Nvidia's new RTX 3080 is not off to a good start. Despite high-tier performance at an attractive price, it's almost impossible to find — thanks to low stock and limited anti-scalper measures — and those who have managed to get hold of one have found that it's far from stable, with problematic black screen errors and crashes during gaming.
The particular error that appears to occur the most, is a crash to desktop, or CTD. This happens mostly during gaming, though those investigating the issue suggest it may happen specifically when the card tries to boost over 2GHz. That is significantly higher than the stock boost clock, but it's something that the card should do safely when within termal and power limits.
WCCFTech reports that add-in-board partners were still finalizing clock speeds even at the debut of the 3080, so it could be that they just didn't have enough time to properly dial in the clocks for stable usage in all scenarios. Indeed, some users have reported an end to crashes if they simply downclock their 3080 by 100MHz, but nobody should have to sacrifice the performance of the component they just purchased to make it work as intended.
Similarly, a BIOS update would be able to fix it too, but that's not a step users should have to take either.
Have you managed to get hold an RTX 3080? If so, how are you finding the experience so far?
