Alongside the Radeon RX 7900 XTX, NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 4080 and RTX 4090 are two of the fastest GPUs on the market. With over 16 thousand shaders spread across 128 SMs and 24GB of GDDR6X memory, the RTX 4090 delivers potent 4K performance within the 450W envelope. The RTX 4080 features the smaller AD103 die with 9,728 shaders or 76 SMs paired with 16GB of GDDR6X memory and a TBP of 320W. On paper, there’s a pretty substantial difference between these two GPUs, but what about real-world scenarios?
| GPU | AMD RX 7900 XTX | NVIDIA RTX 4080 FE | NVIDIA RTX 4090 FE |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPU Die | Navi 31 | AD103 | AD102 |
| SMs/CUs | 96 | 76 | 128 |
| Cores | 6,144 | 9,728 | 16,384 |
| RT Cores | 96 | 76 | 128 |
| Tensor Cores | NA | 304 | 512 |
| Base clock | 2,300MHz | 2,205MHz | 2,235MHz |
| Boost clock | 2,500MHz | 2,508MHz | 2,520MHz |
| Memory | 24GB GDDR6 | 16GB GDDR6X | 24GB GDDR6X |
| TBP | 355W | 320W | 450W |
| LLC | 96MB | 64MB | 72MB |
| MSRP | $999 | $1199 | $1,599 |
Test Bench
- Mobo: ASUS Z790 Maximus Hero
- Cooler: Lian Li Gld 360
- CPU: Intel Core i9-13900K
- Memory: 16GB x2 DDR5 6,000 MT/s CL 38
We tested 11 games at 1440p and 4K. The performance is quantized using average, 1% lows, and 1% low average FPS. The 1% low represents values lower than 99% of the FPS, while the 1% low average is the average of these entries. A quick note before we move on to the benchmarks. 4K is the only resolution where these games are fully GPU-bound. At 1440p, plenty of titles see CPU-related bottlenecks affecting the resultant performance.
GeForce RTX 4080 vs. 4090: 1440p Benchmarks
At 1440p, the GeForce RTX 4090 maintains a nominal lead of 15% to 20% over the RTX 4080. In “A Plague Tale: Requiem”, we see the former average of 121.6 FPS, 14% more than the RTX 4080’s 94 FPS. Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla produces similar deltas despite much higher averages.
Cyberpunk 2077 runs well across all hardware. Here, the RTX 4090 averages 157 FPS at 1440p, marking a 23% advantage over the RTX 4080’s 128 FPS. It’s worth noting that despite being an NVIDIA title, the Radeon RX 7900 XTX is faster than the RTX 4080 in Cyberpunk without ray-tracing.
Dying Light 2 extends the delta to 25% with averages of 223 FPS and 178 FPS for the RTX 4090 and 4080, respectively. F1, on the other hand, runs poorly on GeForce cards, with a difference of less than 10% between the two GPUs.
Ghostwire: Tokyo is of a similar sort, producing a single-digit lead of 6% for the RTX 4090 (over the 4080). The game is a little CPU-bound, resulting in limited gains for the Lovelace flagship. Hitman 3 is generally a well-balanced game with small stretches of CPU-bound scenes. All three GPUs average over 200 FPS at 4K with a paltry 9% delta between the RTX 4080 and 4090.
Hogwarts Legacy paints a similar picture, with the Radeon RX 7900 XTX beating the RTX 4090 at 1440p Ultra. The RTX 4080 averages 138 FPS, conferring a lead of 9% to its older sibling. Shadow of the Tomb Raider allows the RTX 4090 to go well past its rivals, averaging 290 FPS at 1440p, a lead of 22% over the RTX 4080.
The Callisto Protocol runs well on GeForce hardware despite being an AMD partner title. The RTX 4090 nets 185 FPS, while the RTX 4080 comes in with an average of 138 FPS.
4K and ray-tracing benchmarks on the next page…
