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The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 16GB video card provides a firm visual definition of the word “disappointing,” mostly because its performance does climb from the RTX 3080 in meaningful ways, but the price climbs in lock-step. This leaves the 4080 simply stagnating versus the RTX 3080 while pulling the ladder up further on GPU prices. Older RX 6950 XT and RTX 3080 GPUs at lower prices further sap the value of the RTX 4080 16GB, not to mention the weird misstep of launch-unlaunching the RTX 4080 12GB (a different model).
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TIMESTAMPS
00:00 – NVIDIA’s Stagnation
02:45 – 4080 vs. 4090 Specs
04:36 – The Short Version
05:06 – RTX 4080 FE Thermal Testing & Fan Speed
05:47 – RTX 4090 vs. RTX 4080 Temperatures
06:15 – Frequency Behavior on RTX 4080 16GB (MHz)
06:32 – Noise Levels
07:00 – FFXIV 4K Game Benchmarks (RTX 4080 vs. 3080 vs. 4080)
08:25 – Embarrassingly Bad Value vs. RTX 3080
09:20 – FFXIV 1440p Game Benchmarks
09:41 – Total Warhammer 3 4K & 1440p Benchmarks (4080 16GB vs. 6950 XT)
10:57 – NVIDIA Needs to be Kicked in the Ass
12:38 – 1080p Benchmarks in Total Warhammer 3 (4080 vs. 2080 Ti, 3080)
13:36 – Tomb Raider 4K & 1440p GPU Benchmarks
14:40 – Rainbow Six Siege RTX 4080 Benchmarks (4K, 1440p)
16:24 – Horizon Zero Dawn 4K Benchmarks on RTX 4080 vs. 4090, 3090 Ti
16:59 – Ray Tracing Benchmark Complexity
17:55 – Control Ray Tracing Benchmarks (AMD vs. NVIDIA)
19:09 – Cyberpunk 2077 GPU Benchmarks with Ray Tracing (2022)
20:05 – Tomb Raider RT Shadows Benchmarks
20:25 – F1 2022 RTX Benchmarks
20:45 – Power Consumption on RTX 4080
21:26 – Conclusion of NVIDIA RTX 4080’s Worth
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Host, Writing, Testing: Steve Burke
Testing: Patrick Lathan
Video Editing: Mike Gaglione
Video Editing, Camera: Andrew Coleman
If you move if you move the entire gauge You you turn it and the needle turns That doesn't mean the needle moved it Means that the whole gauge moved so That's where we are Nvidia Nvidia's RTX 4080 is a prime and Depressing example in a product Stagnation where it proves once again That it is possible to launch a good Product which otherwise saps all Momentum and relegates it to Meh category it's a technical word and Sadly this is because as we've said for A few GPU launches in the past several Of them and video in the last few years Actually for every one percent Performance uplift if you also spend one Percent more money that ruins the part Where it's cool it's no longer cool it Doesn't actually produce a meaningful Step for consumers where they feel like The industry or the amount that they get For their money is increasing CPUs are a Fantastic counter to what's happening With the GPU market for NVIDIA at the High end so if for any reason you doubt Well but why should we get more than one Percent more performance for one percent More money look at the CPUs AMD and Intel have beaten each other bloody for Four years now to finally get out of the Lockstep we were stuck in with Haswell and Skylink and all the other Ones that were basically the same now
With CPUs you have prices that are Relatively fixed they're like plus or Minus 50 bucks each generation and we Still see improvements that are in the Double digits and that's because AMD and Intel have beaten each other up over it Uh and and videos out here on the Fringes alone which is on one hand Impressive that they were able to get Ahead that much but on the other side It's causing this problem and now amd's Trying to catch up with a 700 XTX and it Might be putting on video under some Pressure but not just yet so today we're Reviewing the twelve hundred dollar RTX 4080 16 gigabyte the one that's launched Not to be confused with the one that was Unlaunched and uh it launches tomorrow The 16 gigabyte that is and you'll be Able to buy it then so at least you have Some time to watch this and find out That it's probably too much money for What you get let's get started before That this video is brought to you by Thermal Grizzlies contact frame for Intel 12th and 13th gen CPUs we Extensively test tested the contact Frame previously and found that it helps Better distribute pressure across the Surface of the IHS we saw this Contribute to a reduction in thermals That could be of benefit to anyone who Needs thermal Headroom for overclocking Or especially thermal Headroom for small
