Perhaps with the continuous climb in GDDR6X video memory capacity, NVIDIA launched a large-capacity version of the RTX 3080 graphics card during CES 2022 - GeForce RTX 3080 12GB. Of course, it's not just the memory capacity that's improved, but also the higher memory bandwidth and CUDA core count. In this issue, we'll get up to the GeForce RTX 3080 Obsidian MAX OC to see how it performs.
01/ Appearance disassembly
The front of the graphics card is covered with a transparent acrylic cover, and you can see the pure white smooth graphics card cover underneath. The upper cover and back panel of the Obsidian series graphics cards support private customization patterns, and players can choose the officially provided patterns or choose other different patterns according to personal preferences for customization.
On the back panel of the graphics card, the white lines and the obsidian logo are integrated into the black back panel, and the tail is unevenly distributed with hollow holes to facilitate heat dissipation. Backplane power supply external indicator, determine whether the power supply is connected, white light is normal work, red light is the connection fault.
So the GeForce RTX 3080 Has three large 90mm fans for cooling and cooling. The transparent tri-fold cream fan blades are matte and have passed aerodynamic tests to deliver smooth air flow and better heat dissipation.
In addition, under this design, when the fan blade is rotated at the broken joint, it can form a circle of circles, which is more aesthetic when the fan surface RGB lamp is activated.
The top is a metal-reinforced 8+8pin power supply interface, which comprehensively improves the insertion and removal life of the interface. There is also a 12V RGB interface, which is connected through the VRGB synchronization line, which can be synchronized with the four brands of motherboards to achieve the integration of lighting effects.
Inchi's new magic disk XTREME TUNER, which can adjust and control the operating frequency of the graphics card and the speed of the fan, as well as monitor the graphics card temperature in real time and adjust the graphics card lighting effect. Players can freely adjust the RGB LOGO light on the top of the graphics card and the fan light to synchronize the colorful lighting effect.
There is an irregular, porous, cutout three-slot bezel on the side of the graphics card to increase the air outlet area, and the triple-slot bezel can be replaced with a 2-slot bezel provided in the box to fit in different size chassis. Three regular DP 1.4 connectors and one HDMI 2.1 output are exposed on the bezel.
Next, take apart the video card and look inside.
12 layers of non-public large board PCB, heat dissipation is stronger, performance is better. There is also a 10+6+4 full 20-phase digital power supply that exceeds the public configuration to achieve stable and powerful power supply.
PCB also did a hollow design, more test of the line layout design, play a strong electrical performance at the same time, but also take into account the heat dissipation effect, air flow through the PCB hollow, can reduce the radiator wind pressure rebound effect.
The GA102-220 core uses the next-generation NVIDIA Ampere architecture, combines the new DLSS 2.3 and light-chasing technology, and has 8960 stream processors. The 12 GDDR6X high-speed video memory around the core periphery have a single capacity of 1GB and a total of 12GB of video memory, providing greater operating space.
The integrated vertical heat dissipation fin of the new generation of Xingzhuo II radiator covers the core, memory, and power supply, and comprehensively dissipates heat for the PCB. There are also 6 6mm nickel-plated composite heat pipes, which directly touch a large area of nickel-plated copper bottom, accelerate heat conduction, and effectively conduct heat dissipation.
02/ Benchmark
From the official public specifications, RTX 3080 12GB compared to RTX 3080 10GB, in addition to the memory capacity and bit width are increased to the same specifications as RTX 3080 Ti, the core part has also added 2 groups of SM units, and the frequency is consistent with RTX 3080 10GB, that is, higher than RTX 3080 Ti, so the design power consumption has reached 350W equivalent to RTX 3080 Ti.
Next is the hands-on test, the platform information is as follows:
From the GPU-Z information, it can be seen that the acceleration frequency of the Inchi GeForce RTX 3080 Obsidian MAX OC is 1755MHz, which is 45MHz higher than the public version.
In the 3DMark test, compared with the RTX 3080 RTX 10GB, the performance of the DX11 was about 10%, the performance of the DX12 was about 7%, and the performance of the light chase rendering was basically the same.
03/ Game Test
Halo: Infinity
Tested using full HD multiplayer mode, the average frame rate can reach 117.5 frames at 2K resolution. After the upgrade to 4K resolution, it can still keep the average frame of 80.3 frames running smoothly.
"Forever Destroyed"
Also in full high quality, the average 2K resolution is 137.1 frames, and the average 94.5 frames can still be reached at 4K resolution, which is smooth enough. Users with higher frame count requirements can open the game's DLSS function to achieve a 4K frame rate breaking hundred, or a high frame experience of 2K144 level.
