KFA2 GeForce RTX 3080 Ti EXG 12 GB Graphics Card Review – Designed For Gamers First!

Conclusion - A Beauty That Comes At A High Price

Keeping their tradition alive of launching a new graphics architecture every two years, this year, NVIDIA introduces its Ampere GPU. The Ampere GPU is built upon the foundation set by Turing. Termed as its biggest generational leap, the NVIDIA Ampere GPUs excel compared to previous generations at everything.

The Ampere lineup offers faster shader performance, faster ray tracing performance, and faster AI performance. Built on a brand new process node and featuring an architecture designed from the ground up, Ampere is a killer product with lots of numbers to talk about.

The fundamental of Ampere was to take everything NVIDIA learned with its Turing architecture and not only refine it but to use its DNA to form a product in a completely new performance category. Tall claims were made by NVIDIA when they introduced its Ampere lineup earlier this month & we will be finding out whether NVIDIA hit all the ticks with its Ampere architecture as this review will be your guiding path to see what makes Ampere and how it performs against its predecessors.

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 Series Gaming Graphics Cards - The Biggest GPU Performance Leap in Recent History

Turing wasn't just any graphics core, it was the graphics core that was to become the foundation of future GPUs. The future is realized now with next-generation consoles going deep in talks about ray tracing and AI-assisted super-sampling techniques. NVIDIA had a head start with Turing and its Ampere generation will only do things infinitely times better.

The Ampere GPU does many traditional things that we would expect from a GPU, but at the same time, also breaks the barrier when it comes to untraditional GPU operations. Just to sum up some features:

• New Streaming Multiprocessor (SM)
• New Turing Tensor Cores
• New Real-Time Ray Tracing Acceleration
• New Shading Enhancements
• New Deep Learning Features For Graphics & Inference
• New GDDR6X High-Performance Memory Subsystem
• New 2nd Generation NVLINK Interconnect
• New HDMI 2.1 Display Engine & Next-Gen NVENC/NVDEC

The technologies mentioned above are some of the main building blocks of the Ampere GPU, but there's more within the graphics core itself which we will talk about in detail so let's get started.

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 Series Pricing Per Segment

NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 30 series is made up of a diverse portfolio of graphics cards. Currently, you will only be limited to the higher-end configurations starting at $499 US for the GeForce RTX 3070, $699 US for the GeForce RTX 3080, and $1499 US for the GeForce RTX 3090. NVIDIA themselves call the GeForce RTX 3080 the flagship graphics card and not the GeForce RTX 3090.

The RTX 3080 & RTX 3070 are both priced well and in line with their predecessors but the GeForce RTX 3090 goes all out with a price of $1499 US. NVIDIA calls the GeForce RTX 3090 the "BFGPU" and as per the terminology, it seems like this is a new marketing name for the Titan graphics card. It is likely that we could see a Titan-based card under the Quadro branding with faster specs out of the box but the GeForce RTX 3090 is purely a gaming graphics card first with all the horsepower for intense professional and workstation workloads.

With that said, the GeForce RTX 3080 replaces the RTX 2080 SUPER at the same price point and the GeForce RTX 3070 replaces the GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER at the same price point. Given this trend, we might see the more mainstream variants cost just as much as their RTX 20 SUPER series cards but with a higher performance out of the box.

