A little over a year after its release, the RTX 4080 is getting a SUPER version. But what does it really bring new compared to the previous model? Our complete test.
The classic cycle in the chip industry is quite simple to understand. When a new generation arrives on the market, the founder still struggles to produce it. But little by little, his process improves and the production yield only increases. This is how at the end of the generation of a graphics card, we find ever more powerful models at slightly lower prices: production improves, which results in gains on all sides for everyone. . And it’s which explains the arrival of this new RTX 4080 SUPER.
Price and availability
Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER is available in France from January 31, 2024, at the recommended price of 1,109 euros. Here we are testing the Founder’s Edition, produced directly by Nvidia, but many other manufacturers such as MSI, Asus and Gigabyte also offer their graphics cards.
Remember that apart from overclocked models, the difference between a Founder’s Edition and a normal card is to be seen in terms of production quality and related bonuses. Some cards will offer a different designnotably including customizable LEDs or three fans, but the expected performance will remain the same.
Concerning the RTX 4080 SUPER, its release is in truth a way to lower the prices of its graphics card for Nvidia. At 1109 euros, it is sold 360 euros cheaper than the first model which it completely replaces.
Technical sheet
Here is the technical sheet of the card of the day. Note that its consumption remains the same. Nvidia still recommends a 750 watt power supply to make it work.
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER | |
|---|---|
| GPU (architecture) | AD103 300 |
| Fineness of engraving | 4nm |
| CUDA hearts | 10 2040 |
| Shader Flops | 52 TFLOPS |
| RT Flops | 121 TFLOPS |
| Tensor Flops | 836 TOPs |
| GDDR memory | 16 GB GDDR6X |
| Memory bus | 256-bit |
| Release date | January 31, 2024 |
Here is our configuration for testing this RTX 4080 SUPER:
- Case: Corsair A4000D Airflow
- Screen: ROG Strix XG27UQR
- Processor: AMD Ryzen 9 7950X
- Cooling: ROG Ryujin II 360
- Motherboard: ROG Strix X670E-F Gaming WiFi
- RAM: 32 GB DDR5-6000 XPG Launch RGB
- Power supply: ROG Thor 1000W Platinum II
- SSD: Western Digital BLACK SN850X 1 TB
The case of the SUPER family
This new SUPER family is a bit special. The Ada Lovelace generation, released on the market at the end of 2022, was the opportunity to discover a green team capable of providing a huge amount of power while significantly lowering the general consumption of its cards. Sometimes 100W less!
But there : the 40 generation also underwent rather good competition from the red team (AMD), particularly in the mid-range market. We will particularly note the 7700 XT and 7800 Released much later, the Frame Generation of the FSR3 was also inferior in terms of rendering to Nvidia’s DLSS 3, which also took advantage of the lull to unveil DLSS 3.5 and its Ray Reconstruction technology, today recognized as the best denoizer on the market for ray tracing.
Also read – DLSS: understand everything about the Nvidia technology that is revolutionizing video games
The SUPER family, born from the foundry’s greatest mastery of its chips, therefore has two goals: put the competition back in favor of Nvidia, but also make its technologies more accessible. We were especially able to see this on the RTX 4070 SUPER, which made up for the little delay it had in raster while offering better performance in ray tracing. The RTX 4070 Ti SUPER and the RTX 4080 SUPER, on the other hand, have a different purpose, since they replace the previous cards.
An unchanged design, and fortunately
The Founder’s Edition of the RTX 4080 SUPER that we are testing doesn’t change much in the formula. We still have the right to a graphics card formed in a large block, and this design with two fans (one located at the top, the other at the bottom) which has become a signature of the green team. The map is still massive: 304 cm in length and 13.7 cm in width, for 3 occupancy slots. Nothing surprising there.
We must once again count on the PCIe Gen 5 power connector allowing you to reach 450w, or the supplied adapter for connecting 3 x 8-pin PCIe cables. The latter remains one of the weak points of the configuration, since it is still not angled and can pose space problems in certain chassis.
No problem with heating, far from it. We find a temperature of 32°C at rest, for a maximum of 70°C launched at full power on a synthetic benchmark. Nvidia’s configuration remains excellent on noise, where once enclosed in a case the graphics card is simply inaudible.
On the connectivity side, always the same story. We find an HDMI 2.1a port on the back as well as three DisplayPort 1.4 ports. No, the SUPER generation is not the opportunity for the manufacturer to integrate DisplayPort 2.0 like its competitor, but the latest technology to support 4K@480Hz or 8K@165Hz does not yet seem very necessary.
Creatives in joy
For a while, Nvidia had its own Titan range to mainly appeal to creatives. Today, the distinction is no longer the order of the day, all of the brand’s graphics cards being designed for gamers as well as for creatives. On this RTX 4080 SUPER, we still find two acceleration cores for the AV1the new codec which is gradually being established on web video platforms.
The observation is quite simple: nothing really changes compared to the original model. We can note an increase of 10 FPS on 3DSmax or even 40 FPS on Maya.
