Nvidia RTX 3080 Founders Edition Review

1. Introduction2. The Ampere Architecture3. RTX 3080 Founders Edition4. Testing Methodology5. 3DMark Fire Strike & Time Spy6. 3DMark Port Royal7. Control8. Death Stranding9. The Division 210. Far Cry New Dawn11. Gears 512. Ghost Recon: Breakpoint13. Metro Exodus14. Middle Earth: Shadow of War15. Red Dead Redemption 216. Shadow of the Tomb Raider17. Total War Saga: Troy18. Performance Summary (11 Game Average)19. Cost Per Frame Analysis20. RTX On - Control21. RTX On - Metro Exodus22. RTX On - Shadow of the Tomb Raider23. DLSS On - Control & Death Stranding24. A Word on VRAM Usage25. Clock Speed26. Temperatures27. Acoustics28. Power Consumption29. Performance Per Watt Analysis30. Overclocking: Memory Scaling31. Closing Thoughts32. View All Pages

Here we present the average clock speed for each graphics card while running the 3DMark Time Spy stress test for 30 minutes. We use GPU-Z to record the GPU core frequency during the Time Spy runs. We calculate the average core frequency during the 30 minute run to present here.

Click to enlarge.

In terms of overall clock speed behaviour, Ampere doesn't appear to have changed anything compared to Turing. GPU Boost will still push clock speed well above the rated frequency, before settling down as temperature increases. These adjustments still happen in steps of 15MHz so those hoping for more granular control will be disappointed.

As for the actual speed on the RTX 3080, it's boosting to pretty much the same levels as last generation's Founders Editions. It may not be exactly as fast – the 2080 Super was clocked quite aggressively – but considering the rated boost clock is lower at 1710MHz, the average frequency just shy of 1860MHz is good to see.

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