Card Layout and Photos

Well here is it in all of its glory, the new RTX 4080 SUPER Founders Edition, and like with the RTX 4070 SUPER Founders Edition Nvidia hasn’t changed much at all. In fact with the exception of the model number changing on the card, visually this is the same design that the RTX 4080 and RTX 4090 coolers have. The one big change of course is the card being blacked out. Where the non-SUPER cards have had a dark silver or grey combined with black heatsinks the RTX 4080 SUPER Founders Edition has it all blacked out. I mentioned it in the 4070 SUPER coverage but while I love this in black, it does really make me want to see what an all-white Founders Edition would look like as well. I’m not sure that I could handle adding another adjective to the model name to get that sort of special edition.

The RTX 4080 SUPER Founders Edition has the exact same dimensions as the RTX 4080 and RTX 4090 and if you haven’t seen these cards before they are very large. It is 310 mm long, 140 mm tall, and 61 mm thick. This is just a hair past the standard triple slot thickness but the extra thickness is on the back of the card so if you needed to put something close it shouldn’t be an issue. The height shows with the 25mm above the PCIe bracket which by the way you can spot Nvidia being sneaking with their cooling by slipping in a hole there above the bracket. Then the card length is beyond the length of our 12-inch long ruler just barely. Interestingly though the card doesn’t lose its scale, because it is larger in every dimension it just looks like one of the smaller Founders Edition cards has grown up.  

So the packaging hints at it and all of the 3000 and 4000 Series Founders Edition cards have had it but the card design has an hourglass shape designed into the heatsink and housing along with a completely exposed heatsink. The hourglass shape can be seen on the sides as a ring around the outside that dives in with the X shape in the middle. This has the RTX 4080 SUPER model name up under the fan laser etched into it. This is more than a ring though, at the top, bottom, and ends the ring carries through and to the back. The heatsink consists of two different kinds of heatsinks, a thin aluminum sheetmetal style heatsink which can be seen under the fan and around the fan as well as on the right side. Then in the middle top and bottom, there are two thicker heatsinks which radiate heat out. The thinner heatsinks work with the card's two fans and have heatpipes that pull the heat out across the card. You can see those when looking through the heatsink. Of course, this side of the card only has one fan, and it's on the left side. It has 7 fan blades and an outer ring that gives it more strength and helps direct more air down into the heatsink. The fan has a 118 mm opening and is 115 mm wide from ring to ring.

Up on the top edge of the card, the black finish continues. There is also the GeForce RTX branding which is backlit but visible even when the lighting is off with the white diffusers behind it. One thing I wanted to point out here is the concave shape of the RTX 4080 SUPER Founders Edition’s housing. It is hardly visible but the entire top and ends have a small dip to them, you can mostly see it at the ends where it wraps around the front and ends of the card but it’s a nice detail. Also up on top in the middle of that heatsink is the power connection for the RTX 4080 SUPER Founders Edition. It has the same 12VHPWR connection that all of the Founders Edition cards have but we do know that this card has a TGP of 320 watts and the adapter included uses three 8-pin PCIe connections to make sure there is enough power.  

Then top, bottom, and end views of the RTX 4080 SUPER Founders Edition don’t show as much as you might see with a lot of aftermarket cards. The top and bottom are mostly covered in the outer section of the hourglass shape of the card but in the center of both, there is the exposed heatsink which sits at an angle. This is the thicker heatsink, not the thin sheet metal one around the fans because these don’t get that much airflow, they radiate. Then on the end, nothing is exposed, the metal housing wraps completely around the card. There is a small panel you can remove that is held in place by magnets. This hits the threaded mounting points for support brackets that can use them.

The back of the RTX 4080 SUPER Founders Edition looks very similar to the front in its layout including the single fan which is hiding on this side making the card a dual fan card. This fan however doesn’t blow down into the heatsink, it pulls air through the heatsink. It looks similar to the front fan but because of the pull not push it is closer to what you would see if you looked at the back of the front fan other than it having the same tinted center cap. It is the same size and has an outer ring around it as well. There are small heatsinks that fill the gaps around the fan but beyond that, there aren’t any other visible heatsinks on this side. The rest of the back has a diecast metal backplate shaped with the same hourglass shape and black finish. This gives the card more strength and protects the PCB. It also has the RTX 4080 SUPER Founders Edition model name molded into it sitting upside down so it will be readable when installed.

The thickness of the RTX 4080 SUPER Founders Edition leaves a lot of room on the triple slot PCI bracket for the large openings for airflow and we can see that the heatsink here is aimed to push any air that comes into this area out the back bracket. The back bracket also has the required certification logos all laser etched onto it including your model number and serial number as well. Then all of the Display Connections are packed tightly down on the bottom edge of the bracket. The RTX 4080 SUPER Founders Edition has four connections in total and has what I would consider to be the standard layout these days with three DisplayPort connections and one HDMI. Nvidia has put the HDMI down at the bottom which is a nice change from previous generations which had it in the middle.

I also snapped a few comparison shots between the RTX 4080 SUPER Founders Edition and the original RTX 4080 Founders Edition to give a better idea of the grey to black change. I also have the RTX 4070 Founders Edition there which if you haven’t seen the RTX 4080, 4080, or 3090 Founders Editions in person, this gives a little more scale to how big they are compared to what would be a large card just a few years ago.

Before getting into testing I did want to check out the lighting on the RTX 4080 SUPER Founders Edition and it might come as a surprise that the card has lighting. Up on the top edge, the GeForce RTX branding is backlit then on the front the X shape in the middle of the hourglass shape also has small hidden slivers of lighting which all light up in white when the card is up and running. This is the same as on the original RTX 4080 and still just as good looking as before.