Tear-Down: NVIDIA RTX 3080 Founders Edition Disassembly - A Lot Fewer Screws
50,333Tearing down the new NVIDIA RTX 3080 Founders Edition video card. In this one, we take apart the FE step-by-step and mostly blind, figuring out how to take it apart for water blocks & thermals.
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Review of the RTX 3080 Founders Edition card: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTeXh9x0sUc
Article review: https://www.gamersnexus.net/hwreviews/3618-nvidia-rtx-3080-founders-edition-review-benchmarks
Watch our NVIDIA Ampere GPU Architecture Deep-Dive: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AmNL2Cg2OO8
$13K of our New GPU Testing Methodology Equipment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-P7-ML-bPCE
Disassembling the RTX 3080 Founders Edition was significantly easier than previous video cards by NVIDIA. This time, the company has gotten rid of a significant portion of its screws from the 2080 Founders Edition and 2060 FE cards. We also make points about the 12-pin power connector location on the 3080 FE -- mostly that people shouldn't be asking for it on the end of the card, because that's worse for just about every reason possible (and is exactly what we complained about last time). We reveal the torque spec for the leaf spring screws, talk about the thermal pad thickness and paste, and figure out how to take the thing apart. Remember, this was before any media existed publicly, so we had to do this mostly blind. This is not a how-to guide, but it does show you some of the steps (and you can figure out the ones that you shouldn't copy!).
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TIMESTAMPS
00:00 - JayzTwoGNs
01:37 - Commence Complaints!
02:24 - Hide All The Screws!
04:40 - Removing the Plastic Pieces
06:41 - We Need a Spatula
07:06 - How You Should vs. Shouldn't Remove Plastic
07:25 - Magnets - how do they work?
09:05 - How You Should Remove Them Instead
10:00 - "He's Destroying That Card!"
11:05 - Tracking the RTX 3080 FE Screws
12:20 - Removing PCIe Slot & Back Plate
13:55 - Leaf Spring Screws & Careful with Cables
17:40 - All Screws Removed
18:39 - Stop Asking NV to Move the Power Connector
20:30 - Thermal Pads, PCB for Buildzoid
20:59 - Quick (Partial) Shunt Resistor Check
23:06 - RTX 3080 GA-102 Die Shot
24:16 - Vapor Chamber & Heatsink
25:33 - Interesting Screwless Assembly
27:00 - Airflow Patterns
29:40 - Second Tear-Down Only Took 3-5 Minutes
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Host, Guy with Drill: Steve Burke
Video: Andrew Coleman, Keegan Gallick