I managed to get my hands on a Gigabyte Aorus 3080, but honestly... I'm not sure if I really like it. The thing is that I'm not really the type of gamer/enthusiast that wants to eke out the last FPS at the cost of massive power increases. Especially since we're already talking about the high-end (i.e. usually decent enough framerates), I'm fine with "normal performance". In the past, I'd normally buy the fancier cards (ASUS Strix, etc.) because their coolers were usually better than stock, which (usually) meant better thermals and lower noise. I didn't notice a ton with this card until I was playing Last Epoch (a Diablo-style ARPG), and I ran into the dreaded power fault protection (i.e. black screens + fans at 100%). That was likely due to leaving the card on the OC BIOS (I meant to change that) and that I've
only got a 760W PSU (
Seasonic Prime Ultra Titanium). I actually ordered a larger, 1000W PSU (same type, just larger capacity) to avoid any issues in the future.
Although, after switching to the Silent mode, I haven't seen any issues yet. However, when playing Last Epoch earlier today, I noticed one sign that I recalled hearing before the screens went out last time: a rather high fan RPM. I turned on HWiNFO to find that my fans were running at about 70-80% and the GPU was in the high 70's... playing Last Epoch. (To note, I do have my frames limited in the game when in and out of focus.) I installed MSI Afterburner, and I set the power target to 90%, and it did seem to help quite a bit.
Overall, I just find the entire concept of it frustrating. Why push a card so far for so little gain? I figured that the huge heatsink on this card would lead to some nice temperatures, but the temperatures are pretty bad for how much cooling potential this
should have.