Which RTX 3080 to BUY and AVOID! 55 Cards Compared! Asus, EVGA, Gigabyte, MSI, Palit, PNY....

[Music] hi everyone welcome to the updated rtx 3080 buying guide that you've been waiting for as always i am not going to go into too much details about each card since that would take over an hour so i'll just explain how i compare the different cards i always emphasize on the power limits vrms and cooling as being the most important parts because the new gpus these days can boost their clock speeds as high as they can as long as there's enough power temperature headroom which makes the boost clock specifications almost useless and so the defining factors that actually affects the clock speeds in real time and affects the performance is the power limit and cooler performance the power limit is the most important as it directly impacts the maximum sustained boost frequencies of the gpus for example you can see with the colorful vulcan card when the turbo bios is used the 370 watt power limit increases the average clock speed to 1920 megahertz while the standard 220 watt bios only averages 1875 megahertz and here with the asus tuff which has the same watt power limit for both oc and quiet bios when the oc bios is used the average clock speed is increased but the clock speed inconsistency is still there despite the ultra low temperatures because of hitting the same power limit as the quiet bios so a temperature reduction without the power limit increase is not that useful so you still need a power limit increase to have better performance an inconsistent clock speed not only reduces the overall performance but also creates worse fps consistency leading to worse frame times so for better more consistent performance you want a higher power limit conveniently the power limits are also easily checked for any cards by just checking the bios files which are available on tech powerups gpu bios database for basically almost every model that's released as long as someone's updated it for the cooling performance it's pretty self-explanatory that a better cooled card will have lower temperatures that'll increase boost clocks and also possibly run quieter then the pcb quality is important as well especially for the vrms or voltage regulator module which is the circuit that feeds power to the gpu and the memory and various domains for the rtx 3080 the main vrms are actually split into three parts first there's the memory vrm which doesn't matter much because even the lowest configuration has more than enough current to power the gddr6 modules and all seems to overclock pretty similarly regardless of the vrm then there's the gpu primary voltage and secondary voltage rail which eiger slab dubbed the nvdd or the typical vcore gpu voltage and the msvdd or the miscellaneous voltage rail which powers the rest of the gpu's voltage domains it's unclear what domains of the chip these two rails powers exactly but they make up the whole gpu's power draw so for simplicity's sake i'm just going to group both together as the normal vcore gpu vrm this vrm's current capabilities are important for anyone that wants to overclock especially if it involves shot mods and voltage mods that remove the power limits and increase the power consumption as the ga102 gpu in the rtx 3080 can easily consume over 500 watts without any power limits which at a standard operating voltage of about 1.081 volts is already over 460 amps of current this is just the base current as well and not factoring in the current spikes which can be much much higher so for those looking to increase the voltage to the gpu and remove the power limits you should look for a more powerful vrm on the cards and for people who don't overclock all the cards seems to have very adequate vrms and that shouldn't have any issues but the fact is that a stronger vrm will usually mean a higher quality vrm which is going to last longer as well as being less stress by the load of the gpu so they should run a lot cooler so that's just better overall for the hardware of the card and one more thing is that i keep seeing comments saying that vrms aren't that important for most people but my argument is that if you have a choice why would you buy a card with an inferior vrm anyways so it's still useful for comparing which cards are better or worse especially in terms of their hardware quality of course don't go out of your way to spend more for a stronger vrm card that you probably won't ever use so let's start with the power limits as you can see it's a lot of data for 55 cards so let's break it down into groups this is because the cards with similar power limits will boost similarly so a card in the same power limit class will be a good reference for the performance of all the cards in the same class firstly let's focus on the stock power limits for default operation this is when you don't do anything to the card and basically just plug and play here you can see a lot of the cards have the same power limits as the nvidia founders edition card or at 320 watts these cards will perform at default similarly to the nvidia founder's edition card within a few tens of megahertz at most so you can just look at reviews of those to have an idea of their performance in