Review Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 Review: More Efficient, Still Expensive

[TerryLaze]

First point: I would really like to see NVidia's labor/material/fab cost list, with the R&D investment factored in. Everyone complaining here seems to have access to it but I can't seem find it anywhere.

You will never see the detailed numbers that you want, BUT
https://nvidianews.nvidia.com/news/nvidia-announces-financial-results-for-third-quarter-fiscal-2022

Gross margin = 65% that's the money left over when subtracting the direct cost of production
Operating expenses = $1,960 = ~27% that's the money they spend on paying salaries doing advertising r&d and all the other ongoing costs.
Net income = 2,464 = ~35% that's the money they "put aside" and their "wiggle room" to make products cheaper if they wanted to.

But of course they also need a good net income to keep being a healthy company.

 

[Tac 25]

High end RTX cards have become status symbols amongst gamers.

maybe that behavior is prevalent only in games that require high end RTX cards?

I've been a part of the Genshin Impact community in Animesuki forums for some time now.
have not seen anyone brag or say that they are using this or that RTX gpu. lol

also a member of discord group of various fighting games, and have not seen anyone showing off their gpu. Pride comes from beating down strong opponents, not on what gpu we have installed on our pc.

 

[jsardello]

Thanks Jarred for a great comprehensive review. I've been following your work since the Maximum PC days and feel you always do a great job.

Just picked up a 4080 this morning. I know commenters aren't going to be happy with folks like me, but I've waited long enough for a new card. I'm rocking a GTX 1080 from 2016. It's totally insufficient for 1440p widescreen. I waited through the 20 series, the stupid "super" branding, a global pandemic, chip shortage, supply chain mess, and a crypto boom and bust. As Jarred pointed out in the conclusion, 30 series GPU prices have increased in the past month. At a certain point it's time to bit the bullet and upgrade. I'm tired of playing my favorite games at 30fps low settings.

So many games I'm looking forward to! I'm really excited to be getting over 100fps on Total War: Warhammer 3. I'm also really excited to play around with all the different RTX/DLSS settings for Cyberpunk, Control, and Metro Exodus all of which I haven't played yet. Looking at the charts I'm very confident the 4080 with the right mix of settings will be a fantastic experience.

 

[DougMcC]

It's called "Scalpers", they exist to ruin everything.

"Scalping" should be a capital offense and those who "Scalp" should be given life in jail w/o chance of parole.

Scalping pretty clearly puts things in 'underpriced' territory ... as it clearly requires a substantial marketplace of buyers who will pay more (significantly more to cover the overhead!) in order for scalping to make sense.

 

[sizzling]

I’d like to see a performance per £/€/$ comparison between generations. Normally you would expect this to improve from one generation to the next but I am not seeing it. I bought my mid range 3080 at launch for £754. Seeing these are going to cost £1100-£1200 the performance per £/€/$ seems about flat on last generation. Yeah great, I can get 40-60% more performance for 50% more cost. Fairly disappointing for a new generation card. Look back at how the 3070 & 3080 smashed the performance per £/€/$ compared to a 2080Ti.

Ok having seen actual prices now of £1350 to £1600 in the UK it seems possible the 4080 actually provides worse performance per £ that the 3080. No wonder they are still all in stock.

 

[Tom Sunday]

I think NVidia is smart. They know whose buying these. It's young professionals, in their 20s and 30s, who don't have a family yet and oodles of money.

I times like these many of us and most all of the boys on the third-shift driving forklifts at Walmart, are still at home with Mom and residing in the basement command center! Free rent & utilities, great food, laundry servives and unlimited access to the refrigerator besides freshly baked pies every week! No worries about the future, as there seemingly isn’t any on the horizon. Greetings from Stehekin, WA and the man on the street where reality bites more often than not!

 

[magbarn]

Very True, but Ngreedia banks on the stupid, you can't cure stupid, but you can get very rich off of the stupid.

This is the true College 101 class, for those of us who weren't born with a silver spoon, you either work your ass off and get lucky in order to become rich, or you find a way to make money off stupid people.

