Nvidia has had a bit of turmoil lately, but it looks like the upcoming GeForce RTX 4080 graphics card could raise our hype levels again. That's thanks to a new leak, which suggests the GPU could be up to 15% faster than the RTX 3090 Ti, which itself was the most powerful graphics card in Team Green's previous generation RTX 3000.
The leak, which was reported by Wccftech (opens in a new tab), contains what appears to be various RTX 4080 benchmark results which, if accurate, give us an idea of what kind of performance the upcoming GPU will have. able to offer.
Of course, benchmark results are not the only indicator of performance and we cannot verify these results. Also, if they are real, the RTX 4080 may use early preview drivers, which could affect performance.
Still, from what we can see here, there's definitely a lot to be excited about.
Test results
In the CUDA Geekbench 5 benchmark, the RTX 4080 apparently scored 300.7k points, making it 15% faster than the RTX 3090 Ti and 45% faster than the RTX 3080, which, as the name suggests, is the card the 4080 is supposed to replace.
However, the gap between the 4080 and the previous high-end RTX 4090 is quite large, with the 4080 being 30% slower than the higher-end card.
The OpenCL benchmark shows a similar trend, with the 4080 being 9% faster than the RTX 3090 Ti and 37,5% faster than the RTX 3080. However, the RTX 4090 is 36% faster than the 4080 in these results.
In the latest leaked Geekbench 5 benchmark, which tests GPU performance with Vulkan API workloads, the RTX 4080 once again beats the mighty RTX 3090 TI, but this time by just 5,5%. It's also 20% faster than the RTX 3080 and 45% slower than the RTX 4090.
Analysis: what does it mean?
While benchmark scores, especially unverified ones for an unreleased GPU, only tell us a bit of the story, they do at least give us an idea of where to set our expectations.
If we look at the performance gap between the RTX 3080 and the RTX 4080, there seems to be quite a generation gap, so 3080 owners might be tempted to buy a 4080. However, the 4080 will launch at €1199 (around from €1050 / AU €1790). ). ), which is much higher than the €699 (£649, around AU$950) the 3080 was supposed to launch at.
Of course, in reality, the RTX 3080 has often sold for much more, due to stock shortages, and while prices have come down, the RTX 4080 will still be a compelling buy if it's available at face value.
The fact that the RTX 4080 seems to be more powerful than the RTX 3090 Ti is also pretty exciting, especially considering that the 3090 Ti is a flagship card that sold for a whopping $1,999 (about $1,600/2 AU$700). ).
This gives the RTX 4080 impressive value, although it's still expensive on its own. However, the people who went with the RTX 3090 Ti are probably true enthusiasts who want the best, and the slim performance boost the 4080 offers is unlikely to be to their liking, despite the much lower price. Instead they will see how much more powerful the 4090 is and give it a try.
However, for people who can't afford the 4090, the 4080 could be a great option that still outperforms one of the better 3000-series GPUs.
We'll find out more when we get into an RTX 4080 for review and run our full suite of benchmark tests. Will the 4080 be good enough to make our list of the best graphics cards? With the release scheduled for November 16, we won't have to wait long to find out.