Card Layout and Photos
If you have seen any of the 3000 Series Founders Edition cards or the RTX 4090 Founders Edition the styling of the RTX 4080 Founders Edition is going to look familiar. Nvidia didn’t change the styling up at all for this generation. It has the same silver outline on the sides of the cards that I like to call the Infinity Hourglass due to its shape. This splits the card up into four sections and because the outside of the card, at least what is facing the sides, is all heatsink we can see the orientation of the heatsink layout. The left section has the left fan and the heatsink here is horizontal, designed to push some of this air out the PCI bracket end of the card. The two middle sections direct air up and down. Then the back has a V-shaped layout in the blow-through design. The RTX 4080 Founders Edition shares the same heatsink as the RTX 4090 Founders Edition which includes a larger fan than the RTX 3090 and 3090 Ti had and the same huge size.
The RTX 4080 Founders Edition is 336mm or 13.2 inches long and 140mm or 5.5 inches tall which is significantly larger than Nvidia’s reference or Founders Edition cards in the past except for the 3090s and the 4090 which have this same larger size. The fan on the front side of the card is 110mm wide and has 7 blades and an outer ring that gives the blades more stability. On the silver infinity hourglass, they do have the RTX 4080 model number molded into the metal which is hard to even see but is a great looking touch. Then the heatsink is all blacked out along with the fan which gives that silver access a lot of contrast.
The back side of the RTX 4080 Founders Edition has a second matching fan like the front which you can see is so large that they had to cut out some of the silver accent out. But beyond around there the rest of the back has a metal backplate covering up the entire PCB. The infinity hourglass shape is still here and this side has the Nvidia logo molded into it like the 4080 branding on the other side. The backplate also has the RTX 4080 model number printed on to it upside down so it could be visible when installed in a PC.
The silver infinity hourglass does run the width at the top and end of the card in the areas it is exposed. The top also has an interesting concave shape to it. Then on the end, the card is solid but it does have a removable panel. This is held in place with magnets and hides the two mounting points that can be used for OEM installations, servers, and for holding up the card.
The top and bottom of the RTX 4080 Founder Edition have a similar layout with the exposed heatsink in the middle and the solid sections that are part of the infinity hourglass on the ends.
On the top edge of the card, Nvidia does have their GeForce RTX branding which is backlit. I would still prefer this to have the RTX 4080 model name personally, it's always cool to be able to show off what card you have rather than Nvidia’s brand. Also on the top, we have the power connection and nothing here has changed from the RTX 4090 Founders Edition. The plug is at the end of the PCB facing direction up which puts it a little past the halfway point on the card. The big change from the 3080 FE is that this isn’t angled at all, but this is the same 16-pin 12VHPWR connection that the 3090 Ti and 4090 both have even though the RTX 4080 does have slightly lower power requirements. This connection can be found on new ATX 3.0 power supplies and on the adapter that Nvidia included.
For the PCI bracket end, you can really see the thickness of the triple slot card here. The RTX 4080 Founders Edition has the same 3 DisplayPort and 1 HDMI connection configuration that Nvidia has been using on all of their cards. The HDMI is down at the bottom now, not in the middle which helps prevent any confusion. The bracket also has all of the certification logos and legal information etched on it. This also includes your serial number as well. Then for airflow, they have four large openings, not an array of smaller holes like they have done in the past. While the card isn’t a blower design, this layout does help a lot with airflow.
As I mentioned this is a full triple slot card which comes in at 60mm in width. But it is also a tall card, the point of view below shows how it has an extra 30mm over the top of the PCI bracket. This combined with the power plug being on top can cause fitment issues and while we are still waiting to find out more about the 4090 adapter issues that some people have had. That layout and this height doesn’t help things as well, forcing the cable or adapter to be bent way over.
For lighting, Nvidia hasn’t changed anything from the RTX 4090 Founders Edition or the higher-end 3000 series cards for that matter. The RTX 4080 Founders Edition has white lighting on the two sides of the middle of the infinity or hourglass loop and then on the top, the GeForce RTX branding is backlit in white as well. With some software like iCue, you can change these from white to other colors as well.
