Welcome to the Nvidia RTX 4090 vs RTX 3080 Ti benchmark comparison. In this review, we will take a deep look at how these two graphics cards compare to one another, as well as how these hardware specs deliver in gaming performance.
The 4000 series Lovelace graphics cards are the second RTX and Raytracing generation to follow the initial Turning graphic cards, launched in 2018. Nvidia’s Turning cards have opened the doors for developers to finally implement real time Raytracing into their games, and the results are spectacular.
Lovelace are following suit after the Ampere generation, which is set to take the foundation of what Turning started to the next level of performance and visual experience.
With that said, let’s see how the Nvidia RTX 4090 compares to the RTX 3080 Ti.
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Nvidia RTX 4090 vs RTX 3080 Ti – General Specs
Graphics Architecture
- RTX 4090 uses Nvidia Lovelace Architecture
- RTX 3080 Ti uses Nvidia Ampere Architecture
Die Size
- RTX 4090 has a 608mm DIE, which is 20mm (3%) smaller than the RTX 3080 Ti’s 628mm DIE size
PCIe Interface Technology
- RTX 4090 uses PCIe 4.0 16x lanes at 1,970MB/s per lane (31,520MB/s in total)
- RTX 3080 Ti uses PCIe 4.0 16x lanes at 1,970MB/s per lane (31,520MB/s in total)
Price
- RTX 4090 is priced at $1599 MSRP
- RTX 3080 Ti is priced at $1199 MSRP
Processor Name
- RTX 4090 uses the AD102-300-A1 processor
- RTX 3080 Ti uses the GA102-225-A1 processor
Processor Technology
- RTX 4090 is built upon custom 4nm (nanometer) processor technology
- RTX 3080 Ti is built upon 8nm (nanometer) processor technology
Processor Transistors
- RTX 4090 has 76,300 million transistors, which is 48,000 million (170%) more than the RTX 3080 Ti’s 28,300 million transistors.
AMD Zen4 Ryzen 7000 Prices
AMD Ryzen 5 7000 CPU Prices
- Ryzen 5 7600X
- Ryzen 7 7700X
AMD Ryzen 9 7000 CPU Prices
- Ryzen 9 7900X
- Ryzen 9 7950X
AMD Zen3 Ryzen 5000 Prices
AMD Ryzen 5 5000 CPU Prices
AMD Ryzen 7 5000 CPU Prices
AMD Ryzen 9 5000 CPU Prices
Nvidia RTX 4090 vs RTX 3080 Ti – Speed & Performance
Clock Speeds (Base & Boost)
- RTX 4090 has a Base Clock Speed of 2235MHz, which is 870MHz (64%) faster than the RTX 3080 Ti’s Base Clock Speed of 1365MHz.
- RTX 4090 has a Boost Clock Speed of 2520MHz, which is 855MHz (51%) faster than the RTX 3080 Ti’s Boost Clock Speed of 1665MHz.
Cores (CUDA, Tensor & RT)
- RTX 4090 has 16384 CUDA Cores, which is 6144 CUDA Cores (60%) more than the RTX 3080 Ti’s 10240 CUDA Cores.
- RTX 4090 has 512 Tensor Cores, which is 192 Tensor Cores (60%) more than the RTX 3080 Ti’s 320 Tensor Cores.
- RTX 4090 has 128 RT Cores, which is 48 RT Cores (60%) more than the RTX 3080 Ti’s 80 RT Cores.
RTX Performance (Raytracing & AI)
- RTX 4090 outputs 200 RT TFLOP/s (RTX Operations), which is 133 RT TFLOP/s (199%) faster than the RTX 3080 Ti’s 67 RT TFLOP/s.
- RTX 4090 outputs 1400 Tensor TFLOP/s (AI/DLSS Operations), which is 1127 TFLOP/s (413%) faster than the RTX 3080 Ti’s 273 Tensor TFLOP/s.
Rasterization (ROPs/TMUs/CU/Texture Rate/Pixel Rate)
- RTX 4090 outputs 192 ROP/s (Rasterization Operations), which is 80 ROP/s (71%) faster than the RTX 3080 Ti’s 112 ROP/s.
