I Bought a RTX 3080 Today!

I Bought a RTX 3080 Today!

  • Yes

    Votes: 74 10.7%
  • No

    Votes: 619 89.3%

  • Total voters
    693
Exactly. Unfortunately, I can't go back in time and queue myself up for the Ultra instead. I mean, they're the same card with different boosts programmed into the bios. I figured I'd save $20 and overclock on my own. In hindsight, that means I never get a card from EVGA.
I spent the first month looking for an XC3 Black before I realized EVGA wasn't making them.
EVGA should have only announced the Ultra models to prevent us from screwing ourselves like this.
 
I've installed an EVGA AIO on my 3080 XC3 ultra. The install wasn't that difficult, but the instructions are.. awful. The biggest PITA was removing the residue of the thermal pads on the VRMs, and sort of reconstructing it onto the original cooler in the event I need to swap back to it. The radiator is quite large, so I wasn't able to mount it on the rear of the case (as I did with my 1070ti), and since I have a large fan setup on the top of the case for the CPU, I had to mount the radiator on the bottom of the case, blowing down. There's a lot of ventilation in the case proper, so the inside is relatively cool. The instructions indicate a risk of air bubbles when mounting the radiator below the GPU, but as I can't mount it anywhere else, we'll just see how it goes.

Testing with an overclock (~340w continuous) the temperature of the GPU hovered just at 65c, with the fans at ~50% using the default fan curve. 53c with 100% fan. Using afterburner to control the fans works fine, though I wish it could stop the fans entirely. The radiator and the GPU fans follow the custom afterburner fan curve. All in all, it works well for $109.

editing this to note that fan speed reporting in afterburner is wonky, but that's the percentages I observed. I'm using beta 4 of afterburner.
 
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I've installed an EVGA AIO on my 3080 XC3 ultra. The install wasn't that difficult, but the instructions are.. awful. The biggest PITA was removing the residue of the thermal pads on the VRMs, and sort of reconstructing it onto the original cooler in the event I need to swap back to it. The radiator is quite large, so I wasn't able to mount it on the rear of the case (as I did with my 1070ti), and since I have a large fan setup on the top of the case for the CPU, I had to mount the radiator on the bottom of the case, blowing down. There's a lot of ventilation in the case proper, so the inside is relatively cool. The instructions indicate a risk of air bubbles when mounting the radiator below the GPU, but as I can't mount it anywhere else, we'll just see how it goes.

Testing with an overclock (~340w continuous) the temperature of the GPU hovered just at 65c, with the fans at ~50% using the default fan curve. 53c with 100% fan. Using afterburner to control the fans works fine, though I wish it could stop the fans entirely. The radiator and the GPU fans follow the custom afterburner fan curve. All in all, it works well for $109.

editing this to note that fan speed reporting in afterburner is wonky, but that's the percentages I observed. I'm using beta 4 of afterburner.
My factory xc3 hybrid hasn't seen more than 56c. Have the radiatior blowing out of the top of the case. Feels like a floor heater vent. If I take the mesh of the top of my case it drops a bit more. Ambient around 70.
I am in a cosmos 700p though.
 
Had totally given up getting one when I checked my email at lunch and saw this offer from Evga:

This email is being sent in response to your request to be notified with availability updates for product 10G-P5-3897-KR and this product was marked as being in stock on 12/22/2020 at 9:51 AM PST.
Please use the unique URL to complete your purchase. Due to this being a limited supply product you have 8 hours to complete your purchase from the time of receiving this email, if not complete within 8 hours of receiving this email, the product will become unavailable and you will need to enter the notify queue again.

Needless to say, I jumped on it and snagged one, although even with my $25 in EVGA bucks it still seems on the pricey side!

3080.jpg
 
Needless to say, I jumped on it and snagged one, although even with my $25 in EVGA bucks it still seems on the pricey side!
Indeed. There is too wide a variance to the same card but from 3rd party manufacturers now.. my ASUS TUF OC 3080 was $750 at Microcenter. Maybe the $60 on this model goes to the very big rainbow RGB lights at the top of the card, who knows!

Congrats! You will enjoy it when it arrives, for sure!

