Nvidia Ampere 3 Series Cards - Feel in the hand comparisons.

[Archaea]

ASUS TUF O/C 3080 > EVGA X3 3089 in the look and feel dept.

The Asus feels heavy, beefy, high end. I'm really impressed with it. No plastic feel at all.
The EVGA X3 feels much smaller and more plastic by comparison. No backplate sorta leaves a bad taste in your mouth - just for cosmetics.

Asus packed the card with a nice thick black cardboard box with gold Asus logo, and big thick laser cut foam inside. The EVGA thin cardbox box protected a molded plastic shell. Both protect the card sufficiently, but the Asus packaging and presentation felt better too.
The Asus card is significantly larger than the X3. I had a EVGA 1080TI FTW in my case before. The EVGA X3 is significantly smaller than the 1080TI FTW, and the ASUS TUF OC is bigger - longer and taller.

The ASUS TUF OC has a bios switch on it to toggle between performance and silent. The EVGA X3 does not. Both have pretty lame RGB - just a single lighted area.

I have a completely open air case. It's the Thermaltake P3. The ASUS TUF O/C is effectively silent. In game, after 1.5 hours in CyberPunk with all settings maxed I cannot hear the Asus. Not at all unless I put my head right up to the card - inches away. All three fans just spin slow and cause no turbulence. My EVGA X3 has a low, non-obtrusive fan noise. I can hear it from my desk chair, but it is not a nuisance.

No coil whine on either card.

The EVGA X3 overclocks nicely. For crypto mining I can overclock the memory to +1467Mhz to get 102.6MHs. I haven't tried the Asus Tuf yet, but I'll update this post when I do.

 

[exlink]

ASUS TUF O/C 3080 > EVGA X3 3089 in the look and feel dept.

The Asus feels heavy, beefy, high end. I'm really impressed with it. No plastic feel at all.
The EVGA X3 feels much smaller and more plastic by comparison. No backplate sorta leaves a bad taste in your mouth - just for cosmetics.

Asus packed the card with a nice thick black cardboard box with gold Asus logo, and big thick laser cut foam inside. The EVGA thin cardbox box protected a molded plastic shell. Both protect the card sufficiently, but the Asus packaging and presentation felt better too.
The Asus card is significantly larger than the X3. I had a EVGA 1080TI FTW in my case before. The EVGA X3 is significantly smaller than the 1080TI FTW, and the ASUS TUF OC is bigger - longer and taller.

The ASUS TUF OC has a bios switch on it to toggle between performance and silent. The EVGA X3 does not. Both have pretty lame RGB - just a single lighted area.

The EVGA X3 overclocks nicely. For crypto mining I can overclock the memory to +1467Mhz to get 102.6MHs. I haven't tried the Asus Tuf yet, but I'll update this post when I do.

Had both of these cards as well. The TUF is hands down made of better quality materials (my XC3 Ultra has a backplate though). The cooler also does a better job keeping the card cool and quiet.

But the TUF I had, just like many others, was plagued with very noticeable and annoying coil whine/buzz to the point that I had to return it. The ASUS 30 series cards seem to have the most issues with coil whine than any of the other AIBs. Search Google or YouTube for 30x0 coil whine and you’ll see they are almost all ASUS cards and some FEs.

My XC3 has next to no coil whine, I have put my ear up to the card when games are at 300 FPS+ to hear a very faint buzz. Below 200 FPS there is zero coil whine which is perfect since my monitor caps out at 144. The TUF had loud coil whine at all FPS/GPU loads, it was an absolute deal breaker. My XC3 also clocks a bit better but that is just silicon lottery.

Obviously ended up keeping the XC3 over the TUF as the cooler is irrelevant to me since I’ll be putting a waterblock on. Not to mention EVGA’s customer service is top tier and ASUS customer service is hit or miss.

 

[madpistol]

If you want the best "feeling" GPU in the hand, the RTX 3080 FE or 3090 FE are the winners. Both of these GPUs feel like solid metal bricks in hand.

 

[motqalden]

Can confirm the Asus Strix model would give twisted tea a run for its money.