We’ve obtained examples of the RTX 3060 Ti, the RTX 3070, and the RTX 3080 and have spent the last two weeks running them through a suite of benchmark tests. In this article, we’ll present our results to you and conclude with some remarks as to what systems and usage cases these cards are best suited to. 

We’ve tested first-person shooters and AAA titles at 1080p, 1440p 1400p Ultrawide, and 4K. Our testing methodology differs from some other sites: We’ve chosen settings that show these games in their best light, and that’s not always ‘ultra’ across the board. We’ve tested most games here on high or a mix of high and ultra settings, allowing the GPUs to shine and giving you a better understanding of how you can expect them to perform in the real world. The settings remain consistent both within each test and across the resolutions.

From the results here, you will be able to tweak settings to obtain higher quality or higher framerates, whichever you prefer, but you can expect performance on a par with our numbers here. Where we identify a clear CPU bottleneck we’ve mentioned it (Hi Warzone!).

The test system is our Ryzen test bench with a Ryzen 7 5800X, 16GB of RAM running at 3600MHz Cl16, and a B550 motherboard.

So, let’s dig into the numbers. 

RTX 3060 Ti vs 3070 vs 3080: Synthetic Tests

3DMark

Firstly, a quick look at some synthetic benchmarks helps us verify our cards are performing correctly, and get an idea of where they stack up overall. We’re just looking at the GPU scores here. We’ve included some popular GPUs of the last generation so you can see how they compare.

Fire Strike uses DX11 which is an older API now, and we get an idea of how closely matched the GTX 1080 Ti and RX 5700XT are, and in this case the RTX 3060 Ti as well.

Time Spy uses The DX12 API and is more representative of current games, here the RTX 3060 Ti fares better but it’s clear the RTX 3080 still has a big lead.

Finally, we can take a looking ‘Port Royal’ helps us assess the relative Ray tracing capabilities of the RTX-enabled GPUs. This test uses DX12’s Ray tracing commands to render out a complex scene full of shadows, reflections, and lighting sources over and above the traditionally rasterised rendering of the core 3D scene. Despite using the last generation RTX cores the RTX 2080 Ti acquits itself well here, and there’s a fair gap between the performance of the 3060 Ti, RTX 3070, and RTX 3080 commensurate with their RTX core counts and overall rendering ability. The RTX 2060 brings up the rear, the least powerful card with RTX capabilities.

RTX 3060 Ti vs 3070 vs 3080: Gaming Benchmarks

1080p Performance

1080p FPS Gaming

Doom eternal is really well optimised and shows good scaling with GPU power, everything from the RX 5700XT up exceeding 240FPS.

In Call of Duty Warzone, on high settings, we see all the Ampere cards exceed 200FPS average but you’re not gaining a huge amount from the additional cost and power of the RTX 3080. I think we’re seeing the ceiling of the 5800X’s performance here although lows don’t suffer like the can in some titles when CPU bound. There was a hard limit of 250FPS maximum frame rate in all the Ampere GPUs.

Rainbow 6 Siege shows good 1080p scaling but even an entry-level GPU is capable of fairly insane framerates at 1080p in this game.

1080p AAA Gaming

As for the AAA Titles, In Shadow of the Tomb Raider we’re seeing all the GPUs exceed 144FPS average at 1080p with the 3080 nearing 200FPS. Of note here is that the 3070 was 78% GPU bound, and the 3080 was only 50% GPU bound: Even with a Ryzen 5800X, GPU performance is being left on the table in this title with the higher performing Ampere GPUs in this game at 1080p. 

In Red Dead Redemption 2, a more demanding title, the high settings load GPU’s even at 1080p. The 2080Ti and 3080 are the only GPUs to exceed 100FPS average, but in this title we’re really looking for a consistent 60FPS at high settings and everything from a 1080ti and 5700XT upwards is capable of that here. Like Doom eternal, the Vulkan API’s help the 5700XT perform – AMD cards respond well to this API.

1080p Flight Simulator

And finally in Flight Sim 2020, 1080p means the CPU performance is as exposed as GPU  performance, we see minor performance improvements from the higher tier cards but even the 3080 only just hits 60FPS: That’s a function of the demanding nature of this test, flying over New York City at low level. As you’d expect, at 1080p all of these GPUs perform very well and we do see utilisation drop below 100% on occasions as they wait for the CPU to process the game data. Ultra settings sees performance drop about 10FPS across the board.

1440p Performance

1440P FPS Shooters

This resolution is a much better match for these GPUs, and Doom Eternal is really well optimised letting the higher-end hardware shine. Again we see the power of the 3080 compared to the 2080 Ti, and Nvidias claims re the 3070 matching the 2080Ti ring true. Doom has a very well refined settings system: Each graphics preset adds or removes about 10FPS so you can fine-tune the game to your liking but all of these GPUs give a fluid, exciting experience at 1440p and over 100FPS, even the 1660 Super hits 90FPS average. It’s still very enjoyable but you might want to reduce settings a notch or two. 

Rainbow Six Siege shows excellent scaling with the more powerful GPUs, and the RTX 3080 really stretches its legs to deliver a 400FPS average: Even the 3060 Ti exceeds 260FPPS, and we’re well into diminishing returns since we’ve well exceeded even a fast monitors refresh rate and generally this is a title that would be played at 1080p. Note the 2060KO and below are run on a Ryzen 3600 System: That likely accounts for some of the performance difference here, but it’s not a huge difference.

Call of Duty: Warzone we still see them all exceed 144FPS average at high settings. The RTX 2080ti marginally outperforms the Ampere cards here, which could be down to it being an established card with optimised drivers whilst the Ampere cards are newer – but note they don’t scale well. An RTX 3080 isn’t getting you substantially more performance in this title over the much cheaper 3060 Ti.

1440P AAA Titles

Moving on to Triple-A titles, Red Dead Redemption can make the most powerful graphics cards sweat, and we have turned up settings here. That’s for a couple of reasons, firstly because the game should be experienced in all its glory at higher settings, and secondly, because it shows the significant break in performance between the cards that can maintain 60FPS average, and those that can’t. Last generation cards struggle, whilst the 3060 Ti comfortably maintains nearly 70FPS, and the RTX 3070, RTX 2080 Ti, and RTX 3080 all approach 100FPS average. Again, you can tweak settings to get the performance you’re happy with as they are turned right up here, but those GPUs are capable of providing an excellent experience at 1440p.

Looking at Shadow of the Tomb raider, again this title shows where the GTX 1660 Super begins to struggle, although it is still capable of running well optimised titles like this at 1440p. The scaling with the more powerful GPUs is clear with all of the Ampere GPUs exceeding 100FPS average. This is at ‘highest’ settings and we can see that the 3080 is the card that manages to exceed 144FPS average at 1440p in this title with settings cranked. 

In Flight Simulator at 1440p, we’re now becoming much more GPU bound. 50-60FPS average at high-end settings really is a good performance in this test, and it looks utterly gorgeous doing it. All Ampere GPUs exceed 30FPS at all times. 1440p is where Flight Sim 2020 really begins to shine, and the RTX 3060 Ti, in particular, impressed me with its performance here. Lifting settings to ‘Ultra’ adds some nice visual tweaks but still costs about 10FPS across the board. Again, there’s room to tweak here with just a couple of detail settings turned down from ultra getting you most of the performance benefits at almost no detriment to visuals. 

1440p Conclusion

We can see that these cards really begin to come alive at 1440p, significantly outpacing all but the highest-end options from the last generation. It was the 3060 Ti that impressed me most, with performance very much in the same ballpark as it’s bigger siblings. Once you’re up to 100FPS in AAA titles at high settings, you really are getting what you paid for in games, so there’s not much more to be asked for the 3060 Ti. The RTX 3070 also excels at this resolution. 

1440p Ultrawide Gaming

Moving on to ultrawide 1440p, this resolution bridges the gap to 4K and is becoming increasingly popular. We particularly like the versatility of workspace it offers, combined with the immersion in gaming.

1440p Ultrawide FPS Gaming

The first person shooters still record high FPS if they’re well optimised, Rainbow 6 Siege is generating over 250FPS in high settings. COD:Warzone really does seem to be CPU limited – FPS doesn’t really drop much from 1440p so you’re at no penalty opting for ultrawide. Doom Eternal is still generating well over 144FPS on everything except the 1080ti, and we’re at ultra nightmare settings here.

1440p Ultrawide AAA Titles

Moving on to AAA Titles, we’re exceeding 60FPS in Red Dead Redemption 2 on all the Ampere cards at demanding settings. The 3060ti and 3070 are again relatively Close in performance with 10FPS between them, with only the 3080 distinguishing itself 20FPS higher. Shadow of the Tomb Raider is much the same pattern, but with slightly higher framerates. The 3070, 3080, and 2080 Ti all approach or exceed 100FPS. 

And finally, at 1440p Ultrawide, we see the same scaling in Flight Simulator 2020 – But all of these GPUs are approaching or exceeding 50FPS even at this resolution which is impressive, and again you can see you’re paying a great deal in going from an RTX 3060 Ti to an RTX 3070 and on to an RTX 3080 to go from 46 to 60 FPS.

The takeaways here are really how closely the RTX 3070 matches the RTX 2080 Ti so Nvidias claims ring true there. Also, note that the hierarchy of cards is now well established but the 3060Ti really isn’t a bit-part player here: It’s very much keeping pace and in any of these titles you’re not going to see or feel a difference in performance between say 160 FPS and 190Fps, or in just a couple of settings turned down to see it match the performance of the RTX 3070. The 3070 is clearly excellent in 1440p ultrawide, but the 3060ti is more than capable as well. The 3080 holds it’s clear lead.

4K Performance

4K FPS Shooters

Moving on to 4K, we’re now at a resolution that can make these GPUs really work hard. Looking at the shooters, note that we’re still exceeding 100FPS in Doom Eternal and CoD Warzone – and we’re still at high settings here. Likewise, in Rainbow6 Siege we’re exceeding 144FPS meaning you’ll be maximising a high performance 4K monitor, not that this is an ideal set up for competitive play. The RTX 3080 is still pushing past 300FPS, but the 3060Ti and 3070 are much lower here beaten even by the GTX 1080ti and I confirmed this with multiple runs. I can’t confirm exactly why this is.

4K AAA Titles

AAA titles are where you can revel in the detail rendering at 4K gives – but we’re starting to see all of these GPUs struggling to make the magic 60FPS. You’re going to have to turn down settings a little from those we’ve used throughout these benchmarks. Again we see the 3070 shadowing the 2080 Ti closely although the 2080 Ti does come out on top – just – in these three tests. The 3080 has a clear advantage, and if you’re building a 4K focussed gaming PC then it’s really between the RTX 3080 and the RX 6800 XT as to which GPU is right for you.

Conclusions

The RTX 3060 Ti

Firstly, the RTX 3060 Ti was the standout card of this test. It performs excellently, to the point where it’s close to the RTX 3070 in most of these titles at 1440p. In well optimised games and first-person shooters, it’s producing fluid responsive gameplay at high FPS and high settings. In demanding titles, it’s punching well above its weight. The RTX 3060 Ti a great card, and if you’re looking to trade off components in your system to afford a better CPU, monitor, or SSD, you should absolutely consider the 3060 Ti. It won’t feel like a compromised choice at all.

Ampere Gaming at 1080p

Secondly, none of the Ampere cards achieve their potential at 1080p. They’re either exposing CPU limitation in very high FPS titles or else not shining in AAA titles restricted by a lower pixel count. You can make a case for the RTX 3060 Ti in either a very high FPS esports build, or in a PC aimed at playing AAA titles at 1080p and very high settings: But really, We’d recommend that if you’re considering any of these Qmpere cards you start your search with a 1440p Monitor capable of 144Hz and adaptive sync. That’s where you start getting your money’s worth out of these GPUs. 

The RTX 3080

Finally, of course, there’s the RTX 3080. This GPU is an absolute monster. It cleanly wins every benchmark here, and whilst the 3070 has clearly been pegged to the RTX 2080 Ti, and the RTX 3060 Ti massaged to ensure it’s 10% or so slower than that, the RTX 3080 is allowed to stretch its legs and hit the limits of its’ capability. That really comes down to power restrictions but We’ll dig into that more with a specific look at the RTX 3080 in a future article.

Watch out for bottlenecking in aged systems

One note of caution here is if you pair these GPUs with an aging system, they’re all-powerful enough to expose weakness, particularly in CPUs. You may find that whilst you can run at higher settings, you begin to experience stutter and frame time inconsistencies if you hit the limit of your CPUs performance. That’s something we want to investigate and we will be running through some tests with a Ryzen 5 3600 and Intel CPUs from the last-generation to see if they negatively impact performance at all, or if they’re sufficient to maximise the potential of these GPUs. 

