EVGA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti XC3 12GB GDDR6X

The EVGA RTX 3080 Ti XC3 posts a PassMark score of 26,748 and lands in the 81st percentile for ray tracing, making it a genuine 1440p and 4K gaming powerhouse. But multiple owners report fan failures that cause overheating unless you manually set fan curves. At USD 1,118 to USD 1,320, it's a good deal on sale and a rough one at full price.

Let's talk raw numbers. The 3080 Ti XC3 runs 10,240 CUDA cores at a 1,725 MHz boost clock, pushing 18.71 FP32 TFLOPS. That puts compute in the 59th percentile, which is about average for modern cards but still plenty for gaming. The real story is ray tracing, where this card hits the 81st percentile. That's a standout result, and it means games like Cyberpunk 2077 and Control with RT effects enabled will run noticeably better than on most other cards in our database.

The 12GB of GDDR6X memory sits in the 62nd percentile for VRAM capacity. It's not class-leading anymore, especially with newer cards shipping 16GB or more, but it's still enough for 1440p and most 4K scenarios today. The 512 GB/s of bandwidth helps here. Where this card falls behind is AI workloads, scoring just 47.8 out of 100 in our ai_llm category. If you're planning to run local language models or heavy AI inference, this isn't the card for you. For gaming, though, it's still a beast.

Stacked against the current competition, the 3080 Ti XC3 occupies an interesting middle ground. The ASUS TUF Gaming RTX 5090 and Gigabyte AORUS RTX 5080 absolutely crush it in raw performance, but they also cost dramatically more. The MSI Ventus RTX 5070 Ti 16G offers 16GB of VRAM versus this card's 12GB, which matters for future-proofing at 4K. The ZOTAC APOCALYPSE RTX 5080 also brings more modern architecture to the table. Where the EVGA still holds its own is ray tracing, that 81st percentile RT score keeps it competitive with cards that cost significantly more. But the 350W TDP and 31st percentile efficiency mean you're paying more in electricity over time compared to newer, more efficient designs. If you're building fresh in 2025, a newer card makes more sense. If you're upgrading an older system and find this on sale, it's still a compelling option.

Here's where it gets interesting. The affordability percentile for this card is 23rd, which means it's one of the more expensive options in our database. But the actual street price tells a more nuanced story. We're seeing USD listings ranging from USD 1,118 to USD 1,320 across two US retailers. That's a USD 202 spread, which is significant. If you can snag it at the lower end of that range, the price-to-performance ratio starts looking a lot more reasonable. At the higher end, you're paying a premium for a card that's now two generations old. The user sentiment summary echoes this, with buyers saying it's a poor value at MSRP but a genuinely good deal when found on sale. So patience pays off here.

The EVGA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti XC3 ULTRA GAMING posts a PassMark G3D score of 26,748, which lands it in the 72nd percentile for raster performance. That's a strong showing for a card from the Ampere generation, and it translates to smooth 1440p and 4K gaming in most titles. The 12GB of GDDR6X on a 384-bit bus gives you 512 GB/s of memory bandwidth, which keeps those 10,240 CUDA cores fed without choking on high-res textures.

But here's the thing. The thermal story is a bit of a rollercoaster. Our database puts this card in the 92nd percentile for thermals, which sounds great until you read what actual owners are saying. Several users report fans that don't spin up properly, leading to overheating in certain games unless you manually set a fan curve. So the cooling hardware is capable, but the default behavior can be flaky. That's a fixable annoyance, but it's an annoyance you shouldn't have to deal with on a card this expensive.

If you're doing any serious AI work, skip this card. The ai_llm score of 47.8 out of 100 is a real letdown, and the 12GB of VRAM will bottleneck larger models. Also skip it if you're building a compact system, the 285mm length and 2.2-slot design won't fit in smaller cases. And if you want something that works flawlessly out of the box without tinkering, the reported fan issues might drive you nuts. The 31st percentile efficiency rating also means higher power bills over time, so if you're energy-conscious, a newer architecture will serve you better.

The EVGA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti XC3 ULTRA GAMING is a card with a split personality. On paper and in benchmarks, it's a 1440p and 4K gaming monster with ray tracing chops that still impress. The 26,748 PassMark score and 81st percentile RT performance back that up. But the recurring fan issues reported by multiple owners are a real concern. A card with a 92nd percentile thermal design shouldn't need manual fan curve tweaking to avoid overheating, yet that's exactly what some users are dealing with. The 4.5-star rating across 337 reviews suggests most people are happy, but the ones who got bad units are really unhappy. If you can find this card at the lower end of the USD 1,118 to USD 1,320 range and you're comfortable setting a custom fan curve, it's a solid buy. If you want something that just works out of the box, look elsewhere.