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ASUS GEFORCE RT X 3080 NOCTUA OC

- Aaron YiP

The ASUS GeForce RTX 3080 Noctua OC is what happens when two of the biggest brands in gaming hardware come together. ASUS is a behemoth in the PC component space, while Noctua is a cooling giant. Together, the duo have created a one of the fastest and quietest air-cooled cards on the market.

The card takes up a whopping four slots in your case, thanks to the custom Noctua cooling solution. It is ridiculously large and heavy, so you may want to think about whether you want to mount it the traditional way or go vertical.

The fans are Noctua NF-A12x25 PWM fans, which are exceptionally quiet compared to other cards. These fans feature a metal-reinforced motor hub, stabilised bearings, and a custom low-noise PWM IC to help reduce the decibels.

The heatsink has been custom-designed as well to take advantage of the airflow characteristics of the fans. A large heat spreader covers the GPU die, VRM, and memory chips, connecting them all to the main heatsink.

However, no effort has been made to tailor Noctua’s signature brown to fit ASUS’ usual aesthetic better. While I get the need to stick to Noctua’s brand identity in a collaboration product like this, it would have been nice to see the card come in some other colour. There is no RGB lighting anywhere either, so this is a card that unabashedly focuses on performance over looks.