Forza Horizon 5
In the standard Benchmark,
The GeForce RTX 3080 Star Max OC ran an average of 84 frames at 2K, a slight improvement over the RTX 3080 10GB (75.6 frames) we tested on the same platform. 66.8 frames at 4K resolution is also slightly higher than the RTX 3080 10GB 63.6 frames.
Bright Memories: Infinity
This Benchmark requires a lot of light tracking performance on graphics cards. Inchi GeForce RTX 3080 Obsidian MAX OC can ensure smooth operation under 2K extremely high light chasing quality + DLSS quality file.
At 4K resolution, at least the DLSS gear needs to be adjusted to performance, and the light tracking effect should be appropriately reduced to ensure smoothness.
Cyberpunk: 2077
Turn on the highest level of light chasing quality, and drive the same map in the game to record the number of frames. The Inchi GeForce RTX 3080 Obsidian MAX OC can be easily steered at 2K resolution, while 4K resolution requires DLSS to be pushed further to the super performance gear to be smoother.
As can be seen from the above tests, the RTX 3080 is the standard graphics card that currently runs 4K ray-traced games, and in most cases it is just enough to meet the needs of smooth operation. Ray tracing technology is actually the refraction of light generated by the light source, reflection and other light changes and the reaction to the shadow through calculation and accurate reflection into the picture, bringing people a nearly 100% reduction of light and shadow effects.
For example, in the following set of "Bright Memory: Infinite" picture comparison, the water surface using traditional raster rendering can only reflect objects in the field of view, and it is relatively blurry; while the water surface with ray tracing rendering can perfectly reflect the surrounding environment at any angle, and clouds and plants are clearly visible.
In Cyberpunk: 2077, in addition to the equally rich and realistic reflections, the role of global illumination is also more pronounced. It can be seen that after turning on ray tracing, the picture is not simply brightened as a whole, but the place near the light source is brighter, like the place in the upper left corner far from the light source is darker, and the light and shadow contrast is more immersive.
Of course, behind such a realistic picture effect also means a huge computing load, so DLSS technology also came into being. It allows games to render at 1080p resolution, increase frame rates, and then leverage AI and game engine data to deliver image quality comparable to the original 4K output.
From the following set of comparisons, it can be seen that the frame rate of using DLSS super performance at 4K resolution is more than 2 times higher than that of native 4K, and even exceeds the native 1080P, and the picture quality is still much better than the native 1080P, and the burrs on the cactus are also tiny.
At the same time, DLSS technology will continue to evolve with the driver version and game adaptation. For example, the newly upgraded DLSS2.3 can more intelligently use motion vectors to improve object detail, particle reconstruction, ghosting and time stability in motion, supporting more than 15 popular games including Cyberpunk 2077 and Paladin 7.
As an example, after Cyberpunk 2077 uses DLSS 2.3, it can be clearly seen that mobile car drag no longer appears, and the overall picture quality has also been greatly improved compared to DLSS 2.1.
In "Doom: Eternity", you can also see which fires that cross the air are no longer showing shadows, that is to say, DLSS 2.3 has done a lot of optimization on the details, even in the dynamic picture, DLSS 2.3 has a better picture performance, and there will no longer be residual shadows on the path of high-speed moving objects. So players can also get better visual effects.
04/ Thermal test
In the 20 rounds of pressure testing of Time-Spy, the Inchi GeForce RTX 3080 Star MAX OC was tested with a score of 99%.
FurMark turned on the 8x anti-aliasing grill for 30 minutes, and the Frequency of the Inchi GeForce RTX 3080 Xingyao MAX OC was stable at about 2.0GHz and the power consumption was 350W. At this time, the core temperature is 68.5 °C, the memory temperature is 80 °C, the fan speed is 1700 rpm, and the temperature and noise control are good.
The surface temperature is up to 68.8 °C, which is normal.
05/ Summary
Overall, the Inchi GeForce RTX 3080 Obsidian MAX OC has excellent performance and excellent thermal performance for 4K masterpieces, while its ability to use the white appearance of the crystal-cut shell and custom patterns also provides more possibilities for players' console design.
The RTX 3080 12GB compared to the old RTX 3080 in terms of core size and video memory have been slightly upgraded, although the actual performance is as expected, the improvement is not very significant, but as long as the price is right, larger video memory for a positioning 4K level graphics card, should be a more "future" choice.