EVGA RTX 2080Ti FTW3 Ultra Review

Conclusion

The release of the RTX range of Turing GPUs from nVidia has seen some rapid developments. Our first days with the card it was a little disappointing, just because we’re so used to the new gen bringing monster performance improvements. All the new features were theoretical future ones, relying upon driver updates and game patches to make the most of it on current games and promises of unreleased titles bringing brilliance to the party. Two things have occurred, firstly the RTX feature set did arrive in all the games we play and use, even if Final Fantasy XV is still the main contender for the DLSS feature, and secondly the partner cards have unleashed even more performance from the silicon. The moment you realise that instead of going for stratospheric frame rates the nVidia R&D department utilised the extra power to provide more eye-candy, then it all makes a lot more sense.

Thus we’ve not only got the image quality enhancements that were the key focus of the nVidia dev-teams work, but the performance improvements we were expecting are also here. With the EVGA RTX 2080Ti FTW3 Ultra we have a card which – bear with us for a moment – feels old fashioned. By which we don’t mean it’s lacking in modern touches or anything, merely that whilst it’s good in our of the box trim you really need to delve into the EVGA Precision software and push it a bit harder to make the most of it. It’s great at stock but truly excellent when overclocked as our graphs show. Remember the old days when you could buy the card below the flagship one and overclock it until it was as good as the next one up? This feels like that. It’s still a sledgehammer at stock as all the 2080Ti cards are, but it’s a monster with a little more power and a little higher boost.

Gaining clock speed only works if the card is capable of keeping itself cool so that you can have a high average boost clock for those marathon gaming sessions and the iCX2 cooler on the FTW3 Ultra definitely does its job. The addition of the E logo embossed all over the fan blades catches the eye when the card is just sitting there, but seem to do something positive when the fans are spinning too as the FTW3 was the coolest of the RTX 2080Ti cards we’ve tested. By utilising the metal grill as an optional feature if you dislike it then you can happily leave it off, but if you want a more industrial aesthetic the option is there. Where we think this really scores points is that it would be a very simple task indeed to spray it your hue of choice to blend it perfectly into your colour scheme. Heck with some careful design work and time spent you could probably vinyl wrap it. Fortunately EVGA have left it black so that those of us with either tighter budgets or fewer creative capabilities can still use it without it looking cheap or out of place as it might in something other than the matte black it’s finished in by default.

The EVGA RTX 2080Ti FTW3 Ultra is a very fast card with plenty of overclocking capabilities in a great looking package, equipped with a quiet and powerful cooler and is the best all round and then someRTX 2080 Ti we have tested. Well played EVGA, well played.

     

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