EVGA Releases Optional BIOS Update for RTX 3080 FTW3 ULTRA - XOC 450 W

[Raevenlord]

EVGA has just released a shocking update for their RTX 3080 FTW3 Ultra graphics card, which increases the cards' power limit to 450 W, a 50 W increase over the 400 W power limit the card ships with. The BIOS release doesn't, however, guarantee higher performance - as always, NVIDIA's Boost is affected by temperatures (which are, in turn, affected by the chips' power draw). What this power limit increase does mean is that users who want to embark in overclocking feats can now do so with more ease.

The EVGA RTX 3080 FTW3 ULTRA thus joins ASUS' ROG STRIX OC in their upper power limits; NVIDIA's RTX 3080 cards are usually capped at 320 W or 340 W, due to power efficiency and temperature concerns. EVGA's FTW3 Ultra features three 8-pin connectors to allow for this amount of power to be delivered to the boards' circuits. Look after the break for the rundown on this BIOS availability by EVGA's own Jacob Freeman. The original post on EVGA's forums is available via the source link. After you do update the BIOS (if you choose to do it), you can use TechPowerUp's GPU-Z application to verify the changes to your cards' power limit.

Due to many users request, have a new BETA BIOS that increases the maximum Power Target. This BIOS is only intended for the extreme overclocking user and does not have any other changes. Please note the following:

This update will increase the power consumption while overclocking, and is recommended you have adequate cooling and power (850w+ Gold minimum) when using this.
EVGA does not guarantee any performance increase or overclock while using this BIOS update.
Any other questions or concerns will be answered in this forum thread only. Please post below your results and feedback!

BIOS Instructions (Windows Installation):

Download the correct.zip file below for your graphics card below.
Extract the files to a location on disk.
Make sure no programs are running in the background, and double click Update.exe
Press "Y" to begin the update.
DO NOT TURN OFF POWER OR RESET DURING THE UPDATE PROCESS!
After update, restart PC.
EVGA GeForce RTX 3080 FTW3 ULTRA

EVGA GeForce RTX 3080 FTW3 ULTRA - BIOS 1 (Normal) |BIOS 2 (OC)
NOTE: There are 2 BIOS's, one is for the BIOS when switched to the normal stock position, the other if switched to the OC position

View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[Dux]

Wow! Nice performance boost on those RTX3080 cards if you're coming from 2080. But that TDP is just......catastrophic. No wonder Jensen is taking out those Ampere cards out of the oven during reveal. 1,9X performance per Watt? More like Jensen upgraded to 1,9X the bullshit coming out of his mouth compared to RTX 2000. And even then he said a lot of performance bullshit during reveal.
If AMD manages to get to or close to RTX 3080 performance with lower TDP, more VRAM,lower price and better availability, they're gonna do to Nvidia what they did to intel.

 

[South662]

Do I need to flick the switch to the BIOS that I want it to install before installing, or will it install to the BIOS that it has booted to.
Cos I installed it with the switch set to the normal BIOS and after I installed it, my normal BIOS has now 450w power limit lol.

 

[AnarchoPrimitiv]

Perhaps I'm misremembering, but it seemed like Nvidia used to celebrate its efficiency... Will Nvidia now replace AMD in all the "burn down your house" jokes and memes that AMD has been the butt of since the 290 series?

 

[Dux]

Perhaps I'm misremembering, but it seemed like Nvidia used to celebrate its efficiency... Will Nvidia now replace AMD in all the "burn down your house" jokes and memes that AMD has been the butt of since the 290 series?

Nvidia still celebrates their efficiency. The fact it's all BS is another story. IF RTX 3080 had TDP of 500W, they would still say how power efficient it was. I remember when GTX 480 was source of jokes. People were making videos of frying eggs on it. And that GPU was 40nm with TDP of 250W. Now you have 8nm and up to 450W with this Evga card.

 

[EarthDog]

This is great news for the overclocker! I like that EVGA has done this.

