INNO3D RTX 4080 Super X3 Graphics Card Review

INNO3D has a lot of great-looking cards in their current collection, and their new RTX 4080 Super is set to be no exception. As a (slightly) upgraded replacement for the now retired RTX 4080 (non-Super), these new cards should offer up some modest performance improvements from the previous version, but most interestingly, they come in at the same MSRP. Now, admittedly, the Super series thus far hasn't really impressed us that much, with the RTX 4070 Super and the RTX 4070 Ti Super offering very small performance improvements over the cards they're replacing. However, it's fair to say there is nothing really wrong with their performance either. I'm expecting much the same from the RTX 4080 Super, small improvements, but again, at no extra cost, it's kinda hard to complain. What is nice to see is that INNO3D has done something a bit different with the card design. They've limited the thickness of the card to just two slots, but the flipside of that is this is a bit wider and longer than most of the cards in its class. The second flipside of that is that the wider design means this graphics card can accommodate three massive fans, so it should be one of the cooler and quieter of the AIB cards, and if you are limited on space due to card thickness, but not on width and length, then this should be an interesting card for some more unique PC cases. A Closer Look INNO3D make great-looking graphics cards, and while I loved their older cards from years ago that looked utterly bonkers with wild colours and lots of crazy fan configurations, I think it's safe to say they have matured quite a bit, and their new designs are their best yet. The new RTX 4080 Super X3 follows a similar logic to the Nvidia Founders Editions, in that they've dropped any bright colours or highlights and gone for a more toned-down aesthetic with a complete lack of RGB. This means that you could put this in an office computer or a high-end gaming rig, and it would look right in either. The two-tone angled black and brushed metal look is stunning, more like they got an architect to design it rather than a gamer, but it works very well. However, what does strike me is that it's an awfully big graphics card, and with three 100mm fans on the front of it, that's hardly surprising. What does catch my attention, however, is why it looks so big. It's a slimmer card, coming in at just 2-slots when many RTX 4080s are triple slot cards INNO3D have effectively pancaked the card flat, making it slimmer, but much wider and a bit longer as a result. The slim design does look fantastic from the side profile though, and as you can see, there's the new 12VHPWR connector tucked into the middle of the card. At the rear, there are four display connections, with three DisplayPort and a single HDMI port. Plus, you can see just how much that wider shroud extends beyond the PCI bracket! Again though, a wider card, and bigger fans, seem like a good trade-off to me! At the back, there's a large metal backplate, which provides added durability and cooling to the card, but there's also a huge section of ventilation towards the rear too. This vent allows the rearmost fan and part of the middle fan to blow air directly through the GPU, which should offer significant improvements to the cooling efficiency. With the shroud removed, you can see there are a significant number of capacitors on the PCB, more than I saw on the Founders Edition, and a range of good-quality black chokes too. There are eight 2GB memory ICs, giving the card a total of 16GB GDDR6X VRAM. The back of the PCB is very clean, with some very robust-looking solder points, everything just looks robust and heavily built, which is always a good sign. The heatsink is massive, and while it may be slimmer, it more than makes up for it with surface area, and seven heatpipes run through both sides of the heatsink and all pass right over the GPU and power delivery hardware, which has a massive contact plate to ensure both the GPU and VRAM are directly cooled. How We Test We continue to update our testing methods around once per year. As such, we re-test older hardware to reflect changes over time. These can be driver updates, Windows updates, game patches, and more; all of which have an impact on performance figures. Furthermore, we update our test benches to newer and more relevant hardware. This means that our new reviews aren’t always comparable to those of older reviews, so please compare the testing methodology on older