Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 Super Review

[Steve]

One would assume that Nvidia's "new" GeForce RTX 4080 Super is a special version of the original. But in reality, it's essentially the RTX 4080 with a much-needed price cut. Is that enough?

Read the full article here.

https://www.techspot.com/review/2797-nvidia-geforce-rtx-4080-super/

 

[EdmondRC]

It's annoying because the 4080 was already way overpriced, but it is hard to argue that a price cut along with any performance increase is a bad thing. Many partner cards already had 4080s at around $1100 though, so really the price cut is only about $100.

 

[MarcusNumb]

A big No no no for me, I'll wait for AMD 8700xt or 8800xt if they can do what they did with the 5700xt. Time to say a big No for GPU cost more than 1000usd/euros. Btw, I really don't like the way NVIDIA is manipulating the market however they want. Imagine someone bought a 4080 and now they are offered something a little better in both price and performance, ouch!!!

 

[EdmondRC]

A big No no no for me, I'll wait for AMD 8700xt or 8800xt if they can do what they did with the 5700xt. Time to say a big No for GPU cost more than 1000usd/euros. Btw, I really don't like the way NVIDIA is manipulating the market however they want. Imagine someone bought a 4080 and now they are offered something a little better in both price and performance, ouch!!!

Not to take up for Nvidia, but to get better value on a new product has been how the tech industry works for a long time. Not the that 4080 Super is really a new product.

 

[winjer]

Such a disappointment.
With barely any competition, NVidia is doing the bare minimum.

 

[Beerfloat]

A big No no no for me, I'll wait for AMD 8700xt or 8800xt if they can do what they did with the 5700xt. Time to say a big No for GPU cost more than 1000usd/euros. Btw, I really don't like the way NVIDIA is manipulating the market however they want. Imagine someone bought a 4080 and now they are offered something a little better in both price and performance, ouch!!!

I guess some people think these personal opinions are interesting to someone because they keep showing up. So I'll add one too!
A big yes yes for me because this second tier card competes well with AMD's top of the line while offering full access to the superior Nvidia feature set. The release is also very gentle for existing 4080 owners because they've had the pleasure of being able to use a card in this performance class for quite some time now, and the replacement hardly makes their card obsolete in any way.

I can't imagine who'd still put down a lot of money for a 7900, aside from people who only play competitive twitch shooters and don't care about image quality at all.

 

[oasked]

I bought the 7900XTX at launch for just above MSRP, and I've been pleased with the performance to date. Driver stability isn't always quite as good as nVidia, but without a nVidia card to test against it's hard to tell.

Given this new product though, I would choose the 4080 Super instead at the $1000 price point - as much as it pains me to pay so much for a 'meh' product.

 

[Jack77]

It's annoying because the 4080 was already way overpriced, but it is hard to argue that a price cut along with any performance increase is a bad thing. Many partner cards already had 4080s at around $1100 though, so really the price cut is only about $100.

Where I live in the EU, I have the impression that the 4080 had come down EUR 100 or so already. And now the super is priced about the same as the original version. Is it more affordable than before? Nah.

Will I get excited when I finally buy a new card (which will not be the 4080S given the price and performance)? Nah.

Is this hurting the gaming graphics evolution and the PC-gamer market in the long run? Yes, I definitely think it is. And those who think 'the poor peasants' (even the peasants contemplating EUR 1000+ cards) are just jealous: well, enjoy future gaming on your 8090 Ti Super Plus. I mean, the limited PC ports that will be created, with 2024 graphics, but at 2000fps. Or at 100fps because they didn't want to spend money optimizing the port for the limited audience...

 

[Jack77]

I guess some people think these personal opinions are interesting to someone because they keep showing up. So I'll add one too!
A big yes yes for me because this second tier card competes well with AMD's top of the line while offering full access to the superior Nvidia feature set. The release is also very gentle for existing 4080 owners because they've had the pleasure of being able to use a card in this performance class for quite some time now, and the replacement hardly makes their card obsolete in any way.

I can't imagine who'd still put down a lot of money for a 7900, aside from people who only play competitive twitch shooters and don't care about image quality at all.

Intel made CPU upgrades gentle for non-upgraders for a decade. Even when the non-upgraders wanted to upgrade after a few years, it was gentle for those who recently upgraded.

Look at where that has brought us?

The 4090 set the bar for this generation. Paying such a huge chunk of money for such a limited amount of the performance of the 4090 is not what makes most people happy. Neither does this correction, I think. But we can disagree on all of this. It's fine.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

Where I live in the EU, I have the impression that the 4080 had come down EUR 100 or so already. And now the super is priced about the same as the original version. Is it more affordable than before? Nah.

Will I get excited when I finally buy a new card (which will not be the 4080S given the price and performance)? Nah.