games one notable exception to this is the asus tough gaming and strix cards which have some of the best coolers so it'll boost a little bit higher than the other 320 watt cards but like i've shown before increasing the power limit is what really gives the clock advantage and just cooling down the cart won't really increase your average that much and still gives you an inconsistent clock speed so up next are the 340 watt cards they have a slight benefit in performance compared to the 321 cards and basically all of the cards with a watt power limit have a very good cooler on them so they'll also naturally boost a little bit higher because of that a good card for reference of the performance of these cards is the msi gaming x trio and the asus tough gaming which has been widely reviewed by a lot of reviewers these cards also provide a good balance of increased performance while maintaining efficiency levels as the power limit isn't overly high then there are the 370 and 380 watt cards these cards are all the highest performance models and meant for maximum performance and they all have top class coolers to boot that will also give them an advantage in boost clock over the lesser cards as well the 50 to 60 watt power limit difference to the founder's edition and lower 320 watt cards have a meaningful performance advantage as well as if we see the evga ftw3 ultra review on tech powerup its boost clocks stay stable at the maximum possible boost frequency which means at 370 and 380 watts there is enough power headroom for the rtx 3080 gpus to boost indefinitely without power limit throttling now let's focus on the maximum power limit which will be very important for overclocking as a higher power limit will let a higher overclock that can be sustained without power throttling take note as well how some of the oc versions of the cards have a higher power limit than the non-oc versions so if you want to overclock it might be best to get the oc versions compared to the standard versions starting with the lowest end cards these have zero power limit adjustment and maxed out at only 320 watts these cards will basically have zero overclocking the headroom and the best way to increase performance is undervolting it which you can find guides off that will usually increase the average clock speed by reducing the power consumption then there are the 336 to 340 watt maximum power limit cards and these cards are the zotac trinity cards the colorful advanced 10gb non-oc the gigabyte eagle oc and inno 3d cards which weirdly enough even includes the water cooled frostbite which makes absolutely no sense to me because that card is cooled really well then there are 350 watt gainward litec pallet and pny cards which are all the exact same cards with different aesthetics and then there's the msi gaming x trio which makes no sense given that it has triple 8 pin power inputs that can support much more power perhaps msi isn't confident of its minimum spec vrm as you'll see later being running closer to its current limit which is kinda a reoccurring trend with msi cards it seems like there is the lone galaxy x card at 360 watts and all these cards so far are kind of disappointing to see because these 336 to 350 watt cards have coolers that are slightly better than the founders edition and good enough to easily at least let the same max power limit as the nvidia's founder's edition card so i really don't see a reason why they had to the max power limits this much this is the same situation with the evga xc3 cards with 366 watt power limits i really don't understand why they did this these cards have some good coolers and yet they chose a max power limit that's 4 watts less than a founder's edition granted 4 watts isn't much at all but still why then there are the 370 to 375 watt max power limit cards which are the same as the nvidia founders edition and should end up with similar performance once overclocked this much power is also just enough to sustain max boost clocks at the default voltage in most workloads so this is a pretty good power limit headroom and i wouldn't really complain too much about it one thing to note is that all of these cards so far except for the msi gaming x30 are all dual 8 pin power inputs and that clearly shows how close they are in default and max power limits because they're limited by the power inputs well except for the msi which like i said before makes no sense the cards above this are now all triple a pin power input cards and it starts with the pallet game rock and gainward phantom and then the colorful cards at 400 watts and in the msi supreme series at 430 watts and then there's the 440 watt gainward phantom gs and pallet gamerock oc then there are the 450 watt cards which are as high a power limit as it goes for rtx 3080s and should provide quite a lot of headroom for sustaining high overclocks but even then with 4k gaming and rtx and the lss turned on while overclock 450 watts might still be hit by the gpu to cause some throttling so for those looking for maximum performance possible the only way to do it is to shunt mod and remove the power limits entirely because it seems like they're not high enough for an rtx 3080 fully unlocked however the high power