Our Recommendations

Best Ampere Card for 1080p FPS Gaming / 1440p All-rounder Builds: RTX 3060 Ti

Based on our results, realistically we’d recommend the RTX 3060 Ti as the high FPS esports GPU at 1080p, or for a 1440p all-round gaming machine.

Related: RTX 3060 Ti Aftermarket Card Overview
Related: RTX 3060 Ti Aftermarket Card Database

Best Ampere Card for 1440p AAA Gaming: RTX 3070 / 3060 Ti

Stepping up in to solid 1440p AAA title performance the RTX 3070 makes a strong case for itself, but cross-shop the RTX 3060 Ti if you’re working to a budget – you won’t feel short-changed with its performance and if it allows you to purchase a high-performance CPU as well then it’s the right choice to make.

Best Ampere Card for 1440p Ultrawide Gaming: RTX 3070 / 3080

At 1440p Ultrawide, the RTX 3070 shines but the additional cost of a RTX 3080 begins to make sense to provide a really remarkable gaming experience. 

Related: Best RTX 3070 Aftermarket Cards
Related: RTX 3070 Aftermarket Card Overview
Related: RTX 3070 Aftermarket Card Database

Best Ampere Card for 4K Gaming: RTX 3080

And finally, at 4K, it’s such a demanding resolution that in high-end titles like Red Dead Redemption or Cyberpunk you will need to lower settings from Ultra to maintain 60FPS performance even on an RTX 3080. There is one ace up the Ampere GPUs sleeve though: DLSS. This technology form Nvidia uses a trained neural network and AI to up-sample the rendered image for display: when it works well it allows you to combine heightened settings with higher frame rates. However, just a handful of titles are using it to it’s full potential, so it’s something we’re looking into and will deliver our impressions on it later.. 

Related: Best RTX 3080 Aftermarket Cards
Related: RTX 3080 Aftermarket Card Overview

I hope you’ve found this roundup of the Ampere GPUs useful: pair any one of these cards with a well-matched monitor (linked below) and you’ll have an absolutely fantastic set up to enjoy the latest games as they are meant to be played.

• Best Monitors for RTX 3060 Ti
• Best Monitors for RTX 3070
• Best Monitors for RTX 3080

The post RTX 3060 Ti vs 3070 vs 3080: Benchmark Comparison (Real World Tests) appeared first on PremiumBuilds.

Purchasing the absolute best CPU for gaming that the consumer market has to offer, means purchasing either the Ryzen 9 5950X, or the Ryzen 9 5900X. Not only have benchmarks from multiple sources (Gamer’s Nexus, Techspot, Tom’s Hardware) proven the superiority of these CPUs in gaming performance, single-core performance, and multi-core performance, but they also display how these CPUs have accomplished the task while using far less energy – and at lower temperatures – than their competition. 

If you care little for price to performance ratios, or just need the extra multicore performance, then the Zen 3 Ryzen 9 options are an easy choice to make. But choosing the hardware to pair them with won’t be as simple a task; due to the plethora of available options that can all work well with these processors. For example, what appears to be the gold-standard for RAM kits, at least for testing their performance, is a frequency-latency combination of 3,200 MHz and a CAS of 14 cycles. However, now that the price for DDR4 RAM has dropped considerably, a RAM kit with a speed of 3,600 CL14, which sells for only $189.99 (Via Amazon) (2×8 – total 16 GB) – or an even more extreme, 3,800 MHz CL14 kit which can be found for as low $220 to $290 (2×8 – total 16 GB) – can enhance their performance even further. Then, would you go for an X570 flagship motherboard, or a B550? A Noctua NH-D15 air CPU cooler, or a Corsair H115i Elite Capellix AIO liquid cooler? A Sabrent Rocket 4+ NVMe SSD, or a Samsung 980 Pro?

This is what makes the current generation of hardware one of the best to invest in for an upgrade, or a brand-new PC, there are so many valid options to choose from. This is also the case for choosing a graphics card, as Nvidia’s superiority in the GPU market is in question after AMD “released” their new Radeon RX 6000 Series graphics cards. And though AMD has added extra incentive for to purchasing one of these GPUs, to be paired with a Zen 3 Ryzen 5000 Series processor (like Smart Access Memory), Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 30 Series GPUs still can’t be counted out. People have grown fond of Nvidia as a brand because their GPUs have proven to be reliable throughout several iterations; whereas AMD has faced multiple issues in the past, related to their graphics cards, including poor drivers and overheating units.

AMD vs Nvidia: Features & Technology

Nvidia GeForce

The GeForce RTX 30 Series GPUs feature a new Ampere architecture: with 2^nd generation ray tracing cores, 3^rd generation tensor cores, as well as new Streaming Multiprocessors (SM); all accounting for double the throughput. Nvidia’s Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) software is one of their top selling points, as it upscales lower resolution images in real time via the using of deep learning AI – allowing the GPU to achieve faster framerates at higher resolutions. Harnessing the power of AI-acceleration is not solely utilized for their DLSS feature, as Nvidia Studio and Nvidia Broadcast allow for livestreaming, voice chats, and video conference calls that are devoid of background noise, and allow you to switch the background of your video feed with the touch of a button. GeForce Experience is also a very convenient application that allows you to quickly update your drivers – as well as livestream and capture screenshots that you can enhance and customize via the use of Nvidia’s Ansel.

But what is arguably the most important feature that is included with Nvidia’s GeForce 30 Series GPUs – especially for competitive or professional gamers – is Nvidia Reflex. Aimed to drastically reduce render queues, mainly by utilizing direct communication between CPU and GPU, Nvidia has created a feature that brings overall system latency to a minimum. In fact, Nvidia has put significant effort into optimizing Reflex, working with third-party monitor manufacturers to produce displays that carry a hardware component named the Reflex Latency Analyzer.  This input-lag analyzer allows the monitor to display end-to-end system latency in real-time. Through these 360 Hz displays, Nvidia Reflex can reduce input lag by a staggering 66% when compared to a 144 Hz monitor using a GeForce RTX 20 Series graphics card. For professional e-Sports and competitive-gaming enthusiasts, one of these five available 1080p 360 Hz monitors, paired with a GeForce RTX 30 Series GPU, provides the most utility out of all available setup options. Even if the GPU benchmarks a few frames less than its competition, having less input-lag and the ability to monitor system latency in real time, provides far better value, in terms of practicality, than any other hardware combination one can purchase. 

AMD Radeon

AMD does still hold their own against Nvidia’s technological advancements, as certain key architectural elements allow their RDNA 2 GPUs to compete with the GeForce Ampere graphics cards, even on a high level. Firstly, the Radeon RX 6000 Series GPUs make use of a 128 MB Level 3 Cache – called the Infinity Cache – which is based on those found in the Zen 2 and Zen 3 CPUs. This Infinity Cache allows for almost twice the memory bus bandwidth; despite a lower energy expenditure. Additionally, AMD’s new generation of Compute Units (CU) have redesigned data paths, pervasive fine-grain clock gating, and a new pipeline rebalancing.

Perhaps the most impressive, and most useful, of AMD’s new technologies, is the aforementioned Smart Access Memory. Built to provide synergy between both AMD CPU and GPU products (and as an additional incentive to those with a Zen 3 CPU to buy a RDNA 2 GPU) Smart Access Memory creates an expanded data channel by utilizing PCI Express lanes to power the CPU to access more VRAM; effectively removing any inherent GPU memory bottleneck. The increase in performance allowed by Smart Access Memory is quite considerable, as it can provide the edge for the RDNA 2 GPUs to slightly surpass Nvidia GeForce graphics cards which would otherwise hold a slight advantage against them in framerate output.

AMD also has a new set of features that, admittedly may not be as impressive as those offered by Nvidia, but are definitely nice to have. AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin 2020 Edition is the equivalent of Nvidia’s GeForce Experience, providing driver updates, single-click overclocking called “Rage Mode”, and performance reports in a convenient and easy-to-use interface. Next, we have AMD Radeon Chill, which automatically caps the framerate of any specific game depending on the monitor’s refresh rate; thus saving energy by limiting the GPU to process only the amount of framerate necessary to maximize the monitor’s capabilities. Another neat feature is AMD’s Integer Scaling, which is used for better capturing the visuals of retro games on modern displays. It basically scales one pixel to multiple pixels, so that the faded look of pixelated graphics on a high-resolution monitor will look clearer and more in-tune with the game’s inherent low-bit graphics.

To increase FPS, and lessen the strain to the GPU, AMD’s Radeon Boost works by lowering the resolution of frames during quick motion (frames that are difficult to notice), in turning giving the GPU the ability to generate faster framerate when the in-game character is in motion. Note, however, than AMD Radeon Boost currently only works for a handful of gaming titles. When paired with Radeon Boost, AMD’s second-generation Anti-Lag can lessen end-to-end input lag, similar to Nvidia Reflex. Still, the 31% reduction figure that is stated on AMD’s website is a result from tests run at a 4K resolution – and, funny enough, using an Intel i7-9700K CPU – so the results will not be nearly as impressive at 1080p. 

AMD vs Nvidia: Top GPU Comparisons

Now that we have a better idea of what each company is offering in terms of new technology and features, let’s compare each of their two best GPUs, and see how they fare against each other in specifications and in benchmarked framerates.

AMD RX 6800 XT vs Nvidia RTX 3080

T

AMD RX 6900 XT vs Nvidia RTX 3090

Verdict

Comparing all four of the above GPUs, we can see that each has its advantages and disadvantages. Indeed, any of these graphic-card models can be used optimally for different types of 5900X and 5950X builds.

Best GPU for 5900X/5950X Competitive Gaming Builds

If you take competitive gaming seriously, nothing beats a GeForce RTX 30 Series graphics card paired with a 1080p 360 Hz monitor. Because the benchmarked framerate averages of the GeForce RTX 3090 and the GeForce RTX 3080 are so similar, we recommend pairing the latter with a Ryzen 9 5900X – which displayed an identical average framerate to the Ryzen 9 5950X ta this resolution. 

Best GPU for 5900X/5950X 1080p Gaming Builds

For 1080p gaming that isn’t as serious as the aforementioned example, the Radeon RX 6800 XT provides the highest framerate of all GPUs in the market – even surpassing the GeForce RTX 3090, despite costing less than half its price. For 1080p gaming, the best combination is the Ryzen 9 5900X with the Radeon RX 6800 XT.

Best GPU for 5900X/5950X 1440p Gaming Builds

Going a step above, and into the 1440p range, it appears that the Radeon RX 6900 XT is the most powerful GPU available; even surpassing the GeForce RTX 3090, while costing 50% less (if AMD’s benchmarks are to be trusted). Of course, the Radeon RX 6800 XT still holds better value for its price at 1440p, but if you are aiming for the highest possible performance, the Radeon RX 6900 XT is the way to go. In terms of processors, both Ryzen 9 CPUs have nearly identical single-core performance (benchmarked by Tom’s Hardware), so the Ryzen 9 5900X is the smarter choice.

Best GPU for 5900X/5950X 4K Gaming Builds

For the highest gaming resolution, the GeForce RTX 3090 reigns supreme in framerate output – and holds a considerable advantage to its competition. That being said, the Radeon RX 6900 XT does seem promising, though chances are it will not outperform the GeForce RTX 3090 at 4K game processing. Do note, that the Radeon RX 6800 XT, once again, does have the better cost per frame ratio for this resolution as well.

Best GPU for 5900X/5950X Workstation Utility Builds

Finally, for workstation builds that require high multi-core performance – or for gaming and streaming + content creation PCs – the additional cores and threads of the Ryzen 9 5950X will certainly pay for their extra cost in the long run. When it comes to graphics, the GeForce RTX 3090’s 8 GB of extra GDDR6X – and its 45% faster bandwidth compared to the Radeon RX 6900 XT – make it a more appealing option for dedicated workstation setups, even at its $1,500 price tag.

The post Best Graphics Cards for Ryzen 9 5900X & 5950X Builds appeared first on PremiumBuilds.

In this article, we’re comparing the two ‘real world’ flagships of the AMD and Nvidia GPU line ups: The RTX 3080 and the RX 6800 XT.

It’s only right that we start with an explanation both of the delay to this review, but also around the prevailing situation with GPUs. 

We’re not party to normal press channels to obtain cards so we’ve been subject to all the same pressures as the general market. We’re therefore only too painfully aware of the scarcity of GPUs across the board right now, and it’s part of the reason for the delay to this comparison article.