NVIDIA GeForce GPU Segment/Tier Prices

Graphics Segment	2023-2024	2022-2023	2021-2022	2020-2021	2019-2020	2018-2019	2017-2018	2016-2017	2014-2016
Titan Tier	GeForce RTX 4090	GeForce RTX 4090	GeForce RTX 3090 Ti GeForce RTX 3090	GeForce RTX 3090	Titan RTX (Turing)	Titan V (Volta)	Titan Xp (Pascal)	Titan X (Pascal)	Titan X (Maxwell)
Price	$1599 US	$1599 US	$1999 US $1499 US	$1499 US	$2499 US	$2999 US	$1199 US	$1199 US	$999 US
Ultra Enthusiast Tier	GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER	GeForce RTX 4080	GeForce RTX 3080 Ti	GeForce RTX 3080 Ti	GeForce RTX 2080 Ti	GeForce RTX 2080 Ti	GeForce GTX 1080 Ti	GeForce GTX 980 Ti	GeForce GTX 980 Ti
Price	$999 US	$1199 US	$1199 US	$1199 US	$999 US	$999 US	$699 US	$649 US	$649 US
Enthusiast Tier	GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER	GeForce RTX 4070 Ti	GeForce RTX 3080 12 GB	GeForce RTX 3080 10 GB	GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER	GeForce RTX 2080	GeForce GTX 1080	GeForce GTX 1080	GeForce GTX 980
Price	$799 US	$799 US	$799 US	$699 US	$699 US	$699 US	$549 US	$549 US	$549 US
High-End Tier	GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER GeForce RTX 4070	GeForce RTX 4070 GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16 GB	GeForce RTX 3070 Ti GeForce RTX 3070	GeForce RTX 3070 Ti GeForce RTX 3070	GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER	GeForce RTX 2070	GeForce GTX 1070	GeForce GTX 1070	GeForce GTX 970
Price	$599 $549	$599 US $499 US	$599 $499	$599 $499	$499 US	$499 US	$379 US	$379 US	$329 US
Mainstream Tier	GeForce RTX 4060 Ti GeForce RTX 4060	GeForce RTX 4060 Ti GeForce RTX 4060	GeForce RTX 3060 Ti GeForce RTX 3060 12 GB	GeForce RTX 3060 Ti GeForce RTX 3060 12 GB	GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER GeForce RTX 2060 GeForce GTX 1660 Ti GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER GeForce GTX 1660	GeForce GTX 1060	GeForce GTX 1060	GeForce GTX 1060	GeForce GTX 960
Price	$449 $299	$399 US $299 US	$399 US $329 US	$399 US $329 US	$399 US $349 US $279 US $229 US $219 US	$249 US	$249 US	$249 US	$199 US
Entry Tier	RTX 3050 8 GB RTX 3050 6 GB	RTX 3050	RTX 3050	GTX 1650 SUPER GTX 1650	GTX 1650 SUPER GTX 1650	GTX 1050 Ti GTX 1050	GTX 1050 Ti GTX 1050	GTX 950	GTX 750 Ti GTX 750
Price	$229 $179	$249 US	$249 US	$159 US $149 US	$159 US $149 US	$139 US $109 US	$139 US $109 US	$149 US	$149 US $119 US

In addition to the specs/price update, NVIDIA's RTX technologies are being widely adopted by major game engines and APIs such as Microsoft's DirectX (DXR), Vulkan, Unreal Engine, Unity, and Frostbite. While there were only three RTX titles around the launch of the RTX 20 series cards, NVIDIA now has at least 28 titles that utilize their RTX feature set to offer real-time ray tracing with more coming soon.

In addition to that, with the upcoming consoles confirmed to feature ray tracing, developers can also make use of the RTX technology to fine-tune future games for the GeForce RTX hardware. Currently, NVIDIA has 13 game engines that are leveraging their RTX technologies for use in their upcoming and existing games while both Vulkan and DirectX 12 Ultimate APIs are part of the RTX ecosystem on the PC platform.

So for this review, I will be taking a look at KFA2's GeForce RTX 3080 Ti EXG graphics card which goes for a premium of over $1500 US since it is aimed at enthusiasts.

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Graphics Card

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti is a force to be reckoned with. It takes the throne of the fastest PC gaming graphics card with nothing coming even close to it. It's surprisingly much faster than the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti which is its Turing-based predecessor but just being fast isn't enough for a card of this scale or price. The GeForce RTX 3080 Ti carries more cores, more memory, higher performance efficiency, and also carries next-generation ray-tracing and tensor cores that make this a truly next-generation graphics card.

NVIDIA designed the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti, not just for any gamer but all gamers who want to have the best 4K graphics performance at hand to power the next-generation of AAA gaming titles with superb visuals and insane fluidity. It's not just the FPS that matters these days, it's visuals, and a smoother frame rate too and this is exactly what the GeForce RTX 30 series is made to excel at. There's a lot to talk about regarding NVIDIA's flagship Ampere gaming graphics cards so let's start off with the specifications.

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti  Graphics Card Specifications

NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 3080 Ti 12 GB FE (Founders Edition) graphics card features the PG132-SKU18 PCB design and the GA102-225-KD-A1 graphics core. The GA102-225 GPU features a total of 10240 CUDA cores within 80 SM units. The GPU features a clock speed of 1365 MHz base and a 1665 MHz boost, both of which are slower than the existing GA102 GeForce RTX GPUs.

