Best Nvidia RTX 3080
A decent gaming experience can be had with the Nvidia RTX 3080 despite its age. Once rare, it became readily accessible and somewhat more expensive in 2024, making it an excellent value. As the RTX 40 series arrived, it was no longer one of the best graphics cards, but if one was available at a reasonable price, it was still worth a look.
Nvidia Geforce RTX 3080 Price
In 2020, the Nvidia RTX 3080 cost $699, but the pandemic made it hard to find until Ada architecture graphics cards were debuted two years later. 2024 Amazon and Newegg RTX 3080s cost $500 new or used. At that pricing, this GPU with 10GB or 12GB VRAM is worth consideration.
The pricing of the 3080 seems affordable in comparison to the RTX 4080, whose MSRP has climbed to $1,199. This makes 80-class hardware more difficult to defeat. Better deals on the RTX 4070 Super and 4070 Ti Super, which retail for $599 and $799 respectively, are comparable. This could enable the generation of DLSS 3 frames.
Nvidia Geforce RTX 3080 Specs
The GA102 chip’s Nvidia RTX 3080 features 8,704 CUDA cores and 10GB or 12GB of 320-bit GDDR6X VRAM. AI-powered Nvidia DLSS 2 upscaling uses 272 Tensor cores and 68 second-generation ray tracing cores. This GPU promised 4K performance with 760.3 GB/s bandwidth and 19 Gbps effective memory.
At 1,440 MHz for base clock and 1,710 MHz for boost, the top-tier Ampere GPU in the Nvidia Founders model model may run at speeds up to those of select partner cards. The ASUS ROG Strix RTX 3080 allows for an overclock to 1935 MHz, including the review unit. When making your selection, be mindful that certain companion cards are more expensive than others.
ASUS Nvidia Geforce RTX 3080 ROG Strix
Nvidia’s RTX 3080 Design
Measuring 11.2 x 4.4 x 1.6 inches (LxWxH) and sporting a 320W TDP, the dual-slot Nvidia RTX 3080 Founders Edition GPU necessitates a minimum of 700W PSU. A partner card will determine this, since the ASUS ROG Strix is a triple-slot GPU designed for overclocking that has a larger heatsink and triple fan arrangement.
Originally, Nvidia used a special converter in their Ampere graphics card family. Instead of using standard PCIe power connectors in this specific case, a 12-pin power adaptor was used. Nevertheless, it’s crucial to remember that certain partner cards could need two or three conventional power connections. There are many of options available to you whether buying new or refurbished, with brands like Gigabyte, MSI, EVGA, and others offering 10GB and 12GB variants.
Nvidia RTX 3080 gaming performance
In tests conducted over four years after its introduction, the Nvidia RTX 3080 has not slowed down. Ray tracing enabled at 2160p, it achieves much more than 60 frames per second in 4K in popular games like CS:GO, Dirt 5, Doom Eternal, and Fortnite. In other words, it’s impressive and suggests that you won’t need DLSS 3 Frame Generation to play smoothly.
Synthetic RTX 3080 performance
In demanding virtual benchmarks like as 3DMark and Blender, the Nvidia RTX 3080 exhibits exceptional performance, proving its potency in these domains. Though it can’t quite match the performance of its predecessors from the Ada architecture family, there’s no denying the level of knowledge this graphics processing unit (GPU) can boast. It seems that both artists and filmmakers will surely be able to get some use out of this GPU, which is to be expected given the cheap pricing it is now giving for this year.
To sum up
The Nvidia RTX 3080 from Nvidia is a great improvement over GTX models thanks to its second-generation RT cores, which enhance real-time ray tracing over the RTX 2080 Ti. Native and DLSS frame rates are far higher even on the best game screens with DisplayPort and HDMI. It may be almost impossible to get a Founders Edition card these days, but there are still certain partner cards that can be purchased at a discounted price.
Ampere architecture’s memory bandwidth is still beneficial for personal computer games even when Frame Generation is absent. Particularly when considering Deep Learning Super Sampling, even the most well-known games are still being designed with the older models in mind. Apart from that, you should not have to worry about upgrading for a few years at least. Just remember that you should pair it with a high-end Intel Core or AMD Ryzen central processor unit to avoid any potential bottlenecking. When apps like Nvidia Reflex and others made specifically for broadcasters and video producers are included, this is compounded by two.
Nvidia RTX 3080 substitutes
As previously said, the best substitutes for the RTX 3080 are the RTX 4070 Super and 4070 Ti Super, which bridge the mid-range price difference between Ada and the product while maintaining/improving performance. Performance is provided by an AMD RX 7700 XT, which costs $450. Costing $999, the RTX 4080 Super offers additional power and playability comparable to that of an 80-class GPU.