Form factor PCS the thermal Grizzly Contact frame is made in Germany with Precision Machining and you can learn More about it at the link in the Description below so here's a quick Recap of the basics the 4080 had two Flavors originally a 16 gigabyte and 12 Gigabyte 12 gigabyte was unlaunched Nvidia basically canceled it and we'll Be bringing it back later with a Different name they already made Everything their relabel and stuff Hopefully more than just putting a Sticker over it and that's going to come Out probably around CES in January Sometime most likely if it in fact Launches then it's going to have a new Name and it will have a new price we Don't know what the price is going to be We know that the name is probably going To be something like 4070 TI because They already had a 4070 locked in when They unlaunched the 40 80 12 gigabyte so That's the history of that the 16 Gigabyte still is a is very much a real Card it's here we tested it uh and to Get you up to speed on the specs here The 4090 that's 1600 MSRP the 4080 is 1200 MSRP and then the 900.48-12 Gigabyte again is a different story We're not covering today the 4090 runs 24 gigabytes of gddr6x versus 16 on the 4080 we're reviewing today the 4090 has 16 384 Cuda cores and the 4080 has
9728. that is a massive Gap that is a Big enough Gap to drive a TI through so You wouldn't be surprised if at some Point there's a 4080 TI or 4080 super or Something along those lines uh the 4090 Has a TDP of 450 Watts the transients Actually were pretty good on that so we Did not see the massive transient spikes That we were sort of expecting based on Power supply manufacturer rumors before The launch but we already tested that And talked about it in the 49-year view The 40 the 80s a 320 watt TDP and then As for AMD competition 7900 XTX 7800 XT Are the ones you need to know the names Of those will be 900 and a thousand Dollars uh and they launch around a Month from now December 13th so here's The short version of what you're gonna Watch the uh gains for the well the 4080 Achieves about 70 ish plus or minus five Percentage points of the performance of A 40 90 and it does so while being 75 of The price that's the short version for Rasterization now let's get into some of The numbers and uh and then the Conclusion we'll revisit list some more And talk about value for things like the 6000 series and the 30 series as they Linger in the market because they're Looking pretty good we'll look at Thermals first test and import Royal Until steady state we noticed the RTX 4080 Fe held a GPU temperature Target of
60 degrees Celsius for its average Temperature The Hot Spot temperature ran About 10 to 15 degrees higher at any Given point maxing out at 75 degrees Celsius ambient for this was a fixed 21-22 C they're fantastic this is the Same chart except with fan speed added The RTX 4080 Fe follows the same Behavior of the 4090 where the left and The right fans spin at slightly Different pwm strengths and thus have a Different RPM this is likely to combat Undesirable noises the fan runs at about 40 percent and 37 consistently when at Steady state just as a quick reference Point here's how the auto settings on The 4090 and the 4080 Fe cards compare The 49 DFE runs about two to three DBA Higher which we'll show you in a second So even with that higher RPM it's still Running warm and that's expected given The larger core the 4080 runs as you see Here about eight degrees cooler than the 4090 when both are tested with the Fe Cooler and their default v-bios Temperature Target and fan curve it Helps to plot the frequency as well this Lets us know one that the card is Working properly and it also provides a Reference point for the future Especially if the drivers change the Speed Behavior here the card boosts to About 27-75 megahertz and it then stays There basically without any change for
The entire test there are occasional Flickers and frequency but nothing Relevant it's impressively flat here That's something we saw on the 4090 Fe Also frequency is similar to the 4090 so The biggest difference will be the GPU Core itself noise levels are the same as The 49 DFE because they use identical Fans and coolers for reference on this Chart the 4080 Fe was defaulting to Around 38 to 39 DBA on the marker here Whereas the 4090 Fe was closer to 40 DBA We'll start off with Final Fantasy 14 at 4K in this one the RTX 490 capped at 215 FPS average with both the new and the Old drivers but we're only showing one Of the results because they're the same That means the RTX 4080s 152fps average Result has it 71 percent of the total 40 90 performance and with the 1200 versus 1600 MSRP it's at 75 percent of the Price it's not very compelling so this Looks like sort of a classic upsell Positioning on the 4090 versus the 4080 Framed another way the 4090 outperforms The 4080 by 41 while costing 33 more Money compared to Alternatives the 4080 Works wonders to make early 3090 TI Buyers feel bad it outperforms it by 24 Percent here the 6950 XT is the next Closest we hadn't actually checked Prices for this one in a while so a Quick glance at Newegg revealed a few Models at 800 some with rebates so they