reviews should you be trying to compare them with newer ones. Replicate Our Results When it comes to our benchmarks in our reviews, the benchmarks are pretty self-explanatory and are kept as simple as possible, although there are a few exceptions. Remember that your choice of a graphics card, CPU, the silicon lottery, and other factors can yield different numbers, and there’s always a margin for error when using any software. Links are provided below, as well as the settings we use. We encourage you to not just look at how one product compares to any other, but how it compares to your own. If you’re looking to build a new system, you should benchmark your current PC using the benchmarks available to you. You should then look at the percentage improvement from your current hardware to the hardware tested here to give you a ballpark figure of how much of an upgrade this will provide you with. Processor Test Systems Test System (GPU) Motherboard Gigabyte B650E AORUS MASTER Buy Now Processor Ryzen 7 7800X3D Review Buy Now GPU Changes Per Review RAM Corsair VENGEANCE RGB 6000MHz CL30 Review Buy Now CPU Cooler NZXT Kraken Z73 RGB Buy Now Power Supply NZXT C1000 Gold Review Buy Now Storage Seagate FIRECUDA 530 1TB Review Buy Now Chassis NZXT H9 Flow Review Buy Now OS Windows 11 Pro Version 21H2 Drivers AMD Graphics: 22.10.1NVIDIA Graphics: 521.90 Software We use a variety of software from different developers to assist in our testing and to give us the most consistent results possible. Some applications are specifically used for testing, while others are simply used for monitoring and to aid us in making sure that our results are as accurate as possible. Gaming To gauge performance levels which are easily reproduced time after time, by both ourselves and our readers, we now stick strictly to games' default profiles. Given how powerful most modern cards are getting, we've begun using more demanding profiles for most games, but will otherwise state on a per-game basis if we use other profiles beyond High, Ultra, Maximum or their respective equivalent at all resolutions. V-Sync is always disabled in our testing, and all FPS caps that can be removed are. We also enable XMP and Resizable bar technology across all platforms to keep things as fair as possible. Games While we test a lot of games, it's not possible to display all of the data on the website or in our videos. Instead, we include access to all of our testing data for our Patreon members (link), where members get a ton of other benefits as well. What we do, however, is display charts for averages across all game titles to give a better picture of performance across all titles tested. Call Of Duty Warzone Cyberpunk 2077 Death Stranding Watch Dogs: Legion Resolutions 1440p (2560 x 1440) Some tests will also include features such as NVIDIA DLSS and Ray Tracing. However, these will be clearly labelled and may only appear in reviews for graphics cards that support those features. Power Consumption Not being content on simply reading total system power draw, we now run F1 22 for an hour loop and measure power draw at the end of the loop for the most accurate measurement that represents real-world gameplay experience. Temperatures We take temperature readings after the same hour long F1 22 loop with no other background programs running, again to simulate a real-world gaming experience. A Plague Tale: Requiem Far across the sea, an island calls… Embark on a heartrending journey into a brutal, breathtaking world twisted by supernatural forces. After escaping their devastated homeland, Amicia and Hugo travel far south, to new regions and vibrant cities. There, they attempt to start a new life and control Hugo’s curse. But, when Hugo’s powers reawaken, death and destruction return in a flood of devouring rats. Forced to flee once more, the siblings place their hopes in a prophesized island that may hold the key to saving Hugo. Discover the cost of saving those you love in a desperate struggle for survival. Strike from the shadows or unleash hell, overcoming foes and challenges with a variety of weapons, tools and unearthly powers. Available now on Steam. So starting with A Plague Tale: Requiem and at 1440p on the Ultra preset, we’re looking at 1% more performance from the 4080 to the 4080 SUPER equating to just a single FPS which can be deemed as margin of error in both the averages, and the 1% lows. It’s the same story at 4K too, now hitting 60 FPS with identical 1% lows, so AMD still win with the 7900 XTX which offers up