ASUS GeForce RTX 3080 Noctua Edition

The unique selling point of the ASUS RTX 3080 Noctua is its thermal solution that's based around the high-quality fans from the Austrian company. Even at first glance you can realize "this is a Noctua card"—the signature tan and brown color scheme is hard to miss. In terms of noise levels, the ASUS card is a revelation at only 23.4 dBA to where the card is so quiet that it's almost at the limits of my noise testing capability. I'm testing in a quiet neighborhood with all other computers shut off, no fans running, no AC running, and the card is still almost inaudible. Basically you have to stand next to the system on an open bench, concentrate on the card, and you'll be able to somewhat discern its noise. As soon as you start moving, your clothes will make enough noise to overpower what little sound the card puts out—absolutely incredible! Often low noise means compromising on temperatures, which is not the case with the RTX 3080 Noctua to further sweeten the deal. We measured temperatures of only 67 °C under full load, which is better than most RTX 3080 cards—I've tested 10 models to date. No doubt ASUS found a great balance between noise levels and temperatures, which of course is much easier to achieve if you have so much cooling performance available. In my opinion, there's no reason to use the dual BIOS feature to activate the "Performance" BIOS. At 30 dBA its noise levels are still good, but in return you only reduce the temperatures from 67°C to 58°C, which doesn't gain you anything other than a +15 MHz boost bin from NVIDIA's boost clock algorithm due to the slightly lower temperature.