 

[hannibal]

So true! This is insanely expensive and still selling like hotcakes. Nvidia has zero need to reduce prices, because people keep on bying these!
sigh

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Now I am waiting-out the cable melting issue along with the basic unavailability of the 4090’s

Steve @ Gamers Nexus did a pretty good job of analysing and replicating the issue.

 

[nitrium]

As a "mid-range" GPU gamer, the only 4000 series cards I'm really interested are the RTX 4060 and 4060Ti (especially how they compare in bang for the buck). My RTX 2060 (6GB) is getting long in the tooth of course now, so am looking for a suitable replacement. It needs to twice as fast as my current card for it to be worth the bother (i.e. if I'm getting 30-40 fps now, it has to be >60 fps on the new card, or V-sync will force it to render at back to 30 fps anyway), and I'm not actually convinced they will be.

 

[Bamda]

Excellent review. I will be looking forward to the reviews on the AMD 7900 series of graphic cards. It should be interesting to see how they stack up against Nvidia's latest and older graphic cards. I am still on the fence as to what I will be purchasing since I skipped the last generation of graphic cards due to price. I was hoping that I would purchase one this generation so I am hopeful that I can find the right graphic card for me. But for now, I will stay with my GTX 1080 Ti.

 

[ohio_buckeye]

As a "mid-range" GPU gamer, the only 4000 series cards I'm really interested are the RTX 4060 and 4060Ti (especially how they compare in bang for the buck). My RTX 2060 (6GB) is getting long in the tooth of course now, so am looking for a suitable replacement. It needs to twice as fast as my current card for it to be worth the bother (i.e. if I'm getting 30-40 fps now, it has to be >60 fps on the new card, or V-sync will force it to render at back to 30 fps anyway), and I'm not actually convinced they will be.

Not nvidia but my local microcenter was showing as having an rx 6800(non xt model) for 500 bucks. Which seems decent.

 

[GregoryDude]

I am one who likes to have the best to push games to the limit. And I'm usually pretty good about staying on top of current hardware. I can definitely afford it. I "clamored" to get a 3080 at launch and was lucky enough to get one at market value beating out the dreadful scalpers. But makes no sense this time to upgrade over lest gen just for gaming. So I am sitting this one out. I would be curious to know how many others out there like me who doesn't see the real benefit to this new generation hardware for gaming. Honestly, 60fps at 4K on almost all my games is great for me. Not really interested in going above that.

I tend to be an early adopter, bought the RTX 3090 at MSRP 2 years ago before prices went crazy. I felt like I won the lottery when I was able to get it at retail price. Normally this would be the time where I put energy in obtaining the 4000 series GPUs at retail price but quite honestly those prices are a joke and do not justify upgrading my RTX 3090. Sure, I can see benefit to upgrading - I play DCS World on VR and it gives GPUs a run for their money, but with what I have it's good enough. Unless prices drop significantly, I will wait for the next, next generation GPUs.

 

[spongiemaster]

I tend to be an early adopter, bought the RTX 3090 at MSRP 2 years ago before prices went crazy. I felt like I won the lottery when I was able to get it at retail price. Normally this would be the time where I put energy in obtaining the 4000 series GPUs at retail price but quite honestly those prices are a joke and do not justify upgrading my RTX 3090. Sure, I can see benefit to upgrading - I play DCS World on VR and it gives GPUs a run for their money, but with what I have it's good enough. Unless prices drop significantly, I will wait for the next, next generation GPUs.

You bought a 3090 for $1500 and felt lucky, but won't buy a 4090 for $1600 that's 71٪ faster at 4k because the price is a joke? That's some interesting math.

 

[trance77]

Looks like a great GPU with impressive performance increase but the price is extortionate, 3080 was £649 and 4080 is £1269!? Almost double.

Be interesting to see how sales go considering the economic situation.

 

[InvalidError]

You bought a 3090 for $1500 and felt lucky, but won't buy a 4090 for $1600 that's 71٪ faster at 4k because the price is a joke? That's some interesting math.

If I already spent $1500 on a GPU, I wouldn't be in any sort of hurry to spend another $1600 so soon either. His luck refers to how he got one before prices went nuts.

 

[spongiemaster]

If I already spent $1500 on a GPU, I wouldn't be in any sort of hurry to spend another $1600 so soon either. His luck refers to how he got one before prices went nuts.

