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After trying the GeForce RTX 4080 Founders Edition, ASUS sent us one custom based on NVIDIA’s project, specifically the TUF Gaming RTX 4080 16GB GDDR6X OC Edition (TUF-RTX4080-O16G-GAMING).
The last generation of TUF Gaming solutions had impressed us due to the heatsink’s ability to cool the 3080 and 3070 better than NVIDIA’s cooling system. The 3090 Ti also performed well, a solution considered by all to be a great “dress rehearsal” for NVIDIA in order to fine-tune what later became the RTX 4090.
So let’s start with a fairly clear idea of how ASUS’s TUF Gaming RTX 4080 could behave, but before examining its performance and behavior, let’s see how it is made. Let’s start first with the dimensions: with the Founders Edition, NVIDIA has decided to keep the same heatsink as the RTX 4090, and ASUS is no exception.
The TUF Gaming RTX 4080 OC Edition has dimensions of 348.2 x 150 x 72.6mm which make it a solution longer and thicker than NVIDIA’s FE. Those who aim for these cards must have a large case, or disassemble the heatsink and have a custom liquid system with a compatible water block. The PCB of the card is much shorter than the entire heatsink as you can see from the photos. The thickness of the card makes it a solution that ASUS defines as “3.65 slots“.
This board is also equipped with a new generation power connector, 12VHPWR or 16-pin if you prefer, and it is recommended to pair with a 750W power supply. Bundled with the card, similar to what was seen with the ROG Strix RTX 4090, is a holder (which also becomes a screwdriver) which allows you to support the video card and relieve the weight on the slot: it must be positioned on the power supply cover, under the card. At the back we find two HDMI 2.1a and three DisplayPort 1.4aso one more HDMI port than the FE.
The heatsink of this TUF Gaming is equipped with three axial fans with double ball bearings designed to convey a large flow of air towards the underlying radiator with vapor chamber. The two side fans rotate counterclockwise, while the central one rotates clockwise. The idea behind this operation is to minimize turbulence and maximize air dispersion through the heatsink.
All three fans stop when GPU temperatures are below 50 C, allowing you to play less demanding games or perform light tasks in relative silence. The fans turn back on when temperatures exceed 55°C.
The video card has a rigid and reinforced structure, with the end part widely open for heat to escape upwards. Do not miss the now traditional dual BIOS, a switch that allows you to switch between Performance and Silent firmware, which set slightly different fan profiles. The inevitable technology completes the picture Aura Sync for the management and synchronization of the ARGB LED lighting, present on the board on the side, with the logo and a stripe.
And the frequencies? The default overclock is 2595 MHz (Boost Clock)while using the ASUS GPU Tweak III software you can set the OC mode at 2625 MHz. The default frequency of the RTX 4080 FE in Boost Clock is equal to 2510 MHz, so we are faced with an increment of 85 or 115 MHz depending on the mode.
Test setup
We carried out the tests on a new platform based on the ASUS ROG Crosshair X670E Hero motherboard, 32 GB of G.Skill Trident Z5 DDR5-6000 (30-38-38-38-96) memory and an AMD Ryzen 9 7950X processor with 16 cores and 32 threads.
All the cards you will see in the graphs have been tested with Resizable BAR active. For previous generation NVIDIA GPUs we used the 516.94 drivers, for the RTX 4090 the drivers supplied by NVIDIA to the press numbered as 521.90, while for the RTX 4080 the compatible drivers 526.72.
For AMD Radeon GPUs, we used Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition 22.9.2 drivers. All NVIDIA GPUs are Founders Edition models; in AMD’s case, the Radeon RX 6950 XT card is a Gigabyte GAMING OC while the other models are reference cards.
Performance ASUS TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 4080 OC Edition
Since the purpose of the article is to evaluate the value of the ASUS proposal compared to what we saw with the Founders Edition of NVIDIA, we have only performed a part of the tests carried out in our main review, to which we refer you if you are interested in seeing how does the RTX 4080 behave in different usage scenarios or would you like to delve into some of the new features such as DLSS 3. In this case, we simply offer you the comparison with the gaming suite without ray tracing or active upscaling technologies.
Differences of a few frames between the Founders Edition and TUF Gaming from ASUS, with un boost up to 3% for this custom project. The RTX 4080 reconfirms itself as a card that, performance-wise, is very fast even without drawing on DLSS 3 where available. However, it must be emphasized that the gap with the RTX 4090 is decidedly marked, which leaves room for NVIDIA to place a card (if not two) in the middle. Let’s move on to the most interesting part in the comparison between FE and custom, namely the cooling.
Frequencies, consumption, temperatures and noise
In terms of GPU clock frequencies, on a par with other custom models, the slight factory OC leads to slightly higher operating frequencies and the slightly better performance we saw in testing. With the Founders Edition the clock is just over 2700 MHz in Metro Exodus EE in 4K Ultra, while the ASUS TUF Gaming has exceeded the 2800MHz.
Moving on to temperatureswe observe how are practically identical, with the ASUS TUF filing a little bit stopping one grade below NVIDIA’s reference solution. The cooler of the Founders Edition already does a great job, also because it is the same as the RTX 4090 and has to manage much lower technical specifications. The same can be said for that of the ASUS model.
The fans of the ASUS TUF Gaming RTX 4080 OC shouldn’t spin too fast to manage the load and the heat produced by the card: they reach around 1150 RPM, with a low noise level measured in around 44dB with an ambient noise of about 39 dB. In short, heats up and makes slightly less noise than the Founders Edition.
If the GeForce RTX 4080 FE hovers around 310W during the test with Metro Exodus EE, the TUF Gaming rises to around 320W with peaks of 325W by virtue of the higher clock frequencies. Finally, while overclocking isn’t an exact science and the headroom varies from chip to chip, we were able to get the GPUs to run stably at 150MHz more than the factory OC, i.e. 2355 / 2745MHz, with memory at 1494 MHz (+750 MHz), or 23.9 Gbps.
Conclusions
The ASUS TUF Gaming RTX 4080 OC Edition is a lady card in terms of design. ASUS, from this point of view, continues to do a more than excellent job, as we had also seen with the last generation. In this sense, it must be said that the margin for improvement with this generation is narrower in terms of cooling, also due to NVIDIA’s choice to leave the 4090 FE heatsink on the 4080 as well.
At the same time, we can only put the size among the “cons” of this model, but it is a “problem” of all RTX 4080s: therefore consider the space in your case carefully if you want to buy NVIDIA’s new proposal.
Another aspect, over which ASUS has relative control, however, is the price. At the moment the RTX 4080 has a starting price of 1429 euros (reduced in recent days), certainly not low but we have already expressed ourselves on this: waiting to try the AMD counterparts (7900 XTX and XT), the 4080 is positioned on levels similar to today’s RTX 3090 Ti but leaves it behind and consumes less.
As always, however, each of us may have a very respectable different opinion. Like you, we also want generally lower prices, and perhaps that will be the case if the competition becomes formidable for NVIDIA. If not, everything will be in the hands of NVIDIA and its business decisions.
Of course, ASUS has some margin on the price and could file something compared to the 1650-1700 euros to which this TUF Gaming offers, to be seen today as its entry offer to the RTX 4080 project: 1500 euros for the non-OC version and 1550-1580 euros for the OC Edition would have been more sensible in our opinion. At the same time, however, it should not be forgotten that we are talking about a lot of money, and usually spending it certainly doesn’t struggle to come up with an extra 100 euros.
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