PNY GeForce RTX™ 4080 Super 16GB Graphics Card

Received a card with a bad fan bearing. For something this expensive they really could put more money into the fans. My old 1080 with a Noctua mod is so much better noise wise. Even without this issue the fans are annoying. If I set up a custom fan curve, the fans will start as soon as the card is doing anything, even if it is way below the temperature threshold. And when starting the fans they are revving at 1500 rpm minimum. Not recommended for non-headphone use.

On the plus side the overall build quality seems good and it has a big cooler. The PNY software VelocityX is confusing and the fan curve seems to only apply if the application is open. Perhaps a user error.

Update: There is an updated firmware which sets the fan minimum RPM to 1000, which makes for a huge improvement in noise. It is not available for download from PNY directly, but it is circulated on some forums.

Disclaimer: this gpu needs a ton of power. It requires three PCIe cables to get it to display anything.

That being said. Graphics? Amazing. If you’re worried that it’s bad quality? Don’t be. I got this thinking i’d get a messed up GPU with broken fans because of some of these reviews.

For 50 dollars less and for the same performance as all the other 4080 Supers you get a really good card capable of 4K 60fps Max Settings any game. Ray Tracing is phenomenal but basically requires DLSS on certain games which is fine. Doesn’t really degrade any of the quality and overall looks amazing. I mean… i literally got like 120 fps at 4k on ghost of tsushima. (With dlss on of course) but even with it off i got a steady 70.

And note: support bracket isn’t required. The card is huge though.

The card actually performs really well. It runs at like 30° idle with fans at the minimum of 30%. Really quiet at that temp and fan speed.

It’d be great if that’s all it did. As soon as I put it under any load the fans would revv wildly for a few seconds and spin down just as fast. Even when it wasn’t hitting the temps I set for my fan curves. It ignored all fan curves completely.

I tried MSI Afterburner and even tried the Velocity X from PNY themselves, neither worked. Not even a undervolt would get the fans to stop revving.

Seems a few others are having the same issues with their cards. Maybe they aren’t all bad and I just got a bad one but I wouldn’t take my chances. I will be returning the card.

When it comes to the decision of power vs value, this is one of NVIDIA’s crowning jewels when it comes to modern graphics cards. This GPU has it all- a large supply of VRAM, DLSS upscaling, Frame Generation, AV1 Encoding, near endless shader support, and much more. The GPU is also a colossally massive work of engineering that struggles to fit inside even the best of cases, but for those with the clearance, this GPU is near-perfectly balanced when it comes to value.

Let me start by saying that if you are playing games at resolutions lower than 4K, you simply won’t need another GPU for a very long time. On a pure rasterization standpoint, without any of the fancy DLSS features, I can run most modern and older titles at 4K medium to high settings all at 60FPS or higher, with most being over 100FPS. Once Ray Tracing is enabled, that number does dwarf substantially but can be quickly remedied by simply enabling DLSS upscaling and even Frame Generation in supported games. For those running 1440p, 1080p, or lower resolutions, it would be hard to find any game that will run lower than 100 FPS at Max Settings. Alan Wake 2, which is the most demanding game I own, runs at between 28-35 FPS at Max settings at 4K with Ray Tracing enabled, but that number jumps well over 60 when DLSS and Frame Gen are enabled. I mention that as that’s the worst case scenario I’ve encountered, and even recently ported games from the PS5 such as Horizon: Forbidden West, Ghost of Tsushima, and God of War: Ragnarok all clear 100+ FPS at 4K Max Settings with DLSS enabled but no Frame Gen needed when paired with my 7800X3D. Plus, the GPU’s massive heatsink and 3 large fans make this card rarely peak beyond 67 degrees when under load as it stays impressively cool despite all the power it uses. Needless to say, for gaming, there really isn’t a need for anything better.

However, that’s not all. When it comes to encoding, this card delivers some of the best quality I have ever seen in my streams and videos. The AV1 encoder on this GPU makes my content look much less pixelated and with reduced artifacts compared to when I was still encoding on either x264 or NVENC settings. Additionally, the render times in some of my video editing applications are significantly reduced while still giving me that higher level of quality in my output.

Now, the card itself is still quite large as mentioned, and it also uses the newer mini power connector that Nvidia introduced a few years ago. The GPU does include a 3 8-pin to 12+4pin adapter as well as a GPU stand, but the adapter was a bit too bulky for my case, so I did have to swap to a new power supply that had its own dedicated 12VHPWR cable for it to fit once my side glass panel was installed.

On the software side, the NVIDIA app is a breeze to use, and drivers are also quick and effortless to install. The card seems to get incrementally faster with each polished update, and for the games that can support all the features it has to offer, it really is a masterclass in its own respect.

Overall, with all the raw power this GPU provides, as well as support for DLSS upscaling and Frame Generation, this card will last through the test of time for even the most demanding games. While not quite as powerful as the 4090, which may give you a slight edge in Ray Tracing performance over this 4080 Super, for those who don’t use RT features, there simply isn’t anything better. I highly recommend it!