In 2020, Nvidia launched the GeForce RTX 3080, a graphics card priced at 719 dollar that offers a substantial power advantage over the previous generation. In 2022, the brand returns with an RTX 4080 that costs about 1469 dollars, more than double the previous generation.
Can the performances and new features help us forget about the price? This is what this test will reveal.
THE ONLY GEFORCE RTX 4080 :
The GeForce RTX 4080 (16GB) spec sheet is available below. It should be noted that Nvidia has discontinued the previously planned 12 GB variant :
- AD103
- 9728 CUDA Colors
- 304 Tensor Core (4th Gen)
- 76 RT Cores (3rd Gen)
- Frequency boost: 2505 MHz
- VRAM : 16 Go GDDR6X – 256 bit – 22,4 Gb/s
- Memory Bandwidth: 716.8 GB/s
- Dual NVENC engine (2x faster encoding on compatible apps)
- TSMC 4N
- TGP : 320W
- Chip size: 378.6 mm²
When compared to the GeForce RTX 3080, the number of CUDA cores has grown by 11%, and the migration from Samsung 8nm to TSMC 4N production has allowed Nvidia to dramatically raise the frequency. As a result, we get a boost frequency of 2.5 GHz against 1.7 GHz for the RTX 3080. The TGP’s power output stays same from the previous generation: 320W.
Nvidia provided us with a test copy.
A STRONG GEFORCE RTX 4080 :
We won’t get into the design of the GeForce RTX 4080 Founder Edition. Simply said, the cooling system adopted by Nvidia makes it as imposing as the RTX 3090, i.e. substantially larger than the RTX 3080. We’re talking about a graphics card with a heatsink that requires three PCI height slots.
Nvidia provides three DisplayPort 1.4a and one HDMI 2.1 connection. AMD addressed this issue with their Radeon RX 7000, which supports DisplayPort 2.1. As a result, you’ll be “limited” to 4K at 120 Hz or 8K at 60 Hz with this graphics card.
Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 4080 is intended for gamers that have a 4K display and want to play with the graphics settings at their highest.
Given the scarcity of displays on the market that give this level of resolution and display speed, it’s tough to find this penalizing. This is unfortunate given the quantity sought by Nvidia, if in the future monitors exceeding the DisplayPort 1.4 restrictions become common.
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USED CONFIGURATION :
We utilized the same settings for this test as the RTX 4090.
- Motherboard: X570 Asus ROG Crosshair VIII HERO (Wi-Fi)
- Processor: AMD Ryzen 7 5800X (3.8 / 4.7 GHz, 8 cores, 16 threads)
- Memory: 32GB DDR4 2666MHz RAM (two Corsair Vengeance CMK16GX4M2Z2666C16 kits)
- SSD: MSI M480 Play 1 to NVMe, Samsung 970 1 to NVMe
- Alimentation : BeQuiet Dark Power Pro 1500W
- Boitier : In Win 303
- Software: Windows 11 2022 (with Nvidia Game Ready Drivers 526.72)
We utilized an ASUS ROG XG27UQR 27-inch monitor with 4K UHD 3840 x 2160 pixel resolution and 144 Hz support.
THE BENCHMARKS :
3DMARK TIME SPY EXTREME :
The graphics card is put to the test in 4K using 3D Mark’s Time Spy Extreme test, albeit without ray tracing. This gives you a rough estimate of performance on “vintage” 3D games that only use rasterization for rendering.
On this test, the RTX 4080 scores 13,662 points, which is enough to outperform the RTX 3090 Ti, the strongest card of the previous generation.
3DMARK RAY TRACING :
The 3DMark program also includes a ray tracing test, which has brought several graphics cards to their knees. So far, the RTX 4000 generation has fared well against it.
On this extremely difficult test, the RTX 4080 averages 82.69 frames per second. In comparison, the RTX 3080 achieved 46.55fps while the RTX 3080 Ti achieved 54.61fps. Without even considering the debut of DLSS 3 on the RTX 4000s, we can observe the considerable difference afforded by Nvidia’s shift in design.
It also shows Nvidia’s advantage over its biggest competition. While we wait for the results of the highly promising Radeon RX 7000s, the Radeon RX 6900 XT only managed 31 frames per second on this test.
V-RAY :
V-Ray Test, a more professional-oriented synthetic benchmark, analyzes the graphics card’s capabilities for 3D production by making full use of the card’s RTX capabilities.
The RTX 4080 averages 3904 points, which is much more than the RTX 3090 Ti’s 2800 points.
