Asus throws in a dedicated Noctua Nvidia RTX 4080 graphics card and gives us the energy of an ’80s office suite. The custom GeForce GPU lives up to the usual ethos of a gaming PC component maker, but the color scheme mocha turns its thick shell into a masterpiece.
The GPU scene is dominated by grayscale, and the top contenders for graphics cards are rarely pretty. While RGB lighting adds an iridescent touch to lackluster bezels, most builds of the RTX 4080 offer the same rugged, almost scaffold-like design.
Announced at CES 2023, the Asus RTX 4080 powered by Noctua is a bit of a visual water bath for the eyes. Some enthusiasts may not like the manufacturer’s brown-beige mix, while others will find it an aesthetic nightmare. If you’re old enough to remember microcomputers like the Atari 800, the color scheme of this custom map will look all too familiar, as it looks like it belongs in a leather-wrapped machine surrounded by hardcover books.
Naturally, Noctua’s coolers are more than unique in style, as the NF-A12x25 plate fans promise to keep maximum temperatures below 63°C and noise down. Combined with its own vapor chamber, Asus says, the result is “the quietest air-cooled RTX 4080 on the market,” a bold claim we must prove.
In terms of specs, the Noctua Edition RTX 4080 is an overclocked card, so it’s on par with the company’s TUF Gaming OC variant. We’re still waiting on the ETA and MSRP, but it’s likely to cost more than the Founder’s Edition featured in our Nvidia RTX 4080 review.
If you’re looking to splurge on a new GeForce card but don’t want to spend more than $1,000, you might want to consider the Nvidia RTX 4070 Ti, as it has similar DLSS 3 capabilities for less than its Lovelace sibling.
Source : PC Gamesn
