ASUS RTX 3080 Noctua OC Edition Preview

This is the NH-D15 of GPU coolers

If there is one thing that we should say about ASUS’ RTX 3080 Noctua Edition graphics card, it’s that this thing is monstrously huge. This thing looks like it ate a standard RTX 3080 for breakfast and then did some serious time at the gym. This is an RTX 3080 on steroids, that’s the kind of size and mass that we are talking here. Have you ever seen a graphics card with 120mm fans? Ok, maybe with aftermarket heatsinks, but not on an off-the-shelf product.

ASUS’ new Noctua Edition RTX 3080 GPU has a heatsink that is 10mm thicker than the RTX 3080 TUF. Add on Noctua’s 25mm thick 120mm fans, and this GPU is 4.3 PCIe slots thick. That’s insane, even for a high-end RTX 30 series product.

Love it or hate it, the RTX 3080 Noctua Edition used Noctua’s iconic colour scheme. It simply wouldn’t be a Noctua Edition without it. While many buyers would prefer black Chromax series Noctua fans, it would be a shame to see this GPU without Noctua’s iconic colours.

Thankfully, fans of Noctua’s black NF-A12x25 fans can replace this GPU’s fans with their black counterparts, assuming that they are willing to pay for those additional fans.

Like many RTX 3080 graphics cards, the RTX 3080 Noctua Edition is powered by two 8-pin PCIe power connectors. While this is not as high-end as the RTX 3080 Strix, it is more than enough power for an RTX 3080. This model uses the same PCB as ASUS’ RTX 3080 TUF Gaming model, dictating this GPU’s use of 2×8-pin PCIe power connectors.

Like most modern graphics cards, the RTX 3080 Noctua Edition has a cut-through section at the end of its heatsink that allows air to pass-through the graphic’s card’s heatsink and backplate. This helps to maintain higher levels of airflow, but in the case of the RTX 3080 Noctua Edition, it also results in this GPU’s power inputs not being at the edge of the graphics card. Some gamers will not like this due to how it impacts cable management.

As mentioned before, the RTX 3080 Noctua Edition is thick. Many modern GPUs a two-slots thick, and this graphics card is more than two times thicker than that. This is a meaty graphics card, more so than any other RTX 3080 that we have seen.

Inside our GPU testing PC, the RTX 3080 Noctua Edition dominates. This graphics card demands your attention, as its sheer size draws your eyes away from other components. This thing makes our case’s PSU shroud look small, and that is no small feat.