As for memory, the card will feature 12 GB of GDDR6X memory. Unlike the 19.5 Gbps speeds of the RTX 3090, the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti is said to retain the same memory speeds as the RTX 3080 at 19 Gbps. Since we are getting 12 GB memory, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti will be using a 384-bit bus interface which equals a total bandwidth of 912 GB/s. So while we see an 8 GB VRAM reduction over the previous spec, the larger bus interface should drive higher memory bandwidth.

The TGP for the card is set to be slightly higher than the RTX 3080 at 350 Watts. That's definitely needed to feed the extra cores so NVIDIA might have to optimize the clocks a bit here. In terms of performance, the graphics card is said to be as fast as the RTX 3090 but with half the memory & LHR technology-enabled. As for compute numbers, the RTX 3080 Ti features 34 shader TFLOPs, 67 RT-TFLOPs, & 273 Tensor TFLOPs (Sparsity).

The design of the card is similar to the existing NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Founders Edition graphics cards. NVIDIA didn't go with the bulky BFG design like its RTX 3090 and kept the more standard 2-slot FE Flow-Through air-cooled design. The card is powered by a single 12-pin Microfit connector. Display outputs include 1 HDMI 2.1 and three DP 1.4 connectors. The card will be available to buy on the 2nd of June at $1199 US. Expect several custom models to be announced shortly by the NVIDIA board partners.

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Founders Edition Product Gallery & PCB Shots:

 

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 Series 'Ampere' Graphics Card Specifications:

Graphics Card Name	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 Ti	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti	NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090
GPU Name	Ampere GA107	Ampere GA107	Ampere GA106-300	Ampere GA104-200	Ampere GA104-300	Ampere GA104-400	Ampere GA102-200	Ampere GA102-225	Ampere GA102-300
Process Node	Samsung 8nm	Samsung 8nm	Samsung 8nm	Samsung 8nm	Samsung 8nm	Samsung 8nm	Samsung 8nm	Samsung 8nm	Samsung 8nm
Die Size	TBA	TBA	TBA	395.2mm2	395.2mm2	395.2mm2	628.4mm2	628.4mm2	628.4mm2
Transistors	TBA	TBA	TBA	17.4 Billion	17.4 Billion	17.4 Billion	28 Billion	28 Billion	28 Billion
CUDA Cores	2048?	2560?	3584	4864	5888	6144	8704	10240	10496
TMUs / ROPs	64 / 40	80 / 48	112 / 64	152 / 80	184 / 96	192/ 96	272 / 96	320 / 112	328 / 112
Tensor / RT Cores	64 / 16	80 / 20	112 / 28	152 / 38	184 / 46	192/ 48	272 / 68	320 / 80	328 / 82
Base Clock	TBA	TBA	1320 MHz	1410 MHz	1500 MHz	1575 MHz	1440 MHz	1365 MHz	1400 MHz
Boost Clock	TBA	TBA	1780 MHz	1665 MHz	1730 MHz	1770 MHz	1710 MHz	1665 MHz	1700 MHz
FP32 Compute	TBA	TBA	12.7 TFLOPs	16.2 TFLOPs	20 TFLOPs	22 TFLOPs	30 TFLOPs	34 TFLOPs	36 TFLOPs
RT TFLOPs	TBA	TBA	25.4 TFLOPs	32.4 TFLOPs	40 TFLOPs	42 TFLOPs	58 TFLOPs	67 TFLOPs	69 TFLOPs
Tensor-TOPs	TBA	TBA	101 TOPs	129.6 TOPs	163 TOPs	174 TOPs	238 TOPs	273 TOPs	285 TOPs
Memory Capacity	4 GB GDDR6?	4 GB GDDR6?	12 GB GDDR6	8 GB GDDR6	8 GB GDDR6	8 GB GDDR6X	10 GB GDDR6X	12 GB GDDR6X	24 GB GDDR6X
Memory Bus	128-bit	128-bit	192-bit	256-bit	256-bit	256-bit	320-bit	384-bit	384-bit
Memory Speed	TBA	TBA	15 Gbps	14 Gbps	14 Gbps	19 Gbps	19 Gbps	19 Gbps	19.5 Gbps
Bandwidth	TBA	TBA	360 Gbps	448 Gbps	448 Gbps	608 Gbps	760 Gbps	912 Gbps	936 Gbps
TGP	~75W	~100W	170W	200W	220W	290W	320W	350W	350W
Price (MSRP / FE)	$149?	$199?	$329	$399 US	$499 US	$599 US	$699 US	$1199	$1499 US
Launch (Availability)	2021?	2021?	February 2021	December 2020	29th October 2020	10th June 2021	17th September 2020	3rd June 2021	24th September 2020

In case you want to read our full NVIDIA Ampere GPU architecture deep dive and GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Founders Edition review, head over to this link.

