Asus and Noctua's latest project could be an RTX 3080 with a mighty cooler

The Asus GeForce RTX 3070 Noctua OC Edition in and around a PC case — (Image credit: Future)

Following the release of the Asus GeForce RTX 3070 Noctua OC Edition, Asus promised to work on even more absurd graphics cards with the renown cooling company. The first of which could be close to release, as images leak out of showing an RTX 3080 as the latest GPU to receive a love-it or hate-it makeover.

I was a big fan of the RTX 3070 in its beige and brown garb. While it did keep that GA104 GPU supremely cool, and was extremely quiet in the process, the sheer size of the Noctua designed cooler did feel a little underutilised on the second-tier GPU. The GA102-powered RTX 3080 should make for a much more fruitful fit.

There is something odd with these preliminary pictures, however. It appears as though Asus has opted for the RTX 3080 10GB, rather than the newer RTX 3080 12GB. That might not be the end of the world if it means this special edition card is a little cheaper than the pricier 12GB models, though it's very likely that even this 10GB model will come at a serious price premium.

Your next upgrade

Best CPU for gaming: The top chips from Intel and AMD
Best gaming motherboard: The right boards
Best graphics card: Your perfect pixel-pusher awaits
Best SSD for gaming: Get into the game ahead of the rest

Videocardz reports that the card can be found at €1,150, which puts it roughly €250 more than the RTX 3070 model. The RTX 3070 was priced at $830 in the US, so you could be looking at over $1,000 for a 10GB RTX 3080. That's quite a leap, though it's not confirmed to be the final price as Asus has yet to announce any such card.

You have to be a big fan of the Noctua aesthetic to buy one of these cards, let's be honest. You could snap up an RX 6900 XT or higher-end Nvidia model for the same price.

This RTX 3080 Noctua Edition is likely to come with a decent overclock at least, to help it deliver a little more for your money.

But it's a real statement piece for any PC build. I personally love the design, and any sort of interesting collab for GPU shroud designs is a welcome break from the usual third-party aesthetic. If this isn't your thing, Asus recently announced another GPU that we'd love to get our mitts on: its new Evangelion-themed GPU is a real beauty.

TOPICS

Jacob earned his first byline writing for his own tech blog, before graduating into breaking things professionally at PCGamesN. Now he's managing editor of the hardware team at PC Gamer, and you'll usually find him testing the latest components or building a gaming PC.