Nvidia RTX 4080 SUPER Review vs 4080, 7900 XTX & more!

[Kenrou]

"Today marks the end of a busy January launch period for the GPU market, as we check out the RTX 4080 Super. Announced back at CES 2024, not only has Nvidia outfitted the 4080 Super with more cores and faster memory than the original model, but it's also had a price cut – down from £1269/$1199 at the 4080's launch, to £959/$999 today. It's still mighty expensive, but does it do enough to tempt those looking for an upgrade?"

TLDR: non-zero difference between 4080 and 4080s, 7900xtx beats both except in RT whilst being ~£200 cheaper than the 4080 and ~£400 cheaper than the 4080s (Amazon UK)

 

[mackerel]

TLDR: non-zero difference between 4080 and 4080s, 7900xtx beats both except in RT whilst being ~£200 cheaper than the 4080 and ~£400 cheaper than the 4080s (Amazon UK)

Just skimming TechPowerUp's 4080S review now. It's a little bit more nuanced than that.

Overall relative performance 4080S is 1% faster on average than 4080. Wonder what's going on there, given it has ~+5% core count, ~+2% on VRAM bandwidth. Oh, same TDP. That might be it.

7900XTX is 1% to 4% faster on average overall, taking a lead in roughly 2/3 of the tested titles. Switching to RT, 7900XTX is ~20% behind.

Looking at Scan (major UK seller, fulfils Nvidia's online shop in UK) cheapest in stock GPUs as follows:
7900XTX £939
4080S £959
4080 £1090

Repeating it on Amazon UK:
7900XTX £905
4080S I only find one model listed in stock at £1300. Unsurprisingly it is not selling. Perhaps cheaper ones sold out already. They are in stock from MSRP at Scan.
4080 £1100

Basically the 7900XTX is essentially the same as a 4080S in both raster and price. If I were to drop a grand on a GPU today I'd definitely go for the 4080S over the 7900XT for that RT uplift and better hardware all round. About the only reason I'd look at a 7900XTX is if I have some workload that can use 24GB VRAM, which I don't.

 

[Kenrou]

I completely gave up on Scan a couple of years ago because I could find everything cheaper on Amazon, should've checked. Still, don't know man, will depend on what people use it for, I very rarely use RT so the 7900xtx would be a better fit for the price especially since Scan updated prices and the cheapest 4080s is now at ~£1025

 

[mackerel]

Ok, guess they sold out of that MSRP model in the time between posting and you looking. I confirm it is not listed there right now.

I did find a cheaper 7900XTX though. Ebuyer have one listed at £870. I will have to take back my comment on them being near enough the same price given we're looking at nearly 10% price difference. Assuming the ebuyer price sticks (and maybe others follow) and also 4080S MSRP models return now the initial batch is selling out.

 

[Kenrou]

https://www.ebuyer.com/1897853-exdi...card-ebr1-rx-7900-xtx-gaming-trio-classic-24g ⇾ £850 now, grab them while you can

 

[mackerel]

https://www.ebuyer.com/1897853-exdi...card-ebr1-rx-7900-xtx-gaming-trio-classic-24g ⇾ £850 now, grab them while you can

Ex-display. I tend to only look at new/unused pricing for comparison.

 

[Janus67]

Just watched the HWU video. Man, this needed to be closer to 900-950 to compete in $/frame against the 7900XTX. Unless you're heavy into RT (I'm not, or at least my 3080 doesn't run it well enough for almost anything at 4K) that raster still wins. Though the DLSS features are still objectively better than AMD's offerings (at least last I checked).

Ultimately I'm waiting for a 5080/5090 within the year (give or take) to see what it ends up being to be a worthwhile upgrade.

 

[Woomack]

I completely gave up on Scan a couple of years ago because I could find everything cheaper on Amazon, should've checked. Still, don't know man, will depend on what people use it for, I very rarely use RT so the 7900xtx would be a better fit for the price especially since Scan updated prices and the cheapest 4080s is now at ~£1025

You can find cheaper on Amazon, but also watch out as a lot of stuff on Amazon is after return. Sometimes prices are lower because they have more returned items and never checked right, so they list them as new. With graphics cards, it's not as bad as with high-end motherboards, but it's still quite often.

Overclockers.co.uk is not cheap, but sometimes they have a unique series at a reasonable price. Pretty much the same as Caseking.de.

4080 is about the same as 4080s and 7900XTX is already old. If someone wants high-end graphics but it's not a must in the upcoming months, then it is probably better to wait for something new from AMD or the next Nvidia gen. AMD will probably be earlier, but it's hard to say.

 

[dfonda]

Just skimming TechPowerUp's 4080S review now. It's a little bit more nuanced than that.

Overall relative performance 4080S is 1% faster on average than 4080. Wonder what's going on there, given it has ~+5% core count, ~+2% on VRAM bandwidth. Oh, same TDP. That might be it.

7900XTX is 1% to 4% faster on average overall, taking a lead in roughly 2/3 of the tested titles. Switching to RT, 7900XTX is ~20% behind.

Looking at Scan (major UK seller, fulfils Nvidia's online shop in UK) cheapest in stock GPUs as follows:
7900XTX £939
4080S £959
4080 £1090

Repeating it on Amazon UK:
7900XTX £905
4080S I only find one model listed in stock at £1300. Unsurprisingly it is not selling. Perhaps cheaper ones sold out already. They are in stock from MSRP at Scan.
4080 £1100

Basically the 7900XTX is essentially the same as a 4080S in both raster and price. If I were to drop a grand on a GPU today I'd definitely go for the 4080S over the 7900XT for that RT uplift and better hardware all round. About the only reason I'd look at a 7900XTX is if I have some workload that can use 24GB VRAM, which I don't.