more performance but for a cheaper price at 1440p, and even beats the RTX 4090 at 4K. Baldur's Gate 3 Gather your party and return to the Forgotten Realms in a tale of fellowship and betrayal, sacrifice and survival, and the lure of absolute power. Mysterious abilities are awakening inside you, drawn from a mind-flayer parasite planted in your brain. Resist, and turn darkness against itself. Or embrace corruption, and become ultimate evil. From the creators of Divinity: Original Sin 2 comes a next-generation RPG, set in the world of Dungeons & Dragons. Available now on Steam. In Baldur’s Gate 3 we see quite a large uplift at 1440p of 7% in the averages and a much healthier 18% in the 1% lows. Likely due to the increased memory throughput along with slightly higher specs and this helps to widen the gap with AMD now by 8%. At 4K the uplift is much smaller at just 3% but this now means, even though it can be classed as a margin of error, that NVIDIA push ahead of AMD who were matching performance but still see Team Red excelling in the 1% lows. Call Of Duty Modern Warfare II Call of Duty®: Modern Warfare® II drops players into an unprecedented global conflict that features the return of the iconic Operators of Task Force 141. From small-scale, high-stakes infiltration tactical ops to highly classified missions, players will deploy alongside friends in a truly immersive experience. Infinity Ward brings fans state-of-the-art gameplay, with all-new gun handling, an advanced AI system, a new Gunsmith and a suite of other gameplay and graphical innovations that elevate the franchise to new heights. Modern Warfare® II launches with a globe-trotting single-player campaign, immersive Multiplayer combat and a narrative-driven, co-op Special Ops experience. Available now on Steam. In Call of Duty, the increase is just ahead of what we’d call margin of error, with a 5% uplift at 1440p, though again AMD still managed to push ahead by 10% with the 7900 XT and 15% ahead with the 7900 XTX so from a value for money perspective, it’s not looking as good as it could for NVIDIA. It’s a similar story at 4K where we do see a 7% uplift in framerates but the 7900 XT still sits 3% ahead of that and a whopping 21% ahead when compared to the 7900 XTX with only the RTX 4090 coming in above, but for a much higher price point. Cyberpunk 2077 Cyberpunk 2077 is an open-world, action-adventure RPG set in the megalopolis of Night City, where you play as a cyberpunk mercenary wrapped up in a do-or-die fight for survival. Improved and featuring all-new free additional content, customize your character and playstyle as you take on jobs, build a reputation, and unlock upgrades. The relationships you forge and the choices you make will shape the story and the world around you. Legends are made here. What will yours be? Available now on Steam. A small 2% gain comes by way of Cyberpunk at 1440p with no real change to the 1% lows other than a single FPS difference. Again it’s nice to see some extra performance, but AMD with both the 7900 XT and XTX still managed to come out on top by a small margin and with strong low figures, with the XTX actually pushing past the mammoth RTX 4090. At 4K, performance is identical when comparing the 4080 and 4080 SUPER and with AMD now dropping down the chart slightly, NVIDIA definitely have an argument for having the better card, but at such small margins, cost per frame is going to be an interesting point later on. In our first Ray Tracing test, again we’re talking a single 1 FPS uplift from the 4080 and retesting could see this change due to margin of error, though as expected, this does now put the 4080 SUPER 53% ahead of the 7900 XTX, so Ray Tracing could be the saving grace between the battle of the high-end GPUs. 4K again sees a single FPS difference and with identical 1% low figures, so nothing of huge contention though a healthy lead of 53% over AMD’s 7900 XTX is definitely a strong position to be in and great news for the 4080 SUPER. Far Cry 6 Welcome to Yara, a tropical paradise frozen in time. As the dictator of Yara, Antón Castillo is intent on restoring his nation to its former glory by any means necessary, with his son, Diego, following in his bloody footsteps. Their oppressive rule has ignited a revolution. Available now on Steam. Far Cry 6 is another game that sees increases in performance, but not by anything substantial where we’re only talking 4% but the 1% lows do see a larger gain of 9%, in a bid to smooth things out a little. While the performance is