The KFA2 GeForce RTX 3080 Ti EXG is one of the many variants in KFA2's RTX 3080 Ti family. The card is positioned right below the HOF series and as such is a higher-end model, featuring a triple-fan cooler design within a 2.5 slot form factor. KFA2's EX Gaming series comes in three color variants which include black, white, and pink. Our sample rocks a black color design and uses their RGB effects which look great.

In addition to the custom design, the RTX 3080 Ti EXG comes with a non-reference PCB, featuring a 20+2 phase design that features higher quality components than the reference variant which is already a really good design by itself. In terms of clock speeds, the graphics card features the same base frequency of 1580 MHz but the boost clock is rated at 1710 MHz which is 45 MHz higher than the Founders Edition variant and can be further pushed by 15 MHz to 1725 MHz with the 1-click OC functionality.

Following are some of the features of the KFA2 GeForce RTX 3080 Ti EXG before we go into detail:

GPU Engine Specs:

• CUDA Cores 10240
• Boost Clock (MHz) 1710
• 1-Click OC Clock (MHz) 1725(by installing Xtreme Tuner Plus Software and using 1-Click OC)

Memory Specs:

• Memory Speed 19 Gbps
• Standard Memory Config 12GB
• Memory Interface Width 384-bit GDDR6X
• Memory Bandwidth (GB/sec) 912

Feature Support:

• PCI-E 4.0
• Windows 10 64-bit, Linux 64-bit

Fan Feature:

• 2*92mm + 1*102mm
• Fan stop @ Idle (All Fan)

Display Support:

• DisplayPort 1.4a x 3, HDMI 2.1

Dimensions:

• Dimensions(with Bracket): 330*142*58mm
• Dimensions(without Bracket): 316*124*58mm

KFA2 GeForce RTX 3080 Ti EXG Graphics Card Gallery:

The KFA2 GeForce RTX 3080 Ti EXG series graphics card comes inside a large cardboard box. The front of both packages has a large "GeForce RTX" brand logo along with the "What's Your Game" branding in the middle.

The packaging has put a large emphasis on the RTX side of things as the first feature enlisted by AIBs will be NVIDIA Ampere architecture, Ray Tracing & DLSS support. NVIDIA has bet the future of their gaming GPUs on Ray Tracing support as these are the first cards to offer support for the new feature.

The back of the box is very typical, highlighting the main features and specifications of the cards. There's also a focus towards GeForce.com on each AIB card through which users can download the latest drivers and GeForce Experience application which are a must for gamers to access all feature sets of the new cards.

The sides of the box once again greet us with the large GeForce RTX branding. There's also the mention of 12 GB GDDR6X ( RTX 3080 Ti) memory available on the card.

Outside of the box, the graphics card and the accessory package are held firmly by foam packaging. The graphics card comes with a few accessories and manuals which might not be of much use for hardcore enthusiasts but can be useful for the mainstream gaming audience. The card itself has a lot of weight to it and feels very premium with its aggressive design.

KFA2's GeForce RTX 3080 Ti EXG is a huge graphics card, one that is almost the same size as the RTX 3090 Founders Edition. It comes in a 2.5 design and measures 330x142x58mm.

You would have to keep in mind the height when going for a dual card solution as your case or motherboard PCIe slot combination may not allow such a setup. The cooling shroud extends all the way to the back of the PCB and it requires a casing with good interior space for proper installation.

The back of the card features a solid backplate that looks stunning in dual-tone (white/black) color scheme. The backplate offers a lot more functionality than just looks which I will get back to in a bit.

The KFA2 EXG series has been designed for the enthusiast gaming segment and as such, it comes with a more aggressive design with superior components packed within the hood.