Run in the 700s at the cheapest that's Competitive pricing even against new Cards although there are clear downsides And things like Ray tracing performance That we'll look at later the 6950 XT is 114 FPS average allows the 408a 34 lead At 50 percent more money the 30 90 is Around the same performance positioning Or close enough anyway and Generationally and by name only the 4080 Leads the 3080 by 53 percent with a a Similar price increase on MSRP so that's A one percent performance bump for every One percent increase in dollars spent Which is what we call stagnation we have A history of judging things this way Where when we see that one to one rise Over run for performance to price Increase that's what we Define as a Product which has not really moved the Needle now at the ultra high-end Flagship category like say what would Typically be a Titan that's expected Behavior But we also judge those as very poor Value so it makes sense once you get Into these more gaming class cards even At 1200 bucks we do expect to see more Than this and uh to be impressed we we Just we have to see better than a One-to-one because otherwise if you Think about it you're not really gaining Anything new as a consumer it's great so You can spend more money you get more
Performance and it's unlocks that who Cares at 1440p the 4080 and the 4090 are Tied they're CPU bound so this test Isn't useful Beyond showing us where That line is and of course CPUs also Limit GPU performance which we've now Learned once again so we'll move on in Total World Warhammer three at 4K Another dx11 title the 4090 LED at 125 FPS average with lows well spaced behind It's pretty consistent here the 4080 Achieves 70 percent of that performance Once again landing at 88 FPS average With low space Also proportionally the 3090 TI gets close to the 4080 here and As for the 3080 the 4080 weeds the last Gen namesake by 38 percent moving on to Amd's closest modern competitor until The 7000 series comes out the 6950 XT Flagship is led by 50 by the 4080. so They're pretty far apart and we're Looking forward to seeing where the 7900 XTX lands once it ships because for now The 6000 Series has clearly beaten out Thought pricing is favorable towards AMD Is 6950xt for now but clearly the Performance Gap is pretty large here at 1440p we still have scaling on the CPU And we can see gaps in performance the RTX 4090 leads the 4080 Fe by 34 with The 4080 leading the 3080 by 46 percent The 6950 XT lands between them and as For the older Hardware owners of the 2070 would see a 200 increase here and
Although we don't have a 2080 in this Chart we do have the 2080 TI the 4080 Improves 98 over that and just as a Reminder when the 2080 TI came out we Said that the pricing was ridiculous That was a 1200 card as well once again The price is brutal on this where we're Seeing the same thing in the same one Percent performance for every one Percent dollar extra spent and even Adjusted for inflation uh assuming uh we Checked some random inflation calculator We're not economists I don't know what The inflation rate is in the U.S but uh Checking against the original launch Price and the launch date of the RTX 3080 versus today the random calculator We found on the internet which is where All things can be trusted suggested a 15 Uh inflation so that would bring us to About a 30 price increase for about a 40 Something 44 45 Performance increase which isn't one to One but it's more like 1.5 percent more Performance for every one percent more Money spent and that's better than what We saw in Titans where you'd get like Two percent performance for four hundred Dollars but in this instance uh although It's better than that it's still just Not exciting the Nvidia needs someone to Kick them in the ass a little bit Because they've been alone too long in The Market at the high end and Intel's
