A PC and DIY enthusiast has taken to Reddit to show off their home-modded dual-slot dual-fan GeForce RTX 4080, one of the best graphics cards. Redditor TechTaxi also shared some exciting benchmarking, power usage, and thermal test results from before and after modification for your enjoyment.
TechTaxi’s modified dual-slot dual-fan GeForce RTX 4080 design mates the Gainward 4070 Ghost OC cooling shroud with the Gainward 4080 Phoenix GS PCB, with a few modifications to fit. Specifically, a few VRM clearance distances weren’t quite right when the cooler was swapped over, so the smaller cooler had to be milled down in several strategic places (over some VRMs).
What’s the physical difference? Its official product page shows that the Gainward 4080 Phoenix GS measures 329.4 x 141.6 x 69.7 mm. In contrast, the TechTaxi modded version with the Gainward 4070 Ghost OC cooling shroud applied measures 269.1 x 131.8 x 40.1 mm. With such a significant difference in cooler dimensions and mass, one might expect a substantial detriment to essential metrics like performance, thermals, etc.
TechTaxi has produced extensive data charting before and after graphics card modifications with OC, stock, and various power limits in several benchmarks and games. You can see those tables via the Reddit source links. Still, we have mixed the before and after modification 'stock performance' results into one chart below for a better overview comparison.
| Gainward RTX 4080 | Stock | Modded Stock |
|---|---|---|
| 3DMark Time Spy Score | 28,120 | 28,105 |
|
Wattage |
310.813W |
311.549W |
|
Graphics Test 1 FPS |
188.75 FPS |
186.48 FPS |
|
GPU |
56.3 °C |
70.5 °C |
|
Memory (VRAM) |
54.0 °C |
64.0 °C |
|
GPU Hot Spot |
67.6 °C |
83.3 °C |
|
Cyberpunk 2077 - 3 Cycles |
78.88 FPS |
77.60 FPS |
|
Wattage |
286.573W |
286.430W |
|
GPU |
57.60 °C |
69.44 °C |
|
Memory (VRAM) |
57.78 °C |
63.28 °C |
|
GPU Hot Spot |
66.42 °C |
77.14 °C |
|
Average (Gaming + Synthetic) | Row 14 - Cell 1 | Row 14 - Cell 2 |
|
Wattage |
296.433W |
295.742W |
|
FPS |
212.06 FPS |
208.69 FPS |
|
GPU |
57.40 °C |
70.45 °C |
|
Memory (VRAM) |
56.23 °C |
65.23 °C |
|
GPU Hot Spot |
67.94 °C |
81.81 °C |
The most crucial thing shown was that the compact modified RTX 4080’s GPU running at ‘stock’ specs was, on average, about 13 degrees Celsius hotter under load (about 23% hotter). The actual temperature measurements of the compact modified graphics card raised no concerns either. Moreover, performance differences were within the margin of error.
Further results shared in the Reddit post give some insight into power limiting and its effect on GeForce RTX 4080 thermals and performance, but that’s another topic.
Overall, TechTaxi concludes that factory-produced RTX 4080 cards with 2-slot (and two fans) designs should be a practical possibility if AIBs were inspired to make them. Including a quiet, undervolted mode out of the box would also benefit SFF builders, reckons the Redditor.
Nvidia’s RTX 40 series has a reputation for being overly bulky. MSI introduced a new Gaming Slim series based upon this perception, but this range includes triple fans, and even the slimmest SKUs at 46mm are thicker than dual-slots (41mm).
