Nvidia’s new RTX 3080 Ti graphics card is here, but how does it compare against the
cheaper RTX 3080, or should you just spend extra and go for the 3090?
I’ve compared all three at three resolutions in 17 different games to show you where the
3080 Ti fits in.
The 3080 Ti nearly has 18% more CUDA cores than the 3080, while the 3090 has just 2.5%
more compared to the 3080 Ti, so a much smaller gap there.
The 3080 Ti has a couple more gigabytes of VRAM compared to the 3080, but still half
the total capacity of the 3090, however the memory speeds of the 3080 Ti are much closer
to the 3090.
Based on these specs, and the price, I’m expecting the 3080 Ti to be closer to the
3090 than the 3080.
I’m testing with Nvidia’s founders edition of the 3080 and 3080 Ti, unfortunately I don’t
have their 3090 so I’m instead using MSI’s Gaming X Trio.
This is the system that I’m using to test all three GPUs in, so AMD Ryzen 9 5900X CPU
and 32 gigs of DDR4-3200 memory are the key specs.
I’ve used MSI’s B550 Tomahawk motherboard and resizable BAR was enabled on all three
cards.
I’ll start with gaming benchmarks, followed by power draw, content creator workloads,
then pricing and availability afterwards, or you can time travel to whichever part is
relevant to you with those timestamps below.
Cyberpunk 2077 was tested in little china with the street kid life path.
I’ve got the 1080p results down the bottom, 1440p results in the middle, and 4K up the
top.
At high settings the 3080 Ti was reaching 9% higher average FPS compared to the 3080,
while the 3090 was only offering a 4% higher lead over the 3080 Ti.
Red Dead Redemption 2 was tested using the games benchmark.
There’s no real difference between all 3 cards at the lower 1080p resolution, we’re
typically going to see bigger differences at higher resolutions as we become more GPU
bound.
The 3080 Ti was offering 6% higher average FPS over the 3080 at 1440p and 9% higher at
4K, which are below average differences.
The gap is even smaller between the 3080 Ti and 3090, with the 3090 just 3 to 4% faster
at 1440p and 4K respectively.
I’ve tested Control with and without ray tracing, let’s start with ray tracing off.
This is a GPU heavy game, so even at 1080p there are above average gains with either
the 3080 Ti or 3090.
The 3080 wasn’t quite capable of 60 FPS at 4K max settings, though it’s close, but
the 3080 Ti was 11% higher, while the 3090 was just 4% higher than the 3080 Ti, or in
this case, less than 3 FPS.
Here’s how things change with ray tracing, now we could of course improve these results
by enabling DLSS as all cards support it, but I wanted to get an idea of differences
in ray tracing.
Percentage-wise there’s not that much difference, at 1440p the 3080 Ti is still reaching around
11% higher average FPS compared to the 3080 both with and without ray tracing.
Microsoft Flight Simulator was tested in the Sydney landing challenge.
This game consistently saw one of the smallest differences out of all 17 games tested.
The 3080 Ti and 3090 are basically offering differences within margin of error, but even
in the best case they’re only 2 to 3 FPS ahead of the 3080, so nothing major.
Assassin’s Creed Valhalla was tested with the game's benchmark, and was another game
that saw below average differences between these three cards.
Even 4K was just able to reach 60 FPS with the 3080, and as someone who played through
the whole game on the 3080 at 4K with this setting preset I don’t have anything to
complain about.
The 3080 Ti is only reaching 6% higher average FPS here, the smallest difference at this
resolution out of all 17 games tested.
Watch Dogs Legion was also tested with the games benchmark.
The differences were bigger here, but still generally below average out of the titles
tested.
2-3 FPS difference between each graphics card at 1080p honestly isn’t going to be anything
you’re likely to notice in practice.
The gaps get bigger at higher resolutions, but still it’s not like any of this is going
to result in unplayable performance, the 3080 is by no means bad or anything compared to
its Ti counterpart.
Fortnite was tested with the same replay file with each graphics card, and the differences
in this game were above average compared to most, but at the end of the day above 100
FPS at max settings with the lowest of the three GPUs at 4K isn’t going to be an issue.
The 3080 Ti saw the biggest performance gain over the 3080 in this game at 1440p with an
11% higher average frame rate.
I’ve also tested 10 other games, but rather than talk through each individual game I’ll
just skip through them now, as for the most part the results aren’t all that different
to what we’ve already seen.
Feel free to pause the video at any time for a closer look, but for now let’s dig into
the overall differences between these three graphics cards at three different resolutions.
On average the new RTX 3080 Ti is around 5% faster in terms of average FPS over the RTX
3080 in all 17 games at the lower 1080p resolution.
Some games like F1 2020, Red Dead Redemption 2 and Death Stranding had basically no differences,
while best case the 3080 Ti was 9% faster, though as mentioned earlier we’re expecting
lower differences at lower resolutions.
