Review and testing of the video card Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER Gaming OC

However, today we will not talk about video cards based on the Navi 10 GPU. Today we will get acquainted with the original Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER Gaming OC model, equipped with an efficient cooling system and a slightly increased core frequency. In addition, this model is one of the most inexpensive in its class, which further fuels interest in it.

⇡#Specifications and recommended cost

The technical characteristics and cost of the Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER Gaming OC video card are shown in the table in comparison with the reference versions of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER FE and GeForce RTX 2080 FE.

⇡#Packaging and equipment

All Gigabyte Gaming series video cards come in almost identical boxes, the differences are only model names and individual characteristics. So the Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER Gaming OC is no exception, so its packaging is easy to confuse with, for example, the Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER Gaming OC we recently tested.

The layout of the back side of the box is exactly the same here — the emphasis is on the cooling system and its illumination.

By the sticker on the end of the box, you can find out the model marking — GV-N208SGAMING OC-8GC. This may be important not to be confused with the exact same Gigabyte graphics card, but without factory overclocking of the GPU, labeled GV-N208SGAMING-8GC.

Together with the video card, the box contains a disk with drivers and a utility, a quick start guide, and a coupon for an extended warranty up to four years.

Someone may think that the lack of bonuses in the bundle of video cards of this class and cost is their disadvantage and reduces their attractiveness in comparison with competitors, someone, on the contrary, does not want to pay for additional accessories that cannot be completely free. But recently, the situation with shareware bonuses in the market as a whole is the same — they are put into the box less and less.

Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER Gaming OC launches in China. The cost of this model in Russia is $515, and in foreign online stores it can be purchased for $475 (excluding shipping costs).

⇡ # Design and features of the printed circuit board

If you have read our article about the Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER Gaming OC, then you will not find any differences from that model in the design of today’s test heroine. Outwardly, these are completely identical video cards.

Moreover, in the assortment of Gigabyte there are about a dozen more models that look exactly the same. Recall that the dimensions of the video card are 289 × 105 × 50 mm, and the weight is 985 grams.

The video card is equipped with one HDMI version 2.0b video output, three DisplayPort version 1.4a and one USB 3.1 Gen2 Type C (VirtualLink) port for connecting virtual reality devices.

The remaining area of ​​the panel is perforated with trapezoidal holes for partial ejection of heated air outside the system unit case.

Two standard power connectors for the RTX 2080/RTX 2080 SUPER are placed in the usual place and oriented with the latches outward. Each connector has an LED that indicates power problems.

For the Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER Gaming OC, the maximum power consumption level is declared at around 250 watts, with an expansion delta of 20% (up to 300 watts). In its standard place is the NVLink interface connector, designed to combine two such video cards.

The video card is based on the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080/RTX 2080 SUPER reference PCB, 265 mm long, which did not stop Gigabyte from mentioning the proprietary Ultra Durable VGA concept, which involves the use of only high-quality and durable components and a textolite with twice the thickness of the copper layers.

The power supply system of the video card is built according to the “8 + 2” scheme, where eight phases are reserved for providing power to the graphics processor, and two more for video memory and power circuits.

Recall that two eight-phase uP9512 controllers manufactured by uPI Semiconductor are responsible for power management on such boards, one of which is soldered on the front side of the textolite, and the second on the back.

The functions of monitoring the video card and controlling the backlight are assigned to the Holtek HT32F52241 chip.

As with other Gigabyte video cards, there is no protective frame around the perimeter of the GPU substrate. In principle, this also implies the NVIDIA reference design, but sometimes a frame is still added. The crystal was released on the 20th week of 2019 (mid-May) and belongs to the A1 version.

The base frequency of the GPU in the Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER Gaming OC is equal to the reference one and is 1650 MHz, but the forced one has a slight factory overclock and can reach 1845 MHz against 1815 for the reference version of this model. These, of course, are trifles, but in comparison with the same indicator of the GeForce RTX 2080 (not SUPER), the base frequency of the GPU is immediately increased by 135 MHz. Note that, according to the monitoring data, the frequency of the graphics processor of the video card in 3D increased to 1995 MHz, followed by stabilization at around 1965 MHz. In 2D mode, the frequency is reduced to 300 MHz at the same time as the voltage is reduced to 0.783 V.

