The GALAX HOF series has always been an iconic brand that has a special place in the hearts of enthusiasts and overclockers. The HOF ‘Hall of Fame’ series has broken various world records & there’s no stopping the latest HOF series. With the GeForce RTX 30 HOF series, GALAX has once again pushed the envelope in terms of performance and PCB design. There’s no doubt that all overclockers will have their eyes on the HOF series and in fact, the HOF series already ranks 1st within 3DMark’s Hall of Fame.
The GALAX GeForce RTX 3080 HOF that I received for this test is the base HOF model that doesn’t feature the LCD panel like the RTX 3080 Ti or RTX 3090 HOF. It comes with a highly-binned GA102 GPU but with LHR enabled so it’s only useful for gaming and overclocking purposes (as it should be). The card comes with a nice overclock out of the box but it isn’t the highest that we have seen for an RTX 3080. Yet, the additional power limit that’s featured on the performance profile which we used as default allows for higher boost clock stability than the other models we had tested. It also pushed the power envelope over 500W at max load which is insane for an RTX 3080 but you’re also feeding 24 power phases.
The most impressive aspect is that while the TGPs for the card have seen a hefty increase (80W for the RTX 3080), the cooler does an incredible job by keeping both cards steady and cool under 65C. The RTX 3080 HOF peaked at 64C even under full load using the fully-unlocked performance profile and if you want that extra cooling performance, then turning the fans all the way to 100% will lead to sub-60C temps but in return, you’d have to face the louder fan noise which gets a bit noticeable at that point.
The triple-fan solution comes with 0db fan technology which unless or until you’re touching 60C won’t spin at all. This allows lower noise levels when you’re not doing any graphics-intensive tasks. GALAX went all the way by including a full metal backplate on the card which comes with dual copper heat pipes to effectively transfer heat from the back.
But we have to talk about the one stand-out feature of the card aside from its overclocking-geared design and that’s the overall look of this card. ASUS, MSI, Gigabyte, and the rest might have their own great-looking gaming cards but GALAX is the king when it comes to creating white-colored coolers and PCBs. The RTX 30 HOF is definitely their best design to date with polygonal textures on the front and back along with subtle RGB accents in the middle fan, the sides, and the back logo. It is a looker and besides overclockers, modders will also be after this beauty.
Now pricing, GALAX is charging a hefty $2200 US for the GeForce RTX 3080 HOF which is purely insane. But we have to keep in mind that the HOF series is already a limited production build & considering the current market situation, the pricing should be a given. Plus, we have seen the HOF series being gobbled up by overclockers and modders so even at $2000 US+ prices, the RTX 3080 HOF is going to sell. And no, we don’t recommend getting an RTX 3080 at that price if you’re purely buying it for gaming as there are several cheaper variants available. If you really want to buy this beast of a card, then you either have to make sure that you put its overclocking capabilities to good use (which the majority won’t anyways consider LN2 isn’t a common cooling practice) or make a PC for showcasing this card. The card is simply a trophy piece if you aren’t gonna do either of those.
GALAX’s GeForce RTX 3080 HOF is an outstanding graphics card and I am glad I got to test out this limited edition product. As a gamer, I wouldn’t recommend this card simply because it performs like any RTX 3080 but costs way too much but if you’re an overclocker or an enthusiast who loves to go all out with the best looking and best overclocking card, the RTX 3080 HOF from GALAX is an insane product with lots of untapped power who only the experts can tap in to and looks that will make everyone jealous of your PC if you’re willing to spend over two grand on this card.
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