NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080: specs and benchmarks
Summary
NVIDIA started GeForce RTX 3080 sales 16 September 2020 at a recommended price of $699. This is high-end Ampere architecture desktop card based on 8 nm manufacturing process and primarily aimed at gamers. 10 GB of GDDR6X memory clocked at 19 GHz are supplied, and together with 320 Bit memory interface this creates a bandwidth of 760.3 GB/s.
Compatibility-wise, this is dual-slot card attached via PCIe 4.0 x16 interface. Its manufacturer default version has a length of 285 mm. 1x 12-pin power connector is required, and power consumption is at 320 Watt.
It provides outstanding gaming and benchmark performance at 92.24 percent of a leader's which is AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT.
General info
Of GeForce RTX 3080's architecture, market type and release date.
Technical specs
GeForce RTX 3080's general performance parameters such as number of shaders, GPU base clock, manufacturing process, texturing and calculation speed. These parameters indirectly speak of GeForce RTX 3080's performance, but for precise assessment you have to consider its benchmark and gaming test results.
Compatibility, dimensions and requirements
Information on GeForce RTX 3080's compatibility with other computer components. Useful when choosing a future computer configuration or upgrading an existing one. For desktop video cards it's interface and bus (motherboard compatibility), additional power connectors (power supply compatibility).
Memory
Parameters of memory installed on GeForce RTX 3080: its type, size, bus, clock and resulting bandwidth. Note that GPUs integrated into processors don't have dedicated memory and use a shared part of system RAM.
Video outputs and ports
Types and number of video connectors present on GeForce RTX 3080. As a rule, this section is relevant only for desktop reference video cards, since for notebook ones the availability of certain video outputs depends on the laptop model.
API support
APIs supported by GeForce RTX 3080, sometimes including their particular versions.
Benchmark performance
Non-gaming benchmark performance of GeForce RTX 3080. Note that overall benchmark performance is measured in points in 0-100 range.
Overall score
This is our combined benchmark performance rating. We are regularly improving our combining algorithms, but if you find some perceived inconsistencies, feel free to speak up in comments section, we usually fix problems quickly.
3DMark Cloud Gate GPU
Cloud Gate is an outdated DirectX 11 feature level 10 benchmark that was used for home PCs and basic notebooks. It displays a few scenes of some weird space teleportation device launching spaceships into unknown, using fixed resolution of 1280x720. Just like Ice Storm benchmark, it has been discontinued in January 2020 and replaced by 3DMark Night Raid.
3DMark Fire Strike Score
3DMark Fire Strike Graphics
Fire Strike is a DirectX 11 benchmark for gaming PCs. It features two separate tests displaying a fight between a humanoid and a fiery creature seemingly made of lava. Using 1920x1080 resolution, Fire Strike shows off some realistic enough graphics and is quite taxing on hardware.
3DMark 11 Performance GPU
3DMark 11 is an obsolete DirectX 11 benchmark by Futuremark. It used four tests based on two scenes, one being few submarines exploring the submerged wreck of a sunken ship, the other is an abandoned temple deep in the jungle. All the tests are heavy with volumetric lighting and tessellation, and despite being done in 1280x720 resolution, are relatively taxing. Discontinued in January 2020, 3DMark 11 is now superseded by Time Spy.
3DMark Vantage Performance
3DMark Vantage is an outdated DirectX 10 benchmark using 1280x1024 screen resolution. It taxes the graphics card with two scenes, one depicting a girl escaping some militarized base located within a sea cave, the other displaying a space fleet attack on a defenseless planet. It was discontinued in April 2017, and Time Spy benchmark is now recommended to be used instead.
3DMark Ice Storm GPU
Ice Storm Graphics is an obsolete benchmark, part of 3DMark suite. Ice Storm was used to measure entry level laptops and Windows-based tablets performance. It utilizes DirectX 11 feature level 9 to display a battle between two space fleets near a frozen planet in 1280x720 resolution. Discontinued in January 2020, it is now superseded by 3DMark Night Raid.
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Passmark
This is probably the most ubiquitous benchmark, part of Passmark PerformanceTest suite. It gives the graphics card a thorough evaluation under various load, providing four separate benchmarks for Direct3D versions 9, 10, 11 and 12 (the last being done in 4K resolution if possible), and few more tests engaging DirectCompute capabilities.
Game benchmarks
Let's see how good GeForce RTX 3080 is for gaming. Particular gaming benchmark results are measured in frames per second. Comparisons with game system requirements are included, but remember that sometimes official requirements may reflect reality inaccurately.
This video card matches 100% minimum and 100% recommended requirements of all games known to us.
Here are the average frames per second in a large set of popular games across different resolutions:
1920x1080
Medium Preset
1920x1080
High Preset
1920x1080
Ultra Preset
2560x1440
High Preset
2560x1440
Ultra Preset
3840x2160
High Preset
3840x2160
Ultra Preset
Relative perfomance
Overall GeForce RTX 3080 performance compared to nearest competitors among desktop video cards.
AMD equivalent
We believe that the nearest equivalent to GeForce RTX 3080 from AMD is Radeon RX 6800 XT, which is slower by 4% and lower by 2 positions in our rating.
Here are some closest AMD rivals to GeForce RTX 3080:
Similar GPUs
Here is our recommendation of several graphics cards that are more or less close in performance to the one reviewed.
