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After the success of the Noctua 3070 at the end of last year, they have released the ASUS RTX 3080 Noctua edition graphics card. After recently being leaked the official announcement has been dropped. The new premium selection is based on the TUF range but features improvements to the cooling. Although still using up the older 10GB version of the 3080.
Creating a bigger and better cooling solution. Utilizing two Noctua NF-A12x25 PWM fans for great cooling and low noise levels. As well as an increase in the heatsink size and heat plate, so to include memory in cooling and providing a much larger heat capacity. This does increase the size of the card drastically, making it a 4.1 slot GPU.
Press release
TAIPEI, Taiwan, May 16, 2022 — ASUS today announced the ASUS GeForce RTX™ 3080 Noctua Edition, a high-performance graphics card that teams a specialized premium heatsink with twin Noctua NF-A12x25 PWM fans.
Noctua is one of the most beloved brands among PC builders. The efficient yet powerful Noctua fans allow for excellent cooling without extra noise, and their trademark color scheme is instantly recognizable. In fact, Noctua’s industry-leading performance is one of the reasons ASUS uses its fans in the ROG RYUJIN series of CPU coolers, and it’s why ASUS partnered with them on the ASUS GeForce RTX 3070 Noctua Edition graphics card. ASUS has put the team back together to install the best-in-class cooling on an even more powerful GPU.
The new ASUS GeForce RTX 3080 Noctua Edition starts with a gargantuan 2.2-slot heatsink developed by the ASUS thermal R&D team, in partnership with the excellent engineers at Noctua. With a generous fin stack that connects to six heat pipes and a large heat spreader for the GPU die and its memory, the heatsink is noticeably larger than one will find on even the TUF and Strix models, resulting in a card that’s 4.1 slots thick. Primed for insane levels of cooling at impossibly low noise levels, ASUS and Noctua engineers ran extensive simulations to optimize the heatsink design to take full advantage of the air propelled by both Noctua NF-A12x25 fans.
“The synthesis of our custom-engineered unified heatsink and Noctua’s famously whisper-quiet fan technology forges a creation that is more than the sum of its parts,” said Kent Chien, Corporate Vice President and General Manager of the ASUS Multimedia Business Unit. “This inspiring partnership with a world-class leader in DIY PC cooling establishes a noise level breakthrough for the powerhouse GeForce RTX 3080 Noctua Edition graphics card — and a visual style that you won’t find anywhere else.”
“The response on the first Noctua Edition graphics card was simply overwhelming, so we’ve been thrilled to continue our cooperation with ASUS”, said Noctua CEO Roland Mossig, “The RTX 3080 with its heat emission of up to 340 watts is an entirely different beast to tame than the RTX 3070, but by leveraging our fan technology and a customized heatsink, we have once again managed to create a card that combines serious GPU power with excellent quietness of operation.”
As one of the most powerful and noise-efficient PC fans on the market today, the NF-A12x25 was the perfect choice for this collaboration. Its blades are able to sit just 0.5 mm away from the outer frame, thanks to an impeller made of Noctua’s own Sterrox® liquid crystal polymer that reduces airflow leakage around the edge. Noctua’s custom PWM IC with Smooth Commutation Drive technology also works to improve acoustic efficiency, while Flow Acceleration Channels on the tip of each blade and Inner Surface Microstructures on the fan frame cut down noise even further. Anti-vibration pads in each corner ensure the fan doesn’t rattle against the heatsink or shroud, making this one of the quietest high-performance fans on the market today.
Atop this heatsink-and-fan combo, ASUS uses the same custom brown shroud as on the GeForce RTX 3070 Noctua Edition, which securely mounts the fans to the card while beautifully tying together the entire Noctua aesthetic. For users who have other Noctua fans and heatsinks in their system, this will complement them perfectly for a unified look.
While the appearance of this card screams ‘Noctua’, it’s loaded with many of the same ASUS features that make these custom graphics cards the best on the market. A dual BIOS switch allows users to choose between maximum performance or lower noise, with the latter set as the default for the quietest RTX 3080 out there. The 0 dB ambient cooling allows the fans to turn off entirely under light loads for ultimate silence, and a vented backplate allows for optimized airflow at the far end of the heatsink. And of course, the ASUS Auto-Extreme assembly technology automates precise, clean soldering for each component, with a 144-hour validation process to ensure long-lasting performance and reliability right out of the box.
