Before talking about EVGA 3080 Fan Noise, it is essential to assess where it stands in the current graphics card market. Throughout the past few generations, Nvidia has continuously enhanced the look of its Founders Edition graphics cards. The RTX 20-series Founders Edition replaced noisy blower-style fans with a more conventional dual-axial arrangement.
The new GeForce RTX 3080 Founders Edition introduced a radical “flow-through” push-pull cooler that operates noticeably quieter than before. The GTX 10-series Founders Edition added a sleek, metallic design.
For those who purchase the Founders Edition at MSRP, such ongoing improvements are fantastic, but they are challenging for board partners like EVGA, Asus, and MSI. What benefits may custom boards provide to support their high prices? The reasoning is straightforward: If the Founders Edition is “good enough,” then a more expensive bespoke RTX 3080 graphics card must be superior.
EVGA 3080 Fan Noise
At lower RPMs, certain 30-series fans do create a “clicking” or “ticking” noise, usually as the motor starts. This is typical and won’t harm the card. For $60 more, the MSI RTX 3080 Gaming X Trio chose a robust three-slot cooler to operate far cooler and more quietly than Nvidia’s FE. EVGA goes above and beyond.
The $810 GeForce RTX 3080 FTW3 Ultra also runs on heavy metal to run just as cool and quieter than MSI’s card. Still, it also has a ton of extravagant, overclocking-friendly extras like a dual-BIOS switch, sensors incorporated throughout the board to provide temperature insight for all kinds of board components, built-in fan and RGB headers, and more. Let’s get going.
EVGA 3080 Features And Design
Because they are all built on the same “GA102” RTX 3080 chip using the new “Ampere” GPU architecture, the EVGA GeForce RTX 3080 FTW3 Ultra is practically identical to the MSI Gaming X Trio and mainly comparable to the Nvidia Founders Edition.
To learn more about what Ampere offers, see our evaluation of the GeForce RTX 3080 Founders Edition. The FTW3 Ultra from EVGA comes pre-overclocked to 1.8GHz, 90MHz faster than the Founders Edition’s reference specifications. This is similar to the MSI Gaming X Trio.
The EVGA RTX 3080 FTW3 Ultra performs better in games than the Founders Edition when paired with the 10GB of lightning-fast GDDR6X RAM, but all three of these cards effectively offer the same performance right out of the box. But, only some people will purchase the EVGA FTW3 Ultra to run it in stock. This high-end card was designed for overclocking and pushing the limits of performance.
But EVGA chose to go opposite Nvidia’s Founders Edition, which adhered to the standard 2-slot thickness and adopted an (ugly) new 12-pin adaptor that links to two conventional 8-pin power connectors to enable achieve such relative slimness.
Because of this puppy’s chubby, EVGA included a metal support bracket in the box. The RTX 3080 FTW3 Ultra comes with a triple of 8-pin power connectors rather than a pair, occupies three slots in your case, and measures almost a foot long.
The additional connector needs to be handy right out of the box. Still, it will be helpful for ambitious overclocking projects, mainly if you’re adding a custom water block or are one of the brave few employing shunt mods to get around the GPU’s legal power restrictions.
Furthermore, compared to many competing RTX 3080 cards, the EVGA FTW3 Ultra’s power restrictions can be pushed further. Although EVGA’s card has a staggering 420W power limit, the standard reference specification is 350W.
If you boost the power goal limit with overclocking software like EVGA’s excellent Precision X1, the Founders Edition can reach a maximum power of 370W. Moreover, Precision X1 enables you to access the nine “iCX3” sensors that EVGA integrated throughout the graphics card, allowing you to view temperature readings for various components like your GPU, memory, and voltage regulation systems.
The GeForce GTX 1080 Superclocked two features of iCX technology, which EVGA introduced in response to a (primarily exaggerated) cooling dispute. For fans of graphics cards, it is still a unique killer feature.
iCX is now the center of attention for EVGA’s complete cooling system. Three sizable second-generation “HDB” fans are included in the RTX 3080 FTW3 Ultra’s wavy shroud. Using information from those iCX sensors, their asynchronous control enables each fan to react differently to the actual temperature conditions inside your card.
Even better, they won’t spin if your GPU temperatures are below 55 degrees Celsius, allowing you to use your computer usually while passively cooling it. (Idle fan stop is also supported on the MSI Gaming X Trio and the Founders Edition.) Also, EVGA moved the central fan outward by 10mm, which, according to the firm, “increases the direct airflow area by 16 percent.”
There is enough metal to keep the air cold. This triple-slot card has an enormous heatsink. It’s enhanced with “180-degree” semi-circular heat pipes, which according to EVGA, improve contact area by 65% and are strengthened by a sizable, unified copper block, which aids in cooling the GPU and memory.
According to EVGA, the custom PCB and aluminum backplate were carved out to allow air to flow through the board, who also claims to have altered the heatsink to allow air to travel more freely throughout it (perhaps as a homage to the Founders Edition’s distinctive flow-through design).
That’s a lot of technical and marketing vocabulary, but what does it all mean? This cooler functions. Even during hot and intense gaming sessions, it quickly subdues the power-hungry RTX 3080 GPU and is entirely silent.
However, the exceptional cooling on the RTX 3080 Founders Edition and MSI Gaming X Trio also perform admirably and are less expensive. By adding extra capabilities that aren’t present on those other cards, EVGA can justify the FTW3 Ultra’s higher price.
Remember the iCX sensors and increased power limit, which can be helpful while overclocking. On the card’s edge is a dual-BIOS switch as well.
While the alternative “OC” BIOS improves fan speeds to lower temperatures and allows Nvidia’s GPU Boost feature more thermal headroom to hit higher frequencies (potentially, a GPU’s ability to reach higher clocks is always dependent on luck in the silicon lottery), we test with the stock BIOS. But overclockers genuinely benefit from a dual-BIOS switch. Having another BIOS you can securely boot into is pretty convenient if you push things too far and things go wrong.
Conclusion
Here we conclude all guidelines about EVGA 3080 Fan Noise. The $810 EVGA RTX 3080 FTW3 is well worth the money if you prefer to tweak your graphics card and push clock speeds to the absolute performance limit. Just ensure your case and power supply can accommodate this triple-slot beast.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are EVGA 3080 good?
This GPU is excellent. Much of the 3080 TI’s power is available for less money. Especially at $999 on sale, when reasonably priced GPUs were tricky to find. It’s decent but not outstanding thermals.
What version of 3080 is best?
The Gaming X Trio 10G model of the RTX 3080 from MSI is now the best. Also, this might be among the fastest RTX 3080s on the market. Because of its 1800 MHz clock speed, the EVGA RTX 3080 FTW3 Ultra Gaming is the quickest, according to a previous post I did.
Does the EVGA 3080 crash?
There are crashes occasionally. That problem was resolved by turning off the quick boot, and now the computer appears to boot directly into the 3080 ti. 3. It breaks if I perform any hardware acceleration (uses the GPU).
Is EVGA 3080 xc3 a sound card?
This card performs incredibly well; I’ve had it for about a month. Run two 8-pin cables rather than a single daisy chain to avoid under-powering it. The “boost clock” from EVGA is 1755 MHz, but by modifying the clock curve, you can get more out of it in games.
