EVGA XC Ultra Nvidia RTX 2080 Graphics Card Review

Peter Donnell / 6 years ago

Final Thoughts

How Much Does it Cost?

The price of this card is about on par with most RTX 2080 series cards. You can get the EVGA RTX 2080 XCUltra for around £871 on Amazon. However, the similar non-Ultra version of the XC is currently on sale at £721 (down from £769). That’s a hefty price gap for two very similar cards. The main difference is the factory overclock, as the cards are likely tested in-house for the best of the batch.

Overview

EVGA has a pretty fantastic reputation with the gaming market. Sure, they’ve made a few mistakes over the years with designs, but find me a brand that hasn’t. What does matter is EVGA learnt from their mistakes, and their new cards are built even better than they ever were. The OC Ultra is clearly no exception, delivering some remarkable performance for an RTX 2080 card, and at a fairly competitive price too. It’s even given some of its rivals a bit of thrashing at the same time.

Performance

Without a doubt, this is one of the choice cards for those wanting an RTX 2080. It obviously comes with a price premium over the more stock cards. However, with the EVGA tech built into it, it’s clear as day why it can be worth paying more for more. The faster clocks, the much-much-much bigger cooler, those high-performance fans, temperature sensors, and more. It all adds up to a GPU that can push those clocks higher, harder, and for longer. The end result, it spits out more FPS, it’s as simple as that.

Build Quality

There’s certainly nothing wrong with the build quality here, this is a very robust card. With a triple slot design, it’s certainly heavy too. However, that (also heavy) backplate helps keep the card nice and straight. Furthermore, that 3-slot PCIe bracket also helps keep the card secure and straight too. The only gripe I have is that ugly as sin clear top cover. Some will love it, I’m sure of that, but it’s so not for me; I fear it’ll just fill with dust over time for all to see.

Should I Buy One?

When it comes down to price and performance, the OC Ultra is a hot ticket. If you want an RTX card without spending a (bigger) fortune on the Ti, I’d happily go with the OC Ultra. Sure, it’s an ugly duckling, but I can only see the backplate in my build, and that part looks pretty slick to me.