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PNY’s version of the RTX 4080 Super.
Andrew Cunningham -
Some lower-end third-party GeForce cards use 8-pin connectors, but expect most partner 4080 cards to use the 12VHPWR connector.
Andrew Cunningham -
The Founders Edition 4080 Super (front) is big, but partner cards like the PNY model can get even bigger.
Andrew Cunningham -
The 4080 Super Founders Edition compared to the 4080. It’s more black.
Andrew Cunningham -
The PNY 4080 Super, the Founders Edition, and AMD’s reference model 7900 XTX. The 7900 series is smaller, but cards based on AMD’s reference design have become harder to find at this point in the product cycle.
Andrew Cunningham
Nvidia’s new RTX 4080 Super is technically faster than the regular 4080, but, by an order of magnitude, the most interesting thing about it is that, at its launch price of $999, it’s $200 cheaper than the original 4080. I am going to write more after this sentence, but that’s basically the review. You’re welcome to keep reading, and I would appreciate it if you would, but truly there is only one number you need to know, and it is “$200.”
All three of these Super cards—the 4070 Super, the 4070 Ti Super, and now the 4080 Super—are mild correctives for a GPU generation that has been more expensive than its predecessors and also, in relative terms, less of a performance boost. The difference is that where the 4070 Super and 4070 Ti Super try to earn their existing price tags by boosting performance, the 4080 Super focuses on lowering its price to be more in line with where its competition is.
Yes, it’s marginally faster than the original 4080, but its best feature is a price drop from $1,199 to a still high, but more reasonable, $999. What it doesn’t do is attempt to close the gap between the 4080 series and the 4090, a card that still significantly outruns any other consumer GPU that AMD or Nvidia offers. But if you have a big budget, want something that’s still head-and-shoulders above the entire RTX 30-series, and don’t want to deal with the 4090’s currently inflated pricing, the 4080 Super is much more appealing than the regular 4080, even if it is basically the same GPU with a new name.
All you need to know about the 4080 Super
| RTX 4090 | RTX 4080 | RTX 4080 Super | RTX 4070 Ti | RTX 4070 Ti Super | RTX 4070 | RTX 4070 Super | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CUDA Cores | 16,384 | 9,728 | 10,240 | 7,680 | 8,448 | 5,888 | 7,168 |
| Boost Clock | 2,520 MHz | 2,505 MHz | 2,550 MHz | 2,610 MHz | 2,610 MHz | 2,475 MHz | 2,475 MHz |
| Memory Bus Width | 384-bit | 256-bit | 256-bit | 192-bit | 256-bit | 192-bit | 192-bit |
| Memory Clock | 1,313 MHz | 1,400 MHz | 1,437 MHz | 1,313 MHz | 1,313 MHz | 1,313 MHz | 1,313 MHz |
| Memory size | 24GB GDDR6X | 16GB GDDR6X | 16GB GDDR6X | 12GB GDDR6X | 16GB GDDR6X | 12GB GDDR6X | 12GB GDDR6X |
| TGP | 450 W | 320 W | 320 W | 285 W | 285 W | 200 W | 220 W |
The 4080 Super ships with a few more of Nvidia’s CUDA cores enabled—10,240 compared to 9,728, a 5.26 percent increase—and those cores are clocked marginally faster. Everything else, including the power envelope, the 16GB RAM allotment, and the 256-bit memory bus remains the same. Nvidia estimates that the card will perform about 3 percent better than the 4080, which is being phased out of the lineup once current stock disappears.
The bulk of our testing was through a PNY Verto model with the archetypal statistically insignificant manufacturer overclock applied, but it will also be available in a Founders Edition card directly from Nvidia with the same tweaked all-black design as the 4070 Super. While lower-end 40-series cards from Nvidia’s partners often come with 8-pin power connectors instead of the newer and occasionally controversial 12VHPWR connector, PNY and Nvidia’s cards both use 12VHPWR. The 4080 Super’s power requirements are high enough that most partner cards will likely opt to save the space and use the smaller connector instead of making room for three 8-pin connectors.
