Tom's Hardware Verdict
Liquid cooling and a colorful light show combine to create an extreme enthusiast-grade RTX 3080 Ti that surpasses all of the other GPUs we've tested so far. But at this price you wonder why there’s no ROG Strix LC RTX 3090.
Pros
- +
+ High out-of-box clocks
- +
+ Excellent cooling and performance
- +
+ Attractive design with lots of RGB
Cons
- -
'Only' 12GB VRAM
- -
No memory OC at stock
- -
Requires a very spacious case
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The Asus ROG Strix LC RTX 3080 Ti sets a new record for out-of-box performance, no doubt helped along by the copious RGB lighting — you all know RGB makes your PC parts go faster, right? Despite having just half the VRAM of the RTX 3090, a healthy factory overclock combined with excellent cooling make this the fastest graphics card we've ever tested, at least until the next heavily factory overclocked card shows up. This would potentially be one of the best graphics cards you could buy right now, if you could actually go out and buy it.
The formula for breaking records isn't much of a secret: deliver more power and better cooling to the GPU, allowing for higher clock speeds. That's precisely what Asus has done with the ROG Strix LC line. We've seen the same core design before, in the ROG Strix LC RX 6800 XT specifically, but the RTX 3080 Ti model has to kick things up a notch. Asus added a third 8-pin PEG power connector, giving a total theoretical maximum power delivery of 525W. Here are the specs, compared to the other RTX 3080 Ti cards we've reviewed:
| Graphics Card | RTX 3080 Ti Asus | RTX 3080 Ti | RTX 3080 Ti Zotac |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPU | GA102 | GA102 | GA102 |
| Process Technology | Samsung 8N | Samsung 8N | Samsung 8N |
| Transistors (Billion) | 28.3 | 28.3 | 28.3 |
| Die size (mm^2) | 628.4 | 628.4 | 628.4 |
| SMs / CUs | 80 | 80 | 80 |
| GPU Cores | 10240 | 10240 | 10240 |
| Tensor Cores | 320 | 320 | 320 |
| RT Cores | 80 | 80 | 80 |
| Boost Clock (MHz) | 1860 (OC mode), 1830 (Gaming mode) | 1665 | 1710 |
| VRAM Speed (Gbps) | 19 | 19 | 19 |
| VRAM (GB) | 12 | 12 | 12 |
| VRAM Bus Width | 384 | 384 | 384 |
| ROPs | 112 | 112 | 112 |
| TMUs | 320 | 320 | 320 |
| TFLOPS FP32 (Boost) | 38.1 | 34.1 | 35 |
| TFLOPS FP16 (Tensor) | 152 (305) | 136 (273) | 140 (280) |
| Bandwidth (GBps) | 912 | 912 | 912 |
| TDP (watts) | 380? | 350 | 350 |
Fundamentally, these are all the same GPU, so the only real difference is in clock speeds and power. Asus doesn't specify a card TGP, but does recommend at least an 850W power supply. Based on our testing, which we'll get to later, we've listed an approximate TDP of 380W. Enabling the OC mode increased the power limit by an additional 10%, meaning the card could potentially draw as much as 420W, but in practice other limits (like clock speed) come into play, which we'll see in the power testing on page four.
Besides increasing the clocks, Asus provides some other extras. For example, you get two HDMI 2.1 ports, along with the usual gamut of three DisplayPort 1.4 outputs. While DisplayPort generally remains the preferred solution among gamers for the time being, HDMI 2.1 technically allows for higher resolutions and bandwidths. We haven't seen any DisplayPort 2.0 hardware yet, and HDMI 2.1 provides for up to 8K 60Hz over a single cable, which should prove more than sufficient for many years to come.
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