Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 evaluation: a strong GPU with an enormous pricing downside

There’s going to be quite a lot of criticism geared toward Nvidia’s new RTX 4080 however it’s essential to emphasize that there’s nothing incorrect with the Founders Version we’re reviewing immediately by way of its building, options and total high quality. Similar to the RTX 4090, it is a high quality product created by an organization that is arguably on the high of its sport, a agency on the pioneering forefront of graphics expertise. Pricing is a distinct matter, nevertheless. It is just too excessive, even at its MSRP baseline and particularly so with a few of the third occasion associate playing cards we have seen. The product is an efficient chunk quicker than any of the prior Nvidia Ampere choices, together with the RTX 3090 Ti, however the efficiency increase does not all the time correlate with the value being charged, to the purpose the place there are information factors to counsel that the $1599 RTX 4090 really presents a greater deal.

The Founders Version we’re taking a look at immediately arrives in the identical packaging because the RTX 4090 and in the identical glorious casing. The one distinction is that whereas the identical controversial 12VHPWR socket is on the cardboard (sure, the melting one – and we’re nonetheless ready for definitive solutions on why that occurred) however this time you get a dongle adapter with simply three eight-pin PCIe inputs. That is nonetheless greater than sufficient, taking into consideration that the way more power-hungry RTX 3090 Ti shipped with the identical adapter – and the RTX 4090 labored with it too. The uniform design throughout each Ada Lovelace playing cards additionally signifies that you are getting the identical video choices: one HDMI 2.1 and three DisplayPort 1.4a ports.

As it is a new era of GPU, there are a sure suite of options widespread to each RTX 4090 and RTX 4080 – though they’re utilizing completely separate chips. Which means the improved video encoding choices of Ada Lovelace are preserved – a lot quicker h.264/HEVC encoding, together with twin AV1 encoders. After the RTX 4090 evaluation, we took a take a look at the AV1 performance – and it is spectacular. For our prime quality video downloads on digitalfoundry.web, we discovered that AV1 {hardware} encoding delivered larger high quality than software-based h.264 with an enormous file measurement saving and whereas software-based HEVC encoding delivered smaller recordsdata, Nvidia AV1 provided up larger high quality. For streamers and content material creators, RTX 4000 is an enormous deal. Options like this could persist throughout all RTX 4000 merchandise as newer and cheaper playing cards emerge.

Within the desk under, you may see how the RTX 4080 compares to its flagship associate and it is truthful to say that the cutbacks are large – wider and deeper than the specs differential we noticed between RTX 3090 and RTX 3080. You are getting round 59 p.c of the compute energy, 73 p.c of the reminiscence bandwidth and two thirds of the VRAM. And but, you are paying 74 p.c of the price worth of the flagship so realistically you need to be anticipating at the very least 74 p.c of the RTX 4090’s efficiency. Ideally it ought to be much more, as customers count on a greater worth vs efficiency ratio the cheaper the product will get.

You may be aware that the desk above incorporates information for the ‘cancelled’ RTX 4080 12GB, based mostly on a wholly totally different Ada Lovelace processor and initially set to go on sale for $899. Its cancellation is definitely extra of a delay as the cardboard will get rebranded into a distinct product line (our cash remains to be on RTX 4070 Ti) and is hotly rumoured to be arriving in early January.

Earlier than we transfer on to the battery of sport efficiency exams now we have put collectively, let’s take a fast take a look at energy effectivity. Going into this era of graphics {hardware}, we had been gearing up for very power-hungry gadgets set to reach in the midst of an power disaster – not a good suggestion, maybe. Inaccurate rumours of a 900W RTX 4090 gave method to a 600W RTX 4090 and eventually, the precise TGP: 450W. That is nonetheless quite a lot of energy, however precise in-game utilization is decrease. The ability restrict of the RTX 4080 is 320W, so on this regard it’s precisely the identical as its predecessor, however what is the actuality in gaming?

Power effectivity varies drastically in keeping with the sport you’re operating, in fact, if we stack up efficiency towards energy consumed – which is precisely what we have finished within the desk under. In all circumstances, the RTX 4080 experiences energy consumption beneath its 320W restrict and in contrast towards prior 80-class playing cards, there are sizeable effectivity benefits. Put merely, frame-rates are considerably improved gen-on-gen and particularly towards RTX 3080, the efficiency benefit does not lead to a lot of the best way in elevated consumption. The truth is, as you may see under, the RTX 4080 can ship each a efficiency increase and a discount in energy consumption concurrently in some workloads.

All of which units the stage for a frankly colossal vary of benchmarks laid out over the subsequent six pages, protecting customary rasterisation in trendy titles, a few of the most demanding ray tracing workloads we might put these playing cards by means of – plus a take a look at how immediately’s picture reconstruction methods (DLSS, FSR2) can assist to mitigate the efficiency affect of probably the most difficult video games.

Earlier than we kick off with the numbers, this is a fast define of the brand new PC we have constructed to assist check this new era of GPUs. Sitting on the coronary heart of our system is an Intel Core i9 12900K, operating with P-cores at 5.2GHz and E-cores at 3.9GHz. The CPU is augmented with 6000MT/s Trident Z5 RGB DDR5 reminiscence from G-Talent. The Noctua NH-D15 is our cooler of alternative for dealing with the highly effective processor, whereas all titles are run from PCIe Gen 3 NVMe SSDs. All parts are mounted in an Asus ROG Maximus Hero Z690 motherboard, whereas energy is equipped by a Corsair RM1000i energy provide.

With the preliminaries out of the best way, try the desk of contents under and take a look at how the RTX 4080 compares towards its nearest Nvidia rivals, together with AMD’s RX 6900 XT and RX 6800 XT. Please be aware that within the wake of the RTX 4090 launch, Nvidia really improved RTX 3000-class efficiency by way of a driver replace. All RTX playing cards have been re-benched to account for the modifications in efficiency.

Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 evaluation

• Introduction, {hardware} and energy evaluation [This Page]
• RT benchmarks: Dying Mild 2, Cyberpunk 2077, Management, F1 22
• RT benchmarks: Hitman 3, Metro Exodus Enhanced Version, Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered
• RT/DLSS vs FSR2 benchmarks: Cyberpunk 2077, Dying Mild 2, Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered
• Recreation benchmarks: Management, Cyberpunk 2077, Doom Everlasting
• Recreation benchmarks: F1 22, Gears 5, Hitman 3
• Recreation benchmarks: Forza Horizon, Crimson Useless Redemption 2, Shadow of the Tomb Raider
• Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080: the Digital Foundry verdict

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