- RTX 4090 has 512 TMU (Texture Map Units), which is192 TMU (60%) less than the RTX 3080 Ti’s 320 TMU.
- RTX 4090 has 128 CU (Compute Units/Streaming Multiprocessor), which is 48 CU (60%) more than the RTX 3080 Ti’s 80 CU.
- RTX 4090 has a Texture Rate of 1290 GT/s (GigaTexels), which is 757 GT/s (142%) faster than the RTX 3080 Ti’s Texture Rate of 532 GT/s.
- RTX 4090 has a Pixel Rate of 438 GP/s (GigaPixels), which is 251 GP/s (135%) faster than the RTX 3080 Ti’s Pixel Rate of 186 GP/s.
Theoretical Performance (Floating Point)
- RTX 4090 has a Floating Point (FP32) Speed of 82 TFLOP/s, which is 48.5 TFLOP/s (142%) faster than the RTX 3080 Ti’s Floating Point (FP32) Speed of 34.61 TFLOP/s.
Cache
- RTX 4090 has 128KB of L1 Cache, which is 0KB (0%) more than the RTX 3080 Ti’s 128KB L1 Cache.
- RTX 4090 has 96MB of L2 Cache, which is 90MB (1500%) more than the RTX 3080 Ti’s 6MB L2 Cache.
Nvidia RTX 4090 vs RTX 3080 Ti – Memory
Memory Specs
- RTX 4090 uses GDDR6X Memory, while the RTX 3080 Ti also uses GDDR6X Memory
- RTX 4090 has 24GB of RAM, which is 12GB (100%) more than the RTX 3080 Ti’s 12GB of RAM
- RTX 4090 has a 384-bit Memory Interface, which is 0-bits (0%) more than the RTX 3080 Ti’s 384-bit Memory Interface
Memory Speeds
- RTX 4090 memory outputs 21Gb/s, which is 2Gb/s (11%) faster than the RTX 3080 Ti’s 19Gb/s.
- RTX 4090 outputs 1018GB/s of Memory Bandwidth, which is 105GB/s (12%) faster than the RTX 3080 Ti’s 912GB/s.
Nvidia RTX 4090 vs RTX 3080 Ti – Power & Temperature
- RTX 4090 uses 1×16-pin Power Connectors, while the RTX 3080 Ti uses 1×12-pin Power Connectors.
- RTX 4090 has a 450W TDP (Thermal Design Power), which is 100W (29%) less than the RTX 3080 Ti’s 350W TDP.
- RTX 4090 has a load temperature of 77°C, which is 0°C (0%) more than the RTX 3080 Ti’s 77°C.
- RTX 4090 has a minimum power supply requirement of 850W, which is 100W (13%) less than the RTX 3080 Ti’s 750W.
New PCIe 5.0 Power Supplies
The new PCIe 5.0 Power Supply Units (PSU) are highly recommended when buying either the Nvidia GeForce RTX 30 Ampere or GeForce RTX 40 Lovelace Graphics Cards.
The next gen PCIe 5.0 PSU are the first to offer a 16-pin cable, allowing for a total of 600W of power through a single cable. This replaces the need for the 1×12-pin cable (or a 3x8pin cable setup – 150W per 8-pin connector), found on most Ampere graphics cards.
The Nvidia RTX 3090 Ti is the first graphics card to offer a 16-pin slot, which will continue to be used in the GeForce RTX 40 Lovelace range as well.
The new connector is designed to eliminate the use of multiple 6-pin or 8-pin PCIe cables, which helps to decreasing cable clutter and making cable management much easier. Graphics cards with a 16-pin connector can still be power using three 8-pin PCIe cables, although this naturally increases the amount of cables in your build.
Some high-end graphics cards such as the EVGA Kingpin even come with two PCIe 5.0 16-pin power connectors, allowing for up to 1,200W of power delivery.
There is no need to buy a PCIe 5.0 PSU if you already have a PSU that has sufficient 8-pin or 12-pin cables to power the graphics card of your choice, based on the above TDP (thermal design power) specs.
