For the past few years, Nvidia is keeping itself on their toes to provide the gaming community with the best graphics processing unit so that they can enjoy the best performance while playing their favourite gaming titles. Nvidia recently introduced us with its turning architecture and the highlighted Ray Tracing technology that resulted in a massive increase of visuals in various games.
Ray Tracing is the future
However, let us break down the term Ray Tracing in a simple word for those who are not yet aware of the technology yet. Ray tracing can be coined as a rendering technique for generating an image by tracing the path of light as pixels in an image plane that simulates the effects of its encounters with virtual objects. This technology is capable of producing a high degree of visual realism than that of scanline rendering methods but at a greater computational cost. That’s the reason that the implementation of Ray Tracing in computer games gives an edge on overall visualization.
Performance Gain
Recently the entire gaming community again gets hyped when Nvidia announced that they are going to launch the RTX 3080 and according to them, the latter is better at performance. As per the reviews, the RTX 3080 (Founders Edition) is approximately 33% faster than the RTX 2080 Ti, 57% faster than the RTX 2080 Super, 69% faster than the RTX 2080 (Founders Edition) and surprisingly it’s even 26% faster than the Titan RTX.
However, that doesn’t make the conclusion jump over to the RTX 3080 right away. If you are using a PC that is being equipped with the latest processor, RAM, SSD’s, and other accessories but having a 1080Ti GPU, then you can go for the upgrade. On this occasion, it is indeed suitable to upgrade that 1080Ti with the RTX 3080 as it brings a lot of improvements along with the inclusion of Nvidia’s second-generation ray-tracing.
However, if you are currently using the RTX 2080 Ti, and currently thinking to get the RTX 3080, then it might not be the best choice to do so at this moment in time. The facts and figures of the specs that make the RTX 3080 superior might not be huge if you are not intending to play at 4k. Let us look into their specs that will help us to identify the differences.
Specifications comparison
| Specifications | RTX 2080 Ti | RTX 3080 |
| NVIDIA CUDA Cores | 4352 | 8704 |
| Boost Clock (MHz) | 1635(OC) | 1710 |
| Base Clock (MHz) | 1350 | 1440 |
| Memory Specs: | ||
| Standard Memory Config | 11 GB GDDR6 | 10 GB GDDR6X |
| Memory Interface Width | 352-bit | 320-bit |
| Display Support: | ||
| Maximum Digital Resolution2 | 7680×4320 | 7680×4320 |
| Standard Display Connectors | DisplayPort, HDMI, USB Type-C | HDMI 2.1, 3x DisplayPort 1.4a |
| Multi-Monitor | 4 | 4 |
| HDCP | 2.2 | 2.3 |
| PCIe Interface | 3.0 x16 | 4.0 x16 |
| Architecture | Turing | Ampere |
| TDP | 250W | 320W |
| Transistor Count | 18.6B | 28B |
| Memory Bus Width | 352-bit | 320-bit |
As you can see from the specification listed above the RTX 3080 comes with a higher number of CUDA cores along with higher clock speeds. The RTX 2080 Ti runs on Turing architecture while the RTX 3080 brings along with it the latest Ampere architecture along with 2nd generation Ray tracing that gives it an advantage over the output performance. Let us see, how the actual difference is when it comes to gaming performance.
Nvidia before the actual reviews by reviewers provided a video on Doom Eternal where it compared the RTX 2080 Ti and RTX 3080.
http://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7nYy7ZucxM
As you can see, throughout the entire gameplay sessions the RTX 2880 Ti is able to run it with an average of fewer than 100 FPS while on the other hand, the RTX 3080 is running the same game with an average FPS of 150 or more. Both the GPU’s were running the game on 4K. There are occasions where the difference in FPS on RTX 3080 was almost 50% than that of the RTX 2080.
The performance gain here over the RTX 2080 Ti is something that reviewers have now approved as they have got their hands on the Founder’s edition of RTX 3080. Check out the following comparison between the two cards in multiple games.
Now coming to the difference between the specification, the RTX 3080 comes with the latest generation of Ray Tracing that gives it an upper hand on the overall performance. Further having a higher clock frequency speed than that of the RTX 2080 Ti, also gives it a boost in performance.
Although the RTX 2080 Ti comes with more memory and a slightly larger memory interface width, however, the RTX 2080 Ti is using GDDR6 video memory and on other hand, the RTX 3080 has faster GDDR6X VRAM that means it brings a better memory speed and bandwidth.
Architectural improvements
Furthermore, the RTX 3080 also comes with Nvidia’s second-gen deep-learning supersampling (DLSS 2.0) that is able to produce higher performance due to the presence of third-generation Tensor cores (AI algorithm-powering hardware). All these sum up making the RTX 3080 more powerful than that of the RTX 2080 Ti.
But, as of now, there are not many games that utilize the ray tracing technology to its full potential except the few latest games. And moreover, if you are playing in 1440p resolution at 60 FPS, then upgrading from a GeForce RTX 2080 Ti to the RTX 3080 is definitely not going to be the best choice as of now.
Furthermore, the price factor will also play a significant role in determining whether to go for the RTX 3080 when you already have invested in the RTX 2080 Ti a few months back. The price of the RTX 2080 Ti, might also go down after the RTX 3080 is available in the market.
Conclusion
Now with all the points in mind, I think we can conclude this comparison. If you are already having an RTX 2080 Ti and you are playing games at 1440p resolution, then going for the RTX 3080 is not a good option as the performance difference in that resolution is negligible. But if you are aiming for playing in 4K, then going for the RTX 3080 will be a good option as clearly it beats the RTX 2080 Ti with a significant margin.
If you are also going to make a new build and upgrade from the GTX 1000 series then having an RTX 3080 will definitely be a quite beneficial investment. But we are yet to test the RTX 3080 on a system and after that is done, we can definitely provide a verdict. As of now, the virtual facts and figures clearly indicate that on 4K resolution, the RTX 3080 is the new killing machine.
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