limit cards are an indication of the manufacturer's confidence in the card's vrm and cooler capabilities this ties in nicely to the vrm of the cards where to find out the card's vrm i had to find reviews or just videos of people where they take the car apart or view unboxings and review videos frame by frame to see through the cooler and see the vrm setup or by seeing if it uses the same pcb as another model that has been taken apart also kudos to colorful for just clearly putting in the vrm setup in the specifications and although some drmos current rating would be nice they're all using the nvidia reference 50mdr moss just like their other cards so it's not a big deal before we get to the gpu vrm i just want to show the memories or vram's vrm of the card and here we can see that they're pretty similar across the board and there's no way the gddr6x modules would even come close to using the minimum 150 amps so we can kind of pretty much safely ignore that and focus on the gpu vrms which here we can see is much more varied compared to the vram's vrm let's start with the basic nvidia reference spec 650 mvrm cards which all use the same 13 phase vrm with 50 amp off and omega drmos the 650 amp cards also only have dual's 8 pin power inputs except for the msi gaming x trio with its useless 38 pin power input although these 650 amp cards are the lowest of the bunch at 650 amps there is plenty of headroom for overclocks even with bios flashing to 450 watt biases but i would be kind of wary of shunt modding these cards and although shot modding should work with these cards as well the current spikes might be too much and too close to the maximum vrm capabilities when completely unrestricted so personally i wouldn't shot mod cards with 650 amp vrams so next are the 700 amp vrm cards and these are the gainward litec pallet and pny cards which have the same hardware these are slightly better than the 650 amp cards and are a better fit for doing shot mods next there is the 750 amp colorful battle axe nb10 gv card which is kind of the odd one out here being alone in here then there are the 800 amp cards which from here i am comfortable with recommending them to shot mod notable are the zotac amp holo and colorful cards which are usually cheaper than the other 800 app cards then there are the asus tough gaming cards which has 880 amp vrms by using 55 amp vichai sic 641dr mass power stages which are different to the 50 amp ones in the reference spec also interesting is that the vrm on the asus tuff has voltage read points and even a solar point for i-square-c voltage controller communication which will allow manual voltage control using an external controller such as the elmore avc which their bower used successfully in his video now we're just attaching the evc2 by the way the evc2 is not available anymore but there will be the evc2s which is like a light and even cheaper version i think it's available for pre-order on the elmore website maybe just get it because it's such a beautiful tool now simply attach it so this will be ideal for overclockers who intends to increase the voltage next there are the 900 amp palette and gamework cards which again are the same hardware since palette is apparent company of gameword followed by the 950 amp evga ftw3 cards lastly there are the over 1000 amp vrm cards which is interestingly you can find the nvidia founders edition here which sports some of the most expensive and powerful drmos power stages of all consisting of 70 amp monolithic power systems mp86957 this truly is a premium vrm design in order to make the compact pcb so for those water cooling their rtx 3080 founders edition cards i would highly suggest to take advantage of the awesome vrm by doing some shot modding and removing the power limits and then overclocking it to the moon basically this card is really good the only cards that go over the founders edition are the asus trix cards the colorful vulcan x cards and the colorful neptune which will be ideal for the extreme overclockers who want the best of the best and personally i would go for the asus tricks since just like tough gaming it has easy solder points for the voltage controller i square c control now for some temperature data same as before i compiled the data from the usual reviewers that usually do the most thorough reviews guru 3d tech powerup hexos and hardware locks reviews and also added tech testers to be able to add the msi ventus 3xoc i corrected all the review numbers to guru 3d numbers by calculating the average difference in temp and noise readings between the reviews for the same cards compared to the guru 3ds this turned out to be tech power up about 2 celsius warmer and 4 dba quieter access about 2 celsius warmer hardware locks about one celsius warmer and two dba noisier and this is actually pretty close with what i found in 360 ti and 37 in comparison as well and for tech testers the results are about two celsius cooler so with that correction i combine the data into one chart picking the best results for each card this method isn't perfect but this should be accurate enough to see which cards are approximately better than the other here we see the asus tough gaming manages to run at celsius with 39 