Is this hurting the gaming graphics evolution and the PC-gamer market in the long run? Yes, I definitely think it is. And those who think 'the poor peasants' (even the peasants contemplating EUR 1000+ cards) are just jealous: well, enjoy future gaming on your 8090 Ti Super Plus. I mean, the limited PC ports that will be created, with 2024 graphics, but at 2000fps. Or at 100fps because they didn't want to spend money optimizing the port for the limited audience...

What is this misinformation? PC gaming has grown to a point where it now makes more money than home consoles. Where is this "dying market" you speak of?

Maybe it's jsut the low wages and high taxes of the EU that are hurting you Moreso then the price of tech itself.

I bought the 7900XTX at launch for just above MSRP, and I've been pleased with the performance to date. Driver stability isn't always quite as good as nVidia, but without a nVidia card to test against it's hard to tell.

Given this new product though, I would choose the 4080 Super instead at the $1000 price point - as much as it pains me to pay so much for a 'meh' product.

At the same price I'd do the same thing. There's just no getting around the issue of AMD RT performance. Without RT the 7900xtx has a slight advantage, but with RT there's no comparison, and at some point, RT is going to become common enough to be a major issue going forward.

 

[gdavid65]

Here the Super is the exact same price as the non-Super.. Why on earth would you buy the "standard 4080" when you could buy a new "super" for exact same price??

Nvidia is playing a heck of a lot of games to dictate retail pricing I'm guessing. I'd actually be very keen to see how the retailer plays this (old stock v new).. or do they simply just write each 4080 down by $200 or so to put it down an offset against their yearly profits.

There is some weird **** going on, and none of it smells good.

 

[EdmondRC]

Here the Super is the exact same price as the non-Super.. Why on earth would you buy the "standard 4080" when you could buy a new "super" for exact same price??

Nvidia is playing a heck of a lot of games to dictate retail pricing I'm guessing. I'd actually be very keen to see how the retailer plays this (old stock v new).. or do they simply just write each 4080 down by $200 or so to put it down an offset against their yearly profits.

There is some weird **** going on, and none of it smells good.

The alternative to this is, why sell a product that is only 1-4% inferior for a much lower price? The original 4080 for $950 is actually a better value prop than the new 4080 S, so you're not going to see much of a difference in price. I also doubt you see these cards available at $999 long, soon only the OC and premium cards will be available and they'll all be at least $1050 and up. One of the MSI 4080s is $1500, taking advantage of the 4090s selling well above MSRP.

 

[Jack77]

Maybe it's jsut the low wages and high taxes of the EU that are hurting you Moreso then the price of tech itself.

No, it's not. I'm here for a while, I can tell.

And it's not because a market has grown a lot that it cannot decline or stagnate because of circumstances. Or become limited in a certain way. Shareholders in every sector may prefer endlessly increasing profits. Household spending budgets aren't endless, though. And people will choose what brings in their view the most value in their life.

 

[redgarl]

I bought the 7900XTX at launch for just above MSRP, and I've been pleased with the performance to date. Driver stability isn't always quite as good as nVidia, but without a nVidia card to test against it's hard to tell.

Given this new product though, I would choose the 4080 Super instead at the $1000 price point - as much as it pains me to pay so much for a 'meh' product.

I never had any issue with my drivers and I owned a 5700XT, a 6900XT and a XTX.

This is pure Nvidi0ts propaganda.

On the other hands, the 4090 are affected by GPU soldering break due to the design of the card... 12VHPWR is a disaster... but they don't talk about that...

 

[redgarl]

What is this misinformation? PC gaming has grown to a point where it now makes more money than home consoles. Where is this "dying market" you speak of?

Maybe it's jsut the low wages and high taxes of the EU that are hurting you Moreso then the price of tech itself.
At the same price I'd do the same thing. There's just no getting around the issue of AMD RT performance. Without RT the 7900xtx has a slight advantage, but with RT there's no comparison, and at some point, RT is going to become common enough to be a major issue going forward.

This is where it is funny...

Console implementation of RT are doing really well and AMD compete with Nvidia. The problem is with stupid Sponsored titles from Nvidia which are broken for AMD hardware.

Even there, if you need to use upscaling to use RT, then your GPU cannot handle it... period...

 

[EdmondRC]

I never had any issue with my drivers and I owned a 5700XT, a 6900XT and a XTX.

This is pure Nvidi0ts propaganda.

On the other hands, the 4090 are affected by GPU soldering break due to the design of the card... 12VHPWR is a disaster... but they don't talk about that...

I owned an RX 5700 and there were certain games I had driver level issues with, but it was game specific. Other games were very smooth. I can't say that I have had any issue with Nvidia's drivers, but I think the driver related issues with AMD are overstated.

