The Nvidia RTX 2080 and 1080 Ti are both powerful gaming graphics cards, but which should you
pick, and is it worth upgrading? In this video we’ll check out a heap of game benchmarks
at 4K, 1440p, and 1080p at all setting levels to help you see the performance difference
between them.
For the testing I’m using the MSI 2080 Duke, expect a full review on that in a future video.
The 1080 Ti on the other hand was just a generic Sapphire card that I borrowed from a prebuilt
system.
Let’s just quickly take a look at how the 2080 and 1080Ti actually differ in terms of
specs, note that things like clock speed and power will vary between specific cards, these
are just the reference specs for each model. Important differences to take note of are
that the 1080Ti has more Cuda cores but lower base and boost clock speeds out of the box.
The 2080 has less memory, but has a higher memory speed owing to it now being GDDR6 in
the 20 series.
Finally before we get into the gaming benchmarks let’s check out the system that was used
for testing. I’ve got an Intel i7-8700K CPU overclocked to 5.1GHz on all cores in
order to best attempt to remove CPU bottlenecking, as well as 16GB of memory running at DDR4-2666
in dual channel. All tests were run with the same Windows and game updates applied, however
different Nvidia drivers were used, as the RTX cards launched with a newer driver, at
the time of testing however these were the latest available for 10 and 20 series cards
respectively.
With all of this in mind let’s check out the gaming results!
Fortnite was tested with the same replay, at 1080p we’re getting excellent frame rates
with either card, although the 2080 is coming out ahead at the higher setting levels, 3.8%
better at epic settings on average. Moving up to 1440p the frame rates drop down a bit
at the higher levels, with the 2080 still ahead for the most part, giving us a little
more 4.5% improvement at epic settings. At 4K the differences between both cards is much
less noticeable, perhaps a miniscule edge to the 2080.
Assassin’s Creed Origins was tested with the built in benchmark, and again at 1080p
the 2080 is coming out ahead at the higher setting levels but performing slightly less
at lower settings. At max settings the 2080 is just 2.4% ahead of the 1080Ti in average
frame rates. At 1440p the frame rates drop back a bit, and now the 2080 has pulled out
ahead at all setting levels, with a larger 6.2% performance increase to average frame
rates at max settings. The frame rates drop back quite a bit in 4K with a 5.2% improvement
at max settings with the 2080, but the difference between the two rises as the setting level
drops down.
Far Cry 5 was also tested using the built in benchmark, and at 1080p there are minimal
differences in performance between this game at the average frame rates, while the 1080Ti
was actually slightly ahead in 1% lows. Stepping up to 1440p the 2080 starts to pull out ahead,
at ultra settings it’s now performing 6.7% better than the 1080Ti with not much changes
to differences in 1% low. At 4K the average frame rates almost half, and at ultra settings
the 2080 is performing 7.9% better here.
Ghost Recon was also tested with the built in benchmark, at 1080p the 2080 was giving
me a 7.6% improvement over the 1080Ti in average frame rates, and a 10% improvement to the
1% low. At 1440p things drop a bit but we’re still seeing nice results with either card,
but just a 5% performance improvement with the 2080 at ultra settings this time around.
As this game is pretty resource intensive it doesn’t go too well at 4K at higher settings,
there’s not much difference between the two at all here and the results are fairly
equalized now.
Overwatch was tested in the training area while running through the same route, at 1080p
the settings are insanely good as expected, the game caps out at 300 FPS and can be averaged
at most setting levels. At 1440p we’re still getting very high frame rates, even at epic
settings, however the 1080Ti appears to be around 3% ahead of the 2080 here, not too
sure why that’s the case in this game, but the same pattern was also seen in the 4K results,
where the 2080 was just slightly behind, at epic settings the 1080Ti was now 7.3% better
here in the average frame rates.
CSGO saw similar results at 1080p, with the 2080 slightly behind the 1080Ti. Going up
to 1440p the gaps close a little between the two cards, however the 1080Ti is still ahead
for the most part. This doesn’t really change at 4K, the 1080Ti is still slightly ahead,
although the differences between the two at this resolution are much fewer.
Rainbow Six Siege was tested with the built in benchmark, we’re getting crazy high frame
rates regardless of setting level however the 2080 was clearly ahead here, performing
about 10.4% better than the 1080Ti at ultra settings. At 1440p the frame rates are still
quite high, again with the 2080 in front regardless of setting level, a larger 17.6% improvement
to average frame rate was seen with the 2080 here. At 4K the 2080 is still scoring around
19% better in average frame rates at ultra settings, although both cards are still able
to give us above 100 FPS in this title.
