Gainward Rtx 2080 Phantom Gs Review

Right of the bat, although this is my first see with Nvidia'due south latest offering, Turning based GPU's, I wont bother y'all with ray tracing this and ray tracing that, NVLink support, tensor cores and and then on, you've probably already gone through all those features upon initial launch, and so I'll get right to the to the point. More than and then since I take a pretty interesting aftermarket model from Gainward. Although they don't savour that much of worldwide popularity or market share equally the holy trinity, the large AMG trio, they are a very prominent and have been around for equally long equally I tin remember it.

That said, it's not that users turn down to purchase them just considering they don't wanna or they're bad or something, it'southward only that they are very localized market wise, and so you don't seem them all over the earth, just rather in sure region or continent. This is why you won't see Gainward on the U.s.a. market for example, merely a lot of other GPU brands and manufacturers have a very like situation, just a few of them are actually globally available.

The model I have hither comes from their pretty famous Phoenix series, the full name of this detail graphics card is Gainward RTX 2080 Ti Phoenix GS, with this particular one, as you can see, also beingness labeled equally the Gold Sample, a special naming they're using for quite a fourth dimension now. Although the speed of the new GDDR6 remains the same, this means that information technology has a bumped upwards GPU core clock compared to that seen on the reference spec model, from 1545 MHz to 1650 MHz for the Cadre Boost. In practice, it went fashion above that GPU Heave iv.0 technology, boosting only a bit below 1900 MHz in games and certain benchmarks.

Gainward RTX 2080 Ti GS up shut

The card is really big, like, really, really big, almost like its toll tag. Information technology takes nearly three slots meridian wise, so be certain to have that in mind if you lot have other occupied expansion slots around it, while it's over 35 centimeters long and weighing in at just above 1,3 kilograms. The outer shell looks pretty decent, information technology'south made out of black plastic combined with few metal-similar pieces for added detail and dissimilarity. On the back, we have this pretty subtle black brushed metal back-plate, which earlier all makes the graphics carte du jour more rigid, with a couple of details similar the abstruse drawing of a phoenix bird and gold GS sign.

The cooling system on the Gainward RTX 2080 Ti Phoenix GS consists out of two big aluminum blocks interconnected with what seems to be 8 mm thick copper heat-pipes. You also take a lot of metal contact plates leaning against the rest of the cards vital parts for better heat transfer. Judging by the pictures of the reference card and taking a closer look at this one at hand, the PCB itself and other components on information technology, like the power pattern, for instance, look to be of a reference design and not a custom made one, simply don't have my word for it. All of that is topped off with iii fans, two bigger 90 mm ones on the outer side and 75 mm, centre i, which is besides surrounded by these two pointer-like RGB strips on the top and bottom. They can be controlled using Gainward's ain software utility called Expert Tool II, where you can cull between your most common RGB lighting options and effects, as well as change the color. The corporeality and positioning of this lighting experience a flake underwhelming considering how imposing this graphics card is, like put a 2 in a kid-sized go-kart.

For the video output selection, you'll also get a reference setup, with three display ports, 1 HDMI and i USB Type-C. Contrary of those, on the dorsum finish of the card, you'll run into two 8-pin PCI-express ability connectors used for powering the card. That said, under heavy load during playing, you can see information technology pulling anywhere from 300 – 400 Watts in total and together with the rest of the PC components. That's actually not that much considering the scale of operation you're getting, while nether idle I saw ability consumption of around 45 Watts.

Gainward RTX 2080 Ti Phoenix GS overclocking – It's its affair

And at present, allow'due south benchmark games! As for the operation, taking a look at my results, it'southward all at that place, equally expected and equally seen in those initial RTX series reviews. I feel similar these two resolutions which I used to test it out become the best out of this carte, especially if yous take a loftier refresh rate monitor, you will be able to have reward of the excess frame-rates that this model is spitting out. Yes, and 4K will exist doable do, no problem, merely don't expect to distance yourself from 60 FPS too far, particularly if you go all in on graphical settings.

Taking a ride on the overclocking boulevard, Gainward RTX 2080 Ti GS has an automated overclocking characteristic available with this series through the already mentioned Gainward's utility software, Information technology still didn't match my manual overclocking settings. I've managed to max out the memory to 2000 MHz, or viii GHz finer, I assume it can probably go even higher with the limiter existence removed, while I pumped up the GPU Cadre Clock for additional 130 MHz, which resulted in a GPU boost clock of but a chip above 2000 MHz for the most fourth dimension, ordinarily hanging around that marking, even close to 2050 MHz if I cranked up the fan speed. With these changes, I've got additional 5-10% performance gain, depending on the title, it'southward not much, but it's something for basically goose egg, other than your fourth dimension spent in order to fine melody the overclock.

Taking a look at the temperature, using Furmark stress test to properly load the menu, you can see that the temperature limit is around 70°C and the cards BIOS will practise anything to keep it that way, even if it needs to throttle the GPU clock speed style down, which can be seen here, or with bumping up the fan speed, but that'southward nix unusual. On the other hand, while playing games I was once more seeing temperatures effectually seventy°C, just with a far lower fan speed and higher, or to say normal heave clocks for this type of scenario. Terminal but, not the least, during idle on an open testbed Gainward RTX 2080 Ti GS GPU temperature mostly roaming just above 30°C mark, which is pretty impressive, simply again, not uncommon since the fans were spinning.

Gainward RTX 2080 Ti GS Review

That got me thinking, my caput scratching, why didn't they incorporate zero RPM fans off feature when the card is in idle, especially on a count of what seems to be a very capable cooler. Thankfully, the fans are so placidity in idle that I barely heard them on an open up testbed, so I uncertainty you'll even notice them at all in a chassis. The lack of noise also continues when you put the card under load. If the manufacturer doesn't calibrate the fan profile properly, having three fans can be a two-edged sword, but in this example, Gainward did it right. With having three fans, you have the ability to push more air while keeping the fan speed low, thus generating less noise, only if y'all get a little bit overboard, it can easily get loud and messy.

Gainward RTX 2080 Ti GS review conclusion

When it comes to pricing, RTX series is a pretty "sensitive" topic. As this is Nvidia's ane of those "no-compromise" type or product, particularly the RTX 2080 Ti series, they went all-in on the price tag. This steep pricing scheme for the Nvidia's Turing serial also came as a result of a supply pileup of the older previous generation Pascal series of graphics menu which has been hyper-produced due to high demand created by the crypto-currency mining hype, and so putting a really loftier price on it will results in reverting the customers to the older, more affordable, but still decent performing generation.

Of course, someone who really needs this type of power volition non spare a dime in society to get to it, and this Gainward RTX 2080 Ti GS model could be easily put on your a short list for purchase. But, it won't be like shooting fish in a barrel for them to get into the final round, every bit they withal have some details to polish out while having competition heavily breathing downwards their neck.