Packaging

The Card

The 12 GB ASUS RTX 3080 STRIX OC looks identical to its RTX 3080 Ti STRIX and RTX 3090 STRIX siblings—these are all super-sexy designs. On the back, you'll find a metal backplate designed for some through-airflow.


Dimensions of the card are 32.5 x 14.5 cm, and it weighs 1783 g.


Installation requires three slots in your system.


Display connectivity options include two HDMI 2.0 and three DisplayPort 1.4 ports.


The card has three 8-pin power inputs. This configuration is rated for up to 525 W of power draw.


Two fan headers near the back of the card can be used to connect case fans to the graphics card. These fans will now run in sync with the graphics card fans—stopped when idle and at increasing speed depending on the GPU temperature. Since the graphics card is the primary heat source in most computers, this makes a lot of sense and keeps noise levels down.


The GeForce RTX 3080 does not support SLI. Here, you see the BIOS switch, which lets you toggle between the default (Performance) BIOS and "quiet" BIOS that runs the fans quieter, at slower speeds with higher temperature.

Teardown

ASUS designed a huge heatsink, which does a great job keeping the card cool. Seven heatpipes quickly move any heat away from the GPU core and to a large array of fins, where it is dissipated in the airflow of the three fans. This is the same cooler as on the ASUS GeForce RTX 3090 STRIX OC.


Once the main heatsink is removed, a metal reinforcement frame becomes visible. It prevents sagging and provides some extra cooling for the VRMs.


The backplate is one of the thickest I ever had in my hands and protects the card against damage during installation and handling. There are also several thermal pads, which reduce temperatures a little bit.