You could just write your own query, too. That way, it’s one query per category:
global $wpdb;
$query = '
SELECT wpp1.*
FROM ' . $wpdb->posts . ' AS wpp1
LEFT JOIN ' . $wpdb->term_relationships . ' AS wptr1 ON wptr1.object_id = wpp1.ID
WHERE post_type = %s
AND post_status = %s
AND wptr1.term_taxonomy_id = %d
ORDER BY wpp1.post_date DESC
LIMIT %d
';
$query = $wpdb->prepare(
$query,
// Args: post type, post status, term taxonomy ID, number of posts
'post', 'publish', 80, 3
);
$posts = $wpdb->get_results(
$query,
ARRAY_A
);