Eight gigabytes of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus are assembled by Samsung microcircuits marked K4Z80325BC-HC16.

The theoretical effective frequency of such chips is 16 GHz, but on the Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER Gaming OC, the memory runs at the standard 15.5 GHz for the RTX 2080 SUPER, providing a bandwidth of 496.1 GB / s. This allows us to hope for a good overclocking potential of the memory, which we will definitely check during testing. We add that, in comparison with the parameters of a regular GeForce RTX 2080, the frequency of video memory increased by 1.5 GHz, and its bandwidth increased by 48.1 GB / s.

The characteristics of the video card will be summarized by the GPU-Z utility.

We also saved the BIOS of the new Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER Gaming OC to a file archive (link, 341 KB).

⇡#Cooling system

The Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER Gaming OC is equipped with exactly the same WindForce 3X cooling system as the Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER Gaming OC.

We got acquainted with its design in detail in the article about the 2070th, so today we will not dwell on it in detail, touching only on the main points.

The three-section aluminum radiator consists of thin plates and six copper heat pipes with a diameter of 6 mm.

As in other Gigabyte coolers, «high-speed» composite heat pipes with increased heat transfer efficiency are used here.

At the base of the radiator, tubes with direct contact, closely fitted to each other.

The entire radiator is cooled by three fans with Alternate Spinning technology — the central and side impellers rotate in different directions.

Fan blades have fins and teeth at the ends, as well as special notches on the surface, thanks to which they generate a structured air flow and develop increased static pressure.

Gigabyte’s proprietary 3D Active speed control system stops the turntables in 2D mode, making the video card silent. At the same time, even in a well-ventilated case, it heats up to 55-57 degrees Celsius, not only negatively affecting the internal temperature, but also reducing the life of its components. However, we have already spread our thoughts along the tree on this topic in the previous article, so today we will not repeat ourselves, but will immediately move on to the tests.

We used the Fire Strike Extreme stress test from the latest version of the 3DMark graphics package to check the temperature regime of the video card as a load.

To monitor temperatures and all other parameters, the MSI Afterburner program and the GPU-Z utility were used. The tests were carried out in a closed case of the system unit, the configuration of which you can see in the next section of the article, at a room temperature of about 24.5 degrees Celcius.

First of all, we tested the temperature regime of the Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER Gaming OC with automatic control of the cooler fan speed, and here are the monitoring results we got.

The maximum GPU temperature reached 69 degrees Celsius, which is only 3 degrees Celsius higher than the Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER Gaming OC previously tested under comparable conditions. At the same time, the cooler fans accelerated to almost 1900 rpm during the test, while in the 2070 they did not spin up above 1710 rpm. Overall, considering the comparatively high heat dissipation of the RTX 2080 SUPER, the WindForce 3X did an excellent job in 3D. But in order for the video card not to overheat in 2D, we would recommend its owners to adjust the fan control curve in MSI Afterburner as follows.

At maximum fan speed, the temperature of the GPU can be kept within 58 degrees Celsius.

The noise level of the cooler at such speeds is very high. Nevertheless, it should be noted that with more efficient cooling, the video card keeps the high core frequency more stable (1995 MHz versus 1965 MHz in automatic mode).

⇡ # Overclocking potential

The first test of the overclocking potential of the GPU was carried out by an automatic scanner from MSI Afterburner (author — Alexey Nikolaychuk) version 4.6.2 beta 2 build 15658. First, the power and temperature limits were increased to the maximum possible, and in the second run of the scanner they were returned to their standard values. The speed of the cooling system fans was controlled automatically. As a result, the Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER Gaming OC GPU was able to add only 21 MHz at increased limits and 14 MHz without increasing them.

The result is very modest, so we decided to check the potential of the video card core manually.

As our test showed, the GPU could pass benchmarks even at a core frequency 100 MHz higher than the nominal one, but it was stable only at +85 MHz, or 5.2%, to the base frequency. In turn, we managed to raise the video memory frequency by 1950 MHz, or 12.6%.