now closer to AMD, both the 7900 XT and XTX still hold the lead by 1 and 11% respectively. As we move up to 4K, the performance difference between the 4080 and the SUPER is negligible at just 1 FPS, but the increase of 10 FPS in the lows is very much welcomed, though AMD still manages to push ahead with the 7900 XT pumping out 3% more performance and the XTX coming in an impressive 19% ahead. When we enabled Ray Tracing, the RTX 4080 was sitting just behind the 7900 XTX, whereas now, the SUPER, thanks to an increase of 4% in the averages, nips just passed AMD in both the averages and the 1% lows which have now seen a sizable 12% uplift as well. At 4K, AMD managed to claw it back, even with a 2% increase in performance going from the 4080 to the 4080 SUPER, but at such close performance between them all, it’s nothing you’d likely ever notice, but a win is still a win, and on this occasion, it’s to the cheaper AMD card. F1 23 Be the last to brake in EA SPORTS™ F1® 23, the official video game of the 2023 FIA Formula One World Championship™. A new chapter in the thrilling "Braking Point" story mode delivers high-speed drama and heated rivalries. Available now on Steam. F1 23 already had the 4080 pushing out high frame rates of 356 FPS, and moving up to the 4080 SUPER sees that increase by 3%, though as the game does have a strong AMD bias, it’s not enough to fend off both the 7900 XT and XTX which both come in with higher performance overall. 4K is the same with a 3% increase in performance, while the 7900 XT comes in 7% faster overall, and the XTX 28% faster, though at such high levels of performance, it’s nothing the average gamer would ever notice. As we enable Ray Tracing, things get shaken up a little bit as expected. At 1440p, the 4080 SUPER sees a small 3% increase in performance over the non-SUPER, which further extends its lead over the 7900 XTX by 9% and with much stronger 1% low figures, which also see an uplift. At 4K we’re talking much smaller gains, of just a single FPS, though this just further increases the lead that NVIDIA had over AMD, now with the 4080 SUPER positioned 12% faster in this game. Hogwarts Legacy Hogwarts Legacy is an immersive, open-world action RPG. Now you can take control of the action and be at the centre of your own adventure in the wizarding world. Available now on Steam. Hogwarts Legacy sees no real change with the new 4080 SUPER as it comes in with a margin of error FPS loss, though again, as expected, the slightly healthier specs do manage to smooth out the dips with a 12% increase in the lows. This keeps the 4080 SUPER close to the performance of the 7900 XT in the averages, but is no match for the 7900 XTX which still pulls ahead of the RTX 4090. At 4K it’s a very similar story. Small but unnoticeable differences that just keep the lead over the 7900 XT, but the XTX is a hard one to ignore, which positions itself ahead of the 4080 SUPER, and only just behind the RTX 4090. Ray Tracing again helps fight the case for the 4080 SUPER with a 13% uplift in performance from the non-SUPER, which just further extends the lead over everything AMD have to offer which puts the 7900 XTX 22% behind and in the territory of being “unplayable”. It’s the same again at 4K. A 15% increase in performance which further widens the gap with AMD, though at the figures we’re seeing, upscaling is the only saving grace for any of these cards, including the RTX 4090. Marvel's Spider-Man Remastered Developed by Insomniac Games in collaboration with Marvel, and optimized for PC by Nixxes Software, Marvel's Spider-Man Remastered on PC introduces an experienced Peter Parker who’s fighting big crime and iconic villains in Marvel’s New York. At the same time, he’s struggling to balance his chaotic personal life and career while the fate of Marvel’s New York rests upon his shoulders. Available now on Steam. Moving over to Spider-Man at 1440p on the Very High preset and again, there is an increase in performance between the two 4080 cards, but at just 1 FPS, it doesn’t equate to much, other than just further improving on the lead it held over AMD now pushing 6% more performance. Then at 4K, the 4080 was evenly matched with the 7900 XTX but now, thanks to a 3% uplift, it puts NVIDIA 4% ahead of AMD’s best offering. Switching Ray Tracing on, and even at 1440p, there are some pretty severe bottlenecks, even with a 7800X3D, which actually sees the 4080 SUPER come in 2 FPS lower than the standard 4080, though silicon lottery could be at play here too, but it’s still enough to give a 5% lead over the 7900 XTX so still a win for team green. 