 

[EdmondRC]

Is this hurting the gaming graphics evolution and the PC-gamer market in the long run? Yes, I definitely think it is. And those who think 'the poor peasants' (even the peasants contemplating EUR 1000+ cards) are just jealous: well, enjoy future gaming on your 8090 Ti Super Plus. I mean, the limited PC ports that will be created, with 2024 graphics, but at 2000fps. Or at 100fps because they didn't want to spend money optimizing the port for the limited audience...

PC gaming doing great at the moment and growing, but not because of enthusiast level GPUs, <$300 is still where most people in the market for a GPU are at. Those are also the cards seeing the worse gen over gen gains. Eventually the dam will have to break and they'll have to give us another GTX 1060 which was a phenomenal mid-range GPU. They cannot continue to have 70% gains at the top and only 15% gains at the bottom of the line up. I expect RTX 5060 to be nearly 2X the 4060 because it just about has to be at this point. That would still be just under the 4070 Super by the way.

Considering that the 4080 is nearly 3X as fast as the 4060, there is a real value problem right now with mid-range GPUs. The legendary 1080 Ti was only 2X as fast as the 1060 and the 2080 Ti as powerful as it was, was still only around 70% faster than the RTX 2060. It used to be that if you got 120fps on the high-end GPU, the mid-range would still deliver at or near 60 fps. Now you can expect 45ish fps at the same setting. That's not even considering the 4090.

 

[n3o127]

4080 at $899 would have been big success, and then drop 4080 Super at $949. Personally I feel that the 4080 super fits well between 4090 and 4070 series now. Wonder if the 4090 Super will also see a price drop?

 

[Theinsanegamer]

This is where it is funny...

Console implementation of RT are doing really well and AMD compete with Nvidia. The problem is with stupid Sponsored titles from Nvidia which are broken for AMD hardware.

Even there, if you need to use upscaling to use RT, then your GPU cannot handle it... period...

AMD compete with nvidia in RT....maybe with your eyes closed. There's a grand total of one title, I believe, where AMD RT is remotely comparable to nvidia.

I never had any issue with my drivers and I owned a 5700XT, a 6900XT and a XTX.

This is pure Nvidi0ts propaganda.

On the other hands, the 4090 are affected by GPU soldering break due to the design of the card... 12VHPWR is a disaster... but they don't talk about that...

I never had problems, therefore problems dont exist.

THAT is AMDumb cope if I've ever heard it.

And yeah, sure, the 12VHPWR issue never gets talked about. Sure bud. Whatever floats your boat.

No, it's not. I'm here for a while, I can tell.

And it's not because a market has grown a lot that it cannot decline or stagnate because of circumstances. Or become limited in a certain way. Shareholders in every sector may prefer endlessly increasing profits. Household spending budgets aren't endless, though. And people will choose what brings in their view the most value in their life.

OK, but the market is not stagnating or declining. PC gaming is still growing. You can make claims that it's "dying" all you want, but the numbers say you dont know what you are talking about.

It's not like a company like disney, where there has been an objective decrease in viewership and money. It's all conjecture based on "I cannot afford this product, ergo the market is collapsing". Which is, frankly, ridiculous. GPU sales are down, but ALL sales are down, because we are in a recession and if you dont do 4k RT, you dont really need an upgrade from the last 2 gens.

 

[Shirley Dulcey]

Here the Super is the exact same price as the non-Super.. Why on earth would you buy the "standard 4080" when you could buy a new "super" for exact same price??

Retailers have been forced to cut the price of the 4080 non-Super cards in order to have any hope of selling their inventory. What I don't know is if they are receiving any price support for Nvidia (manufacturers sometimes do that to help retailers clear out existing stock) or are eating the price cut.

There has been no change to the MSRP so it's HIGHER for the non-Super, which obviously makes no sense. Presumably there will be no more non-Super cards going forward.

 

[Jack77]

It's not like a company like disney, where there has been an objective decrease in viewership and money. It's all conjecture based on "I cannot afford this product, ergo the market is collapsing". Which is, frankly, ridiculous. GPU sales are down, but ALL sales are down, because we are in a recession and if you dont do 4k RT, you dont really need an upgrade from the last 2 gens.

The PC gaming market is not a uniform market. But you can be sure that if top-end graphics cards become too expensive for most enthusiasts, that a lot of game developers will not try to push anymore for the most spectacular graphics. Because there will not many players be left anymore with the hardware required to run those settings. For whom would they do the investment?

And yes, that does not mean that games like FoE, Farming simulator and whatnot will not thrive.

And with ever expensive PC hardware, consoles will become more attractive to many people.