The new heatsink looks like a beefed-up version of the one that was featured on the RTX 20 series EX cards with the main changes being the shroud and heatsink design that features an aggressive shroud design on the front, featuring a black and silver color with RGB emitting fans.

Coming to the fans, the card actually features two different fan designs with the one in the middle measuring 102mm with 11 blades and two on the sides measuring 92mm with 11 blades too. All fans deploy a double ball bearing design and can last a long time while operating silently. The fans come with acrylic blades too which blend in nicely with the entire theme of the card when the RGB is turned on.

KFA2 also features their 0db technology across all three fans. This feature won’t spin the fans on the card unless they reach a certain threshold.

In the case of the KFA2 EXG series heatsink, that limit is set to 60C. If the card is operating under 60C, the fans won’t spin which means no extra noise would be generated.

I am back at talking about the full-coverage, full metal-based backplate which the card uses. The whole plate is made of solid metal with angular edges that add to the durability of this card.  The card also features a few cutouts through the backplate which can deliver air to the critical power and circuitry components on the back of the PCB.

There are cutouts in screw placements to easily reach the points on the graphics card. We can also see the GeForce RTX logo on the back. KFA2 is also using heat pads beneath the backplate which offer more cooling to the electrical circuitry on the PCB.

With the outsides of the card done, I will now start taking a glance at what's beneath the hood of these monster graphics cards. The first thing to catch my eye is the humungous fin stack that's part of the beefy heatsink which the cards utilize.

The large fin stack runs all the way from the front and to the back of the PCB and is so thick that you can barely see-through.

The heatsink has been designed to be denser by incorporating both standard and dense aluminum fins. There's far more surface area for the GPU, VRAM and VRMs to dissipate heat to than the last-gen cards.

Talking about the heatsink, the massive block is comprised of six copper squared-shaped heat pipes with a more concentrated design to transfer heat from the copper base to the heatsink more effectively. The base itself is a solid nickel-plated base plate, transferring heat to the heat pipes in a very effective manner.

 

I/O on the graphics card sticks with the reference scheme which includes three Display Port 1.4a & a single HDMI 2.1 port.

KFA2 GeForce RTX 3080 Ti EXG Teardown:

GALAX makes use of a 20+2 phase PWM design that includes its premium components.

The card also uses the GDDR6X memory from Micron that operates at 19.0 Gbps alongside a 384-bit wide memory interface.

The KFA2 EXG series has always been aimed at gamers and enthusiasts. Being so, the card utilizes a dual 8-pin connector configuration as opposed to a single 12-pin EPS configuration that the FE variant features. The card is rated at 400W TGP.

KFA2 GeForce RTX 3080 Ti EXG RGB Lighting Gallery:

GALAX lets you customize RGB accents on the fan, side, and back using their Xtreme Tuner App. You can fully customize the RGB lights to your preference using the app from GALAX's web page. Additionally, there's an ARGB header on the back of the card which you can see above.

We used the following test system for comparison between the different graphics cards. The latest drivers that were available at the time of testing were used from AMD and NVIDIA on an updated version of Windows 10. All games that were tested were patched to the latest version for better performance optimization for NVIDIA and AMD GPUs.

KFA2 GeForce RTX 3080 Ti EXG Test Setup:

CPU	Intel Core i9-10900K (Default Clocks)
Motherboard	AORUS Z490 Master
Video Cards	KFA2 GeForce RTX 3080 Ti EXG GALAX GeForce RTX 3080 HOF MSI GeForce RTX 3080 TI SUPRIM X MSI GeForce RTX 3090 SUPRIM X MSI GeForce RTX 3080 SUPRIM X MSI Radeon RX 6900 XT Gaming X Trio MSI Radeon RX 6800 XT Gaming X Trio MSI Radeon RX 6700 XT Gaming X MSI GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Lightning Z
Memory	G.SKILL Trident Z RGB Series 32GB (4 X 8GB) CL16 3600 MHz
Storage	Samsung SSD 960 EVO M.2 (512 GB)
Power Supply	ASUS ROG THOR 1200W PSU
OS	Windows 10 64-bit
Drivers	Adrenaline 21.11.3 NVIDIA GeForce 496.76

• All games were tested on 2560×1440 (2K) and 3840×2160 (4K) resolutions.
• The “reference” cards are the stock configs while the “overclock” cards are factory overclocked configs provided to us by various AIB partners.

