not something that really catch the eye at first glance.

Not necessarily a bad thing.

Dull enterprise product to me equals
  1. Stability
  2. A well made device
  3. Consistent performance
The Flashy RGB blink isn't always the first thing adults look at when buying hardware. And I know many that will not buy items for that reason.

For me when I'm buying hardware this is my general order.
  1. Quality
  2. Performance
  3. Price
  4. Appearance
Sometimes 1 and 2 will swap spots the rest always says the same.

But everyone will be different so to each his own.
 

InvalidError

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The Flashy RGB blink isn't always the first thing adults look at when buying hardware. And I know many that will not buy items for that reason.
I like my PCs to have the least bling possible. My PC resides under my desk, so I am far more interested in dust mitigation, the fewest holes possible on the top and sides to prevent stuff from dropping in, and being resistant to accidental kicks than looks. I also replaced the blue LED fans which were starting to get noisy from worn bearings with plain Sunon MagLev ones.
 
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Phaaze88

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1355g, compared to 1260g on the RTX 2080. So 100g more (roughly) than the previous gen. I'm really curious to see how much the 3090 weighs, though! My case might need some reinforcing to hold that up over time. 😲
No worries! Just use the HDD cage!
Mfd0Jr80pp8xFvzB.jpg

:kikou: