It might be the 4080 Super, but it’s rather meh
Updated: Feb 13, 2024 5:05 pm
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The last of the 40 series upgrades, the RTX 4080 Super review gives us a look at if it’s worth all the trouble and changes it has. The original 4080 came out with some uproar, mainly due to the price, but maybe the Super can improve on that.
The 4080 Super release comes as an upgrade announced at CES 2024, the whole range of options comes to bring an upgrade and potential improvements to the range of GPUs already out there. Seeing as there has been quite a mixed response to the Ada series, although it might offer general improvements it also comes at a rather high cost, but does that mean the Supers might improve on that?
Nvidia graphics have in general been the top option to go for. Although AMD offers great performance and value, it falls behind in the likes of ray tracing and encoding, which makes it not as well-rounded. But the 4080 is even more expensive and above the rest, which the 4080 Super might just improve upon yet.
Gigabyte RTX 4080 SUPER 16GB WINDFORCE V2
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RTX 4080 Super pricing
One of the biggest contentions in the RTX 4080 launch was the pricing it came with. Massively increasing over the previous generation RTX 3080 that launched at $699, the 40 series option came at nearly double that with a $1,199 price tag.
But the 4080 Super launch has promised just that bit more value. It is starting that at least by lowering the price at the minimum. It has an asking price of $200 less than the original with a $999 price tag. That squares it up against the RX 7900 XTX and is still 200 above the 4070 Ti Super. That does make it all the more of a better choice even if it doesn’t improve too much on anything else, although it might just be still high for an 80 model choice.
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Gigabyte Windforce RTX 4080 Super design
Pros
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$200 less than 4080 -
Second to top performance for less -
Well thought out design expecially considering power connector
Cons
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Still on AD103 and only 16GB of VRAM -
Still an expensive 80 series GPU
The Gigabyte Windforce RTX 4080 Super provides a simple and slim solution of a custom model for it. As with the ever-growing power consumption cards got bigger as we saw with the 4090 size and all. But the 4080 Super from Gigabyte takes it down and keeps things slimmer to under three slots. It might be a bit longer but it certainly isn’t thick.
It also still damages to keep the temps under wraps with its cooling solution. Running three alternate spinning fans that are triangular, with stripe curves, does keep the airflow going well into the heatsink and takes all that heat away. Moving it into the heatsink that has great heat pipes and plate to keep the heat away from the processor. It also cuts out the metal backplate to allow airflow to escape along with a cut but the heatsink for the power connector is embedded to the side of the PCB instead so the cable fits much more nicely instead of sticking out.
Looking at the card itself, comparing the 4080 Super vs 4080 we can see the upgrades it has brought. With a boost in the CUDA core count and clock rate, you could expect an improvement in the performance over the original. It odes also has a slightly higher memory clock to all adding to a marginal improvement that we might see in the performance.
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Gigabyte Windforce RTX 4080 Super performance
A key factor is how well the card actually performs. We can see how it compares against the older RTX 4080, which you can read our review on as well but now we can see how those slight improvements upgrade the Super.
Our test setup consisted of the following:
RTX 4080 Super gaming benchmarks
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Now Starting off with CS2 we barely see any changes, with high framerates already the differences are minor with 2.6% and 0.3% lead at 1080p and 1440p against the 4080, but falls behind at 4k, but with the small differences, it can come down to test circumstances.
In AC Mirage the Super only leads by a few FPS at 1080p, with 1440p and 4k staying the same. The two trade blows in Avatar as well back and forth a few frames, and the same is true in Rainbow Six, and F1 23 where there’s a jump at 1080p as well.
Even ray tracing performance is similar without changes in the cores themselves. The Finals is the only bigger boost and is more likely down to the update between us testing the two cards than anything significant upgrades.
Is the 4080 Super worth it?
In general, the 4080 Super is most likely not worth it for you. Over the 4080 original, of course, it brings a lower price with certain improvements. Although it costs quite a penny, it still is the second-best performing GPU out there behind the 4090 itself. So if you did want all the performance behind it, then you can easily go for it, as even the AMD cards won’t keep up with it
The Gigabyte model is a good choice to go for as well. Bringing a nice-looking option and keeping performance up and prices low, it does offer a s strong choice of model to go for. Especially a better thought-out design that keeps the power cable away from the front and allows it to keep your setup clean.
