ASUS officially launches their RTX 4080 Noctua Edition graphics card

ASUS’ RTX 4080 Noctua Edition graphics card promises to be the quietest graphics card in its class

ASUS and Noctua have officially launched their RTX 4080 Noctua Edition graphics card, a graphics card that combines the powers of both companies to create what Noctua calls the quietest graphics card in its class.

Expanding upon the success of their RTX 3070 and RTX 3080 Noctua Edition designs, Noctua has improved upon the design of ASUS’ RTX 4080 by designing a incredibly capable heatsink design that features a large vapour chamber, five 8mm heat pipes and three 5mm heat pipes. When combined with Noctua’s NF-A12x25 fans, the RTX 4080’s Noctua Edition heatsink offers much improved noise levels when compared to ASUS’ RTX 4080 TUF Gaming model.

Following the resounding success of the ASUS GeForce RTX 3070 and RTX 3080 Noctua Edition, the Noctua Edition of ASUS’ GeForce RTX 4080 is the third graphics card to feature Noctua fans and a heatsink that has been co-engineered by Noctua. By switching from the stock three slim 110mm fans to two of Noctua’s award-winning NF-A12x25 PWM 120mm units and to a more elaborate, tailored heatsink with vapour chamber and five instead of two 8mm diameter heatpipes, thermals and acoustics of ASUS’ original TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 4080 could be improved significantly for the Noctua Edition, making it the quietest card in its class.

The RTX 4080 Noctua Edition focuses on thermal efficiency and low noise levels, with the GPU generating 34.7 dB(A) of noise when running with its fans at 100% (2,000 RPM). This is much quieter than the 48.6 dB(A) of the RTX 4080 TUF Gaming, clearly highlighting the strength of Noctua’s thermal design.

While the heatsinks of the RTX 3070 and RTX 3080 Noctua Edition have already been tailored in aspects such as size and heatpipe layout in order to make the most out of the Noctua NF-A12x25 fans’ superior aerodynamic performance, the heatsink of the RTX 4080 Noctua Edition has been re-designed from the ground up to achieve maximum thermal efficiency: By adding a vapour chamber and using its superior heat-spreading capabilities to transfer the thermal energy to five instead of two 8mm heatpipes (plus three instead of six 6mm ones), the Noctua Edition provides significantly better cooling performance than the original TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 4080. This, in return, enables it to operate with slower fan speeds and, combined with the class-leading efficiency of the NF-A12x25 fans, to run quieter than any other air-cooled card in its class.

Below, we can see what ASUS’ RTX 4080 Noctua Edition design’s thermals look like when compared to ASUS’ RTX 4080 TUF Gaming, delivering similar thermals at much lower thermals. At medium fan speeds, the RTX 4080 Noctua Edition has a noise output of 23.2 dB(A), which is incredibly quiet.

When running the fans at their maximum speed, like it might be required in worst-case situations such as when fully stressing the card in poorly ventilated cases or with very high ambient temperatures, the reduction in noise levels is as big as 14.9 dB(A):

At medium fan speeds (70% PWM), the Noctua Edition runs 16.8 dB(A) quieter while being fractionally hotter (0.8°C):

  

Given the strength of Noctua’s RTX 4080 thermal design, one has to wonder what an RTX 4090 Noctua Edition graphics card would look like. Could Noctua cool Nvidia’s flagship GPU without making their heatsink too large to fit into most PC cases? Would this RTX 4080 heatsink design be usable with the RTX 4090 with few modifications?

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