dejanh
Just finished my install on the 3080 Ti FTW3. Took me a while to get it done. I was very cautious, much more so than usual because of the ridiculous prices of the GPUs and how hard they are to get. Ran into a snafu when I was doing the back. I ended up pinching and flat our piercing the upper portion of the RGB cable with one of the screws. It shifted after I had arranged it in the back and I didn't notice I was pushing the fastener straight into it. Anyway, ended up cutting and stripping the wires, then soldered them back together and I was back in business. So far the temperatures at +165Mhz/+1200Mhz are peaking at 51C and everything is reading nice and even, stable, so I have a good mount. I'm running continuous loops of TimeSpy to see whether it holds up and just how hot it gets. So far very happy with the block. I was debating the Optimus but could not justify the price. I made a good choice. Even if that block drops my temps by another 1-2C, it won't make any difference. Not worth spending an extra $200 USD, not even close.
That sounds like something I would do with nailing the RGB cable. Glad you figured it out. I got my Vector installed on my 3080 over Christmas. My snafu was that the DDC 3.2 pump that my wife bought me for Christmas 2020 direct from EK in preparation for upgrading my loop leaked. I previously was only watercooling the CPU. I got my old loop disassembled and cleaned up, added another radiator, got the Vector installed (I used some Kapton tape on the backplate where there was a possibility of the backplate touching) and then I put the new DDC 3.2 pump into my distro-plate. The original pump just seemed too anemic for me with two blocks and two radiators. During leak testing, I quickly realized I had a leak and it was coming directly out of the pump. I remounted that pump 3 times trying different O-rings, etc. Then I put back the old pump and it worked fine. So, after a week of back and forth with EKWB, they agreed to send me a new pump. I limped along on the old pump. I decided to buy a new EKWB DDC 4.25 pump from titan rig just to get going and use the incoming pump from EK as a backup. The one from titan rig came in a nice retail box. Also, as an upgrade over the 3.2 version, it has SATA power instead of molex. The DDC 3.2 that came last year from EKWB had just come in bubble wrap. I figured the replacement from EK would also be the new DDC 4.25, but no, they just sent me the pump bottom from a DDC 3.25 with molex power in bubble wrap again. It will make a nice spare.
Anyway, depending on which temp sensor you look at in HWInfo, the warmest my 3080 core has been is either 51 or 55 degrees. MS Flight Simulator 2020 warms the loop up pretty good. I guess that's a decent, but not great temp. It will do. I have a Corsair R7 360 and R7 240 cooling a 5950x and a 3080. Ambients in the room are typically 23 to 24 degrees. At idle, my water runs about 5 to 6 degrees above ambient. Under load, I've seen as high as 14 degrees above ambient. I don't know how some guys have loops that max out at 5 degrees above ambient under load. I could probably get it down to 10 or 11 max under load with everything at full tilt.