However, the scores are a little behind elsewhere. We can see this in particular on CATIA, at -5 FPS compared to our original test of the RTX 4080, or even -6 FPS on Creo. Nothing that is really alarming or drastically changes the situation in our comparative table: it is a safe bet that the Studio driver, dedicated to these tasks and which is not accessible to us at the time of these tests, stabilizes everything .
Also read – Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 test: a powerful graphics card with complete control
The fundamental thing to remember is that the RTX 4080 SUPER is equivalent to the RTX 4080 that it replaces, and therefore remains a productivity monster which is only really surpassed by the RTX 4090.
A real card dedicated to 4K
Let’s move on to video games, which remains the central point of use of these graphics cards. Here again, we don’t necessarily expect a huge improvement compared to the RTX 4080. Nvidia announces 2 to 3% more performance, which we also find with our test panel composed of these games:
- Alan Wake 2
- Baldur’s Gate 3
- Cyberpunk 2077
- Diablo IV
- Forspoken
- Immortals of Aveum
- Ratchet and Clank Rift Apart
Alan Wake 2 was added in recent generations to determine their powers on a solo track that pushes all the knobs to the max. It is essentially of the same ilk as Cyberpunk 2077, except that the latter is an open world that is more demanding to run. Baldur’s Gate 3 and Diablo IV are both good representatives of the mid-range PC gaming experience seeking to run on as many configurations as possible while maintaining an enriched visual experience. Forspoken is the representative of FSR 3 FG, the latest AMD technology compatible with all graphics cards. Immortals of Aveum for its part shows us the performance of a game relying on Unreal Engine 5. Finally, Ratchet and Clank Rift Apart represents the console experience, particularly on rapid access to storage memory.
4K measurements
do not forget that The RTX 4080 SUPER is the first card in Nvidia’s line-up to “officially” support 4K. Understand by this that the definition is the one targeted by the green team in the marketing of the card, and it is therefore important that the latter finds excellent performance in this framework.
And it is true that compared in particular to the RTX 4070 Ti SUPER (against which it gains between 10 and 15% in performance), we find much more encouraging performance on the RTX 4080 SUPER for this definition. Without even looking at DLSS, we find 28 FPS on average on Alan Wake 2 or 30 FPS on Cyberpunk 2077 when the latter are pushed to the limit. Ratchet and Clank Rift Apart, which remains a demanding game despite everything, even climbs to 52 FPS on average. With DLSS 3 in performance mode, all these lovely people reach or exceed 100 FPS quietly.
For more middle-of-the-road experiences, Diablo IV reaches 140 FPS on average compared to 130 FPS on Baldur’s Gate 3, both pushed to Ultra. Note however that Forspoken, a game generally more lenient with the red team, maintains its 38 FPS average and reaches 122 FPS using FSR3 and its frame generation. And without ray tracing, we have here a good performance of 55 FPS on Alan Wake 2 without DLSS, or even 91 FPS on Ratchet and Clank. So whatever your preferences, the RTX 4080 SUPER covers the 4K definition very well.
1440p measurements
On this RTX 4080 SUPER, we can therefore see the 1440p definition as the one allowing higher framerates to be unlocked. Naturally, it is rare not to find the minimum 100 FPS in our tests.
On the other hand, you will have to do without ray tracing for that, like on Alan Wake 2 which reaches 98 FPS without RT and 44 FPS with ray tracing. That being said, DLSS3 in Performance mode once again largely allows this limit to be exceeded. Even more interesting, Diablo IV and Baldur’s Gate 3 pass the 200 FPS mark without any software help for this, and even reach 310 FPS once DLSS is activated.
RTX 4080 SUPER VS RX 7900 XTX
But there is also another side of the coin. The 2/3% more performance seen on the RTX 4080 SUPER cannot change the situation in the duel against the RX 7900 XTX.
We still find ourselves with the same observation which made the year 2023 so exciting. The RTX 4080 SUPER is, like the RTX 4080 in its time, the great champion of graphics cards… when you activate ray tracing. Without it, the RX 7900 XTX still manages to offer us 10 to 15% more performance on most of the big games tested.
So always comes the same questions that all buyers need to ask themselves: Do I plan to use ray tracing? Does the superior quality of Nvidia technologies make the difference? Will I create in addition to playing? However, the answer is much simpler to find today, while the RTX 4080 SUPER drops in price to reach 1,109 euros compared to the minimum 1,099 euros observed on the RX 7900 FPS in raster.
Still queen of consumption
Especially since once again, Nvidia delights when we talk about consumption. The TGP of the RTX 4080 SUPER remains unchanged compared to the original RTX 4080, i.e. 320W.
Stake, we rather see a maximum of 280W on very demanding games like Alan Wake 2 or Cyberpunk 2077, and around 246W on more sober experiences like Diablo IV or Baldur’s Gate 3. Compared to the 355 watts of the RX 7900 XTX, a card that is known for heating up quickly and strongly, there is no comparison.
MSI – Graphics card – NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER 16G VENTUS 3X OC
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