- Aug 27, 2023
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I have an update to close this thread if anyone ends up with a similar issue 
This problem ended up as a 2-month-long warranty dispute between Amazon, the third party GPU seller, and me.
I contacted the manufacturer (Gainward) support for information, here is a quote from their take on temperature :
Regarding the temperature, we can tell you that this increased temperature is caused by the GDDR6X graphics memory modules, as the fast memory operations of the modules generate a lot of heat.
These graphics memory modules are specified for up to 105 degrees Celsius, but up to 120 degrees Celsius is also possible in some cases.
See AlsoRTX 3060TI TEMPERATUREHowever, this leads to a load on the graphics chip.
You can counteract this by protecting the graphics card so that dust cannot get in, since dust can limit heat dissipation.
Further steps would require opening the graphics card, but this is not possible as it would void the warranty.
Which is exactly what Phaaze88 said!
At stock settings, the 3080 I had was turboing to an unstable state, causing it to crash.
The seller tried to claim that the GPU was manually overclocked to deny the warranty claim...
Here is a quote from Gainward on cards turboing with GPU boost :
We can say that the tool GPU Boost can overclock a not modified graphics card, which is used with an official Nvidia driver, if it has power, voltage and thermal headroom.
Due to the fact that the card uses the entire power budget allocated to it, the power draw numbers of the card will be higher than advertised TBP or TGP numbers.
Amazon accepted the warranty, and I was able to return the card for a refund.
I bought a 4080 with the money. For a short while, I had both a 3080 and a 4080.
I haven't run into any issues with the 4080, even after running Furmark for a while.
At stock settings, in a room at 25°c with the same case fan speeds:
3080 Gainward phoenix:
- idling temp: ~52°c
- Furmark maximum main temp : ~84°c + was black screening
- Temp delta between main temp and hotspot under load: ~ 15°c
4080 PNY Verto RGB:
- idling temp: ~38°c
- Furmark maximum main temp : ~73°
- Temp delta between main temp and hotspot under load: ~ 7°c
Please note that this is not a fair comparison, the 4080 is massive compared to a 3080 and takes 3 slots instead of 2. Still, the differences give credit to the hypothesis that the 3080 had a cooling issue.
My takeaways:
- Don't ever buy stuff from scalpers, they'll try to screw you over and find a way to leave you with a defective product if they can
- Power limiting series 3000 and 4000 GPUs is great to make them run cooler without sacrificing much performance
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