[SOLVED] RTX 3070: Open-Air vs RTX3080 Blower Fan for long term upgrade ?

[miker2808]

TLDR At the bottom:
Hello, I'm trying to choose between two specific GPU's.
Whether I should go for the Gigabyte RTX 3080 TURBO 10GB GDDR6X GPU
Or go for Basic open air RTX3070 8GB GPU (For example: Gigabyte GeForce RTX 3070 GV-N3070AORUS M-8GD 2.0)
Few reasons why I cannot choose so easily:

1. My PSU is 650W, so I will need to upgrade the PSU for the RTX3080 which is additional cost.
2. I've checked and most say that blower fan GPUS (The RTX3080) produce more heat and a lot of noise.
3. The RTX3070 is 8GB and has weaker specifications, yet game performance comparison doesn't show that much of a difference (around 10% increase for 3080)
4. I won't go for the 3080 open-air because the specific build i've shown, in my country costs around 750$, while any other 3080 jumps by 100$, and I'm not willing to spend so much for such performance increase.
5. Any RTX3070 open-air is around 75-100$ cheaper than the cheapest RTX3080 i've found (The one I've written above)

These are all the points that won't let me choose.
Should I either save around 250$ and go for the 3070 without the need for a new PSU. and have open-air rgb gpu (I do have case fans, 2 intake + 1 exhaust)
or invest for a better PSU, and RTX3080 but I may regret it due to reported increase in noise and heat, which may even reduce performance. (I play equally with speakers and headphones)

TLDR:
The core question: is the 250$ extra "investment" cost worth it to get the 3080 10GB Blower Fan instead of 3070 8GB Open-Air fan ?

 

[Hellfire13]

Blower fan cards are meant for Small Form Factor machines which usually do not have enough room for air circulation and are meant to exhaust through the rear grill. But the point is, people are facing system shutdown even with quality 650w units with 3070 due to transient spikes.

 

[miker2808]

Blower fan cards are meant for Small Form Factor machines which usually do not have enough room for air circulation and are meant to exhaust through the rear grill. But the point is, people are facing system shutdown even with quality 650w units with 3070 due to transient spikes.

Thanks for your reply, the 650W psu problem is something I wasn't aware of, I just used the recommended PSU stated in the GPU site.
Considering my PSU is not so new, that may be a good reason to upgrade it anyway, but I'll research into it thoroughly.
The issue i'm facing with the blower fan, is that I wouldn't care much about the difference if I knew that the performance for both fan types is the same in spacious ventilated cases. The problem is that 3080 with a blower fan is suspiciously cheaper than any open air equivalent GPU. And would like to know if then, the 75$ value increase for blower fan 3080 compared to 3070 open air is worth the investment?
Plus, do anyone by any chance know how much louder that blower fan is compared to 3 open-air fans? I may be simply overly afraid of the noise and heat complaints of others.
I simply need opinions, as I didn't follow the PC hardware community for years and am really behind with all the performance differences.

 

[itsmedatguy]

Personally I would go for the 3080 with the blower fan unless you imagine the noise will bother you a whole lot. Also, I know many have had issues with their power supplies handling 30 series cards. I personally ran a 3080 Founder's Edition on a Corsair SF650 for about a year and didn't have shutdown issues. High quality power supplies are designed to handle transient spikes that exceed what they're technically rated for. I also had my 3080 undervolted, which I would recommend regardless of what power supply you run because it's a good idea anyway. So personally I would order the 3080, undervolt it, and see how it goes on your 650w unit. If you experience shut downs, just order a new power supply. If you don't, then run with it.

Keep in mind that while the 3080 in the benchmarks you're looking at may only perform 10% faster now, the 3070 is limited in some scenarios by its 8gb VRAM buffer when you enable ray tracing. This limitation is likely to play a larger factor in games in the coming years if you plan to use ray tracing. Even the 3080's 10gb could become an issue, but for now it's sufficient.

