Hey guys,

my new RTX 3080 Gaming Box arrived yesterday, replaced my "old" RTX 2080 Ti Gaming Box and I like to share some details with you.

System specs + eGPU hardware + Hardware pictures

I used my Mac mini (latest Intel-based Mac mini from 2018, maxed out to 64GB RAM) w/Win10 20H2 (latest build) running at Bootcamp partition to test the new monster.

I also took a chance and built a soundproof case that allows me to banish the Gaming Box from my desk. I added some insulation/acoustic foam inside and installed a Noctua NF-P14s redux-900 fan including a power supply with adjustable voltage. This guy is really quiet, even at 10V (out of a maximum of 12V, what I never use) it's barely audible. I left a vent open at the back of the case where the cold room air is sucked in and the front fan blows the warm air out. Works better than expected!

I'm not much of a craftsman, but this was fun to make and I think it turned out pretty well - not to mention it serves its purpose just fine... 

Here are some pictures of my build:

It has to be said that the Gaming Box RTX 3080 itself is really very quiet when directly compared to the RTX 2080 Ti, even under full load the fans never turn up as loud as they did in the old box before. This might be due to the fact that the cooling technology has been improved or the GPU does not really reach the 100% load, maybe TB3 bottleneck? Any ideas? --> @itsage already confirmed that the RTX 3080 runs a few degrees cooler than RTX 2080 Ti and therefore produces less noise overall.

Together with my housing the setup is barely hearable under full load (36db at my sitting position and around 40db directly measured next to the Box (front)). That's not much louder than normal background noise, so quite good I think!

Installation steps:

The unboxing / connecting was very straight forward and plug & play because of my existing setup with the previous model, same configuration and drivers used. I just unpack the new Box, connected power cable and my existing DP cable and a longer TB3 cable (previously used), because the provided TB3 cable is much to short for off desk use.

Heres in detail what I did:

- Having an installed Win10 20H2 (latest build) with latest NVIDIA drivers for RTX 3080 installed, too.

- Booting into Win10 by holding option key during startup, select bootcamp partition, log into Windows, wait about 10 seconds and then hot plug the eGPU. Pray that there's no blue screen appearing (50/50 chance), otherwise reboot again (don't forget to switch eGPU off before) --> Btw, does anyone know a better way to deal with that?

- The eGPU gets recognized and produces output on DP, then I switch to display settings and select exclusive monitor output to second screen (external monitor only). This display selection has to be done only once (first connection). Have to mention, that I have another connection to the same display via USB-C to DP-Port adapter (iGPU in Mac mini) to use it in MacOS, this adapter is used during boot process and at login screen (and therefore Windows shows two monitors).

Benchmarks + Comments:

Did some benchmarking with the "old" RTX 2080Ti and the new RTX 3080 to compare performance.

The Bootcamp Win10 20H2 (latest build) runs at 4K/2160p resolution with 125% DPI scaling, latest NVIDIA drivers installed, V-SYNC remained switched on.

First I mention the used Benchmark tool and the settings/preset, second the score points and/or FPS for the RTX 3080, last the performance gain in percent compared to the 2080Ti (used the score for calculation, if not present I took FPS value).

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• Superposition (4K optimized, DX) / 13108 (score), 98.04 (avg. FPS) / +25 % (compared to 2080Ti)
• Superposition (8K optimized, DX) / 5887 (score), 44.03 (avg. FPS) / (no benchmark available from 2080Ti)
• Heaven (DX11, Extreme/Ultra, 2160p) / 1512 (score), 60 (avg. FPS) / +31 %
• Valley (DX11, Extreme/Ultra, 2160p) / 2588 (score), 61,9 (avg. FPS) / +38 %

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• Basemark GPU (DX12, official) / 15501 (score), 155 (avg. FPS) / +20 %
• Furmark (4k/UHD-preset) / 6061 (score), 101 (avg. FPS) / +33 %

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• Final Fantasy XV Benchmark (all maxed out) / 5923 (score) / +20 %

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• 3Dmark TimeSpy (standard preset) / 14629 (gpu (!) score), 96,43 (avg. FPS) / +22 %
• 3Dmark TimeSpy Extreme (standard preset) / 8052 (gpu (!) score), 51,3 (avg. FPS) / +32 %
• 3Dmark Port Royal (standard preset) / 8550 (score), 39,59 (avg. FPS) / +19%
• 3Dmark NVIDIA DLSS (standard preset) / off: 39,70 FPS, on: 79,43 FPS / +17%
• 3Dmark Ray Tracing feature test (standard preset) / 46,64 (avg. FPS) / +60%

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Have no screenshots for that, nevertheless hope you believe me.

Can create some, if you wish.

Greetings,

Roedi78