Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080: great performance and low power consumption at too high a price

Nvidia launched at the end of last year a new 40 series video card, its latest generation Ada Lovelace: GeForce RTX 4080. With a very high performance in resolutions 4K and DLSS 3 As a big plus, the graphics processing unit is a beast of performance, behind the 4090, the elite model and the world’s most powerful GPU.

Yet, it has one major drawback: the 1200 dollars what a basic cost, an increase of the 70% compared to that of the previous series, which represents an improvement of about one 30%

In a good time to buy video cards, where prices have fallen between 8% for Nvidia and up to 25% in the competition, AMD, it’s worth asking what you’re looking for: You must have the latest version when upgradingOr are the previous models sufficient?

Without a doubt, in terms of performance, the 4080 has an improvement over the previous generation (3080 and 3080Ti) and an even lower power consumption – a problem considering that the 4090 requires a source of almost a thousand watts.

​However, if we take the 4090 out of the equation, it’s not easy to choose a video card these days, especially in Argentina where import costs and retail complexities can push them to market. ridiculous million and a half pesos.

clarion tested the 4080 for three weeks and was able to confirm its advantages in 4K resolutions, maintaining in many cases frames per second at 110 on average.

Here is the panorama in Argentina for this table, which is also expensive for the North American market.

Specifications: a jump of 30%

The fair comparison of the 4080 is its predecessor i.e. the 3080released on September 17, 2020. And the question is whether the performance improvement is worth it $500 extra How much does the 4080 cost compared to the 3080 (always talking about Nvidia reference prices, see the section with local prices).

Technically, the 4080 Ada Lovelace architecture features substantial improvements. Has 9728 CUDA cores compared to 8704 compared to the 3080, a speed of 2.51GHz versus 1.71 GHz of the previous generation (amps), which means higher processing capacity of instructions per second.

From a user experience point of view, the first thing to say is that it follows the trend of the 4090: the 4080 can run 4K games at 60 frames per second, the strongest selling argument of recent times that the game is trying to approach. Even the consoles, always far from technicalities, began to adopt this quality of life combo player.

For a game to run at 60 frames and in 4K means it can be enjoy in high resolution (the average still has 1080 monitors and the 4K TVs available have made the previous-gen consoles suffer), but above all, in a certain sense fluid. The higher the number of frames per second, the smoother the gaming experience.

This is something Nvidia’s previous generation had to contend with, without much success: despite marketing touting them as capable of running at these resolutions, 60 pictures was a pipe dream in challenging games.

According to performance tests from dedicated sites like Gamers Nexus, Hardware Unboxed, Linus Tech Tips, and niche sites like PC World, performance is anywhere from 8% better than the 3090 up to 30-40% in the case of the 3080. This is a big leap performance from one generation to the next.

In Clarín’s tests, all the games ran perfectly: Cyberpunk 2077 and Control, two very demanding games, passed the 130 frames per secondsomething that could be seen on a 1440p 165Hz monitor.

However, the tests that make the most sense for this type of slab are the ones that are run in 4Kframe performance dropped but the experience was always at an average of 100FPS.

By activating Ray Tracing, Nvidia’s flagship technology, things change. Some games like cyberpunk 2077 They still have FPS drops that take a few seconds to calibrate.

In most cases, enabling this technology is a much higher demand affecting performance even with this type of card, but the 4080 has managed to always be greater than 60 frames.

One of the technologies that the 4080 benefits from is DLSS 3, a scaled image rendering system from Nvidia that allows you to optimize frames per second and multiply them. In cases where this feature was enabled, games ran much smoother.

And all this with consumption average of 300 watts, 20 less than what Nvidia says this card uses. Obviously with the 8-pin adapter which has generated controversy around the world for, in some cases, catch fire

Prices and availability

When talking about prices, it is necessary to distinguish the price set by the company (price point) and what you basically get in the “real” world.

This is also a problem in the United States, where the market is healthier than Argentina in terms of variety and availability.

We must also consider that these reference prices are for the versions Founders Edition, that is, those produced by Nvidia (like the one seen in the photos in this publication). So, different brands like MSI, Gigabyte, Asus, Zotac and others, produce their own customized versions (which can cost up to 40% more in some cases).

For this reason, when searching the most well-known component stores in Argentina and in Free marketprices fluctuate between unavailability and one and a half million pesos. A price very high of 1200 pesos suggested by Nvidia, even taking the most expensive blue dollar price, which gives few 445 thousand pesos).

This is where, for the local economy, it may make the most sense. resign that 30% performance: a 3080 Ti, with 12 GB of RAM and more than respectable performance for resolutions of 1440 and up to 4K, can be had today for about 370 thousand pesos.

A huge difference which can go to other components of the PC (not insignificant detail, given that these cards require to be combined with top-of-the-range processors, sources of 700 watts and more).

Finally, another issue to consider has to do with the to measure: the 4080 occupies three slots like the 4090 and has the same shape and size in its Founders Edition (that is, the one that Nvidia produces itself). This implies that it’s compatible with full ATX cabinets which, while usually the norm, are the floor for “enter” due to the large size of these plates.

Conclusion

The RTX 4080 is great video card It works much better than the last generation. Along with DLSS 3 and high performance upon activation ray tracing, one of the most processing-intensive functions, thanks to the new Ada Lovelace architecture. The problem comes, as is often the case with Nvidia, with its price.

Does the card offer the added value you pay for $1,200? NO: This is a 70% price increase for 30% more performance.

Also, on the other side of the green team, AMD has the RX 6950 XT that you can get, in some cases, for the equivalent of $800, and the RX 7900 XTX, for a thousand. Of course, losing the added value of Nvidia (DLSS, better performance in Ray Tracing).

Other than that, as with the 4090, have a computer to take advantage of this card and not run into a bottleneck between processor and GPU requires a huge investment: latest generation processor, 800 watts of average power and a motherboard according to current technologies (DDR5, PCIe 4.0, etc.).

The problem with the video card rush is that the performance of current generations is ridiculously above average user: For this reason, both the previous generation and the 2020 generation (Turing) are likely to still be good options for build a high-end PC.

meanwhile, maybe should wait for 4080 a drop in price, a trend that began to occur for this market in early 2023.