The NVIDIA RTX 3080 GPU is one for the record books, with its $699 MSRP enticing gamers to splurge. It also came during a turbulent time of the great GPU shortage, causing its street price to sky rocket. This likely means we also have many gamers still using this fantastic graphics card in 2023, due to its still powerful performance. There have also been performance issues over time, especially tied to its cooling potential and thermal pads.
There's something new that may concern owners, however. Recently QuaserZone published a report that they've found something very odd in the vapor chamber of the NVIDIA RTX 3080. The more expensive NVIDIA A6000 was also found susceptible to this "cracking", leading to high hot-spot GPU temperatures.
Yeah, that's blue, and in this GPU! Image Credit: QuaserZone
RTX 3080 and RTX 3090 owners are no strangers to toasty GPU hot-spots. Some models seem to have come with inadequate thermal pad installations, causing the GPU VRAM to be particularly taxed. Cryptominers found this out the fastest, as games don't typically use VRAM nearly as much as crypto-mining. This led many users to replace their thermal paste and pads, with some notable improvements.
What is going on with this particular RTX 3080 and A6000 in the report, however? There may be some unwanted chemical reactions occurring, deforming the cooler and introducing "copper oxide." When the coolers for the RTX 3080 are properly functioning, the vapor chamber design works brilliantly to keep temperatures in check. When issues arise, such as these, everything quickly begins to deteriorate.
A6000 Vapor chamber issue Image Credit: QuasarZoneIf holes develop in the vapor chamber, the introduction of oxygen is certainly bad news for the integrity of the design. The big question here is: Should RTX 3080 or A6000 owners be worried that this might happen to their GPU?
You should not worry just yet; it is likely a more isolated instance that has caused this. Operation is often dependent on environment temperatures, humidity in the air, and numerous other factors. These all play a role in how the hardware will react. Drier climates will be much different than humid or tropical ones, which may be more prone for certain defects to develop.
There have also been a large number of RTX 3080s on the market in recent years, and very little reports of other instances that this happened in a similar fashion. If you're worried, the best thing to do is to keep checking GPU temperatures with monitoring software, especially the GPU hot spot and VRAM. If you notice above normal numbers, or if your GPU fans spin up needlessly, you may want to take a look. Remember that thermal pads and thermal paste may also cause similar symptoms, so you might want to check that first while you look for any other potential chemical reactions occurring.