Stepping up to 1440p and the 3080 Ti is now almost 8% ahead in the same selection of games.
Again some games only saw very minor differences, however the gap between the two GPUs is generally
larger now, the best case difference is now Fortnite with an 11% lead on the 3080 Ti.
Now at the highest 4K resolution we’ve got 8 games that are 11% or higher on the 3080
Ti compared to just one at 1440p, confirming that the differences are bigger the higher
the resolution.
On average the Ti is offering us a 10% performance uplift compared to the non Ti.
Now let’s look at how much faster the 3090 is over the new 3080 Ti, less than a 3% difference
in the same selection of games at 1080p, which is smaller than the 5% difference we saw between
the 3080 Ti and 3080 earlier.
I doubt most people will be buying these top end GPUs for 1080p, so moving over to 1440p
we’re now looking at a 3.6% boost to average frame rate with the 3090, so again lower compared
to the 8% difference noted between the 3080 and the 3080 Ti.
Things don’t change too much at 4K, the 3090 is still around 4% faster than the 3080
Ti, quite a bit smaller compared to the 10% lead of the 3080 Ti over the 3080.
Here’s how much power the whole PC was pulling from the wall in Control at 4K max settings.
The 3080 Ti is drawing around 5% more power than the 3080 while also performing 11% better
in terms of average FPS, sounds alright.
The 3090 on the other hand was 8% more power than the 3080 Ti while only offering a 4%
boost to average FPS.
This is just a sample size of one, but the 3080 Ti is looking more power efficient.
Just before we get into the pricing let's check out some content creator workloads,
it’s not all just about gaming.
I’ve tested DaVinci Resolve with the Puget Systems benchmark, and all three are scoring
quite closely together, though the gap between the 3090 and 3080 Ti was larger compared to
the 3080 and 3080 Ti, maybe due to the memory.
This wasn’t the case in Adobe Premiere, where the scores are even closer together
now, the 3080 Ti and 3090 are essentially the same here.
Resolve seems to depend more on the GPU than Premiere.
Blender was tested with the Open Data benchmark using CUDA, and again the 3080 Ti and 3090
were basically scoring the same in this test while the 3080 was a little slower comparatively.
It’s a similar deal in V-Ray too, another CUDA test, not too surprising given the CUDA
core count of the 3090 is just 2.5% higher than the 3080 Ti, the 3090’s V-Ray score
is just 2% higher.
The 3080 Ti was scoring 27% higher than the 3080 here, though the CUDA core increase is
18% more with the Ti.
Now let’s discuss prices, which is honestly quite difficult given all the availability
issues.
Checking Newegg today and the RTX 3080 is still out of stock, but that said there are
some MSRP listings that do get stock from time to time.
For the most part you can only readily find options available at higher prices and when
paired with random motherboards or power supplies.
With that in mind, these are the cost per frame differences between all three graphics
cards when assuming MSRP values, which I admit may not be particularly useful today, but
I don’t have a whole lot to work with, it’s just difficult to get accurate pricing in
today’s market, it is what it is.
Anyway the RTX 3080 is the best value and although the 3080 Ti offers better value compared
to the 3090, its higher price puts it closer to the 3090 than the 3080.
Honestly I think we were all expecting a $1000 3080 Ti to tackle AMD’s RX 6900 XT.
The 3080 Ti is basically a 3090 in gaming but for less money.
I can’t say that I would want to spend $300 or 25% more money just to get a 4% extra boost
in games.
Yeah the 3090 is better and it’s got double the VRAM, but as we’ve just seen in most
of today’s games that doesn’t really matter.
If you’re a content creator and you know you need that VRAM then it might be a different
story.
Honestly I thought the 3080 was delivering excellent results even at 4K in modern games
with high settings.
I’ve been using it for 4K gaming lately and it’s been going great, I’m perfectly
happy with it and I can’t say I would want to spend 71% more money on the 3080 Ti just
to get a 10% performance boost.
Obviously if you already have a 3090 or a 3080 then this video isn’t that useful for
you, but if you are deciding between one of these three today, personally I’d be leaning
towards the 3080.
Maybe the 3080 Ti if I had extra money to burn and I wanted that extra 10% performance,
while I’d stay away from the 3090 unless I was just straight up rich and wanted the
best option.
Now the next question I had was how does Nvidia’s RTX 3080 Ti compare against AMD’s Radeon
RX 6900 XT, given this is closer in price to this compared to either of these two options,
well I’ll be comparing them in tomorrow's video, so make sure you’re subscribed for
that one.
If you’re watching this video and that comparison is already available I’ll link it over here,
otherwise for now I’m sure there will be some other interesting fun video for you to
check out, so I’ll see you over in that one next.