Cooler Master RTX 5080 OC Review
Introduction and Test Setup
Introduction
We have something a little different for you today. Or, perhaps we should say, something that ends up being the same as you’re used to, but for totally different reasons.
If you’ve even a passing interest in PCs then you’ll have come across Cooler Master. A brand famous for some of the most innovate case designs in the early days of home hardware. Their ATCS 840 and Cosmos cases are the stuff of legends. Additionally, as their name indicates, they’ve had plenty of cooling options. Their Hyper 212 cooler appeared in just about every system ever built for a while there. Suffice to say that there is a reason their lozenge logo is so recognisable.
We have a new case from them in the office ready to build and test. It was during discussions with them over this that we discovered today’s graphics card exists. What is it you ask? Well if the title didn’t give it away, this is a Cooler Master RTX 5080 OC. But it’s not a prototype, nor will it be available for purchase. It just exists. It is, in reality, an ASUS RTX 5080 Astral PCB, with a Cooler Master designed cooler on top. Normally that would be enough for us to ignore it. We’re here to bring you reviews of things you can buy so you can make informed decisions. But this is special. Just look at it. We knew if we had it in the office to build into their new case, we just had to also put it to the test.
So today we have something indulgent. It’s different, because it’s a look at something that should never be seen by outside eyes. And yet the same because we’re gonna test it and review it as if it was. Ready?
Test Setup and Clock Speeds
GPU : Cooler Master RTX 5080 OC
Processor : Intel Core i9-13900K
Motherboard : ASUS ROG Z790 Hero
Memory : Corsair Dominator Vengeance 6000 MHz
PSU : MSI MEG Ai1600T
Cooler : Corsair iCUE H150i RGB Pro XT AIO
Storage : Corsair MP600 Pro NH 2TB
Monitor : MSI 321 QD-OLED
Case : Corsair Obsidian 5000T
OS : Windows 11
It isn’t a massive surprise that a card which happily is recognised by all the ASUS software, and even shows up as an ASUS in GPUz, has a very similar clock speed to the Astral upon which it’s based. And by based we mean that the PCB is an ASUS Astral and the cooler is a Cooler Master design. Both companies doing the thing they’re best at.