Taking the context of the rest of his post that he claims to be an early adopter that paid $1500 for a 3090. How do you turn around and claim the $1600 4090 price is a joke when it is 71% faster? When the last time we saw a one generation improvement of 70% at the top end?

 

[InvalidError]

Taking the context of the rest of his post that he claims to be an early adopter that paid $1500 for a 3090. How do you turn around and claim the $1600 4090 price is a joke when it is 71% faster? When the last time we saw a one generation improvement of 70% at the top end?

You can be an early adopter but not buy every single generation.

I was a Rocket Lake early adopter - built my system almost as soon as a decent sub-$200 B560 boards and the i5-11400 became locally available. I doubt I will be replacing it within the next 5-7 years. I don't upgrade often but for relatively low-risk stuff, I don't mind buying early when I do.

 

[-Fran-]

You can be an early adopter but not buy every single generation.

I was a Rocket Lake early adopter - built my system almost as soon as a decent sub-$200 B560 boards and the i5-11400 became locally available. I doubt I will be replacing it within the next 5-7 years. I don't upgrade often but for relatively low-risk stuff, I don't mind buying early when I do.

Just to add: I bought a 6900XT a bit after launch in the middle of the crypto craze for about £1400 and I am considering the 7900XTX for ~£1100 (I hope it lands well under that x_X) because I need more frames for VR, but I won't be paying the almost £2000 of the 4090 just for those extra frames. Plus, I'm considering upgrading to the next gen of the Valve HMD when it launches (someday ), so I'll need DP2.0 as well.

Just because you have the money doesn't mean you just burn it?

I mean, I'm just looking at the 6900XT and the 7900XTX respective launch prices and they make so much more sense to me. Same MSRP for more RAM, a few more features and about the same power consumption (ish; on paper) and a lot more performance. It doesn't make sense to me looking at the 3090 and the 4090; and even less with the 4080 16GB vs 3080 10GB (or even the 12GB).

Regards.

 

[spongiemaster]

You can be an early adopter but not buy every single generation.

I was a Rocket Lake early adopter - built my system almost as soon as a decent sub-$200 B560 boards and the i5-11400 became locally available. I doubt I will be replacing it within the next 5-7 years. I don't upgrade often but for relatively low-risk stuff, I don't mind buying early when I do.

Not sure why you've chose to put the horse blinders on for this one and not read what the guy said.

Normally this would be the time where I put energy in obtaining the 4000 series GPUs

This statement does no imply he was planning to wait 5 to 7 years to replace his 3090. It implies he wasn't originally planning to skip any generations.

 

[Matt_ogu812]

At $1200, this card should be DOA on the market. However people will still buy them all up because of mind share. Realistically, this should be an $800-$900 gpu.

NVIDIA doesn't care about being realistic now that they have tasted the drug of greed. They are using the same tried and true marketing scheme automobile dealers use.
Let's see 'what can we get away with'. If we don't sell them to you someone will buy them.

 

[InvalidError]

This statement does no imply he was planning to wait 5 to 7 years to replace his 3090. It implies he wasn't originally planning to skip any generations.

It also clearly says he changed his mind about doing so.

 

[spongiemaster]

It also clearly says he changed his mind about doing so.

Exactly, and my original comment was questioning the logic he stated he used to make that change. We will agree to disagree on this one.

 

[trance77]

NVIDIA doesn't care about being realistic now that they have tasted the drug of greed. They are using the same tried and true marketing scheme automobile dealers use.
Let's see 'what can we get away with'. If we don't sell them to you someone will buy them.

They need competition, I hope AMD and Intel can bring this and match Nvidias performance so we can get prices to return to reality. Just look at how much better things are for CPUs.

 

[Matt_ogu812]

They need competition, I hope AMD and Intel can bring this and match Nvidias performance so we can get prices to return to reality. Just look at how much better things are for CPUs.

Nvidia will say comparing CPU and GPU is comparing apples and oranges mainly because of the players involved.
That may be true now but it'll be interesting to see how Intel mixes things up.
Personally, I don't see things changing that much because neither one will undercut the other to drive the other out of business.
There's plenty of $ to go around as long as the people 'think' they have money to spend.