Nvidia benchmarks cast further doubt over RTX 4080 12GB GPU
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Nvidia’s RTX 4080 GPU comes in two flavors, as you probably know, and Team Green just provided some benchmarks that are a starting point to illustrate the relative performance these graphics cards will deliver.
As indicated by Overclock3D (opens in new tab) (through VideoCardz (opens in new tab)), both the RTX 4080 16GB and 12GB lower-tier model were benchmarked in three games: A Plague Tale: Requiem, F1 22, and Microsoft Flight Simulator (all of which are among the first titles to have DLSS 3 support).
As measured by Nvidia, the RTX 4080 16GB is 21%, 27% and 21% faster in those games, respectively, than the 12GB graphics card (about 23% faster on average). This runs at 4K resolution without ray tracing (rasterization performance, with DLSS enabled), on a PC with an Intel Core i9-12900K processor.
What’s interesting is that benchmarks for current-gen graphics cards are also included, and we see that in the battle of the RTX 3080 versus the RTX 3070, the first 29%, 30% and 15% are faster in those same tests, on average. at 25% faster.
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Why consider the difference between the RTX 3080 and 3070 here? Well, with the RTX 3080 being 25% faster than the 3070, we can make a comparison with the RTX 4080 16 GB vs 12 GB, with the former being 23% faster on average.
That is, the difference between the two RTX 4080 GPUs is almost the same as the gap between the RTX 3080 and 3070 (at least in this three-game benchmark). Or to put it another way, the lower RTX 4080 more or less matches the performance of what the RTX 4070 could have been.
As you may realize, the RTX 4080’s 12GB specs have been significantly reduced – it actually uses a different GPU than the 16GB flavor, a chip expected to power the RTX 4070 – and one theory is that Nvidia intended this as the 4070, and made it a 4080 variant late in the day. A theory that quite supports the above comparison with the mentioned RTX 3000 cards.
Of course, we have to keep in mind that the more powerful RTX 4080 in the 4K resolution will shine brighter, with more grunt from the GPU than at lower resolutions. Still, these benchmarks seem to underscore the performance gap between the two 4080 models, and how the lower offering seems to be positioned very well in the performance envelope of a would-be (should have been?) RTX 4070.
What we also see here is that the RTX 4080 12GB really needs that boost from DLSS 3 to outshine the RTX 3090 Ti – without the framerate booster, it’s actually a bit slower than today’s fastest Ampere card. (Remember, the 3090 Ti can only use DLSS 2, which doesn’t amplify it as much as DLSS 3 that the 4080 benefits from when upscaling technology comes into play – but of course, upscaling won’t be the norm).
If you look at the relative price of the RTX 4080 16GB versus 12GB, that’s at least in line (more or less) with the performance difference here. But the price tag pinned to the RTX 4080 12GB is still causing quite a bit of controversy online, with the most affordable initial Lovelace offering being far from really affordable. And of course, if this model had been an RTX 4070, as some have theorized as the original plan, that frustration would have been exacerbated (to say the least – considering the RTX 4080 12GB costs 80% more than the RTX3070’s MSRP) .
Part of Nvidia’s strategy here, of course, is to keep selling RTX 3000 models – Team Green called the overlap between Lovelace and Ampere a “layered” launch – but the company certainly needs to be careful not to alienate people too much with pricing, especially now that we delve deeper into what appear to be more economically challenging and uncertain times. Lest gamers turn to AMD and see what RDNA 3 could soon deliver, including a chance for Team Red to squeeze the price, one that we sincerely hope Nvidia’s great rival takes.