Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 Super Review
A lower price isn’t enough to make the RTX 4080 Super super exciting.
Verdict
The Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 Super is an impressive, and rather left-field move from team green. Without the significant extra hardware grunt that the other Super cards received, it’s outpaced by older overclocked RTX 4080 cards. The $200 price drop is a solid win though, but adds to the confusion when compared to older overclockable editions that are now likely discounted. In isolation, it’s a strong GPU, more than capable of driving any game you throw at it in 4K, with frame rates often tipping well over 100fps.
Pros
- Aftermarket solutions boast some serious cooling performance
- 4K gaming at 100 fps is well within reach
- $200 RRP price drop versus the RTX 4080 is a nice touch
- Ray tracing and DLSS performance is rock solid
Cons
- Lack of new hardware means it can’t compete with overclocked cards
- Price drop only adds to the confusion on what to buy
Where To Buy
Asus Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 Super ROG Strix Gaming OC at Overclockers UK for £1,3499.99
Key Features
- Ada Lovelace 5nm ArchitectureNvidia is utilizing its latest and greatest architecture combined with TSMC’s 5nm manufacturing process, to give it some incredible in-game performance.
- Ray Tracing and DLSS DominanceWith third-generation ray tracing and fourth-generation AI cores in tow, the 4080 Super is the second-best card for both ray tracing and AI operations, particularly with DLSS 3.5 as well.
- Reduced PricingCompared to the RTX 4080, Nvidia has lowered the 4080 Super’s price by $200, making it a far more attractive offering.
Introduction
Here we have Nvidia’s latest and greatest in its most recent refresh of GPUs, the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 Super. It’s a bit of an odd graphics card at first glance.
Unlike its RTX 4070 Ti Super or 4070 Super siblings, it doesn’t have quite the same glorious hardware bump that the other two did. That said, what it lacks in outright massive hardware increases it makes up for with a $200 price drop compared to the initial launch price of the RTX 4080.
Right now, you can pick up an RTX 4080 Super for $999. It’s still an expensive card, and we’re a long way from calling this thing the best budget GPU you can buy, but it’s still great to see. Here’s my full review.
Specs
- Slightly better hardware than the stock RTX 4080
- Underwhelming compared to other RTX Super launches
- Pricing and overclocked variants likely to cause confusion
Unlike the other Super cards launched this year, Nvidia’s RTX 4080 Super hasn’t received quite the same bump in overall internal hardware as its siblings. It has got one, don’t get me wrong, but it’s fairly minimal in contrast to the jump from the RTX 4070 to the 4070 Super.
For CUDA cores, we’ve gone from 9,728 to 10,240 (an additional 512 cores or 5.26% more), TMU (texture mapping units) have been bumped up from 304 to 320, and ROPs have remained the same. For the more flagship components, namely ray tracing cores, those have increased by an underwhelming 4 units, going from 76 to 80, and Tensor cores (those handling all of the DLSS AI upscaling wizardry) have increased from 304 to 320. That’s not a whole lot, combine that with VRAM remaining resolute at 16GB.
Compare that to the likes of the RTX 4070 to its Super variant which received a 21.7% CUDA core bump alone, or the 4070 Ti upgrade which saw it increase from a 12GB VRAM card all the way up to a 16GB card, with an additional 10% additional internal hardware, and it’s easy to see why this card, even with the price drop, appears somewhat underwhelming in contrast to the other launches.
The real problem, however, lies in the clock speeds on these units. Take my testing setup for example, for my default graphics card, I’m utilizing an RTX 4080, in fact, it’s a Gigabyte GeForce RTX 4080 16GB Aero OC. Problem is, in testing, compared to the Asus RTX 4080 Super ROG Strix Gaming OC variant we’re using here it clocks significantly higher under load. The Gigabyte unit at max frequency sits comfortably at 2,925 MHz, whereas my Asus unit, taps out at 2,760 MHz. A quick punching of the numbers, and that gives us a deficit of around 5.98%, surprisingly close to that increased internal hardware. Keep that in mind for later.
Test Setup
Getting the most out of these graphics cards requires some serious testing. I grabbed the Asus RTX 4080 Super ROG Strix Gaming OC variant, the Gigabyte GeForce RTX 4080 16GB Aero OC, and a few other of their siblings, and ran them through a series of aggressive benchmarks. I’ve looked at everything from 3D rendering performance, to synthetic tests, to ray tracing and DLSS-specific tasks and everything in between. I’ve also received an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 Super Founders Edition but have not yet had time to put that through it’s paces, but the results will be added to this review once those tests have been ran.
To ensure that test results remained consistent and no bottlenecks were affecting my results, I’ve picked up a solid test bed to keep things running smoothly.
CPU: Intel Core i9-14900K
RAM: 32GB (2x16GB) Corsair Dominator Titanium @ 7200
Motherboard: ASUS ROG Maximus Z790 Dark Hero
CPU Cooler: Corsair iCUE Link H150i LCD 360mm AIO
Cooling: 7x Corsair iCUE Link QX120 120mm fans
PSU: 1200W Corsair RMx Shift 80+ Gold PSU
SSD: 2TB Gigabyte Aorus Gen5 12000 M.2 PCIe 5.0 SSD
Case: Hyte Y70 Touch
A few of the titles I’ve tested do have ray tracing features enabled by default (we use the default Ultra profiles for easy repeatability wherever possible), however any that enable DLSS or its counterparts have had those features disabled, to provide fair analysis for any other competitor cards, so no one brand has a definitive edge over the other.
