Some NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 cards are crashing at factory overclock speeds

NVIDIA released the GeForce RTX 3080 to solid reviews, but it is not all rosy for the company's upper mid-tier Ampere card. Apparently, some RTX 3080 cards are crashing at beyond 2.0 GHz, a speed that is higher than the typical boost clock speed of the RTX 3080. The RTX 3080 Founders Edition has a 1.71 GHz boost clock, so it should be unaffected by the issue unless it has been overclocked. However, some AIB cards like the MSI GeForce RTX 3080 Ventus 3X OC can factory overclock beyond this threshold, which is causing issues.

The reports are not isolated either and are spread across the likes of ComputerBase, Overclockers UK and LinusTechTips forums. People are also having issues with the ZOTAC GeForce RTX 3080 Trinity, but there may be other AIB cards with issues. The issue centres on when these cards exceed 2.0 GHz, which results in a crash to desktop.

Neither NVIDIA nor any AIBs have acknowledged the issue, so there is no fix at the time of writing. Drivers do not appear to be at fault here; neither are PSU issues. Keeping your card below 2.0 GHz may resolve the issue until it is formally acknowledged, but we cannot guarantee this either, unfortunately.

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