Of course, the global pandemic is one of the driving factors behind both restricted supply and also heightened demand for GPUs. On the one hand, production lines have been hit by a supply shortage and global supply chains have been disrupted. On the other hand, demand has skyrocketed with more people working from home or looking for means to entertain themselves. AMD in particular is struggling to produce sufficient GPUs on the 7nm production lines alongside the console APUs and Zen 3 CPUs that all vie for the limited capacity at TSMCs’ foundries. And finally of course Cryptocurrency mining has again come to the fore with miners buying up ‘gaming’ GPU’s in bulk to mine Ethereum. We all know the results of this: The cards we’re reviewing here sell via side channels for two to three times their launch MSRP, and are near impossible to buy via normal retail channels.

We’re going to keep this review straight down the line: You might be looking for one or other card and be prepared to pay. You might want to know if you can reasonably substitute one for the other and not suffer any major performance loss. This review simply seeks to answer the question: ‘how do these cards perform’, because it’s impossible to answer the question ‘are these cards worth your money’ until such time as the market stabilizes and they become available anywhere close to their suggested retail pricing.

First, let’s remind ourselves of the key specifications of these cards:

RX 6800 XT vs RTX 3080: Specifications

	AMD RX 6800 XT	Nvidia RTX 3080
Design
GPU Architecture	AMD RDNA 2	Nvidia Ampere
Process	TSMC 7nm	Samsung ‘8nm’
Transistors	26,800 million	28,300 million
VRAM	16Gb GDDR6	10GB GDDR6X
Memory Bus	256Bit 512GB/s	320bit 760 GB/s
Ray Tracing Cores	72 – RDNA2	68 – Ampere ‘2nd Gen RTX’
Tensor Cores		272
‘Enhanced Memory Access’	Smart Access Memory	Resizeable BAR
PCIe Version	4	4
Power Draw (tested)	300W	320W (340W)
Availability	Amazon.com	Amazon.com

It’s not possible to make direct comparisons between clock speeds or the number of shader units for these two GPUs – their architectural differences make the comparison meaningless.
We can directly compare memory specification and the RX 6800 XT has a massive 16GB VRAM, but it is just standard GDDR6. The RTX 3080 has 10GB of VRAM but it’s higher performance GDDR6X, produced by Micron under an exclusive partnership. This combined with a 320bit bus gives the Nvidia card higher memory performance but less capacity. In respect of additional features, Nvidia is obviously a step ahead in hardware ray tracing, but the RX 6800XT does also have hardware ray tracing cores and few games currently utilize this feature. Both have a mechanism to enhance memory access and boost performance – Smart Access Memory for AMD and ‘Resizeable BAR’ for Nvidia, but again this is specific to certain titles, and in the case of the RX 6800XT it can be detrimental to performance in some games. Finally, both have similar power draw requirements although the RTX 3080 is slightly more demanding, hitting 340W under peak load or when overclocked. 

The test set-up:

Both GPUs were tested in the same system – our Ryzen Test bench which comprises a Ryzen 7 5800X CPU, with PBO enabled but no additional overclocking. It runs 16GB of 3600MHz CL16 RAM and has a 1Tb Sabrent Rocket PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD. It is powered by a Fractal Design Ion 860W Platinum power supply to ensure sufficient power. SAM and ReBAR were not enabled for any testing.

Synthetic benchmarks: 3D Mark

Running through the 3D Mark suite of benchmarks, we can see that in both of the straight ‘gaming relevant’ tests the RX 6800XT has the upper hand. 

In Fire Strike which is a 1080p rendered DirectX11 based test, the RX 6800XT turns in an absolutely stellar performance with a score of nearly 53,000 – that’s over 10,000 points or 20% ahead of the RTX 3080, an impressive achievement indicating very high performance in titles using DX11 and running at 1080p.

Time Spy, which uses the more recent DirectX12 API and renders at 1440p also shows a slight advantage to the RX 6800XT although the margin is reduced here to 1000 point or about 5%. 

Port Royal is a new benchmark that uses DirextX12 Ultimate to bring the GPUs hardware ray tracing to bear, and both cards run this benchmark fine but the RTX 3080 with its’ second-generation RTX cores has clearly better performance, by about 1,800 points or 20%. I’ve included the score of the RTX 2080ti here as well for reference, showing how closely the RX 6800XT matches the performance of Nvidia’s last-gen Ray tracing tech – although this score is an aggregate of rasterized and ray tracing performance and without a score break down it’s impossible to ascertain how much of that is the core rendering performance of the RX 6800XT and how much is the ray-tracing component. Nonetheless, it’s not fair to say the RX 6800XT is ‘poor’ at ray tracing, simply that it can only use DirectX12 Ultimate, and that it’s not at Amperes performance levels.

Blender

As a quick test of the relative rendering performance, we ran Blender 2.83s benchmark renders, BMW27 and classroom. Blender has a range of rendering options depending on the GPU used, and we tested cards in all compatible modes to get an idea of how they perform. The RTX 3080 can use CUDA or ‘OptiX’ acceleration, whilst the RX 6800XT can only use Open CL. The results aren’t favorable for the RX 6800 XT: The BMW render takes it 39 seconds to the 3080’s 11 seconds, whilst the classroom scene takes 74 seconds to the RTX 3080’s 41. The OPTIX rendering pipeline uses tensor cores to accelerate the process, and it’s dramatically faster. Even an RTX 2060 KO matches the RX 6800 XT in BMW27 using the OPTIX renderer vs Open CL, although the RX 6800XT is much faster at the Classroom render. This highlights how specific these benchmarks can be to one or other aspects of a GPUs performance.

Overall, if you’re intending on using these cards for productivity or 3D rendering, it does pay to look closely at performance in metrics specific to your needs and software. It may be a more readily available or cheaper Nvidia card that can serve the purpose as well as the RX 6800XT – as an example, the RTX 3060 combines an Ampere core with 12GB VRAM and would seem an excellent choice for a 3D content creator – if you can find one.

Games: First Person Shooters

We’ve grouped the results here in a per-game basis to simplify the comparisons, and to make it easy to focus in on the games or game types that interest you.

1. Call of Duty: Warzone

Firstly, looking at Call of Duty Warzone we can see that the two cards are relatively evenly matched: We run a full 5-6 minute Battle Royale, but against bots as this is the only way to make the benchmark a consistent and repeatable test. Settings are at the ‘High’ preset. The RX 6800XT has a very slight advantage at 1080p, but just 10 FPS at 250FPS isn’t a noticeable difference. At 1440p the two GPUs are evenly matched, and at 1440p Ultrawide they’re absolutely equal. At 4K the 3080 has a slight advantage, ahead 9 FPS at 128 FPS. We haven’t included other metrics to keep the chart legible, but the Minimum, Maximum, and 1%, and 0.1% lows are almost identical too. CoD Warzone doesn’t appear to have any particular preference and you’ll have an equivalent experience on either card. At 1080p you would be better looking at a lower-tier card and achieving nearly as high performance – an RTX 2060Ti achieves 220FPS at 1080p high settings, for example. 

2. Rainbow 6 Siege

Rainbow 6 Siege is a much faster-paced title and it shows in the benchmarks. Here, the RX 6800 XT takes a commanding lead at both 1080p and 1440p – it’s around 10% faster at 1080p and nearly 20% faster at 1440p. Initially, we felt this might be down to the rendering pipelines of the RTX 3080 being optimized for higher resolutions, but Hardware Unboxed and others have found interesting discrepancies in the Ampere cards performance when CPU limited: It appears their drivers have a higher overhead and as such it can dent the performance potential of the GPU. This game (and Flight Sim 2020) presents the most CPU-limited test we run, and as such, it may be one or both of these effects preventing the RTX 3080 from performing. It might also go some way to explaining that stellar 3DMark Fire Strike result at the start of this review. Again, at 1440p ultrawide resolution, we see that performance is about equal, and at 4K the RTX 3080 has taken the lead with 304Fps to 239 for the RX 6800 XT.

3. Doom Eternal

Finally, Doom Eternal is a well-optimized title using the Vulkan API and scales very well with both hardware and settings. We see a slight lead for the RX 6800 XT at 1080p at 409 FPS to 384, but at all other resolutions, the two GPUs perform identically on average. However looking at the underlying statistics, 1% and 0.1% lows are significantly lower for the RX 6800 XT indicating a less consistent experience and this occurs at every resolution. This isn’t something we see in the other First-person shooters where the results for these metrics are closely matched.

AAA Titles

Looking at the more demanding titles, this is where we expect to see both of these high end GPUs really shine.

Red Dead Redemption

Red Dead Redemption still ranks amongst the best looking and most demanding titles and again it uses the Vulkan API. Here we’ve run it at very high settings, near ultra, but with a couple of performance tweaks such as water being reduced to medium for a representative experience. Across the board these two GPUs perform near identically, exceeding 100 FPS at 1080p, close to 100FPS at 1440p, and exceeding 60FPS in 4K. Both provide a top tier experience, which is what you’d hope for flagship cards.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider

Shadow of the Tomb Raider always impresses us not only with its graphics but with its consistency when benchmarking – it reliably highlights very minor changes in system configuration or performance. At highest settings the numbers generated between these two cards are spookily similar, and not just the average frame rates, but the rest of the metrics as well. The experience on either card is identical, with one caveat: You can’t enable RTX Shadows or DLSS on the RX 6800 XT. However, in this title and with these GPUs this is a moot point as you don’t need either of these technologies for either visual improvements or performance. It’s a dead heat in this title.

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020

Finally we’ll look at Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020.

This title continues to receive updates that fix bugs and improve performance, and it’s certainly a demanding test of a whole system. Our benchmark run is a four-minute AI piloted flight from LaGuardia over Manhattan at 2,500 – 3,500 ft – a worst-case scenario and highly demanding of the CPU as well as the GPU. 

It’s the CPU that limits the ultimate frame rate here, and even at low settings, 65FPS average is the absolute best performance that can be obtained. At more realistic and rewarding high settings, we can see how little the FPS scale with such powerful GPUs; at 1080p, 1440p and even 1440p ultrawide we achieve the same results, at our around 60FPS. We’re mostly CPU limited here. At 4K we start to see the impact of a demanding resolution AND settings even on these cards: High settings see 45-47FPS on both, whilst ultra settings cut performance to just over 30 FPS for both cards. The inconsistencies at lower resolutions are caused by CPU limitations, and not indicative of the relative performance of the cards, but we did have trouble extracting performance from the 6800XT at ultra settings and lower resolutions – it was reluctant to exceed 45FPS despite driver updates and tweaking. Complex games and hardware sometimes deliver these anomalies. At higher resolutions, it performed fine, and it’s likely a minor setting adjustment would have resolved the issue but invalidated the controls to our benchmark. 

The lesson here is how important balancing the whole system to the target resolution is in Flight sim 2020, as well as settings needing to be tweaked for optimum performance. Both of these cards are capable of playing MS Flight 2020 at high resolutions, a mix of high and ultra settings, and both are more than capable of an acceptable VR experience as well.

Related: Flight Simulator 2020 Performance Analysis: Get the most out of MS Flight 2020

Conclusions

As you’d hope and expect, both of these GPUs turn in an excellent performance. There’s nothing they won’t run well. Having spent over a month of tenting and general use with both of these cards, they are truly equal in performance in our opinion. There are some games and certain corner cases where one outperforms the other but on balance, the differences are infrequent and slight. 

It’s really in feature set and versatility where we see the RTX 3080 offer more to a prospective buyer. RTX and DLSS may or may not be the next big thing for gaming, but it’s nice to have the option and in many titles, it just isn’t there if you’ve got the AMD card. We hope that developers will use the DirectX 12 ultimate API to bring hardware Ray tracing to the broadest audience possible, rather than sticking to Nvidias’ ‘RTX’ walled garden, whilst AMD need to develop and deliver their ‘Super Resolution’ functionality to the FidelityFX suite, to challenge Nvidia in dynamic upscaling. 

Users who need a GPU for more than just gaming: for 3D content creation or data analysis, or to accelerate rendering – should look closely at benchmarks specific to their usage case. The RX 6800 XT performs better at some functions, and if you need a very high VRAM capacity then this or the 6800 is the cheapest way to get 16GB. It also offers better compatibility in Hackintosh and some Linux applications. However, for most tasks, the versatility of CUDA and Tensor cores combined with the higher bandwidth memory access make the 3080 a great choice. It will come down to what exactly you need to do.

Finally, the choice may well be out of your hands: If you see an opportunity to buy either of these GPU’s at a non-ridiculous price, and need a high-end gaming GPU, then either offers more than satisfactory performance at the highest resolutions and settings and will stand the test of time.

The post Nvidia RTX 3080 vs AMD RX 6800 XT: Benchmark Comparison (Real World Tests) appeared first on PremiumBuilds.

It is quite rare that a new CPU generation hits around the same time as a new GPU generation. We’re of course talking about AMD’s Ryzen 5000 and Nvidia’s RTX 3000 series which both push the boundaries of gaming performance to never before seen levels. The leaps in both processor and graphics performance warrant a great time to build a PC for the next 3 years+ depending on the specs you’ll be getting. Today we will be recommending a high end build around the $2000 price point which packs the highest levels of gaming performance at the end of 2020.