I'll bet newer Drivers will boost it up. Heck even tho...still $200 cheaper.

 

[Flamethrower1972]

I am going to get the 4070 ti because the price and a 4070 super you little gain in FPS. But the bad part is it has 16 GDDR6X the 4070 ti is 12 gigs.

 

[rainless]

SO hard to crack 60fps in 4k... You need a 4070ti super... not even just a regular 4070 ti just to DO IT.

That's harsh...

 

[TerranBrackiatt]

SO hard to crack 60fps in 4k... You need a 4070ti super... not even just a regular 4070 ti just to DO IT.

That's harsh...

that's one of the reasons i'm still waiting for my next GPU upgrade...
the other main reason is that i'm still broke...

 

[mackerel]

I got the new GPU itch too, but holding out for next gen. Using the 4070 to play Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth on a 4k TV. Native highest is around 45fps. Upscaling makes it an easy 60+, and if I should feel like more I can also turn on FG. I don't because I found in that game XeSS works best which doesn't have FG. DLSS3 is ok and FSR3 still has visual problems.

 

[Haider]

Only 16GB! I know they are trying to protect their professional cards AI training market share by keeping memory low enough to generate a memory error with these cards. They should just disable Cuda support for gamer cards. At the minimum I'm looking for 20GB on a new card...

 

[mackerel]

20GB is ok but 16GB is not? Disabling CUDA makes no sense at all.

 

[rainless]

Despite what Earthdog may think (with his cute little 4090)... None of these cards is really ready for prime time.

I mean you've gotta pay like 2000 bucks just to get stable 4K performance with ray tracing. Doesn't matter if you go TI... Super... TI Super... Whatever. You're just throwing money down the drain.

I'm grateful for my 4060 upgrade (which... as it turns out... I didn't really need) because it will help me hold out a bit longer until the next generation or the one after that.

It's not like I'm the Elon Musk of the French Riviera... 4K monitors and televisions are COMMON now.

You should be able to game decently at that resolution with just about any video card mid-level and up.

But the cards simply haven't kept up pace... Not for the money they're asking.

300 bucks was an extraordinary deal for my 2060 Super back in 2020. 350 doesn't seem like the same kind of ROI 4 years later...

I shudder to think of the people paying $1000 or 1600 for their cards...

EDIT: I mean COME ON... You get a 4080 Super and, CONGRATULATIONS!, ...you've just beaten a regular 4080 by one frame...

 

[EarthDog]

I think we all want more performance for our dollar; there's no getting around that. And there's no doubt that the 4080S was the black sheep of the Supers with its meager performance increase. Good thing it came out at the same price, I guess, lol.

Just wanted to point some things out though...

1. While 4k TVs may be common and affordable, 1080p and 2560x1440 are still DOMINATING 4k users in steam stats (76% combined 59%/16%). 4k use is at a mere 3.7%. So while 4K TVs are common, about 4 of every 100 Steam users is using one (what they play it is another story...................).

2. Also, 4k/60/ultra can be had from midrange cards from both camps. Suddenly, everyone wants to use RT, I guess lol...even so, 4070 averages 73 fps at 4k at TPU, which does include RT titles (though to be fair, cp2077 and control, both exceptions and GPU killers like Crysis, lol, are well below that).

3. FYI, the 4070 Ti you mentioned that was needed for 4K is under $700, not $2K. I'd call a 4070 Ti a mid-range offering considering the 4060, 4060 Ti, 4070, 4070 Ti, 4080, 4090... and that's not even considering the Super cards. But to me, 4060/4060Ti is entry level/budget (price notwithstanding, they are the two lowest cards in the product stack), 4070/4070Ti midrange, and 4080+ enthusiast. You can game at 4k 'decently' with midrange on up.

 

[Flamethrower1972]

SO hard to crack 60fps in 4k... You need a 4070ti super... not even just a regular 4070 ti just to DO IT.

That's harsh...

I play 1440p.

 

[Haider]

20GB is ok but 16GB is not? Disabling CUDA makes no sense at all.

The whole point of skimping on RAM and nvlink is to stop AI developers from using RTX consumers GPUs.

That why a lot of homebrew AI stuff was done dual 2060s connected over nvlink to give you 16 gig pooled memory. At the time that was enough to train a decent model. 30xx came without nvlink apart from the 90. I know a number of users who brought dual 2060 supers second hand to get some experience with AI. Nowadays it (16 gig) may be too small…

 

[EarthDog]

The whole point of skimping on RAM and nvlink is to stop AI developers from using RTX consumers GPUs.

Wouldn't it make more sense to stick with the Pro cards that actually serve your purpose? Feels like there is little sense complaining about consumer-class cards designed for gaming (where the vRAM IS enough) when there's an entire class of cards with higher RAM amounts just for that purpose.

While I'm sure a Jeep Compass can offroad to some extent, I'd have to imagine a Jeep Wrangler is a better choice...CWUTIMEAN?

The context here, again, is gaming. Bitching about a lack of vRAM for some professional workflows feels a bit off topic.

EDIT: Worth noting, I've been reviewing workstation-class PCs that come with 'pro' graphics cards.... oddly enough, vRAM ranges are a lot smaller than I thought. There are still PLENTY of pro cards with similar amounts of RAM compared to consumer GPUs. So, perhaps the same argument there, too? Not enough VRAM??? You have to pay through the nose to get something worthwhile over 16GB on the pro side too, no?