On top of that, I also monitor power-draw via a specialized socket unit and take advantage of HWMonitor to measure clock speeds and temperatures throughout the benchmarking process.
Performance and Benchmarks
- Nvidia’s RTX 4080 Super is a fantastically potent 4K gaming graphics card
- It provides significantly more performance than the RTX 4070 Ti Super
- Compared to an overclocked RTX 4080 however, it does struggle
In isolation, Nvidia’s RTX 4080 Super is a fantastic 4K gaming card, you can easily expect frame-rates to hover around the 100 fps mark in pretty much any title imaginable at 3840×2160. Cyberpunk and F1 2022, are the exception to those rules of course, but if you enable DLSS 3.5 those two will also jump up to 78 and 101 average fps respectively.
Horizon Zero Dawn, Borderlands 3, and Red Dead Redemption II all clocked in at or above the 100 fps mark at 4K, making this thing a perfect pairing with some of the best 4K monitors you can get. Compared to the RTX 4070 Ti Super, the next lowest GPU (and at $200 less) and you’re getting 25% more performance in contrast.
The problem though lies with the standard RTX 4080. In almost every single game we tested at any resolution, whether that’s 1080p or 4K, or even the synthetic benchmarks, the Gigabyte RTX 4080 almost always beat out the Asus ROG Strix Gaming OC 4080 Super. It’s not exactly a huge leap in performance differentials here, but it’s clear to see that the 5% additional hardware that Nvidia has added to the Super, just can’t quite keep up with a 6% higher clock speed on an RTX 4080.
That’s actually a good thing to know. Particularly if you’re a current owner of an overclocked RTX 4080, or fancy dabbling in the world of GPU overclocking, even mildly. Blender, and our synthetic tests also tell a very similar story, with the most remarkable figure being the 3DMark Port Royal, ray tracing runs being within 1 single point of each other.
Ray Tracing and Upscaling
- DLSS can increase performance by a phenomenal amount
- The RTX 4080 Super vs the RTX 4080 OC is a tight-race with ray tracing enabled
The RTX 4080 Super isn’t a slouch at all when it comes to ray tracing and AI tensor cores though, not one bit, and although similarly, they haven’t seen a huge increase compared to the standard RTX 4080 it still proves potent, particularly at 4K.
In Cyberpunk 2077, with ray tracing enabled and DLSS 3.5 on you can expect 78 fps, disable DLSS and that figure drops down to 28 fps. That’s a staggering 64% drop in performance, just from removing DLSS from the equation, just going to show how valuable DLSS has become for Nvidia.
Interestingly my stock higher clocked RTX 4080 actually consistently performed better here with avg frame rates under these testing conditions often beating out the 4080 Super by 10% in some cases where ray tracing was disabled. F1 2022 also saw very similar results with DLSS improving frame rates by upwards of 77% going from 57 fps to 101 fps respectively.
Power Consumption and Temperature
The Asus unit comes with arguably the biggest cooler I’ve ever seen on a GPU measuring a total of 357.6 x 149.3 x 70.1mm. It’s big, and it cools itself incredibly well. Highest GPU temp reported was 65 C with the hotspot hitting 74.5 C throughout the benchmarking process. Our Overclocked Gigabyte variant in contrast hit 68 and 83.9 C with a similar sized cooler.
Power draw was equally reasonable, with max load from the wall topping out at 708.6W total and idling at 184.5W at its lowest, with our OC RTX 4080 drawing slightly more at 743.6W at 192.3W at idle.
Latest deals
Asus Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 Super ROG Strix Gaming OC at Overclockers UK for £1,3499.99
Should you buy it?
If you’re on a 2000 series card, and want a 4K bump
Nvidia’s RTX 4080 Super is a phenomenal piece of design. With the added price drop, it makes it an incredibly attractive card for anyone wanting to game at 4K 100fps without dropping RTX 4090 money on it in the process. But check if there’s any RTX 4080 OC versions going cheap first.
If you’re a stickler for price to performance
The Super is slightly more affordable than its predecessor, but aside from that there’s not a lot to differentiate it from the RTX 4080 which will likely now drop in price too. If you’re on the hunt for a solid value option that get you gaming at 4K 60, then the RTX 4070 Super and RTX 4070 Ti Super may be better picks.
Final Thoughts
It’s difficult to quite understand what exactly the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 Super is trying to achieve. It’s a confusing launch, with Nvidia opting for just a 5% performance boost and a price drop compared to the RTX 4080. This will no doubt add a lot of confusion when it comes to picking your next graphics card. The option of a discounted RTX 4080 OC GPU will surely appeal greatly and there’s the cheaper RTX 4070 Ti Super and RTX 4070 Super cards, which can also provide 4K gaming albeit with reduced overall performance.
That said, in isolation, this is still an incredibly powerful card, particularly for 4K gaming at higher frame-rates, and having it now available for $200 less than the standard RTX 4080 is nothing if not a good thing.
How we test
Every GPU is ran through a number of real-world and synthetic benchmarks. This gives us the opportunity to gauge how well they perform using frame-rate monitoring software, along with hardware monitoring programs as well, regardless of workload or computational scenario.
Tested with in-game benchmarks
Compared with other graphics cards
Power consumption monitored
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FAQs
In terms of price for performance on standard RTX 4080 Super models versus standard RTX 4080 models, the answer is yes. But, with varying models from third-party manufacturers like Asus and Gigabyte offering boosted RTX 4080 performance, and sometimes at a discount price, it isn’t always the case.
Across many titles, the RTX 4080 Super is very much capable of hitting a 4K resolution at 120fps, graphical settings dependant.
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Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
