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The graphics card reviews have been coming thick and fast over the last couple of weeks, and the ASUS RTX 3080 TUF Gaming OC is actually the fourth RTX 3080 we have tested so far. It has certainly impressed us across the board, and at its £689 asking price (current pricing instability aside) it represents excellent value for money.
To recap gaming performance, there isn't a whole lot to say here, as the TUF Gaming is on average 1% faster than Nvidia's Founders Edition RTX 3080. Compared to an aggressively clocked parter card like the MSI RTX 3080 Gaming X Trio, it is on average 2% slower, but that is hardly a significant point. Up against last generation's flagship, the RTX 2080 Ti, the TUF Gaming RTX 3080 delivers 33% better performance.
There's also been a lot of speculation recently about the choice of capacitors each RTX 3080 uses, and whether or not that is linked to instability issues some users have experienced. All I can say on that topic is throughout the entirety of my testing with this card, I did not experience any crashes while benchmarking games or running various stress tests. It appears that Nvidia's latest 456.55 driver is fixing the issues for a lot of people, but I can't really comment on that as it simply didn't affect me during my testing.
Moving on, where this GPU really excels is with its thermal and acoustic performance. We get a great first impression due to the all-aluminium shroud that ASUS has used, which gives the card a premium feel in the hand, while it runs very cool out of the box. There is a choice of Performance and Quiet BIOS options, with the former seeing the GPU run no hotter than 62C. Even the Quiet BIOS kept temperatures below 70C at all times.
Noise levels are similarly impressive, with the Quiet BIOS running the fans at less than 1500RPM, resulting in a very quiet graphics. It is just louder than the MSI RTX 3080 Gaming X Trio according to our sound meter, but the difference was not noticeable to my ear.
In a nutshell, the TUF Gaming RTX 3080 OC is a stellar offering from ASUS and it has been a joy to test. It is a significant improvement on the Founders Edition for only £40 more. In fact, if you were to get the regular non-OC edition, that version is even cheaper at £649 – matching the Founders Edition MSRP – so at the expense of just 70MHz lost from the clock speed, the non-OC edition is the card that I would go for personally.
It's also great to see that ASUS has clearly listened to the feedback it received from its previous generation of cooler designs. The company has added an extra GPU mounting bracket to ensure there is sufficient pressure between the GPU and the heatsink, while VRAM cooling has also been significantly enhanced thanks to the use of a dedicated memory heatsink. Rather than sweeping these issues under the rug, ASUS has addressed them head-on with the RTX 3080 TUF Gaming, and that is commendable.
All in all then, this is a very high quality piece of kit that delivers excellent value considering the MSRP of £689. We can't yet say when cards will actually be available to buy at that price in the UK, but once they are, this is certainly a card that needs to be on your final shortlist.
It is out of stock at the time of writing, but Currys has the RTX 3080 TUF Gaming listed for £689 HERE.
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Pros
- RTX 3080 performance is highly impressive for 1440p and 4K gaming.
- All-aluminium shroud feels premium, and is colour-neutral too.
- Runs very quiet and very cool.
- Dual-BIOS functionality.
- Two HDMI 2.1 ports, instead of just one.
- Terrific all-round performance at £689.
Cons
- The non-OC edition is arguably the better buy.
- Limited overclocking headroom.
KitGuru says: ASUS has impressed me greatly with the TUF Gaming RTX 3080. If this is the sort of quality we are seeing from the TUF lineup, I do wonder just how special the ROG Strix model could be…