As a result, the frequencies of the overclocked Gigabyte video card amounted to 1735-1930/17456 MHz.

Far from a record, but quite a good result, especially since under load the core frequency of the video card was stable at 2040 MHz, and its temperature increased by only 1 degree Celsius compared to the figures without overclocking.

Auto mode (930-1990 rpm x 3)

The maximum fan speed increased by only 90 rpm, that is, the noise level of the video card did not change much. It should be noted here that in 3D mode, the Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER Gaming OC cannot be called a comfortable video card in terms of noise level. Still, it stands out noticeably against the background of a quiet system unit. However, given the significant margin of efficiency of its cooling system, you can try to set it to silence, sacrificing 7-8 degrees Celsius.

⇡#Test configuration, tools and testing methodology

Testing of video cards was carried out in a closed case of the system unit on the following hardware configuration:

• Motherboard: ASRock X299 OC Formula (Intel X299 Express, LGA2066, BIOS P1.60 from 11/01/2018);
• CPU: Intel Core i9-7900X 3.3-4.5GHz (Skylake-X, 14nm, U0, 10×1024KB L2, 13.75MB L3, TDP 140W);
• CPU cooling system: Phanteks PH-TC14PE (2 × Corsair AF140, 760~1090 rpm);
• thermal interface: ARCTIC MX-4 (8.5 W/(m K);
• RAM: DDR4 4×4GB Corsair Vengeance LPX 2800MHz (CMK16GX4M4A2800C16) (XMP 2800MHz/16-18-18-36_2T/1.2V or 3000MHz/16-18-18-36_2T/1.35V) ;
• video cards:
  • Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER Gaming OC 8GB/256bit, 1650-1845(1965)/15504MHz and overclocked to 1735-1930(2040)/17456MHz;
  • NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Founders Edition 8GB/256bit, 1515-1800(1965)/14000MHz;
  • Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER Gaming OC 8GB/256bit, 1605-1815(1965)/14000MHz;
  • NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER Founders Edition 8GB/256bit, 1470-1650(1830)/14000MHz;
  • NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 Founders Edition 6GB/192bit, 1365-1680(1830)/14000MHz;
• drives:
  • for system and benchmarks: Intel SSD 730 480 GB (SATA III, BIOS vL2010400);
  • for games and benchmarks: Western Digital VelociRaptor 300 GB (SATA II, 10000 rpm, 16 MB, NCQ);
  • archive: Samsung Ecogreen F4 HD204UI 2 TB (SATA II, 5400 rpm, 32 MB, NCQ);
• sound card: Auzen X-Fi HomeTheater HD;
• case: Thermaltake Core X71 (six be quiet! Silent Wings 3 140mm [BL065] at 990 rpm: three — for blowing, three — for blowing out);
• control and monitoring panel: Zalman ZM-MFC3;
• PSU: Corsair AX1500i Digital ATX (1.5kW, 80 Plus Titanium), 140mm fan;
• Monitor: 27″ Samsung S27A850D (DisplayPort, 2560 × 1440, 60Hz)

To minimize the dependence of graphics card performance on the speed of the platform, the 14-nm ten-core processor at a multiplier of 44, a reference frequency of 100 MHz and the Load-Line Calibration function activated at the highest level was overclocked to 4.4 GHz when the voltage in the BIOS of the motherboard rises to 1.119 V.

In turn, 16 gigabytes of DDR4 RAM operated in four-channel mode at a frequency of 3,2 GHz with basic timings 15-16-16-32 CR1 at a voltage of 1.35 V and with the adjustment of individual secondary timings.

We will evaluate the performance of the Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER Gaming OC in comparison with the benchmark NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Founders Edition and Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER Gaming OC.

Additionally, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER Founders Edition and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 Founders Edition video cards are included in testing.

Let’s add that the power and temperature limits on all video cards were increased to the maximum possible, and in the GeForce drivers, instead of optimal power consumption, the priority of maximum performance was set. Once again, we note that we will also be happy to include new video cards based on AMD GPUs in tests as soon as they begin to arrive to us in their original design for reviews.

