As the availability date of Nvidia's GeForce RTX 4080 approaches, makers of add-in-boards have published specifications for their devices, revealing some interesting details. For example, this week Colorful revealed the final specs of its iGame GeForce RTX 4080 16GB Neptune OC graphics card with a high-end closed loop cooling system and total graphics power capped at 'just' 380W.
Colorful's iGame GeForce RTX 4080 16GB Neptune OC carries Nvidia's AD103 graphics processor with 9728 CUDA cores paired with 16GB of 22.4 GT/s GDDR6X using a 256-bit interface. Once the out-of-box single-click overclocking feature is applied, the GPU can boost to 2640 MHz, about 5% faster than Nvidia's recommended boost clock of 2520 MHz. However, makers of add-in-boards have not yet enabled truly high clocks for Ada Lovelace architecture cards out-of-box. In any case, AD103 AIBs will likely join the ranks of the best graphics cards for gaming this year.
Colorful equips its GeForce RTX 4080 Neptune OC graphics card with a 22+4-phase voltage regulating module (VRM), potentially more advanced than the 18+3-phase power circuitry Nvidia used for its GeForce RTX 3090 as well as GeForce RTX 3090 Ti Founders Edition boards rated for 350W and 450W, respectively. With a VRM like this, overclocking potential of Colorful's GeForce RTX 4080 Neptune promises to be significant.
To ensure proper cooling of its top-of-the-line AD103-based offering, the manufacturer equips the iGame GeForce RTX 4080 Neptune OC card with its capable closed-loop cooling system that it also uses for its current range-topping iGame GeForce RTX 4090 Neptune OC card, which has a thermal graphics power of 630W, notes VideoCardz. But there is an interesting tidbit about the TGP of the iGame GeForce RTX 4080 16GB Neptune OC.
TGP of the RTX 4080 Neptune OC is capped at 380W, which is a ~19% increase over the 320W recommended by Nvidia. 380W is still an extremely high TGP (higher than AMD's Radeon RX 7900 XTX), but Colorful limiting its AD103-based offering rather conservatively is noteworthy. Perhaps, the AD103 overclocks very well even without a significant increase in power consumption, or maybe Colorful just wants to play it relatively safe with this graphics chip.
Colorful could start selling its iGame GeForce RTX 4080 16GB Neptune OC on November 16, which is when other AD103-powered boards will hit the market. The pricing of the board is unclear, but since it is a factory-overclocked product equipped with an advanced VRM and an ultra-capable cooling system, do not expect to buy it at Nvidia's MSRP of $1199.