You heard it right, this build can achieve an average of 30 to 35% better FPS than the previous best $2000 gaming build which featured a Ryzen 7 3700X and an RTX 2080Ti; that’s a huge leap at the same price point and consumers like you and me can now enjoy it. The new Ryzen 7 5800X series is an enthusiast’s dream with gaming performance levels exceeding even the Core i9 10900K. These gains on the Ryzen 5000 series come from the huge 19% uplift in IPC, single core performance and core to core latency improvements. In short terms, the 5800X is a beast that sets a new standard in gaming performance.

On the graphics side, we got the RTX 3080 which is the newest effort from Nvidia to push the boundaries of high resolution and high refresh rate gaming performance. With an overall FPS uplift of around 30% above the outgoing RTX 2080Ti model which was the previous top performing single GPU on the market, the RTX 3080 establishes itself as one of the most thought after GPUs at its $700 launch price.

The Ryzen 7 5800X and the RTX 3080 are the highlights of this build but we’re going to follow up with the surrounding components in order to offer you a strong build in all other areas such as storage, cooling and memory capacity. Here’s the specs needed for the system:

Ryzen 7 5800X Gaming Build – The Parts List

CPU: Ryzen 7 5800X

AMD used their October 8th presentation to give us a rather detailed look at their Ryzen 5000 portfolio with the Ryzen 7 5800X launched as the single 8 core / 16 thread model and available on November 5th on shelves worldwide. Their performance improvements surprised everyone and thanks to the architecture overhaul, gaming FPS is a great advantage on the Ryzen CPUs which now are marketed as the best gaming CPUs out there with a 5% or higher margin when compared to competing Intel CPUs. This is a great achievement because gaming performance was still lagging behind the Intel CPUs for the past three Ryzen generations.

Not anymore though. Its safe to say consumers are warmly welcoming this gaming performance uplift with the new Ryzen 5000 series. The Ryzen 7 5800X for example welcomes a 25% average advantage over the outgoing Ryzen 3000 XT models which happened due to the 19% IPC performance uplift and latency optimizations; such a leap in one generation just for gaming performance is impressive and we foresee a very high demand for the new CPUs.

In this build, we still could’ve used a last generation CPU such as the Ryzen 7 3700X and the price would’ve been around $150 cheaper but if we’re going to build a highly capable build that can demolish any resolution at high refresh rates, then there’s no better pairing than that of the Ryzen 7 5800X and RTX 3080 thanks to their stunning performance and good performance per dollar. We’re not going to say this build is affordable for everyone but instead, we’re going to say that bleeding-edge performance has gotten much cheaper with these two new generations of high-performance processors and graphics cards.

CPU Cooler: Dark Rock Pro 4

The Ryzen 7 5800X keeps the 105W TDP of his predecessor, the Ryzen 7 3800X and thus, is as easy to cool. All the CPU coolers that did a great job cooling the latter will up to the task with the 5800X. For a $2000 build that’s aimed at the enthusiast gamer we’d like to recommend one of the best air coolers on the market. The Dark Rock Pro 4 is a dual tower air cooler built using beQuiet!’s solid mantra of “no compromise silence and performance”. You can expect silent utilization during any load and ample rooms for overclocking if you are tweak-happy with the processor.

The heat sink consists of a huge dual tower design with seven 6 mm heat pipes while using 2 x SilentWing fans, one 135 mm and one 120mm, that are virtually inaudible during both idle and load environments. The great combination of performance, quality, value and design makes the Dark Rock Pro 4 an exception offering at its $90 retail price. Mounting this huge cooler is made easy by the simple instructions and the ample room you have in the Lian Li LANCOOL II-X case that we’re featuring in this build.

Motherboard: ASUS TUF Gaming X570-Plus (WiFI)

The gamer inside you will not need the extensive extra features of a very high-end X570 motherboard and this is why the ASUS TUF Gaming X570-Plus Wi-Fi is such a great fit for this gaming build. Its VRM design is shared with the much more expensive Maximum XI Hero motherboard and at this price point, its one of the most capable motherboards that can run any Ryzen 5000 chip even with heavy overclocking thanks to its strong hardware features.

With a stellar BIOS layout and frequent updates, you’ll feel like the X570 will leave nothing to be desired. Features include the PCIe 4.0 standard which will aid our RTX 3080 and storage device to stretch their wings, 14 Phase VRM, 128GB 4400MHz support through the 4 RAM slots, 2x M.2 slots one of which is passively cooled and a great Realtek ALC S1200A Audio CODEC. The TUF is also pretty generous with its I/O; the 3x USB 3.2 Gen 2 (1 x Type-C) + 4x USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports and 8x SATA 6Gb/s ports are most likely enough for any gaming enthusiast or streamer out there. For new AMD builders getting ready for their first gaming machine, the TUF Gaming X570-Plus WiFi is a great option that doesn’t break the bank and offers all the key features and configurability of AMD’s AM4 platform.

Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws V 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3600 CL16

With DDR4 slowly approaching the end of its life and thanks to the high level of competition in the memory market, we can afford to splurge towards the 32 GB of RAM. Many would argue that 16 GB is enough for a gaming build and that is very true with mainstream and high end builds; you are not going to exceed 10-12 GB of memory usage in any of the latest titles but you are going to cut it close with the 16 GB. If you’re one of those PC users that like to keep open tons of applications or browser tabs or even someone who would like to use their PC as a rendering and editing machine then 16 GB would induce a bottleneck into this great gaming build and we would like to avoid it at all costs. It’s very cheap to do so with the extra 16 GB of high-performance system memory.

This build is also crafted to last you for many years and 32 GB of RAM will surely take care of your needs for its full lifetime. The low 8.889 memory latency of this G.Skill DDR4-3600 CL16 RAM kit will also aid overall performance and snappiness of your system and will pair well with the Ryzen 7 5800X. If you like tweaking then you will be able to tune this memory kit’s clocks and CAS latency to even higher performance levels in order to bring even more improvements to the Infinity Fabric speed of the Ryzen CPU. The Dual Channel (2 sticks) nature of this RAM kit is also mandatory in order to benefit from the full bandwidth of the AM4 platform. We like this kit very much thanks to its performance and affordability but you can also check our articles on different RAM kits if you’d like more options to choose from at different price points.

Storage

Its mandatory that such a fast gaming system will need to run on a solid piece of storage in order for you to enjoy lag free application opening, installations and game loading. We will be going with a storage combination between a very fast PCIe 4.0 NVME device in the form of the Sabrent Rocket 4.0 500 GB and a 1 TB Crucial P1 M.2 in order to have the OS and most frequently used applications on the main Sabrent device while the more rarely used apps and general file storage can sit on the Crucial P1. This way, we are ensuring great speeds and enough capacity without breaking the bank. If these two devices don’t offer enough capacity for your needs then feel free to upgrade to bigger M.2 sizes.

Storage 1: Sabrent Rocket 4.0 500 GB M.2-2280 NVME

The OS drive will be powered by the Sabrent Rocket 4.0, a rather new drive that uses the Phison E12s controller, a 96 layer TLC flash by Micron and the new PCIe 4.0 interface in order to ensure snappiness and a performance edge to your transfers and file access. The DRAM chip is there to offer a massive performance uplift for random writes; it brings a very fast temporary storage for the drive’s internal mapping tables so that it doesn’t slow down during sustained load. The device is also very hard to throttle because even though it heats up, the slow downs are well masked and avoided by the inclusion of a copper foil over the M.2 drive that acts as a heat spreader thus handling the extra heat. Sabrent is claiming this foil helps the drive run at max speed 4 times longer than without it.

Storage 2: Crucial P1 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME

We will also be using a very popular M.2 drive that may be not as fast as the Sabrent but it offers a very good value for capacity. The Crucial P1 provides excellent value for people that need very fast and cheap storage. The only occasion where this drive slows down is when you’re doing transfers bigger than 50 GB at a time because of its limited QLC cache. That will happen almost never in everyday use and besides that, the drive is lightning fast; it features speeds of up to 2,000 MB/s read and 1,700MB/s write – much faster than your usual SATA SSD. If you are in need of even more capacity on your system then a 2 TB version of the Crucial is also available at a very competitive price.

Graphics Card: RTX 3080

The RTX 3080 delivers very impressive performance especially when it comes to higher resolutions like 4K. The generational improvement over the RTX 2080 Super and top-end RTX 2080 Ti is very welcome for people that want to experience more with more graphically intensive games and Ray Tracing. Real-time ray tracing is running smoothly on a single RTX 3080 and what’s more impressive is that the card is around 25% better in rasterization when compared to the RTX 2080Ti while being a lot cheaper, at $699 launching price. Third-party cards may retail for a slightly more expensive price though.

This card is an excellent performer in any of the new Triple-A, VR and eSports titles and does it at a respectable but slightly high TDP of 320W – this is why we’ll be including a great PSU to go with the build; we want to ensure your system and gaming experience won’t be affected by any spikes in power consumption. Nvidia has set the bar very high for AMD to catch up with their new RX 6000 series but until then, the RTX 3080 is the card to have for gamers if you can get one. With its 10 GB of GDDR6X memory, any current title should be able to run at max settings without the worry of going over the max memory.

Thanks to the Ryzen 7 5800X in the system, the RTX 3080 will be able to spread its wings and perform very well not only in 4K but also in 1440p or even 1080p high refresh rate games where previously, many CPUs would bottleneck such a high performing graphics card.

PC Case: Lian Li LANCOOL II-X

The Lancool II belongs to Lian Li’s mainstream lineup but there are lots of impressive features about it. The chassis is designed from scratch in order to ensure easy building, cable management and maintenance, the aesthetics are very nice with premium looks and the thermal characteristics are great with the additional included fans in our build. Lian Li has managed to pack a lot from their more expensive lineups in a design and feature set that doesn’t look like its compromising much. They have taken every popular priority that consumers are asking for in a high-end case and stripped everything else that is rarely needed. For the $90 retail price, the case is definitely fit to home a high end build such as the one we’re designing.

This ATX case also comes with a lot of extra features that are cost options. Hot swappable drive bays, USB Type C I/O and a vertical GPU mount are some of them with a ton of additional accessories and customization possible. The stock configuration is easy to build in thanks to its dual-hinge doors, many tie-down points and PSU shroud. The cooling for the case is not great when using just the three included fans and that is why we’re going to use a third party pack of Cooler Master SickleFlow 62 CFM 120 mm fans. You can do a setup with intake fans at the bottom and front and exhaust fans at the back and top in order to ensure equal pressure and sufficient airflow for your components. The additional three fans are not mandatory but you’ll obtain a much cooler and silent system if you decide the $49 on the additional fans.

Ultimately, we are big fans of how Lian Li has built the Lancool II-X as a fantastic blend between aesthetics, price and performance and that is why we’re sure it will go very well with the rest of the components in this build.

Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA G1+ 750 W 80+

The total max power draw of this Ryzen 7 5800X gaming PC build sits around 450 to 550W during a 100% CPU and GPU utilization under render loads. That is a very rare occurrence but we’ve prepared the build for that with the EVGA SuperNOVA G1+ which is a very high tier PSU from a world class trusted brand. The PSU can easily handle any power swings during the diverse loads you’re going to put the system through and will do it silently and stress-free.

Being a fully modular power supply, the G1+ will allow you to just use the cables that you really need for this build. Building this way you’re going to leave the case uncluttered and ensure a more easy way to do maintenance or upgrades on your full build; storage, RAM swaps or regular cleaning has never been easier with such good cables and case layout. Their cables also have a premium bend feel to them and thanks to their dark sleeving, you can arrange them inside the Lian Li case in order to obtain a very clean look. The RTX 3080 graphics card comes with a bundled 12 pin power connector that you can use for the PCIe cables but EVGA also takes care of this with their own version of the 12 pin connector. If your G1+ has been manufactured before the RTX 3000 series then EVGA will send you the added 12 pin connector for free; this is proof that EVGA cares about the latest needs for their customers.

The G1+ ranks S tier (the highest tier) in popular PSU ranking lists for its excellent protections against surges and excellent build quality; at the $120 price point, we’re finding the G1+ perfect for this enthusiast gaming build and any upgrades that you may be inclined to add in the future.

Bottom Line

Let’s focus a little on the price you’ll be paying for this build and the performance you are extracting from it. Less than 1 month ago, $2000 would have got you a Ryzen 7 3700X & RTX 2080Ti PC which indeed offered a great amount of performance but now, with the Ryzen 7 5800X & RTX 3080 overall performance at this price point is an estimated 30 to 35% better; this is a huge leap in value for money in just one CPU & GPU generation and its why we’re so excited for this build. The most amount of money in this build is going towards the CPU & GPU which amounts to ~$1150; before this, the 3700X + RTX 2080Ti would amount to a whopping ~$1500. The $300 saved from past generation’s components to the 5800X + RTX 3080 was used to spec the build with more high-end additional components such as the X570 motherboard, beQuiet! Dark Rock Pro 4 air cooler and greater storage performance.

