Right in time for Computex, NVIDIA had great news to share: the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti is launching—reviews today, in stores tomorrow. We have a total of six GeForce RTX 3080 Ti reviews today: ASUS RTX 3080 Ti STRIX LC, EVGA RTX 3080 Ti FTW3 Ultra, MSI RTX 3080 Ti Suprim X, Palit RTX 3080 Ti Gaming Pro, NVIDIA RTX 3080 Ti Founders Edition, and Zotac RTX 3080 Ti AMP HoloBlack.

The GeForce RTX 3080 has been a huge success NVIDIA sought to +1—partly because AMD has launched extremely competitive cards in the meantime, partly to introduce their hash-rate limiter designed to make new GeForce cards unattractive to miners. The Radeon RX 6800 XT matched the 3080, which the RX 6900 XT beat. That's why NVIDIA has increased the number of cores by 17%, from 8,704 to 10,240. At the same time, the memory bus width got bumped to 384-bit, matching the RTX 3090. VRAM has also been increased from 10 GB to 12 GB, a good PR move of little effect on real-life gaming. Palit isn't including a factory overclock with their GamingPro, but there is no price increase either.

Averaged over our 22-game-strong test suite at 4K resolution, the Palit RTX 3080 Ti matches the NVIDIA Founders Edition almost exactly. There are some small differences in games due to the different thermal profile, which affects boost clocks, and there's margin of error in our performance tests, of course. Overall, the Palit GamingPro ends up 1% behind the FE, which is still damn close to the RTX 3090—just 2% slower. Compared to the RTX 3080, the performance uplift is 9%. AMD's Radeon RX 6800 XT is beat by 11%, and even the RX 6900 XT can't keep up, being 4% slower. Against last generation's RTX 2080 Ti, the performance uplift is 45%.

With those performance numbers, RTX 3080 Ti is the perfect choice for 4K gaming at 60 FPS and above. It's probably the only resolution you should consider for this beast because some titles are CPU limited even at 1440p—for 1080p, it's definitely overkill. On the other hand, if you have a strong CPU and 1440p high-refresh-rate monitor, the 3080 Ti could be an option. The added performance of RTX the 3080 Ti will also give you more headroom in case future game titles significantly increase their hardware requirements, which seems unlikely considering the new consoles are out and their hardware specifications will define what's possible for the next few years.

Raytracing performance does not surprise, with the RTX 3080 Ti basically 10% faster than the RTX 3080 and nearly as fast as the RTX 3090. The underlying reason is that there has been no change in the GPU chip or GPU architecture. Still, compared to AMD Radeon RDNA 2, NVIDIA's raytracing performance is better. The new game consoles use AMD graphics tech, though, so we'll see how much of that can be helped with optimization, or simply choosing less demanding RT implementations. For example, Resident Evil Village has support for raytracing, but uses only very limited RT effects, which cushions the performance penalty incurred by Radeon cards. I'm sure we'll learn more about it in the coming months if this trend persists, or whether the only option for serious raytracing will continue to be NVIDIA GeForce.

Palit's GamingPro thermal solution is a cost-optimized design that still have enough cooling power to handle the heat output of the RTX 3080 Ti GPU. Keep in mind that this card is designed to match the NVIDIA MSRP, which means it has to be built in a cost-effective way. Palit definitely achieved that. The PCB design makes use of cost-optimized VRM components without compromising on anything. Power consumption and efficiency match the Founders Edition almost exactly. GPU temperature during heavy gaming ended up at 86°C, nearly the same as the 85°C we measured on the FE. What's interesting is that memory temperature is only 88°C, while the NVIDIA card reached 99°C. Noise levels can be considered equal (39.3 dBA vs. 40.5 dBA). With Ampere, NVIDIA introduced idle fan stop on their Founders Edition, which makes fan stop a mandatory capability for custom designs, too. In idle, during desktop work, internet browsing, and light gaming, the Palit RTX 3080 Ti GamingPro will turn off its fans completely for the perfect noise-free experience.

Palit has not increased the power limit of their card; it's still at 350 W. While this helps energy with efficiency, it does cost some performance, which can still be a reasonable trade-off for many and is not unreasonable for a "MSRP" card. What won't appeal to anyone is that Palit has set their manual adjustment power limit to 365 W, which is lower than even the NVIDIA Founders Edition limit of 400 W, and the lowest value seen in reviews today. It's even 5 W lower than the RTX 3080 non-Ti FE power limit.

Palit let us know that they are targeting the NVIDIA MSRP with their RTX 3080 Ti GamingPro—no price increase. NVIDIA has announced a $1200 price point for the RTX 3080 Ti, which matches the RTX 2080 Ti MSRP. In reality, I doubt we'll see cards retail for anything close to that. To put things into perspective, the RTX 3090 goes for $2900 right now, RTX 3080 for $1500, RX 6800 XT for $1700, and RX 6900 XT for $2100. NVIDIA let us know that the RTX 3080 Ti comes with the LHR (low-hash-rate) mining performance limiter, which hopefully won't be circumvented this time so that at least gamers can get those cards. For pricing, it won't make much of a difference, though. General market demand is simply too high and supply too low.

I really like this card, mostly because it will certainly end up being one of the most affordable RTX 3080 Ti cards out there even after scalpers snatch up everything. This makes it an excellent choice if you're trying to avoid overpaying—let others pay $3000 for the pimped out RTX 3080 Ti custom designs. Their price/performance ratio won't be anywhere close to what you'll achieve with a lower-priced 3080 Ti. The RTX 3080 at $1500 is still a very compelling alternative to a $2000 RTX 3080 Ti; the break-even point for price/performance would be 10%, so $1725. Against the Radeon RX 6900 XT, $2100 currently, the RTX 3080 Ti will be the better choice because it offers better overall performance and better RT, albeit with higher power draw. Last but not least, possibly the strongest competition for GeForce and the PC gaming market overall comes from game consoles, which can be found for well under $1000 and will play all the new games as well, although perhaps with slightly worse graphics, but the money saved can buy you a 4K TV and a lot of games.