Palit GeForce RTX 3080 GamingPro OC review

Nvidia has set the bar pretty high with its RTX 3080 Founder's Edition, so the AIBs need to try and do something pretty special to make you buy their cards instead of Nvidia's. In the case of the Palit GeForce RTX 3080 GamingPro OC, you get an incredibly long title, a chunky triple fan cooler, and an ever so slightly higher GPU boost clock. 

I'm not kidding, this card has a Boost clock of 1,740 MHz, while the founders edition tops out at 1,710 MHz. Yup, we're talking 30 MHz, or a 1.75 percent improvement. And as that is the boost clock, it's not like the GPU is going to be sat at that frequency all the time, although if the GPU is kept cooler, due to that traditional triple-fan setup, then that's a different matter. But we'll come to the actual performance shortly.

Back to the specifications of the card and everything else is pretty much as you would expect it to be, with the same memory clock, and obviously the same core configuration as the Founder's Edition. The major difference here is the sheer size of the card. While the Founder's Edition is a relatively compact unit, this Palit card is a humongous, sprawling triple-slot beast (okay, technically it's 2.7 slots wide). At 294mm long and 112mm high, those with smaller cases probably shouldn't apply. Either way get your tape measure out and check before you buy.

The actual styling of the card has an industrial vibe going on, with plenty of mesh and grills on show. The monochrome theme works well enough on the front of the card, although the bit you'll probably see is the backplate, which has a cardboard box packing material look to it. If you're lucky enough to have a mounting bracket, then the central section lights up. It's not a bad looking card, just a little generic 'gamer' for some tastes.

In use, those triple fans do a good job of keeping the core cool. In normal gaming you're looking at 64-68°C at normal settings. Running Geeks3D FurMark for an hour saw the temperature peak at 73°C, which while toasty, really isn't bad at all. And honestly in normal gaming, even for long periods of time, you'll be running much cooler than that.

Even when battling those temperatures the triple-fan design keeps noise levels pretty low, not silent, but you'll be hard pushed to hear the card over the other fans in a standard gaming rig. And when not running a benchmark that is specifically designed to stress the card to the max, you'll barely notice it at all. Palit offers 0dB tech as well, so when you're not gaming the fans switch off entirely. 

Palit states that the card draws 320W, and recommends a 750W PSU, which seems reasonable, although obviously depends on the make up of the rest of your system—those with an overclocked Core i9 10900K and a wealth of hard drives will need more. You'll need two 8-pin power connectors for the card regardless of your setup though, which may necessitate a PSU upgrade.

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Palit RTX 3080 GamingPro OC benchmarks

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1440p gaming performance

1440p gaming performance

1440p gaming performance

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4K gaming performance

4K gaming performance

4K gaming performance

4K gaming performance

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Ray tracing performance

Ray tracing performance

Ray tracing performance

Ray tracing performance

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In terms of performance there isn't a lot between any of the RTX 3080s we've looked at so far. At resolutions you'll actually want to run this card at—1440p and 4K—you're looking at trading a couple of frames here or there depending on the game in question against the Founder's Edition and the Asus TUF Gaming RTX 3080 OC. 

And while there have been reports of RTX 3080s falling over, this Palit card was rock-solid during our extensive benchmarking, so we have no concerns over its build. The latest Nvidia driver update has seemingly fixed those issues, mostly be reining back in the GPU boost feature. That barely makes a difference to frame rates—mostly under 5 fps at worst—so it shouldn't be a concern.

So, if you're not going to be making a buying decision based on performance, where does that leave you? Well, this card is quiet, runs cool, and looks fine. There's absolutely nothing wrong with it, but there's obviously another factor in play: Availability.

At the time of writing there is still no RTX 3080 stock anywhere. We do expect that to change in the next couple of weeks, at which point, and assuming you are in the market to actually buy an RTX 3080, you're probably just going to grab whatever you can find. If that happens to be this Palit, then you're going to be happy.

Given the choice though, would we recommend this over the Founder's Edition? In some instances it is slightly faster, and it is quiet running, but I'm a sucker for the look of Nvidia's card, and the Founder's Edition RTX 3080 still just about gets my vote. But if this were my only option, I'd jump at the chance.