The build offers class-leading gaming performance at any resolution and refresh rate. If you are looking for a monitor to pair this build with, our colleagues have drafted a list of the best monitors for such a Ryzen 7 5800X + RTX 3080 build. We are thrilled to recommend this build as the best $2000 gaming PC that you’ll be able to build at the end of 2020 and if you have any additional questions, we’re happy to answer in the comment section below; the FAQ can also help you with more general questions. Happy building!

The post $2100 Ryzen 7 5800X Gaming PC Build for 2021 appeared first on PremiumBuilds.

AMD’s initial Zen 3 lineup has finally been revealed, and it may very well have the new gaming CPU champion among its ranks! The Ryzen 9 5900X is shaping up to be a serious contender for gaming enthusiasts and users in need of some powerful productivity performance. Across the board, Zen 3 processors enjoy the benefits of AMD’s new architecture and unified L3 cache and core complexes (CCXs). These two changes allow for boost clocks up to 4.9GHz, and up to eight cores to share simultaneous access to 32MB of L3 cache within a single CCX.

Translation: Zen 3 brings a 19% boost in instructions per clock (IPC) and, according to AMD, a 26% performance uplift over Zen 2, all while remaining at or below the TDP of Zen 2. Even if you’ve recently procured yourself a Zen 2 processor, Zen 3 offers compelling upgrades to what could be the best CPUs on the market for quite some time. Furthermore, if Zen 3 is capable of even slightly more overclocking than Zen 2, Intel may have a rough time even trying to compete in gaming performance, which they’ve been clinging to for so long.

The fact of the matter is that AMD has had Intel’s feet to the fire for nearly two years, and it’s only been getting hotter. Thanks to Team Red, there has never been a better time to upgrade your current system or build a brand new one. While we may not yet have an idea of what’s in store for their upcoming Big Navi Radeon GPUs, Zen 3 is a safe bet to make while we await new technologies like DDR5 memory, Quantum Dot displays, and a process from Intel smaller than 14nm .

Best $2600 Ryzen 9 5900X Build – The Parts List

CPU

Today’s crown jewel: The Ryzen 9 5900X. Poised to sit atop most gaming benchmarks with its older brother, the 5950X, the $550 5900X is likely the more sensible option for the majority of builders to still crush performance in multiplayer arenas as well as in scrubbing through chunky timelines. With 12 cores, 24 threads, a 105W TDP, a 4.8GHz boost clock, and the improvements offered by AMD’s Zen 3 architecture, the 5900X earns its slight price uptick in our book.

Zen 3 will be the last series of processors to drop into the AM4 socket (barring any refreshes), so if you’re looking to make the most of your build and avoid upgrades for the next several years, it might be wisest for you to save up and spring for a Ryzen 9. Worst case scenario, AMD refreshes the 5000 series sometime next year, and your build ends up a half step down from the top! You’ll still have a beastly processor with incredibly tame thermal performance. Unless Intel can work some genuine technological wizardry, there’s not likely to be much competition in the CPU market from the elderly 14nm process.

CPU Cooler

Again, here’s to AMD and their ability to keep TDPs very much inline despite the beefy performance uplift with Zen 3. With such a relatively low 105W power draw expected from the 5900X, most users’ best bet will be air cooling, and when it comes to air cooling, there are few better options than Noctua. Today we’ll be recommending the Noctua NH-U12A, a nifty little heat sink that’s capable of competing with the monstrous NH-D15 dual-tower unit within a few degrees while also ending up a few decibels quieter.

With two of their specialized NF-A12x25 Sterrox© bladed fans, seven heatpipes, and a compact fin stack with an impressive amount of surface area, the NH-U12A has the cooling capabilities of even most 240mm AIOs in a 140mm single-tower. Unless you’re dead set on liquid cooling, there are very few other air or liquid coolers that can compete with the thermal and noise performance on top of this level of hardware compatibility. You shouldn’t have trouble fitting this beauty in nearly any compact, mid-sized, or full-sized ATX PC enclosure.

Motherboard

Now, if we’re still talking regal headwear, the MSI MEG X570 Unify is the crown that holds your 5900X gem. At this stage, the X570 Unify is one of the most tried and true AM4 motherboards released to date. While you might see some new entries from companies like Asus with the new ROG Crosshair DARK HERO and STRIX B550-XE, the X570 chipset is going to be the best home for your new Zen 3 CPU. Updates and refreshes are always welcome, but that doesn’t suddenly deprecate the long-standing benchmarks for build quality and performance, which the X570 Unify most certainly is.

The MSI X570 Unify boasts 60A Power Stages, a 15 Phase VRM (12+2+1), support for up to 128GB of DDR4-5000MHz memory, 3x M.2 slots, Intel AX200 Wi-Fi 6 + Bluetooth 5.0, Realtek 2.5G LAN + ALC1220 Audio CODEC, 4x USB 3.2 Gen 2 (1 is Type-C) + 2x USB 3.2 Gen 1 + 2x USB 2.0 ports, 4x SATA III 6Gb/s ports, an integrated I/O shield, Clear CMOS + BIOS Flashback buttons, onboard Power/Reset buttons, and a POST code readout for $300. For the most part, there’s not too much reason to look outside of the X570 Unify for mid to high-end Ryzen builds nowadays. MSI essentially created the perfect AM4 motherboard at damn near the perfect price. While it may not exactly be cheap, you’re buying one of the sleekest and most well-rounded options on the market with extremely competitive VRM performance and stellar component/build quality. (Plus, it’s a nice change of pace to have an option without the superfluous RGB lighting that’s all too common nowadays ).

Memory

For our system memory, we have chosen a G.Skill 32GB (2x16GB) DDR4-3600MHz CL16 kit, which should be available for about $145. Not the bleeding edge of memory performance, but as Jon discovered in the PremiumBuilds Test Lab for Zen 2 memory performance, there is a point of diminishing returns. Thus, 32GB of 3600MHz DDR4 allows us speeds that are plenty fast enough for gaming, with enough capacity for serious multi-tasking in addition to some relatively hefty productivity workloads. Whether you’re gaming with dozens of browser tabs and other programs open on your second display, or if you end up needing to do a bit of photo/video editing, 32GB in a 2x16GB kit gives you room to breathe and the opportunity to upgrade in the future should you so choose.

Storage

The end is nigh for spinning drives in gaming machines, folks, especially if the next generation consoles are any sort of barometer for the future. Game developers are beginning to actually take advantage of storage transfer speeds for things like streaming game assets directly from the drive. In fact, consoles might even perform tasks like that better than PCs for a while, thanks to some proprietary hardware that’s been developed to facilitate such operations. Regardless, you’re going to want to consider not only investing in SSDs for most of your storage (especially for games) but also setting aside some money for PCIe 4.0 SSDs as they continue to mature and come down in price.

That said, we’ve chosen two storage devices for today’s build: a 1TB Samsung 970 EVO Plus M.2 SSD for your OS and favorite games/programs and a 2TB Samsung 860 EVO 2.5” SSD for your bulk library storage. There’s not much to say when it comes to SSDs; there are many fantastic options, but the most fantastic tend to come from Samsung. Programs, and especially games, seem to be getting bigger and bigger, so not only do you want the fastest storage devices possible, but you want as much space as you can get for a reasonable price. Thankfully, SSDs have long since fallen from their astronomical highs a few years ago and only start to get ridiculously priced past 2TB or with PCIe 4.0 support. However, if you’re concerned about price, or perhaps just don’t need quite so much space, consider dropping the additional 2.5” SSD and investing that money in a stack of premium case fans or some new peripherals!

Graphics Card

Consider this the halo above your aforementioned crown, the EVGA RTX 3080 FTW3 Ultra Gaming. (IMPORTANT NOTE: We strongly recommend holding out on purchasing any 3000 Series RTX cards for the moment. There’s a good chance that Nvidia is planning to release updated 3070s and 3080s with double the total VRAM to compete with AMD’s upcoming Big Navi Radeon cards).

The 3080, despite Nvidia’s slightly troubled launch thus far, is a truly magnificent specimen, and the EVGA 3080 FTW3 Ultra Gaming pushes it to the bleeding edge. Where the reference TDP for an RTX 3080 is a mindblowing 350W, the EVGA FTW3 can easily hit 420W () with enough metal and fan speed to spare. EVGA has done a phenomenal job in taming this particular power-hungry beast and has undoubtedly crafted one of the most competitive third party overclocking cards to date. If ever you were considering gaming at 4K but held off due to concerns of performance? The one-two punch of a 5900X and RTX 3080 should properly dash any last reservations and will scream through any gaming benchmarks you can throw at it. If you plan to game at less than 4K? Forget about it; you’ll be stomping on 2080 Ti performances all day, and at a massive discount. Just a final reminder, do your best to hold off until Nvidia confirms they’ll be releasing an updated version with 20GB of VRAM!

PC Case

Next, we’ll look at the bones of your new beautiful beast: the Lian Li LANCOOL II-X ATX Mid-tower. Lian Li has been responsible for some great enclosures over the years, and the LANCOOL II-X is no exception. Simple, clean, a tasteful amount of RGB, and the premium build quality and materials many of you might be familiar with.

The Lancool II has hinged tempered glass side panels, cable shroud panels to hide your nest on the underside of your motherboard tray, a shrouded PSU and hard drive basement, well-thought-out cable management throughout, not to mention excellent ventilation and a reasonable amount of RGB lighting for the front panel. If you’ve been struggling to pick out your next case, or maybe you’ve grown just a little weary of my incessant Fractal Design recommendations, then the Lian Li LANCOOL II-X is an outstanding choice.

Power Supply

To wrap things up for our 5900X build, the PSU: the EVGA SuperNOVA G3 850W 80+ Gold. Your power supply is the most crucial component of your computer, and we’re just now starting to come out on the other side of severe availability issues due to recent global events. Prices are beginning to normalize, and the more reliable picks are becoming more readily available.

Enter the SuperNOVA G3 850W. EVGA has earned its reputation for more than just GPUs, with many of their power supplies being the affordable go-to choices thanks to their excellent build quality, performance, and warranty/customer service that’s second to none. For clean and stable power and stable power where you need it most, EVGA is always an excellent option!

Closing Thoughts

Zen 3 has raised the bar for consumer electronics relatively high from the looks of AMD’s initial lineup. With so many new technologies on the horizon, we can’t help but reiterate that there won’t be a better time to upgrade your machine or build a new one after Zen 3 finally launches this winter. Today’s build should get you pretty close to the cream of the crop for a reasonable sum and leave you plenty of breathing room to upgrade down the road. Are you planning on buying a Zen 3 CPU? Are you excited to see what kind of performance you can squeeze out of the new RTX cards? As always, be sure to let us know your thoughts in the comments down below, and thanks for reading!

The post $2600 Ryzen 9 5900X Gaming Build for 2021 appeared first on PremiumBuilds.

No, we didn’t either!

The RTX 3080 launch was a poor showing from Nvidia. They succeeded in building massive hype for this GPU: It’s their new flagship gaming GPU at a price that was finally realistic for the majority of PC enthusiasts. However the launch itself was marred by lack of supply,  widespread use of bots taking online retail sites down almost instantly, and any stock that was available disappearing before there was any opportunity to purchase it. Very, very few people managed to obtain an RTX 3080 on launch day with rumours of fewer than 2000 cards available globally at launch. So rest assured you are not alone in NOT having hands on this highly desirable graphics card! Outside of prominent youtubers, it appears not many people do!

All is not lost however. In this article we’ll discuss some of the options available to you now that the initial launch is over. If you wanted an upgrade, or are in dire need of a GPU to get a PC up and running, we’ve got a solution for your situation. 

Here’s what to do if you missed out on an RTX 3080: 4 Scenarios

If you still want an RTX 3080 and don’t mind waiting:

Firstly, don’t feel too bad for ‘missing out’. There are a number of advantages to sitting back and waiting a while. Firstly, in respect of the RTX 3080, it allows you to dig into the reviews of the various AIB models and find which one is right for you. There’s a temptation to rush into buying whatever you can get your hands on in the hype of a major release but that’s often not the best approach. In respect of the RTX 3080, there are now a few issues coming to light that you should be mindful of: It appears that certain cards are not stable at high boost clocks, limiting their performance. This has been traced back to boards with 6 ‘POSCAP’ style capacitors at the rear of the GPU core being less stable than those with one or two ‘MLCC’ arrays amongst the capacitors to smooth power delivery: Zotacs trinity and Gigabytes Eagle cards are known to be of the flawed design. By waiting not only can you avoid those cards for now, but there will be time for the manufacturers to rectify their design so that their cards will be stable. This means you’ll get a better card for your money. It’s also sensible to check dimensions of the various options to ensure it will actually fit in your case: RTX 3080’s are characteristically huge with many models exceeding 300mm long and 3 slots thick, so eliminate cards you can’t physically fit. Finally, there are models that have still not come to market and so are not available to the first round of buyers. We’re particularly eager to see the Asus ROG STRIX design as well as the EVGA FTW3 Ultra, neither of which have shipped at the time of writing. By holding back you can take a calm look at the whole range of products on offer and then sit it out until the one you truly want is available to buy.

