Noctua And ASUS Collaborate Again To Produce Noctua RTX 4080

Following the success of the Noctua 3070 and 3080, Noctua has once again partnered up with ASUS to produce a Noctua Edition Nvidia RTX 4080.

Noctua x ASUS RTX 4080

The Noctua Edition of ASUS’ GeForce RTX 4080 is the third graphics card to feature Noctua fans and a heatsink that has been co-engineered by Noctua. By switching from the stock of three slim 110mm fans to two of Noctua’s award-winning NF-A12x25 PWM 120mm units and to a more elaborate, tailored heatsink with a vapour chamber and five instead of two 8mm diameter heat pipes, thermals and acoustics of ASUS’ original TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 4080 could be improved significantly for the Noctua Edition, making it the quietest card in its class.

While the heatsinks of the RTX 3070 and RTX 3080 Noctua Edition have already been tailored in aspects such as size and heatpipe layout in order to make the most out of the Noctua NF-A12x25 fans’ superior aerodynamic performance, the heatsink of the RTX 4080 Noctua Edition has been re-designed from the ground up to achieve maximum thermal efficiency: By adding a vapour chamber and using its superior heat-spreading capabilities to transfer the thermal energy to five instead of two 8mm heat pipes (plus three instead of six 6mm ones), the Noctua Edition provides significantly better cooling performance than the original TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 4080. This, in return, enables it to operate with slower fan speeds and, combined with the class-leading efficiency of the NF-A12x25 fans, to run quieter than any other air-cooled card in its class.

Performance and Noise

Noctua fans are well renowned for their excellence in running quietly and this card again excels in that. Through Noctua’s testing where the fans on this Noctua card were tested against the standard ASUS TUF card at max speed, medium speed and low speed they saw drops in noise levels across all speeds. When testing at max speed the fans saw a decrease of 14.9dB(A) whilst temperatures remained more or less the same with at most a 0.8°C increase.

Other Features

Like the previous Noctua Edition cards, the GeForce RTX 4080 model features a dual BIOS that enables customers to switch between a performance profile that provides the lowest GPU temperatures and a quiet profile that allows slightly higher temperatures in order to achieve the best possible acoustics. Catering to the demands of Noctua’s customers, the quiet profile is set as the default.

For enthusiast users who want to take things one step further, the included ASUS GPU Tweak III software provides extra possibilities such as setting custom fan curves or undervolting. Reducing the thermal output of the card, undervolting can make it possible to let the card run even quieter. For example, reducing the GPU voltage by around 100mV can drop the GPU temperatures by several degrees and thereby widen the thermal margin to slow the fans down even further.

Semi-Passive Fan Control

The GeForce RTX 4080 Noctua Edition features a semi-passive fan control setup (ASUS 0dB technology) that can switch the fans off completely whenever the GPU temperature goes below 50°C. This means that in typical configurations with low to moderate ambient temperatures and well-ventilated cases, the card can run entirely passive at lower GPU loads such as during office productivity tasks, web browsing, or even light gaming. Even at high GPU loads such as during gaming or benchmarking, the fan speeds will stay extremely low as long as the ambient temperature inside the case isn’t excessive.

Where Can I Learn More?

The Noctua 4080 is an excellent card for fans of Noctua’s iconic design as well as those wanting a nice quiet setup as many graphics cards can make quite the racket with their fans blasting full speed. If you would like to learn more about this product you can find out more at ASUS’s Product page and you can read about Noctua’s testing here.

Are you a fan of Noctua’s graphics cards? Let us know in the comments.