Not anywhere close to that yet so Everybody's kind of looking at AMD Going We we need some competition here to keep This in check and keep it exciting for Everybody it would be good friend video Too because then if they have a stronger Launch in the future stronger value Proposition the reviews go from being This is a good product we hate the price To hopefully this is a good product Awesome price like we saw with the 3080 And the 1080 TI a mistake they'll never Make again 1080p should see some Tightening of the ranks both for Architectural reasons on Nvidia gpus Where these resolutions particularly Benefit AMD and for CPU reasons the RTX 4090 now has its lead cut down to 24 so We're at the limits of what 1080p will Allow us to see for scaling and gpus Although this is still pretty damn good Given it's 1080p the 4080 isn't though So we can still see how that does versus Everything else below it and that's Without a CPU impact here unlike the 40 90. the 4080 leads the 6950 XT by 34 Here then the 3080 below that by 46 Percent so you can see where the 6950 XT Or the 6900x just like we saw in Original testing they gained ground as The resolution comes down following These the 3070 and the 2080 TI are about The same with the 4080 leading those by
Around 95 or so and Shadow of the Tomb Raider at 4K the RTX 480 ran at 148 FPS Average with lows at 130 FPS and 127. so Those are running tight together and the Frame times are really consistent on These modern cars the RTX 4090 leads by 35 tier with a 4080 over the 3080 by 50 Percent the 27 FPS average lead over the 3090 TI wouldn't be impressive except The 39 dti's original price sort of Makes it impressive impressively bad Pricing for the 3090 TI at launch which We already knew as for AMD it swings Close here but not close enough to take Second place the 6950xc allows the 4080 A lead of 29 but considering the 6950xc Launched at 1100 bucks and it's now 800 It still has price going for it at 1440p We're Bound by the CPU in this game the 40 90 and the 4080 look the same when if Untethered they wouldn't be otherwise as Seen in the previous charts the 4080 Leads the 6950 XT by 29 here so we can See that there's still some scaling that Remains constant in this one the 4080 Isn't fully locked up on the CPU like The 490 is but it's getting close and It's hitting it sometimes the lead over The 3080 is 42 here Rainbow Six Siege is Up next first at 4K the RTX 4090 ran at 355 FPS average here with low spaced Strongly at 288 and 265. that has it 32 Percent ahead of the 4080 similar to the 35 lead we saw in Tomb Raider and the 34
Lead that we saw in total Warhammer They're consistently spaced so far so That at least renders the Decision-making process easier there's Not a lot of different numbers to think About here in terms of performance gaps The 4080 is 33 ahead of the 3080 here so Not as strong of a lead as we've seen Some of the other tests the 6950 XT Trails the 3080 relatively closely with A 2080 TI well below that at 150 FPS Average 1440p gives us comical frames as Rainbow Six often does the 40 90 is 634 FPS average hits a sort of semantic Satiation except for FPS like it's so Many frames that the brain stops Understanding what we're even talking About anymore the 634 FPS result leads The 4080 considerably in absolute Numbers had a 120 FPS lead with a Percentage reduced down to 24 from the Previous 32. we're not at the CPU limit Yet that's around 677 FPS average with Our setup but we're approaching it and If we inspect it this closely it might Be hitting every now and then the 4080 Weeds the 3080 by 31 posting nearly the Same scaling we've seen in previous Tests even when Unbound it Trends down With resolution the 4080 expands on the 30 series trend of boosting higher FPS With higher resolution as for the 6950 XT the 4080 leads that by 23 percent It's getting closer as the resolution
Shrinks this is also a known Trend Horizon zero Dawn is next we don't have As many gpus tested in this one but we Have enough for a simple chart the 4090 Ran at 165 of his average here leading The 40 80 by 32 percent that's Consistent with the previous results and In raw numbers it's about a 40 FPS Elite Not life changing for the amount of Money but then 125 FPS over 100 FPS Might not be either considering the Price Delta versus the remaining 3080s In inventory and 6950 XT is on shelves Today the 6950 XT does well here out Doing the 3080 by 16 percent 1440p and 1080p were both CPU bound on the 4080 so We'll skip those charts and not even Show them onto the ray tracing test These have gotten incredibly complicated To test GPS in general because not only Do we have to do rasterization where we Tested three resolutions now across all The different games we don't even Publish all the games we test once we Start to see a pattern but you have that Plus Ray tracing and then just doing Straight Ray tracings on up either Because we need dlsis or FSR or xcss any Of these super sampling Technologies to Accompany it because they also affect The performance and they behave Differently for each vendor where They're not all the same performance Uplift at a fixed like for like setting
