ASUS has officially announced the release of the GeForce RTX 4080 Noctua Edition graphics card, which features a cool and quiet design. Following the success of the Noctua Edition ASUS GeForce RTX 3070 and RTX 3080, the Noctua Edition of ASUS’ GeForce RTX 4080 is the third graphics card to feature Noctua fans and a heatsink co-engineered by Noctua.
Thermals and acoustics of ASUS’ original TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 4080 could be significantly improved for the Noctua Edition 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.
While the heatsinks of the RTX 3070 and RTX 3080 Noctua Editions have already been tailored in terms of size and heatpipe layout to take advantage of the superior aerodynamic performance of the Noctua NF-A12x25 fans, the heatsink of the RTX 4080 Noctua Edition has been completely redesigned to achieve maximum thermal efficiency.
The Noctua Edition significantly outperforms the original TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 4080 in terms of cooling performance by including a vapour chamber and transferring thermal energy to five instead of two 8mm heat pipes. As a result, it can run at slower fan speeds and, when combined with the class-leading efficiency of the NF-A12x25 fans, it can run quieter than any other air-cooled card in its class.
Running the fans at maximum speed, as may be required in worst-case scenarios such as fully stressing the card in poorly ventilated cases or with extremely high ambient temperatures, results in a 14.9 dB reduction in noise levels (A). The Noctua Edition is 16.8 dB(A) quieter and slightly hotter (0.8°C) at medium fan speeds (70% PWM).
At low fan speeds (such as at typical auto settings with 23°C ambient temperature), the picture is similar, with nearly identical temperatures and a 4.8 dB(A) reduction in noise levels, making the already quiet original ASUS TUF Gaming card even quieter. In summary, the Noctua Edition reduces noise levels across the entire speed range, with the most noticeable improvement at medium to maximum fan speed of 15-17 dB(A) and around 5 dB(A) at lower speeds.
The GeForce RTX 4080 model, like the previous Noctua Edition cards, has a dual BIOS that allows customers to switch between a performance profile that provides the lowest GPU temperatures and a quiet profile that allows slightly higher temperatures to achieve the best possible acoustics. The quiet profile is set as the default to meet the needs of Noctua’s customers.
For enthusiasts who want to take things a step further, the included ASUS GPU Tweak III software offers additional options such as custom fan curves and undervolting.
The GeForce RTX 4080 Noctua Edition has a semi-passive fan control setup (ASUS 0dB technology) that can turn off the fans completely if the GPU temperature falls below 50°C. This means that in typical configurations with low to moderate ambient temperatures and well-ventilated cases, the card can operate completely passively at lower GPU loads such as office productivity tasks, web browsing, or even light gaming. Even when the GPU is under heavy load, such as when gaming or benchmarking, the fan speeds will remain extremely low as long as the ambient temperature inside the case isn’t too high.
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