As far as the expensive argument goes: yes, everything has become expensive. And despite rising production and transportation costs, many high prices can just not be justified based on that (alone). Despite what companies want, excessive profit margins that could once be asked cannot be sustained. Just because people cannot afford everything when things are expensive.

 

[bviktor]

I mean, there's a very distinct set of games for PC and consoles. And then there's some in between.

For instance, I'd never play TLOU, or CTR, or Horizon on the PC. Just like I'd never play SC2 or D2R on a console.

But having to spend several thousand dollars for a high-end gaming PC is a complete joke. Not to mention the utter lack of resale options. On consoles I can grab the disc used for half the price, then pass onto the next person - idealliy for the same price. So you can literally play for free. On the PC everything's linked to your accounts.

So yeah, PC gaming is outperforming consoles, but I just can't understand how. Do people have too much money to spend?

 

[CMP01]

Didn't see the point back when rumoured, leaked, announced, launched or, as now, reviewed.
Don't see why they couldn't just commit to consistent price drop as is/was tbh.
Wasn't a thing at the start of this gen either. Just disappointing and a poor showing overall.

All else aside, the telling part of this as a deal is how far those new MSRP prices (and, more importantly, availability) go. Especially for the big, much desired Nvidia partner models that already lead the premium 7900XTX's by £500 or more. A price drop a year post launch is pretty much where we should be anyway, nm for a refresh that's much the same. We will see...

Tbh where I originally balked most at the idea of buying a 4080 was the price for effectively 16Gb (again) with a to be expected generational uplift. Same reasoning I chose a 6800XT over a 3080 10Gb in 2021, though the price difference then was off the charts, with the 3080 being £600-1200 more and as rare as hens teeth for months vs any 6800XT.

I recently upgraded from that 6800XT at 3440x1440 where it's 16Gb and limits were being pressed, to a 7900XTX for the same res and 4K, and to mitigate the increase of certain negative dev trends (increasingly poor optimisation, upscalers as base requirements etc) As for the RT/DLSS advantage, they're of middling importance or difference to me at best (not often a thing for the preferred, never on console, games/genres I primarily bother maintaining a PC for) If I ever need such what AMD can do will suffice for another three years or so. Maybe by then Nvidia will release a card that is adequately resourced to not be nerfed by RT without costing near 2 grand... or AMD will be on par at least for less.

I mean, I could've stretched to a 4080, even a 4090 quite easily if I absolutely needed the best but at a grand more and issues of it's own, the 7900XTX at least left me budget to upgrade my 5800X further into this year. Imo for even the average of the price lead over the 7900XTX, either the og 4080 should've come with 20Gb VRAM, then price reduced over time... or the Super should've had a boost to 20Gb. That might have made me look twice, instead of it being the placatory half measure it is at this point.

 

[EdmondRC]

I mean, there's a very distinct set of games for PC and consoles. And then there's some in between.

For instance, I'd never play TLOU, or CTR, or Horizon on the PC. Just like I'd never play SC2 or D2R on a console.

But having to spend several thousand dollars for a high-end gaming PC is a complete joke. Not to mention the utter lack of resale options. On consoles I can grab the disc used for half the price, then pass onto the next person - idealliy for the same price. So you can literally play for free. On the PC everything's linked to your accounts.

So yeah, PC gaming is outperforming consoles, but I just can't understand how. Do people have too much money to spend?

1. Most PC gamers have <$300 US GPUs. You can build a very decent $700 gaming PC again. You don't need a 4070 Super, most people are still buying 4060s and 7600s or used previous gen parts.
2. You can't upgrade consoles. Your PS5 cannot become a PS5 Pro, but your PC can.
3. You don't have to worry if your games will be cross gen compatible
4. Modding, I am just now playing through FFXIII, not sure why, but I decided to pick up the entire series on PC for less than $20. Each game has HD texture packs available to make the game look better in 4K
5. Emulation, YUZU, RPCS3, CEMU, Dolphin and many more are excellent emulators that allow you to play your games that never made it to PC officially, with enhancements
6. Multi-Purpose, PCs can do much more than a console
7. Wider input support. I like mouse for FPS and P&C games, but controller for adventure, action games.
8. Availability of games and typically better than console pricing, though not as good as it used to be on this one.
...and there are many more reasons, but this is a good start

 

[StrikerRocket]

Bought a second hand Asus ROG Strix 3080 OC a little more than a year ago for 45% of its retail price in France at the time (I paid €635), and it was/is still under warranty until August 2024.
This 4080 super will stay on the shelf as far as I'm concerned. The 3080 is still plenty fast on a good 1440p monitor like my 165 Mhz MSI MAG274QRF-QD, and upgrading now is not justified IMHO.
I will squeeze the 3080 dry before upgrading, and use the money for something more important than gaming...