 

[Phaaze88]

1)You should still be specific on the psu make and model regardless of that fact, and how long it has been in use, so others viewing the thread can look it up(or they may already know what the unit in question can do).
They can't be sure if this psu is good enough for a 3070 - quality first, wattage second, and '650w psu' says nothing about the former.
310 matches for '650w psu', as per partpicker: https://pcpartpicker.com/products/power-supply/#A=650000000000 (Please narrow it down.)

2)The first part definitely isn't true. The power limits aren't jacked up as high on blowers, typically matching whatever the Founder's board power limit is. In the case of the 3080 10GB, that's 370w.
Many open air models of the 3080 are over 400w... they produce more heat, and inside the PC(thus higher case ambient) before it gets out into the room. Blowers dump it all out the back.

The second part: Either one can be loud - with a catch.
The optimal performance curve on a blower is a high rpm one. Not a whole lot of room for compromise. Blame the cooler design.
Open air models are more flexible, but some of them have crappy fans; usually the bottom barrel product tiers.

3)Performance comparisons should be application specific(or within reason), plus you haven't shared at all the target resolution or the kind of titles you're into.

4)Completely understandable.

5)This one just swings right back into #3.

TL;DR: I believe there's not enough information to reach a conclusion.

 

[punkncat]

I have a 3070 FE on a 600W gold PSU and have experienced zero issue with it. I did take the time to measure power requirments and the system very rarely pulls slightly over 400W with no OC alongside an 11900K.

For that manner of performance increase in relation to price you mention, I would consider the 3080 but think you may also have to consider a new PSU as well. 50W, such as my instance is one thing, 100W off recommended is a whole other IMO.

 

[Hellfire13]

Thanks for your reply, the 650W psu problem is something I wasn't aware of, I just used the recommended PSU stated in the GPU site.
Considering my PSU is not so new, that may be a good reason to upgrade it anyway, but I'll research into it thoroughly.
The issue i'm facing with the blower fan, is that I wouldn't care much about the difference if I knew that the performance for both fan types is the same in spacious ventilated cases. The problem is that 3080 with a blower fan is suspiciously cheaper than any open air equivalent GPU. And would like to know if then, the 75$ value increase for blower fan 3080 compared to 3070 open air is worth the investment?
Plus, do anyone by any chance know how much louder that blower fan is compared to 3 open-air fans? I may be simply overly afraid of the noise and heat complaints of others.
I simply need opinions, as I didn't follow the PC hardware community for years and am really behind with all the performance differences.

The Blower is cheaper because it is least preferred by gamers and usually not recommended for hardcore gaming due to thermal and noise constraints. It is preferred more in multi-GPU setups due to the design. The noise, might not affect you so much unless you are too sensitive or finnicky about it, but the thermal constraints are genuine. In a like for like scenario, it is bound to run hotter than a open air card due to a limited airflow option and in demanding scenarios like intense battle it may affect performance, unless you have really good cooling setup with good case, case fans, active and passive cooling, and most significantly, ambient cooling.

 

[miker2808]

I went and bought this RTX 3080 GPU. I am actually very happy with the results. I "stress test" it every day by playing star citizen and the results are really good, with reaching 75FPS on 1440p on High (around 30 in orison). The blowerfan noise is really a non-issue, I am mostly with headphones, and when not, the blower fan noise at maximum is very smooth, kind of soothing for me and easy to ignore and forget about. Temps do reach around 87-89 on gaming which is kinda understandable, not too much of an issue to me. My case comes with 2 input fans with built in filters, and 1 exhaust fan. so the airflow probably helps the GPU.
I bought thermal pads with heat conductivity of around 12.5 w/mk and I thought about replacing the pads with these ones but it will probably void the warranty so I didn't do it. Also, I bought coolermaster 850Watt PSU 80 GOLD, when I had 650W 80 Bronze back then, and the price was fine to me.
that is pretty much the story