Related: Best RTX 3080 Aftermarket Cards (so far)

If you game at 1080p 

Then breathe a sigh of relief! You don’t need an RTX 3080 to game at these resolutions. In fact having a GPU as powerful as an RTX 3080 in a 1080p gaming rig is likely to run you into a host of performance issues because even high performance CPUs simply cannot keep up with the frame rates this card is capable of. It is a waste of money to spend this much on a GPU that you simply cannot obtain the full benefit of at 1080p. We’d strongly recommend that you step down your aspirations to an RTX 3070 or perhaps the upcoming AMD ‘Big Navi’ GPU, and spend the money you’ve saved on a 1440p high FPS gaming monitor. For the same outlay, you’ll get a much more satisfying gaming experience in return. If you’re happy at 1080p then you could consider an existing GPU like the GTX 1660 Super or RTX 2060 Super, or hold out and see what kind of performance the upcoming ‘RTX 3060’ offers before making your decision.

If you absolutely need a GPU now:

If you’ve built a rig in preparation for the RTX 3080 but have been unable to obtain the GPU that you wanted, then we can understand your frustration at this situation. However there are a number of options: Firstly, we’d urge you to look at the used market. If you buy astutely then it’s quite possible to get an excellent GPU and lose very little money on it when the time comes to sell it on. The launch of any new GPU prompts a sell-off of older cards that are still excellent performers, and because owners are jittery about being able to sell it prices are often at their lowest at this time. Right now RTX 2070 Super’s, RTX 2080 Super’s, and even RTX 2080 Ti’s are all available for well under half their new pricing. An RTX 2080 Ti at $550 will not disappoint in performance at 1440p ultrawide or 4k and will last you a year or more perhaps until the inevitable RTX 3080 refresh. For best value options we’d consider looking at the RTX 2070 Super if you game at 1440p, or the Radeon RX 5700XT – expect to see a flood of used versions at around $250 once AMD’s ‘Big Navi’ is announced in October.

If the idea of buying used isn’t for you then you could consider EVGA’s ‘step up’ scheme. This programme allows people in the US, Canada or EU who buy the last generation EVGA GPU’s to register and then obtain the new versions once stock is available. You have to pay the difference and return the old GPU. The programme operates within each model bracket, so an RTX 2070 steps up to an RTX 3070, 2080>3080 and so on. They also dictate what models you can step up to. Whilst this programme is unique amongst retailers and offers a lifeline to people who buy at just the wrong time, we’d be wary of buying a new GPU with the expectation of ‘stepping up’ down the line. It should be seen as a nice bonus, not a guaranteed route to the RTX 3080, but it’s certainly worth investigating. An EVGA RTX 2080 Super is still an excellent GPU that will game well at 1440p and 1440p ultrawide for the foreseeable future.

If you’re not sure what GPU you want but the RTX 3080 launch has made you think about an upgrade:

In this situation, there’s actually never been a more important time to keep your powder dry and wait and see how the landscape evolves. The stock issues besetting the RTX 3080 will subside with time so it will become freely available once the initial demand spike passes. However, there’s more to this than the RTX 3080. On October 15^th the RTX 3070 releases. Priced from just $499 this card sports 8Gb GDDR6 VRAM and promises to be ‘as fast’ as the RTX 2080 Ti. We’ll have to wait for testing to know it’s true performance but it looks sure to be the new 1440p gaming champion. We confidently predict that on launch we will see exactly the same supply shortages we saw with both the RTX 3080 and 3090 but don’t let that put you off, supply will flow though in time. If you don’t need the power of the RTX 3080 (and most gamers don’t) then the RTX 3070 frees up $300 that can be put to good use in the rest of the PC. There’s also AMD’s upcoming ‘big’ and ‘little’ Navi GPU’s that will be announced towards the end of October. These GPU’s are touted to finally challenge Nvidia’s dominance at the top end of the GPU market, and given the aggressive pricing and performance of the RTX 3000 series line up, it’s clear Nvidia sense a threat. Again, time will tell as to the price and value of these GPU’s but they will be worthy of your consideration as you assess the market and your purchase. Finally, there’s also AMD’s next Ryzen CPU line up, Zen 3, announcing at the end of October as well. They will undoubtedly push performance forwards once more, and offer a compelling value alternative to Intel CPU’s.

The overall picture will therefore develop throughout October whilst the stock and availability of products should hopefully improve. By the holidays you will be in a position to make a clear judgement about which of these products is right from you away from the pressured environment of a product launch. 

Overall Nvidia’s disappointing launch of the RTX 3080 – not in performance but in availability – has given an important breathing space to allow you time to make a more informed decision. You don’t have to get swept away in the hype, and nor do you have to purchase the latest and greatest right away. The market is full of GPUs that are available right now and give fantastic gaming experiences without incurring the cost of the RTX 3080. I hope this article has opened your eyes to some options to keep you gaming until you can get the GPU you truly want, and also helped you to assess which GPU is actually most appropriate for your needs. 

Featured Ampere Builds

The post RTX 3080 Out of Stock? If You Missed Out Here’s What To Do appeared first on PremiumBuilds.

The Ampere GPU’s are finally available – sort of – and we’ve been able to gather information on the RTX 3080 partner cards that have shipped so far. In this article, we’ll recommend which of the various aftermarket RTX 3080 cards are best suited to you and your needs for 2021.

Some notes about RTX 3080 ‘partner cards’

There’s often some confusion about the range of cards available for any particular GPU so we’ll take this opportunity to explain how these various cards are created. Fundamentally there is only one type of ‘GPU’ here. Nvidia design the ‘GA102’ GPU core, the chip that actually does the graphics processing, and these are produced by Samsung. Some of these are manufactured into Nvidia’s own cards, the ‘Founders edition’ RTX 3080. The vast majority are sold off to partner companies such as MSI, EVGA, ASUS, Gigabyte and others. Those companies then go on to manufacture their own graphics cards using Nvidia’s core, but designing their own printed circuit boards and cooler solutions. GPU cores go through a process known as ‘binning’ whereby their performance is assessed and they are separated out into top performers, and lower quality items. With the GA102 cores being used in both the RTX 3090 and 3080, chips with some defective shader units can be ‘cut down’ to be used in the less powerful cards. Through this method, Nvidia maximise the saleable yield of GPU cores. The peak clock speed they can achieve leads to the differing ‘boost clock’ specifications you can see on manufacturers specifications, but rest assured that all Ampere GPu’s will significantly exceed these minimum guaranteed boost levels. By how much whilst remaining stable and cool is dictated by silicon quality. The actual ‘bins’ obtained by board partners for their various performance models is a closely guarded industry secret, so we’re left guessing as to whose cards may use the best silicon.

Nvidia also design a ‘reference’ board, the printed circuit board that holds the memory and power delivery circuity.  In the past these boards were sought after by enthusiasts because you could fit aftermarket cooling products like water blocks, and the components will be in the right place to make contact with the Voltage circuity and memory chips. This generation is somewhat different. Nvidia has branched out and created a unique cooling design with a partial PCB that allows air to blow through the back half of the card. The partner companies clearly haven’t had the time to conduct the R&D to mimic this cooler configuration or perhaps are prevented from doing so by patents, therefore the partner PCB’s are much more varied in design. This may create compatibility issues for those wishing to modify their cards with aftermarket cooling solution, but if you’re simply looking for a card to buy, install and use it won’t impact you. The manufacturers are also locked into Microns GDDR6X memory specification as that’s the only validated memory for the RTX 3080. 

The upshot of this process is that all RTX 3080’s will perform in the same ballpark with perhaps 5% variance between models before overclocking. The factors that the partner manufacturers can control are the power delivery circuity and cooling capacity of the attached cooling solution, as well as overall size and build quality. The RTX 3080 is capable of drawing at least 320W and up to 350W in stock form making both power delivery and cooling critical to allowing these GPU’s to perform. That’s why we’ve seen a proliferation of huge 3-fan 3-slot thick coolers for this GPU. With that explained here are our recommendations for the best RTX 3080 cards. 

Best RTX 3080 Cards – Our Recommendations

Best Value RTX 3080 – Asus TUF Gaming

ASUS’s  ‘TUF’ gaming brand marks its mid-range gaming components. This GPU sits close to the bottom of the pricing charts at around $780 but they haven’t scrimped on quality. This card has a solid 3 fan cooler design and utilises a neat independent heat sink for the memory chips – handy when they alone consume around 80W of the RTX 3080’s 320W power draw. The cooler utilises a central fan that spins counter to the other two to apparently reduce noise and reviews have found this card to be both quiet and cool in operation. The fan shroud and backplate are metal. Beyond that, the card maintains all of the RTX 3080’s standard specifications and has a 1740MHz boost clock. There’s also the slightly more expensive OC model with a higher boost clock although the performance of that card is limited by the strict power limit applied to these cards. The standard ASUS TUF Gaming RTX 3080 takes our recommendation due to the balance of low price, low noise, solid performance and good build quality. 

Quietest RTX 3080: MSI Gaming Trio X

The MSI Gaming Trio X is MSI’s higher-end entry into the RTX 3080 line up. It’s another 3 fan card and whilst the backplate is only 2 slots it’s a 3 slot thick card owing to the deep cooler. This card runs passively when not under load, turning the fans off completely for silent operation. The default fan curve runs quiet but does allow temperatures to creep slightly higher than in other models, but never to concerning levels. Since you can set a fan curve manually, this allows you the choice of low noise or low temperatures, or whatever balance of those two attributes suits you best. The low noise profile doesn’t dent performance, this is one of the highest performing cards right out of the box. It also ships with a GPU support bracket, a nice addition for such a large and heavy card and an accessory we’d like to see more GPU makers provide. There’s also prominent RGB lighting, although of course, you can opt to turn this off if you prefer a stealthier look. Overall we’re rating this as the quietest RTX 3080 with lower noise than even the founder’s edition model.

Best Enthusiast RTX 3080: EVGA FTW3 Ultra

EVGA’s FTW3 line up has taken air cooling to the next level ever since the GTX 1080 Ti FTW3. This GPU utilises a thick 3 fan cooler but that’s nothing special amongst RTX 3080’s. What marks this card out is the lifted power limits, the single constraining factor on the RTX 3080’s performance. Almost all other cards sit tightly locked at 320-350W power draw owing to the chips’ huge power demands and limited voltage delivery circuitry. The FTW3 pushes that back to a huge 440W, 100W higher than the reference design. That’s power available for enthusiasts to play with, overclocking is the raison d’etre of this card and it has already been used to set overclocking records in 3Dmark. The 9-sensor ‘iCx’ monitoring array lets you keep a precise watch over temperatures and gives you independent control over the speed of each fan. You’ll need a rock-solid power supply to support this GPU: we’d recommend at least 850W gold rated. If you opt for EVGA’s FTW3 Ultra you’ll be blessed with one of the top-performing versions of the RTX 3080 anywhere. 

Best RTX 3080 for Small Form Factor builds: EVGA XC3 Gaming

One of the consistent features of partner RTX 3080’s is that they’ve all opted for huge cooling solutions. Given the need to dissipate at least 300 Watts of heat it’s clear that most manufacturers have been forced to opt for three fan triple slot thick coolers. Just the Founders edition card and this offering from EVGA buck the trend and offer true 2 slot thick options that are under 300mm in length. The EVGA XC3 is a smidge over 285mm long and protrudes past the 2 slot backplate by only a couple of millimetres. It still uses a 3 fan design but it’s narrow and doesn’t overhang to the side like almost every other version. Whilst we’d never call this card small it is the version of the RTX 3080 with the most compact dimensions whilst the 2.2 slot thickness means it will fit into many more small form factor case options such as the DAN A4 or NZXT H1. As ever if you’re planning a build with a powerful and large GPU in a small case it pays to double-check clearances and also look at Small Form Factor enthusiast sites to see what people have been able to fit in the case you’re considering.

Cards to avoid – for now: Zotac Trinity, Gigabyte Eagle, any other card with 6 POSCAPS and no MLCC array behind the GPU. 

