Asus and Noctua have joined forces again to create the Asus GeForce RTX 4080 Noctua Edition, and it’s the quietest version of the RTX 4080 you’re going to find. But of course, all that elite-level cooling doesn’t come cheap.
The Asus GeForce RTX 4080 Noctua Edition is the third such card that’s come out of a partnership between Noctua and Asus, following the success of the GeForce RTX 3080 and RTX 3070. As you might expect, the core of this partnership is the use of Noctua’s legendary fan systems. In this card, the three stock fans have been replaced by a pair of Noctua’s NF-A12x25 PWM 120mm fans. But that’s not all, as the heatsink has also been replaced with a tailored option including a vapor chamber, and five 8mm heatpipes.
All of this additional cooling infrastructure means the card will run cooler than most other cards at the same clock rate -- which in turn means the fans won’t need to work as hard, reducing the ambient noise levels of your computer. When temperatures within the card drop to 50-degrees, the fans will even shut off entirely, reducing noise even further. Hopefully, this means your card won’t be running the fans at all when performing simple tasks, like browsing emails or word processors.
That isn’t to say the card won’t work hard to keep your system cool when needed. Asus has also included a dual BIOS as standard, including a quiet profile for near-silent running, as well a performance profile that takes off all the restrictions and aims to keep your system as cool as possible. There’s also the option to undervolt the card, reducing the thermal output of the card even further, and reducing the noise levels down even more.
So it’s clearly the high-performance graphics card of choice for those who love having a quiet system, but it’s worth keeping in mind this doesn’t come cheap. The card starts at a princely $1,650, so it’s clearly not a budget option. But if you want great performance at cool temperatures and low noise, then it’s an investment worth making.