So for this we test one game control Without any of the FSR dlss Technologies At all and then the others we test with Those Technologies unless otherwise Noted so this kind of gives us a look at Both just the Raw Pure RT performance Versus How it does when assisted with Technology we'll start with control for This one we test it raw no supporting Technologies enabled at all the 4080 ran This at 52 FPS average allowing the 4090 Elite of 48 so that's actually a bigger Gap than we saw before we typically were In the 30 to 40 range for the 4090s lead In rasterization it's disproportionately Strong here with rt compared to the 3080s 38 FPS average the 4080 gains About 36 percent in average FPS the 6950 XT is 31 FPS average grants the 4080 a 65 lead comparatively that's massive When considering the rasterization gaps Far closer range it's likely that Nvidia Will maintain an RT Advantage into the Next Generation with rdna3 up next at 1440p the RTX 4090 leads the 4080 by 41 Percent it's lost some lead compared to 1440p here that's not because of the CPU Bond but probably just because some of The demand shifts off of being as RT Heavy the 4080 maintains about a 30 FPS Lead over the 3080 here with another 10 FPS on top of that versus the 6950 XT at 1080p the Gap closes and we lose scaling
They're basically the same now only 10 FPS apart at the top end so we'll skip This and move on cyberpunk is up next And cyberpunk 2077 at 4K with Ray Tracing enabled we end up with a very Complicated Matrix of settings we're Testing with FSR and dlss in this However for both settings we've tuned to Ensure a like for like base resolution From which the image is rendered this Allows us to do a fair comparison Between them here's the chart the 4090 Runs at 79 FPS average under these Settings with the 4080 at 58 FPS average That's a 37 lead for the 40 90 so it's Comparable to our previous raster Differences the 4080s lead over the 3080 Is a noteworthy 58 with a 6950 XT Allowing the 4080 an advantage of 100 at 1440p the 4090 leads the 4080 by 24 with The 4080 maintaining a large lead over The 3080 now at 65 percent 1080p was Locked to the CPU so we'll skip that one Shadow of the Tomb Raider is interesting With Ray tracing because it only has RT Shadows so it's more raster dependent While still leveraging nrt feature the 4090 leads the 4080 by 37 percent back In line with raster results mostly and The 4080 leads the 3080 by 54 percent 6950xc is led by a similar amount F1 2022 is our last gaming test also with Ray tracing here at 4K the 4090 ran at 84 FPS average a 50 improvement over the
RTX 4080 which itself was 45 ahead of The 3080. scaling has now firmly Established a pattern so we can stop With the game benchmarks because we're Not seeing much deviation time for the Last chart power testing for this we're Doing a simple full workload and for a Mark this is easy to Benchmark for gpus Because it's predictable and it pins Gpus at Max when power consumption Permitted through V bios it's also Fair Because it's the same on every card Retest the RTX 4080fe pulled 316 Watts When stock measured out the pcie cables And at the slot with the overclock Increasing that to 343 Watts the stock Numbers are effectively the same as the 3080 so at least in this regard nvidia's Efficiency or its performance per watt Has actually generationally improved They've done better here the power is Also far reduced from the RTX 4090 which Ran at 496 Watts when stock in the same Test for reference the 6950 XT we Mentioned earlier was at 377 Watts Concluding then so to quickly recap some Of the numbers we ran through earlier we Were seeing again it's about 70 to 75 of The performance of a 490 at 75 of the Price you can look at it another way Where the 4090 leads anywhere from 30 to 40 on average except when CPU Constrained where obviously just drops Depending on whatever that constraint is