(love that they put "gaming" in the title of a 3080. As if they have "Office use" or CAD/Workstation editions of 3080 cards or something. Perhaps it's more for the moms/dads who buy their Husbands/children a video card as a gift and don't know which cards are gaming cards :cool:)
 
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Yes. Big drop for Ampere, Big Navi and Zen 3 around 11 AM ET.
Yeah, just saw in the other thread. I missed it since my sleep schedule is all messed up since I’m taking a week off of work. I finally crashed about an hour before they all dropped, lol!
 
I wish that Best Buy stores would at least get some cards on site and not just cancelled orders. Online shopping sucks when it comes to trying to get the latest tech items.
 
Sadly - I think its another week before I get to try again. Newegg is just a Bot playground
I've had multiple VPNs banned from Newegg for botting (Distill), even on 60 second refreshes.
I think it's actually just people snatching them up instantly with Apple Pay. Newegg uses the same restock time (7 PM EST) every day and they announce their restocks on Twitter about 10 minutes beforehand.
 
So I am in the market for the Strix 3080, without over-paying or doing so many scripts, what is my best option in trying to get one?
 
So I am in the market for the Strix 3080, without over-paying or doing so many scripts, what is my best option in trying to get one?
Best Buy is the best chance when they have a drop. Usually once every 1.5-2 weeks between 10 AM and 11:30 AM ET, but they have had random drops earlier and later than that. Best Buy is the only retailer with a checkout system that defeats most bots so you have a decent chance getting a card if you catch them right as they drop.

Otherwise, Newegg has almost nightly drops around 8 PM ET. But they sell most of their GPUs as combos with other useless crap that you can’t return separately anymore. And their checkout process appears to have little to no protection against bots so the cards sell out almost instantly.

Amazon is a crapshoot, random drops. Sometimes in the middle of the night. Little to no bot protection and sell out instantly as well.

Sign up for notifications on your Discord phone app to this Discord (Average Tech Reviews - ATR): https://discord.gg/qa8hAysy

They run notification bots that will alert you of in stock items and links to them so you can get there relatively quickly. Sometimes their notifications might be early enough to score something.
 
So I am in the market for the Strix 3080, without over-paying or doing so many scripts, what is my best option in trying to get one?
We wouldn't be talking about all these "scripts" and "bots" and methods and tips if there were other easy ways you are looking for. It's the sad reality of the GPU market right now. You have to do all these things to get a chance. If it's too much of a hassle for you (and it legit is, there's no other way of putting it), then as the above people said, forget about a higher end GPU from current to previous 1-2 gens for quite a while at least.

edit - I take it back, it seems EVGA is the most sane and normal and hassle-free way to score a card right now. It's not the Strix you're looking for, but if you want hassle-free, sign up for the EVGA queue system and just wait until they send you an email. That, or if you have a Micro Center near by, visit it daily as close to opening as you can. Otherwise, if you are in need of a mid to high end GPU right now, be prepared for a lot of... well... madness, and not a short period of madness.

(The GPU market is broken right now. No other way to put it.)
 
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We wouldn't be talking about all these "scripts" and "bots" and methods and tips if there were other easy ways you are looking for. It's the sad reality of the GPU market right now. You have to do all these things to get a chance. If it's too much of a hassle for you (and it legit is, there's no other way of putting it), then as the above people said, forget about a higher end GPU from current to previous 1-2 gens for quite a while at least.

edit - I take it back, it seems EVGA is the most sane and normal and hassle-free way to score a card right now. It's not the Strix you're looking for, but if you want hassle-free, sign up for the EVGA queue system and just wait until they send you an email. That, or if you have a Micro Center near by, visit it daily as close to opening as you can. Otherwise, if you are in need of a mid to high end GPU right now, be prepared for a lot of... well... madness, and not a short period of madness.

(The GPU market is broken right now. No other way to put it.)
I'm hitting MC Columbus at 9am.
I'm on the fence on 6800XT or 3080.
Whichever they have near MSRP I'm buying. If they have neither high end card, well their loss and Sig Sauer's gain.
 
Had totally given up getting one when I checked my email at lunch and saw this offer from Evga:

This email is being sent in response to your request to be notified with availability updates for product 10G-P5-3897-KR and this product was marked as being in stock on 12/22/2020 at 9:51 AM PST.
Please use the unique URL to complete your purchase. Due to this being a limited supply product you have 8 hours to complete your purchase from the time of receiving this email, if not complete within 8 hours of receiving this email, the product will become unavailable and you will need to enter the notify queue again.