4K has a 2% improvement over the RTX 4080 meaning that the 4080 SUPER now sports an 8% lead over the 7900 XTX as it starts to claw things back a bit. Ratchet & Clank Blast your way through an interdimensional adventure with Ratchet and Clank – now on PC! Help them take on an evil emperor from another reality as you jump between action-packed worlds and beyond at hyper-speed! Available now on Steam. Ratchet & Clank at 1440p saw AMD’s 7900 XTX ahead of the 4080 by 8%, though with a 5% increase on the 4080 SUPER, AMD do still sit ahead, but by a smaller margin of just 3%. What is clear from this game is that AMD really do a lot better in the lows, which, even with a small uplift from the 4080, it’s not enough to compete with AMD, and is definitely something that the game developer needs to fix as we find on every NVIDIA GPU, it suffers. 4K now has the 4080 SUPER ahead of AMD by a single FPS and 1% low figures that line up a little better thanks to the 6% improvement over the RTX 4080, though the 1% lows are still on the low side for anything from team green but again is more of a fault of the game if anything. Enabling Ray Tracing at 1440p doesn’t really garner anything beyond a single FPS improvement, which can be put down to margin of error, but with an already healthy lead over AMD, this just increases the margin to a 40% lead in favour of the 4080 SUPER when comparing to the flagship 7900 XTX from AMD. It’s the same story at 4K, where a single FPS improvement is seen between the 4080 and 4080 SUPER, but this means that NVIDIA now holds a 46% lead over AMD’s 7900 XTX which shows NVIDIA really are the frontrunner in terms of Ray Tracing performance. Starfield Starfield is the first new universe in over 25 years from Bethesda Game Studios, the award-winning creators of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and Fallout 4. In this next-generation role-playing game set amongst the stars, create any character you want and explore with unparalleled freedom as you embark on an epic journey to answer humanity’s greatest mystery. Available now on Steam. Lastly in Starfield, the 4080 SUPER manages to lose 1 FPS when compared to the 4080, so margin of error differences, but still sits just ahead of AMD’s 7900 XTX though with 11% more performance in the lows, it will definitely lend itself to a more fluid gameplay experience overall. Then lastly, at 4K, thanks to a 5% increase in performance which puts the 4080 SUPER at 80 FPS, it’s enough to fend off the 7900 XTX which was above the 4080, albeit by a small 3% margin, but as always, while I’m tempted to quote fast and furious, I won’t and will just say that a win is a win. Cost Per Frame & Overall Average FPS Well it’s here where the price cut makes quite a stark difference. At 1440p, we were originally seeing a cost of $8.30 per frame on the RTX 4080 based on the overall average of 144 FPS while the 4080 SUPER now comes in a pretty healthy 19% cheaper per frame. While this is nice to see, it still puts it as more costly than both the 7900 XT and 7900 XTX from AMD even though performance sits just between them when looking at the average FPS.. At 4K it’s a similar story. The original RTX 4080 was coming in at $18.52 per frame, while the new and cheaper 4080 SUPER comes in at $14.56 per frame so around 21% though again it is more expensive when compared to both top-end offerings from AMD which have seen some price cuts lately. Maybe that was in anticipation for this launch, and knowing what NVIDIA were going to come out with. DLSS It’s here in Cyberpunk where the RTX 4080 SUPER pretty much, or at least within margin of error, matches the same upscaling performance of the RTX 4080 non-SUPER. While the 4080 SUPER gave us more performance with no upscaling, the 4080 SUPER did manage to edge ahead in both DLSS and DLSS 3 tests, again, due to silicon lottery and margin of error. What we are seeing though is a 9% improvement when enabling DLSS into balanced mode, but the bigger number being 96% when we go from no upscaling to DLSS 3, now at 214 frames per second. When looking at cranking things up to the Ray Tracing Ultra preset, it’s a similar story. The 4080 SUPER is ahead in practically all tests in comparison to the 4080 non-SUPER, but again by very small margins. The more important talking point is how we’re seeing a 183% boost in performance when enabling DLSS 3 with frame generation taking us from 58 FPS to a whopping 164 frames per