Redditor showcases passively cooled Nvidia RTX 3080 project

Unique performance requirements and cooling challenges make computer hardware enthusiasts think outside the box and opt for custom approaches. A proper example of that would be the Nvidia RTX 3080 (available on Amazon) passive cooling project by Redditor Everynametaken9.

Even though the project is still a prototype, it does give an idea of what you may need to do to get an RTX 3080 graphics card passively cooled. As showcased by Redditor, the project has a total of ten CPU heat sinks. All of them sit on top of a thick copper bar. You can check the prototype out from the images attached at the end.

But the Redditor is concerned whether it’s enough to get all the components cooled and the Nvidia RTX 3080 GPU running. That’s basically what made Everynametaken9 post the project in the first place. As the highest-voted feedback in the thread suggests, the project needs an overhaul.

According to the user giving the feedback, an RTX 3080 with passive cooling would require “making your own heat pipes” and coming up with something that “looks like a Christmas tree to dissipate the heat.” The user further detailed that the massive copper block that’s currently on the prototype will only act like a heat radiator, not a cooler.

In short, the passively cooled Nvidia RTX 3080 is still a work in progress. But the Redditor may actually pull it off. Everynametaken9 cites MonsterLabo as the inspiration, which recently launched a case capable of cooling 400 watts of heat passively. MonsterLabo also has an RTX 4080 graphics card (available on Amazon) with passive cooling. So, a project such as this one isn’t impossible to execute.