However, if you are currently looking to buy a new PSU, then its highly recommended that you check out the list of the best selling PCIe 5.0 PSU’s below:
Nvidia RTX 4090 vs RTX 3080 Ti – Benchmarks
With all the above tech specs said and done, let’s dive right into the Nvidia RTX 4070 vs RTX 3090 Benchmarks and see how they relate to real world gaming performance.
Below are a list of the current gen games, benchmarked at 2.5K (2560×1440) & 4K (3840×2160) resolutions.
Nvidia RTX 4090 vs RTX 3080 Ti : 1440p Benchmarks
I have color coded the below 1440p benchmarks results into colored tiers of achievable refresh rates. This allows you to easily see what refresh monitor to buy/use in relation to your favorite game and the graphics card:
- ≤ 59 (Less than 1440p 60Hz Gaming) = Red
- 60-119 (1440p 60Hz Gaming) = Orange
- 120-143 (1440p 120Hzy Gaming) = Yellow
- 144-164 (1440p 144Hz Gaming) = Green
- 165-240 (1440p 165Hz Gaming) = Blue
- ≥ 240 (1440p 240Hz Gaming) = Purple
Let’s take a look at the above frames per second (fps) result in a chart:
Nvidia RTX 4090 vs RTX 3080 Ti : 4K Benchmarks
As per the above 1440p benchmarks, I have also colored the 4K benchmarks into colored tiers as follows:
- ≤ 59 (Less than 1440p 60Hz Gaming) = Red
- 60-119 (1440p 60Hz Gaming) = Orange
- 120-143 (1440p 120Hz Gaming) = Yellow
- 144-164 (1440p 144Hz Gaming) = Green
- 165-240 (1440p 165Hz Gaming) = Blue
- ≥ 240 (1440p 240Hz Gaming) = Purple
Let’s take a look at the above frames per second (fps) result in a chart:
Conclusion
I hope you enjoyed this Nvidia RTX 4090 vs RTX 3080 Ti Benchmark comparison.
If you are looking to build your own PC, but you are unsure on how to even start, then check out my in depth course on How to Build your own PC from start to finish, designed for beginners to intermediates PC builders.
Check out these best selling RTX 3080 Ti Graphics Cards on Amazon in the links below to get yours today:
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Lovelace vs Ampere vs Turing vs Pascal
Check out these other Nvidia Lovelace vs Ampere vs Turing vs Pascal benchmark comparisons:
Nvidia Lovelace vs Lovelace
- RTX 4080 vs RTX 4070
- RTX 4090 vs RTX 4070
- RTX 4090 vs RTX 4080
Nvidia Lovelace vs Ampere
- RTX 4070 vs RTX 3070 Ti
- RTX 4070 vs RTX 3080 Ti
- RTX 4070 vs RTX 3090
- RTX 4070 vs RTX 3090 Ti
- RTX 4080 vs RTX 3070 Ti
- RTX 4080 vs RTX 3080 Ti
- RTX 4080 vs RTX 3090
- RTX 4080 vs RTX 3090 Ti
- RTX 4090 vs RTX 3070 Ti
- RTX 4090 vs RTX 3080 Ti
- RTX 4090 vs RTX 3090
- RTX 4090 vs RTX 3090 Ti
Nvidia Lovelace vs Turing
- RTX 4070 vs RTX 2070 Super
- RTX 4070 vs RTX 2080 Ti
- RTX 4080 vs RTX 2070 Super
- RTX 4080 vs RTX 2080 Ti
- RTX 4090 vs RTX 2070 Super
- RTX 4090 vs RTX 2080 Ti
Nvidia Lovelace vs Pascal
- RTX 4070 vs GTX 1070 Ti
- RTX 4070 vs GTX 1080 Ti
- RTX 4080 vs GTX 1070 Ti
- RTX 4080 vs GTX 1080 Ti
- RTX 4090 vs GTX 1070 Ti
- RTX 4090 vs GTX 1080 Ti
Lovelace vs Navi 7000 & 6000
Check out these other Lovelace vs AMD Navi 7000 vs AMD Navi 6000 benchmark comparisons:
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Nvidia Lovelace vs AMD Navi 6000
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