PUBG was tested using the replay feature, at 1080p we’re getting really high frame
rates at all setting levels, with the 2080 performing around 4.6% better in the averages
at ultra settings. At 1440p I was seeing a larger 7.1% improvement to the average frame
rate at ultra settings with the 2080, with similar boosts seen at all setting levels,
bigger differences than what we saw at 1080p. At 4K the results are fairly close together,
although the 2080 appears to be just slightly ahead in average frame rates, just 1.4% better
than the 1080Ti at ultra settings in this test.
Shadow of war was tested using the built in benchmark, and at 1080p there was a 4.5% improvement
when maxed out using the 2080. At 1440p the 2080 is again ahead in all tests, although
rising up to 11.1% higher than the 1080Ti at ultra settings this time. At 4K the results
come a little closer together, a 7.3% improvement with the 2080 at ultra settings this time.
Watchdogs 2 is quite a resource intensive game, but we’re getting great performance
at 1080p with either card, although the 1080Ti was ahead, performing 6.6% better than the
2080 at ultra settings. Frame rates drop down a little at 1440p, but overall are still quite
good. At ultra settings this time the difference between the two is very close together. 4K
was still pretty playable at most setting levels, and again at max settings the differences
between the two cards are extremely small and realistically within margin of error ranges,
however at all other setting levels it’s a bit clearer that the 2080 was coming out
slightly ahead at this resolution.
I’ve also tested some benchmark tools, in Unigine’s Superposition benchmark they both
seemed to trade blows depending on the particular test, and then a fairly similar story when
we look at the various 3DMark tests, in either case the results are quite good.
In terms of improvement, over all the games tested at max settings with a 1080p resolution
on average the 2080 was performing just 2% better than the 1080Ti, although as we can
see there is quite some difference between the different games. At 1440p on average over
the same games the 2080 was now performing 5.4% better than the 1080Ti in these titles,
but again it really seems to vary depending on the specific game. At 4K the 2080 was on
average 3.2% better than the 1080Ti, but again this varies a fair bit between games, it would
be nice if I could test more games but this data already took 3 days to collect as is.
It’s also worth emphasizing the differences in my actual cards that I’m testing with,
it would have been nice to have say an MSI 1080Ti Duke to test with to make the cards
fairly similar as I was using a 2080 Duke, but this is what I had available to test with,
with a better 1080Ti I think the performance gap could close a little more, realistically
I think the differences in performance are fairly small and for the most part are not
too significant, but as shown it varies between game.
Overclocking wasn’t tested here for a couple of reasons, firstly there simply just wasn’t
time, and secondly the amount you’ll be able to overclock will depend on the specific
design of the card, and will therefore vary anyway. Don’t worry though, I’ll check
out overclocking in the full 2080 review, so make sure you’re subscribed for that.
I also haven’t actually been able to test any RTX specific titles, as there aren’t
any at the time of recording, so once RTX is actually utilized more in the future, the
20 series may become more useful, I guess the testing here makes the comparison more
apples to apples though.
Now for the final difference, the price. I suggest checking updated prices using the
links in the description, as they will change over time and I’m currently working off
pricing a day before the 2080 becomes available to buy. At the time of recording, MSI’s
2080 Duke that I’m testing with goes for around $830 USD, although the prices for a
2080 seem to range from $750 to $900. The cheapest 1080Ti at the time of recording on
the other hand, starts at $600 USD and most go to around $800 or so, so overall in general
the 1080Ti does seem to be a bit cheaper currently, although it of course will vary quite a bit
based on the specific model of card you’re after.
If we look specifically at MSI’s 1080Ti Duke, it’s about $60 USD cheaper, or 6%
cheaper, and when considering the performance difference of the 2080 just being 3% at 4K,
5% at 1440p, and 2% at 1080p, in terms of raw value the 1080Ti looks like a better deal
at the moment. If you’ve already got a 1080Ti there’s no real reason in upgrading to a
2080, maybe a 2080Ti if you really want to have the best or if you really need ray tracing.
So which graphics card would you pick? The older but definitely still capable 1080Ti,
or newer RTX 2080? As the results were so close together personally I’d probably just
go for whatever was cheapest at the time, although keep in mind that if you do plan
on taking advantage of RTX in the future then the 2080 would be the best choice for you,
we’ll just have to wait and see how well the new technology is utilized in upcoming
games and future updates before we really know for sure. In any case I think it’s
pretty cool that the 2080 is so close to the 1080Ti, it just makes me more interested to
see how far ahead the 2080Ti is.
Let me know which card you’d pick down in the comments, and don’t forget to subscribe
for the 2080 review as well as future tech videos like this one.