White GeForce RTX 5080 FE Mod Looks So Good NVIDIA Should Make It Official
A lot of add-in board partners have dabbled with white-themed graphics cards, but a modded GeForce RTX 5080 Founders Edition model posted to Reddit takes the cake. It looks so good (at least in photos) that we could have been convinced it was an official release by NVIDIA, if we didn't know any better. It's not, but it certainly should be.
NVIDIA's FE cards are somewhat hot commodities. There's a lot of engineering that goes into the design of the FE cooling shroud, which blends clean aesthetics with functional cooling. While we don't have data on exactly how many FE models NVIDIA produces, it's telling that the GeForce RTX 5090 FE is routinely sold out at Best Buy. To be fair, a big reason why is because FE variants stick to NVIDIA's baseline MSRPs.
That said, the GeForce RTX 5080 FE is currently in stock for $999.99 at Best Buy. However, you won't find a model outside of the stock dark gun meta colorway, unless you go the DIY route. And that's precisely what Reddit user comradelochenko with their card.
The user, who is a data center hardware engineer, said they drew inspiration from another post where someone did something similar with a GeForce RTX 4090 FE. For this mod, they completely disassembled the card, replaced the thermal pads with thermal putty, then painted the shroud.
"The finish I used was Duracoat in matte white. It was invented for firearms, can be applied without priming, and stands up to heat," the user explains.
The post went up over the weekend and has attracted over 2,100 upvotes and 176 comments, the latter of which are overwhelmingly positive. NVIDIA, if you're reading this, consider making color options for FE options, especially in white.
While a white FE card of any sort doesn't officially exist, there are partner models that feature a white theme. Here are a few from the current generation...
- MSI Gaming GeForce RTX 5080 Ventus 3X OC White: $1,139.99 (save $110)
- ASUS TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 5070 Ti White OC: $804.99 (save $205)
- MSI Gaming GeForce RTX 5070 Ventus 2X OC White: $579.99 (save $68)
- MSI Gaming GeForce RTX 5060 Ti Gaming Trio OC White: $429.99
- PowerColor Hellhound Spectral White Radeon RX 9070 XT: $749.99 (save $90)
- XFX Swift Radeon RX 9060 XT White: $379.99 (save $40)
- XFX Mercury Radeon RX 9060 XT OC White: $409.99
- PowerColor Hellhound Spectral White Radeon RX 9060 XT: $399.99 (save $20)