Needless to say, I jumped on it and snagged one, although even with my $25 in EVGA bucks it still seems on the pricey side!

View attachment 311628
Aw man, grats on getting it but you forgot to use an associate code for another 5 percent off! Try contacting them and see if they'll discount you.
 
PXL_20201224_140916099.jpg


Columbus Micros Center.
No cards except a few last gen AMD.
No expected in shipment today.
One guy tells me "Hey brother, I just returned a 6800." The Microcenter guy tells me "Wait, all retuned cards are under a 4 day quarantine"
Ask the manager , same response with no exceptions. Then tells me best bet is wait till April. Like wait until 3 months before the next unobtainable card is announced?
Fuck that. I'll teach my kids something funner.
Looks like my son gets his first AR15.
 
View attachment 312347

Columbus Micros Center.
No cards except a few last gen AMD.
No expected in shipment today.
One guy tells me "Hey brother, I just returned a 6800." The Microcenter guy tells me "Wait, all retuned cards are under a 4 day quarantine"
Ask the manager , same response with no exceptions. Then tells me best bet is wait till April. Like wait until 3 months before the next unobtainable card is announced?
Fuck that. I'll teach my kids something funner.
Looks like my son gets his first AR15.
Wow, what a let down with the guy who returned the 6800... on one hand I get it, on the other I wish people were more "human" than a robot manager with no emotions. People are just so inflexible, we really are becoming like mindless robots.

It's cool at least that they have a ton of RX5700x. I was under the impression those were hard to get online for some reason.
 
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will a 3080 be able to deliver 60fps RTX enabled at 1440p with DLSS disabled?
In what? In Control it does. 60-100 FPS with all on high and RTX at 1440p DLSS off. Usually 65-70 if average it all out. Don't think it really dipped below 60. But at least in this game DLSS nearly doubles my framerates at a visual cost that's not noticeable more or less. I played the first 3-4 hours of the game with DLSS off, and now I'm playing with it on.

Don't see a need to turn it off at all when you see the frame rate and frame time boost it provides, for 90% of the original quality that you won't even notice unless you do an A/B comparison over and over :)
 
theoretically a 3060 Ti should be decent at 1440p but I always prefer native performance vs any upscaling (DLSS)...so I'm looking at the 3080 or even the upcoming 3080 Ti
I edited my post with more details. Out of curiosity, have you tried DLSS before? Because as I mentioned in my post, unless I screenshot and do A/B comparisons flipping the screenshot back and forth, I can't tell the difference at all, especially not when you're actually playing the game. If you definitely notice a difference that's a different story I guess. But yes, 3080 does a bit more than 60 fps at those settings, at least in this RT game. (y)
 
will a 3080 be able to deliver 60fps RTX enabled at 1440p with DLSS disabled?
To answer polonyc2's question...it depends on the game. I don't have many games that use full RTX capabilities (I know Cyberpunk 2077 does) and that game does need DLSS to get 60FPS at 1440p if you set it to Ultra with RTX enabled. The other 4 games I have played with the card (DOOM 2016, The Division 2, Anthem and Titanfall 2) either don't use RTX, DLSS (Anthem does) or they don't use either but each of them gets far more than 60 FPS. After I finish DOOM 2016 I'm going to uninstall it to make room for Devil May Cry V and then I'll play through that, DOOM Eternal, Anthem, The Division 2, Titanfall 2 and Cyberpunk 2077. Out!
 
I edited my post with more details. Out of curiosity, have you tried DLSS before? Because as I mentioned in my post, unless I screenshot and do A/B comparisons flipping the screenshot back and forth, I can't tell the difference at all, especially not when you're actually playing the game. If you definitely notice a difference that's a different story I guess. But yes, 3080 does a bit more than 60 fps at those settings, at least in this RT game. (y)
Finally. Thank you for this.
 
Houston Microcenter is routinely getting 30+ every day now. If you line up 2 hrs before open you will probably get one. Somedays they get 50+ 3080s and you can walk in right at open and get one.
 
Houston Microcenter is routinely getting 30+ every day now. If you line up 2 hrs before open you will probably get one. Somedays they get 50+ 3080s and you can walk in right at open and get one.
Closest one to me is in Georgia and I wouldn't mind traveling there if they were guaranteed to have a bunch of 3080s but it's hard to know for sure.
 
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