Zotac GeForce RTX 3080 card first went on sale on September 17, 2020. The ZOTAC company is based in Hong Kong and produces quality graphics cards with its more than 6,000 employees and 40 assembly plants. This article allows you to discover the characteristics and performances of this high-end card. Designed based on the Ampere architecture, it is manufactured mainly for gamers. The Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price (MSRP) for this card is $699 .
Introducing the ZOTAC GeForce RTX 3080 Gaming card
The ZOTAC GeForce RTX 3080 card measures 31.78 cm in length, 12.07 cm in width and occupies 2.5 slots in thickness. It has 4 video outputs including 3 displayPorts 1.4a and 1 HDMI 2.1 . These output ports are capable of providing 7860 x 4320 resolutions at 60 Hz. The recommended HDMI cable is therefore one that should support 8K at 60 FPS or 4K at 120 FPS. The ZOTAC RTX 3080 consumes a TDP power of 320 Watts . power supply block would therefore be at least 750 Watts. To be able to dissipate the heat emitted by this card, ZOTAC has implemented a ventilation system with 3 facial fans called IceStorm 2.0 . Each 90mm fan is equipped with 11 blades. This allowed more efficient air circulation, 10% more than the previous generation. You can also use the ZOTAC Gaming FireStorm Software to control the rotations of these fans. In this case, each fan can have its own speed. The ventilation system stops when the GPU is not used. The ZOTAC RTX 3080 card features an RGB lighting system called Spectra 2.0 . ZOTAC Gaming FireStorm Software allows you to customize colors and apply animation effects.
The RTX 3080 card is equipped with a GA102 chip which measures 628 mm². This chip therefore has a record density of 44.6 million transistors/mm² . With the TU102 chip of the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti, the density is around 24.7 million transistors/mm², or 18.6 billion transistors on 754 mm².
Features of the ZOTAC GeForce RTX 3080 Gaming
The RTX 3080 has 3 blocks of units dedicated to calculations: CUDA, RT and Tensor. The card has 8704 CUDA Cores , 68 RT Cores and 272 Tensor Cores . The 8704 CUDA cores are dedicated to classic calculations relating to classic rendering. These CUDA cores are supported by 96 rendering blocks and 272 units dedicated to textures. The 68 RT Cores are used for Ray Tracing rendering. The 272 Tensor Cores are used in calculations relating to Artificial Intelligence and inference. These are the latter which are used when DLSS is active. Certainly the number of Tensor Cores has decreased compared to those of the 2000 series, but the latest generation is more efficient than the 2000 series generation, even in lower numbers.
The ZOTAC GeForce RTX 3080 is equipped with 10 GB of GDDR6X working at 19 GHz . Data is transmitted over a bandwidth of 760 Gbps on the 320-bit memory bus. The GPU was cast under an 8-nanometer etching process. In nominal operation, the GPU's 28.3 billion transistors In boost clock, the switching frequency is around 1.71 GHz. Comparing this card to its competitor AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT, the RTX 3080 is estimated at 93% performance. This card supports, among other things, DirectX 12 Ultimate, Vulkan 1.2 and CUDA 8.5.
The GeForce RTX 3080 card is announced by Nvidia as being twice as efficient as the RTX 2080. It indeed presents a fairly significant jump in performance in terms of raw performance and in Ray Tracing. The GeForce RTX 3080 card also displays excellent speed in cryptocurrency mining. In boost clock, it can indeed process 84-89 MH/s. AMD Radeon RX 5700 card , for its part, provides hashing work of 50-54 MH/s in Ethereum mining.
The ZOTAC RTX 3080 Gaming supports Ray tracing , which allows for a very realistic effect and very immersive gaming. Indeed, the effects of shadow and light are well calculated and the luminosity paths follow the logic of the human eye: from the lens to the objects then the light sources. Super sampling or DLSS also provides unrivaled detail and sharpness. Renderings are improved by Artificial Intelligence and the frame rate is increased. The DirectX 12 Ultimate API also brings its share of visual performance. Which allows the RTX 3080 to place itself at the top of the most efficient cards of the moment.
Benchmarking of the ZOTAC GeForce RTX 3080 Gaming
On Fortnite, in 720p, the RTX 3080 manages to produce 425 FPS, in QHD 1440p, the average frame rate is 115 FPS and in 4K 2160p resolution, the card obtains images at 57.5 FPS. This data may vary depending on PC components and operating system.
Comparing the performance of the ZOTAC RTX 3080 with cards in its category, it is +5.96% from the Radeon RX 6800 and -3.48% from the Radeon RX 6800 XT . The best performing card being the Geforce RTX 3090 which is +6.03% behind it. The worst performer in our comparative tests is the Geforce RTX 3060 Ti . It is – 16.12% of the RTX 3080.
Tested on G3D Mark, the RTX 3080 card tops our ranking, with a score of 23,740. It is closely followed by the GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER with a score of 18,101 and the AMD Radeon RT 5700 XT with 16,736.
On 3DMark , the ZOTAC RTX 3080 (3DMark score 17694) is +14.89% from the AMD Radeon RX 6800 (3DMark score 15059), -1% from the AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT (3DMark score 17744) and – 1.04% of the AMD Radeon 6900 XT (3DMark score 18514).
In the following graph, we highlight the quality-price ratio by comparing the different cards in relation to their 3DMark and the respective recommended retail prices of these cards in detail (MSRP). The RTX 3080 card announces very good performance, since it has a 3DMark score of 17694 for an MSRP price of $699. NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 card displays slightly better performance with a 3DMark score of 19858 but with a much higher price, i.e. $1499. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti, for its part, displays a lower performance, i.e. 14765 in 3DMark score, but with a much higher MSRP price: $999.
In short, in terms of value for money, the ZOTAC GeForce RTX 3080 card is a good deal. It is characterized by an efficient cooling system and a customizable RGB lighting system. ZOTAC Gaming FireStorm Software makes it much easier to use. It is available online for a price of $699.
