Are you excited about the new Ampere GPU series coming from Nvidia? Are you looking for more information about Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080? Then you’re in the right place. Here, we will discuss some of the most critical aspects of the new series and how it compares to the previous generation of graphic cards from this famous manufacturer.
What’s the Improvement From Last Time?
Probably the first question on everyone’s mind right now is how big of an improvement the new series of GPUs is. So, let’s see what the new RTX 3080 has to offer. Naturally, the only reasonable thing to do is to compare it to the model from the previous series. In this case, it is the RTX 2080. The 20 series was released in September 2018, and the 2080 model served as a successor to the GTX 1080. The main advantage the RTX 2080 had was the introduction of the ray-tracing effect, featuring more natural lighting and smoother shadows.
Quickly, RTX 2080 became among the most wanted GPUs around. However, the main problem was the price. RTX 2080 Ti had a starting price of $999, but it skyrocketed to well over $1,500. However, it seems that Nvidia addressed this problem as well since the new RTX 3080 has a starting price of $699, which is a significant difference compared to the previous model.
The first obvious difference between RTX 2080 and RTX 3080 is in the amount of RAM. The former one has 8 GB, while the latter offers 10 GB VRAM.
| RTX 2080 | RTX 3080 | |
| Technology | Turing | Ampere |
| Manufacturing process | 14 nm/ 545 mm2 | 7 nm/ 628 mm2 |
| Transistor count | 13.6 billion | 28 billion |
| Processing cores | 3,072 | 8,704 |
| GPU boost clock | 1,800 MHz | 1,710 MHz |
| Tensor cores | 368 | 272 |
| Video memory | 8 GB | 10 GB |
| Memory interface | 256-bit / 448 GBps | 320-bit / 760 GBps |
| Board power | 225 Watts | 320 Watts |
RTX 3080 has improved cooling, it’s quiet, and it looks amazing. Unfortunately, it doesn’t offer too much space for overclocking, and it is almost pointless at 1080p. While the effective speed is 54% higher compared to RTX 2080, it truly shines on higher resolutions like 4K.
What It Means to Consumers
For many users, these numbers mean nothing. They would like to know what it all means and what they will get if they opt to buy a new GPU from Nvidia. As we already mentioned, RTX 3080 is designed for 4K resolution and flawless gaming. If you love playing video games and are looking forward to playing new titles like Cyberpunk 2077, this might be the right choice.
RELATED: Why Cyberpunk was supposed to be the biggest game disaster?
But there are a couple of things to consider before buying one. Firstly, the new GeForce RTX 3080 Founders Edition is not the best GPU available on the market. Yes, the price is great, and it looks incredible, but it is only 5% faster than the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti. That means that if you already have this beauty, there is little to no reasons to upgrade. There are also GeForce RTX 3070 and GeForce RTX 3090 available, and both are based on the Ampere architecture.
For anyone else looking to upgrade and experience 4K gaming, RTX 3080 is an excellent choice. The new series offers incredible speed and performance, and it is significantly cheaper than the previous generation of GPUs. However, there are many people who invested in 2080 Ti that aren’t excited about the new release since they could have saved a lot of money if they waited a bit before buying the graphic card last year.
It all comes down to performance, and higher speed means higher frame rates and better gaming experience (or editing or whatever else you plan on doing with your GPU).
Issues Around the Release
As you can probably expect, it isn’t all puppies and rainbows. It seems too good to be true that you will get a better and faster GPU for a fraction of the price, and there have been a couple of issues around the release of GTX 3080. Namely, with all types of innovations, there are many problems that are just waiting to happen, and here, things are no different.
Firstly, the long-awaited 3080 had issues with crashing when the first users got their hands on it. This happened with both 3080 and 3090 GPUs, and it made a lot of consumers unhappy. The instability of these cards seems to be mostly solved by new drivers you can find on the Nvidia website. As you all might know, GPUs often encounter problems when updating drivers, and it is something that companies can fix in no time. As long as the problem is not in hardware, there is nothing to worry about.
But this only applies to those lucky enough to get their hands on the new 30 series. The main problem since the release was that the cards went out of stock ridiculously fast. All over the world, people used bots to pre-order new GPUs, and it led to a serious lack of supply.
So, even if you planned on treating yourself with a new card, there is a high chance that you faced the same problem as many other gamers across the world.
Should You Get It?
All of this leads us to the final question — Who is the GTX 3080 for, and should I get a GTX 3080? Unfortunately, we can’t answer this question for you. However, we can give you a couple of guidelines that may help you with the decision. The main question is about money. Ask yourself whether you can afford the new GPU. If the answer is yes, then ask yourself if you need a new GPU.
As we mentioned before, the 2080 Ti is still an excellent card, and if you own it already, there is no reason to replace something that’s quite good. Needless to say, you will need to have a 4K display (or at least 2K) since playing on Full HD on 60 Hz will bring little to no improvements.
It is all up to you. Many people love tech innovations, and all of us are more than hyped for the 2nd gen of RTX graphic cards. And if you are one of us, then this is a good investment. GTX 3080 will revolutionize the 4K gaming industry, and it will give you a chance to experience video games like never before. Unless you already have an incredible GPU that doesn’t need replacement.
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