Which GPU should you choose?

• Source: Nvidia

  Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080

  More “affordable”

  This GPU somehow offers worse value

  The RTX 4080 is not the best GPU Nvidia has launched and we find it difficult to recommend this GPU in terms of value, but it’s still good enough for 4K gaming.

  Pros

  • More efficient
  • Cheaper
  • Less power draw

  Cons

  • Worse performance
  • Worse value
  • Still expensive

• 

  Source: NVIDIA

  Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090

  Best performance

  The best performing GPU money can buy

  You won’t find a better GPU than the RTX 4090 in this current generation of cards. It’s mind-blowing just how much power this single component has and how high the price tag is.

  Pros

  • Incredible performance
  • Better value
  • Epic 4K gaming with ray tracing

  Cons

  • Ridiculously expensive
  • High power draw

The graphics card is the most important component of any gaming PC. It’s what determines how well all your favorite PC games will run at various resolutions. Nvidia’s RTX 40 series of GPUs are incredibly powerful, but the company also bumped up its MSRP for the family of graphics cards, pricing many gamers out of the round. The Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 is the undisputed champion of gaming and the RTX 4080 is priced below it, but how do the two GPUs compare against one another? That’s precisely what this guide will showcase!

Price, availability, and specs

The Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 and RTX 4090 both launched on September 20, 2022. The RTX 4080 had an MSRP of $1,199 and the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 was at $1,599, making them among the most expensive graphics cards available. Availability was poor to begin with due to supply issues even though not many can afford these prices for a single component. The two GPUs offer considerable gains over previous generation cards, but the power draw and cost are both immense. Compared to AMD’s Radeon GPUs, the Nvidia RTX 40 series of cards are excellent at standard gaming and ray tracing.

• 	Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080	Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090
  Brand	Nvidia	Nvidia
  Architecture	Ada Lovelace	Ada Lovelace
  Shader Units	9,728	16,384
  Ray Accelerators/Cores	76	128
  Base Clock Speed	2,205 MHz	2,235 MHz
  Boost Clock Speed	2,505 MHz	2,520 MHz
  Memory Capacity	16 GB GDDR6X	24 GB GDDR6X
  Memory Bus	256-bit	384-bit
  Memory Bandwidth	716.8 GB/s	1,0008 GB/s
  Power Draw	320 W	450 W

The RTX 4080 and RTX 4090 are two very similar graphics cards. The RTX 4090 has 8GB more GDDR6X VRAM, a larger memory bus, more memory bandwidth, a higher power draw, slightly faster clock speeds, and almost double the number of shader units. All this results in a considerable uplift in performance over the RTX 4080. That’s not the say the RTX 4080 isn’t a good card in its own right — it can easily handle 4K gaming —but the RTX 4090 is simply the better GPU.

The Ada Lovelace architecture is identical across both graphics cards. Both GPUs utilize the same drivers and will support the same codecs. While the RTX 4080 costs $400 less in terms of MSRP, the RTX 4090 actually offers the best value in terms of price to performance. That’s an indicator of how messed up the GPU market has been these past few years.

Performance

Regardless of which graphics card you end up buying, you’re going to have an excellent gaming experience. The RTX 4080 and RTX 4090 have more than enough raw power to handle 2K and 4K resolutions with ray tracing enabled. One can expect to see a 20% drop in performance when moving from the RTX 4090 to the RTX 4080, which shows just how far ahead this flagship GPU is. The RTX 4080 is only slightly less capable than AMD’s best graphics cards.

One area where the RTX 4080 will fall short of the RTX 4090 is content creators with just 16GB of VRAM. This should be good for gaming at higher resolutions as we’re still using the same GDDR6X RAM found on the RTX 4090, but having less of it will only reduce the available performance on tap with the card having to use system memory to store additional data.

Which is right for you?

We’d recommend buying the RTX 4090 out of the two Nvidia graphics cards. If it means holding off to save enough and cover the additional cost, we feel it’s worth it. The RTX 4080 doesn’t offer great value, which makes the RTX 4090 the better pick. If you don’t feel comfortable paying more than $1,000 for a GPU, AMD’s Radeon RX 7900 XTX is an excellent flagship graphics card. The RTX 4080 is a great GPU in terms of performance and what it’s capable of, it’s just not quite good enough for the asking price.

Source: Nvidia

Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080

Less expensive to play

Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 4080 is an impressive graphics card that’s capable of smooth 4K gaming with ray tracing enabled. It’s expensive and likely not the best value GPU for your PC build, but it’s still an incredible card for gaming.

The price of the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 is quite frankly ridiculous and we don’t expect many to pay for the luxury of butter-smooth 4K gaming with ray tracing enabled. It’s an incredible piece of technology, taking the very best from Nvidia’s factory and offering the absolute best gaming experiences available. It’s likely more powerful than your monitor can handle unless it’s a 2K ultrawide or 4K panel with high refresh rates. This is the GPU to buy if you want the very best performance and value.

Source: NVIDIA

Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090

The more powerful GPU

The undisputed heavyweight champion of consumer graphics cards, nothing else comes close to the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 in performance or price.