In games like Final Fantasy we saw a 4080 lead over the 6950 XT at 4K of About 31 four percent it'll have the 3080 by 53 percent and then Total War 4K Just as another example the 4080 led the 3080 by 38 percent you'll have the 69 50 XT by 50. Rainbow Six 4K I had the 4080 Leading 33 over the 3080 40 90 leading 32 percent over the 4080 and then with Ray tracing benchmarks we saw a far Larger Gap form and some tests that are More RT Reliant whereas the games like Tomb Raider where it's just one RT Feature and otherwise it's all Rasterization those basically resembled The rasterization testing so as for Where that leaves us today well first of All this is pretty disappointing Um 1200 it's like It's just it feels like we're kind of Back to where we were With launches Between 2020 and now between the third The 3080 launch it was actually great I Mean price performance was there they Brought it down from the 20 series uh so Maybe some of that was maybe a little Bit of Stockholm syndrome there with the 20 Series where 28 TI came out 1200 Bucks much like this is now although the Time's different obviously but the 3080 Felt like a pretty solid launch and the MSRP was the reason for that where it Was kind of like a call back to the 1080
TI 1080 TI is as a reminder different Time inflation differences too but 700 And regardless of inflation or economics Or any of that when it launched it was a Great thing for performance and value And that maintained true for at least a Couple Generations the thing is still Holding on well so the 3080 felt like a Good call back to something that people Associated positive feelings towards the 1080 TI and we lost that with the 490 Clearly because it's more of a Titan Class card you never expect those to be Received well from a value perspective The 4080 had a chance to sort of get People back Interested in nvidia's new stuff from a Value proposition which is the most Important angle to to hold but it's just It's not there and you know nvidia's CEO Can get up on stage and talk about how Low prices are or dropping prices are a Thing of the past as much as he wants at The end of the day his own product is Killing his current products for Value So if you don't need the newest thing if It for some people you feel bad if you Buy something a generation old because Well you're buying a 2022 model and it's about to be 2023 by The 2020 model and it's 2022. Realistically though it doesn't actually Matter if the product you're looking at Achieves what you want and right now the
Cards are all so ridiculously high in Performance that if you take a step back You look at those charts Just remember that if you're looking at Something where it's like GN had to invest actual effort to create A GPU bottleneck Probably for your purposes a 3080 versus A 40 90 you're going to get better value Out of the older thing even though it's Technically a little older so as long as You're okay with that and as long as You're okay with throwing away a little Bit of future proof in because it's not The newest absolute fin right now Uh you can put that money towards Something else a future proof elsewhere Instead or just save it for the next GPU Version so anyway all that to say right Now the 6950 XT is actually we hadn't Looked at the price until this review uh It's in the 700s now 800-ish has sort of A floor just quick glance at Newegg and That's that's pretty interesting price Between the 3080 not too far off from That Um and the 4080 is just not it for us The value is not there and it's sad Because it's actually pretty good Product just in terms of performance Alone as is the 40 90. they've done well With the engineering it's actually Impressive how much the 40 90 lifted up From uh last generation and we expect
The 490 to be expensive there's got to Be some give here though somewhere for The Enthusiast market and 1200 bucks uh For this is is just not We're stuck in one one-to-one rise over Run for Price performance and that is How we Define stagnation And if you think about it for more than A second uh it should be pretty obvious Why because the needle has not moved if You're moving everything with it if you Move if you move the entire gauge you You turn it and the needle turns that Doesn't mean the needle moved it means That the whole gauge moved so that's Where we are Nvidia uh hopefully AMD Kicks them a little bit in the ass to be More competitive here on price and but That's all we got for you on this one Thanks for watching as always Uh subscribe for more we'll have some Follow-ups I'm sure and you go to Store.gamersaccess.net tell us how Directly or patreon.com gamersnexis Um once again we're probably we'll be Looking at partner models I'm sure just Because It is a good Product at a performance level but Um We just we can't recommend it right now Today we'd say wait a little bit and see What happens so we'll see you all next Time
