EVGA Releases Beta BIOS For RTX 3080 FTW3 Ultra: Increases Power Limit to 450W

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Unleash the power!!!

(Image credit: EVGA)

The RTX 3080 gets some serious juice with an all-new BIOS from EVGA for its RTX 3080 FTW3 Ultra (via Videocardz). This new (beta) BIOS extends the FTW3 Ultra's power limit significantly from 400W to a whopping 450W. Turning this SKU into one of the highest power consuming RTX 3080 cards we've seen.

However, EVGA warns users that this BIOS is targeted towards extreme overclocking and nothing more. So if you're the majority of people gaming on this card, EVGA says there is very little benefit in upgrading. Plus it's a beta BIOS, so there's a chance you could encounter instability while using it.

This BIOS will be much appreciated among extreme overclockers, Ampere's strict power limits have become a nightmare for achieving world record benchmarking scores. Especially for users equipped with liquid nitrogen where cooling is no longer the bottleneck for achieving higher clock speeds.

EVGA has updated its PSU requirements for the beta BIOS, specifying you should be using an 850W (or higher) Gold certified PSU to handle the extra power demand.

If you have an RTX 3080 FTW3 Ultra graphics card, you can download the new BIOS from the EVGA forum post by @EVGA_JacobF.

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Aaron Klotz
Aaron Klotz
Contributing Writer

Aaron Klotz is a contributing writer for Tom’s Hardware, covering news related to computer hardware such as CPUs, and graphics cards.

10 Comments Comment from the forums
  • g-unit1111
    Man I have an EVGA P2 850W and even that I think isn''t going to be enough for this card. I'm already looking at 1KW PSUs because this is the card that I'm planning on purchasing in a few months. Wow.
    Reply
  • Phaaze88
    :whistle:
    Hot-diggity! That's a lot of power!

    Randon mention: Msi's 2080Ti Gaming X Trio has a bios that raises the power limit to 406w...

    Should expect some threads on the FTW3 with black screens and restarts - and the user will fail to mention that they updated the Vbios...
    Reply
  • logainofhades
    g-unit1111 said:
    Man I have an EVGA P2 850W and even that I think isn''t going to be enough for this card. I'm already looking at 1KW PSUs because this is the card that I'm planning on purchasing in a few months. Wow.

    You do not need more, unless you intend to run this bios, that's not meant for gaming.
    Reply
  • PillowOfWinds
    A few people already did this (unofficially) by flashing the Strix BIOS, which was already unlocked to 450W:
    nvidia/comments/j6vgzhView: https://www.reddit.com/r/nvidia/comments/j6vgzh/rtx_3080_flashing_the_strix_bios_fully_unlocks_3x/
    Reply
  • g-unit1111
    logainofhades said:
    You do not need more, unless you intend to run this bios, that's not meant for gaming.

    There's no way I would attempt that, extreme overclocking definitely isn't my thing. I do overclock but I want enough so that I get the most bang for my dollar, but there's no way I would ever test the limits of my hardware.
    Reply
  • g-unit1111
    logainofhades said:
    You do not need more, unless you intend to run this bios, that's not meant for gaming.

    If I am spending $800 on a GPU, last thing I want to do is fry it, LOL .
    Reply
  • logainofhades
    g-unit1111 said:
    If I am spending $800 on a GPU, last thing I want to do is fry it, LOL .

    Then you better stop playing Mindsweeper so much. You might kill your card. :kaola:
    Reply
  • imnotagamer007
    What counts as "extreme" overclocking?
    Reply
  • Phaaze88
    imnotagamer007 said:
    What counts as "extreme" overclocking?
    I figured that meant LN2 OC, but perhaps that's not the case.
    Reply
  • helper800
    People saying that this BIOS is not for gaming, that it is for only for "extreme overclocking," or that it will fry their card dont seem to know how this works. If you get this BIOS and set the power limit to 118%, which I did, and then never touch the GPU clock or mem clock you will likely see a performance increase because the cards are so power limited for the boosting algorithm. This is free performance at the cost of minor heat increases. This BIOS allows my card to boost up to 2125mghz at 118% power limit vs 2010mghz at 105% power limit (stock OC BIOS). The only downside is that my card runs at 68-74c instead of 58-64c. Even if I were to OC it with this BIOS on the air cooler the cost-benefit would be balancing the added heat caused by gpu clock and mem clock increases due to it being able to get there with the added power. Also the card will basically never "fry itself" with this BIOS because the card will throttle itself long before it gets hot enough to do so.

    100% power limit:

    UserBenchmarks: Game 172%, Desk 98%, Work 196%CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 3900X - 91.6%GPU: Nvidia RTX 3080 - 188.7%SSD: Samsung 970 Evo Plus NVMe PCIe M.2 1TB - 306.6%RAM: G.SKILL Ripjaws V DDR4 3200 C16 2x16GB - 108.2%MBD: Asus ROG STRIX X570-F GAMING

    Vs 118% power limit:

    UserBenchmarks: Game 182%, Desk 98%, Work 208%CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 3900X - 92%GPU: Nvidia RTX 3080 - 199.3%SSD: Samsung 970 Evo Plus NVMe PCIe M.2 1TB - 352.2%RAM: G.SKILL Ripjaws V DDR4 3200 C16 2x16GB - 110%MBD: Asus ROG STRIX X570-F GAMING
    Vs 118% power limit +180 core +1050 mem:

    UserBenchmarks: Game 188%, Desk 99%, Work 216%CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 3900X - 92.9%GPU: Nvidia RTX 3080 - 204.7%SSD: Samsung 970 Evo Plus NVMe PCIe M.2 1TB - 350.2%RAM: G.SKILL Ripjaws V DDR4 3200 C16 2x16GB - 110.9%MBD: Asus ROG STRIX X570-F GAMING
    Reply