Unfortunately, there have been emerging reports of crashes and instabilities when certain versions of the RTX 3080 reach peak boost speeds. Due to some impressive detective work from Igors Lab, this has been linked back to the manufacturing decisions of some of the board partners. In brief, there are arrays of capacitors behind the GPU core that handle power delivery into the core itself, Nvidia’s reference design states that at least one of these six arrays should be a more expensive ‘MLCC’ capacitor array, not cheaper ‘POSCAP’s. In the founder’s edition, two of the arrays are MLCC’s. In the ASUS TUF, all six of these arrays are the more expensive MLCC design and Igor’s lab have not been able to produce this instability on either the Founders edition card or the ASUS TUF RTX 3080. Therefore until this issue is fully investigated and resolved we can only advise that you stay away from GPU’s that are known to use six POSCAPS to avoid potential instability problems if you overclock or in demanding titles. You should not be forced to underclock a brand new graphics card to achieve stability. 

Featured Ampere Builds

The post 4 Best RTX 3080 Aftermarket Cards for 2021 appeared first on PremiumBuilds.

Ampere is here and pushing graphics performance even higher. If you’re looking to snag one of these GPUs to upgrade your system, you’ve probably asked yourself the question ‘will it bottleneck my PC’? You might even have found some sites that claim to put a figure on the degree of ‘bottleneck’ you’ll encounter.

On the face of it this seems a simple question but the reality has some depth to it. But don’t worry – in this article we’ll help you understand what ‘bottleneck’ actually means in the context of your PC’s performance, and we’ll describe two simple tests you can do right now to understand if your PC is up to the task of getting the best from an Ampere GPU – including the RTX 3070 and RTX 3080. We’ll also explain why you should ignore any site that presents a bottleneck as a simple percentage. 

What is ‘a bottleneck’?

A ‘bottleneck’ is commonly referred to when a CPU isn’t deemed powerful enough to allow a graphics card to reach its full potential. People often comment as if a bottleneck is both a fixed situation and also a major detriment to performance in a system. Neither of these is always the case. In reality, some component of your system will always limit its ultimate performance. It may be the CPU but in most games, it should usually be the GPU. Additionally, many game engines simply won’t allow a game to run to full potential either due to current hardware limitations or simple speed capping in the game engine itself. The factors dictating performance limitations actually change all the time, and it can swing between being the CPU, GPU and engine all in the same game depending on the situation. Resolution and settings are also of key importance because a GPU heavily loaded driving a 4k monitor will limit performance much more than the same GPU at 1080p with just a quarter the rendering load to complete. This is why you’re actually much more likely to encounter the CPU limiting performance on a PC running at 1080p than a higher resolution, particularly if you buy a high-end GPU like an RTX 3070 or 3080.

In most games, most of the time, we want the GPU to be fully utilised. This means you’re getting full value out of the GPU and that performance will be smooth and frame times consistent. If you do run into a situation where you are CPU limited that’s when performance becomes inconsistent with frame drops, stutters and inconsistent frame times. It’s the fear of this happening that leads people to consider whether a GPU upgrade might cause them to be ‘bottlenecked’. 

So, how can you tell if you’ll run into issues after a GPU upgrade?

A simple test can determine broadly whether your CPU is fit for purpose, and you can do it now without spending any money.

Using a game that is representative of the games you enjoy playing, just turn settings and even resolution down to medium or minimum, and resolution down to perhaps half your normal screen resolution. Yes, this will look terrible, but that’s not the point! Now, play for a while. Consider the fluidity of the gameplay, whether there is any stutter or lag, and if the frame rate you perceive is acceptable to you. If the game plays smoothly and at a good frame rate then your CPU is capable of running the game engine well enough when not bound by the GPU. This is indicative of it being capable of supporting a more powerful GPU without issue. However, it is possible that you artificially create a CPU limitation doing this test giving poor performance when in fact the CPU will cope just fine with a graphics card upgrade. If so the next test can resolve that for you. 

A more advanced method:

Find a game that’s representative of the games you enjoy playing or just your favourite game, and has representative benchmarks available online with the GPU you’re considering buying. Install MSI Afterburner. Click the settings ‘cog’ icon and under the ‘benchmark’ tab you’ll find 2 fields for ‘start’ and stop’ keybindings and a location to save a text benchmark file. Set the key bindings to keys that work for you and set your preferred file location. With afterburner minimised, again turn settings down as before and start playing the game. Benchmark for a minute or two over a representative section of gameplay using the ‘start’ and ‘stop’ keys that you assigned. You can do this more than once and Afterburner will append new sections to the .txt file so long as you don’t have the file open otherwise Afterburner is unable to write to it. Now, open the benchmarking text file and take a look at your results. Don’t worry too much about the 1% and 0.1% lows – those are the numbers that can be negatively impacted if you’ve hit a CPU limitation. Check the average framerate figures. Now go and look at the benchmarks of the game on the GPU you’re considering, at your target resolution. So long as your CPUs’ average frame rate exceed those benchmark numbers, your system is capable of supporting the GPU you’re considering. 

Some general guidelines around Bottlenecks:

We’ve explained how CPU limitations occur owing to a number of variables, so let’s discuss whether they may apply to you.

Resolution:

By far the biggest factor is the resolution you run: 1080p is much less demanding on the GPU than 1440p or 4k, and so you are much more likely to run into a CPU limited situation at this resolution. Given the high FPS that even mid-range GPU’s can generate at 1080p you need a fast CPU to keep up – and this is counterintuitive because 1080p rigs tend to be the entry-level to PC gaming and utilise lower-cost components. Thankfully current affordable CPUs like the Ryzen 3600 are plenty capable of running titles to high framerates but older CPUs may not be.

It may be that a better solution than a CPU upgrade is actually a monitor upgrade: If you’re looking to move to an Ampere GPU then they really aren’t able to use their full potential at 1080p and many systems will struggle to support them. Rather than spending $300 on a new CPU and motherboard to try and increase frame rates, you may find more satisfaction in moving to 1440p and enjoying higher graphical fidelity – you CPU will likely be much happier running moderately high framerates in a GPU bound situation. You can see our recommendations for monitors for Ampere RTX 3070 and RTX 3080 builds here.

Game Genre

Game type is also important: e-Sports and fast paced first person shooters tend to have simpler graphics and are more likely to be CPU limited than AAA titles that push the boundaries of Graphics capabilities. You are more likely to be CPU limited in this kind of game.

Simulators are also often very demanding of the CPU with complex physics models running in the background. Flight Simulator 2020 is a classic example of a game that is heavily CPU limited, and you can read more about our analysis of it here. If you’re building a sim rig you need to allocate sufficient budget to get a high-performance CPU and upgrading to Ampere may be the catalyst to refresh your platform. 

Settings

We all want to experience the best that games have to offer but turning every setting to Ultra can be a serious detriment to performance. It’s perhaps a shame that GPU benchmarks usually concentrate on ‘ultra’ settings to best demonstrate the difference between GPUs when that means you can’t accurately gauge expected performance on high settings. This is further complicated with Ampere owing to a number of RTX and DLSS 2.0 enabled titles. These settings can dramatically alter performance for better (DLSS) or worse (RTX) and usually work best hand in hand – but comparatively few titles employ these technologies meaning we fall back to basic rasterization performance. 

The great thing about GPU performance is that it’s fully within our control. You can decide to trade performance for visual fidelity until you arrive at a balance that’s right for you so don’t be scared to dig in and see if you can tweak things. Remember: If you’ve got a powerful GPU and are experiencing stutters from a CPU limitation it’s possible that raising graphics settings may actually improve the performance of the game!

Conclusions:

We hope this article has given you a better understanding of the factors that can lead to a CPU ‘bottleneck’ in your system, and given you a couple of tools to help your purchasing decisions. If you have a 1080p monitor and play high FPS E-sports then it’s likely an Ampere GPU may cause a CPU limitation. You can look for a more suitable GPU pairing or perhaps consider upgrading your monitor alongside the GPU purchase.  You have a Ryzen Zen+ or Zen 2 CPU, or an Intel 14nm CPU with at least 6 cores and play at 1440p or higher resolution then in all probability you will not suffer any CPU limitations with an Ampere GPU and you can upgrade with confidence. If you have an older CPU (Ryzen Zen 1, Intel from Pre 2016) or a 4-core CPU and play at 1080p or 1440p then there’s a good chance you may experience some CPU limitations as modern games overwhelm your CPUs capacity. Consider running the tests described in this article to gauge your system’s performance and help you decide whether to upgrade.

Finally, if you’re planning a whole new build to take advantage of an Ampere GPU then consult our build guides for recommendations of great CPU pairings with these new top tier graphics cards.

• Best CPUs for RTX 3070 Builds
• Best CPUs for RTX 3080 Builds
• Best CPUs for RTX 3090 Builds

The post Ampere Bottleneck Guide: Will my CPU bottleneck the RTX 3070/3080? appeared first on PremiumBuilds.

Ampere is here and it’s brought a huge uplift in GPU performance. But make no mistake: these high-end graphics cards are wasted at 1080p. If you’re looking to upgrade or to build a PC around the Ampere GPUs then you need a monitor that lets them show their full potential. The RTX 3070 matches RTX 2080 Ti performance and is aimed squarely at high FPS 1440p resolution and stunning AAA gaming. It’ll also run 1440p ultrawide well and give good results at 4k. The RTX 3080 finally fulfils the promise of bringing 4k gaming into the mainstream with it the ability to run AAA titles at 4k and high FPS. It will also do an excellent job at 1440p ultrawide.

Monitor technology is advancing all the time but it tends to be at a slower pace than the relentless improvements in GPU power. Technologies that have crept in in recent years should now be considered essential for any gaming monitor. Adaptive sync is a vital feature that synchronises the monitor refresh rate to the frame rate the GPU is outputting, eliminating tearing and smoothing our perception of motion on screen. It has been complicated by numerous competing systems and specifications however you don’t need to worry too much as Nvidias has included AMD’s Freesync into its driver compatibility. Whilst G-sync is technically a superior solution with the GPU able to dictate the monitor refresh directly via a module in the monitor, Freesync monitors perform almost identically in practice. With the adoption of the ‘G-Sync compatible’ specification, you can be assured of great performance without paying the premium price of a full G-Sync equipped monitor. All of the monitors we recommend here are ‘G-Sync Compatible’.

IPS and VA panel technology has evolved to the point where TN panels really aren’t worthwhile particular for a premium gaming experience. You can enjoy fast response times without the trade off in colour vibrancy and viewing angles a TN panel imposes.

So let’s check out the best monitors available to pair with the RTX 3070 and RTX 3080. In this article, we’ll round up the best options for each GPU at the resolutions they’re intended for.

Best Monitors for RTX 3070 & 3080 Builds – Our Recommendations

Award	Design	Model	Panel	Size
Best Value Monitor for RTX 3070		Gigabyte G27QC	VA	27"
Best 1440p Monitor for RTX 3070		Asus TUF VG27AQ	IPS	27"
Best 1440p Ultrawide Monitor for RTX 3070		Viotek GNV34DBE	VA	34"
Best 1440p Monitor for the RTX 3080		Viewsonic Elite XG270QG	IPS	27:"
Best Budget 1440p 144Hz Monitor for RTX 3080		Dell S2719DGF	TN	27"
Best 1440p Ultrawide Monitor for RTX 3080		MSI Optix MPG 341CQR	VA	34"
Alternative 1440p Ultrawide Monitor for RTX 3080		LG 34GN850-B	IPS	34"
Best 4K Monitor for RTX 3080		Acer XV273K	IPS	27"

Best Value Monitor for RTX 3070

The G27QC is a recent release from Gigabyte and sets a new standard in features and performance at the price. It uses a VA panel for vibrant colours and deep blacks, and whilst response times aren’t cutting edge they’re plenty for AAA gaming and general use. It has 165Hz refresh rate and is ‘Freesync Premium’ and G-Sync compatible, meaning that you’ll get great adaptive sync performance with the Nvidia GPU.  This eliminates screen tearing and smooths out frame delivery for a fluid gaming experience even if you’re not quite hitting 144FPS. As for physical features, there’s a 2 port USB hub, handy for moving your headphones and other peripherals to be closer to hand. The stand is basic but functional with height and tilt but no twist. A curved vs flat panel is a matter of personal preference but for gaming and general use the 1500R curve enhances immersion, whilst thin bezels look slick and make a multi-monitor set up seamless. 27” display size is the sweet spot for pixel density for this resolution, making text easy to read without pixels becoming individually visible at standard viewing distances.

Overall this monitor offers a host of great features at the price and pairs excellently with the capability of the RTX 3070. 