dba of noise which is mighty impressive but with its 340w power limit i would just use the quiet bios for a much quieter card without sacrificing much performance then there's gigabytes quadruple slot aeros extreme which is also performing well here but keep in mind this card uses 370 watts so it really does take a lot of fan speed to keep it at 64 celsius or maybe it's just because of their weird fan design but when it's using its quiet bios it's at a much more tolerable 38 dba with still low temperatures of 70 celsius then the msi supreme x also seems to perform similarly albeit with just a triple slot cooler but a much wider and larger one and the more impressive showing is when it's running at 370 watts at just 32 dba with the quiet bios which makes it the quietest rtx 3080 the colorful vulcan also seems to do well here and it's 321 files but quickly ramps its fans up with the turbo bios at 370 watts this is closely followed by the more impressive 380 watts evga ftw3 which can also be turned quieter using the quiet bios and still only hit 72 celsius then there is the inno 3d icil x3 which seems to perform better than gigabytes eagle oc but this is the best result from hardware lux and the hexa result is much higher temperature and noisier at 75 celsius and 42 dba so maybe this is the result of inno 3d using a direct contact heat pipe design which i've seen with the msi gaming x trio cards to cost performance variations as well in fact the best msi gaming x30 result here is from hexis and the worst one from tech powerup is at 74 celsius and 36 dba so maybe manufacturers need to stop using direct contact heat pipe designs from gpus since it never seems to work out well especially for consistency then there are the 320 watt pallet gaming pro oc and galax sg cars which perform similarly since they are also about the same size wise and fan count wise this is followed by the 320 watt zotac trinity and msi vintage 3xoc which is tuned to be slightly quieter and a bit warmer then there is the 340w evga xc3 and zotac amp holo at the same power limit lastly the founder's edition is the smallest card of them all and it seems to run at the hottest temperature at 75 celsius which is understandable considering the dual slot dual fan cooler and it's still an impressive result for such a cooler dissipating that much heat now that's about all the cards that have proper reviews on them that i can compare with so for the other cards i'm just going to rate their cooling based on their cooler design in terms of fan count size and weight and from basically knowing how a similar card design that has been reviewed performs but take these ratings with a grain of salt since they're from my observations and not actual reviews of their performance but it should still give you an idea of the kind of performance you can expect and i've been pretty accurate so far i've also omitted the non-oc models of the same cards since they have the same coolers the cards also aren't arranged in a particular order so just pay attention to the tiers and not the position so at the top there are all the water cooled cards that have an obvious advantage over the air-cooled cards and should run basically below 60 degrees celsius or low 60s all the time then there are the large triple fan triple slot or even quadruple slot cooler cards that are the s-tier and they perform basically as good as it gets and can easily run below 70 degrees celsius then the a-tier card should slot in just below since they are almost as good but not quite on the same level as the s tier followed by the b tier which consists of good triple fan basically 2.5 slot coolers that are narrow in design and should provide more than satisfactory cooling and noise levels but are a bit more compact next there are the c tier cards which are a step above the founders edition and are fine for most people looking for an rtx 380 that just works and isn't annoying to use although i don't think these are the greatest for those looking for maximum performance i do wish zotac's ampolo had a better cooler than their standard trinity cards though since it does have a better vrm and higher power limit lastly there's the d-tier ino 3d x2 which should perform similarly to the nvidia founder's edition card since it's slightly thicker but it's a shorter card and it's a more basic dual fan design the d-tier cards will obviously still work fine but they're just gonna run a bit hotter and noisier than the rest finally let's rank the cards from first to last place this is my ranking based on the power limits then the vrm quality and cooling performance of the cards i usually value a higher power limit a lot since that usually drives up the performance the most so you might see a card with a lower performing cooler topping a slightly higher performing cooler because it has a higher power limit but if a cart has similar power limits then the much better cooler is going to perform better by obvious reasons basically the rankings are great for those who care for maximum performance i will put them into tiers as well since that will make it easier to find alternatives with similar performance if you can't find a cart you want in stock but have some other model in the same