Nvidia’s new GeForce RTX 4080 Founders Edition hits shops as we speak, lightning-fast efficiency and an enormous new price ticket in tow. While final era’s awesome RTX 3080 value $700 at launch, delivering a monument 60 to 80 % efficiency uplift over its predecessor, this new mannequin is releasing with a staggering $1,200 price ticket. Yes, that’s proper: a $500 (or 71 %) enhance over the price of its predecessor. For roughly 30 % extra efficiency.

Sheesh.

We’ve been placing the GeForce RTX 4080 by means of its paces. While Nvidia’s new GPU is astonishingly quick, blowing previous final gen’s RTX 3090 with ease whereas drawing a lot much less energy, that new price ticket casts an extended shadow over its launch, to such an extent that we will’t even come shut to recommending this card at this aggressively insulting value—until, maybe, should you’re utilizing it for content creation below 8K resolution. Look for our complete RTX 4080 gaming efficiency overview to land within the coming days. Today, right here’s a high-level have a look at what you want to know earlier than dropping $1,200 (or, ideally, not) on considered one of these beasts.

1: The GeForce RTX 4080 chews by means of video games

There’s no denying that the GeForce RTX 4080 is quick. Averaged throughout our 11-game testing suite—operating a wide range of graphics APIs, sport engines, and sport sorts—the GeForce RTX 4080 winds up about 7.5 % sooner than the vaunted RTX 3090, and 30.3 % sooner than the RTX 3080 (although actual efficiency uplift can differ wildly relying on the sport). Unlike final era’s playing cards, it has no drawback hitting the hallowed 60 frames per second mark at 4K decision with all the attention sweet cranked, even in powerful titles like Cyberpunk 2077.

Brad Chacos/IDG

The similar holds true for ray-traced and DLSS-enhanced video games. As we noticed with the $1,600 GeForce RTX 4090, Nvidia’s new “Ada Lovelace” structure significantly stepped up the standard of its devoted ray tracing and tensor cores to ship unparalleled efficiency in these cutting-edge video games—particularly within the handful of titles that help DLSS 3’s Frame Generation characteristic, which provides AI-generated visuals each different body to supercharge visible speeds (however not essentially responsiveness, as a result of these AI frames don’t reply to your inputs like a traditional body would). At 1440p in F1 22, the RTX 4080 hits 118fps with customary DLSS 2 on and ray tracing lively, and a whopping 234fps with DLSS 3 FG enabled!

2: The GeForce RTX 4080 chews by means of content material creation

If you employ your graphics card for work in addition to play, you’ll like what’s on supply right here—possibly. Adam “EposVox” Taylor, the web’s stream professor, already examined the RTX 4080’s workstation chops in a gauntlet of content material creation benchmarks. Bottom line? The large efficiency advantages he first witnessed in the RTX 4090 nonetheless maintain true right here, with the RTX 4080 (normally) smoking its last-gen predecessors in streaming, enhancing, AI artwork era, and extra.

But there’s a catch: The RTX 4080 solely comes with 16GB of onboard VRAM. That’s a lot for gaming, in fact, however EposVox discovered it wanting for critical video editors. Check out his full eval for dozens upon dozens of benchmarks, however right here’s the important thing excerpt on why it’s possible you’ll need to spend up for a 4090’s 24GB capability or look forward to a less expensive RTX 40-series choice as a substitute:

“Throwing the card in my Threadripper Pro build to text my intense 8K project full of 8K RAW footage, Resolve SuperScaled 4K footage, plugins and effects… unfortunately the 4080 couldn’t export this, just like the previous 80-tier cards I tested. 16GB of VRAM still isn’t enough, I suppose—plugins error out, color graded footage takes longer than the 4090, and so on. 8K is tough, but for $1,200 I would hope at this point to start to see higher VRAM capacities when Intel is handing out $350 Arc graphics cards with 16GB.”

3: It’s large

One of the perks of Nvidia’s RTX 3080 Founders Edition was its dimension. Virtually all customized 3080 boards by the likes of EVGA, Asus, MSI, et cetera have been large three- or four-slot playing cards that required plenty of room in your PC case. The RTX 3080 Founders Edition stood out by being a regular two-slot card that match into just about any system, and it seemed damned good doing it due to Nvidia’s beautiful industrial design. Yay!

Brad Chacos/IDG

Not so with the RTX 4080 Founders Edition. Nvidia determined to provide the RTX 4080 FE the identical humongous triple-slot cooler because the RTX 4090 this time round, which implies it’ll slip into far fewer programs. It’s a little bit of a perplexing design selection, for the reason that extra environment friendly Lovelace-based RTX 4080 truly attracts much less energy than the RTX 3080 FE below full load in our exams. Nvidia might’ve chosen a less expensive, extra manageable two-slot design but once more, I think—although having an enormous, silent, and frigid three-slot cooler may assist make you are feeling higher about dropping $1,200 on this card I suppose?

