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Having already reviewed the Gigabyte RTX 4080 and RTX 4090 Gaming OC models at the end of 2022, we certainly had high hopes for the Gigabyte RTX 4080 Super Gaming OC and we are pleased to say it does not disappoint.
Simply put, it is just an all-round solid aftermarket card. The cooler is very effective, offering the best noise-normalised thermals of the three 4080 Supers we have tested, while you get a choice of the OC or Silent BIOS modes. The latter runs the three fans a just 1360rpm, making for a very quiet experience, but I always love to see dual-BIOS, even if it's just for redundancy in case you have an accident while flashing a BIOS.
Actual gaming performance is only very slightly ahead of the 4080 Super Founders Edition, as we saw the Gaming OC running about 40-60MHz faster in our testing. It won't make much difference at all to your gaming experience, but it's good to see it performs as expected.
We also had reasonable success overclocking the Gaming OC, thanks in part to its 400W maximum power limit. This meant we were 100% stable with the core frequency at 3030MHz, resulting in performance gains of up to 9%, though typically the uplift was more like 5-6%.
Overall, we don't have any real complaints about the Gaming OC. It is a massive card, yes, but that comes with the territory these days. It is, however, still a 4080 Super, and as I argue in my 4080 Super Founders Edition review, I see this as a fairly pointless launch from Nvidia, as a price-cut to the original 4080 would achieve the exact same thing. AMD has also pre-emptively responded with price cuts to the RX 7900 XTX, which is now available under £900.
Still, with the Gaming OC set to hit the market at £1059.99, it is a good chunk cheaper than the regular 4080 model which is still retailing for £1200. If you were already planning on buying a GPU in this price-class, I have no doubt you will be happy with the Gaming OC – it's just better to think of it as a price-cut for the vanilla RTX 4080, rather than anything new.
Pros
- Runs cool and quiet.
- Very impressive memory thermals.
- Dual-BIOS.
- Overclocked well, with 400W power limit.
- Colour-neutral design.
- Support for the full RTX feature set including DLSS, ray tracing etc.
Cons
- 4080 Super is a boring launch overall considering it is no real amount faster than the original 4080.
- Still very expensive at over £1000.
- Shroud feels a bit plasticky.
KitGuru says: It's a very solid custom card from Gigabyte, just don't expect any real performance gains over the regular RTX 4080.
