The RTX 4080 gets a major upgrade thanks to Asus and Noctua
Asus has partnered with Noctua once again to release a new version of Nvidia’s RTX 4080. According to Asus, following the success of the RTX 3070 and 3080 graphics cards from Noctua, both companies decided to team up for this new product, dubbed the Asus GeForce RTX 4080 Noctua Edition.
According to the official press release (opens in new tab), the Noctua edition is “switching from the stock three slim 110mm fans to two of Noctua’s award-winning NF-A12x25 PWM 120mm units and to a more elaborate, tailored heatsink with vapor chamber and five instead of two 8mm diameter heat pipes.” This would greatly enhance the current 4080 design by improving on thermals and acoustics, which would also create extremely quiet fans.
Asus officially launched the GeForce RTX 4080 Noctua Edition at $1,650, which is much higher than the baseline price for Nvidia’s card at $1,199. You’re getting a far superior product, but you’ll be paying for a lot of it with its ultra-premium price.
How it works
The previous successful graphics cards from Noctua, the RTX 3070 and 3080, had their heatpipe and size layout modified to best take advantage of the already high-quality aerodynamic performance of the NF-A12x25 fans. However, this updated version of the RTX 4080 is getting a complete design overhaul.
The 4080’s heatsink has been redesigned; to significantly improve the thermal efficiency, a vapor chamber was added. The improved heat-spreading capabilities allow the card to transfer all that built-up thermal energy to five heatpipes instead of the two 8mm in the original 4080 (as well as three pipes instead of six 6mm ones). This should result in a notably better cooling performance than the original model, allowing it to operate with slower fan speeds, which decreases the noise levels of the card.
Even if you run these new fans at maximum speeds due to a poorly ventilated case or high surrounding temperatures, the reduction in noise is claimed to be as massive as 14.9dB(A), which is the very threshold of human hearing. That means you will barely pick up on that fan noise. At medium speeds, the Noctua Edition runs at 16.8dB(A) while only being 0.8°C hotter. Finally, at low fan speeds with a 23°C outside temperature, noise levels reach 4.8 dB(A). Basically, these GPU fans are ridiculously quiet, which is something we found in our Asus GeForce RTX 3080 Nocuta edition review
If you’re looking for a graphics card that you can overclock while it keeps perfectly cool and quiet, the Asus GeForce RTX 4080 Noctua Edition should be right up your alley.