Occasionally my card seems to be getting stuck in a lower power state. I'm a moron and don't know if this is a design feature but I would think it should never happen when a game is launched. In World of Warcraft, for example, I typically maintain 144 fps. When this lower power bug happens I will be stuck around 20 fps. The issue will persist if I launch other games and they will run at a very low fps. The fix for this has been to install Precision X and then hit the Default button, which seems to reset the card to normal operation. 
 
I'm curious if anyone else has experienced this and/or if there's anything I can do to prevent this from happening. It's not a huge deal but is annoying. Thank you for any insight you may be able to provide. 

AJ Zany
Make sure you set prefer maximum performance in Nvidia control panel for your individual games. This is the power management mode. Don't set it globally because you don't need full clock speed during non gaming tasks.

Thank you for the suggestion, I will look into that. I never had to do this with my previous EVGA GTX 1080. It just seemed to work with all games. Is this something specific to the RTX 3080 series, or perhaps a driver-related issue?

So, I tried adjusting the power setting and I get the same result. I'm getting 22 fps in WoW. I can actually feel it everywhere. Even typing in this text box is delayed. Browser pages are sluggish. It's like my whole display is experiencing latency. Here are some screenshots.
 

 

 

 
As soon as I hit the Default button on the bottom of Precision X, all the values immediately jump up, I jump to 144 fps in WoW, and my whole system feels snappy and normal. There's definitely something wonky with this going into some sort of low power state. I'm not sure how or why. It seems to be triggered by launching any game. Here's what Precision X looks like as soon as I hit Default:
 

 
Thanks again for any insight anyone may be able to provide.

Fastjoe90
Why is the power limit slider all the way at minimum in first picture?

I have no idea. This is the state it is when I launch a game and the sluggishness starts. This is the source of my confusion or worry there is some problem. It seems to force itself into this configuration when I launch a game. I then have to open Precision X and hit Default to bring it out of that state. It was not in that state following a reboot. Everything felt fine. As soon as I launch a game, you can immediately tell it has entered low power mode. 

Fastjoe90
Does it do this if you set it default, close, then uninstall precision?

So I tried this, and it is better than before, but still not where it should be. Now when I launch a game (WoW in particular) it will hover around 50 - 55 fps. 
 
I reinstalled Precision X, hit Default, and it immediately shoots back up to over 100 consistently. The card definitely seems to be throttling until I do this. What's doubly confusing is it didn't do this the first couple weeks I had it. It happened suddenly and I can't tie it to a driver update, Windows update, or any other system change. A few days ago it just started out of the blue. Puzzling. 

I had this issue with the power slider defaulting to minimum every reboot. Completely uninstall PX1 & remove any profiles from AppData. Make sure your BIOS is running PCI x16 instead of x4 (some BIOS will auto select. Use GPUZ to check current value). After reinstall of PX1, my issue was fixed. 

I appreciate all the feedback I've received in this thread. I've tried everything suggested here to no avail. I have Precision X set to run in Administrator mode and Start with OS. Following a reboot, I still have to go in and hit the Default button or it gets stuck in a throttled state. The issue seems to be that it doesn't load the saved profile, even Profile 0, and even with the setting "Apply previous settings on load" checked. I still have to either hit Default or click on the Profile to get it to load. After that, it runs fine. 
 
Definitely not a game breaker since it does work but also pretty annoying thing to have to remember to do after every reboot. 

It took me months to finally get a card so I'm not about to ship it off while it's doing what I need it to do. I agree with what you're saying though and will likely pursue this when I'm confident there is stock to replenish an RMA. EVGA may not be perfect, but they were the only manufacturer I'm aware of to even offer a queue system, and I am thankful for that. Every other retailer is content to let bots buy up all their stock, or force you to buy crap you don't need or want with bundles. 
 
Nvidia RTX 3080 Reaches $1,300 Average Selling Mark on eBay, 85% Above MSRP | Tech Times

I ordered my 3080 FTW3 Ultra but it hasn't arrived yet. Can I just use MSI Afterburner with it? Or do I have to use precision x?