 

[InVasMani]

The default TDP is as high as my Seasonic PSU's entire wattage. Suffice to say I won't be getting a RTX3080 now or later.

 

[ThrashZone]

Hi,
Seems like a good thing to me
I'll likely pass hard on the 3090 seeing it's price is just way too much for a gpu 1500-2000.us for lowest to big dog

3080 super duper or 3080ti with more vmem would be the ticket and likely 1k.us range.

 

[ratirt]

I wonder how far can you push the clocks with the power limit 450W. If it is a minor OC I don't think it is worth it but I would need to see how the OC goes. On the other subject, 450W that's a massive power consumption.

 

[Jism]

I wonder how far can you push the clocks with the power limit 450W. If it is a minor OC I don't think it is worth it but I would need to see how the OC goes. On the other subject, 450W that's a massive power consumption.

Yep; 50w is really not much considering the card has a default 400W and stock cards 350W. It just depends on the workload or bench your throwing at it. In heavy tasks it can only go up 15Mhz and in light tasks it could go up to 50Mhz. It's time for a ludacris bios switch, by default up to 750W for those who know what they do.

 

[ThrashZone]

Hi,
Depends on cooling.

 

[medi01]

If AMD manages to get to or close to RTX 3080 performance with lower TDP, more VRAM,lower price and better availability

I wouldn't go lower price, if were Lisa and the rest of the "if"s would be true.

You do not wage price wars with something that isn't even available.

 

[ratirt]

Yep; 50w is really not much considering the card has a default 400W and stock cards 350W. It just depends on the workload or bench your throwing at it. In heavy tasks it can only go up 15Mhz and in light tasks it could go up to 50Mhz. It's time for a ludacris bios switch, by default up to 750W for those who know what they do.

Sure 50w up isn't much but the 400W is still a lot anyway. With this wattage going up the 750W seems not ridiculous at all. On the other hand ....

 

[AusWolf]

I couldn't help myself and ran some calculations.

The Ampere announcement stated a 1.9x perf/W compared to Turing. If that was true...

• Let's say the 2080 Ti can deliver 100% performance with a TDP of 250 Watts.
• In that case, the 3080 can deliver 190% performance with the same 250 W TDP.
• The 3080 actually has a TDP of 350 W, which is 1.4x higher than the 2080 Ti's 250 W.
• Based on these data, the 3080's performance should be 1.4 x 1.9 = 266% compared to the 2080 Ti without any mods or overclocking.
• The modified 450 W TDP is 1.8x higher than the 2080 Ti's 250 W.
• After similar calculations, the 3080 can potentially deliver 342% the performance of the 2080 Ti with this mod, and the right overclock.

Are any of the above statements true? No. Load of bollocks.

 

[Dux]

I couldn't help myself and ran some calculations.

The Ampere announcement stated a 1.9x perf/W compared to Turing. If that was true...

• Let's say the 2080 Ti can deliver 100% performance with a TDP of 250 Watts.
• In that case, the 3080 can deliver 190% performance with the same 250 W TDP.
• The 3080 actually has a TDP of 350 W, which is 1.4x higher than the 2080 Ti's 250 W.
• Based on these data, the 3080's performance should be 1.4 x 1.9 = 266% compared to the 2080 Ti without any mods or overclocking.
• The modified 450 W TDP is 1.8x higher than the 2080 Ti's 250 W.
• After similar calculations, the 3080 can potentially deliver 342% the performance of the 2080 Ti with this mod, and the right overclock.

Are any of the above statements true? No. Load of bollocks.

View attachment 171886

Well actually, Nvidia is comparing RTX 3080 to RTX 2080. And it does offer a big performance boost. But still that 1,9X performance per watt is BS. Because RTX 2080 =220W TDP and RTX 3080 = 320W TDP.

