Hardware Review · Purchased September 30, 2022 · $1,752.18 CAD via Amazon.ca
The Setup
Nvidia’s Ampere-generation flagship, launched all the way back in September 2020 with 10,496 CUDA cores, 24GB of GDDR6X VRAM, and a 350W TGP. Buying one in September 2022 means buying it two years late and at the tail end of the worst GPU shortage in recent memory — crypto miners and scalpers kept 30-series pricing well above MSRP for most of its life, and it took the Ethereum mining crash earlier this year to finally bring prices down to something resembling sane.
The Review
Even two years on, this is still an enormous amount of GPU. The 24GB of VRAM is honestly overkill for most gaming, but it means genuinely comfortable headroom for 4K and even 8K with DLSS, plus real utility for anything creative or productivity-related that actually uses that pool. At 4K it demolishes basically everything I’ve thrown at it, and the cooler manages to keep noise reasonable given the performance tier it’s competing in.
None of that changes the fact that this is a genuinely poor value proposition if you’re gaming at 1080p or 1440p — the gap over the cheaper RTX 3080 barely shows up at those resolutions. The 350W power draw meant a PSU upgrade was non-negotiable, and the dual/triple-slot cooler is a hard no for any small-form-factor build. Buying it two years after launch, well past the shortage’s worst point, is really the only way this purchase makes financial sense at all.
What I Liked
- Still the fastest consumer GPU available to me at 4K and beyond
- 24GB VRAM gives genuinely comfortable headroom for demanding workloads
- Cooling keeps noise reasonable for the performance tier
- Bought well after the worst of the shortage-era pricing finally cooled off
What I Didn’t
- Poor value at 1080p/1440p — only really makes sense at 4K and up
- 350W power draw forced a PSU upgrade
- Massive cooler rules out small-form-factor builds entirely
- Two years late to the party by the time I actually got one
The Verdict
Rating: 4/5
Genuinely excellent at 4K, and only worth it now that the shortage-era pricing has finally settled down.
Where to Buy
- Nvidia product page (largely superseded now — check Amazon.ca or used listings)
