EVGA GeForce RTX 3080 FTW3 ULTRA HYBRID GAMING Video Card Review

[Brent_Justice]

Introduction



There are many ways to cool a video card, you have your traditional air-cooled heatsink and fan combo, and then you have your more extreme liquid or “water-cooled” methods.  The latter has many benefits, firstly it can keep the GPU much cooler than standard air-cooling, and second, it can do so quietly.  The results of this can mean more stable GPU Boost clock frequencies while gaming, and the ability to overclock without hitting any kind of thermal limits. 



Today we have such a video card to review.  The EVGA GeForce RTX 3080 FTW3 ULTRA HYBRID GAMING video card pushes the RTX 3080 GPU as far as possible, yet keeping it cool and quiet with a pre-installed all-in-one (AIO) liquid cooling configuration.  It has a custom factory boost...

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[SeymourGore]

Good review for a good GPU (which I'm biased on because I have a 3080 FTW3 Hybrid in my rig).

 

[Peter_Brosdahl]

Thanks @Brent_Justice for another awesome review. A truly impressive card. I'm constantly at ends in deciding if I want to mod, and then invest in everything it takes to get a top-end custom loop setup going but things like this make it easy for people, when they can get one. Now granted once done most parts can be reused for future upgrades but it is a bit of money and time to do so. I priced around a $1K to upgrade my Strix 3090 to full block, and all the other parts, and never committed to it.

In terms of the power limitations it's an unfortunate common design choice that I've noticed with most manufacturers to use reference, or similar, PCBs and not include a BIOS that will allow for greater adjustments. I couldn't tell you how much time I spent looking for a 3090 with a factory loop that also included one of the custom PCBs that allowed for increased power. Other than the Kingpin and FTW3 Ultra Hydro, and some mythical things from overseas, I never did find anything else. Pretty much everything I saw had the standard 2x 8-pin connectors.

However the FTW3 Hydro 3090 appears to use the same 240mm radiator as the 3080 and I have doubts if it would still perform as well as what you saw with the 3080 when fully overclocked. Really seems like they should've used a 360mm with the 3090 but can't say I've read any in-depth professional reviews like yours to examine it in-depth.

In either case I'm on the list for one of the FTW3 Ultra Hydro and who knows, maybe when the 4090s come around someone will offer one and it'll be accessible.

Bottom line though is that these 3080s look to be the cream of the crop and if someone can get at MSRP they'll be in for a treat.

 

[magoo]

I have a standard FTW3 Ultra Gaming, no doubt it is a good card.
I have a custom loop and a EKWB block on the GPU.
Even running the standard stock cooler, I had no need to overclock the GPU.
The stock cooler is very quiet. I had to really convince myself it was worth the time to put a block on.

At any rate, I think it would be interesting to run an air cooled Ultra vs this watercooled Ultra and see if there was any real advantage to paying extra for it.

 

[Peter_Brosdahl]

I have a standard FTW3 Ultra Gaming, no doubt it is a good card.
I have a custom loop and a EKWB block on the GPU.
Even running the standard stock cooler, I had no need to overclock the GPU.
The stock cooler is very quiet. I had to really convince myself it was worth the time to put a block on.

At any rate, I think it would be interesting to run an air cooled Ultra vs this watercooled Ultra and see if there was any real advantage to paying extra for it.

In reading other reviews on similar things, on other sites, generally the performance is very similar when using stock clocks. The big difference comes down to noise levels and when overlocking it.