Palit GeForce RTX 3080 Ti GameRock OC review - Introduction

Palit GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Gamerock OC review

In this review, we test the Palit GeForce RTX 3080 Ti GameRock OC; it's probably the shiniest and bling graphics card you've seen in ages. But it certainly holds ground and is an interesting performer. Yeah, there's no denying it. It has been a bizarre year if we're talking computer components alone, silicon shortages, mining; it's been sour grapes for a long time. Likely that won't even change soon. People are almost fighting to grab a decently proceed graphics card, often running up to three times the MSRP pricing. NVIDIA is staying on its trajectory, though, implementing hash-rate limitations for consumer-grade GPUs and releasing refresh products pretty much as scheduled. Today, we see such a refresh product that positioned itself between the GeForce RTX 3080 and 3090. That product would be the GeForce RTX 3080 ti, and probably was the worst kept secret as of late in the history of NVIDIA. Armed with a shader core count of 10240 units, this card is paired with 12 GB of GDDR6X graphics memory running 19 Gbps. Much has been said, rumored, and spoken about this card, as with that libidinous shading core count, it is bound to be a bit of a beast in the enthusiast performance segment. You need to remember that it was less than a year ago that NVIDIA launched their Ampere GPU series, September 2020, in fact. A week before announcements, specifications of the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti, 3070, 3080, and 3090 took a twist; the shader core count mysteriously doubled up from what everybody expected, to date something massively important to this product range as yes, the competition has gotten fiercer as well. NVIDIA's GPUs are fabricated on an 8nm node derived from Samsung. This process further develops Samsung's 10nm process; no EUV is applied in production just yet. This second wave of announcements will see the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti and next week 3070 Ti (hey, come on, it's not a secret). The desktop product line of Ampere for consumers now entails the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti 8GB, 3070 8GB GDDR6, RTX 3080 10GB, RTX 3080 Ti 12GB, and RTX 3090; what we test today is a 12GB GDDR6X based close to the premium flagship. Much like the 3080 and 3090, the 3080 Ti will base based on the existing 28 billion transistors based GA102 GPU from NVIDIA, obviously reconfigured. The card has an impressive 10240 Shader processors activated, and mind you; the 3090 has 10496. A big change is that the memory is halved from 24 towards 12 GB (an excellent value). 

RTX 3080 Ti GameRock OC

This review covers the GameRock OC from Palit; we won't deny it; that's a lot of bling. Granted, though, do not get scared as once powered up, it certainly does look very different from the RGB elements. The GameRock OC boasts a 1725 MHz boost clock out of the box. It is a rather mild bump seen from the reference 1665 MHz boost. The model in our findings does feature a TDP of 400W, which is 50W over reference specs. In return, you'll gain more performance. Palit equipped the card with a semi-passive design; the three fans start to spin and cool once the GPU warms up. The card is built pretty extreme however can be a little overwhelming once you take the design into account, as that front plate is covered in crystals and thus is a lot of bling. There's more to it than that, though, as that entire front-facing place is RGB lit, and it does make all the difference once you give it some juice. The memory runs stock at 19 Gbps effective. GameRock OC has been fitted with a new cooling solution with three fans. The card has been fitted with 3x 8 (6+2) pins, creating an issue with power supplies cables and power-wise. So it would be best if you had at least a proper 750 Watt PSU for this graphics card. Weighing in at almost 1.9kg, this baby has been sized quite big. You'll also spot a dual-BIOS with a performance fan mode and a silent fan mode. Next page, please.