 

[AusWolf]

Well actually, Nvidia is comparing RTX 3080 to RTX 2080. And it does offer a big performance boost. But still that 1,9X performance per watt is BS. Because RTX 2080 =220W TDP and RTX 3080 = 320W TDP.

Well yes. Doing the same calculations with the 2080, one would conclude that the 3080 is 2.82x faster, but in fact it's not.

 

[BluesFanUK]

Haha!!!! Nvidia are the new AMD.

 

[Deleted member 177333]

Fantastic move by EVGA.

 

[Zach_01]

This vBIOS must be ment for liquid nitrogen benchmarking... It doesnt make sense with normal air coolers.

Best case senario for Ampere is 4K. There it has a x1.2~1.3 perf/watt gains over Turing. When you drop to 1440p the gains are like x1.05 over Turing.
As many are saying it does not scale well across resolutions and even in 4K the perf/watt its not that impresive over Turing.

 

[medi01]

• Let's say the 2080 Ti can deliver 100% performance with a TDP of 250 Watts.
• In that case, the 3080 can deliver 190% performance with the same 250 W TDP.

3080 is 20-30% faster than 2080Ti, just in case someone reads this and gets wrong impression(echoes from Huang mega lies, I guess)

 

[Zach_01]

3080 is 20-30% faster than 2080Ti, just in case someone reads this and gets wrong impression(echoes from Huang mega lies, I guess)

You didnt catch that...
He was trying to demonstrate Jensen's BS claims about x1.9 perf/watt relation with Turing 2080nonTI.

This can be a meme... "Jensen's x2"
...when in reality is x1.2

To be real, the raw performance uplift of 3080 against 2080Ti is indeed +20% for 1440p and +30% for 4K.

 

[Cheeseball]

This is good because Steve (GamersNexus), Jay (Jayz2Cents) and Paul (Paul's Hardware) just got their RTX 3090 FTW3 ULTRAs and are in a heated (literally, lol) Port Royal battle to top the overclocking leaderboard.

Do I need to flick the switch to the BIOS that I want it to install before installing, or will it install to the BIOS that it has booted to.
Cos I installed it with the switch set to the normal BIOS and after I installed it, my normal BIOS has now 450w power limit lol.
View attachment 171848

You didn't need to. It would flash to whichever BIOS was active at the time you ran the tool.

You should've made a backup first using the new GPU-Z version though LOL

 

[Prima.Vera]

Released a Bios update to a card which is not available anywhere except to selected few, lol.

 

[AusWolf]

You didnt catch that...
He was trying to demonstrate Jensen's BS claims about x1.9 perf/watt relation with Turing 2080nonTI.

This can be a meme... "Jensen's x2"
...when in reality is x1.2

To be real, the raw performance uplift of 3080 against 2080Ti is indeed +20% for 1440p and +30% for 4K.

Exactly. The thing is that the raw performance uplift comes with a TDP uplift of ~equal measure, so I can't really see any perf/W increase at all.

When they announced the prices and everybody started panic selling their 2080 Ti's, I had a feeling that there was a reason behind it. Nvidia has never been famous for bringing good value propositions in the higher market segments - don't get me wrong, people, they're good cards, just not as good as Jensen claimed in the announcement. It also puzzles me how they managed to achieve a 30% performance uplift with ~double the cuda cores.

 

[InVasMani]

Exactly. The thing is that the raw performance uplift comes with a TDP uplift of ~equal measure, so I can't really see any perf/W increase at all.

When they announced the prices and everybody started panic selling their 2080 Ti's, I had a feeling that there was a reason behind it. Nvidia has never been famous for bringing good value propositions in the higher market segments - don't get me wrong, people, they're good cards, just not as good as Jensen claimed in the announcement. It also puzzles me how they managed to achieve a 30% performance uplift with ~double the cuda cores.

Cuda core count alone doesn't reflect a linear gain in performance. They still have power and TDP to take into account and more Cuda cores will result in more power and heat though how much depends on the node design as well.