Best 1440p Monitor for RTX 3070

The Asus TUF VG27AQ is part of the TUF gaming product range. One of its key features is very low input lag meaning your actions take minimal time to be represented on screen – making it an exceptional gaming monitor for the RTX 3070. This monitor boasts 144hz refresh rate overclockable to 165Hz and is certified G-Sync compatible. It has an IPS panel which combines the benefits of vibrant and accurate colours and fast response times.

Physically the monitor is quite staid in appearance and has minimal features with no speakers, and just one DisplayPort and two HDMI sockets. However, the stand allows a full range of adjustment and has cable management built in to keep things tidy. Thin bezels allow near seamless multiple monitor setups, and it’s flat which suits some peoples’ preference. 

This monitor offers a fantastically responsive option for all types of gaming but it’s particularly well suited to first-person shooters thanks to the low input lag. Combined with solid specification all round, it’s the best pairing with an RTX 3070 if you want a fast capable 1440p panel.

Best 1440p Ultrawide Monitor for RTX 3070

If you’re interested in ultrawide monitors but don’t want to break the bank then this $400 option from Viotek, the GNV34DBE, should be high on your list. 1440p ultrawide resolution is an excellent option for both productivity and gaming. The screen real estate allows for multiple documents or windows on screen, and the flexible workspace means you can move windows around as best suits your work without the bezels of a multi-monitor set up getting in the way. In gaming a curved ultrawide monitor wraps around you and fills your peripheral vision, making it ideal for AAA games and simulators. It’s less ideal for competitive first-person shooters since the increased pixel count does impact your frame rate but the RTX 3070 is well up to the task of driving this resolution even in demanding titles. 

This Viotek monitor brings all the essential specifications for gaming down to an affordable price point, making it an exceptional pairing with the $500 RTX 3070. The 34” curved screen wraps around you with a 1500mm curve radius.  It has 144hz refresh rate and freesync allowing control from 48hz to 144hz. This will work with Nvidias G-Sync and acts to eliminate tearing and smooth out frame delivery. The response time is a quick 4ms and overall input lag is remarkably low at around 26ms.

It has a VA panel meaning good vibrant colours and deep blacks. Colour accuracy is acceptable at the price but calibration is recommended if you do any colour critical work like photo editing. 

It has 2 DisplayPorts sockets and 2 HDMI ports as well as a headphone jack so it’s well equipped with input options.

At $400 this monitor offers huge value and great performance. It’ll allow you to lose yourself in games but also double as a versatile workspace if you need to do more with your PC. We consider it the perfect ultrawide pairing with the RTX 3070.

Best 1440p Monitor for the RTX 3080

When you’re looking for a best in class GPU such as the RTX 3080, it makes sense to pair it with a high-end monitor that will ensure you get the most from it. At $600 the Viewsonic Elite XG270QG isn’t cheap but it does boast impressive build quality and features for the price.

This monitor uses a 144hz IPS panel but that refresh rate is overclockable to 165Hz. Full G-Sync implementation means that a G-Sync module in the monitor is directly controlled by the Nvidia GPU, instructing the monitor when to draw the next frame. This allows the widest possible adaptive sync range and completely eliminates stutter and screen tearing since the monitor only refreshes when there is a complete frame ready to display. The IPS panel is vibrant and high quality with minimal input lag and excellent response times – so your actions appear on-screen instantaneously. Indeed it beats the popular competitor the Asus PG279Q ROG Swift in this respect. 

As for ergonomics this monitor has a fully adjustable stand with inbuilt cable management, and is also VESA mountable if you’d prefer it on an arm. It even comes with a monitor hook and mouse cable bungee. 

The G-Sync module actually limits this monitors connectivity options to just one DisplayPort and one HDMI input, and to make use of G-Sync you need to use the DisplayPort option. There’s a USB 3.0 hub built-in, however, very useful to tidy up headphone and other accessory USB cables. This high-end 1440p monitor will ensure you’re seeing the very best your RTX 3080 can do. 

Best 1440p Ultrawide Monitor for RTX 3080

MSI pulled out all the stops with this 34” ultrawide – the Optix MPG 341CQR. Using a VA panel with 1800mm curve radius, this monitor has 144Hz refresh rate and Freesync which has been tested as compatible with Nvidia’s G-Sync implementation. The panel is vibrant and high quality with good contrast ratio and black levels and response times are good. Contrast surpasses that possible with an IPS panel. Additional features include a USB-C input so you can hook up a laptop with ease and an inbuilt webcam, which is useful in the new ‘work from home’ era (I’m totally not playing Flight Simulator 2020 in this meeting, I promise). This is a monitor that excels in gaming and is well suited to general use, and isn’t as expensive as the G-Sync options from Acer (X34P) and Dell (Alienware AW3418UW). It’s perfectly placed to show the RTX 3080 off to best advantage.

Best 4K Monitor for RTX 3080

The RTX 3080 is the first GPU capable of really pushing 4K gaming past the 60FPS barrier in demanding games, and to enjoy that capability that you’ll want a top tier 4K monitor.
The Acer XV273K is a 144hz 4K monitor with adaptive sync – which means it will use Freesync via G-sync compatibility to smooth framerates below 144fps – vital at 4K even with a GPU as powerful as the RTX 3080. The panel is a top-quality IPS unit with excellent colour accuracy and good contrast and brightness. Response times are good and input lag is minimal so it’s suitable for fast-paced shooters as well as general gaming. To fully exploit the RTX 3080 at 4K, this monitor hits the spot perfectly. It’s not cheap – but then 4K gaming remains an expensive hobby despite the newfound power of Ampere GPU’s. 

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Nvidia has announced its Ampere GPUs and it’s clear they’re going to be a massive step up in performance. Despite a new more efficient chip design they are also going to be power-hungry. Nvidia state that the RTX 3070 draws 220 Watts and requires a 650W power supply, whilst the RTX 3080 and RTX 3090 both state that a 750W power supply is required.

There’s a little more to it than raw power though, and for a top tier build using these new GPU’s you’ll want to ensure you’ve got a high quality, stable and quiet power supply. In this article, we’ll give you our recommendations for the best power supplies available for your Ampere RTX build.

A note on the 12 pin power connector

Nvidia Founders Edition RTX 3080 and 3090 GPU’s have a new 12 pin PCI-E power plug design which mounts at the middle of the card. The reason for this is they have a truncated circuit board inside that allows the cooling fins to extend beyond and air to blow right through them: This compact design doesn’t allow space for the standard PCIe power connectors. Don’t worry though: All the other manufacturers’ versions of the cards have retained the standard PCIe power sockets, whilst the Nvidia cards will ship with a power adaptor to allow you to connect standard PCIe cables to their proprietary connector. You will not require custom cables or a new power supply to run these latest GPUs in your system.

Best PSUs for RTX 3070 / 3080 / 3090 Ampere Builds – Our Recommendations

Award	Design	Model
Best PSU for RTX 3070		Antec Earthwatts Gold Pro 650W
Best High-end PSU for RTX 3070		EVGA SuperNOVA GA 650 W 80+
Best SFX PSU for RTX 3070		Silverstone SX650-G 650W
Best Budget PSU for RTX 3080		Seasonic Focus Plus 750W Gold
Best High-end PSU for RTX 3080		EVGA SuperNOVA GA 850W Gold
Best SFF PSU for RTX 3080		Corsair SF750 Platinum
Best PSU for RTX 3090		Corsair AX 850 Titanium

Best PSU for RTX 3070

This Antec Earthwatts Gold Pro PSU is a rebranded Seasonic Focus Gold design. It may be semi-modular but that’s no disadvantage since you need the ATX, EPS and PCIe cables as a minimum anyway. You can connect up to four PCIe cables if required, though the RTX 3070 will use just two. It’s gold-rated for efficiency and operates with minimal noise thanks to its smart fan operation – the fan runs at exceptionally low RPM until the power supply is really loaded up, so you won’t hear it in normal operation. It uses DC-DC topology for maximum stability and efficiency. There’s also the full suite of protections in place. The power supply is capable of running power-hungry GPUs: we use one in our Premium Builds test bench and it’s happy powering our 320W draw RTX 2080 Ti so it will have no issues with the 220W RTX 3070. It’s backed with a 7-year warranty. With competitors now well over $100, this is an excellent value power supply that is well up to the task of powering your RTX 3070 build. 

Best High-end PSU for RTX 3070

If you’re looking for a PSU that’s easier to customise with cable sets, moving up in price a little at $115 we have EVGAs SuperNOVA GA power supply for the RTX 3070. This PSU is EVGA’s latest revision and includes all the features you’d expect of a high-end power supply: It’s Gold efficiency rated and fully modular and has 100% Japanese capacitors. It has a zero fan mode at low workloads so it’s silent until the PC is working hard, at which time you’ll hear the case and GPU fans more anyway. The dual ball bearing fan ensures both long life and minimal noise. This PSU ships with a 10-year warranty and EVGA’s stellar reputation for customer service, so you’ve got decade long peace of mind. This PSU forms a rock-solid basis for any RTX 3070-based build.

Best SFX PSU for RTX 3070

SFX builds need careful planning, and if you’re on the lookout for a 650W power supply in SFX form factor your options are limited – this is, even more, the case since trade wars and the global pandemic combined to hit production and supply lines. For the best SFX option at present, we’ve picked the Silverstone SX650-G. This potent little power supply packs 650W output and 4 PCIe connectors into its tiny chassis. There’s a silent running 92mm fluid dynamic bearing fan and all Japanese capacitors. Silverstone boasts of the class-leading single +12V rail meaning it will happily power the most demanding GPU’s, and also that is has a very low ±3% voltage regulation. The modular cables are flat for easy routing and packaging in compact cases. Dual EPS 8 Pin cables support the latest Z490 and X570 chipset motherboards allowing you to fully populate an 8+4 pin CPU power socket. The warranty is a little disappointing at 3 years but that doesn’t impact the quality of the actual product at all. At the time of writing, this is our recommended 650W Power supply if you need an SFX build with an RTX 3070.

Best Budget PSU for RTX 3080

Budget is, of course, relative when you’re talking about a build including an $800 GPU. The Seasonic Focus Plus Gold is the minimum we’d specify for such a build and the extensive feature list warrant its slightly higher price. 

This power supply has everything you need: The recommended 750W power output with Gold efficiency for lower heat output and energy bills. There is zero fan mode for silent operation at under 30% load and it’s a high-quality unit with a fluid dynamic bearing. Seasonic use a neat PCB based socket arrangement which should make this PSU more robust. It’s also only 140mm deep maximising the space in your PSU shroud. It has 2 EPS power connectors to fully support power-hungry CPUs on the X570 and Z490 motherboards. There’s also an industry-leading 10-year warranty on this unit. Combined with Seasonic’s excellent reputation in the manufacture of power supplies this is the best option for the RTX 3080 and a strong supporting system.

Best High-end PSU for RTX 3080

The EVGA SuperNOVA GA 850W is our recommendation for a higher-end option for more demanding systems based around the RTX 3080. If you’re considering powering high-end CPU’s like the Intel i9-10900K alongside this GPU you’ll want a little more overhead and this power supply offers that without breaking the bank. EVGA has adorned this latest version of their gold-rated power supply with all Japanese capacitors (Chinese capacitors gained a bad reputation after failures) and of course fully modular design so you can make your build super-clean. As with other PSUs in the series, there’s a 135mm dual ball-bearing fan for low noise and high durability, with zero fan mode below 40% load so it’s silent. There’s also a 10 year warranty and EVGA’s solid customer service reputation for your peace of mind. 

Best SFF PSU for RTX 3080

If you’re looking to shoehorn an RTX 3080 into a build requiring an SFF power supply your options become very limited. Thankfully the Corsair 750W Platinum has an excellent reputation and is capable of powering the highest-end hardware despite its diminutive size. The platinum efficiency rating is indicative of the quality of the design and components. The PSU has a 92mm fan that stops under low load for silent operation. Unfortunately, pricing and availability are crazy at the moment, with the combined rise in popularity of SFF PC’s increasing demand, and trade wars with China and the global pandemic hitting supply. If this is the PSU for you, you may have to wait for a price drop or bite the bullet and accept it as a cost of having the best. 

Best PSU for RTX 3090

If you’re building an all-out powerhouse around the RTX 3090, you’ll want a very robust power supply capable of running power-hungry components with overclocks. The PSU we’re chosen here is capable of all that and will last a decade to boot: the Corsair AX 850. This power supply adopts a ‘best of the best’ philosophy to justify the premium price tag. It has 100% Japanese capacitors, a 135mm fan with zero fan mode for silent operation under low load. It supplies 3 PCIe Cables and a pair of 8 Pin EPS cables, and Corsair offers their own custom cables too if you want a manufacturer guaranteed customisation options. Finally, there’s a ten-year warranty to ensure you don’t have to worry about your PSU until 2030. This is a power supply that you can have faith will run your RTX 3090 build with ease. 

Featured Ampere Builds

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