NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER vs NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 12 GB vs NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 Super

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER

The Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER is a high-end desktop graphics card based on the Ada Lovelace architecture. It uses the AD104 chip and offers 7,168 cores and 12 GB GDDR6X graphics memory (192-bit bus with 21 Gbits).

The performance of the RTX 4070S lies between the older RTX 4070 and RTX 4070 Ti in the top class of high-end GPUs in 2024. Compared to AMD GPUs, the 4070 Super is similar fast as the AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT. This makes the GPU best suited for QHD and maximum details of demanding games (such as Avatar Frontiers of Pandora, Allan Wake 2, Cyberpunk 2033 or F1 23). Less demanding games can also be played smoothly in 4K (AC Mirage, Cod MW 3, ...).

The AD104 chip is produced at TSMC in 5 nm (4N with EUV) and is specified with a TGP (Total Graphics Power) of 200 watts.

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 12 GB

The Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 12GB is high-end desktop graphics card based on the Ampere generation. It uses the big GA102 chip and offers 8,704 shaders and 12 GB GDDR6X graphics memory. Compared to the older 10 GB model, the 12 GB model offers more bandwidth and therefore a higher TDP.

The gaming performance in 4k is clearly better than the old GeForce RTX 2080 Ti (approximately 15% faster). Therefore, even demanding games should run with maximum detail settings in 4k. Enabling raytracing will however reduce the framerate and therefore maximum details won't be playable. 

The RTX3080 is produced in 8nm at Samsung and rated at 350 Watt.

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 Super

The Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 Super is a high-end desktop graphics card based on the Ada Lovelace architecture. It uses the AD103 chip in full configuration with 10,240 cores and 16 GB GDDR6X graphics memory (256-bit bus with 23 Gbits).

The ray tracing performance is outstanding thanks to 76 dedicated cores and the 320 Tensor cores can be used for DLSS 3.

The gaming performance without DLSS is ideal for 4k with around 60fps and 2k with higher frame rates in demanding games without ray tracing effects (e.g. F1 22 or Cyberpunk 2077). With ray tracing, the use of DLSS is recommended. Compared to the competition, the performance without DLSS and ray tracing is slightly better than the significantly cheaper AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT.

The currently available RTX 4080 cards are very large (2.5 or 3 slots) and use the new 12VHPWR connector (which has caused some problems with adapters).

The AD103 chip is produced at TSMC in 5nm (4N with EUV) and is specified with a TGP (Total Graphics Power) of 320 watts (Nvidia recommends at least a 750 watt power supply).