Palit RTX 3080 and RTX 3090 GameRock OC Review

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Wait, come back. Yes we know the box font is pretty long in the tooth and the cards look strange at first glance, but in actuality these are everything the RGB lover can desire, whilst having enough performance that those of you who just care about FPS will be thrilled too.

  

If you have been keeping up with all of our Ampere RTX reviews so far you’ll have noticed that many of the manufacturers are cutting back on the flash and flair aspects of their cooler design, ending up with the ASUS Strix which has no lighting on the fan side of the card at all. If you prefer your cards to come with plenty of sizzle to go alongside the steak, or even have a setup with an alternate orientation of your GPU, then the Palit GameRock cards are going to be right up your alley with full RGB across the whole of the shroud.

  
  

Like all the RTX cards we’ve reviewed so far the GameRock cooler has a vented portion at the back to help pull air from the lower half of your case – usually where the intake fans are, to the top where your CPU cooler can work it.

  

We don’t think we’ll ever really like the GameRock font, reminding us of the Guitar Hero range of titles that so dominated the market, and filled many peoples attics with plastic instruments. However, that’s the only part of the cooler we find unattractive and this particular placement means it’s facing your motherboard anyway.

  

If you have a slight heatpipe fetish then the end of the GameRock heatsink could give you a moments pause with thick, highly polished, fins surrounding six fat heatpipes.

  

If the devil is in the details then the RTX 3090 is the card on top thanks to the SLI fingers. Otherwise you can pick either of the Palit GameRock cards and not really be able to tell them apart. It speaks highly for the Ampere GPU that a lot of manufacturers are choosing to cool both with the same cooler and doing so successfully. This is also the second appearance of the GameRock logo, but as you can see from the photo at the top of the page it’s covered by the power cables. It’s almost like Palit know it’s long in the tooth but for branding purposes their stuck with it so they’ve hidden it away.

 

In the output department both the GameRock OC cards have three DisplayPort 1.4a to go with the new HDMI 8K60 output available on the new Ampere RTX cards.

  

Lastly, if you’re the type of builder who worries that the design of the shroud won’t match up to any other hardware you could put in your case, we say G.Skill RAM. If anything the Palit GameRock makes the TridentZ Royal a more attractive proposition.

  

If you doubt the success of the shroud design in bringing you glorious RGB hues for your visual pleasure, take a gander at the following pictures. If you felt that the latest Ampere cards are staid and boring, the Palit GameRock brings the joy back.

  
  

It looks even better as the full shebang.