Testing commenced August 27, 2019 was conducted using Microsoft Windows 10 Pro 1903 operating system with all updates as of that date and with the following drivers installed:

• motherboard chipset Intel Chipset Drivers — 10.1.18019.8144 WHQL dated 05/03/2019;
• Intel Management Engine Interface (MEI) — 1923.12.0.1278 WHQL dated 06/20/2019;
• drivers for video cards on NVIDIA GPUs — GeForce 431.36 WHQL from 07/09/2019.

In today’s testing, we only used a resolution of 2560 × 1440 pixels. For the tests, two graphics quality modes were used: «Quality + AF16x» — texture quality in the default drivers, with 16x anisotropic filtering enabled and «Quality + AF16x + MSAA 4x» with 16x anisotropic filtering and full-screen anti-aliasing using the MSAA degree algorithm 4x. In some games, due to the specifics of their game engines, other anti-aliasing algorithms were used, which will be indicated later in the methodology. Anisotropic filtering and FSAA were enabled in the game settings. If these settings were not available in games, then the parameters were changed in the GeForce driver control panel. Vertical synchronization (V-Sync) was also forcibly disabled there. In addition to those indicated, no additional changes were made to the driver settings.

The graphics cards have been tested in two graphics tests and in fifteen games updated to the latest versions as of the start date of the material. The list of test applications is as follows (games and further test results in them are arranged in the order of their official release):

• 3DMark (DirectX 9/11/12) — version 2.9.6631, tested in Fire Strike Extreme, Fire Strike Ultra, Time Spy Extreme and Port Royale scenes (graphical score is shown in the diagram);
• uniform Superposition (DirectX 11) — version 1.0, tested in 1080P High, 1080P Extreme and 4K Optimized presets;
• Deus Ex: Mankind Divided (DirectX 12) — version 1.19 build 801.0, all quality settings manually set to the maximum level, tessellation and depth of field activated, at least two consecutive runs of the benchmark built into the game;
• For Honor (DirectX 11) — version 70.113, maximum graphics quality settings, volumetric lighting — MHBAO, dynamic reflections and blur effect enabled, anti-aliasing oversampling disabled, tests without anti-aliasing and with TAA, double sequential run of the benchmark built into the game;
• Tom Clancy‘s Ghost Recon Wildlands (DirectX 12) — version 1.6.0, graphics quality settings to the maximum or Ultra-level, all options are activated, tests without anti-aliasing and with SMAA + FXAA, double sequential run of the benchmark built into the game;
• Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War III (DirectX 11) — version 4.0.0.19122, all graphics quality settings to the maximum level, anti-aliasing is activated, but in AA mode resolution scaling was used up to 150%, a double sequential run of the benchmark built into the game;
• call of duty: WWII (DirectX 11) — version 1.24.01, all graphics quality settings at extra level, shadows on, testing without anti-aliasing and with the SMAA T2X option activated, double run of the opening scene of the first stage of D-Day, FRAPS 105 seconds;
• Strange Brigade (DirectX 12) — version 1.47.22.14, «Ultra» settings level, all quality improvement methods are activated, asynchronous calculation is enabled, two consecutive cycles of the built-in benchmark test without anti-aliasing and with its activation;
• Shadow of the Tomb Raider (DirectX 12) — version 1.0 build 292, all parameters set to «Ultra», Ambient Occlusion — HBAO+, tessellation and other quality improvement methods activated, two cycles of the built-in benchmark test without anti-aliasing and with SMAA4x activation;
• Assassin’s Creed Odyssey (DirectX 11) — version 1.51, used in-game benchmark with Ultra High settings profile and disabled dynamic resolution, double test run without anti-aliasing and anti-aliasing at High;
• HITMAN 2 (DirectX 12) — version 2.40.0, built-in test at «Ultra» detail level, SSAO enabled, «Ultra» shadow quality, memory protection disabled, «Miami» test scene;
• Metro Exodus (DirectX 12) — version 0.1.0.17, built-in performance benchmark, Ultra and RTX settings profiles, double sequential run of the test scene;
• Far Cry New Dawn (DirectX 12) — version 1.0.2, all settings to the maximum quality level — Ultra and High, motion blur activated, built-in performance test without anti-aliasing and with TAA activated;
• Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 (DirectX 12) — version 1.0.4, frame limit disabled, all settings set to the maximum quality level, projected texture resolution — 512, built-in performance test;
• world war z (DirectX 11) — version 1.21, FPS limit disabled, all settings set to Ultra, built-in performance benchmark without anti-aliasing and with TAA enabled;
• Total War: Three Kingdoms (DirectX 11) — version 1.1.0, maximum graphics quality, shadow detail and squad size at the Extreme level, built-in performance benchmark without anti-aliasing and with TAA activated;
• F1 2019 (DirectX 12) — version 1.06, using the built-in test at the Albert Park circuit in Australia in clear weather, graphics quality settings set to the maximum level on all points, SSRT shadows activated, test without anti-aliasing and with TAA.