second whilst simultaneously looking amazing in terms of image quality. Moving over to Hogwarts and again we see big jumps in performance from our pure rasterisation test, to then enabling upscaling. Switching DLSS onto balanced mode nets us 51% extra performance, while DLSS 3 with frame generation scores another 40% more performance, equally a total of 112% extra performance over the run we did with no form of upscaling. Then lastly, when we turn Ray Tracing on, while performance is still within playable realms, the 1% low figures were dropping to around 45 FPS, and while DLSS did manage to boost the average FPS slightly, it didn’t do much for the 1% lows. Luckily frame generation comes to the rescue again giving us 128% more performance over the non-DLSS test, and increasing the 1% lows by almost 100% too. Power & Temperatures Now moving on from framerates and costing, as always, we have multiple cards with us and the big thing separating them is the power, temperatures and fan speeds. It’s here where we threw both the Founders Edition and X3 cards both onto F1 23 for a one-hour loop to see exactly how they perform for a prolonged gaming session. The INNO card ran a little warmer, likely due to its slimmer design where the GPU temperature rose to just short of 70 degrees, with a hotspot of 80 degrees and with a memory junction temperature that was also a little higher at 70 degrees. The card didn’t boost as far as the FE, at only around 2665MHz, and with lower GPU usage, almost like the card wasn’t being pushed to its fullest in this game, though the fans were certainly more noticeable at 1800 RPM, but still in the realm of being fairly quiet overall. Due to the three large fans, the total board power did increase and saw the X3 sitting around 300 Watts during our run. How Much Does it Cost? Nvidia launched the RTX 4080 with an MSRP of $1200, which is a lot of money, but you didn't need me to tell you that. The new RTX 4080 Super launches with an MSRP of $1000, still a lot of money, but for a (slightly) improved graphics card coming in as a mid-gen refresh and with a lower price, it's safe to say things are heading in the right direction for consumers, so thank you Nvidia for this one! While it's still expensive, more GPU for less money will always get a big thumbs up from us. Overview So what do we think? I think it’s clear to see that the 4080 SUPER is a step up in everything but performance. Sure, some games can utilise the extra specs that the 4080 SUPER has, but at such a small amount, it’s still within the margin of error, and the silicon lottery comes into play too. So you could argue, why didn’t NVIDIA just price cut the 4080 and while they’ve not confirmed anything with us, we do have our theories. When NVIDIA place an order for the silicon from their partners, they are paying a specific price based on the fabrication process, and the 4080 non-SUPER never saw that change, whereas the 4080 SUPER is slightly different, as per the GPU variants naming structure, so NVIDIA has found a way to refine the process, and in turn, it’s likely costing them less money. Their costs go down, and therefore they can afford to pass those savings on, whereas simply cutting the price of an existing product that’s been made under a more expensive fab process and has already been paid for, is a completely different kettle of fish. So I’m all for this, and like I said earlier. It does seem that gamers are happy to pay more for an NVIDIA card, as seen by how much of the market NVIDIA have, and the fact that AMD has even been rumoured to say that they may stop making high-end GPUs, much like we saw with the 5000 series which topped out as the 5700 series. They simply can’t compete. That’s not to say in terms of rasterisation, high frame rate numbers, but more in terms of features, and of course Ray Tracing. So that all puts NVIDIA in a really good position and allows them, yes, to charge more money, but also to do these mid-cycle changes where money and savings can be passed on. Sure we’d all like to see it cheaper, but the 4080 SUPER is still likely to outsell both the 7900 XT and 7900 XTX by a huge margin, much like the more expensive 4080 non-SUPER already has. So definitely some food for thought. I always had my feelings about how the 4080 was too expensive, but at $1000, it’s definitely a card that really has no competition when you factor in all elements including performance, Ray Tracing, upscaling, streaming and all of the other features that separate AMD and NVIDIA.