tier in stock starting with the ss tier this time it's the water cooled evga f3 ultra hybrid and hydra copper with the highest power limits at 450 watts and water coolers as well so it'll no doubt outperform basically everything else followed by the colorful neptune oc 10 gb which has a good water cooler but it still has a 400 watt power limit so it's a bit limited in that however with all the ss tiered cards having the best air coolers as well if you want to do voltage mods then the asus tricks with a 450 watt power limit as well is an easier vrm to mod which is also still capable for extreme overclocking this is then followed by the air-cooled evga ftw3 cards and the gigabyte aeros extreme which have the same 450 watt power limit these top cards are followed closely by the pallet and gamework cards and as well as the msi supreme x which has slightly toned down vrm setups i have to put the normal strix in the s tier because its default power limit is way too low but it's a good choice for anyone who wants an efficient card that stays cool and quiet but has the same overclocking potential as its tricks oc then i would put the gigabyte era's water force cards here despite the water cooling design because it has a weak dual 8 pin power input only allowing 370 watts of power limiter although they can be bypassed by shot mods and make for great overclocking cards this is the case with the evga xc3 hydra copper card 2 which has a low power limit for a water cooled card this is followed by the colorful vulcan cards which despite the higher power limit they don't have the best air coolers so i will have to relegate them to s-tier then there are the gainward phantom and pallet gamer cards which are the same hardware as their oc versions but for some reason they decided to lower the default and max power limits then there's the gigabyte euros master which has the same pcbs as the water force card and so only have a 370 watt power limit despite the large cooler although with this one gigabyte is reportedly making a new version with triple eight pins for more power limit headroom which basically makes the errors extreme kind of pointless then i would put the evga xc3 hybrid even if it only has a 340w default power limit since it has a nice hybrid water cooler and high enough 366 watt max power limit this is followed by the colorful advanced oc 10 gv which has high power limits but in my opinion the cooler isn't suited for such a high power limit so it can't perform its best without a high fan speed then there is the asus tough gaming oc just above the gigabyte vision and gaming oc cards which are still great cards with a high 370 watt default and max power limit and a good cooler as well but even if the asus tough gaming oc is only a 340w default power limit it has a higher max power limit of 375 watts and a much better cooler as well so i have to put it on top of the gigabyte cards although i am putting the tough gaming non-oc below the gigabyte cards just because asus for some reason decides to reduce the power limit even further to 320 watts which will the performance a bit more for the a-tiered cards i will put the colorful ultra 10 gv black or white card doesn't matter which has a high power limit and a good cooler even above the water cooled inno 3d i chill frostbite because that card has a pathetic 340w power limits for both the default and max for some unknown reason then i have to put the msi gaming x trio cards here since while it has a great cooler that runs cool and quiet however the cooling is a bit inconsistent between reviews thanks to the cost-cutting direct touch heat pipe design and the vrm and power limits are below the other cards in the s-tier even though it has triple 8 pin power inputs which seems to be there just for show then i would put the zotac amp holo card just below since even if it's got a good vrm and a high power limit the cooler is only as good as zotac's cheaper trinity card which is kinda disappointing for a flagship card which ties into the evga xc3 cards which is a bit held back by its two slot coolers as well that really can't compete with the thicker triple fan cards as well then i will put the galaxy x card which has lower power limits but the cooler is still at least better than the nvidia founders edition which i will put at the bottom of the a tier because even though its cooler is one of the weakest it is really one of the most well built and and its insanely powerful vrm as well as its decently high power limits is great for modders and overclockers now for the b-tier cards they should still work well as rtx 3080 cards at default but don't expect great overclocking from them or cool and quiet operations either they would be best suited to do undervolting to lower temperatures and power consumption i would put the inno 3d i chill cards here with the x4 and x3 really only different with the x4 having useless fourth tiny fan on the side and its direct touch heat pipe design also isn't the most consistent performer but at least when it does it's noticeably better than the gigabyte eagle oc then there is the colorful advanced 10 gv here which is way below the colorful advanced oc 10 gv because apparently it has way lower power limits