Nvidia RTX 2080 SUPER Founders Edition Review

How Much Does It Cost?

The Nvidia RTX 2080 Super Founders Edition is available now with an MSRP of $699 / £669. There will be AIB cards too, but the lovely cooler and design from Nvidia both come with a premium of their own, as we all know. Personally, I don’t mind paying extra given how well made the Founders Edition cards tend to be, but I can’t tell you how to spend your own money.

Overview

The Nvidia RTX 2080 SUPER Founders Edition is a welcome upgrade to the RTX 2080. However, I must admit that after using the RTX 2080, I didn’t think it was particularly underpowered really. Of course, when it comes to gaming performance, frame rates matter, and there’s no confusion here when it comes to the format of pay a little more and get a little more from the SUPER cards. What did surprise me is just how much of a boost you can get. Closing the gap on the RTX 2080 Ti while still being around half the price! Well, who doesn’t love that?

Gaming

Sure, you can game at 1080p on this card, and if you’re rocking a 144Hz+ display, you’ll be able to keep those quality settings pretty much maxed out in whatever you choose to play. Even at 1440p using High settings, hitting North of 100 FPS is easy work, and I’d expect similar performance at 3440 x 1440 too. For 4K gamers though, it’s just on that sweet spot for pretty much every game. You can keep the pixel count high, the quality high, and still hit the mark on your 60 FPS target.

Added Value

Ray Tracing and DLSS, of course! Without DXR enabled, we were hitting 100 FPS and 61 FPS at 1440p and 2160p respectively. However, with Ray Tracing and DLSS enabled, the game not only looked stunning but was running at 116 FPS and 77 FPS for the two resolutions.

The fantastic Founders Edition cooler is still one of the best looking and best made on the market too. It ran pretty cool and quiet as one would expect, backed up with superb efficiency. Overclocking did give us a 5-6% performance boost, but honestly, I’d rather keep the card running cooler and quieter; it’s not like it was slow anyway.

Should I Buy One?

If I were on the market for a high-end graphics card, which I often am, the RTX 2080 SUPER would be second on my list. I’d be looking at the RTX 2080 Ti with puppy eyes through the shop window, crying into my wallet, and then walk right in and buy the RTX 2080 SUPER. Despite that, I would have no regrets about the SUPER once it was in my rig. It’s well made, it’s only somewhat painfully expensive compared to the flagship card, and it’s SUPER-fast when it comes to gaming; which is what we really want.