Hey everyone.  This is my first time making a new post on this board so please bear with me.
 
I bought a new PC at the beginning of the year with a 3080 XC3 Ultra.  I was recently able to upgrade it to a 3080 Ti XC3 Ultra (3955).  I had been targeting this card because it would fit well in my case as the FTW3 cards being slightly larger, would either not fit or be too tight.  
 
Anyway, I had never really paid attention to the GPU temp before but noticed that this card was running louder than my 3080 XC3 Ultra.  I turned on the GPU Temp display and was seeing temps of 85-86C while playing COD: Black Ops Cold War.  I did some reading and learned about updating the fan curve and set it to aggressive, now I'm seeing temps more like 83 on average.  The card is running the latest BIOS and is stable as far as I can tell, though I've only "stress tested" it with a few multi-hour gaming sessions.
 
My case is pretty well designed and has good airflow, though it does have the air intake fans pulling air through the CPU AIO, because front to back.  I've run with the case side open and closed and haven't seen a particular difference in temps, so I'm feeling like I can at least partially exclude case airflow from the discussion.  It seems to me that this card is just particularly hot. Because of my case design, I don't really have room for a separate radiator on top so I don't think hybrid is an option (I understand that would be one way to cool the card better).  
 
My big questions are is it ok to run the card at 83-86C on an ongoing basis?  Will that create any risk to reliability?  I understand EVGA won't RMA a card for being too hot if it's "in spec" - what does in spec mean in this case (temps under load)?  The fan noise is not a dealbreaker, but may cause me to demote my battle station from the desktop to the floor, which would be a bummer.  And of course I don't want to melt the thing.
 
Thanks for any help or info you all can provide.

temps are ok to run like that , it just seems a bit hotter for what you call "good airflow" in your case.
 
It may just be a case of not a great job on the pasting/ pads from the factory....

Based on my reading I tried an undervolt.  I think I might definitely be short the silicon lottery/heatsink dept but not sure I want to try to RMA or correct that just yet.
 
I found a post from another user that mentioned some undervolt settings.  He said 788mV at 1740MHz and so I just tried 800mV for yucks.  Wow, what a difference.  Just ran Timespy and got a respectable 18346 graphics score, and temps maxed out at 75.  That is with fans at 100% above 70.  I will stress test a bit with COD and see how it does after sustained gaming, but that seems like it might make the most sense for me.  Then I can decide to turn the fans down a bit and perhaps target a temp of around 80.  Will keep you all posted.

it's ok to run the card at 83-86C, it's normal temp when you run the game 

I've noticed this cards run pretty hot too, I read through a lot of the posts in here unfortunately there's really not a lot of info out there about these cards for some reason nobody ever talks about the xc3 they are only talking about the ftw or every other manufacturer's card out there. I've seen quite a few posts though mentioning undervolting. Does anybody have and you really good information on getting these cards overclocked.

You can drop temperatures quite a bit by finding the lowest stable voltage that can run ~1900MHz. A card with stock settings likely won't hold more than 1850ish in a heavy load, either because of temps or power limit.

In bench marks, this will likely score higher than stock, despite stock allowing up to 1965MHz. In games though, you will lose a bit as the load is lighter and will often boost up higher.

The XC3 has a significantly smaller heatsink then the FTW3 though. The 3080/Ti XC3 cooler at 366W max is literally smaller then the TUF 3070 cooler that's on a 270W card. It's honestly pretty pathetic.

Trigger2142
I had the 3080 FTW3 in Cold war it ran about 69c, I just upgraded last week to the 3080TI FTW3 and it run 82c in Cold war. I played for hours and it seems fine, just very warm in my room. In Windows it run only about 30c. I am running Precision X1 with the fan curved modified, so they ramp up earlier when the temp start climbing. I am on the list for a 3080TI FTW3 Hybrid (one minute away on the list), so I will let you know when I get it, what my temps are then.

my 3080ti ultra air runs cooler then my hybrid. I also under volted the hybrid and the ultra is overclocked. You never know what you will get. Since the throttle limit is 110 I assume anything in the 80 is fine. I run my at 96 and they seem to be fine. I do have extra fans blowing right at the back plate as well for the hybrid. 
 
Edit: The chip does run much cooler on the hybrid 4xC to 56C for the air. I am talking about the memory.