The graphics card is the beating heart of any gaming PC, pumping out beautifully rendered pixels to your screen.

Although there is no single GPU that is perfect for everyone, the GeForce RTX 3080 is my pick if you want to experience 4K gaming without breaking the bank.

Below, we’ll be looking at the Gainward GeForce RTX 3080 Phantom which comes with all the specs of the Founders Edition.

Design and Features

The RTX 3080 spec-sheet shows the impressive generational leap when compared to the RTX 2080 Super, as it has more than double the CUDA core count with 8,704 cores and 10GB of 320-bit GDDR6X VRAM.

The card is also faster, with a boost clock of 1,755MHz – while the GDDR6X also provides a bandwidth of 19 Gbps which is a big improvement from the last generation’s 14 Gbps.

Although the Founders Edition comes with Nvidia’s new 12-pin power connecter, Gainward has kept the dual 8-pin connectors so you don’t have to buy a new PSU.

However, the RTX 3080 has a rated TDP of 320 watts, which means you’ll need at least a 750-watt power supply.

The new RTX 30-series also claims to reduce the GPU temperature by up to 20 degrees Celsius and run three times quieter than the previous RTX 20-series.

See Nvidia’s release video for all the updated specs and features:

Performance

The new technology sounds impressive, but what’s important is how the RTX 3080 performs when put to the test. Thankfully, it does not disappoint.

IGN conducted various benchmarks to test the gaming performance improvements of the rasterization, ray tracing, and DLSS of the RTX 3080 in both 1080p and 4K.

This was done by pitting the RTX 3080 up against the last-gen RTX 2080 Super, and the results were impressive.

The tests were conducted while running Wolfenstein: Youngblood, Metro Exodus, and Control – all being extremely demanding system crushers.

Rasterization and ray tracing

The ray-tracing synthetic benchmark indicated a 74% on average performance improvement over the 2080 Super. This also manifested in the RTX 3080 having 44% higher FPS on average at 1080p, while the difference increased at 4K with an average of 57% higher FPS.

DLSS

DLSS technology allows the GPU to render games at a lower resolution while using its tensor cores to upscale the image to 4K quality.

While enabling DLSS drops your FPS to give you a sharper image, the ray tracing processing enhancements on the RTX 3080 run the games at a full 39 FPS faster than the RTX 2080 Super. This means that 4K gaming at 60fps is a reality with the RTX 3080.

Verdict

The new Nvidia RTX 3080 is an incredible graphics card. It offers massively improved performance when compared to the last-gen RTX 2080 Super – especially in 4K. You can find the Gainward GeForce RTX 3080 Phantom on Evetech.co.za at R22,999.

See Gainward’s Phantom series release Video:

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