Doom Eternal

DOOM Eternal brings hell to earth with the Vulkan-powered idTech 7.  We test this game using the Ultra Nightmare Preset and follow our in-game benchmarking to stay as consistent as possible.

Red Dead Redemption 2

Developed by Rockstar San Diego, Red Dead Redemption II is one of the most visually stunning open-world games I've played to date that is backed up by a rich story set around the protagonist, Arthur Morgan. The game is based on the RAGE engine which features an insane amount of graphics fidelity but also requires a lot of power to run maxed out. For the purpose of this test, we set the graphics settings to Ultra with AA turned disabled.

Wolfenstein: Youngblood

Wolfenstein is back in The New Colossus and features the most fast-paced, gory, and brutal FPS action ever! The game once again puts us back in the Nazi-controlled world as BJ Blazkowicz. Set during an alternate future where Nazis won the World War, the game shows that it can be fun and can be brutal to the player and to the enemy too. Powering the new title is once again, id Tech 6 which is much acclaimed after the success that DOOM has become. In a way, ID has regained their glorious FPS roots and are slaying with every new title.

Ashes of The Singularity: Escalation

NVIDIA and AMD have been tweaking the performance of their cards for Ashes of the Singularity since the title was released. It was the first to make use of the DirectX 12 API and the first to leverage the new Async compute technology that makes use of the DX12 renderer to improve performance.

Battlefield V

Battlefield V brings back the action of the World War 2 shooter genre. Using the latest Frostbite tech, the game does a good job of looking gorgeous in all ways possible. From the open-world environments to the intense and gun-blazing action, this multiplayer and single-player FPS title is one of the best-looking Battlefields to date.

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided

Humanity is at war with itself and divided into factions. On one end, we have the pure and on the other, we have the augmented. That is the world where Adam Jensen lives in and this is the world of Deus Ex: Mankind Divided. The game uses the next-generation Dawn Engine that was made by IO interactive on the foundation of their Glacier 2 engine. The game features the support of DirectX 12 API and is one of the most visually intensive titles that taxes the GPU really hard.

Death Stranding

Sam Porter Bridges has delivered one of PS4's most anticipated games to the PC community and opened a whole new world of possibilities. This was the first game to feature the Decima Engine on PC and unarguably did it the best. Death Stranding may not feature ray tracing effects but it does showcase that DLSS can be used effectively even when RT isn't around. We tested this one just like we did in our launch coverage with DLSS enabled.

Forza Horizon 4

Forza Horizon 4 carries on the open-world racing tradition of the Horizon series.  The latest DX12 powered entry is beautifully crafted and amazingly well executed and is a great showcase of DX12 games.  We use the benchmark run while having all of the settings set to non-dynamic with an uncapped framerate to gather these results.

Hitman 2 (DX12 Highest Settings)

Hitman 2 is the highly acclaimed sequel to 2016 Hitman which was a redesign and reimaging of the game from the ground up. With a focus on stealth gameplay through various missions, the game once again lets you play as Agent 47 who embarks on a mission to hunt down the mysterious Shadow Client. The game runs on IO Interactive's Glacier 2 engine which has been updated to deliver amazing visuals and environments on each level while making use of DirectX 12 API.

Shadow of The Tomb Raider

Sequel to The Rise of the Tomb Raider, Shadow of The Tomb Raider is visually enhanced with an updated Foundation Engine that delivers realistic facial animations and the most gorgeous environments ever seen in a Tomb Raider Game. The game is a technical marvel and really shows the power of its graphics engine in the latest title.

Metro Exodus

Metro Exodus continues the journey of Artyom through the nuclear wasteland of Russia and its surroundings. This time, you are set over the Metro, going through various regions and different environments. The game is one of the premier titles to feature NVIDIA’s RTX technology and does well in showcasing the ray-tracing effects in all corners.

Assassins Creed: Origins

Assassins Creed Origins is built by the same team that made Assassins Creed IV: Black Flag. They are known for reinventing the design and game philosophy of the Assassins Creed saga and their latest title shows that. Based in Egypt, the open-world action RPG shows its graphics strength in all corners. It uses the AnvilNext 2.0 engine which boosts the draw distance range and delivers a very impressive graphics display.

