74 PCWorld NOVEMBER 2020REVIEWS TESTED: NVIDIA GEFORCE RTX 3080
connect it to a pair of 8-pin power connectors
is too short, too bulky, and sticking out from
the middle of the card. It looks ugly in your
system, which is a bummer because the rest
of the Founders Edition is so thoughtfully
designed.- HDMI 2.1, NVIDIA
BROADCAST, AND
OTHER GOODIES
As usual, Nvidia’s offering more than just a
gaming performance upgrade with its RTX
30-series graphics cards. The ports received
a substantial upgrade. The single HDMI port
makes the jump to HDMI 2.1, which can
support up to 8K/60Hz video output over a
single cable, as can the upgraded
DisplayPort 1.4a connections. Nvidia
bolsters those technologies with the ability
to capture 8K30 HDR video using GeForce
Experience, as well as AV1 decode support,
which takes over video decoding from the
CPU to enable 8K60 HDR streaming from
YouTube and other sources.
The goodies keep coming. Nvidia Reflex
(go.pcworld.com/nrfx) aims to significantly
reduce input latency in games that support the
API, reducing the delay between the time you
click your mouse and when your character
actually moves onscreen in esports, where
every millisecond matters. Call of Duty:
Warzone, Valorant, Fortnite, and Destiny 2 are
among the first games to support Nvidia Reflex
in September). Reflex will also be enabled for
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, Call of Duty:
Black Ops Cold War, and Apex: Legends.
Moving on, DLSS and ray-tracing denoising
isn’t all that tensor cores can do. The new