PERFORMANCE IN VIDEO GAMES :
CYBERPUNK 2077 :
Because of its exceptional support for ray tracing and the graphical intricacy of its open environment, Cyberpunk 2077 remains the market benchmark for testing graphics hardware.
We conducted the in-game benchmark many times with the graphical settings at their highest. First without DLSS, the card averages 29 frames per second, an admirable performance for a game that craves native 4K with ray tracing.
The game achieves 61 frames per second with DLSS 2 and 93 frames per second with DLSS 3, providing much-appreciated fluidity without significantly lowering visual quality. It is worth noting that we have set DLSS 2 to “balanced.”
FLIGHT SIMULATOR :
Flight Simulator has been a benchmark for PC video games since its introduction in 2020, and its lifelike portrayal of the world has a lot to do with it. This game requires a lot of resources, both in terms of graphics card and processing. Its smoothness may be hindered by CPU performance on previous versions.
Nvidia can overcome this constraint using DLSS 3, which permits picture production only from the GPU. On a fly over Manhattan, one of the most greedy regions in the game, with diverse weather conditions, we have a game that operates at 96 frames per second on average. Again, we’re playing at 4K resolution with “Ultra” graphical settings.
RED DEAD REDEMPTION 2 :
Red Dead Redemption 2 remains one of the video game industry’s gold standards for very realistic and demanding graphic representation. The GeForce RTX 4080 averages 92 frames per second when all parameters are set at maximum and rendering in 3840 x 2160 pixels.
For this test, no DLSS nor ray tracing are used.
WATCH DOGS LEGION :
Watch Dogs Legion, released at the start of the console generation, employs one of Ubisoft’s most recent graphics engines with strong ray tracing capabilities. When pushed to the limit and in 4K, it is capable of dropping our GeForce RTX 4080’s performance below 60 frames per second, to 44 frames per second on average.
Fortunately, enabling DLSS in balanced mode raises this to 67 frames per second, resulting in a smooth and always highly attractive game in the image.
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OVERWATCH 2 :
For the time being, the latest incarnation of Blizzard’s competitive FPS continues to grow in popularity and is at the top of the lists for the most played games on console.
It enables us to assess the RTX 4080’s performance in a recent and competitive game. To maintain minimal latency and fluidity at all times, a maximum number of pictures per second is required.
Unsurprisingly, this is what it provides, even at 4K with all graphical settings turned on. The game runs at 210 frames per second on average.
FORTNITE :
From its position as one of the most popular games in the world, Fortnite appears impenetrable. He is also one of our test’s competitive game ambassadors. We ran a bespoke map that represents everything we’d expect to see in a game: movement, building, action sequences, and so on.
The game is relatively hungry with all parameters set to maximum, as it ran at just 37 frames per second on average with ray tracing set to maximum. With the DLSS 2 in balanced mode, the fluidity increases to 76 frames per second on average.
OTHER GAMES :
- Spider-Man (Extreme, DLSS 3): 110 pictures per seconde
- Doom Eternal (RT, Balanced DLSS): 215 frames per second
- Metro Exodus (Extreme, RT Ultra, no DLSS): 51 frames per second
- 95fps on Forza Horizon 5 (Extreme, RT Extreme, no DLSS).
3D CREATION & AV1 VIDEO EDITING :
While Nvidia emphasizes 3D creation on its 90 series graphics cards, such as the GeForce RTX 4090, other graphics cards offer strong capabilities in this area as well.
We used Blender Benchmark to assess the RTX 4080’s performance. It can produce 4213 samples per minute on the Monster stage, 1892 samples on the Junkshop stage, and 1794 samples on the Classroom stage.
AV1 AND VIDEO EDITING :
The RTX 4080, like the RTX 4090, has a dual AV1-compatible video encoding engine. This is extremely powerful since it implies that compatible software may, in theory, produce videos twice as quickly by running the two engines concurrently.
Support for AV1 is also critical for the future, as this codec will ultimately replace H.264 and HEVC. It has the advantage of being a free format that offers greater compression with equivalent image quality than its competitors.
CONSUMPTION :
We detected a maximum usage of 308W for the full graphics card during our testing sessions. On the Windows desktop, this usage averages 19W.
Contrary to popular belief, the GeForce RTX 3080 consumes the same amount of power as the GeForce RTX 3080. In other words, the RTX 4080 provides a large performance improvement while consuming the same amount of power as the prior generation. A fantastic achievement by Nvidia and TSMC.
PRICE AND AVAILABILITY :
The GeForce RTX 4080 will be available for 1,469 dollars on November 16, 2022.