4: It makes use of a controversial (and ugly) energy adapter

Similarly, the GeForce RTX 4080 additionally joins the RTX 4090 in utilizing a brand new energy adapter designed to attach its new-breed 12VHPWR energy port to a few customary 8-pin energy connectors. I believe these short-cabled adapters are fugly in your case, however they’re nothing new—last-gen RTX 30-series Founders Edition playing cards additionally shipped with barely completely different 12-pin adapters. What is new are dozens of stories of melting 12VHPWR adapters on the RTX 4090. Yikes.

This isn’t something I’d personally fear about. I’ve had no issues with my 4080 or 4090 FE, and some dozen incidents over presumably tens (a whole bunch?) of 1000’s of RTX 4090 gross sales signifies a transparent drawback, however not a pervasive one. And regardless of intensive testing, GamersNexus and Igor’s Labs have been unable to copy the melted cables seen by a handful of latest RTX 4090 house owners. Hopefully Nvidia figures out the basis trigger, and it’s restricted to a nasty batch of cables or connectors on 4090s alone.

But right here, it’s one other potential level of concern in a product stuffed with tiny issues. And a $1,200 graphics playing cards actually shouldn’t stress you out. Which brings us to the principle level.

5: The GeForce RTX 4080 prices waaaaaaaay an excessive amount of

In no world must you pay $1,200 for the RTX 4080. And I think Nvidia desires precisely that.

Our full benchmark outcomes gained’t be posted till our last RTX 4080 overview launches within the subsequent day or two—a burst pipe in the course of the evening foiled my release-day ambitions—however at a excessive degree, it’s about 30 % sooner than the RTX 3080 at 4K decision with settings maxed out and ray tracing/DLSS off. That’s a stable, if unspectacular generational bounce (the RTX 4090’s 55 to 83 % leap over the 3090 was a lot extra spectacular, as was the 3080 vs. 2080), the kind you’d anticipate to see in the identical class transferring from one gen to the following. But that’s on the similar value.

Again, Nvidia is asking for 71 % more money for that mere 30 % uplift—$699 versus $1,199. At the identical $1,199 value, the RTX 4080 is barely sooner than the RTX 3080 Ti by single-digit percentages. That’s completely insane and aggressively insulting to PC players. You ought to keep far, distant from this graphics card at this value.

There are wider financial explanation why Nvidia in all probability priced the RTX 4080 this fashion. The RTX 4090 stays an incredible choice even at $1,600; it will probably max out a high-refresh price 4K monitor and chew by means of content material creation duties with out breaking a sweat, one thing no different GPU can declare, for simply $100 greater than the RTX 3090’s launch MSRP. It’s expensive, however good.

The RTX 4080 is costly however does nothing to justify its downright ludicrous value. It does, nonetheless, handle to make each the RTX 4090 and the piles of older RTX 30-series playing cards look considerably extra cheap due to the psychology of price anchoring. Nvidia and its companions are sitting on an enormous stockpile of RTX 30-series GPUs after the cryptocurrency market crashed, and sunk demand for ultra-marked-up GPUs alongside it. Consider the RTX 3080: No one would anticipate to pay anyplace close to its MSRP of $700 greater than two years after its launch. But that’s the place we’re at proper now, and subsequent to the $1,200 RTX 4080, it would seem like a discount, as a result of the RTX 4080 is 71 % extra. Nvidia is protecting each these generations alive side-by-side for a motive.

When Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang spoke to reporters after revealing Lovelace at GTC 2022, he stated, “The idea that a chip is going to go down in cost over time, unfortunately, is a story of the past.” But AMD simply revealed its next-gen “RDNA 3” Radeon GPUs and sure, they value lower than their predecessors. The Radeon RX 7900 XTX prices $999, in comparison with a $1,100 MSRP for the Radeon RX 6950 XT; the Radeon RX 7900 XT prices $899, in comparison with $999 for the Radeon RX 6900 XT (although the 7900 XT might have extra in widespread with last-gen’s 6800 XT).

We’ll need to see the place efficiency falls when AMD’s playing cards launch on December 13, but when the Radeon RX 7900 XTX manages to hit the 1.5x to 1.7x uplift (through 6950 XT) that Radeon claims, Team Red’s providing might very properly wind up simply behind the RTX 4090 and as quick or sooner than the RTX 4080 for a whole bunch of {dollars} much less.

AMD

Don’t be a sucker and pay $1,200 for this card. Don’t be a sucker and purchase a 2-year-old last-gen mannequin at full value. Either purchase an RTX 4090 if you need no-compromises gaming and creation efficiency—or wait to see what Radeon affords this time round, or look forward to Nvidia’s costs to probably fall after it sells by means of that mountain of older RTX 30-series playing cards. Because a 71 % (71 %) value enhance for a 30 % efficiency enhance ain’t it. That’s harsh, however it’s true.

Stay tuned for our full gaming overview quickly. In the meantime, take a look at Adam Taylor’s insanely detailed analysis of the GeForce RTX 4080’s content creation chops.