We tested the game at maxed settings with TAA enabled and 16x AF. Do note that the game is one of the most demanding titles out in the market and as such tweaks and performance issues are being patched out.

Borderlands 3

Borderlands 3 has made its way into the test lineup thanks to strong demand by gamers and simply delivering MORE Borderlands. The game was tested with max settings under the DX11 preset since the DX12 preset doesn't deliver any visible improvement in either frame rate or graphics at the moment.

Far Cry 5

Far Cry 5 is a standalone successor to its predecessor and takes place in Hope County, a fictional region of Montana. The main story revolves around doomsday cult the Project at Eden’s Gate and its charismatic leader Joseph Seed. It uses a beefed-up Dunia Engine which itself is a modified version of CryEngine from Crytek.

Final Fantasy XV

Grand Theft Auto V

GTA V is the most optimized gaming title that has been made for the PC. It’s so optimized, it even runs on my crap GT 840M-based laptop with a smooth FPS on a mix of medium/low settings. I mean what???

Aside from being optimized, GTA V is a great game. It was the Game of The Year for 2013. At 1440p Ultra quality, the game gave us smooth frames on all cards tested.

No graphics card review is complete without evaluating its temperatures and thermal load. The GALAX GeForce RTX 3080 HOF graphics card comes with a triple-fan cooler with 0db fan technology, a massive heatsink that is composed of several aluminum fins and heat pipes, and an extended backplate that covers the entire PCB.

Note – We tested load with Kombuster which is known as a ‘power virus’ and can permanently damage the hardware. Use such software at your own risk!

I compiled the power consumption results by testing each card under idle and full stress when the card was running games. Each graphics card manufacturer sets a default TDP for the card which can vary from vendor to vendor depending on the extra clocks or board features they plugin on their custom cards. Default TDP for the RTX 3080 is set at 320W while the GALAX custom model has a TDP 400W.

Also, it's worth noting that the 8nm process from Samsung increases the density by around 2x versus the previous generation. NVIDIA is cramping even larger amounts of transistors and more cores than their previous cards, making it one of the densest chips built to date. It's likely to consume a lot of power and the results are reflective of that.

KFA2 is offering a diverse range of graphics cards to a diverse range of consumers. Their SG series offers great performance at close to MSRP, the EXG series offers a step up with better cooling and overclocking while the HOF series offers the most premium design which both looks great and has been deemed as the most impressive custom design by hardcore overclockers. The RTX 3080 Ti EX Gamer that we received is lined up between the SG and HOF.

First of all, in terms of performance, the card performs just like any other RTX 3080 Ti that we have tested, delivering ample amounts of performance at 1440p and even 2160p. The 3080 Ti is no joke! The power and thermals are also where you'd expect the 3080 Ti to be, although a bit higher than FE variants but in line with other custom models that we have tested. As for thermals, the card has the idle fan stop technology which works great and to my surprise, the card has really silent fans & even at 100% speeds, they don't make as much noise as the MSI SUPRIM X or ASUS ROG variants.

Coming to the design, the card rocks a fairly aggressive look with its angular silver and black cut-outs on the front. It's a very serious card that doesn't overdo on the design department. It has RGB fans on the front and all three of them can be configured through the Xtreme Tuner App that works really well with its recent release. Additionally, the card comes in three color variants that include black, white, and pink. So if you don't want to spend that outrageous amount of money on the white-colored RTX 3080 Ti HOF, then the KFA2 GeForce RTX 3080 Ti EXG in white color can be a good alternative. The pink color also looks nice as it comes with a very warm color tone instead of being overly bright.

Now for pricing, we know that MSRPs aren't a real thing and while this card should cost around $1300-1400 US, it actually sells for over $1500 US which is quite a high price for a graphics card. Furthermore, the availability of the EXG lineup is definitely a question mark right now. We have talked to KFA2 and hopefully, things are going to get better by the mid of 2022 but that would be about the time when the next-gen is on the horizon. It definitely costs less than the higher-end HOF, SUPRIM X, and ROG STRIX cards, and users are getting the choice to get the card in their own preferred color schemes. I think the RTX 3080 Ti EXG series is a very solid product and a design that can cater to all kinds of PC gamers, it is definitely one variant you should look for when searching for an RTX 3080 Ti graphics card in the market!

Follow Wccftech on Google to get more of our news coverage in your feeds.