With most major manufacturers announcing their own water-cooled cards such as MSI's SeaHawk X line as well as EVGA's KINGPIN card, it was time for Gigabyte to release another water-cooled graphics card. The AORUS brand under Gigabyte already has the Waterforce cards, but now Gigabyte has decided to announce a Waterforce card under its brand. Gigabyte has unveiled the GeForce RTX 3080 Gaming Waterforce WB.
The RTX 3080 Gaming Waterforce WB GPU Features A Narrower Design With Less Ports
Comparing it to the RTX 3080 AORUS Xtreme WaterForce WB, the card is going to be a lower end 3080 just because the Xtreme variant is the top of the line offering from Gigabyte. The card itself has a narrower PCB than the Xtreme variant and with that comes reduced 3 DisplayPort ports and 2 HDMI ports. The design is something that differs a lot from the Xtreme variant.
A key difference in the design is the use of acrylic being much less with a small viewport compared to the Xtreme variant. The overall size of the card is much smaller with a dual-slot design. A custom shroud covers the whole water block with the exception of the aforementioned viewing port. The product images indicate that the water block will support Gigabyte’s RGB lighting system. The design of the previous generation is down below.
A major technological difference between the Xtreme variant and this one is the clock speed. It has a lower clock speed but is still factory overclocked. It has a boost clock speed of 1800 MHz which is 45 MHz lower than the Xtreme variant. Another feature missing is the signature leak detection seen on the Xtreme variant.
Overall, the Gigabyte GeForce RTX 3080 Gaming Waterforce WB is a more affordable graphics card that comes equipped with a water block. It still won't come cheap with the tariffs increasing the price of all hardware as well as it still is quite a premium card just not as much as the RTX 3080 AORUS Xtreme WaterForce WB.