We add that if the games have the ability to fix the minimum number of frames per second, then it was also shown on the diagrams. Each test was carried out twice, the best of the two obtained values ​​was taken as the final result, but only if the difference between them did not exceed 1%. If the deviations of the benchmark runs exceeded 1%, then the testing was repeated at least once more in order to obtain a reliable result.

Benchmark results

Let’s supplement the constructed diagrams with a final table with test results with the derived average and minimum values ​​of the number of frames per second for each video card.

We will analyze the results using summary diagrams.

⇡#Pivot Charts and Analysis of Results

Judging by the charts above, the performance difference between the Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER Gaming OC and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 reference version is small, as the first summary chart will confirm.

On average, in gaming tests, the SUPER version of the RTX 2080 at 2560 × 1440 pixels is only 6% ahead of its predecessor.

Now let’s look at the performance difference between Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER Gaming OC and Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER Gaming OC.

Here, the advantage of a more powerful video card is more noticeable — 11% without anti-aliasing and slightly above 12% with it activated. In terms of price-performance ratio, the GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER seems to us to be a better graphics card than the GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER, since the difference in cost between these models is more than 30%.

In conclusion, let’s look at the performance gain from overclocking the Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER Gaming OC (GPU + 5.2%, memory + 12.6%).

There is an increase, but, frankly, it is not very convincing. Although, based on the fact that these additional 4.9-5.2% on the Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER Gaming OC are given almost for free (temperatures and noise levels have barely risen), then why not take advantage of this opportunity?

⇡#Energy consumption

To measure the power consumption of video cards, we used the new NVIDIA FrameView utility, from the logs of which for each tested video card the minimum power consumption level of the graphics processor (GPUOnlyPower (W)) and its maximum value, as well as the maximum power consumption of the entire video card (TotalPower (W) ). For the load in this test, we used the HITMAN 2 game benchmark at 2560 × 1440 pixels with maximum graphics quality settings and activated anti-aliasing. Recall that on all video cards the limits on power and temperatures have been increased to the maximum possible. Let’s look at the results.

Obviously, the Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER Gaming OC turned out to be limited by the TDP limit in the BIOS, even at nominal frequencies and above its 310 watts, it can no longer “jump”. Its maximum power consumption level is 20 watts higher than that of the reference GeForce RTX 2080, although these cards are equal in terms of average power consumption. As for the comparison with the Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER Gaming OC, here the difference is already greater — about 65 watts. We add that for any of the tested video cards, even as part of a fairly productive and overclocked system, a 600-watt power supply will suffice.

⇡#Results

Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER Gaming OC is a typical representative of high-end video cards with a very efficient cooling system, which, although it cannot be called ideally comfortable, still does not annoy with extra noise. The advantage of this video card model over the usual GeForce RTX 2080 is not as great as, for example, the GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER over its predecessor, but keep in mind that the cost has remained the same. It’s just that now such video cards have become a little faster.

The plus side of the Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER Gaming OC is a slightly increased GPU frequency in turbo mode, relatively modest dimensions and a four-year warranty. If you also manually adjust the fan speed versus temperature curve, excluding their complete stop, then this model can be brought closer to an ideal video card. At the same time, the same Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER Gaming OC, which is ahead of the GeForce RTX 2080 FE during overclocking, in our opinion, is more advantageous in terms of performance and cost. But, as always, it’s up to you to decide.