New ASUS GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Cards Sport Hybrid Cooler With Boosted 1860MHz GPU Clock
As we noted in our GeForce RTX 3080 Ti review, NVIDIA's second best graphics card for consumers (behind only the GeForce RTX 3090) is screaming fast, and more often than not it beats AMD's flagship Radeon RX 6900 XT. But what happens when you aggressively crank the clock speed? ASUS wants to help you find out with its new ROG Strix LC GeForce RTX 3080 Ti OC Edition.
That is a mouth full for sure, but we'll forgive the ultra-long product name because of the insane boost clocks. If sticking with Gaming mode, the card will boost up to 1,830MHz, and that jumps to 1,860MHz in OC mode. So when running at full throttle, the card boosts a hefty 195MHz higher than NVIDIA's Founders Edition model.
ASUS is also offering up a regular (non-OC) edition of the ROG Strix LC variant that sticks with NVIDIA's reference boost clock in Gaming mode, and hits a 1,695MHz in OC mode, for a modest 30MHz overclock. The slight increase is probably not going to make a world of difference in most games, but hey, a free performance boost is a free performance boost, right?
What sets these cards apart from most of the competition is the hybrid cooling solution. Rather than choose between liquid cooling and air cooling, ASUS opted for both. The card itself sports a custom blower-style cooler with a single fan and lots of ASUS ROG design language on the front, and a metal backplate on the other side.
Supplementing this is an attached all-in-one liquid cooler with a 240mm radiator. A pair of 540mm tubing connects the card to the cooler, which draws coolant over a custom-designed, full-coverage cold plate that sits atop the GPU die and memory. A pair of 120mm fans with addressable RGB lighting help the rad dissipate heat that is drawn away from the GPU and GDDR6X memory chips.
Beyond the cooling, ASUS is also touting the use of high-end components.
"Top shelf capacitors, chokes, and MOSFETs are selected to effortlessly deliver hundreds of watts at a millisecond's notice," ASUS explains. "The Super Alloy Power II parts are soldered to the PCB using our advanced Auto-Extreme automated manufacturing process. Smooth joints on the rear of the PCB and the elimination of human errors ensures each graphics card meets our rigorous specifications."
Be aware that the card draws power from not two, but three 8-pin power connectors. ASUS says these cards are equipped with an onboard circuit that monitors PSU rail voltage, and if drops too low, a red LED will light up on the top LCD panel to indicate a PSU issue.
There's no mention of price or availability, but let's be real—in today's landscape, this will be another part destined for a high price tag and nearly impossible to find.
