Finished Looks

I want to give a special thanks to EVGA for providing an RTX 2080 FTW3 Ultra to replace my old GTX 980; it was a much-needed upgrade. In addition to the new hardware and the new bench, I have changed up the cooling, going with a larger loop. The Eisbaer performed well, but the ever-increasing heat density of mainstream CPUs was pushing it to the limit.


The black and dark gunmetal theme of the ASUS ROG Crosshair VIII Impact lends itself well to a refined overall aesthetic. The colors are neutral enough to match many different component combinations, and matched particularly well with the dark gray and silver of my EVGA RTX 2080 FTW3 Ultra and the black and white brushed finish on my Team Group T-Force Xtreem memory.


The ASUS ROG Crosshair VIII Impact has a nice compliment of lighting to add an extra splash of color to the mix.


There are two zones: one along the right underside of the edge and another as part of the SO-DIMM.2 card. There are also two addressable RGB Gen 2 headers and one AURA RGB header for lighting expansion. Light diffusion is excellent for the DIMM.2 card, but absent from the bottom LED zone.

Test System