which is really crippling its performance now this is just from the info i can find from the bioss as well as on the website so i can't say for sure but maybe it has the same power limits as the oc model and if it does i would just put it right under the oc model but for now this is where it stays this is then followed by the palette gaming pro cards and gainward phoenix cards litec hurricane and pny accelerated revel epic x rgb which is a mouthful and these cards are basically all the same card hardware wise and with different outside aesthetics they are decent triple fan rtx 3080 cards with coolers that can keep the gpu cooler and quieter than the founders edition but the downside is they have pretty low power limits next are the c tier cards which are low power limit cards so i can't put them higher tier because of their low performance potential and this is even for the gigabyte eagle and colorful battle axe and b10g-v which has a better cooler than all the cards in this tier these cards are locked to 320 watts with the exception of the zotac trinity being able to go up slightly to 336 watts which will basically barely help with anything so don't expect any kind of meaningful overclocking from these cards so it's better to just undervolt these if you want to tune the cards for slightly better performance the msi ventus 3x here is refreshing to see not be at the bottom tier as it actually has a decent cooler and an ok vrm with normal dual 8 pins it just has a really low power limit which is still crippling it this is a similar case to the galaxy sg and pny accelerate uprising epic x rgb cards lastly the only card i would actually avoid is the inno 3d twin x2 oc which seems like a really basic dual fan design which might only perform as well as the founders edition at best along with the lock 320 watt power limit it is literally the worst rtx 3080 there is now i'm not saying it won't work but i would just not buy this if you don't really have to at least i'm pleasantly surprised to see there's only one card in the avoid tier as the c tier cards while being locked to low power limits are still pretty decent cars one thing i want to note is that msi just announced their seahawk x line for their 3080 and 3090 at ces but this card seems a bit underwhelming because it just looks to me like they reused the ventus 3x pcb with the dual 8 pins and then they just slapped on a water cooler and call it a new card if that's all they did this card will be severely power limited and the water cooler will basically not do anything for performance but it will run pretty quietly and coolly so if you're looking for a cool and quiet card this might be a good option until reviews are out it seems like msi hasn't put out any information regarding this card so i don't know anything about this card for now but if i were to put it as a tier list i would put it beside the evga xc3 hybrid so for my personal pick of the best all-rounder i would choose the asus tough gaming oc as it's a good all-around card not everyone wants the highest power limit so it's nice to see that it has everything you want a great cooler a great vrm design and a high enough power limit that maximizes dual 8 pin power inputs if there are higher cards in the tier that's available for the same price though you should definitely get those instead for example in some parts of the world the gameword phantom gs or the palette gamerock oc are available with highly reasonable prices and they would be my pick if they're available instead for the asus tough gaming oc it's just a widely available basically international model that just seems like the sweet spot middle ground without paying too much for the flagship cards that are above this card or buying a worst card that loses out on some performance and as well as quietness well that's about it for this buying guide i hope you found it useful and enjoyed watching this video if you do find it useful maybe click the like button and help share the video to others looking for rtx 3080s as that really helps me out a lot and if you own any of these cards do comment down below about your experience and also ask any questions you have and i'll try to answer every comment i'll also pin my comment on any updates on these cards that i might have and lastly maybe you can also subscribe to my channel for more buying guides like this which will come out for the other cards as well and also for more videos of reviews unboxings and tech news thank you for watching

Channel: O!Technology

Views: 117,397

Rating: 4.8627086 out of 5

Keywords: best rtx 3080, fastest rtx 3080, geforce rtx, rtx on, raytracing, ampere, turing, nvidia, gpu, graphics, rtx 3080 review, rtx 3080 roundup, rtx 3080 comparison, asus, evga, msi, gigabyte, palit, pny, zotac, leadtek, gainward, colorful, inno3d, best 3080 card, what 3080 to buy

Id: q_VC_00wcMU

Length: 30min 42sec (1842 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 17 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/meghnada]

Compared on basis of power limit, VRMs, cooling!

[u/woodpecker21]

Whoa. That is some good work man. Comparing so many cards itself if quite cumbersome process. You managed it quite well. Best of luck for future vids.