Nvidia RTX 4080 Graphics Card Review

How Much Does It Cost?

Stock and prices are all over the place, as one really expects from a new GPU these days, so it’s hard to nail down what you would actually have to pay right now. However, you can check for up-to-date stock and prices on Amazon US and UK here.

Overview

So I think this is a record for the most comprehensive review of a graphics card that we’ve ever done and I’ll firstly apologise for the sheer length of it because I just kept adding to it as there’s so much to cover, so hopefully, it’s appreciated.

I’ll try and keep this part short and sweet because I think the performance speaks for itself. The RTX 4080 is a beast, but the price I know just doesn’t sit right with most consumers who argue that it’s out of reach for the average gamer, but I want to make one thing clear. The 4080 and 4090 aren’t for the average gamer. They truly are next-level performance and that’s so clear to see when you look at the lower-resolution performance which just ends up bottlenecked by the current lineup of CPUs. Sure, we could have used the 5800X3D which would have seen huge performance gains in some titles, but the 12900K that we used, still beats it in other titles. I guess, now, more than ever, we need next-level CPUs in terms of 3D cache, on the Ryzen 7000 series. Until then, DLSS 3 really does make up the difference and frankly shocked me in certain titles, like Cyberpunk and Spider-Man and from a first glance, looks absolutely gorgeous, but as I said, I do want to drill down further into that in the near future, so keep your eyes peeled for that.

DLSS 3

So ok, DLSS was always impressive and has gotten better over time, while DLSS 3 just takes it one step further. I mean, before I even came into this, I expected some pretty amazing things, based on what NVIDIA had already shown us, but you know how it can be with these canned benchmarks that brands show, and that’s why it’s so important that we’re able to come in and show you what it’s really all about.

Now we will be looking at DLSS 3 in a bit more detail in the near future because while it’s great, I think there are some tradeoffs in terms of visual quality and smoothness, and this is something we need more time to fully analyse, but we wanted to wait to see more titles to grab a bigger pool of testing data and along with that data, we want to really delve into the quality side of things, because while FPS is great and in typical fashion, the higher number is better, there’s a bit more to it than that.

The biggest part that worries me about DLSS 3 is actually on future products that can’t already achieve high performance to start with because based on our experience, they kind of go hand in hand.

I guess a lot of that really comes down to the types of games you play, and if you really need over 144 frames per second, compared to having a visually stunning game at a lower FPS, like 80 for instance and along with that, to really appreciate the visuals, you’ll want a monitor that can handle it too, but as I mentioned, that’s something for some future content so make sure you don’t miss out on that.

Founders Vs AIB

Now when it comes to each model, including the FE from NVIDIA. I think there’s an argument for all of them. Style, overclocking, cooling performance, acoustics, temperatures. They all have their strong points but I fear, much like the RTX 4090 launch, you may be restricted to what’s available, but hopefully I’m wrong and things are better. I mean, the die size is smaller, so yields should be better, so stock should be better, so who knows. Fingers crossed, but hopefully, this review has given you an idea as to what you should expect, and what options you do have.

The big question is, are you going to buy it? I’m intrigued to know because as you saw, it actually comes in fairly competitive when looking at the cost per frame of retail prices at the moment, especially at 4K, which is pretty impressive, considering you’ll always be expected to pay an early adopters tax with any new technology, though older cards have seen a bit of a rise in price again lately, so I’ll let you do your own sums to see if you think it’s worth it.

Should I Buy One?

For me, I love the 40 series. It’s the first generation of GPUs that has genuinely got me excited about graphics cards again, and while the 4090 was just a beast, the 4080 still has the same essence as it, but for a lower price. I just hope that supply and demand isn’t an issue and that we see it for $1200 or just under £1300 in the UK, though I do worry, for pure rasterisation, what has AMD got up their sleeves? I guess we’ll have to wait a little longer to see what happens on that front and who comes out victorious.